I hate it when Vacation ends..

Well everyone, I'm back. I am not sure how excited am about that though... For the past two weeks, my parents have been visiting. The first week was spent in Nice and the surrounding areas. Last week we all went to Venice and then hopped on a boat to sail around the Mediterranean. It was WONDERFUL. Mom, Dad, John and I all had a wonderful time and saw some amazing sights. 

This morning, my Mom and Dad hopped back on a plane to the US, John went back to work, and now.. all I have is my laundry (oh MY is it a lot of laundry), photo editing, and trying to get back into a routine. 

It's a lonely day. :-) 

Be looking for pictures in the next week! It's going to be a long process- there are a lot of them!

Happy Holidays!

The French love their holidays... vacation days.... memorial days.. Any reason they have to not go into work- it is a winner! I know that Americans think the same way about their days off, it's just that the French have so many more than we do.

They have their regular vacation days- 5 weeks. Then they have their "RTT" days- around 18 days. Plus all national holidays, and since this is a loosely catholic country, these days include Easter, assumption, ascension,Christmas of course, and All-saints Day if it falls during the week. All total they have 11 national holidays. So, if you add all of that up, John has 64 days of vacation. Oh, I almost forgot, if one of the holidays falls on a Thursday or Tuesday- they just add on a Monday or a Friday.

The American in me is very torn. On the one hand, I love that John has all of this time off for traveling and just general downtime. On the other, how on EARTH can these people be productive if they are never at work? Ah well, who am I to argue with so many years of tradition- just enjoy it while we have it. But returning to 2 weeks of vacation for the year will certainly be tough!