Thursday, May 10, 2007

Arrival and Le Havre - Friday 5/4/2007

We could not have had a better introduction to France than our stay with Laweeez and family. Laweeez and I met through the Internet and she courageously invited us to stay with her! We rented a car at Charles de Gaulle Airport and drove to her home in Le Havre the first night. It took us longer than we expected to get there and we couldn’t find a phone on the way, but Laweeez was gracious about the late hour.

We had pain chocolat and tea/coffee and talked and then Mom and I napped while Hydra played guitar in the kitchen. Good thing Laweeez likes folk music!

We met her smart and charming kids when they came home from school, and she served us raclette for dinner. We’d never had this before, and we loved it. It involves melting your own portion of cheese in a little grill on the table and putting that and assorted meats on small baked potatoes.

We’d started with cantaloupe and prosciutto! After the raclette came a salad of butter lettuce and then a dessert of ice cream in a crisp waffle cup with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.

Laweeez’s husband arrived from Paris between the salad and the dessert. We stayed up till the early morning hours talking politics and culture. I think I formulated some ideas about the U.S. that I hadn’t really put into words before, about the function of states’ rights.

The only lamentable thing about our visit is that we won’t be able to spend time with these terrific people on a regular basis!

In the morning, Laweeez's husband even went to the trouble to lead us out of Le Havre! We'd had a little trouble finding our way in. The Google map left out a key direction, but we got directions from a very helpful woman who spoke very little English in a tabac in town.

1 comment:

Kim said...

Oh goodie! You got to meet Laweeez! How fun!