Bill and I were reminiscing about our 1st trip together. I'll give you some background. Bill and i worked together and I really had it bad for him, unbeknown est to him. I invited him over one night and he literally NEVER went back home. We never even had 1 date. That was in June of "83". We both quit our jobs in November of that same year and backpacked Europe for 1 and half months. Believe me, you really get to know someone. With eurailpass in hand and "Lets go" Europe book (our bible) mix with a passion for adventure we were off. Certain things really stand out. We had read about madame Sofie in the lets go book. She was in nice, France. She was in her 70's or 80's and lived in a big pink palace called "Palace' Maria Christine". She was a holocaust survivor. Every morning she would get fresh flowers for our rooms. She showed us where to buy food. We were able to use her kitchen. For the past week (in Germany) all the blood sausage and skin/lard spread for bread, the sight of "corn flaks made me salivate. I bought the milk and flakes, she took the milk out of the fridge and put it out in the screened shelf (outside). "Refrigerator only for good things". I Thought "What the hell" But, i let it go. The next morning I had my cereal, the milk came curdling out. It's good for you. She keep saying."Eat, it will put hair on your chest", in her thick accent.She Was our favorite grandmother away from home. She gave us lots of needed advice. We wanted to rent mopeds to tool around nice, Monte Carlo, ESE Village (very cool place) Vallauris.She was so dead set against us doing that. It was very very dangerous. We went against her advice and went on our moped adventure. If she knew we would have been booted out. Any way, madame Sofie was a national treasure. She had a guest book That was filled with thousands of visitors comments with great stories. Her walls were covered with towels (from other countries) that people had sent her. I could go on and on with her stories.I've tried googling her but, nothing comes up. So, I'm putting something out there in hopes others who know her might google her and find this post. But, there has to be someone out in the land of the Internet that remembers madame Sofie. We were both in our early 20's and what a grand adventure it was. We hit Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, France. Maybe more adventure stories and the people we met, later....
