After the stress of 4 months of French, it felt so good to be back with the English-speaking people I love. Arrived (early! Thanks to a dear, sweet airline employee who put me on an earlier flight) Saturday (the 20th) night in time for burgers with the family. Spent Sunday relaxing and starting Christmas preparations.
Next two days were spent in San Francisco with Peter. He met me at the airport with tulips, because he knows I love them and we went back to his house for a relaxing evening with wine and cheese and grapes. He had to work for a few hours in the morning, so I toodled around Market St. and had TWO lattes from Peet's. How I missed the American sizes and that delicious foam that only Peet's can make. Went to lunch with his co-workers at a Middle Eastern place. They're all extremely nice and dumbed down their tech talk to traveling talk so that I could participate. Tuesday evening was the San Francisco Girls' Chorus concert, which I'd been looking forward to for months. It was such a perfect date- dinner at an Italian place, and then a concert where I got to hear Peter sing! The lady in front of us kept turning around and admiring his manly bass voice :-) Even the flight back to San Diego was fun- I'd brought a book to amuse myself, but we ended up reading an article in his magazine and playing cards together.
Christmas Eve we went to our old church for the 11 pm service, but it's changed a LOT since we used to go there and seemed commercialized. They didn't even sing very many carols, so I had to wait for that, too. Christmas was wonderful- got the camera I'd asked for and, among other things, a CD from Peter of his choir's Christmas concert with a note to me in the program!
Day after Christmas was a shopping trip with my mom and a nice lunch at Cheesecake factory while the boys went hiking. The rest of the trip gets kind of fuzzy in terms of the order of things. We went to Palm Springs and took the gondola up to the (almost) summit of Mt. San Jacinto, which was absolutely gorgeous! Peter and I drove out to Rancho Bernardo and did a wine tasting with a fabulous server whose son has also taken years of French and wants to study abroad (while I absolutely hate RMS and the school system here, I tried to stay positive). The place was fantastic (Bernardo Winery) and pretty good wine and a lovely area to stroll with a glass. Went for a short hike afterwards to eat a picnic lunch. Also saw "Invictus" with my Grandma and Aunt and had a fabulous early dinner at my favorite Jewish deli. On New Year's Eve, Peter and I got the Go San Diego pass, so we went to the Midway with my family and saw all the cool planes on board, and then went to Legoland by ourselves. Both visits were so fun- neither would've been my first choice on the list of 55, but just being with my family and Peter made them fun. New Year's Eve p.m. was relaxed. Made boeuf bourguignon with Mom's help for dinner, had champagne and raspberry cookies (made in Reims to serve with champagne) at midnight and got my first New Year's kiss from Peter! :-)
Leaving was really hard- I think most of the students here are really unhappy with school and the intense amount of stress put upon us, especially in this last month and a half. After being so happy with everyone over Christmas, all I really want to do is be done with school, have a real job, and be near the people I love.
Have to keep telling myself it's only another 8 months till I'm back in the States, and another year until I'm done!
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