Amanda & Andy
Andy and I are a 21 Century Couple, for sure. We met at a New Year's Eve party in 1999. How cool is that? That's not when we fell in love. That's when we met. We were both in our senior year at the University of Miami. Andy says he was attracted to me at first sight (natch!) but I was in a relationship (with Heinrich) at the time and so the only thing I noticed about Andy was his sense of humour and his passion for food (we were in the kitchen when we met and I don't think he came out of the kitchen the whole evening.)
Fastforward two years. I finally realize that Heinrich was just a pretentious dope and that my friends weren't exagerating when they got that creepy vibe about him. So I dumped him (though if you ask him, he dumped me -- whatever.) And I decided it would be better to take a few years off dating anyone. Besides, I had just realized I didn't want to be a journalist (it was a year of painful discoveries) and that I would only be truly happy exploiting my God-given talent of interior decorating. Andy was (illegally) teaching skuba diving in France at this point, learning how to speak and cook french. I had all but forgotten about him anyway.
At around that time my mom's husband decided to pour his early retirement money into a restaurant, Le Mistral, on the promenade and he asked me to decorate it. It was a plumb gig for me. I had a budget, lots of freedom and encouragement, and the pay -- well, I was living at their place for free.
The restaurant was a huge success, for me and for my Mom and her husband. I was able to get enough clients from that to move out on my own. But decorating is a strange business. It's feast and it's famine. So during the famine times I picked up shifts waiting tables at Le Mistral.
One hot August night last year I came in for a shift and who do I see whistling and singing over the grill? Andy. He had been chased out of France for not having work papers. His plan was to come home and either to teach diving and cook on the side or cook and teach diving on the side. For the time being he was happy to work two nights a week at Le Mistral.
I can't say when exactly I fell in love, wether it was over cheesecake or under water (diving lessons), but it happened.
Andy and I are a 21 Century Couple, for sure. We met at a New Year's Eve party in 1999. How cool is that? That's not when we fell in love. That's when we met. We were both in our senior year at the University of Miami. Andy says he was attracted to me at first sight (natch!) but I was in a relationship (with Heinrich) at the time and so the only thing I noticed about Andy was his sense of humour and his passion for food (we were in the kitchen when we met and I don't think he came out of the kitchen the whole evening.)Fastforward two years. I finally realize that Heinrich was just a pretentious dope and that my friends weren't exagerating when they got that creepy vibe about him. So I dumped him (though if you ask him, he dumped me -- whatever.) And I decided it would be better to take a few years off dating anyone. Besides, I had just realized I didn't want to be a journalist (it was a year of painful discoveries) and that I would only be truly happy exploiting my God-given talent of interior decorating. Andy was (illegally) teaching skuba diving in France at this point, learning how to speak and cook french. I had all but forgotten about him anyway.
At around that time my mom's husband decided to pour his early retirement money into a restaurant, Le Mistral, on the promenade and he asked me to decorate it. It was a plumb gig for me. I had a budget, lots of freedom and encouragement, and the pay -- well, I was living at their place for free.
The restaurant was a huge success, for me and for my Mom and her husband. I was able to get enough clients from that to move out on my own. But decorating is a strange business. It's feast and it's famine. So during the famine times I picked up shifts waiting tables at Le Mistral.
One hot August night last year I came in for a shift and who do I see whistling and singing over the grill? Andy. He had been chased out of France for not having work papers. His plan was to come home and either to teach diving and cook on the side or cook and teach diving on the side. For the time being he was happy to work two nights a week at Le Mistral.
I can't say when exactly I fell in love, wether it was over cheesecake or under water (diving lessons), but it happened.
