A Versailles Valentine's and 6 Tips for Your Trip

We live about a 15-minute drive from Versailles, so it's an easy place to take visitors.  On Valentine's Day we took one of my oldest and dearest friends to see this historical chateau and to enjoy a Valentine's treat.  It was such a gorgeous and mild sunny day!  Tip number one if you're driving is to enter at the back gate near Marie Antoinette's Domain.  You can drive your car inside the grounds and park for just 6 euros.

We didn't visit the domain of Marie Antoinette on this trip, but it is one of our favorite parts of the estate and another great option for when you don't have a lot of time.  We also love Le Grand Trianon.

Tip number two is to read a little something about what you're going to see before your visit.  The chateau's website has some great summaries of the different areas.  It's a huge estate so if you're not planning on spending a full day you might enjoy your visit more if you pick the spot that interests you the most.  Having a little knowledge about what you're going to see makes such a difference in your level of enjoyment.  

You can choose between two directions when you walk into the chateau, and for a quicker visit I always choose the side with the Hall of Mirrors.  I also take a picture of this hallway every time.

I love the rich green color of that wall covering.

Kristen came to us from Thailand, and we found an unexpected connection between the two countries we're living in at the moment when we saw a special display of a gift presented to the king of France from a visiting ambassador from what was then called Siam.  

Tip number three if you're planning to visit Angelina's for that famous Parisian hot chocolate, chocolat chaud, is why not go to the Versailles location?  It might be a little less crowded than on the Rue de Rivoli.  Tip number four is to order the pretty dessert, and tip number five is to share desserts and hot chocolates because you can't handle the sweetness and richness all on your own!

Tip number six is to walk off your desserts in the gardens and take a few minutes to sit on a bench by the reflecting pool for a few minutes and watch the rowers and the swans go by before leaving.

Cousins, Nephews, and a French Lesson

Over the month we were home for Christmas we got to meet another new nephew.  We've gained so many in the four years we've lived overseas!

I was browsing through newborn clothes in Monoprix when my newest nephew was born for something with French writing that couldn't be found in the U.S.  I ultimately passed everything by because it said something like petite chou, and when I quickly Googled chou on my phone it said it meant cabbage, which confused me.  I was pretty sure it would also confuse my sister-in-law if she Googled it, so I refrained from buying anything that day.  

But when you're learning a language you should always ask someone who knows more than you, and when I finally did I learned that though chou is indeed the word for cabbage, it also means something like, "cutie" or "sweetie" or even the English, "poppet."  I went shopping for Christmas with my newfound knowledge and now understood that this outfit proclaimed my newest nephew so cute and not so cabbage.  

The French are not alone in using vegetables as terms of endearment.  Much to her confusion, I've called Ella "little pun'kin" her entire life.  Sometimes this was shortened to "little punk," which doesn't seem as sweet.  Cue the pre-teen side-eye.

And now a few family pictures for good measure.

Trop chou indeed.  If you've ever tried to learn a new language, what's been your favorite phrase or expression that doesn't quite translate literally?

One Day in Manarola: "The Best Town in Cinque Terre"

Way back in June of 2018 my husband signed me up to attend a retreat for women working around the world in various capacities, and while working on travel logistics, we discovered that it would work best for me and my travel companions to leave the day before the retreat began.  My friend, Kristen, asked, "Is Cinque Terre nearby?"  A quick Google search revealed it was!

I'm not very good at planning ahead, so I didn't do any research into Manarola--the second smallest of the five towns making up Cinque Terre--until a couple of weeks before, and I couldn't believe the beauty we would get to see!  

Tourists aren't allowed to drive cars into Manarola; we paid to park just outside of the town.  It's good to know ahead of time that you might be walking up and down several sets of stairs in tight places with your luggage, so pack lightly.  It's not the place for your big rolling suitcase, as we realized when our Airbnb host took one look at our suitcases and told us it was "a very bad idea."  We stuffed our backpacks with what we needed for the night and left the big suitcases in the car, totally the right call.

Our Airbnb host has lived in Manarola his entire life.  Referencing the stairs and the hills he said, "It is beautiful but very difficult."  He also told us the best place to get a good view of the sunset this time of year, which was such great information to share.  It's a great question to ask a local if you're traveling to a beautiful place.

This was my first time to see the Mediterranean.  The air was so cool and fresh coming off the sea.  We ate lunch near the harbor outside where I enjoyed maybe the best tomato of my life, and a lady spontaneously began singing a selection of Italian opera at a back table in the restaurant's pavilion.  The chatter of all the other customers slowly faded away, and when her song ended, everyone clapped and cheered.  As Elwood P. Dowd said, "Harvey and I warm ourselves in these golden moments."

Brightly-colored citrus fruit hung from trees, cactus and succulents grew out of the rocks, and the terraced hillside was covered in olive trees.  We only had 24 hours, but it was enough time to walk around and enjoy this beautiful place.  If you have more time, there's a train pass you can buy that will carry you between each of the five towns that make up Cinque Terre.  If your knees are in good shape, and you're feeling intrepid, you could hike the trail between the towns and have some amazing views!

Might I suggest a literary society?

I love books and reading, but it wasn't until I moved to England that I joined a book club for the first time.  I wanted to meet people, and I love talking about books and stories, and those two things seemed to go hand-in-hand.  I was so happy a group of readerly ladies welcomed me into their midst in North Yorkshire.  

It's a little addicting having people to talk about books with, and I was thrilled when another lady in our church here in Paris decided to organize a group last spring.  But instead of organizing a club where we all read the same book, she had the great idea of us each choosing different books that we could discuss and exchange.  The main drive for doing this was to share English books amongst ourselves.  

Each month we choose a theme.  Some of our themes so far have been Bestsellers, Young Adult, Memoir/Biography, Middle Ages, Mystery, A Book with a Pretty Cover, A Book Set in a Country You've Never Visited, etc.  Each of us chooses a book that fits the theme, and we read it and bring it to the next meeting.  We each get a few minutes to share what we read, what we thought about it, and a little bit about the story.  Then we draw a name out of a hat and take that person's book home with us to read that month.  We choose a theme for the next meeting, and the process starts over again.  So each month, you read one book of your choosing and one chosen by another member of the group.  

I think it's a fabulous way to have literary discussions with your friends that enables you to read what you want but also be exposed to books you wouldn't have picked up, too.  I highly recommend it!  

A few months ago we decided we needed a name, and one of our number came up with a great one:  The Multifarious Novel & Tea Society.  I didn't realize how fitting it was that she called us a society instead of a book club until I was listening to Episode 166 of What Should I Read Next?, and the guest explained that she was part of a literary society and NOT a book club because they didn't all read the same book; it was similar to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  

So, be fancy and start a literary society!  I think it would be a fun thing to do even with one friend you see regularly.  Pick a theme, read a book, and exchange.  Easy as that. 

"There's always time to read."

- Susanna Kearsley, The Winter Sea -

What do Americans do all day?

One of the unexpected joys I had last year was stumbling upon memoirs published in the 1950s by Americans living in Paris.  Many of the experiences are particular to that time period, but there are many that are still infinitely relatable to an American expat:  visits to the préfecture, for instance.   These books overflow with love for Paris as well as the misadventures of people adapting to life in a country set up differently from their own, especially one rebuilding and recovering from the deprivations of WWII as France was.  

One of these memoirs, Roughing it on the Rue de la Paix, was written by a lady who rents a room from a friend who is French, and after dealing with various plumbing issues and electricity outages and appliances that don't work, the American is feeling frustrated.  Her friend says:

"What do American women do all day?...We have something

to do all the time, because something is always out of order---

the lights, the plumbing, or something.  But in a country where

everything functions..."  She left her disdain in the air.

The disdain with which she looks down on the American expectation that things will work made me laugh.  I remembered this quote as I was driving back home from the grocery store this week.  I had to stop and wait for someone trying to parallel park in an area of town where there aren't any parking lots, while traffic swarmed around and pedestrians crossed the street.  

And I thought, What do Americans do all day with all their big free parking lots and no need to dodge pedestrians and other cars parked in the road?  😊

Lake Santa Fe in December

The weather is literally freezing when K.J. loads our suitcases in the car, and we drive to Charles de Gaulle airport.  We board the plane with coats and hats and pull them off as quickly as we can when we land in Orlando.  Finagling eight suitcases and four carry-ons out of the airport and to the pick-up curb makes me sweaty.  The humidity and the temperature immediately remind us that we've entered a world of citrus fruit and sunshine.  

Arriving and leaving the U.S. from Florida is a ritual I love.  It's a quiet transition that welcomes us back to America, though not yet back to the state we call home.  When we're leaving it offers us another middle place, not with our immediate family anymore, but not yet out of the country.  

Florida gives us time with extended family it would otherwise be hard to see, and it's a warm welcome to people living in the gray of a northern European winter.  Vitamin D is abundant here, as is the moss hanging from the trees.

The sunrise is stunning and peaceful, but you still feel the chance of something wild.  Something about the landscape makes me imagine what it would have been like to be a Spanish conquistador seeing this land for the first time.  I watch the dark shallows nervously for gators and snakes, even though they don't come around too often anymore.  You can never be too careful.

Thankfully, there are no snakes today, only woodpeckers.