As tomorrow was Xmas Day and we were leaving for New York via London the next day, today was the day for visiting our friends, Louise and Stephane (and Stephane's daughter Emmeline).
Louise's sister Yvonne and I have been friends since we were five (that's a long time!) and Louise I remember, apart from being Yvonne's younger sister, was an accomplished pianist and later a French teacher (which I always wanted to be and have done on occasions when schools were desperate!) Over the years Yvonne has kept me informed of Louise's travels and recently her marriage to Stephane, with whom she lives in St Remy Les Chevreuse, on the outskirts of Paris.
Christmas Eve in France is traditionally when families get together in the evening to have dinner, so I was worried about being a pain, imposing our family on them for the day. However, it was not a problem, and we successfully ate and drank our way through lots of yummy French cuisine from noon until around 5pm. We found lots to talk about inbetween, sharing common interests, and Chelsea enjoyed meeting Emmeline, who is around her age and speaks English with a Kiwi accent (more points!)
Their house has a wonderful view out over the village, and has more land than you would expect to find within an hour and a half of the city. It also gets very hot in summer, so of course we must return to experience that.
The RER train trip was easy both ways, especially with local knowledge, so we knew where to change trains and also which trains to get the next day, Xmas Day, for our excursion to the Eiffel Tower.
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