Versailles with the Perez Family

When my parents, Ron and Marge Miller, traveled throughout Europe, they met a most charming couple, Robert and Ghislaine Perez from Versailles, France. My parents lived upstairs from the Perez's and for the time that they were here they became good friends. Up until mom passed away, they have exchanged letters for the past 20 years and my father asked if we would please look them up while we were here.

We finally made contact (not an easy task when pay phones don't take money and our apartment phone won't let us call out of the local area) and we arranged to meet them at their home in Versailles today. What a charming family they are and we had a most delightful time as they hosted us and taught us the history of Versailles.

It turns out that both Madame and Monsieur Perez are our ages. They have one beautiful daughter, Cecile, who is Kimber's age. We walked into their home and instantly became friends for life.

They treated us as though they had known us forever and with Ghislaine the only one speaking English it made for a very interesting conversation betweem the 4 of us. Even though Robert didn' t speak any English, we communicated somehow through pointing , translating and just laughing, the universal language.

They took us to a local restaurant, the Buffalo Grill, hoping that we would find something to eat that pleased us. We had a delicious fish and rice dish, and Robert had steak (I don't think it was buffalo, but it might have been). We sat and talked about Robert's career as a French policeman (he retired at 50 from the force but now works for a private medical company). He even provided protection for Princess Diana when she was in France once (see photo, it appeared in a magazine in Spain that his friend saw, he didn't even know he had made the magazine!). He is the one in the green jacket and he told us he looks so big because he had double guns under his coat. He gave us tips on how to be careful while traveling and his eyes never once were still as he always was searching the crowds, scanning the streets and looking for suspicious actions!

While we were at lunch a family at another table overheard our conversation about us being from Arizona. They were French and the man was dressed like Wyatt Earp. He got so excited to meet real Arizonan's that he got up, showed us his vest and boots and then asked us to wait while he went and got his hat! He ran to his car (where was his horse I wonder), got his hat on and his 2 guns in holsters and came running back to the table where we were seated!

By this time Jim and I are both chuckling and Robert, being the former policeman, is trying to be cordial while probably wondering what the heck this guy is doing. Wyatt Earp comes up to us, so proud of his outfit, and proceeds to pull out one of his guns, points it in the air and SHOOTS IT! Jim and I could not believe what had just happened, Ghislaine is politely trying to get us on our way and Robert is talking in French. Of course the gun shot blanks, but we were pretty shocked by the whole thing. Poor Ghislaine was embarrased that this happened, but we just laughed it off not wanting them to feel badly. In retrospect, the whole incident was pretty funny. Imagine meeting a Wyatt Earp "wannabe" in Versailles, France. What is this world coming to anyway?

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Versailles that tourists don't see and returned to their home for an exchange of addresses. We left feeling like we had met a real French family, in a real French home and in a real French town. We met a friend of theirs too and Jim got so many double cheek kisses that I think it started going to his head! Girls, can you see your father kissing strange women on their cheeks? It was quite charming and he seemed to catch the hang of it right away!!!!

It was such a nice day and I only wish we could have met them sooner so that we could have more days with them while we are here.

We headed back to Paris on the train, met an LDS couple from Californina and the train ride just zipped by as I talked my head off to someone who understood what I was saying!

History lesson for today: The custom of clinking glasses together and saying Cheers or Sante, originated with a meeting of a French King and an English King. The 2 enemies met and with their tin mugs they clinked their glasses together hard enough for the liquid inside to slosh out into the other's mug. With the liquid transferring between mugs, if poison was in there it would now be shared by the other and both would die! Print this post