Party party party

“Don’t talk to me tomorrow, I’m all talked out.” is what Paul said to me last Saturday night as we walked home from a dinner party.

The weekend of talk started on Friday night when we met our friends for dinner at a small restaurant near their apartment. I guess most of the French had not yet returned from summer vacations, or else weren’t yet ready to spend a Friday night out, so we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. There was nobody else in the place when we got there and nobody else came to the restaurant all night. That was a good thing… we could behave like Americans… we could talk with loud voices…. we could just be ourselves. We also had the opportunity to speak our mumbled French with the owner of the restaurant and learn about him. It was a very nice, talkative evening. And on top of that, the food was outstanding and the price was moderate. (And incidentally, a week later when we walked by the restaurant at about the same time, the place was jam packed.)

The next morning, on Saturday, we got the call inviting us to spend Saturday afternoon at the home of our French friends. We had a nice lunch and great conversation with them (in English) until about 6:00 pm. We headed home, had a few minutes to relax, change clothes, and make a guacamole dip to bring to the next social event on our busy calendar – a dinner party at the home of some American friends. We stayed there until around midnight and walked home exhausted.

That was last weekend. This weekend, we looked forward to a simple, quiet weekend with only one social event on our calendar – that was to have the French friends over for a Saturday afternoon lunch at our place. It was a very nice visit with conversations in both English and French (but mostly English). Just before they arrived though, we got a call from our American friends telling us about a party at Mark’s place that night, and we should call Mark to let him know we were going to be there. I did that. Our French friends left around 6:00 or so and again we had a few minutes to relax, change clothes, and prepare some homemade chocolate chip cookies to bring to the party. It was a fun party… more on that later…. I’m just too talked out right now!