The International Family

Near Poitiers we stayed with a young woman in the tiny village of Parthenay.  This was the first of two times we would stay with her family, and an interesting family it was.  She lived in an old house which she claimed was many hundreds if not a thousand years old.  Her partner was a sailor and was often out at sea for many weeks, which is rather reminiscent of a particular 70's love song.

Before leaving, she gave us the number and address of her mother and step-father in La Rochelle.  Although we had not gotten any reply from them on Couchsurfing, she assured us that they would accept us.

On our way to La Rochelle we spotted three hitchhikers also going to La Rochelle.  Although our car was absolutely stuffed with junk from traveling, we stopped and moved things around to fit the three of them in the back seat.  We all had a wonderful time chatting on our way to La Rochelle, and when we arrived we were a little sad to see them go.

After a walk around the town we decided to give a call to this woman's parents.  A man answered and it became clear that French was not his first language.  In fact, he was from England.  He said we could absolutely stay with them, and invited us over.  We learned a bit more about the family when we arrived.  The woman we had stayed with the day before was born in France, but her mother was actually Italian.  It was this Italian woman's house that we were now in.  She had later remarried a English man, and late in life they had two more children. 

Here we were in a house with two French children born from an Italian and a Englishman.  The man told us that he actually felt a bit bad for his children.  The fact that they had been so old when they were born made it as though the children lived with their grandparents.  He felt they probably grew bored without having parents young enough to play.  They were very friendly and intelligent children nonetheless. 

We will never forget his family, their generosity, or their uniqueness.