My Last Night in France and my Best Story!

7/22/2014

Bonjour mes amis!

I have a dear friend in France.  Let's call her E!  She's not French, but she speaks French, can teach in French (she's a Professor), and she speaks several other languages as well.  She's amazing.  She's smart and fun, and she's a redhead!



She lives in a "man's world" with the kind of work she does, so when I am in France, we get together, and she always tells me that this helps her "develop her soft side" since she doesn't get much one-on-one time with other women.  Trust me, she doesn't really need help.  She's very kind and engaging, and I enjoy being with her.

When we're together, we speak English.  E is married to J!  They are a very loving couple, and I enjoy observing them together.

E and J have become dear friends to us.  Last year, we took a vacation together for several days, and this year's visit brought us together for numerous meals and coffee times.  E and J love to go to one of the busy market areas in Orléans, and get a table outside, and just enjoy a cup of coffee and do some "people watching".  We now call that place our meeting spot.

On my last day in France, E and I had made a plan to meet for lunch...at our meeting spot, naturally.  It was a Monday, so this meant there would be a limited number of Restaurants to choose from, since many businesses in France are closed on Mondays.  But...E and J work closely together and they were expecting a visitor from the Netherlands, so our lunch plan changed a little, to include J for lunch.  That was perfectly fine with me as I enjoy J's company as well.  We had a lovely full three-course French lunch, and then popped over to their favorite Café for coffee, so they could meet their Dutch visitor.

When the Dutch visitor arrived, E and I knew it would be time to say good-bye for atleast another year.

Big American Hugs!

And we parted...

Later that day, however, I was checking my emails , and suddenly, I started getting Instant Messages from E, asking what I was doing for the evening, and could we get together again?  Well, at 8:00 PM, I had a friend from the Church dropping by to drop something off, but then I would be free...

Wouldn't you know it, E and J showed up at "my" Château just before 8:00 PM!  They were determined to see me again.

E and J had just spent the week in Bulgaria, however, and they really needed to get groceries.  Would I consider going to Auchan with them? (Auchan, if you will recall, is the large grocery store I shopped in while I lived in Orléans last year).

Did I really want to go to the Grocery Store on my last night in Orléans?

If it meant I got to spend more time with E and J?  YOU BET!


Shortly after we got to Auchan and realized we had different things to shop for, E made an attempt to have some "girl time" with me, and she looked at J and exclaimed...

"Why don't you go ahead on your own and pick up whatever you like in the store?"

J looked over at us, and then proceeded to head to E...

and then he bent down...

and he picked up his wife!

Awwww....

I stood there smiling and clapping, and just overjoyed at the sweet love between those two...

And then I teased J the rest of our excursion about "picking up a girl" in the grocery store!

Have yourself a "Jewel" of a Day!
Jan

P.S.  All photos today are Scenes from around the beautiful City of Orléans, France!