Jul 28 - Goodbye Valerie

For this entire year I am learning glassworking at a small school and studio. I have about 15 fellow students and our studio is a tiny, close-knit world within the vast panorama of Paris.

One of my closest friends there is graduating (she started her studies a couple months before me). Her name is Valerie and today was her last day.

Valerie started out by teasing me a lot about all things American. She raised hell with me for the first couple months - making me out to be a best buddy of Bush much to my embarrassment in a room full of French people. And she incessently corrected my grammatical mistakes (so many!!).

I was steaming mad with her some days. But for an American like me French friendships can sometimes be like crossing mountains on foot - it takes a long time, there are many ups and downs, and some days you ache all over..... but one day you arrive on the highest pass, the air is fresh, your legs are so much stronger than when you started out....and at that moment you realize that it's been a good walk.

So in the end we became friends. She stopped teasing me one day after a fellow Portuguese student got after her about it, and since then I got to know her as the clever, jovial and always saucy lass that she is. Never a dull moment with Valerie.

It took a lot to get to know her but I'm glad I did.

We will all miss you, Valerie. You've been entertaining. It's been fun. You will always be the most duveteux of us all.