We moved from France to the US on a delightful journey leaving our great house in LaVarenne staying in a La Varenne hotel (St. Alban). That gave us a few more days in La Varenne so we could go to our favorite restaurants, and see a few more friends. Catherine et Margot had us over for a simple dinner one night, and we had a great time with Fred at La Bistro a la Cave for a fantastic last dinner.
But the trip got a lot more interesting - we packed up and spent three days in St. Germaine des Prés. We found a great hotel Hotel de Seine (rue de Seine) and wandered around St. Germaine a beautifully preserved neighborhood with fancy touristy restaurants and great little creperies (My favorite was City Crêpes Café). We shopped at La Buca, ate gelatto, and tried to forget that we were about to get really overwhelmed with moving back to someplace everyone thought we would immediately know how to manage. But mainly, we were just tourists. We took another 300 photos (like we didn't have enough photos of Paris) and tried to check off all those little things that we had said, "I still want to do this." I spent a whole day tracing tracks of Utrillo in Montmartre, we took the panorama photos at Concorde Metro and along the Seine. But it wasn't time to return to Cincinnati - just the US.
We were about to enter the US in a big way, the great bastion of the south. We were flying into Chicago (yep, we got an upgrade whoohooo) and then heading to Aiken, South Carolina. Let me tell you --- we couldn't have set ourselves up for any greater culture shock. Our friend Bryan (who we've known for +20 years) made arrangements for us to spend Thanksgiving with him and his friends in Aiken. We went to a "blessing of the hounds" a public dinner for TGiving, and actually got fed at Heidi's house, where Pat played backyard football - until somebody got hurt - just like millions of American Households. We watched football, talked about cooking turkey, and commented on pecan and pumpkin pie recipes.
We had lots of little adventures and some odd and interesting experiences. Like the public dinner that never got served, the mothball filled house - that we think was probably going to be the death of all of us! and did I mention the chitl'n festival! That's right we spent the afternoon at the Sally South Carolina Chitl'n Festival. We even went so far as to buy and that's right taste -chitterlings. Now that won't happen again. The pictures will tell the rest of the story. We couldn't get that stink out of our clothes and skin until - well it was overwhelmed with moth ball scent.
Another theme of this amazing adventure was a beautiful dog, Jack and his owner Bryan. Pat was so empowered by the move - he won three Scrabble games in a row. Bryan found a great town house in Hilton Head and right after Tgiving - we headed south to the beach. One highlight was the trip to Dafusky Island.
We drove from Aiken down to Savannah and caught a quick flight to Cincy - after 10 days of playing with Jack and having Bryan entertain us relaxed and ready to head back to the real world. But I am not going to say it's going to a breeze and I am not finished blogging - there are too many amazing, amusing, artistic and much anticipated stories out there.
