Saturday evening, feeling fine

Hello world!

I have had my first week of work, my first Saturday "alone", my first solo home-cooked meal, my first visit to a French market...where to start!

I'm realizing that I don't have as much downtime for blogging as I expected to, so there are a lot of things that I want to mention (like, people really love their dogs here! and there are a disproportionate number of really cute little kids. And very few poor/homeless people. And so many kids and adults ride scooters. Like, Razor scooter type scooters.) and/or discuss in detail (like the discussions that I've been observing and taking part in at work, and my relationship with Jeff, and what I've been learning about myself and how I function when I am forced to be more "solo" than I would naturally tend to be) and I just don't have the time to get into all of it here. So I'm going to try to post more often and give much briefer overviews of what's been going on than I would normally tend to do, because hopefully that will make the "updating" process seem less intimidating than when I wait several days to offload a TON of updates.

Quick highlights from the last few days include going out for fondue last night with some people and having one of the Senior Evaluation Officers from the EVAL office buy my dinner ("I'm paying for the intern. [turns to me] I know what you make."), going out with Corey and his friend Malta for drinks after at a neat artsy bar near the train station, and then going to the market near the French border this morning and getting all kinds of great things! An abbreviated list includes incredible strawberries (considering the time of year. In summer in California they would just be really good strawberries), beautiful asparagus, salmon, red wine, and mushrooms.



I used the beautiful asparagus and salmon and fresh dill along with some other groceries to make this dinner for myself. Lots of green (there's pesto on the salmon too) because the meetings last week meant I've been fed a lot of rich fatty foods and have been starved for fruits and vegetables.



And tomorrow, I'm going to go skiing in the Alps for the first time!! Should be pretty cool.

I don't know if I'll stick with this, but I think I might want to end every post with a brief, "things that are making me happy" list. Here's my first one:

• This mug that my mom got for me because I loved it even though I didn't *really* need a mug 
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• The vine wall decals that you can see behind it. Before, my room had one long, white wall that was completely blank
• The pictures I brought and put up around my room. There are some (many) of me and Jeff, a few of the kitty, and several of the siblings. It's a great touch of home.
• Podcasts! Riding the bus everywhere means premium podcast listening time. I particularly like the Happier podcast and will talk your ear off about it if you give me the chance :)
• Clean clothes. Having a laundry machine in the apartment means clean clothes are easy to accomplish, and after a week of re-wearing things more than I normally would while Mom was here, I really appreciate having my pick of clean clothes.