Just outside of Paris, Bazemont is a small town where we spent some days with our good friend Marine and her family. We were amazed the second we saw this beautiful countryside home with vines and flowers growing up and around all the walls. There’s also a garden surrounding the house where Marine’s mom grows all kinds of fresh herbs and berries to use in the kitchen - for a pair of proper foodies like us, this is heaven.

Marine’s parents were incredibly welcoming and they showed us the ins-and-outs of proper French tradition. For example, we had apéro with them every evening (AKA pregame your dinner with some drinks and appetizers) and we learned that eating salty food in the morning –like our beloved eggs– is considered very strange (Marine would joke that it's simply BARBARIC!) . They always encouraged us to practice our French with them and they were just so cool! The kind of people that you meet and you think, if we were the same age, we would hang out all the time. I mean, just take a minute to appreciate Marine’s father’s amazing little car in the pictures below –now that’s a cool dad! And better yet, they have a huge pool in the patio! So obviously, we decided to have a big summer bash and invite all of Marine’s close friends to come over to party. We really had such a great time there. Whoever says the french are not friendly should meet Marine and her family because they could not be further from that description.