The Red Carpet Eyeball

This is a good way to start off my February post. I started blogging 2005 and since then I have already met some bloggers that I became good friends with. Others remain a virtual friends and I am glad that they became a part of my activities on a daily basis. Sometimes we receive comments from spam’s, anonymous or just from a simple lurkers. I am sure you will agree that we always have visitors that doesn’t comment but they always visit us and I would say even non-bloggers. I remember when I blog about the panorama of my beloved province and I received a comment under the name of Joanne who lives in California. Since then, she often visits my site and I am flattered even though I may not be a good writer. Thru my blog she also pays visit among other links I have. It was really a good start of a nice encounter. From then on, we started exchanging emails and chat from time to time whenever we can. Since we have some things in common, a French husband, the same province, same age but not the same height. You know, chatting with her seems I have found my long lost friend from high school. I then encouraged her to blog and good thing she was open about the idea. Now, you can check the late blogger in her. Thus, the next step after that online chatting we plan of meeting up when they visit France. Their European tour was supposed to be October last year but because of some changes they’ve push through last week of January this year. Finally, this year the moment of truth drew closer. The long-term EB program took place last Thursday. Joanne told me that they will roughly stay 24 hours at St. Raphael since her in-laws has a flat there. instead of going to a hotel room. I just hope I didn’t create inconveniences to them coming from Switzerland going all the way to the South of France just because of an EB. I wanted to invite them over my place but I didn’t want to bother them since traveling from US to Europe is pretty tiring.

A stroke of luck, I was planning to visit Makis at her place which is 200 kms (1 ½ hour drive) from Marseilles. I emailed Joanne if it’s okay if I tag Makis along with me and she was twice excited to meet up with us. A number of good reasons to get thrilled : meeting up with Joanne and Xavier and driving going to Makis’s place as it will be my first time to drive that far ALONE without the kids ! And so driving going to Makis’s went just fine although the road was long and driving alone sometimes sucks. It was also a bit scary because there were a lot of big trucks on the highway but it was not a hindrance at all it was rather become a personal challenge. But at least, the weather was on our side…it was just a lovely time all day. We called each other what time and where to meet them. Meeting halfway was uncomplicated since Makis is starting to get familiar in Cannes. We decided to meet with them in front of Palais des Festival. They’re coming from St. Raphael and the easiest place to meet up is in Cannes which is a very famous landmark.

At long last, here we are face to face! We embraced each other as if we knew each other for a very long time. I am glad that we have finally met altogether. We just went around the centre of Cannes to choose where do to the random chit chat and have lunch. Let me share of our “make love to the camera shots by Makis” ! I was really glad that Makis was there as she’s bubbly and funny enough to make us laugh out loud because of her spontaneous humour .

Who will believe that blogging and internet as a whole will make a lot of sense. I think if not for internet we will never meet wonderful people behind those blogs. What is good with internet we get a lot of eyeballs at social network and even create community buildings. Thanks to internet it’s certainly a way in realising to have a concrete human contact. The meeting was short and I know 5 hours is certainly not enough but we really had a grandiose time meeting each other.

P.S. And thanks a lot again to Joanne and Xavier for the wonderful lunch. We supposed to treat you guys but anyway we're looking forward to meet you again either in France or in the USA.