It has been over three years since I’ve been to France, and it was wonderful to see my friends there again. On this trip, I was more focused on visiting with my friends than going around to tourist sights.

I went straight from the Charles de Gaulle airport to the train station, which is conveniently located right next to the airport. You don’t even have to leave the building, and there are moving sidewalks the whole way. My first train ride was to see my friend Céline. The closest train stop to her place is Marne La Vallée Chessy, which is also the stop for Euro Disney. It was a cold and rainy day but that didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of all the kids running around with Mickey Mouse ears and Snow White balloons. It was fun to see kids so excited.

Celine managed to get a day off work, so we had some time to talk and catch up, then it was back on the train, headed south. I took the TGV (TGV stands for Train à Grande Vitesse, which literally means Very Fast Train) to Lyon and then switched to a RER (not Very Fast) to St. Vallier Sur Rhône. My friends Bénédicte and David live right across the Rhône River from St. Vallier and volunteered to take me in for a few days. Béné had a snowshoe trip planned for part of the time I was there and David was working, which freed me up to go around to different friends’ homes every day. Everywhere I went, we spent most of our time sitting around the table catching up on the events from the past few years – and eating and drinking.

I got to spend a whole day with Sandrine and meet her son Maxime, who was born December 30. I had only briefly met her husband Yoann before, so I am so happy he was able to be with us all day. Plus it’s nice to have another adult around with a month old baby. We only took one break from the table, between lunch and dinner, and that was to visit ValRhôna – the chocolate factory in Tain l’Hermitage, across the Rhône from Lycée Gabriel Faure, where Sandrine and I went to high school. We could see the factory from the window of our Spanish classroom and when the wind blew just the right direction, the whole school smelled of chocolate.

ValRhôna makes the best chocolate in the world. No, I am not an expert on chocolate, nor have I tried to compare it with other fine chocolates. I am biased and perfectly content to stay that way. I overindulge when visiting France but don’t eat much chocolate otherwise. Some things are best in the right context. Hot, spiced, red wine goes with skiing, not scuba diving. Raw fish goes with rice, not pasta. Watermelon just tastes better when it’s hot out and you’ve been in the sun all day. Fine chocolates are best eaten in the tasting room at the ValRhôna factory.

After a few days of visiting my old high school friends, I got to see my host family from when I was an exchange student in 1999. Gerard and Maryse were on a trip in the Vercors mountains when I arrived at Béné’s place, but came to pick me up when they got back in town. When I lived with them their oldest, Vincent, was living next door. He now lives farther south and has three children. Their daughter, Virginie, had given birth to Abel a week before I arrived in 1999. She now has four children but doesn’t live far away – close enough to come over for dinner. Pierre-Yves is my age and now married with a baby on the way. It’s a growing family.

I was so lucky that Pierre-Yves and his wife Fanny could come over for lunch, and that Virginie brought all the kids for dinner the same day. With only a couple days there, I didn’t get to see Vincent, but hopefully next time I’ll have time to visit him. At least I was able to spend a few days with Gerard and Maryse. Going back to Villeneuve is always like going home. As long as I’m living so close to Europe, I’m going to try to get back there again. Compared to living in North America, living in Istanbul I feel so close to France!