The Nouveaux Weds: Ou est Charlie (and Ashley)?

As our next door neighbor so adoringly pointed out, Matt looks like the character Charlie from the series, Ou est Charlie?. Here in America, Charlie goes by a different name: Waldo.

So where has Matt been, and why have we not been diligently blogging away like our days of yore? It is quite standard in France to "take August off." People run to the south, flock to the beach, and simply don't work in August (our laundromat was even closed. Who knew that machines needed a one-month holiday?). It is against our nature as Americans to do just this. A month of vacation and relaxation seems preposterous, and in the case of Charlie and Ashley, the exact opposite of how we have been spending our first August in France. You know it is in my nature to go against the grain (that is not being served in out patisserie because it is closed!), and so we have booked ourselves solid.

We started off August with a delightful visit from my parents combined with the beginning of my internship at Lagadere. Throw in teaching English, babysits, house-sitting, cat-sitting, editing online newsletters, a weekend jaunt with a bootcamp friend and compiling the September bulletin for AWG, and you have just about figured out why I have been a little hard to spot. If I could do it over, I would do it just the same. I simply need to be this busy, and similarly to Waldo, it works best for me when I am all over the place.

Is it me as a person, or simply the American way? Whatever the answer I know that the French would be horrified. Which is perhaps another reason why I am going to do my darnedest to keep running in circles. And although Waldo can jump from page to page and continent to continent, I can not. So if feeling closer to home means keeping every minute booked, well then my Lilly planner is going get some solid usage.

Some pics from being out and about: