Copains Comme Cochons

Yesterday in Oral Expression - our oral grammar class, dedicated to pronunciation, grammar, and conversational French - we focused on 'l'amitié' or 'friendship'. The French, though often considered cold, value friendship tremendously, and often consider friends to be a life long investment. That said, "je t'aime" (I love you) is a phrase heard much more frequently and casually here than in the states. This difference was hard for us to understand at first - aka anyone we danced with would usually proclaim "je t'aime" to which we would say "chouette? (cool)" and dance awkwardly away.

The definition is clearer now though, and the difference has lately been a source of humor for us. Additionally, in terms of friends, we learned a new phrase, which made me tremendously SLU-sick:

"Copains Comme Cochons" is an old phrase that translates literally, after a little bit of accounting for time and accents, to 'friends like pigs' or as we might say in the States, "thick as thieves". It made me think immediately of Emma and Mia, my two cochons!! These pics are pretty old AKA freshman year, but we've been so close for so long and it's so funny to think of the journey from there to here that I had to post them! xoxo

Luckily, the girls on the French program are great! Emma, Taylor, Katie, Becks and I have all gotten really close since the beginning of the program - we even went to Dieppe today for a picnic - no boys allowed! Hopefully by the end of the program we'll all be copains comme cochons too!