I'm baaack!!!!

B surprised me by meeting me at the airport yesterday. I was expecting his dad when someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around to see B with flowers. He even drove up (no struggling my bags on the shuttle and train) and paid for tolls, gas, and parking.

This is the first time I've been back to France after considerable time away where it isn't "new". Last year when I arrived I stayed with B's parents while looking for an apartment and trying to get settled. This time the drive home was familiar and the apartment felt like I left yesterday (B made a point of how he vacuumed and washed the sheets, but admitted to ignoring the splotches on the kitchen floor; I'm happy with the effort he made).

So, with everything so "familiar", I do kind of miss the DVR my parents had. It was so great to put something on pause when the phone rang! And even if I didn't love how my mom organized her kitchen or forgot about things in the fridge and let them go bad, we are really short on space in our kitchen. I bought a knife block for $30 in San Diego because you can't get them without the whole knife set here, but now we're not sure where to put it. For now it's on the china cabinet next to the stereo. I got spoiled with the weather in San Diego too: I was surprised to see that it's raining this morning.

I smiled when I saw a perfume ad last night about 20 seconds after B turned the tv on. This morning I've seen chocolate and foie gras ads. My mom was commenting on how in America everything is to solve a problem, whereas here, you buy a product because it makes life better or more luxurious.

Tuesday evening my mom and I went to mail all my boxes carefully packed to be under 4 lbs (difference between first class and priority), when they told us the plastic earring holder in a bubble mailer (and weighs 1.5 to 2 pounds) was going to be $17 to send and the 3lb box $36. We looked at each other and said "I don't think so." $200 to mail everything back is exhorbitant. I suggested going to Ross and looking at suitcases, since I was only checking one. Scored a lightweight suitcase for $60, filled it to 49.5 pounds with the things I was going to mail, and saved myself $140. Both checked suitcases were searched (oh how I hate hate hate that), but it doesn't look like anything was taken. I also ended up taking an old torn suitcase of my parents as my carry-on and put my new tea-pots and a wind-chime inside (plus my purse at strategic moments). My computer bag must have weighed 25 lbs because I had two lap-tops in (old and new one), plus cables, magazines, college diploma, Nintendo DS, extra lap-top battery, and some other odds and ends. I hand carried some Christmas cookies my mom made, and they made me a little famous. My mom makes candy cane style cookies every year and the recipe calls for putting food coloring in half the dough to make white and red or white and green twisted cookies. This time she made red and green cookies. They so so yummy, but everyone asked if it was play-dough, including a woman on the plane when she saw me eat one. The Charles de Gaulle security guards were just plain confused ("Des petits gateaux de Noël? En rouge et vert?"). They did all compliment me on my French though. I was pleasantly surprised because I felt really out of practice and was searching for words when I called my French bank from the US a few weeks ago.

B forced me to stay up till 9:45 and I slept pretty well, so I hope jet-lag will pass quickly. Today I get to unpack and take out all my winter clothing from the under-bed container. A little cleaning/organizing, some grocery shopping tonight, and it'll be the weekend! Might go by the Préfecture to start applying for my carte de séjour, and I can start looking or a job (yay).

Speaking of carte de séjour, when I checked in at the Delta counter in San Diego, the woman asked me when I was coming back to the States. I said I was actually returning to France and that I had a visa. She looked at it and asked if I was coming back before the end of the visa then. I wanted to say "What the f do you care? If I don't follow French immigration law, you are never ever going to know or be able to do anything about it." Her colleague reminded her that there are four types of visas and I had type D, so she finally said it was okay.

It's nice to be "home", though it was nice to spend 3 months back "home" in San Diego as well. For some reason one of my friends was worried I might never go back, so I promised her I'd come home for weddings, our 10 year high school reunion, and the birth of her first child.

I read most of Le Divorce on the plane, but that will be the subject of my next post. Time to get dressed and get on with life.