A Bientôt!

Well, this is it!

I've spent this whole Monday running around doing some last-minute shopping and trying to see what items will *officially* make the journey with me to Croissant-and-Baguette Land! I've had to nix the strawberry Nesquick, but a bottle of French's American Mustard will accompany me.

In a few hours, I will head over to Miami International Airport with my 70-pound suitcase, replete carry-on baggage and humongous purse and board an airplane that will make a lengthy nine-hour beeline for Paris!

I still cannot believe this day has finally come...it just all seems so surreal at this point. I will be leaving one life that I have in one city and soon trade it for the other I have established in a different place.

I will miss my American friends and my family the most (and possibly Cuban cuisine). Last year, I was homesick for the entire month of October. I particularly felt the significant lack of family around Thanksgiving Day and, oddly enough, New Year's Day; Christmas wasn't too bad for me, really.

Yet now, in my 4-month absence from Dijon, I have experienced a different type of homesickness. I can't quite put my finger on it, either. I'm just happy to be returning to a place where I felt so at peace.

I just hope that I manage to get some proper shut eye (it's just a little past midnight for me) because I KNOW that I will not sleep on that plane. I never have been able to.

A très bientôt,

Barb the French Bean

Merci Beaucoup!

To all of you who read our blog: Thank you so much! It means so much to us...

Barb the French Bean

Pin-Pin le Clown

During the month of April, when I was in full romance with my first (and now ex) boyfriend, I got the habit of writing him letters and making little doodles to let me see his big toothy smile. One of those drawings resulted in Pin-Pin le Clown.

My boyfriend has his own term for idiots and that was "Pin-pin." He used it disparagingly whenever he spotted someone, whether it was on television or on the street, who looked like he lacked intelligence.

I'm sure that if he were asked what he thought about the French soccer team, he would respond: "Oh, those guys are just a bunch of pin-pins."

To me, the term sounded like a name for a clown. So, one day, I drew my first sketch. In this initial drawing, Pin-Pin did not have a large smile. Nor did he have a frown. He was simply expressionless. Boyfriend criticized that because he wanted Pin-Pin to not be sad. From that day, I began making a series of Pin-Pin le Clown drawings for him in which he never had a negative face. I presented my cartoons to my ex if he had had a bad day, and I loved seeing how his gloomy attitude changed in an instant.

Pin-Pin always has something cheerful to say, even when he was once drunk and surrounded by empty green bottles of beer and was caught by a police officer.

Barb the French Bean