At the end of July we had our first guests in the new apartment. Long time family friend, Kyle, and his beau Alex came for a short visit on their European vacation to Milan, Rome, Venice, Barcelona and more!

For two lovely days we shared great meals and plenty of conversation . . . in English! While most of our readers may not understand what a pleasure that is since all their conversations are in English, there are a few out there who will appreciate how nice it is to be fully able to express yourself. Most of our daily conversations with others are short hellos, stunted conversations where we do not understand half of what is said and use responses similar to those of a small child. To discuss politics, weather, travel, world news, and more with a language we speak fluently is a rare gift and one we appreciate immensely.

I had been working on a few new recipes and had the opportunity to use our guests as guinea pigs for Vietnamese Noodle Salads, Strawberry Bisque and more. Thankfully, they loved everything! These recipes are now posted to my new recipe blog along with a few others.

Kyle and Alex were awesome guests, and thankfully not intimidated by the small apartment, tiny kitchen, screen-less windows, lack of air-conditioning, 10 liter hot water tank nor the beds made up of covered foam folding-mattresses on tile floors. Though not quite camping, it was awfully close!

The first evening they were here we had a gentleman ask to park his car in front of our gate. There is a no parking sign posted, but this is often disregarded by folks desperate for parking during the high-season. We do not have a car so normally having someone disregard the no parking sign isn’t a problem, but the boys had a rental car with them so a request to block them in was truly appreciated. He told us he would be only a few minutes, thanked us again, then removed an accordion from the trunk of his car and hurried off.

The following evening, we were yet again sitting down to dinner and the gentleman returned and asked to park his car in front of the gate again, we told him it was no problem. However before hurrying off, he stopped by the gate and played several songs for us on his accordion. Though not a single one of us thought to grab a photo of this personal concert, but we enjoyed ourselves greatly! We laughed about it while we finished dinner, but only after our one-man concert had left! It was a lovely dinner for their last night in Argeles! We have not seen our accordion player since that evening so the timing was perfect and we are so please to have the opportunity to share that mini-adventure in the company of friends.

The boys enjoyed themselves on the beach and joined us for morning dog walks and our traditional morning coffee and croissant (though the boys are not coffee drinkers and opted for tea and juice). We took the 1€ bus to Collioure and had a great time wandering through the streets of this beautiful city as well as visiting the palace that sits right on the edge of the bay and the old lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

After a relaxing couple of days in Argeles, they were off to bigger adventures. We were very pleased that they took time out of their vacation to come and visit. We followed the rest of their adventures via Facebook. It seems they were having a fantastic time everywhere they went. We hope that they return soon to the EU and come to visit us again when they do!