WE BRING OUR OWN SUN: French Kisses [and baguettes, bien sur!]

Volunteering for the Brisbane French Festival was an excellent idea. We were scheduled to help with the set up on Friday afternoon for two hours. When we arrived at the Artisans Pavilion the artists were not yet there so we offered to help in other areas. We moved Orangina into the food area, and I was happy to see it. I don't drink Orangina, however I was pretending to be in France. Everyone around us was speaking French and it was divine. It also made me realise that my skills are lacking somewhat; unfortunately. We did understand the directions given to us however and met a few really nice people.
Back in the Artisan space Daniel did "manly tasks" as he was the only male present, and I sat with a table of French women stuffing pamphlets. They were all really nice and fun to talk to. Eventually we were all speaking French because it was the French Festival and they thought I needed to practice for them. Each and every one of them thought that I was Australian.
Finally a young artist from Spain showed up and we helped her hang her photographs on the walls. When I answered her once in Spanish [do my talents never end?] she and I became fast friends. Nearing four and a half hours of work we began feeling tired and hungry. Most volunteers had left and my helper at this point was a young girl about aged 12 who was a delight to be around. She thought I was from France. Ooh la la!
The following morning it was reported that the weather would be awful. Thunder and lightening storms with wet everything. It was an absolutely spectacular day. Sunny and warm, which made the guests of the festival mostly pleasant. It also meant that there were way too many people. Daniel and I were crowd control, meaning we had the power to let or not let folks into the pavilion. We handed out the pamphlets and let people know what was happening under our tent, who the artists were and in general amused them when the tent was too full and we couldn't let new people in. We spoke a lot of French and two of the French volunteers asked where we were from in France! Yay!

Even when we spoke English from time to time Daniel was faking a French accent which thrilled a lot of the ladies in line. He would walk down meeting the people and apologizing for the wait while I flexed my muscles at the front and held everyone back. We made a good team. It was fun to talk with people. Some of them completely ignored me and walked around when I asked them to wait; most of them were polite and happily obliged. And while only one old man flirted with me at the door, Daniel received kisses from some of the older women. I'm talking, two kisses on each cheek kind of kisses. It was hysterical. They were so happy to be kissing an actual Frenchman that we just didn't have the hearts to tell them the truth. And they'll never know. Forever more, some Aussie gals had their dreams come true. Good on Daniel!

After three hours we were exhausted from holding the line and entertaining folks. I coached our two young replacements and we set off to get our sandwiches. The lines were so unbelievable. We waited thirty minutes to eat cheese and rocket on bread. This was the first cheese we'd had in a few months and it did all right by us. I had brie and Daniel chose swiss. We shared as we bit into our baguettes by the Tibetan monastery; it was just too crowded anywhere else.

We had a great weekend and this week is looking fine, too. I have a new friend trading with me. She gives me a massage, I do NLP and Theta on her once a week. It's fantastic and we're both happy to have found each other.
Daniel continues to work and learn and we feel excited about our present and future.
For the record, we could still use some French crepes!