Today, a rendez-vous with friends in Cassis and Aix-en-Provence. Meet sweet Noelle in today's story. Photo by Barbara Barrielle
TODAY'S WORD: amitié
: friendship
EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
Ce qui rend les amitiés indissolubles et double leur charme, est un sentiment qui manque à l’amour, la certitude. What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude. -Balzac
ECOUTEZ – Hear Jean-Marc pronounce the example sentence in French: Download Amitié
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A DAY IN A FRENCH LIFE
Yesterday, I headed to Cassis to meet with my oldest friends in France–(oldest in années d'amitié). We decided to rendez-vous in Cassis, where Corey and her husband, Yann, have renovated–avec une telle élégance!–an apartment overlooking the seaport–and all those charming wooden fishing boats, les pointus.
I needed to pick up our friend Barbara (who you met here), who was arriving from Aix, so I programed google maps to take me to the train station in Cassis. Halfway there I held tight to the wheel as a woman with an accent worse than mine (she pronounced Cassis KAY-SIS) led me into a dark, snaking canyon. Did you know there was such a place behind KAY-SIS??
Trop tard! It was too late to turn around now. As the road got worse and worse, with more pot holes, less tarmac and less space, I shook off any spookiness by focusing on the voisinage.
Look at all these houses! Was one for sale? And this close to good ol' Kay-sis! Maybe we could get a deal on one of these! I began to see train tracks and realized my GPS guide, while she needed to improve her accent, knew a good short cut to la gare! And I thanked Mademoiselle Kay-sis for getting me there in time to pick up Barbara and Noelle (Barbara's adorable Jack Russell), and for getting us down to the port in time to have lunch with Corey….
It's turning out to be a friendship kind of week. Today Jean-Marc drove us to Aix-en-Provence to have lunch with Kirk and Anne. We had misjudged our timing and, after making two wine deliveries, we arrived 15 minutes early at our hosts!
"Let's walk around the block!" I said to Jean-Marc, but he saw me lying through my chattering teeth. I could not spend one more minute outside in the cold couloirs of the centre ville. My scalp was frozen!
We shut our eyes to etiquette and rang the bell! Kirk was barefoot when he opened the door (a telltale sign we were en avance). But the whoosh of warm air that escaped from the apartment, enveloping us, was worth a thousand faux pas!
Stepping inside, the warmth was layered with spicy aromas coming from the kitchen, where Anne was making la soupe aux lentilles. Surrounded by so many layers of heat, we were now warmed from scalp to feet!
Stories you may have missed…
Anne and Kirk, Corey and Yann come to our place for lunch, in the story Sobriety Does Not Equal Foolproof Entertaining!
FRENCH VOCABULARY
Increase your vocabulary. More tools here.
une année = year
une amitié = friendship
avec une telle = with such
le pointu = traditional Provencal wooden fishing boat
trop tard = too late
le voisinage = neighborhood, vicinity
la gare = train station
en avance = early
le couloir = corridor
faux-pas = etiquette mistake
la soupe aux lentilles = lentil soup
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Love the picture of Noelle along the harbor! Can’t wait to get a bottle of wine when it arrives in Southern California!
Dear, dear Kristi and Jean-Marc, What I know about wine is next to nothing…..BUT I have to say, the color of the wine in the bottles that Jean-Marc is holding is GORGEOUS, especially in the picture where he is outside…..lovely! Eileen
The joys of friendship! To have a good friend, you must be a good friend and you and J-M so obviously are!
Keep making those lovely memories!
Delightful post, this! And it brims with the quality that Balzac declared essential to what makes friendship unbreakable — so clear in the smiles of you and your soul-sisters, Kristi, and of J-M sharing the first rosé with friends. I am enchanted by all of it, and not least by la petite Noelle!
When I saw the first photo, I thought, “that looks like Cassis!” (I haven’t been there since 1979, but the main change is perhaps some of the paving).
What a beautiful place, and one where I had good friends.
are you aware that you end every almost sentence with an exclamation point? which seems to lead to all the people leaving comments thinking they must do the same.
tweens do this. maybe you need to find the punch in the content and syntax and leave out the punctuation.
Hi Kristi,
Look at all those smiling faces and that cute little dog! So glad you had time to catch up with friends. I agree with the other Eileen above….the color of the Rosé is beautiful! I bet it is tasty too!
For “old friends,” I usually say “amis de longue date …”
— Ronald
Hello
I am Kim Dement’s friend. We are wondering where to buy your wine in Portland? Love your writing!
Thanks
Share
And you start every sentence without capitalizing the word. What is your problem?
There is nothing like visiting with old friends. What a lovely post. Going to Houston mid February Will your wine be there by then? And finding a new neighborhood to check out!
Our dear Kristi,
What a wonderful post!
Thanks to you (and!because of you!) we have the pleasure of being wrapped in the warmth of
friendship and (absolutely!)shared joie de vivre!
We never fail to find hugs after reading your words!
Thank you!
Love
Natalia XO
PS Mademoiselle Noelle is a cutie!
Sometimes Ms GPS does not bring you to the right place, but most of the time …yes. When we were inFrance a few weeks ago, Ms GPS put us on some very tiny roads – one car width. Then on another two occasions she took us a long about way to get to our destination and a much,much shorter route home. Go figure!
Yes, your Rose looks wonderful and I am sure that tastes terrific. Wish you were selling it inConnecticut. Don’t forget to save some for yourselves and not sell it all.
How is the house buying going?
Happy New Years.
Kathleen
Bravo, Barbara! (exclamation point is deliberate…)
I’m anxious to find out where in Southern California we will be able to buy your Mas des Brun rose wine!! Please tell us!!
Les trois amies – belles et blondes. Good for you. Love it when good friends pick up immediately where they left off
What a wonderful day it was. Made more beautiful sharing it with you and Barbara xx
What a beautiful week of friendship, Kristi! Good friends truly are invaluable and it’s such a pleasure to see those bright smiles! I love the colour of the wine and I’m sure your friends were very grateful to receive such a wonderful gift.
The people who live in Cassis say Cassice and the Parisiens say cassee and the Parisiens pronounce anything anyway they please, I have found. But for example, Gigondas is with dass on the end and we know those who say Gigondah—wrong. Those who live in the place and were born there know how to say their own town!!! But alas, not a GPS broad, haha.
I am curious about the phrase Mas des Brun. It seems to me that it should be Mas de Brun or Mas des Bruns. Please explain.
bareFOOT?? If you’d come 10 minutes earlier you would have learned the true meaning of BARE!
I hope you two feel welcome any time even if we’re only mostly dressed.