Cate’s Musings

I’m heading off on Monday to France for about a week and a half. And while it might sound romantic, my visits to France are not so much about romance but all about family. My mother is French and moved back there about 3 years ago after living in the states for several decades.

This visit, however, is not to see my mom (she’s currently in the states for a few months) but to see my sister who lives in Gabon, Africa. She will be in France for the summer trying to avoid Chikungunya, a virus carried by mosquitoes, during the last few months of her current pregnancy. So I’m going with my twin sister to spend some time with the older sis, niece and nephew. And I don’t know anything about your nieces or nephews, but mine are cute. Waaaayyyy cuter than yours. (And I’m not even factoring the 2 nieces who live here in LA into the equation. When I do it gets dangerous; there’s potential for a cuteness explosion.)

I’ll be staying at my sister’s house in an area of France called the Vercor which is located in the Drome department (marked on the map above). That probably doesn’t mean much to many people, but it’s an area I know because I’ve spent buck loads of time in the Ardeche department, located just west of the Drome. In fact I spent my entire 4th grade year there living in a house with this view:

But that’s another story.

[As a complete side note I realize now I didn't blog about my experience voting in the presidential election at the French consulate last month. It's one of the bonuses I get with dual citizenship and it was really something else. The way it worked was they gave me 2 pieces of paper, each with one of the names of the candidates on it. I put the one for the person I was voting for in the envelope and dropped it in a box. Seems logical to me! No dangling chads there. As usual, the candidate I voted for lost. Does anyone remember what it feels like to vote for someone who wins? Anyone?]

Anyhow, back to the issue at hand: the internet situation at the house in France is unclear. But I’ll be sure to blog something ‘a la français’ as soon as I’m able. Pictures and so forth coming soon!

[And as another side note- who are you people who read my blog??!? I can see on this magic computer that I have a bunch of people who read my RSS feed, and that the site gets a handful of hits a day. So leave a comment, drop me a line, let me know what you think!]