Homesick

i kind of have a love-hate thing for the country of my roots. my parents, both born and raised in france, emigrated to the united states as young adults. the met in nyc, married, had us kids. when i was 13 we moved back to france and i vowed i'd came back, which i did to go to college.

the rest of my family stayed. so since graduating from college (god almost 20 years ago) i go back to france on average every other year. around this time of year.

and it's odd. when i'm here, i miss it. i miss the beauty of the countryside, the distinctly parisian smell that's an odd mix of metro train rubber, gauloise and fresh baked bread, the insanely good "sandwich au jambon" that's nothing more than half of a baguette, cut lengthwise, slathered in butter with a paper thin slice of pink salty ham inside. when i'm there though, within a day i find myself jonesing for an extra large dunkin donuts coffee that i can carry around, getting all annoyed at how convoluted the simplest things seem to be there, ashamed that when i do speak french now i sound like an american from boston, and angry at how pig-headed, resistant to change, and "comme il faut" the french seem to be.

for the past couple of days, i've been thinking a lot about france. maybe it's all of these french knitting blogs i've been reading, or it's because for the first time i've been able to watch the Tour on TV. or maybe it's just my biological clock (not that one) that's telling me it's time to go home.