Our trip to Istanbul culminated in Ali and Sandy's elegant wedding in the Ciragan Palace on the Bosphorus, where we celebrated until approximately 5am in a room of the palace that was converted into an after-hours club.
Christoph looks out the window as the last stage of the wedding commences.
The afternoon after the wedding was extremely difficult, my having consumed numerous strong drinks in the early hours of the morning. It was a struggle for E and I to make our hotel check-out time of 1:30 pm. We met Aladdin, also with a hangover, in the lobby, and decided that Burger King (nextdoor to the hotel) would be a perfect hangover cure. After a Whopper Jr., we decided that we needed a place to chill out for the following few hours before taking a taxi to the airport, and no place seemed to meet our needs better than a hooka-smoking cafe.
Thus, we voyaged to a residential area of Istanbul to a lovely cafe with poofy armchairs and sofas. As we struggled to order from the Turkish menu with only Turkish-speaking staff, I passed out the painkillers. Aladdin was too tired to even finish smoking his hookah. E and I were so exhausted that we sunk into our cushy chairs and stared out into the garden in silence.
An hour or two later, we said goodbye to both Aladdin and Ali and made our way to the airport, where we flew home to Paris. We then stayed up until 2:30 am admiring our newly purchased Turkish ceramics and doing our laundry in preparation for our voyage to Bernard's 60th birthday party.
The next morning, we left Paris. In France, there are several days during the year where highway travel is unadvisable, and those days are referred to as either "red" or "black" because of the large number of travellers and the ensuing traffic jams throughout the French highway system. Our departure day was "red," and what should have been a six or seven hour trip took more than nine hours. We arrived at our hotel, located in a one-street town with men playing petanque in the neighboring town square, just in time for us to take showers and head out to the party.
Bernard once ran an auberge, which was purchased several years ago by a man who lacks in taste what he has in wealth. The redecorated auberge had been referred to by my father in law as "Gatsby," but in reality, it closely resembled Elvis' Graceland, making me feel right at home. The pool was surrounded by tacky stone statuaries, the bar of the old auberge preserved and painted in bright yellow (just as Elvis' bar was in bright yellow and blue leather), the immense dining room that once held many guests transformed into a living room including game tables, christmas lights, and beaded screens.
The surprise party for Bernard was held outside in the garden, which neighbored the corn fields of the farm. A makeshift dance floor was set up in the center of the tables, and the locals danced the night away rock-and-roll style (a French obsession). Even my parents in law got down on the dance floor as we ate our way through more that four courses of fabulous food. We returned home around 4am.
A weekend with family would not have been complete without the typical interminable French lunch under the trees at Bernard's house, again consisting of too many courses and accompanied by at least four types of alcohol. Colette, Bernard's wife, dutily served us exquisite salad made of local tomatoes, and succulent pork cooked in the pressure cooker (the cocotte minute being another French obsession). The main course was accompanied by homemade red wine from the Farm, the dessert topped off with shots of extremely strong homemade plum liqueur.
E did not want to leave the countryside without visiting the farm itself, and so, although I was wearing a very Parisian ensemble including white pants and wooden-soled sandals, I joined him to walk over dried cow manure to pet the veal chained to the inside of the barn, admire the caged rabbits, see the tobacco hanging from the ceiling, and learn why the barrels of homemade wine must not be placed on the dirt floor.
We then left for the country house in Terrasson. At last, some time for quiet and relaxation ...
or maybe not...
because that evening, when we arrived at the house, absolutely exhausted from the events of the previous days, my mother in law mentioned that although she had not had the time to tell us, some cousins were arriving the next day with their one year old baby. I tried to open my mind to this possibility but already began secretly planning our early departure from the house.
The next day, cousin E arrived. Only having visited the house two times, she was not shy and declared that she would stay in her room. (Excuse me?) Her daughter, E2, baby and accessories in tow, was not shy either, as she filled the entire kitchen table and counter with baby accessories and dirty dishes, making the kitchen no longer operational. Baby T, with the same first name as a brand of potato chips, screamed every morning at 5 am, the screams echoing through the house. Of course, we were all expected to make baby T the center of our attention, my father in law coping with this imposition by stating openly that he did not care who had a baby there at the house because he was not going to watch it.
At the first dinner, cousin E rambled on about her failed marriage of 24 years. (Personally, I do not know how the man could stand one year with that hideous woman.) She then informed us that she had a more beautiful picture of our house than we had, and that it was hanging in her apartment. Apparently, when she tells people that she spends her vacations there she has made more than one person jealous. I am so happy that she shared that with us.
Safe haven, or hell?
It's tragic that we do not have a better picture.
Photo courtesy of someone in the N. family.
Hubby and I officially planned our escape for three days later. And although E and E2 informed us that they simply "did not have the means" to join us for a $25 dinner at a wonderful restaurant nearby, and that we should "have mercy," they were absent from the house on the day of our departure, having gone to Brive, the most boring and ugly town in a countryside littered with beautiful places, to purchase clothes. For six hours.
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