L'aperitif

Just after getting home from a long day at the MBAT with Jeff and the girls (which HEC won!!) our downstairs neighbor came up to invite us to have an "l'aperitif" with them (a "l'aperitif" in France is a small get together with drinks and light finger foods). Although we were a bit tired, we were thankful for the invite and we wanted to get to know them better (and we were very curious to attend our first l'aperitif), so we said yes. It was really cute and fairly formal. When we walked in we noticed that their apartment was spotless even with having two children. The kids were ready for bed, and somehow they were able to play with our 3 oldest girls pretty quietly...amazing. We shared some very brief small chat and then were invited to sit on their sofa. The husband sat in a chair to our left and the wife sat in a chair to our right. It felt as if we were being surrounded! They offered us drinks (and were surprised with the non-alcoholic requests) and also brought out a tray of cute little finger foods. There were 4 items: cherry tomato with feta cheese on a toothpick, cantaloupe, crackers, and a thin meat (I think salami). We were given toothpicks, and about every 3-4 minutes the husband dutifully rose and served us from the tray. We're not sure if he did this out of a kind of protocol or just because we weren't taking the food ourselves. It was formal, but very cute.

Now, it wouldn't be a good story without a little action, right? Well, leave it up to me to provide the action. I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but mid-sentence I made a gesture with my hand that was holding my drink and ended up spilling my Coke all over my leg and all over their sofa! Great move Christa! The kids were in the other room, so I couldn't even blame it on one of my children, which I probably would have done... Ha ha! After that I was too nervous to actually take a drink, so I just gripped the glass with all my strength for the rest of the night to ensure no more spills. Maybe next time I should bring my own sippy cup!!

Fun night overall, despite my clumsiness!