April and May in Italy and France was a painful experience because I just kept having to pinch myself to see if I was really there or if I was in a wonderful dream! I planned the trip back in October and was initially going to be going alone. In January, a friend I’ve known since college decided to join me for the first two weeks in Italy and in February a mutual friend of our’s whom I’ve since middle school decided to join us too. We had such a fun time everywhere we went. We celebrated a birthday in Rome and threw our three coins in Trevi fountain too. I can’t say what I wished for of course but I just know it will come true! We had some beautiful weather some days and rain and hail that looked like snow on other days. We visited Saturnia, Sienna, Monterregione, San Gemingnano, Volterra, Solvano, Soldano, Pittignano, Lucca, Pietra Santo, Bologna and Milano. We ate dinner in the house my grandmother was raised in and lunch in the house my grandfather was raised in too.
In Paris, I spent two weeks with my friend Sandrine. I met Sandrine while vacationing here on the West Coast two years ago. She is a Parisian native and much like me here in San Francisco, lives a very full and rich life in the City of Lights. I took in almost every walking tour offerred in Paris and visited museums I’d never been to before like the Cluny Medeival Museum and The Montmartre Museum which had a very interesting exhibit about the Black Cat cabaret theater. One of the highlights of my time in Paris was being invited to perform on May 2nd at the Swan Bar in Montparnasse. It was very exciting to prepare for the event and the show itself was lots of fun! I spent a few days visiting old friends in Montpellier, in the South of France. One day we saw pink flamingos and had a delicious lunch by the Maguelone Cathedral on the Cote D’Azur. Another day we had a lovely time hiking around a medieval village called Sauve where R. Crumb lives.
The night before I left Paris, I attended a concert of jazz icon, Jon Hendricks with his talented daughters, Michelle and Aria Hendricks and scat improvisor virtuoso, Kevin Fitzgerald Burke, who just happens to be the son of Kat Fitzgerald, my dear friend and fellow Supper Club Six member.
I’m back in San Francisco now and looking forward to a June “busting out all over” with music, flowers and love!
