just keep swimming...

Well, to tell you the truth, these last couple days have been truly vacationful, spent nearly in their entirety at the poolside and the dinner table. I'm getting darker every day, and I plan to be browner than my mommy (and spencer and jessica and everybody else) when I get back. Due to the lack of water tolerance of my digital camera, and maybe a bit of general vacation-induced laziness, I have no new pictures on the computer. Took a couple, but haven't downloaded 'em yet. So, for the visual satiety of my family, I have so thoughtfully included a couple of old ones that you haven't seen yet. These are actually back from Toulouse...

Tonight, I went to a fancy little Italian restaurant with Mathieu and his friends. So kind of them to invite me along, but I don't feel like I fit in with them at ALL! Much more comfortable around the younger kids. You know, the age before you order wine with your dinner and have a cigarette afterwards. The dinner was yummy- had penne rigate (spelling?) with pistou sauce. Would've gone for the ricotta ravioli (more expensive) if I was paying (Mathieu gallantly insisted on covering it for me), but it was still very succulent.

Had just the smallest degree of homesickness hit today. I'm not depressed or anything, I'm generally a happy person, but I'll be very happy to be home. I'm still enjoying and savoring every possible moment here, though. However, here is a list of things for YOU to enjoy right now, and for ME to enjoy in a week and a half:

• Family- you can be so much more laid back when you're just home, ya know? you don't have to worry every second about whether or not you're weird, because you know that they'll love you no matter what. they're the best friends you'll ever have. which is a good thing since you're stuck with 'em for eternity. :)
  
• Buddies
  
• Hiking, rolling down hills, running around poles, etc- the simple pleasures of life that are abundant in Utah
  
• Paying less than 25 euros a person at restaurants
• Public bathrooms
• Strange as it sounds, knowing how to clean the kitchen and doing it
• peanut butter
  

And here's what I'll be savoring for the next week:

• Milk and yogurt and nutella and bread for breakfast every morning
• Multi-course meals
• Tanning at the swimming pool, and having time to do it
• French everything
• Shopping for presents for everybody- my favorite part. I'm usually a save-a-holic, but buying French chocolate is my semi-splurge time!

Okay, and since I mentioned the milk, I've got to expand. French milk is unlike anything that comes out of a cow that you'll find in America (Unless you get it right fresh from the cow on a farm, in which case it might be comparable...). Even the non-whole milk is just bursting with milky creamy flavor. I actually haven't even heated up my milk and added chocolate even once since I got here because it's so heavenly as is. You know, maybe I'll do it tomorrow for breakfast. I can't go to France and not have French milk with Poulain (French chocolate powder). And when you dip a pain au chocolat (imagine croissants made with strips of chocolate inside) in it, you're in paradise.
Now I bet I've got you all hungry :)