Fun and Games in Alexandria

9 November 2014 Sunny Bridge 1 Comment

The week in Alexandria visiting Chelsea went by in a flash, but we managed to fit in lots of fun, beginning with the fabulous birthday dinner at Chart House mentioned in the last post, followed on Sunday by the not-nearly-so-fun watching the Broncos get trounced by the Patriots. Ouch.

Monday, we all had to work, but David and I had time for a walk down King Street and lunch here . . .

. . . where everything was so picturesque I snapped away like the tourist I am . . . .

Vermilion, Alexandria, Virginia — Vermilion — Alexandria, Virginia

See what I mean?

Tuesday night we met Chelsea and Will and his parents at Los Tios Grill, a fabulous Mexican restaurant in Alexandria (technically “Tex-Mex-Salvadorean”). WOOHOO! The one thing nigh near impossible to find in France is Mexican food, and I LOVE Mexican food. Forgot my camera, but I was pretty busy chatting and enjoying my dinner and margaritas. Yum. And bonus, spunky-charming waitress who kept us all laughing. Love nights like that.

Thursday night Chelsea had invited a few friends to meet us at Top Golf . . .

. . . which turned out to be super entertaining. It’s like a driving range, but not so boring–and a pub, but not so sedentary. Perfect combination, if you ask me.

Chelsea has almost zero previous golf experience, so she was just thoroughly having fun. But after Jen soundly beat us the second round, I started thinking, “Game On.” And although Jen’s shots continued to be absolutely beautiful and straight, she very kindly missed a few of the targets during the third round (and, okay, the counter cheated her out of a few points, too). Anyway I managed to score highest. Be very impressed. So instead of a highly unflattering shot of me, I’ll show you this . . .

Sunny's highly erratic performance at Top Golf! — Sunny’s highly erratic performance at Top Golf!

But now really look at it, and be sure to admire the impressive consistency of my scores. Sheesh. Truly stunning. After my first six balls, as you may imagine, I was NOT HAPPY. At all. Interesting that once Chelsea reminded me to just relax and have fun, I started nailing the targets. Disturbing that I needed that reminder while chatting with friends and drinking Man-Mosas (Mimosas with a bit of beer to cut the sweetness–better than they sound).

Which brings me to today’s little lesson for Sunny: Perfectionism does not create perfection. It just sucks the fun and life out of whatever you’re doing imperfectly.

Here’s wishing you a joyfully imperfect week! (Unless you’re the Denver Broncos. You Broncos can feel free to be as perfect as you’d like!)

Thanks, Chelsea, for the fun and the wisdom!

Stateside

Rentrée

3 November 2014 Sunny Bridge 4 Comments

La rentrée — the return: So . . . we’ve returned to the states, but we haven’t completely reacclimated yet. France lingers on in our habits and preferences. I really miss speaking French and the excitement of small successes like actually carrying on a sustained conversation in French for an hour and a half. And I keep wanting a tartine for breakfast, which is just toasted day-old baguette with my favorite Noirmoutier butter and Bonne Maman 4 Fruits confiture (jam), but . . . yum, and so far, unfortunately, impossible to find. David doesn’t seem to miss that, but we do miss the rhythm of life in France. And we really miss quiet. Everything feels WAY TOO LOUD. We spent the first night in Boston and had dinner in the hotel, where so many people seemed to be bellowing across the restaurant at each other, we finally paused our attempt to have a French-style quiet conversation, and just looked at each other and started laughing.

The next morning we caught the Dartmouth Coach up to New London, New Hampshire, and heard the entire two-hour conversation of a couple FOUR ROWS in front of us. Sheesh.

Then we spent a couple of nights here . . .

. . . where one of the waitresses was so loud, I kept flinching when she talked. We really need to toughen up! We’ve been loud-talkers for years. How many people used to flinch when we talked? Yikes. Strange to be on the other side of it.

Aside from that, though, it’s been good to be back. We were able to help David’s mom with the final steps of getting the lake house closed up for the season, like clearing out fridges, freezers and cupboards. Then we spent three nights at their new winter house, where we could be handy for hanging pictures, towel rings and rods, curtain rods, etc., and help will all the other little settling-in tasks that seem to take forever.

I was afraid we had missed all the beautiful New England fall foliage, but the leaves were not all down. Woohoo!

The original plan was to spend three nights in Brooklyn, but we cancelled that to be of more help to Helen. Very busy few days, but fun to be there to see it come together.

Friday morning we hit the road and drove down to Alexandria, Virginia, to see Chelsea. Beautiful tree-lined turnpikes most of the way, with lots of gorgeous fall color like above and this . . .

Scenic stop along the New Jersey Turnpike

Now we’re back in very picturesque Alexandria . . .

. . . where wonderful old red brick walls are everywhere.

We had a stunningly delicious dinner here . . .

. . . to belatedly celebrate Chelsea’s birthday, and we’ll have the rest of this week here with her. More about that later, I’m sure.

So life goes on. There’s a watercolor in the cottage we’re renting this week that seems to be a loose rendering of a landscape, maybe dunes with seagrass–it’s hard to tell–but the first morning as I woke up, I found myself looking up at it from a different angle and so clearly saw the face of a young woman in a hat, her chin partly hidden by her right hand, I was convinced I had been blind the day before, and that was really what the painting was meant to be. Yet from the original perspective, she slips away. From somewhere in the middle, though, I can see both, and that’s when the painting is the most interesting of all. It made me wonder what life might–or maybe will–look like from a slightly French-flavored American perspective.

I’ll let you know. Now if I can just stop flinching.

France Retour

Step . . .

24 October 2014 Sunny Bridge 2 Comments

STEP . . . carefully: France has made an indelible impression on us and now David can say HE has made an indelible impression on France:

Oops. David's Impression on France — Oops. David’s Impression on France

Not so much as a tiny paper note in French, let alone an orange cone, warning pedestrians of the new cement. (David’s are the left and the deep right footprints). He was watching traffic, trying to find an opportunity to cross before the sidewalk completely narrowed into nothing, and all of a sudden he felt the sidewalk was a bit . . . er . . . squishy.

STEP . . . up and up and up (and down and down and down): Wednesday, we decided to give ourselves a break from the 112 steps down to the local metro (and of course the 112 steps back up to get home), and instead decided to visit Sacré Coeur again and see the crypt and . . . yes . . . climb the dome . . .

Um . . . offering a bit of encouragement on the way up? — Offering a bit of encouragement on the way up?

. . . so 300 steps up and more than 300 down, because it’s a different staircase and at one point in the descent you have to go back up 17 steps, then immediately back down 17 (yes, I counted–I was a bit annoyed, okay?), just to get to the other side of a piece of roof, and all this is not counting the steps just to get from the apartment to Sacré Coeur.

On the plus side, the climb was done to the soundtrack of this woman beautifully singing some of my favorite arias on the steps on one side of the basilica. Absolutely magical. We were climbing just above her (and then a LOT above her).

Also a plus: The views were worth every step.

Strange to notice a fire near Opéra Garnier, and not know how serious it was. We later learned it was a gas explosion that was quickly contained.

Fire near Opéra Garnier, shot with zoom.

Later in the day, we decided to walk back to Coquelicot to buy another loaf or two of la Picola to see if it was as good as we remembered. (It was.) But since I was a bit tired of the stairs I chose to head a bit east to try to get more around the perimeter of the hill. Imagine my not-so-delighted surprise when our route turned out to include this:

Sheesh. Bet they don’t sell ANY Stairmasters in Paris. Who would need one?

STEP . . . inside. WIFI is terrible in this apartment, so not sure when I can post this, but as I write this, it is our last day in France (for 2014, anyway), and a bit rainy and cool. We tried to think of something super profound to do, to no avail. Instead we decided to be Parisian and go shopping. We didn’t buy anything, just took a few photos. This is how they do department stores in Paris:

And now, for a moment, let’s STEP . . . back . . . to remember how far we’ve come. This whole adventure started with a simple desire to learn French in the best, most efficient way possible (living here for a while), and it’s been a long road. But as we enjoyed lunch in a brasserie after our shopping, we both realized that, finally, I was completely comfortable with getting a table, reading the menu, ordering, paying, the whole process, really. And David, although he has not learned French, has kind of learned, well, France – how to modulate his voice to the much quieter French level, how to patiently wait until the server is ready to take our order, how to take our time over a bottle of wine at lunch, how to enjoy a conversation (and a little people-watching) between courses even if the next course is a while in coming.

And finally, it’s time to . . .

STEP . . . forward . . . to the next part of this journey. Five more months to go, but all stateside. No more random, cool Frenchy things on random corners, like this . . .

. . . but there will be other things to see, other people to meet, other cities to explore, and I promise to tell you all about them. And eventually, God willing, there will be friends and family to see again, both here in France and back in the U.S.A. So until we meet again, au revoir!

France Retour

Baccarat au Petit Palais

22 October 2014 Sunny Bridge 3 Comments

Although we are trying to make the most of our time here in Paris, I promise not to bore you with a play by play of everything we’re doing, but I do want to tell you about our visit Tuesday to the Petit Palais. The building itself is worth seeing, and I especially wanted to go this week because I had seen posters for a brand new temporary exhibit of Baccarat crystal. Lots of beautiful urns, stemware and pitchers, but my favorites were the chandeliers. This one was in the main gallery to entice you to buy a ticket to see the whole exhibit.

Baccarat Chandelier against the ceiling of the Petit Palais

Here are some detail shots of a few of the enormous standing-style chandeliers, sort of super-posh lamp posts.

My favorite part of the exhibit was a dark-walled room with soft music playing and seven or eight absolutely stunning chandeliers alternately brightening and then dimming back to a soft glow, one at a time, as if they were each taking their turn in the spotlight. It was like a minuet, with ladies in hooped ball gowns, and absolutely mesmerizing. Fortunately, the benches along the wall were hard and backless or I would probably still be there!

So put on a little music, and I’ll give you a sample. You can even sit in a comfortable chair and stay as long as you like.