We made it

{Home sweet home...and a kitchen with counter space}

     After a day and a half of errands, imbibing coffee to stay alert and succumbing to the occasional jet-lag fatigue, we are finally back in the groove of things. I like to think that the excitement of being back in Atlanta evens out the tiredness that comes from travel and the time difference.  We have done pretty good so far, even going to sleep in the double digits last night. Our travel went pretty smooth for the most part. We passed the down time at both the Nice and Paris airports by celebrity spotting and trying to guess the nationalities of people from afar by their outfits, which is more fun than it sounds. (If you have ever looked at someone and noticed their skinny-ier jeans and non sneaker/bowling shoes and thought..hmm, they don't look American, than you too have inadvertently played the game.) Both flights we pretty easy, although we were on a plane that did not have individual tv's, which I thought was impossible in this day in age. Sadly for us, they still exist. Our row companion provided us with some entertainment also. He was a middle aged man from Lebanon who was not shy about voicing his opinions and while most were common sense and funny, this comment just after the safety video had us on our toes..I'll let you be the judge.

The safety video finishes...

He looks at us and says, "It doesn't matter, this plane is going to crash anyways."

To which I smiled then slowly turned to Shaun with this look of 'did you just hear what I did?'. I liked to think I played it off cool as a cucumber. More likely, I probably looked like I was smelling a fart and trying to smile at the same time. 

Shaun's look back to me confirmed he heard what I did... and we never talked about it until a few hours later when the man went to the bathroom. We both agreed his comment was 'lost in translation' and dropped it (all the while keeping a close eye on him). But since I am writing this from Atlanta, guess the joke was on us.

{These jewels caught my eye...I refrained from buying them though}

{Ahhhh, sweet watermelons}

{Hot sauce}

   My first trip to the grocery store was exciting. Ask anyone who lives overseas and they will tell you the same thing. I didn't have to bag my own groceries or bring my own bags, no coins were needed to get a cart and I didn't have to go to 3 different stores to get what I needed. It took longer than expected since I lost about 5 minutes in the produce area arguing with myself about if I needed to weigh and price my own produce before taking it to the cashier. I didn't by the way. AND I spent a staggering amount of time in the cake mix/brownie aisle in which I erred on the cautious side and grabbed all of my choices. (And no I am not pregnant, just happy to not have to make everything from scratch for a change). We stayed out last night until after midnight watching the NBA game and the UFC fights. It forced us to stay awake and to hopefully get back on track time-wise as soon as possible. The heat is unreal here (guess they don't call it Hotlanta for nothing). It is in the upper 90's F (36-37C) during the day and staying in the lower 90's F (32C) at night. So far it has been a nice change from the rainy May we had in France but we will see how long that lasts. I am willing to bet we will be OK with the heat until we get our first power bill. Then, it's another story. So for now, we will enjoy the Memorial day weekend with a BBQ and some friends and try to wean ourselves off the number of bonjours, mercis, and pardons that we have thrown around here and get back to the simple hellos, thanks and excuse-mes.

{Had to put this picture of peanut butter in here to show our french friends the variety we have}

  Ok, we have a story about peanut butter in France. While talking about it with our french friends just before we left, the quote of the year and perhaps all time in France was born. Our friend, Olivier was telling us how his father spent a lot of time in the US working. So when he was young, his father would bring him peanut butter back from the US. Now, as with most of conversations in France, we speak Franglish, kind of going in between French and English...a few sentences will be in French then after that, some English and etc... (I am sure it is bizarre to hear this as an outsider but it works). We had told Olivier the translation for beurre de cacahuete was Peanut Butter. A few minutes later (while we were in an English phase), he tells us (or attempts to tell us) that he was the only boy in his city that really had Peanut Butter. But instead of saying Peanut Butter, he got butter and cream mixed up and mis-pronounced Peanut a bit. So it sounded like this.. 'I was ze' the only boy who had peenus cream in my city'... I am pretty sure as the words were leaving his mouth, he realized the error of his linguistic ways because his eyes went huge and the whole table lost it for a good 5 minutes. So when I see peanut butter now, I can't help but think of 'peenus cream'. Thanks Olivier!!