The,French,Were,Gracious,and,P family The French Were Gracious and Pleasantly Friendly
A lot of women avoid wearing nice clothes when they getpregnant because they believe that they look fat or ugly. You know that theresnothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman glowing and smiling, so youshouldnt hide your body during p Raising a family can be challenging and stressful at times. However, the common goals and emotional, financial, and physical investments made can be a common bond between husband and wife. One that compliments their marriage relationship.Of
Youread so much about the French being rude but we did not find that to be thecase at all. After retiring from 40years of printing, my wife and I decided that it was off to France (beingself converted wine aficionados there was not debate). For the next 24 days we enjoyed ourselvesmore than should be allowed by law. We choose this time of the year mainlybecause it is the ending of the tourist season but before the nasty winterweather. Instead of getting accommodations in downtown Paris, we chose a small comfortable hotelin Maison-Laffitte (ML). The town is about 20 minutes by the REI Aline red train north of Paris. Whileat times it was a bit inconvenient since we spent the bulk of our waking hoursin Paris, it afforded us what we wanted: a quietrefuge from the hectic Parislife. We also love the interaction that comes from repeated visits to arestaurant. Mrs. Winer and I are food junkies. I am the journaler and have arecord of all the food we ate, where we ate it and the wines we drank. Afterarriving in ML and getting situated I left Mrs. Winer resting and went to arecon mission. The objective was to finda small restaurant that would reflect the cuisine of this area of France.Found it. LOlivier on Avenue de SaintGermain. Talk about hitting the jackpot.Olivier the owner was the waiter, the maittredi, the floor sweeper andsommelier. The restaurant was very cozywith tables for about 20 patrons. (At another time I will tell you a couple ofwonderful experiences we had in Oliviers.) Suffice to say that we loved the restaurant. We actually ate our waythru his entire menu during our stay in ML. Thefollowing day, September 10 was Mrs. Winers 39th Birthday. Ireally cant remember what anniversary it was of that auspicious day. It is bestforgotten. She wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower. Since the OldWiner hadnt figured out the subway system we disembarked from the REI train atthe Arc de Triumph and meandered thru the center of Parisin the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. My navigationskills are quite suspect but since the tower is the tallest item on the horizonwe managed to find it. (Im somewhat ofa world traveler.) Ive seen the SpaceNeedle in Seattle, the arches in the Los Angeles airport, the church of the Blessed Family in Barcelona, and the Grand Canyonso Im not that easily impressed. Standingunder the Eiffel Tower was impressive. Standing on the top was VERY impressive. Mrs Winer had her birthday lunch in thesmall café-restaurant located on the second level overlooking the River Seinewith its boat traffic and bridges. We then choose (a very weird choice) to walkdown the stairs. Mrs. Winer had heard that some famous people had done this andthought it would be a good idea. By thetime we got to the ground it was obvious that they were a bit younger than wewere. Having climbed a mountain or twoin my day, one has learned that going down is actually more difficult thangoing up. But we made it. That evening for our dinner we went to thesupermarket, bought some wonderful French goat cheese, ham, French (what else)bread, an apple, a bottle of 2005Chateau du Calvaire St Emilion Grand Cru wine for 6 dollars and a bottle of2005 Domaine St. Antoine Sablet Cotes du Rhone Village for 5 bucks andchocolate for dessert. Brought our purchases to our hotel room and indulgedourselves. HappyBirthday Mrs. Winer! Ata later time I will tell you about our wondrous 10 days wondering up from Lyonto Paris thruthe Boujourlais, Burgundy wine country. We smote with vigor the most pernicious error perpetrated by disgruntledtravelers: the French are rude toAmericans especially if you cant speak French. The French are not rude! I can disgorge my total accumulation of theFrench language in about 45 seconds. My Spanishis quite good. My English, as you know,somewhat suspect. We ate in small cafesand fancy restaurants in downtown Paris; in tiny places in the mountain of thewine country where English was gradeschool at best; we talked to wine growers, to people on the streets, etc and Ican say that we did not experience a single incident where we felt badlytreated by a French person. Will we go back? you betcha. Right after our trip to Tuscanyand Spain.
The,French,Were,Gracious,and,P