water town

As a Seattle native, I can commiserate with my fellow northwesterners when we face the miserable drizzle-pizzle-rain-wind-sleet-and-greyness that we call July and August. Unless of course the weather gods blow away the clouds and for some unexplicable reason we have 8 solid weeks of gigantic blue skies, a bright burning sun, stolen swims, outdoor happy hours. Or lawn-mowing, pressure washing, deck-staining and weeding…if you happen to be a Van Kempen…

Allegedly in the great northwest, this summer has been one of multi-colored sunsets, barbequing, hula-hooping and popsicle eating. 

Not so across the pond. 

Over here in grey, I mean, gay Paris, we are experiencing the rizzle-mizzle-drizzle, grey skies and scarf-wearing weather. The tourists are roaming around the Notre Dame with those plastic “we are about to go on ‘Splash Mountain’” rain capes, and I am splashing through puddles in rain-boots and sundresses because I already packed away all of my Fall/Winter clothing…it is July after all. 

So to escape the dreary dripping of the city of lights JD and I decided to escape to Deauville (ironically translating to ‘water-town’ if you see where I’m going with this). Deauville is the closest beach to Paris, complete with two casinos, horse-races, lots of fresh seafood, and a lovely sandy beach with a boardwalk. It is roughly equivalent to the Oregon Coast, think Cannon Beach minus the salt-water-taffy, and add a few bottles of chilled white wine and a Louis Vuitton.

Sadly, Deauville lived up to its name and though it did not rain every single day, all day long, (just once, with no breaks from 1pm until long after bed time) there were no baking bodies lying on the beach, no reading on the beach, or sitting in the sun at a café on the boardwalk enjoying your 5euro diet coke…

Instead we had an immensely relaxing week going jogging, or rather slogging through the wind, walking the length of the boardwalk and ducking under cover when it started dumping rain, catching up on important current events, Elle, Vogue, Grazia, Cosmo, Marie Claire, learning how to use Spotify, eating moules frites, staring at the magnificent view, watching the fireworks for the 14th of July…

And spending an inordinate amount of time on the balcony playing that intensely competitive card-game: Speed.