For my US friends

My dear friends, I've been happy in your country, where I've lived for 3 years. These years were mostly happy, some periods were really hard, but on the whole, good memories are stronger than bad ones.

Now that I'm back in my homeland, I want to tell you how much you've meant to me, and to my family, when we could meet more regularly.

You've asked, and also I promised I'd blog for you, in English, so that you can "see" where we live, how we live. I'll try to keep up with this blog as much as I can, and especially, I hope that your comments will feed it!

I will start today with a very typical picture of our everyday life: the weather has been very rainy and ugly lately, and it's cold. Our heating system isnt' on yet, so we tried to keep warm as well as we could: a good cheese fondue for dinner, and a nice fire in the fireplace. The only problem with the fire is that, although the chimney was open, there was quite a stunk in the house. Maybe because it was the first time it was in use after some work had been done to it? We'll know next time!