What I Did on My Summer Vacation

True story: Several years ago, on the first day of school, when assigning a journal entry, I asked the rhetorical question, "Hmm...what should I have you guys write about?"
Before I could provide the 'correct' answer, a student replied, "What we did on our summer vacation??"
And I said, "Um, no. I don't really care."

So anyway, if you're like me, you probably don't genuinely like hearing people tell you all about their trips to the beach or the mountains or wherever they went, unless something really unusual happened. I mean, honestly, beyond knowing that they had a good time, you don't really want to know anything else. (*It is possible, I suppose, that not everyone feels that way and that I'm just very selfish and self-absorbed. But I was an only child and only grandchild for 8 years, and my Grandma told me I didn't have to share my toys if I didn't want to, so there you have it.)

But of course while I don't really want to hear about other people's vacations, I'm sure everyone wants to hear about mine. This summer I went to France for the first time in my life and to Ecuador for the 25th-ish time in my life and to Columbus, Ohio, for the 2nd time in my life.

----OMG, I just realized that I went to 3 very different places, just like Liz Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, a book I just read yesterday!!!! The only real difference is that I didn't spend 4 months in each place, and I didn't just get divorced, and I didn't pray in Ecuador or love in Columbus. But I did eat in France. ... And in Ecuador. ... And in Columbus.

The food in France was everything people say it is--REALLY GOOD. I went with a tour group, so our dinners were provided for and were decent but nothing to write home about. But the breakfasts and lunches and pastries were amazing. Had we not walked an average of 12 miles a day, often uphill and on cobblestone, things would have gotten very bad very fast. After all, I've never eaten so much bread in my life as I did during the 10 days we were in France, and just thinking about the croissants and chocolate croissants and breads that I can't even describe makes me want to go back ASAP. I quickly became an escargot aficionado and ate amazing things like bull stew and fish soup and spinach gratin and spinach/salmon quiche--and the sauces...wow. At a little dive in Arles, one of my tour-mates loved the sauce left over in her bowl of mussels so much that she surreptitiously picked up the bowl and drank the sauce, and I couldn't blame her.

I told everyone that I went to Ecuador this summer for 2 reasons: to see my family and to eat plantains. That is not a joke. If I could eat only one food for the rest of my life, it would be plantains. As amazing as plantains are, though, Ecuadorian food in general is delicious, minus the dishes that have cilantro, but that's just because I abhor cilantro. The rice is rice you could eat all by itself--it's just that good. It is of course a given when I go to Ecuador that I will make it through maybe one whole day before my stomach realizes that crazy things are happening. This year, I was there 9 days and was very sick 7 of them, but did I stop eating? Nope. I felt like crap, I ate everything I'd missed for 5 years, and I lost 5 pounds.

And then I went to Columbus this past weekend to visit Kari, my bff since the 8th grade, and to see Wicked. I would go into the really great food I ate there, but we ate so much that I think if I don't write about it, I can pretend I didn't eat calamari, salad, gnocchi, snapper, chocolate torte, eggs with fontina cheese over chorizo, potato hash, and carrot cake in 2 days.

So that's my summer in a nutshell. I didn't find enlightenment at an ashram or anything, but I got 2 stamps in my newest passport and some lovely stomach parasites as souvenirs, so all things considered, I had some adventures. The plan for next summer is to go to Italy and back to Ecuador. Anyone want to go with me?