Like someone slowly unpacking after a long journey, I feel like I finally got to the bottom of my suitcase with that last post about Africa.

Meanwhile the world kept spinning. During our first two weeks in France, we stayed with Stephanie’s Mom at her studio apartment in Le Cannet, a village just north of Cannes. In that time we “bought” a car, ate cheese, shopped for clothes, caught up on internet, washed our gear, cooked Thai food, laid on the beach, celebrated a birthday, painted a bathroom, visited Mamie (Grandma) in Fayence, went grocery shopping, and I started learning how to drive stick.

In short we did a lot of normal, non-travel stuff. We settled a bit and ate a lot. We lived out of a closet instead of a backpack. I believe those two weeks are the longest we’ve slept in the same bed since our 28 days aboard the Cap Cleveland—last September!

France is one of our homes, and in that way, it represents an “end” of our trip, an end to what someone aptly described as our “hardcore travel mode”. True, but in looking at the landscape ahead, the next few weeks, months, even year or two, I only see beginnings.

But we’re not done with traveling just yet! France is definitely about family, but since we finally have time and transportation at our disposal, we also wanted to get out and see some things. Of course the one thing we don’t have a lot of (anymore) is money. So two weeks ago we bought a cheap tent and caught a ferry to Corsica.