I couldn’t be more blessed to have a more wonderful best friend. But anybody reading this blog already knows how important Leah is to me. But the gobs of frosting on this cake are that Leah's job as a school social worker allows her to spend an entire month with me in Paris. This is her second summer in Paris, and while some aspects were the same, so much about this experience was so different than the last.
Leah’s time in Paris was non-stop, digging in and working hard then taking off to travel, to experience being in the middle of Europe. We zipped off for a long weekend in London to stay with her New
Zealand friends, Scotty and John, who stayed with us in Paris last summer. Hyde Park and Finsberry Park, Middle-Eastern food and cider and World Cup madness, home-made breakfasts and kitchen dance parties. They were fantastic hosts!
I secured a new apartment before Leah arrived, and she stepped in and did what she’s now helped me do three times because I can’t seem to stay in the same place for long: pack, move, clean, and unpack. Since I just moved down the street, we dragged suitcases back and forth, scrubbed doors and floors and windows and walls, carted objects and furniture
out to the sidewalk where they were quickly carried off by people in the streets while we watched from the window, waving at the dishwasher in the second-floor window across the street. Leah was a rockstar in the kitchen, transforming it from a curry-powder-stinking, grease-layered, old-dish stashed nightmare into a
gleamingly-clean and highly organized place I actually want to cook in! Molly spent a day helping us move, Edith arrived at my apartment, raving about the wood, and all four of us crammed into my bathroom holding shelves, marking holes, securing brackets and using the power drill. Ran to a bar on St. Denis (yes, this is the really-not-so-bad "sex street") to get ice for Molly’s caipahinas, ate snacks, drank shots, played cards, listened to the World Cup on the radio, the cheers from goals missed and blocked echoing in the streets. We ran out for Chinese food and more tequila, encountered a full-on Brasilian party in the street, came back to eat, played spoons, and had a Les Miserables sing-along. Never once a pound on my wall. Just complete fun and laughter, Leah creating unforgettable bonds that had only briefly ever been set in motion but now felt like they’d gone back for years.
My memories are of our late-night dinners at Pain Quotidian, of Theo stopping over for the last time, of him getting us Starbucks while Leah cleaned the floor and I handled the kitchen countertop just minutes before my landlords walked in. Feeling so connected, so alive, so happy to be with my best friend in my environment, to have her experience my life with me and know exactly why I can’t come home, even when that means not being with her in Chicago.
Then there’s our trip to Italy. We took off, nobody being able to keep track of where we were going or for how long. Arriving i
n Napoli, finding our way to the Amalfi Coast, finding our convent/guest house in St. Agnello (next door to Sorrento), walking along the cliff coasts, eating proscuitto and melon, fresh mozzarella and hand-made pasta and pizza. Spending days on the pier on blue chairs looking out over the Mediterranean, jumping into the water to cool off, floating on the surface of the water from the intensity of the salt. An afternoon at Pompeii, Italian wine and a walk through touristy Sorrento. We moved to a different hotel where we were the only guests for the night, made friends with Antonio the owner who made us drinks, told us how to get to the closest (local fishing-village) beach where a woman went up to her house to get us towels when we arrived without them. We later ended up back in the village for dinner at the only open restaurant on a Sunday night, made friends with Paulo and Antonello at the table next to us, ended up swapping plates and sharing food and wine, going out for after-dinner drinks to the same pier we had laid out on earlier that day (it transforms into a bar at night!). On day three we took the ferry to the island of Capri where we found our B&B to be on the mountain side (Annacapri) and completely removed from anything touristy (or close walking distance, for that matter!). Again, ended up on a very
local “beach” (without sand because it’s a rocky island) where people were cliff jumping into the water so clear I could see schools of fish swimming under my feet. We spent the afternoon at a private terrace where we could rent lounge chairs and towels, gazing out on the Mediterranean as the sun lowered. We had an amazing Italian dinner with a Caprese salad to start, since the Capri is the home of this wonderful plate. We had been warned that day that the following day there was going to be a strike on the island, but while we were told that transportation wouldn’t run, we were told that the beaches would be open. We wrongfully assumed this included the private beaches. So the next morning we made our 45-minute walk down the mountain to the beach only to find it closed. Well, there were people all over the rock steps in the cliff, but we had no towels or even a bottle of water (and it was HOT!). So I decided to make the trip back up the mountain on foot while Leah, because of her hip (smile), would stay there with our stuff. It took me over an hour to get back up, and I was completely wet from sweat. I had to stop at our B&B to shower off, then walked further into the little town to try to buy a bottle of water and maybe a sandwich (provisions!). But not a darned thing was open. The strike was intense! So I walked back to our place, took the towels from our room and bought a small bottle of water and began the decent. Almost 2 1/2 hours later I returned to the beach to find Leah hanging out on the private terrace beach with some guy. Turns out sh
e had made friends (this came as no surprise!) while I was on my journey, and the guys who owned the private terrace invited her (and consequently me) to sneak onto the closed terrace. We ended up meeting the entire family and their friends, sharing a huge 18-person Italian lunch with them, complete with panninis, a tomato-mozzarella-olive-crouton goulash, and pitchers of sangria. Swimming, cliff diving (them, not us!), teaching them some English and learning some Italian, and thankfully accepted scooter rides back up the mountain to our B&B. Alexandro, Raphael, Maraccella, Vincenzo, So Italian, so amazing.
It all started in Z
imbabwe. We once walked in Chisumbange while the sun set over the plateau and talked about our “world tour,” how we were going to travel together no matter what paths our respective lives to
ok. But things get in the way, lives become complicated and busy. So for the past five years, that pledge went unfulfilled. Until a major shake-up brought us all back together. And reminded each of us just how necessary this bond is. Something is forged in a life-changing setting like Zimbabwe, but the maintenance of this friendship is what makes it everlasting. 
pent eight wonderful 
days together, catching up on experiences both past and present, wandering and exploring, sitting and sipping, crying and laughing. Among other things. But instead of just narrating those 8 days, here’s a Top-10 List of amazing moments…and the pictures will tell the rest of the stories.
