There's no place like home, there's no place like home ...

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This morning, I woke up in my cozy bed, in my childhood bedroom, among my piles of second-hand books, inherited furniture, art bought off of sidewalks, and general magnificent clutter. I had the weirdest dream in which I moved to France for a year and the strangest things happened:

I learned to drive stick-shift

I lived off of cheese, fresh produce, pastries, coffee, baguette and goat-cheese-and-avocado-oil Pringles.

I traveled to seven other countries.

I worked in an office constantly filled with up to six or seven languages.

My closest co-workers all had a secret language that no one else in the office understood.

I learned enough French to do basic banking (!!), but don't ask me to spell burocracie...beuarocracey...beauokrasy...baeiou(andsometimesY)-craze-y

Patrice got married and moved to England

Various people had babies

A bunch of friends moved to Florida

The French NEVER got my long-term visa processed--which might mean that I can't go back to Europe for six months straight! :)

I became friends with a huge variety of wonderful people: from 1-year-old Elias to several fabulous sectagenarians.

I didn't play the piano

I ate or drank: raclette, tarteflette, milky eggs, fried "lamp," garden peas, escargot (yum!), North African mint tea (double yum!), saslik, kebap, bacalava (Turkish, Persian, Lebanese), dates, macarons, tea and toast (a la Martin), lamb and mint pasty, cornish cream and scones, kir, espresso, pickles in my salad, fabulous mustard, rusks, couscous, tangine, vin chaud/gluhwein, tilleul tea

I didn't eat or drink: fish tacos, hamburgers, minestrone, root beer, diet Pepsi, nachos, onion rings, Mounds bars, Sun Chips, good avocados, Thai-anything, weisswurst, guacamole

... and I went to Orlando (the least likely of everything on this list!)