Lots of Laughing

In my hurry to put up photos, I’ve forgotten to tell you about some
laugh-out-loud moments from our travels in France so far. Here are
two examples, both of which include my mom in some way…

The Incident of the Missing Umbrella
On our last day in Chinon, we chose to have lunch in an outdoor cafe as
the weather was particularly nice. After settling ourselves down in the
shade, the waitress came to take our order. Mom was adjusting the
position of her chair and suddenly tilted violently to the left,
toppling into me and scaring that poor French woman to death. We all
cracked up, including a British man at the next table who almost fell
off his own chair from laughing so hard. After we calmed down, the
waitress said it would be “le souvenir du jour,” or the memory of the
day. She was certainly right. The picture below is Mom’s chair going
down the umbrella hole.

The Incident of the Stolen Coaster (Sank Roo Doe Noo)
Harry’s New York Bar is something of a Paris institution. It was
founded in the mid-19th century but the interior was transported from
Manhattan in 1911. It’s got pennants from all sorts of major US
universities hanging on the walls and a very “good old boy” sort of
interior. Regulars used to include Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott
Fitzgerald. A composer named George Gershwin composed “An American in
Paris” on the piano in the piano bar downstairs. So it was clearly
something we had to visit. Mom liked it so much that she went to steal
the coaster, thinking no one would notice. In fact, the waiter must
have been very observant. On his next pass by the table, he brought
with him: 2 matchbooks, a business card, and 2 postcards all with the
logo etc. of the bar. This made us laugh so hard that the other people
in the bar (many of them anglophones) looked at us funny. But we did
appreciate the astute waiter. However on his next pass by, on his way
to another table, he set down five (count ’em, FIVE) coasters for my
mom to add to her collection. He also tried to give her the credit card
machine….

Mom with her assorted Harry’s Bar accessories.

I’m sure there will be more stories to tell as our time here continues.
I hope these make you laugh at least half as much as we did.

Later,
Emily