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.
