Thursday, June 2, 2011

Alliance Frankaise

The official address of the Alliance Francaise de Pasadena is 34 E. Union Street. (Pardon my lack of cedille on the c in "Francaise," but Blogger freaks out when I try to insert such things. There should also be an accent aigu on that first e in cedille, but...)

Anyway, the entrance is not on Union but in this little alley off of Union near Raymond. I can't remember the name of the alley and apparently Google Maps can't remember it either.

The Alliance holds classes in French, leads tours to France, and generally lends cachet to Pasadena. (Some of us like to think it's the other way around.)

Regardless of the alley's appellation, yesterday this bicyclette (no accent needed) made the scene look just a soupcon (sorry once again) more French.

29 comments:

Dina said...

A front-facing velo with a basket parked at Alliance Française de Pasadena, tres chic.
(I cheated by getting a cedille with pasting and copying.)
Your title is eye-catching too.

dive said...

How very Parisian, Petrea.
I never have a problem typing accents, umlauts et al into Blogger. They always come out fine in the posts, but sometimes they look strange in comments if people are using an older browser.

Kate said...

Merveilleux, ma dame! (Cheating my using translations is just fine...and so intelligent--if the trans. is correct!)

Pasadena Adjacent said...

If you hang out at Tony's Pizza on Huntington drive, they'll take you to Italy. Inquire within.

Margaret said...

Now I feel like a need a big baguette.

Susan Campisi said...

I looked into taking classes there. They're pricey but I liked the energy of the place. I might go for it at some point.

Le photo est parfait!

Petrea Burchard said...

I'm jealous! I got an error message about html or something, and I've got the latest browser.

I don't know where you cut and paste from, Dina, but maybe it was about where I was borrowing the accents from.

I'll try translations, Kate--that's not cheating.

Dive knows the key combinations. THAT's cheating.

PA, that sounds like a journey I'd like to take. How's the pizza?

Where are the best ones, Margaret? Farmers' Market, is my guess.

Susan, you're right, the classes are expensive. I'd love it if someone would chime in here who's had experience with the AF and let us know if they're brilliant or not. They should be brilliant at those prices.

dive said...

Petrea, if you go to the top right hand corner of your screen you should find a little US flag (if you're using a Mac and are in the US, that is). Click on that and scroll down to the "Keyboard Viewer" and try holding down "alt" and other combinations to see where the key combinations are. They make it really simple by locating the accent with the letter with which it is most commonly combined. For instance "alt-c" gives you a cédilla, "alt-e" an acute accent, u for umlaut, n for tilde and so on. After a couple of tries it becomes second nature.
Play and enjoy!

dive said...

Oh, and please forgive my accent typo on cèdilla. Eek!

Bellis said...

Hi Dive, are you blogging in lots of different languages? I'm very impressed. I'm also impressed by the spellchecker in Gmail, which knows automatically when I'm writing in German and puts all the umlauts etc. in for me, plus correcting my shaky spelling.

I wish the Alliance would open a little cafe (insert correct accent here) selling big cups of cafe (ditto) au lait and hot chocolate, fresh croissants and baguettes. That alley looks perfect for some outdoor tables. Maybe an accordion player as well, as on Art Night.

Bellis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bellis said...

It published my comment twice, which is one too many.

But what's this I see at the bottom of your blog? I can buy your photos through Zazzle?! As fridge magnets and cards?! That's a great innovation - I can now send my favorite PDP photos as gifts to friends and relatives who have fridges.

John Sandel said...

Now you know why France lost the browser war. Je m'excuse. Je ne pouvais pas résister.

TheChieftess said...

Ok...I'm clueless...a little American flag in the upper right hand corner of my Mac??? Can't find it!!!

Trish said...

it's either Kendall's Alley or Exchange Alley, I'm assuming.

I usually use cut and paste when it comes to inserting appropriate languages into regular computer programs. Tho, as friends found out last week for a b'not mitzvah, sometimes the computer over corrects and puts Hebrew in the English direction! Portion Naso turned into "Son" or, something like that.

Love the pic, reminds me of a friends house when I was growing up, not too terribly far from that location. Lazy, sunny days of summer...ahhh, something adults realize and kids never do.

wv:lyhoadem...the perfect word to describe one of those warm, post-tennis afternoons, hanging out before I needed to bike back home.

Speedway said...

Criminy, I'm still struggling with English and you-all are talking weird little marks on your letters. Sheesh! I guess I don't know my umlats from my uvula - or my vuvuzela for that matter.

Steve Scauzillo said...

C'est tres jolie.

Diana said...

That basket needs a small but cute ankle-biting dog to look truly French!

As to the diacritical marks, if you have a PC, you have something called character map installed on it somewhere. That's where I get my cedillas, umlauts and such.

Petrea Burchard said...

I do have a Mac, but no little flag. What program am I running when I see this flag?

Petrea Burchard said...

Trish, yes, Kendall Alley I think.

Milandailyphoto.com said...

wow!!!!!!!cool bicycle

pasadenapio said...

I know people who take French lessons there!

Regarding diacritical marks, for my blog I type the words or phrases in Word, then copy and paste them into the blog post since Blogspot doesn't recognize those fancy keyboard shortcuts.

John Sandel said...

It's ot a separate program; language preferences is baked into modern PC operating systems.

Mac users: go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > International

Click the button for Languages. When you change the language your system uses as the default, you'll see a teensy flag icon appear in the topmost menu bar, in OS X, toward the right-hand side of the screen.

Petrea Burchard said...

On the newer OS X (10.6) it's under Language and Text. You still don't get to have a flag. And you have to go in and change your language just to type one word. Easier to copy and paste from elsewhere, I say.

Bellis said...

Or just keep saying Frankaise and Soup Kon.

Petrea Burchard said...

John says you can toggle back and forth between keyboards to do these language thingies, but I'm not sure how.

I like soup kon.

John Sandel said...

I'd explain further, but the instructions are in Cyrillic.

dive said...

Yes, it's in "Language and Text."
Whenever I get a new Mac I always set it up for English (not American English), Japanese (kanji, hiragana and katakana character sets), Czech, Polish, Hungarian and simple Chinese (just try typing Dvořák without Czech).
I can type my Japanese homework almost as fast as I can type in English. All it takes is a few seconds to set your computer up (you only have to do this once) and it soon becomes second nature.

Petrea Burchard said...

Bellis, I got distracted--didn't mean to ignore your comment about Zazzle. That link has actually been there for a couple of years. I haven't done much with it. Zazzle is too complicated and expensive, although the magnets have been relatively successful. I'm looking for a different site to use and am open to suggestions.