Tonight was a very special evening: a reunion of three of the five members of my first class at the IS language school in Aix. Susanne and her boyfriend Rico have still been in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue this past week, and they drove over to join us for dinner. And Lydia and her boyfriend Earl came all the way from Basel, Switzerland to spend a long weekend with us. At one point it seemed like a fourth classmate, Urs, would also be able to join us. Today was the last day of his four-week program in Aix, and he had planned to stay on a few days and drive over this evening. But his two little boys wanted their papa back in Switzerland as quickly as possible, and of course the rest of us undertstood.
Our class reunion in the Luberon: Susanne, Kathy and Lydia
Everyone arrived about 5 pm. Lydia and Earl had a long drive due to heavy traffic. The weather was perfect, and of course they all loved the house.
“It’s something out of a magazine,” Susanne said.
“Now I need to go home and work hard, so I can one day have a house like this,” said Rico. He and Susanne are both accountants with KPMG in Freiburg, Germany.
Lydia is Greek and despite his very British sounding name, her boyfriend Earl is also German. But now they live in Basel, Switzerland, though during the week he lives in Zurich. They met in college, while studying for a year in Rome. I just love it: Greek woman meets German man in Italy. And now they live in Switzerland. This is the new Europe.
Everyone spoke very good English. I'll admit that despite our recent French classes, Lydia, Susanne and I didn’t speak much French. (Did we speak any French??) Charley said when our family was all away from the table, the rest of the group shifted to German. I’m so envious of their abilities to speak multiple languages, and for Susanne and Lydia to be working now on learning yet another language. Maybe in a few years I will have somewhat passable French. I have much higher hopes for Kelly.
Our men at dinner: Rico, Earl and Charley
Is this chef allowed to say this? We had a very good meal! We began with aperitifs, offering pastis and my favorite Rin Quin Quin, served with some snacks. We started with local melon with ham and then some salad. For our main course we had a menu selected by Kelly—pork tenderloin marinated in pineapple juice, soy, and ginger (plus some other additions), barley, and coco plat beans. Then a cheese course, and finally dessert—a peach tart brought by Susanne. We served rose wine from the local cave. We ate outside on the terrace, looking up at Bonnieux. Afterwards Kelly persuaded the two women to play petanque with her on the lawn.
Kelly enjoys petanque with Lydia and Susanne
I loved reuniting with my two young women classmates. We talked about going back to the French school in Aix again next year, hopefully together at the same time. I liked both of their boyfriends, and we all enjoyed being with this younger group. They were all in their late 20’s or early 30’s. I thought they were great role models for Kelly, interesting career-minded people who conversed easily. And as always I loved the international interaction. Tonight wouldn’t happen to us at home.
