4 years!

Today is Thanksgiving, and it's also the 4-year anniversary of when Lionel and I met.  Four years ago I was a young grad student doing the first year of her Masters program in France.  I was studying at the Universite Francois Rabelais in Tours and my friends and I decided to come up to Paris for Thanksgiving weekend.  We had a great weekend in Paris, visiting some sites, doing some shopping, eating out, and just enjoying the city.  One of the girls in the program had studied in Paris as an undergrad and so on Saturday night she wanted to take us to a bar she used to go to called La Guillotine/Le caveau des oubliettes.  So we all decided to go out for the night.  We were enjoying ourselves, drinking and having fun, when one of my friends turned to me and said there was a guy in the corner who kept checking me out.  I turned to look and saw a good looking guy having fun with his friends.  I told my friend that I thought he was pretty attractive and so my group of friends decided that I absolutely had to talk to this guy.  So, when he walked by to go to the bar and get a drink, my friend grabbed his ass to get his attention and then told him he needed to sit next to me and talk to me.  He did and we hit it off and spent the rest of the night chatting (it was hard because my French was absolutely horrible at the time so we had to do a mix of English and French...now we speak almost exclusively in French).  When the bar closed (at 4am) he and his friends tried to convince us to go to a club with them, but we were all too tired so we decided to just head back to the hotel.  Lionel and I exchanged contact info and that was that.

I went back to Tours the next day freaking out that I would never hear from him again.  We had hit it off so well and I really wanted to see him again.  After an excrutiating week with no news, I finally got a super cute email on Friday.  He said he could come down and visit me the following weekend if I was ok with it (he even offered to get himself a hotel room...how sweet!).  I immediately replied and he came down the next weekend, and that's when I realized this was for real.  I was so excited to see him and the weekend went so well that we were hooked, and the rest is history.....

So, to celebrate four years together, here are a few photos of us:

our first New Years Eve together

 

at one of my favorite bars in Tours

 

at a bar in my hometown in the US

 

on our honeymoon in Prague

 

 in Blaye, visiting the citadel in April

 

visiting St. Emilion

 

at the Dune du Pyla

As for Thanksgiving, it may be today, but I'm celebrating tomorrow.  I have some friends coming over for Thanksgiving tomorrow night, and I'm making a huge meal.  It should be fun!  I'll write about how it went this weekend, but Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans!