Amy's Visit

We finally had our first visitors and had a wonderful time! My good friend Amy Kartchner and her son Kaden visited us for a week; they left to go home on Sunday, October 3. The trip out here is neither cheap nor convenient, and Amy knows how much I appreciated the visit, especially because Jason was gone all but one day, and I would have been alone otherwise. (He has been traveling a lot lately—last week when Amy was here he was in Athens, Greece, and the week before that he was in Milan, Italy, and just days before that he was in Malaga, Spain.)

Here were my most memorable things about the visit (in no particular order):

1. Watching Amy try to function on 8 hours sleep in a 48-hour period. She arrived early Monday morning France time, and I made her stay awake all day, even though she wanted nothing more than to sleep for about 16 hours straight. The jet lag when you go this far east is pretty rough anyway, and she spent two nights in a row on a plane (she had a long layover in JFK). I felt bad for her, and I knew exactly how she felt. However, she really needed to stay awake or she wouldn’t have adjusted to the time change until it was time to leave! It was also a little bit funny to watch her pretend to have a conversation with me as her head was bobbing and her eyes were closing. At point on the drive home, Jason and I were discussing how "fussy" Maisy gets without a nap.  I said, "how will we keep her from getting fussy tomorrow?"  Amy surfaced briefly from her foggy stupor in the back seat and exclaimed, "I promise I won't be fussy tomorrow." 

Kaden and Amy on their first day here in Cannes, France on "La Croisette."  That's Italian "glace" Kaden is eating. It's sold everywhere here, just like in Italy.

2. After the kids were in bed, and after Amy got over her jet lag, we stayed up watching episodes of “The Middle” and “Modern Family” on DVD. I don’t watch TV here, so American sit-coms were a rare treat.

3. Getting to know Kaden better. He is such a polite, sweet, well-behaved boy, and my kids LOVED having someone to play with.


Kaden, Jenica, Jocelyn, and Maisy at a polar bear exhibit at Marineland in Antibes



Kaden and Jocelyn at an outdoor recreation area called "Les Bois des Lutins." 

 



Maisy and Kaden at Castle Beach in Mandelieu near Cannes. 



Kaden and Jenica playing while waiting for lunch at Marineland.  I have no idea what game this is.

4. Watching Amy in high gear while helping all the kids with homework while I made dinner. My kids have crazy hard spelling tests every Friday, and it takes a couple of hours to prepare them each week. They have had words like climbing, plumber, knight, knock, whistle, wrong, penknife, and whiskers. They are only in first grade! Jocelyn especially needs lots of help focusing long enough to learn to spell these words. Amy spent an hour on a couple of different nights helping my girls with their reading and their spelling at the same time as she was helping Kaden with his math, AND this was all while Maisy sat on her lap, and Amy helped her with a puzzle. It was pretty amazing to watch. My girls just love her.

5. Eating lunch in San Remo, Italy. It was only an hour drive to San Remo, and I had never done this before, so it was fun to try something new. I was worried about finding the market there, but we did it. The reason why I loved eating lunch there was because the food wasn’t that great. I know that sounds weird to say, but neither Amy nor I have ever been that impressed with Italian food we have eaten in Italy. We always feel like we have gone to the wrong place or ordered the wrong thing. This place was no different. The cheese pizza had strong-tasting blue cheese on it, and my pasta was super greasy. It was still a fun experience, and it helped me to appreciate the next item on my list even more.

Maisy and me--San Remo, Italy

Can you see the blue cheese?  This pizza looked better than it tasted in my opinion, and pizza is a dish the Italians usually ace (I even really like blue cheese, but not this time).

6. Eating the most delicious food I have ever had in my life at an Italian restaurant in Antibes, France.  As a favor to Jason while he was out of town, one of his French colleagues, Dany Laroque, and his wife Corinne, took us out to eat at a place called “Michelangelos.”  I had never heard of it, but since the walls of this place were covered with pictures of famous American celebrities, like George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Stephen Spielberg, all pictured with the chef, I assumed it must be pretty good food.  "Good" does not do this place justice.  We didn’t get involved in the ordering process, which was all done in French, but it wasn’t even done from the menu.  The chef personally came to our table and planned the meal. All I can say is that I will never again say I don’t really like Italian food.  Two of the starters had thinly-sliced truffles on them!!  It really was the best food of my entire life (even though I love French food too).  As you can tell from this post, the south of France has an enormous Italian influence.

This leg of lamb in front of Amy was bigger than her head.  That's gnocchi as a side-it was so good, and I didn't think I liked gnocchi

Roasted chicken and garlic potatoes.  

This is lemon meringue pie for dessert--it tasted as good as it looks!

7. Going on a bakery chase to compare pain au chocolate, baguettes, and various mini French desserts at six different bakeries that came highly recommended by some of the French tour guides we met at a perfume factory in Grasse. We passed about twelve other bakeries to get to these particular six, and two of them are within walking distance from my house. Man, I love France.

8. Shopping with Amy. Though I didn’t buy very much, knowing I have access to it all later, shopping at the little town markets was still really fun. Amy found a few things, but she didn’t go crazy either. It was fun to just experience it—we listened to the people, said “bonjour” and “merci” a lot, and we just walked around looking at purses, fresh flowers, jewelry, clothing, and other odds and ends. We probably bored Kaden to death, dragging him everywhere, but we sure had fun.

9. Getting a mini break from driving.  Amy drove my kids to school one morning so I could put on my makeup. She kept saying, “there must not be a single straight street in this whole country!” It’s true—there are so many round-abouts and winding roads everywhere.  Driving is so not my favorite thing here, and I have to do it about 1 ½ to 2 hours a day.

10. Dying over the small glass of orange juice I bought at a restaurant in Cannes that ended up costing 12 Euros (that’s about $16.00). I never would have ordered it knowing it cost that much, but now Amy can see I’m not lying when I say it’s expensive to live here! We have to be really careful not to blow our food budget each week. We almost never go out to eat, not even to McDonald's.

I was not ready for Amy to go home after the week was up. My next visitor (my other best friend) comes in November and that seems so far away. I didn’t realize how much I needed a visit until Amy left, and I am embarrassed to say I spent the rest of that day in bed reading a book and feeling sad, which isn’t like me. I got up to fix food for my kids and that’s about it. They cuddled with me a lot, and they were sad too. They think Kaden is their cousin and they kept asking me why they don’t get to see their cousins more. We love you, Amy and Kaden! Thanks for the fun times.