As Life Comes Together

Had to get up at 6:30am this morning in order to ensure I had enough coffee in me to make it through my Wednesday classes that start at 8am.  I am lucky enough to still have quite a bit of coffee my mother lovingly sent me... so no instant French for me!

Life is certainly coming together for me, in less than a month my 17 year old bro will be making his way into our humble abode.  I'm hoping the issues or things going on in the States will be appropriated with his visit here... Bri and I are both so excited to have him in France.  He'll be the second person in my entire family to ever leave the States, and most definitely the second to come to Europe.

I plan to show him everything.

Speaking of siblings...

I was walking down a street and saw this little Art Supplies shop... I immediately went on (in my head) to think about my sister.  My sister and brother are both very different than me.  My brother is a talented musician, and LOVES to be in front of the world.  My sister is a more reserved introvert, specifically, an artist.  I am a business person, type A personality thru and thru.

It's really difficult to be away from your family, I hope anyone who is planning to live here is aware of that.. but I am finding myself beginning to adjust and truly feel at home in France.

Tonight is my weekly cocktail with a couple of lovely French girls I met, mostly we just drink cheap cocktails and discuss our lives, our plans.  It's a little 'Sex and the City' or even Julia Child and Simone Beck time.  I love it.  I feel spoiled today because Bri promised to make dinner (quiche lorraine) while I simply get toasted at a bar. .. of course I think it's just a little obligation and tradeoff for all the dinner I make.

People have asked me, what is it like to live in France?  Well.   That's a loaded question because everyone will have a different response, for me, it's pretty f-in amazing.  I live on a street filled with restaurants so every day I leave my apartment I am welcomed with the soothing sound of plates clinking and the smells of kitchens doing prepwork.  A personal fan of restaurant television, I sometimes sit myself on the ledge of my staircase and watch the workers in the kitchen moving around frantically calling the orders.  The building I live in was built in the late 1800's, so the stairs are worn in from a couple of hundred years of climbing/descending.  The view from my windows are of other buildings from the same time period, and sometimes on Sundays one can look out the window and imagine France in the 1950's.

That's a piece of my life here... there's so much more.