corsica

we are in corsica for the weekend, or, as the french call it, "corse." we took a little propeller plane here, and the flight was about 45 minutes. corsica is beautiful - quite mountainous, which i wasn't expecting, and it has sand beaches, which the kids are excited about - the beaches in nice are pebbles, which have been brought in to stop erosion of the beaches. pebbles are not very much fun to lie on, we found out. in corsica we are staying in a hotel with air conditioning, which is quite exciting, as most of us do not have air conditioning at our host families' houses in nice. i slept under more than just a sheet for the first time since getting here. it was great. last night on tv there was the finale of "nouvelle star," the french version of american idol. i watched, of course, and both of the finalists sang two songs in french and one in english. the guy i was rooting hard for, named tigone, LOST, which was horrible. julien, the winner, was very odd in my opinion. just another way in which the french and i are different. i mean, how did tigone lose?? it is amazing how much american music exists here; since arriving i have heard maroon 5, tracy chapman, u2, and r. kelly on the radio, as well as a lot of oddly chosen 80s music that i thought we had put behind us. quite a mix, huh? very funny how much of an influence american music has on this part of the world.

after sitting on several french beaches, i offer the following primer: "how to identify the country of origin of a person based only on their bathing suit" (this is a fun game to play, if you were interested):

men:
speedo = european
spandex-like short shorts = european, but probably british
short bathing suit trunks = european
long bathing suit trunks that are longer than french shorts and almost as long as french pants = american!

i saw a man in what i thought were appropriate length bathing suit trunks on the beach and i thought "huh - he breaks the mold!" but oh no - he was wearing those as a cover up, and had a mini bathing suit on underneath. of course.

women:
thong = european
no bathing suit top, no matter your age (actually kind of empowering) = european
anything else = european or american...unclear