9-12-19 - Welcomed to Paris by our friend Frederic
/Day 88. Leanne and Kyle joint blog.
As we arrive in France, our clan is greeted at the St Germaine-en-Laye (just outside Paris) train station by Frederic. Frederic is a Frenchman who has been a friend of ours for nearly 30 years. Not even knowing me, he included me and my college roommate on a week vacation in Chamonix France in 1993 with about a dozen of his closest friends. We have been friends ever since despite the miles.
An entrepreneur, Frederic runs his own company and is a father of five. Three of whom we have hosted for a teen summer experience in California. He attended our wedding in 1999 and hosted John for a month a few summers ago. We also took our moms to France in 2013 and Frederic hosted us then too.
Frederic has very generously offered to host all 7 of us for the week. And we have the great privilege of staying in this home, a beautiful 19th century Château built on the former royal palace ground orchards.
Huge Thank You to Frederic for hosting us, feeding us, taking us to the RER, taking us to dinner and all the hospitality he showed our family!
Frederic’s older three kids attend University and the younger two (age 6 and 12) are at home. We don’t speak French but the kids make a beeline for the ping pong table and basketball court where language fluency is not a requirement. Corey is super excited to be on a basketball court as it’s been hard to find basketball courts and practice time so far during our trip.
With great care, Frederic prepares us our first dinner of quiches, baguettes, salad, cheese, desert and wine. By now, after seeing how nice Frederic treats us, the teens are a bit shocked how Kyle and I know so many cool people all over the world. (Apparently we are not so cool?). Maybe more shocked our friends are so welcoming to our large group!
Coming back to this chateau / villa / small castle, I was reminded of our earlier vacation here with both our mothers just 6 years ago. I started to think of everything that has transpired in the last six years - our highs, our lowlights, life changes, and moves. And I thought how blessed we were to bring our moms here together when walking 5 miles a day wasn’t such a strain on either of them.
Now it’s our turn to show our kids one of our favorite world cities! We are here for 8 days which is the longest stay in one place of our trip but will give us time to check-off Paris’ long list of must-see and must-do attractions.
So how do we embrace as much of Paris as possible in 8 days? Carpe diem x 8!
