Tomorrow is laundry day.

After two weeks in France, there are days I still an in awe that I am here. I can't predict if it will dawn on me suddenly one morning that I am currently a resident of Montpellier, a city bathed in the light of the Mediterranean sun in the South of France. I suppose I haven't thought to post anything until now because I'm still attempting to grasp everything I see and hold on as if I were staying another four hours and not another four months.
Tomorrow is laundry day. And when I come back from beaching it on the Mediterranean, there will be damp clothing hanging on the line in the walled off garden behind the house that's adopted me for my stay here. I say this intentionally because it has been standing since 1669 and I can only claim just over twenty years worth of experiences. The cracks between the 8-foot tall doors whistle when it's windy outside and the haunting feeling from that sound is overshadowed by the warmth of lamplight.
I live with a woman in her fifties, a woman who has several lifetimes of stories she keeps saved for dinner time. And I live with three other foreign students in a constant rotation of leaving and returning.
We leave the 10-foot high windows open nearly all the time and the breeze helps summer air diffuse through the house. Occasionally people stop to comment at the neighbor's cat, Napoléon, who has adopted my room and window as his own. Or at night, I hear conversations of people walking by at all hours, in transit to some other place. Sometimes it gets a little noisy when a moped, or worse, a skateboard attempts to navigate the cobbly street. But it's home. And tomorrow, it will be my laundry on the line, and my glasses on the coffee table, and my lemons on the bookshelf.