Two French guys

Buona sera!

I have never, ever, in my entire life, taken my computer to bed.

Tonight is obviously special.

Antoine, my resident French guy, whom I have yet to explain to you so I will in this post...has his best friend IN the world, Bruno, visiting us from France, for the next 5 days. They have just arrived from the airport. Bruno brought me Euro sunglasses, 3 lbs of Euro coffee, and lots of Euro chocolate (to share with Antoine, of course). I like him! 

They are busy reconnecting, with some Tecate beer in the living room which is their quarters, speaking in French about girls and other equally significant topics for sure...so to be the gracious hostess that I am, I have relegated myself to my bedroom. I am not sleepy, so my MacBook and I thought we'd get together and, blog.

About Antoine.

For ease of explanation, let's just say we were introduced through a mutual contact (it was actually in truth, an Italian soccer player but see, already that complicates the explanation). In December 2006 he wrote to me from Paris, asking if he could stay with me in January (2007) when he had a job interview, in the city where I live. My thoughts went something like the following. January is usually pretty boring. I had good lucrative work scheduled, so yeah, I could afford to host someone from PARIS...I had just returned from Italy where new friends had regally rolled out the red carpet for me. I love the way the Europeans I know live life - coffee time and meals are sacred, soccer is a religion, and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of things they enjoy taste better, feel better, sound better, look better, and often smell better than they do here.  I liked the idea of getting to know France, esp Paris, better through him. He sounded like a sweetheart in his emails and, he was cute. OK, I can do this.

How long do you need to stay, I asked? How long can I stay, Antoine responded. Let's try 2 weeks, I suggested, and we'll see. 

He is still here. Clearly my small home is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

I like to explain our relationship by saying that we are not roommates because we don't share a room, but we are home-mates because we do in fact share a home. As someone who hates traditional roommates, re: co-habitating with a French guy - I love it. Who knew (I would)? I certainly did not. He loves soccer and now baseball, and so do I. He loves my cooking, and so do I. He loves my friends and family, and my favorite weiner dog Frankie, and so do I. He loves being European, and so do I. He makes me laugh, he tolerates me at my worst, he invites his friends to visit us from France (this topic is worthy of a whole separate post, I promise), he showed me around Paris last spring then handed over the keys to his family's apartment in the French Alpes where I spent a week, his parents have invited me to visit any time at their chateau b&b near Bordeaux (for which I will provide a link in the future), and when I am away on a trip, he usually vacuums before I come home. He even admires some of my favorite Italian football players - with the exception of Pippo Inzaghi -  and is my mentor for the French league (sidebar: our Paris team is not doing well). 

So you see, both of our lives are better now, for having had this experience. I promise everyone, including him, that except on those rare occasions when I want to wring his neck, I...adore him. He will not stay forever, we both know that. But for this time, which will probably end soon, my life has changed in profound ways. I love that I now know how generous I can be, and how much and how wide my heart can open.

Now you know what my reference 'resident French guy' means. Which brings me back to my post title "two French guys" - I look forward to some interestingly fun time with Antoine and Bruno this week, hopefully starting with some of that new Euro coffee together in the morning.

They have quieted down some in the other room. We'll see how the week fares. The weather is supposed to be sunny and beautiful.

I think I personally might just find a spot to send my next post, somewhere in the sunshine...wearing my new Euro sunglasses.

It's 11pm - buona notte!