je t'en prie, paris

So my cousin Bram, after posting something like four gajillion photo albums on Facebook of his recent trip to Paris (I salute you, Bram -- that's quite an organizational feat), decided to make a "Best of" album so that we don't have to flick through the eight googlezillion pictures he actually uploaded.

One immediately caught my eye as being the actual visual representation of my personal Parisian ideal. I actually almost started drooling with a weird kind of location-hunger; my eyes turned into little cartoon stars and my stomach turned flips, as my brain said, "Must...move...there....now!"

Sigh. I can trace the roots of my francophilia way way back, but there's no denying it; I'm a homesick French wannabe. We'll see if I manage to rectify that ever in life -- a little cottage in the south of France or a wee nineteenth-century apartment in Paris. The biggest headache is convincing the folks to move with me, since Mom doesn't like to fly enough to come visit on a regular basis.

Oh, and speaking of Aix*: I also reconnected with members of the French family with whom I spent much of a summer in high school. The eldest daughter, Marie, had been an au pair for my next-door neighbors, and now the eldest next-door neighbor daughter is an au pair for Marie's little ones! And, apparently, Cady managed to get Marie using Facebook, so: Je te remercie, Cady, pour trouver mon ancienne amie.

Anyway, Marie now lives near Aix-en-Provence. Again: droooool...

Yeah, it's a big ol' Facebook-meets-France lovefest (...not that kind) in my house today, to be capped off by mini-burgers and cupcakes. Which are totally French, thank you very much.

*Aix. Aches. Yeah, I even make myself groan, I'm so punny.