taking it back to where it all began

got to play valence's finest tour guide yet again last week: my dad and bonne maman (g.parental) popped over to this side of the pond for a few days, and dad put it in his head that a visit to the bustling metropolis of valence was incontournable. Thus last monday i showed dad around my town - tasse (closed, bc mondays are almost as sad as sundays here), some church, shopping, the ardeche, etc. c'est a dire, pas grande chose. we had lunch at cafe victor hugo (awesome salads) and dinner with mandy at a creperie near the gym.

the next morning dad and i hopped the tgv - such vitesse, these trains! - up to paris. we stayed near the bastille...i hadnt really thought of the repercussions of staying in a neighborhood packed densely with bars, but we were able to sleep (relatively) well..eventually. regardless, we were in PARIS still all love on my part. we totally lucked out with the weather, it was sunshine all over the place and fairly warm, too. tuesday i successfully got us lost in the marais looking for this falafel place; after a solid 45minutes of wandering, i was forced to reconcile myself to the sad fact that my sense of direction in paris,after 3 years, has lost a bit of its edge. sad day. in any event, we wandered towards the centre popmpidou to get our modern art on, but of course it was closed on tuesdays. mince! so we grabbed crepes (sorry replacement for falafel, but pas mal quand meme.) and just spent the afternoon wandering around. my ideal afternoon, frankly. we had a dinner date with laurent and marie-astride david (fran's son) and their kids, Valentin, Alexandre and Capucin (sp?) out in the 'burbs, so we took the transilien train out to meet them at the end of the afternoon. they have an amaaaaazing house: luminous, surrounded by gnarly trees, sweet bright decorations, an enclosed patio where we ate...family dinner #1 down, soo many more to go, but it was a lot of fun.

wednesday we tried again to go to the museum. again we were defeated: after waiting in line for 20 minutes, there was an announcement that levels 4 &5 - aka permanent collection - were closed until further notice. so we moved outta there, grabbed a tea to go (ahhhhhhh), and decided to train it out to versailles to profite from the sun and loveliness. since ive toured the chateau before, i was content to wander the gardens, and dad wasnt terribly pro braving the ticket lines, so we just strolled about the town and along the gardens and the canal on the chateau grounds. i mean, the gardens are impressive on their own, what with the sculptures par tout and the intricately pruned shrubbery. intense. that evening we met antoine (of antoine and benedicte, marc, and maxime, dominique's daughter)at La Defense, a cold, soulless place where paris relegated all its modern buildings. first time ive been out there and i dont think ill make a point to go there again...in any event, dinner was tres fun once again. dom and francoise were there as well - i loooove these kids, they were so welcoming when i studied in paris and let me crash at theirs the summer i came over to talk to the fam for my capstone. whereas the night before my veggie habitudes caused a bit of a ruckus (marie astride was mortified that i just ate potatoes, cheese, salad, and dessert. clearly that was more than enough anyway!), the doms know tres bien about how i eat and they had veggie burgers waiting for me! ohh lovely day. we laughed a lot, as antoine practiced his english (where is brian??) and dom recounted tales of being arrested while roadtripping in the US.

thursday = third time's the charm = FINALLY got our culture on. thank goodness. i love pompidou. then we moved on out, up to le havre, where bonne maman had been chilling with her sibs. she was radiant, truly. i have to admit, i was a little nervous about seeing her for the first time since she got out of the hospital, but she looked like the trip was doing her good. i love spending time with my relatives over here - they are honestly some of the nicest people i know - and it was doubly awesome to see my grandma with them, too. and the french just flowed out of my mouth like it was nothing! i think dad got a little fatigued from the sudden language shift, but he def held his own throughout, and i was happy with myself that i kept it going from sunrise to sunset, you know, since most of my ppl in valence are parler-ing the (fr)anglais.

for our last evening in le havre, friday, dad and jean had collaborated to throw a cocktail party with all the david kids (minus dom and francoise) and laville cousins, as well as vero (dad's cousin) charlotte (dad's cousin nicolas' daughter, my age)...so we ran errands all morning, ate lunch chez vero with christophe, heloise and abel, then spent the afternoon prepping hors d'oeuvres and whatnot. i was in charge of veggies, grapes, hummus, olives...miam...the soiree porte-ouverte was super fun. there were 20-some attendees, the majority whom i didnt know. i mean, we're talking cousins that even my grandma hadnt seen in 15-some-odd years, so there was a lot of introductions, explanations of what im doing here, all that fun stuff. super hardcore french time. im quite glad that i was able to make it up to visit the fam in le havre with my dad and grandma, and it was a great experience to meet a bunch of random, outlying family members, too. by 21h most of the guests had left and jean's house was quiet once again. his cleaning lady had stayed on late to help serve food (she used to have a restaurant, so she's used to catering the party scene), so we helped her clean up, then sat around with mugs of tea and rehashed the night for a while, before retiring to our rooms. my train left le havre for paris at noon the following day, and then i changed gares and continued onto valence in FIRST CLASS (yaaay waiting til the derniere minute pour acheter les billets..ouch!).

voila les vacances!