Dreaming of France -- Falling in Love With France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

I've written some guest posts for the FranceBookTour of my novel Paris Runaway. I thought I'd share one of the posts that I wrote for bookwormerz which ran on Sunday. It tells the story of how, after a
rocky start, I fell in love with France.

Falling in Love With France

I visited France for the first time at age 20. My college boyfriend and I went on one of those 21-day tours where we visited 14 countries, or maybe it was a 14-day trip with 21 countries. Either way, one of those countries was France.

I’d gotten sick in Rome, with Montezuma’s Revenge, and it lasted into Paris. I remember visiting Notre Dame and desperately searching for a bathroom nearby. What I found was a Turkish toilet.

Those are hard to find in France these days, but a Turkish toilet was a stall with a place for your feet to go on either side of a drain in the floor. I still can’t work out the mechanics for a woman that doesn’t result in damp underwear. That experience could have ruined my love for France, but it didn’t.

A year after college graduation I was working at a newspaper and dating a photographer, whose sister was married to a Frenchman. The sister, who was pregnant, her husband, and their two little girls had tickets to go to France for the summer, when the sister was ordered to bedr est. Someone needed to step up and travel with the girls. I volunteered.  

Here are the two girls and their grandfather, along with a couple of cousins, on the balcony in Corsica. 

I told my boss I was going and that I didn’t care whether I’d have a job when I returned. Picture me as a bossy, impetuous 22 –year-old. (Luckily, they found a summer intern and my job waited for me.)

So with two little girls and a Frenchman I didn’t know, we flew to Paris. The first few days could have ruined my love affair with France as I took the girls on a bus to their great-grandmother’s apartment in the Latin Quarter of Paris. But the bus went the opposite direction that we needed and we ended up on an impromptu, hot, diesel-fueled tour of Paris, getting off at several stops in hopes of finding our way.  Another day I got separated from the girls when they stepped through a Metro stall with sliding doors, and the doors closed before I could follow them. A flight attendant behind me had an extra ticket and used it to reunite me with the girls.

But every negative experience melted away as I traveled with the girls and their grandparents over the next three months. We flew to Corsica and spent our days splashing in the Mediterranean and enjoying each meal as a symphony of tastes and textures. 

Me, on the beach. There are probably naked, or at least topless, people right behind me. 

Our evenings filled with concerts and tennis matches and nights on the veranda watching the star-spangled sky for the slowly moving space station.

When we returned to mainland France, we stayed one night in Aix en Provence. I can still remember the thrill of coming home that rippled through me when I stepped onto Cours Mirabeau, the wide boulevard lined with plane trees.

For a month, we stayed in the family’s country home near Bourges. The house came into the family during Napoleon’s reign, and it had served as a base for the Germans when they invaded during World War II, then the Americans when they drove back the Germans. The numerous sets of French doors opened onto a yard, which led to fields of sheep and flocks of chickens. We walked to the village for bread each day, stopping to feed a pony.

Here I am, prepared for dinner, as I sit on the terrace writing. I wish you could see my
adorable ankle socks and aqua shoes that matched my top, but this print is not the best quality.

Finally, we returned to Paris and the grandparents’ apartment in the suburbs. The grandmother urged me to explore the city while she watched the girls, and, oh, what adventures I had as I wandered alone.

I’ve included memories from this trip in all of my novels set in France – The Summer of France, I See London I See France, and Paris Runaway.

In each of my French novels, I try to recapture the magical experiences of that first immersion into France – the trip that taught me the importance of savoring each bite of luscious nectarine, rather than worrying about the juice that ran down my arm.

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France today. Please leave your name and blog address in Mr. Linky below, and leave a comment letting me know what  you think about my love affair with France, or your own love affair. And consider visiting the blogs of others who play along so we can all share the love. 

I'm also linking to Paris in July. Hope you'll play along with both Dreaming of France and Paris in July. We can't have too much France love, right?

Dreaming of France -- The Tour

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Every year, we look forward to watching The Tour de France. It's our July trip to France without fighting through all the tourists.
The first week of the tour was a little disappointing.
The start was scenic with Mont St. Michel in the background, but the bicyclists ended up clogged at the starting line, as no one had figured out how to get all the riders into that little circle in front of Mont St. Michel so that they could begin the race.

The stages were fairly flat and the riders chose to ride incredibly slow for at least two of the days. The endings have been close because the sprinters competed, but four hours of bicycling on TV leading to about a 30-second sprint can be disappointing.

Friday, the pace picked up and Saturday, the riders arrived in the Pyrenees, where you know the action will increase. Just the vertigo of spinning down the mountains with the riders excites me, not to mention the beauty of the ragged green mountains, the green pools formed by melting snows, and the patches of snow that remain.

The people watching the Tour are crazy too. I tell my husband that next  year I'll get him a Speedo bikini suit to wear while watching the tour alongside the route. People dress up in costumes. They wear crazy wigs and wave giant flags.
On Saturday, a costumed man ran alongside the riders as they struggled to climb a mountain. Chris Froome, the winner of last year's tour and the favorite for this year, reached out with his fist and clocked the guy in the side of the head. I can't blame him. The fans are a bit crazy. They need to give the riders room to ride.
This year, on July 12, the route goes through the area where we plan to move next year -- Languedoc.

 We'll be eagerly anticipating the release of next year's map to see which part of the country we can travel to and see the tour ourselves -- with or without a Speedo.

I'm also linking to Paris in July. Hope you'll play along with both Dreaming of France and Paris in July. We can't have too much France love, right?

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your name and a link to your blog on Mr. Linky below. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

Tuesday Intros -- The Runaway Wife

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

It's funny that the publisher contacted me about reviewing this novel, The Runaway Wife,  just as my own novel, Paris Runaway, was about to come out. I noted the similar title and the fact that they are both set in Europe.
I've read a book by this author, Elizabeth Birkelund, before and the writing blew me away, so it was an easy decision to read this one. The previous book I loved, also set in France, was The Dressmaker.  I'm about halfway through The Runaway Wife, so look for an upcoming review.

Here's the intro:

Jim Olsen, you are here. In Switzerland, walking on the rock ledges of the Swiss Alps. If this was not the end of the world, at least it felt like it. In this moonscape ten thousand feet high, in this land of rock and rock and more rock, and sky and sky and more sky, one misguided step and Jim could plunge from one of thousands of vertiginous, crusted cliffs. The only thing that reassured Jim that he was not on a planet in a far-flung galaxy was his ability, on this clear day, to pinpoint several small patches of green that resembled colored pieces in a stained-glass window -- these he knew to be farmland in the Swiss valley far, far below. 

I don't care for that first sentence where he's apparently speaking to himself in second person. I had to read it several times to figure it out, but the rest of the book is lovely.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

I'm also connecting with Paris in July.

Tuesday Intros -- The Red Notebook

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm all in with the Paris in July meme this month, I'm starting on my third book set in France -- The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain. Because this is a book by a French author translated into English, I don't expect it to end well. Happy endings don't often go with French books or movies, but so far I'm sucked in to the story of Laure, a woman who has her purse stolen and ends up in a coma, and a

bookseller named Laurent who finds the purse and belongings on the street and begins to trace the story of the unknown woman. Here's the intro:

The taxi had dropper her at the corner of the boulevard. She was barely fifty metres from home. The road was lit by streetlamps which gave the buildings an orange glow, but even so she was anxious, as she always was when she returned late at night. She looked behind her but she saw nobody. Light from the hotel opposite flooded the pavement between the two potted trees flanking its entrance. She stopped outside her door, unzipping her bag to retrieve her keys and security fob, and then everything happened very quickly.

A hand grabbed her bag strap, a hand that had come out of nowhere, belonging to a dark-haired man wearing a leather jacket. It took only a second for fear to travel through her veins all the way to her heart where it burst into an icy rain.

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Dreaming of France, Paris in July -- Two Book Reviews

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it

This week, I finished reading two books set in France, so I thought I'd review them for you, to save you from having to read them.
 I devour books set in France. Starting with Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, I fell for the memoir or novel that takes place in France, letting me travel there through an author's words.
The stories for the two books I read were fine, but the books didn't paint word pictures to take me to France.

First I read a memoir called One Day Ahead: A Tour de France Misadventure by Richard Grady. I've been following the Tour de France bike race that past two weeks, and this book promised to take me inside the trials of covering all those miles by bike. The author didn't ride the tour roads, though. He was support for a friend and three other guys who decided to ride each leg of the Tour de France on the day before the actual racers rode them. Throughout the trip, the author was miserable. I couldn't figure out why he was doing it. The story itself seemed entertaining, but the writing focused more on getting from the beginning to the end than it did on transporting the reader to France. I missed the beautiful setting, the scrumptious food, the charming people, and instead, I got stuck in a motorhome with someone who hated the entire trip. He drank a lot of tea and got drunk on wine a couple of times. If you love bicycling and are curious about how much it takes to support someone on the Tour de France, then you should read this one.
The second book I read was, I think, a novel called Home by Jacqueline Mason. In this one, a British woman, Jen, meets a

Frenchman when she and her boring boyfriend Bradley go to stay with him on vacation. Before the reader can blink an eye, she moves to France to live with the perfect physical specimen of a Frenchman, Scott. She sees signs that he is controlling and stubborn, along with stingy and cheap. She doesn't get along with his parents, and he has a lot of problems with her parents. Nevertheless, the two marry. Right up to the actual wedding, I keep thinking she'll back out of it, but she doesn't. And things only get worse before she is able to rescue herself.
Again, Jen doesn't really enjoy all of the things I love about France, which is kind of the point of reading a book set in France. This book also has a number of copyediting errors, like run-on sentences or incorrect paragraphing on dialogue.
The plot kept me reading, but the author could have painted word pictures to put me in the scenes rather than simply telling me about what happened.
I'm starting The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain next. Hopefully, I'll enjoy that one.
 Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.
I'm also connecting with Paris in July.

Dreaming of France -- Paris, He Said

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

One reason that I started writing novels set in France was because I could find so few. After I'd fallen in love with A Year in Provence, I wanted to read more about the thrill of living in France.
Since then, many books set in France have arrived on the scene. Some of them are terrific, other are mediocre, and others, I didn't even finish.
Recently, I found Paris, He Said by Christine Sneed, which just came out this year.

The novel features Jayne Marks who lives in Manhattan and wants to be a painter. Her older lover owns galleries in New York and Paris, so Jayne jumps at the chance to move to Paris and focus on her painting.

"Six weeks will give you enough time to prepare, I hope," he said.
A moment later he added, "Please understand that I am not proposing marriage. But I do not want you to bring home other men. You are with me, yes?"
"I am," she said, surprised. "I wouldn't think of bringing home another man. I'm not like that."
He held her gaze, trying to suppress a smile. "You say that now, but it isn't impossible that you will changes your mind. Beautiful women often change their minds. I have seen it happen more than once."
Did it happen to you with someone else? she wondered, but didn't ask. Did he really think that her desires and allegiances could mutate so quickly? Maybe he thought this of all women. "What about you? she asked. "Are you going to bring home other women if we're living together?"
Or men? But she didn't think he slept with men.
"No," he said. "No question. But what you do and what I do outside of the apartment, that is not for the other person to worry over. All right?"

Well, that's intriguing. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

Now that Jayne lived in Paris, she could see these monuments every day if she walked southeast from the apartment toward the Seine. Whenever she did, she would pause to watch the river traffic, the sound of boats and rushing water filling her with an unaccountable surge of hopefulness. From the north end of the Pont Alexandre III, she could look across the swift, murky river to the immense golden cupola of the Hotel des Invalides, Napoleon's remains interred beneath it.   

I'll let you know if I enjoy this one.
Hope you all have something beautiful to help you dream of France.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.
I'm also connecting with Paris in July. Since this book is set in Paris, parfait!

Anyone Want To Go To France?

Here on the last day of July, I wanted to post once more for Paris in July.
So many people dream of traveling to France. One of the saddest stories I've heard about someone who wanted to travel to France was about an author, in his late 30s, early 40s, who finally had a book published. In the dedication, he wrote, "To My Wife, Who Will See Paris After All." Then two months later, his wife died. She never saw Paris.
I want to shake people and say, "What are you waiting for? Go grab your dreams, whatever they are!"
So, a blogger friend of my mine, Delana Nelson, who grabbed her dream of  moving to Aix en Provence when she was 50, has started a business to help other people who may be afraid to travel to France alone.
Travel Solo Bootcamp is designed to help people who have no one to travel with. It will help women get over the fear of traveling alone. I can't explain it very well, but I interviewed Delana and here's how she explained her new business.

Q. What is Travel Solo Bootcamp?

Travel Solo Bootcamp is a week spent in Aix en Provence which is designed to give women the opportunity to learn how to travel alone. It’s a mix of fun, support, and travel-solo assignments. Our hope is that at the end of the week, our recruits will be able to say “Yes, I’m going” when faced with that great deal for a weekend in New York City, after reading an article about a colorful sea-side town in Italy, or hearing about a fabulous beach in Croatia.  There are always hesitations about taking a trip, whether it be money or time, but we don’t want traveling alone to be part of that equation. Being able and willing to travel solo is an exhilarating freedom.

Q. How’d you get the idea to start Travel Solo Bootcamp?

My founding partner, Marcia, had the idea. She and her former boyfriend had previously done week-long painting workshops here in the region. Her clients were mostly women and by spending so much time with them, she learned about their fears of traveling alone .  Initially, when she brought up the idea of some sort of seminar,  I thought it was crazy. For me traveling alone is not a problem. But as I thought about it, I realized how many of my close friends were in the very same position. They want to travel, they’re in a financial and family position to travel, but they’re afraid of the unknown and their inexperience. These are reasonable, educated, creative women.  So I interviewed them as well as others, asking questions, researching etc., and realized there really is a need for this. So voila, this baby was born.

Q. Bootcamp sounds hard. Is it?

Here's one of Delana's promotions for her bootcamp

Ha, ha! That depends on your definition of hard. Hey, a week in the south of France can never be that hard!  I have traveled a lot and traveled alone, so for me it would not be difficult. But for some women who have either never traveled or have always been with another while traveling, something as simple as eating alone in a foreign country is something to be avoided at all costs. I can’t tell you how many people say they would prefer to eat a sandwich in their room. OMG! Eating is the best part of traveling, isn’t it? Getting on a bus or a train all by yourself and going to visit small villages can be equally difficult. One needs to get these things “under their belt” so to speak.  Once that happens, freedom begins.

Q. Is this travel experience only for women? Why?

We are marketing it to women because our research tells us there are so many women that find themselves alone by chance or by choice. It could be divorce or widowhood, perhaps they have a partner but he or she is working or not willing to travel, their children have left home….or any other number of reasons. But they do not want that to deter their dreams. We will welcome men if they would like to come. But they need to be over 6 feet tall, like to cook, and be well-mannered (oh whoops, that’s another list!)

Q. How is traveling with Travel Solo Bootcamp more advantageous that traveling alone?

We allow and expect you to do things and make your own experiences. However, as we say, “we’ve got your back”. Every recruit gets a cell phone when they arrive so they can contact us for any reason. The group meets once or twice each day for mini-seminars and support. These include coffee and croissants or aperitif, so you can see we’re not exactly your average “bootcamp”.

There are many organizations they cater to women traveling solo. But they involve group travel, or “adventure” travel, or they are simply too “nuts and granola” for many. Not everyone wants to climb a mountain or see the world by mini-bus. This allows women to dip their toes in the water before they do their swan dive.

Q. What are you most looking forward to during the bootcamps?

I love meeting the recruits; getting to know them, learning their story, and having the opportunity to “play” with them.  And this also allows me to look at my world through their eyes. As a new place, an exciting adventure, perhaps a new life. That just makes me happy.

So what are you waiting for? If you want to go to France, go!

Dreaming of France -- Nîmes

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

On Sunday, The Tour de France ended its stage in Nîmes, which is in the Languedoc-Roussillon department of France. To me though, it's in Provence. When my husband and I rode our bikes from Avignon to Aix en Provence, our first overnight stop was in Nîmes.
Since we rode our bicycles over the same roads that the riders from the Tour de France were riding, we were especially interested to watch.
The Tour stopped in front of the Roman coliseum, or amphitheater, that still remains in Nîmes. I don't know why we didn't get a good picture of it, but here is a post card we brought home.

We stayed in a hotel right across the street from the coliseum. It's called La Lisita and we loved looking out the window to see this amazing Roman structure. Here's a picture of me under an umbrella alongside the coliseum wall with our hotel in the background across the street. No comments on my fashion choices. Remember that it was a biking trip and we only had the clothes we could carry on our bikes.

And we went to see a number of Roman sights, including the Mason Carrée, which is a Roman temple. I think that's what this picture shows. The people in it are not us. They just got in the way of the shot.

The museums and the gardens included a lot of Roman ruins. If you get a chance, include it on your next trip.
Thanks for playing along today, and please visit each other's blogs so  you can get more snippets of France today.
I'm also joining in with Paris in July. Check it out for many good recommendations on French books, movies and lifestyle.

Escapes to France

This morning, on my drive in to work, I visited Notre Dame on Île de la Cité.

Not in person, of course, but I listened to Rick Steves' App and historic tour of Paris which starts at Notre Dame. This walking tour is meant to be taken while in Paris, but I didn't mind imagining the Rose window and the statue of St. Dennis with his head held in his hands. I'll listen to more on my way home from work.
I have the Rick Steves app on my iPhone, so I can go on it and choose stories about France (Paris) or France (Beyond Paris). you can also listen to the radio show online. Here's a link to Travel with Rick Steves.
I've listened to fun stories about "How to Eat Like a Parisian" that gave great tips on when the markets are open and told visitors how to order from la carte rather than asking for a menu.
One of the most awkward stories on the Rick Steves app is his interview with David Sedaris. Now, I love David Sedaris and his oddball experiences in France and in the United States. Rick Steves is maybe a bit too mainstream for Sedaris. But the David Sedaris interview.
interview was definitely fun. Here's a link to the
Steves even had a story called "Marrying into France" with tips on why and how to marry a Frenchman (or woman if you happen to be male). He talks about taking canal boat tours and eating cheese and Americans running gites. If you love France (surprise! I do) then you'll enjoy some of these stories.

Also, in hopes of giving you a trip to France, my novel I See London I See France is on sale for 99 cents on Kindle now through Sunday. I hope you'll give it a try.

When her husband of a dozen years walks out in a huff, Caroline Sommers walks out too - to Europe, with her kids after impulsively selling her minivan for travel money. Tired of being the perfect wife, she escapes to rediscover herself, and possibly rekindle the unrequited love of a Frenchman from her college days. While shepherding her kids from London to Scotland then Paris to Provence, she finds herself at a crossroads. Does she choose love, or lust, in the arms of a European man, or should she try again with the father of her children and the man she truly loved, once?

In addition to Caroline's travels with her children, much of the book focuses on Caroline's memories of working as an au pair in Aix en Provence and Corsica. And, yes, much of that was based on my own crush on a French doctor in my early 20s. He taught me to sail on the Mediterranean, and we sailed to hard-to-reach shore which turned out to be a nude beach.
Hope you'll consider buying, and reading, and reviewing, but no pressure. Here's the link to my novel on Amazon for the U.S.
And another link for my UK readers.
I'm linking to Paris in July, because everything I do this month is about France.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- The Hundred-Foot Journey

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

This is the original cover
for the book.

I've seen so much about this book and its incarnation as a movie, that I have to read it. I've had a copy of the book in the house before and my husband read it. He liked it. For some reason, I'm having trouble getting through it. It begins in Mumbai then moves to London, Lumiere (a small town in the French Alps) then Paris. Sally and Sim have both blogged a lot about the movie. The movie was filmed in Sally's French village and Sim has the trailers up.
Maybe I need to skip ahead to the France parts. My blog friends
Here's the intro of the book:

I, Hassan Haji, was born, the second of six children, above my grandfather's restaurant on the Napean Sea Road in what was then called West Bombay, two decades before the great city was renamed Mumbai. I suspect my destiny was written from the very start, for my first sensation of life was the smell of machli ka salan, a spicy fish curry, rising through the floorboards to the cot in my parents' room above the restaurant. To this day I can recall the sensation of those cot bars pressed up coldly against my toddler's face, my nose poked out as far as possible and searching the air for that aromatic packet of cardamom, fish heads, and palm oil, which, even at that young age, somehow suggested there were unfathomable riches to be discovered and savored in the free world beyond.

 I'm joining Teaser Tuesday this week too.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read  and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser.

Here's the cover for the
book now that it's about
to be a movie. 

And here's my teaser from page 93:

"Talent," she said through the muffled clutch of her napkin. "Talent that cannot be learned. That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along in a chef once a generation. Don't you understand? He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist. A great artist." 

Has anyone else read this book? I hope the book is as good as the trailers for the movie look.
I'm also joining in with Paris in July since this book is mostly set in France.

Dreaming of France -- Le Weekend

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

I'd wanted to see the movie Le Weekend for a while and finally got a chance on Saturday evening. Le Weekend is about a British couple, Nick and Meg, who return to Paris for their 30th wedding anniversary. Sounds perfectly fabulous, doesn't it? It could have been a celebratory movie with the couple exploring Paris and their love. But truly, that wouldn't give enough plot points, would it?

The movie starts out with them arriving at the hotel they stayed in 30 years before, and Meg hates the decor and the small size. She flags down a cab and has it take them to a fancy hotel with a balcony view of the Eiffel Tower. Well, movies are fantasies, so we can all go along with that. She smacks a credit card on the counter and we begin to understand that finances might be tight for the couple. He later admits to her that he has been given early retirement from the university where he teaches. She says she wants to quit teaching to paint or travel.
What they learn as they sightsee in Paris is that things aren't the same there -- not for the city or for the couple. In 30 years, they've come to love each other deeper and to detest each other in ways too.
The movie was beautiful and disturbing. I think the disturbing parts, for me, were when I saw glimpses of myself or my own relationship in it. Would my husband and I treat each other with such disregard and disrespect? Would we become just wallpaper?
But, of course, it's Paris and the very streets exude romance. So they go back and forth between loving and hating each other.
They run into an old friend, played by Jeff Goldblum, on the streets and go to a dinner party at his house. They don't know what to think of his new marriage and new baby on the way -- starting over in his 60s. But the friend's admiration of Nick reminds him that he once had aspirations too, that his life has meant something.
One very touching part of the movie was when Meg related a story about being out with a friend when her phone rang. She answered and hung up after a few minutes. Her friend asked who that was because Meg was laughing and happy. The friend asked was that Meg's secret lover. And she laughed and said, "That was my husband." I've known people who spoke so harshly to their spouses on the phone, as if they were children who they needed to instruct, so that part stayed with me.
Should you watch this movie? I told my 22-year-old daughter that she probably wouldn't enjoy it, but for anyone getting a bit older who has experienced the joys and disappointments of a long-term relationship, yes, watch it. Le Weekend was interesting and sad in parts, but in the end, redemptive, I think. After the movie ended, my husband and I went to Cafe Kerouac to listen to some music. We definitely did not want another Saturday night in, a chance to vegetate and grow set in our ways.

French Breakfast and Movie Review

I don't want to only post book and movie reviews during Paris in July, but I'm not in France so that does limit my experiences.
This morning, I brought France to myself by baking pain au chocolat and plain croissants for breakfast. I shared a pain au chocolat with my husband then spread homemade strawberry jam on my plain croissant, all while drinking a cafe au lait and watching the Tour de France as the bicyclists speed toward Nancy.
We have a connection to Nancy because a French boy from that town came to stay with us one summer. He brought us a delightful little book with pictures of the Villages de France.
This one is from the Lorraine region, where Nancy is also located.

But, back to food. At Trader Joe's in the freezer section, you can buy a 4-pack of chocolate croissants or an 8-pack of mini croissants each for $4.99. Set out the little frozen nuggets the night before. The next morning, they have thawed and risen. Beat an egg and spread across the top of the croissants before baking. They're very yummy and a good 2nd choice if you can't make it to France or French croissants.

Earlier this week, I watched a movie set in France. Even if I don't enjoy a movie set in France, I usually enjoy the scenery. This one -- not so much.

The Family, directed by Luc Besson and starring Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer, would be the perfect movie to watch if someone wanted to move to France, and you wanted to convince them not to. There is not one redeemable thing about France in the movie.
The premise is that an American mob family is relocated to Normandy in the witness protection program. The mob in the U.S. is still searching for them to kill the whole family. As a matter of fact, the movie begins with an assassin walking into an apartment and killing a family of four. Then he cuts off the finger of the father and sends it to the mob boss in prison. The mob boss compares it to the fingerprints of the dead guy to DeNiro's character. Nope. They killed the wrong family and continue the search. And that sets the tone for the hilarity and violence that continues throughout the movie.
I'm not big on violence, but what bothered me more than the violence was the way the French people were portrayed. The grocery store clerk and two older French women made fun of Pfeiffer's character as she searched for peanut butter in the grocery store. So she blew it up.
The worst French characters were the high school students. None of them were attractive and that offended me. They also seemed to be typically American -- bullies, jocks, nerds and sluts.
The French were shone in a bit of a better light when the family threw a barbecue, but according to the son, they were only coming to make fun of the Americans. So they served hamburgers and Cokes.
The movie ended pretty violently with the family coming out to relocate again.
Apparently this movie is based on the French movie Badfellas, which must be a play on Goodfellas. It's supposed to be funny, but don't choose it if  you're dreaming of France.

Dreaming of France -- Dèjá Pre-Vu

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it

This post may have a tenuous link to France, but it does deal with my feelings about France.
Yesterday afternoon, my daughter Grace and I made strawberry jam together. I was wondering whether people in other countries made homemade  jams or whether that was something that goes back to our pioneer roots here in the United States.

It was while I was stirring the long metal spoon in the thick strapberry mixture, watching it ripple and bubble in a rolling boil that I had a flash, a moment, where I suddenly saw myself and my daughter cooking in France and the idea filled me with joy. I felt sure the intuition took place in Arles, in that little restaurant that Van Gogh frequented and painted so beautifully. Then it was called The Café Terrace on The Place du Forum.

Here's a picture from a trip my husband and I took to Arles. The cafe now goes by the name of the artist who made it famous.

Maybe I had this vision because I've been reading lots of books about France. Maybe it was because my daughter stood next to me in her La Chatelaine uniform, still smelling like the coffee she helps serve in the French bistro. Or maybe I'm actually prescient and it will happen someday that Grace and I will be cooking at Café Van Gogh, even though we've never had any inclination to run a café in France.

As we continued the jam-making process, the steam rising up like so many dreams, I told Grace about my vision.

"Oh," she exlaimed. "I had a dream last night that we were running a restaurant."

"See!" I squealed. "Maybe it will come true."

"But, there was a werewolf too," she remembered.

"Well, maybe just part of it will come true," I said. 

How are you dreaming of France today?

I'm also linking with Paris in July today, and many days throughout the month.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- The Chocolate Kiss

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I enjoy a good chick lit book and when you throw in romance, chocolate and Paris, what's not to like. Here's the first paragraph of The Chocolate Kiss by Laura Florand.

It was a good day for princesses. The rain drove them indoors, an amused little rain with long cool fingers that heralded the winter to come and made people fear the drafts in their castles. And Magalie Chaudron, stirring chocolate in the tea shop's blue kitchen, felt smug to be tucked into the heart and soul of all this warmth, not wandering the wet streets searching for a home. 

I'm joining Teaser Tuesday this week too.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read  and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser
Here's the teaser from  page 96:

But she couldn't help noticing the treasure chest: a genuine jeweled chest several centuries old. He had probably bribed some collector with one of his pastries to lend him the piece, she thought irritably. The chest was tilted onto its side, and from it spilled his macarons, like something a dragon might die for: blood red filled with dark chocolate ganache, garnet flecked with genuine gold, one that was pure onyx, another a green so rich it could be emerald, another burnished amber.

Of course, this book also fits in with Paris in July, as will many of my posts this month. If you're passionate about France like I am, go ahead and check it out. It's spread across four main blogs this month.
If anyone doing Paris in July is interested in reading and reviewing either of my novels, I See London I See France or The Summer of France, please let me know and I'd be happy to get you an ebook copy free.

Hope you have some chocolate or some treasure in your day today.