While Camille, Paul, and Madame Musset completed various errands around town, I tagged along for the sight-seeing. Some of the windows of the main street were uncharacteristically well-decorated, not in the gaudy ways of stringy tinsel and bizarre christmas creatures but with arrangements of greenery, intertwined branches, colors of gold and red, and snowy feathers. In addition to it’s zoo La Flèche boasts the first French florist, a shop which maintains a reputation and explains the beauty of the windows we passed as we approached the square and the ice skating rink. Paul and I leaned on the rail and watched the kids fall while his mom and older sister went into a shop. I quickly noticed that the ice was in perfectly shaped squares which were screwed into the ground. Paul noticed my wrinkled forehead and squinting eyes.

C’est la plastique. 

Ah bon?! C’est bizarre. Est’il toujours comme ça? 

Oui 

So, La Flèche has a zoo, the first florist shop in France, and in the winter, a skating rink of made of plastic cubes.

After my merry sensations were crushed, we left the plastic skating for the library, stopping to chat to a few people along the way. The first thing that caught my eye was Extra Terrestres Secret D’États. The second thing after we climbed the stairs to the American second floor but the French first floor, was a children’s book called L’Escargot N’Aime Pas la Pluie. Sadly, even in this simple book, I stumbled through the vocabulary. Then I found Asterix Mission Cleopatra, a well known French comic. This one, however, was arranged to help French children learn English—or to relieve a French impaired American mind.