story: bisous

Bisous=Kisses

Somewhere between Saint-Marcan and La Poultiere, France, we stayed at this bed and breakfast.

Our first night there we took a 20 minute walk up the road to this little place to eat some dinner.

This is what we ate: galettes (buckwheat crepes). I didn't know l'oeuf (egg), would come in such a raw form (it was barely barely cooked). You should be proud of me, though, for I was able to chew and swallow everything; the mushrooms made it bearable. But eggs don't have much to do with kisses, eh? So I'll continue with the story that came before our meal.

We'd ordered our galettes and were just sitting there, sipping on water and talking about the shells we'd found at St. Malo. While we sat round the table outside the bistrot, a girl ran up to the little playground facing us. I exchanged glances with a her. We also shared a few smiles. Her mom was across the street, likely getting the littlest out of the car. The girl ran back to her mom and returned with her toddler sister in tow. She kept looking over and smiling at us. She sat her sister on some sort of bouncy contraption. Then she picked up her sister and started toward us. She was probably five or six and she was holding her almost two year old sister. I thought she'd fall over at any moment for a lack of balance. She walked teeteringly towards our table. I thought she was going to reposition holding her sister by holding onto the side of our table. I thought wrongly. She offered up her cheek to me. I was surprised, for she hadn't even said a word. She simply turned her cheek to face me. So I clumsily gave her a little peck as she also puckered up her lips. Then she turned to make both sides even in the French bisous fashion. I chuckled and smiled and was even more surprised as she went on to offer both Natalya and Joshua kisses too. We were all chuckling and were so touched. This girl was so vivacious. Her mom must have seen what her daughter had done because she yelled at her to leave us alone. Too bad. I would have loved to see if she would have continued around the table to my mom, dad, and Andrew.

I sneaked a picture of her. It's not the best because I didn't want to be too voyeuristic. I pretended to be taking one of my beloved brother.

Here she is: the girl who gave us kisses and made us all smile.