there are roughly a billion new pictures for you to look at... of literally EVERYTHING! my entire night has been spent posting pictures on this stupid website. i've been uploading photos for over 4 and a half hours now! the good news is almost everything is up: Amsterdam, vacationing in the south of France (a sea that is pink because of the high salt content, mounds of salt that is shipped all over the world, the beach, horseback riding), Port Camargue (biking, beach, tons of boats... actually the biggest non-commercial port in all of Europe, wild flamingos, crazy bird picture), Aix-en-Provence, Van Gogh, Les Baux-de-Provence (a 12th century castle; the descriptions of hell Dante wrote about in his famous book The Inferno were inspired by the rocks of this place), Aigues-Mortes (another old castle this one was/still is fenced in by 40ft high walls around the entire city... and people live inside this little gated city even today - there are schools, libraries, bars, churches, bakeries and cars all inside the medieval boundaries and moats!), La Feriere (my host mom's parent's house: the pictures with snow - we still don't have any here although they are predicting some this upcoming week) and a bunch of random pictures from hiking, playing at the playground with the kids, just messing around the house etc etc etc. it's 3:30am and i have to be up by 7 sooooooo i'm off to bed. hope you enjoy the updates!
just a few random notes on the following (previous) pictures:
1) the building with all the flowers is the French version of the U.S. Secretary of State office (haha isn't theirs much prettier?)
2) i can't remember if i showed you my laptop and phone already, so here they are again
3) the black and white picture with all of the people in front of the house is my house! and if you look at the people, you might recognize some... marie curie, albert einstein etc. the bedroom that i'm currently sleeping in was once slept in by Albert Einstein himself!
4) the horse lives down the street... he's so friendly, he lets me pet him everytime i walk by (although i don't know where he is now, i haven't seen him in a few days)
5) we have a walnut tree in the backyard - myriam and i harvested a few nuts a little while ago
6) you see the picture of myriam in the red tunnel at the playground? i couldn't see her at first and all i heard was "i'm stuck, i'm stuck, i'm stuck" so i bend down and there she was... she had her feet wedged in and couldn't move! hahaha so naturally, after laughing a little i helped her out :)
7) doesn't the picture of the black cat in the window just scream "french" to you? i don't know why but for some reason it just seems to me like something you'd see in france... that and little cafe tables with two chairs and bakeries. (by the way after having fresh bakery bread every morning here i'm beginning to wonder how i really ever lived without it.)
8) right before the one of myriam in her car seat with cyril and JB are 2 pictures of Lyon (i think it's the 3rd biggest city in France... like 5 million people?)
9) the kids though i was weird because i'd never seen such big snails all around
