5 days of vacation in a row! youhooo!!

I left Friday morning for Port-Camargue (on the Mediterranean Coast) and enjoyed the week-end with mom, JY and Tom. Port-Camargue is the place we go when we have something important to celebrate or when we want to be all together. There are no words to describe how good it was. Mom was smiling again and we had a great time listening to my brother’s stories : I wasn’t expecting hotel management to be so much fun ! I had diner with Mee and Henri on Saturday night and brought them some Fat Tire and Black Butte Porter from Oregon.
Tom and I left for Lyon on Sunday afternoon. I met with Rob and his sister in the evening and we went out for diner «rue des Marronniers», a street full of memories and good restaurants… I spent Monday showing them Lyon. I still believe this is one of the most beautiful places to live in France but I don’t know if I could live there again. It was like diving into my past. Walking downtown brought back tons of memories… The place hasn’t changed much since 2002 but there was definitely something missing. Max was not there anymore. And a lot of friends were gone as well...
This afternoon I drove back to the campus. Being there reminded me Max and I driving on the tram tracks and cutting through the grass to go round the electric fence, the rush every morning to arrive on time at school, Max’s way of parking his 4X4 in front of my building, the terrible food of the Resto U, the (too many) chocolate croissants at the 10am break, the day I ended up with my car in the middle of the round-about because of a icy road… I stopped by ISTIL, my engineering school, to say « Hi ». I thought my advisor was going to have a heart-attack when he saw me ;) Surprise surprise ! It was really cool ! I also saw the school’s new car for the low milleage competition which is taking place every spring in France. Max and I were the first ones to work on the car 5 years ago. At that time, there was no injection system and it was only during our second year that we added an electric starter. So it was nice, this afternoon, to see that the school is still competing and that there are new students working on improving the car. Finally, I met the ISTIL guy who’s going to start his exchange year at OSU next fall. A new student for Max's scuba diving classes ;)

I enjoyed these few days off with family and friends. Seeing Burt in Lyon was great too. This year was just so crazy and I wish I had more time to meet with friends.
Tonite, I’m back to Strasbourg. I still have a lot of packing and cleaning to do... I'm leaving for Detroit on saturday afternoon. A new adventure, alone.
Pics from my last days in France will come soon...