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France,
Italy and Switzerland, August 2002
Foreword
This
text is written for E-ling and Cairo, the yet to be conceived children
of Casey Bowden and Emily Su. What follows are the details of
Casey's trip to Paris in August of 2002 following Emily's graduation
from Le Cordon Bleu and our subsequent mini tour of France, Italy and
Switzerland. During the trip we took bullet style notes that I am
now expounding upon but we did not take a single photograph. When
we first toured Europe together, in the winter of 1998, we took many
photos but took no notes. Maybe next time we will do a little bit
of one and a little bit of two.
Currently
it is early October 2002 and late at night on the San Francisco Bay.
I am inspecting dredging of the Port of Oakland from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am,
working three days followed by three days off and so on. As an
inspector I do very, very, very little work. Most of my time is
spent in a on the crane barge, down below the water line, at a desk in a
dirty and dusty room, where the story unfolds...
Day
-2
Truth
be told, I was not totally honest, for I was not the only one to visit
your mother on this trip. On Sunday, the 11th of August her
parents and grandmother arrived and the following day her Uncle Donald
and Aunt Jenny showed up. They all are staying in a rented
apartment, about a 10-minute walk from Emily's place at 77 Rue St.
Martin. In addition to Donald and Jenny arriving on the 12th, your
mother also took her cuisine final. After talking on the phone she
was very excited and said that everything went perfectly. The next
day Emily took her pastry final and attended a boat party thrown by the
school.
Day
-1
On
Wednesday, the 14th of August, the graduation ceremony took place and
your mother received her 'Grand Diplome', which means that she had
completed the beginner, intermediate and superior courses in both
cuisine and pastry. But that is not all, off all of the students
in her class, your mother ranked 2nd and of the three plates mentioned,
two were done by your mother! It comes down to this, each of the ~
thirty students prepared three identical plates, each with three
different components. This means the judges tried ninety unique
entrees, selected three as superior and two were your mom's! Two
out of ninety, wow! To top if all off, your mom wore a fantastic
black Chinese dress with a fan prop; even the local prostitutes told her
that she looked sexy and cute.
Day
0
Of
course during the graduation I was hard at work in San Francisco; I had
been taking so much time off to visit your mother that my vacation and
comp time were running low. We decided that I would not fly over
until after the graduation so I left on Thursday, August 15th from San
Francisco at 6:00 pm. The same day your mother took everyone on a
picnic lunch at the Jardin des Tulleries and Donald and Jenny visited
the Museé d'Orsay. My parents were so relaxed on this trip you
wouldn't believe. Since they had already visited the touristy
spots, all my mom wanted to do was sit under the trees in the garden and
sip her cafe. She kept saying, "Oh, this is so COMFORTABLE!
What a nice breeze!" I also think that the waiter was really
impressed that I spoke French, which in turn impressed my parents that I
actually spoke French and a good time was had by all, augmented by the
fact that my dad tipped the waiter really well upon leaving.
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