I probably should change the title of these to “snowboard weekends”, since I’m switching away from skiing this year. After a lot of soul-searching, I realized I just wasn’t very good at skiing, and it was going to involve a lot of pain and gut-wrenching falls before I would begin to get any better. So I thought, why not try snowboarding? I then took the plunge, and rented a snowboard for the season.
This weekend, we ended up going with a couple of friends to the mountain resort of Flaine. I’m a huge fan of Flaine, although it’s probably the ugliest group of buildings ever built. Seriously – it seems that any architect who comes to the French Alps just completely loses their ability to design anything that doesn’t look like a Siberian prison. I think the Russians actually send their students to Flaine in order to get ideas on how to build more oppressive structures. That said, the skiing is fantastic, and the mountains are beautiful, so it more than outweighs having to see the communist housing blocks that function as a resort (especially considering we don’t actually stay in the resort).
For those of you who are wondering whether skiing or snowboarding is better, it’s a matter of opinion at the end of the day. For me, the things I hated about skiing were 1) the terribly uncomfortable boots 2) carrying the skis 3) the fact that I sucked at it. Snowboarding solves all of those dilemmas, as 1) snowboard boots are actually quite comfortable 2) the snowboard is easy to carry 3) yeah, I might still suck at it, but at least I look a little bit cooler. Plus, chicks dig snowboarders.
Of course, it’s not all peaches and cream. If there’s one bad thing about snowboarding, it’s the j-bar lifts. These are where you grab a squiggly pole with a little thing on the bottom, and it drags you up the mountain, while you’re holding onto it. On skis, these are relatively uncomfortable nuisances that you’re faced with when going on the wussy slopes, which is kind of where I spend the majority of my time. On a snowboard, these are minions of evil who’s sole objective is to embarrass you in front of little children, who seem to have no problems whatsoever in using them. I saw multiple snowboarders wipe out on them, and I don’t mean they just wiped out on them, I mean they wiped out and looked really stupid as they were wiping out. I would know, because I was right there with them looking really stupid as I wiped out. Makes me want to find the guy that invented this devil-machine, and punch him in the nose.
That said, I find snowboarding to be otherwise vastly superior to skiing, much like a Japanese car versus an American car. Note, however, that Sophia is keeping up with the skiing, which is probably a wise decision. She’s becoming a pretty decent skier, in the sense that she can go down a mild run and not fall down or lose control, and look cute doing it – and at the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Instead of ski pictures, here are some Christmas cookies...
Next weekend: Christmas in Geneva!
Ski Weekend: Year 2, Version 1
Christmas Markets
Last weekend, we decided to make the most of December by visiting some of Europe’s storied Christmas markets. As such, we made the trek out to France’s Alsace region, and hit a couple of the cities there.
W
e started off at Colmar, and headed straight towards a booth selling hot chocolate. Hey – it’s winter, and it’s cold! We then spent the next 6 hours walking around in aforementioned cold, either looking at the markets or exploring the city. Colmar isn’t overly large, and it’s quite a cute place – the architecture has that mountain lodge-look and is well cared for, but it’s beat up just enough to appear as if it’s functional, rather than a façade put up to draw tourists. After a few hours of walking, we stopped at a café, which was noteworthy due to this old dog they had there. It muddled over to us, and of course I started petting it, and every time I would stop it would whine to get more petting - my kind of dog! Anyway, I ended up spending a good half-hour nursing a coffee and petting this dog, just to avoid going back out in the cold. When we did brave the cold, we went straight to a local restaurant that Soph had picked out, which was great, as Alsatian food combines the richness of French food, with the heartiness of German food. Nothing beats eating well after a cold day outside.
The next day we hit Strasbourg, and somehow lucked out and had beautiful weather. Beautiful meaning, still very cold, but with sun. Once again, we spent a good six or more 
hours walking around the city and looking at markets, but as Strasbourg is quite big, there wasn’t a lot of backtracking. Strasbourg has a monstrously large city center, which is great as you can explore it for hours and not get bored (unless you get bored walking around looking at old buildings, in which case you’d get bored really fast). It’s also a very pretty city, and the center is completely encircled by a river / canal, which more or less cordons a lot of the traffic away and makes it very pedestrian-friendly. The market stalls here tended to have more food items, specifically pretzels with Munster cheese; good stuff! We also went on an ornament-buying rampage, so our Christmas trees should be set for years to come with cute French crafts.
At the end of the day, that’s kind of the fun of the Christmas markets. You’re walking around in the cold, buying hot foods and drinks from the vendors, looking at handcrafts, and trying to avoid the group of Native Americans playing flute-instruments and trying to sell cd’s. You seriously can’t go anywhere in the world without running into those guys!
On Sunday we took the train back to Geneva, which is always great because any direction around Geneva, at any time of year, has beautiful scenery. This time, we were able to go through some of the Swiss mountains after a fresh snowfall, and were consequently greeted with miles and miles of unspoiled snow-covered pine trees. It was the kind of scenery that makes you take stock of your life, and think about your place here on earth, and how you could contribute to making it a better place. It also made me think about the truckload of Belgian beer I smuggled into the country, and how life as a professional beer smuggler would probably allow me to see more of the beautiful scenery.
Next weekend: Ski Season Begins!
Edinburgh!
This past weekend, we hopped a Friday flight to one of the most interesting cities in Europe: Edinburgh, Scotland. Soph and I have officially mastered the whole “wearing the same clothes f
or three days so that you can stuff a giant camera and some toiletries into a single backpack” thing, so it was easy packing and a quick flight out.
Edinburgh is one of those places that doesn’t necessarily get a lot of press, but almost everyone we know who’s gone there has ranked it among their top cities. It’s got a wonderful Old Town, built on a giant hill with tons of hidden streets and narrow alleys (as well as a broad thoroughfare). There’s a bustling student population, which keeps the city fresh and the art scene alive. Lastly, there’s a huge castle sitting at the top of a giant rock in the center of the city, overlooking everything. And to top it off – the castle is pretty cool-looking - so it’s an easy city to like.
The downside of visiting Edinburgh in November is that sunset falls ominously close to 4:00 p.m., which means you don’t have nearly as much time as you would like to sightsee. We walked for probably 6 hours straight, breaking only for stoplights, and sometimes not even those (but since cars come from the opposite direction, you had to be a little careful when jaywalking). We were able to manage having time for a walking tour, which I still think is on
e of the best ways to get to know a city - because how else would you know which café was the one where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series? Well, maybe the one with the giant “Harry Potter’s birthplace” sign, but that’s beside the point.
While I know everyone has heard of kilts and thinks they’re kind of funny, I was surprised at how many people we saw who were actually wearing them. I mean, it’s one thing to joke about it, or to be watching a movie where somebody moons their adversary by lifting up the kilt and shouting an insult; but to actually wear one on an ordinary Saturday, simply when walking around town? In November? Seriously? After a day of seeing them, though, I had to admit that they are kind of fashionable – especially if you have a rugby shirt on.
That being said, Scotland is known for more than just kilts and the Loch Ness Monster (although those two are arguably the coolest). Famous staples of culinary greatness such as Angus Beef, haggis, and Scottish brews, are also known the world over – or at least, they popped up on Google when we were researching “what is Scotland famous for”. For those of you who have never had haggis, I highly recommend it. Haggis is essentially all the throwaway parts of the sheep, such as the heart, liver, lungs, etc. These are then put into the she
ep’s intestine / stomach, and then boiled for awhile. Finally, they open it up and serve it to you. Terrible as it sounds, the haggis we had was really good – much better than the “cow tongue” and “veal face” we tried in Paris! The Angus beef was probably a bit overrated, as I’m learning I still prefer Oklahoma, hormone-fed cattle – the kind where you can taste the steroids. As far as Scottish beers – well, we had quite a few misses, a couple of which bordered on undrinkable, but we did find two excellent ones which I’m sad to say I’ll probably never get to drink again.
All in all, Edinburgh was a great weekend trip, and is worth a stop if you’re traveling through Europe. Although you might want to steer clear if you have an aversion to bagpipe music, because it’s everywhere, and it sounds like the same song being played over, and over, and over…kind of like listening to a top 40 station.
London
I had the chance to go see the Chargers / Saints football game in London this past weekend, which was pretty cool. As some of you know, I had done a semester in London a long, long time ago, and had always wanted to go back and re-explore my old stomping grounds. That said, this was not the weekend in which to do that, as we were there for one thing and one thing only: to show the British what true football is! And also because one of my friends hooked me up with a VIP corporate package - I never get those things! Anyway – the football thing was great – but I’m not going to spend time talking about that, because this is, after all, a travel blog, not a sports blog.
So, London…one of the major cities of the world, a center of the arts, literature, finance, and late-night stabbings. London wasn’t nearly as nice as I remember it – but maybe I just didn’t notice all the commercialism ten years ago. That said, it still has its’ charms. One of the great things
about this city is the pub culture – sort of a staple of the UK, I guess. We went into a pub for lunch, and it’s just a great atmosphere for eating a little food and drinking a little beer. Also, a little-known fact: pubs are baby-friendly! Sure enough, I looked down on not only one occasion, but two separate times, only to see a baby crawling on the floor beneath my table, staring up at me and smiling. Ok, I made the smiling part up – but the babies were crawling all over the place. I haven’t yet decided if that’s really cool, or if it’s really terrible.
The other thing I noticed about London was that the public transport system, while seemingly efficient and easy to navigate, was pretty much under construction at every point I needed to use it. What should have been an easy cross-town jaunt turned into a 2.5 hour combination of tubes, overgrounds, and bus rides down streets that should not have had buses driven down them. Disastrous, would be the correct word. I also got to live my lifelong dream of waking up in a foreign country, not being able to find a cab, walking to an airport to catch my flight, and still arriving at work that same morning. Gotta love being centrally located in Europe!
All transportation problems aside, though, it was a fun weekend. We did see Big Ben / Parliament, and I did say “look kids – Big Ben / Parliament”, even though there were no kids around (I had left the pub at that point). Got to eat some fish and chips, and realized there was a good reason I hadn’t had fish and chips since the last time I had been to London. But most of all, I got to see a crowd of proud British citizens stand and put their hats across their chests while Old Glory whipped in the wind and our great national anthem played. It was at this point where I couldn’t help think inspiring thoughts, such as “no taxation without representation”, and it took all my resolve not to act on the impulse that all strong-hearted Americans have in a moment such as this.
That impulse being, of course, to streak the field.
Next week: Edinburgh!
Munich!
When you come to Munich, there are a couple of things you have to do. First and foremost, you have to drink some German beer. I mean seriously - it’s the beer capital of the world! Second, you have to eat some sausage. I mean seriously - it’s the sausage capital of the world! Third, you have to…shop? Seriously - it may not be the shopping capital of the world, but it's pretty good, and considering the fall season is fast approaching (and God knows we can’t afford to shop in Geneva), it was a small bonus to the trip.
The city of Munich is consistently ranked as one of the world’s greatest places to live. It’s a center for the arts, has a rich (and dark) history, and its’ inhabitants enjoy a very high standard of living. There are restaurants of all kinds, a great public transit system, a wide range of museums, and pretty much anything else you could imagine that would make a city great. We got to see a small taste of this during last year’s Oktoberfest, but not enough to say we really saw the city. As such, we decided to come back this year, and spend some time exploring Munich itself, as well as some of the surrounding countryside.
One thing we’ve found when visiting cities is that walking tours are among the best ways of getting to see a lot of things, while understanding their significance. We s
tarted with one of these, but so did 102 other people, so the group was a bit large. As luck would have it, they split us up into 3 groups, and we were lucky that we didn’t get the annoying tour guide, so our day was looking up. After the walking tour, we did some shopping, because like I said, the shopping is good, then got ready to go on the Munich Beer Challenge, which was basically the same tour group who did the walking tour, but they took you to beer halls instead of historical sites (although in one instance it was a historic beer hall). While it was kind of useless, it did give us an opportunity to meet a bunch of other people who wanted to see the beer halls, so that was fun.
The next day we decided to get out of town and visit the Neuschwanstein castle (I’m pretty sure I spelled that correctly). The Neuschwanstein castle is known as “the fairy-tale castle”, as it was 
the inspiration for the Walt Disney castle that most girls dream about being a princess in (and most boys dream about pillaging and setting fire to, so that their enemies know they have been crushed). All kidding aside, this castle is impressive in that it’s set in one of the most beautiful spots in the Bavarian Alps, and therefore has a truly magical feel to it. As we’ve seen tons of castles over the past year, we didn’t feel the need to go inside, so instead we hiked through some of the mountains around it, and ended up with some of the best vistas I’ve seen anywhere. To finish, we took a horse-drawn carriage down the road leading up to the castle, which was kind of fun, although I don’t think I’ll ever see the appeal of those things. I think an even better idea would have been to let people fire a catapult from one of the ramparts, but that’s just me…
On Friday, we decided to brave the masses and go to the actual Oktoberfest festival. What we didn’t know was that Friday was a German holiday, meaning Germans were getting their drink on and attending the festival instead of working. The resulting huge mass of people made it almost impossible to get inside any of the tents. That being said, after about 3 hours of waiting around, Soph sweet-talked a security guard into letting us in, and we were able to join the party inside. I think it was because she was wearing a drindl; it looked pretty cute on her.
A quick aside about Germans; they are known the world over for many things, but missed in all of that is their love of John Denver. I had forgotten how at o
ur previous Oktoberfest, and Stuttgart, that the crowd knew all the words to “Country Roads”. While this is not necessarily odd in that they know the words, it is somewhat surreal to see thousands of people, many of whom don’t speak English, flip out and join arms while reciting the lyrics to a song that champions the positives of being a redneck. I have trouble describing the utter weirdness of seeing a foreign culture break out in a John Denver homage, and even more trouble understanding why; I mean really, John Denver? That said, it will probably remain a mystery, as psychologists the world over will continue to focus on the more pressing question of the Germans’ love of David Hasselhoff before looking into the John Denver phenomena.
Anyway - the festival was great, and it really is something everyone should do at some point in their lives - if you like massively large groups of people drinking and screaming. In a good way, though - everyone is friendly, and not in that normal irritating-drunk way. Or maybe I was friendly in the irritating-drunk way, and didn’t realize it. I guess we’ll never know…but it’s fun.
Finally, on Saturday, we went back to the festival, but just to walk around and do some of the 
rides and eat sausages. The one thing that’s lost among Oktoberfest is that at it’s heart, it’s a German family festival where you can take your children and have a good time. There are roller-coasters, games, haunted houses, and all sorts of things that you can find at Six Flags, except I didn’t notice any skee-ball, which is too bad, although I wouldn’t have played anyway because I’m not really into skee-ball. For those of you who are, though, maybe Oktoberfest isn’t for you.
To summarize - Munich is an awesome city. There’s a lot to see and do, it’s beautiful and has some great architecture, but most of all, it’s just a fun place. It has a really nice vibe to it that not many other cities possess, and it’s probably one of our favorites so far. And besides - you know you want an excuse to wear some Lederhosen…
Next weekend: Football in London, American style!
Greece Part II
We split our
As much as I hate driving, the back country of
That said, the driving in
One thing that really struck us about 
aw was friendly and eager to make conversation. For instance, we spoke at length with one of the ladies who ran our hotel in Meteora, who explained that the reason their homemade morello cherry jam was so amazing was that “it was made with love”. Another conversation brought us to the understanding that in
Our first stop was at Meteora. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Meteora is one of those places that seems lost in time. Basically, a long time ago a bunch of monks wanted to get away from civilization, and so they climbed up into these oddly-shaped cliffs and built monasteries. Check the pictures to get a sense of how crazy this must have been. I thought Meteora was one of the coolest places ever, although if you don’t like monasteries on cliffs, then you might disagree.
We also hit the area around Lefkada, which is
The only downside to going cross-country through
One thing you can have for every meal, though, is the Greek
coffee. What makes it “Greek coffee” is that the grounds are actually served in the cup when you drink it; scary at first, but once you get past that, it’s awesome. Best thing to come out of
Finally, we made it to
In summary –
# of pictures taken: 901
# of dishes eaten with lamb in them, per person: 9
# of times we stopped on the side of the road to buy something from a farmer: 5
# of Greek coffees I had: 28
# of times the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” was uttered: 15
# of times I yelled “This…is…
Next: Munich!
Santorini!
Santorini is one of the most picturesque places in the world. You’ve probably seen the whitewashed churches with blue tops, looking out over the sea (if you haven’t, I’ve put one right above this sentence, so no excuses!) Santorini was formed when one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history blew the island apart, sunk it, spewed ash into the air, left a couple pieces to survive, and then forced some new chunks of land above the sea. Anyway - I’m not here to discuss geology - I’m here to talk about jacuzzis overlooking the Mediterranean! We had one of those…it was awesome…and we sat in it a lot and watched the sunsets from there. Good stuff.
Speaking of sunsets, Santorini is known for having some of the best sunset vantages anywhere. Hard to disagree with that, seeing as you’re on a cliffside overlooking the sea, with a volcano a little ways up, and nothing but blue water on the horizon. Most of the resorts are set within the side of a cliff, so that you have an unobstructed view. So while it’s the same sun as anywhere else in the world, the fact you’re a couple hundred feet above sea level, and there’s no ground beneath you, makes it that much better.
Santorini also has very interesting beaches. Black sand, red sand, white pebbles, cliffs…there are a handful of cool places where the volcanic rock meets the Mediterranean in a unique mixture of color. We first hit Red Beach, which is true to its’ name in that the sand is red. The beach is a thirty-foot swath between the Mediterranean and a giant, lava-formed cliff, and you have to go on a short hike to get there. It was a great place to sit for awhile, and although the water was kind of cold, we still braved it and went swimming, because you can’t go to a red-sand beach and not get in the water! The other noteworthy beach in Santorini is Black Beach, which is laid out more like a regular beach in that there’s a mini-boardwalk with shops and everything, the difference being that the sand is black. I thought this beach looked awesome, but unfortunately it was raining like crazy so we just walked around it a little.
As mentioned before, it wouldn’t be a true Wintermeyer vacation wit
hout something freaky happening. In this case, I’m referring to the monsoon that hit Santorini while we were there. Apparently, they hadn’t had a drop of rain since March, which may or may not be true, but I’m going to assume the locals know what they’re talking about. While we were out walking around one night, the skies completely opened and gave them a storm the likes of which haven’t been seen since, well, probably March. Still – it was crazy. We were essentially trapped in a café, as the pathways turned into raging torrents of water, and the outside roof started leaking like it weren’t even there. As I like rainstorms, I thought this was awesome. Everyone else, however, fled as far inside as possible.
For the most part, we stayed on our balcony/porch/vista, and just relaxed and enjoyed the views. I also went crazy taking pictures, and we walked through the various towns quite a bit, but this was supposed to be the relaxing part of the trip. Because next, we hit the mainland of Greece! But I’ll save that for the next entry…
Next: Greece II!
Hiking in Gryon!
It’s common knowledge that if you are living in
The only problem with taking the last train out of town is that when you arrive to your destination, it’s already dark. This has happened to us a couple of times, and you’d think we’d learn, but we don’t…so once again, we found ourselves walking around in the mountains in pitch-blackness, with only the sounds of cowbells in the distance keeping us company.
The only unfortunate thing was that the weather wasn’t being 
cooperative with us. We got up early Saturday to go on a hike, and about halfway into it the clouds rolled in. As a result, we had to cut the hike a little short, and rather than go up the mountain we were planning on hiking, we took another trail around it, which was probably better anyway since we got to see some cows. Cows still rule! We then spent the rest of the day sitting around the hostel as the rain and fog doused Gryon. In honor of the weather, we watched “The Mist”, a movie from last year where monsters come out of the fog and eat people.
Sunday we came home a little early, for two reasons. One - it’s kind of pointless to be in the mountains when you can’t see more than three feet in front of you. Two - it’s the beginning of football season! This year, the NFL finally got their act together and are offering a service to anyone outside of the US that allows you to watch the games online, so we tried that out. Considering we saw a grand total of 1 game last year, it’s going to be nice getting back into sports that aren’t completely inane (you know who you are, soccer!)
Next: Greece!
Alps and Provence
This week, my brother and brother-in-law joined up with my sister, nieces, Soph and I to hit the Swiss Alps and Provence. Also, as it’s early August, the Fete de Geneve is in full swing, so it was a good
time to showcase Geneva, as the city’s energy levels are a bit higher than usual.
The first day we kept it simple with a daytrip to Montreaux and some local vineyards. While the kids aren’t too big on vineyards, these are among the most beautiful in the world, in that they’re apparently the only terraced vineyards facing a lake, anywhere. They’re a UNESCO heritage site, and for those of you who might not be familiar with what that means, it’s basically a guide to tourist spots that are supposed to have culture and stuff older people like myself are interested in. The vineyards had a nice walking trail, and I’m surprised we hadn’t done it before now, as it’s only half an hour away. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hit any of the wine caves before heading back, but as I’ve discussed previously, Swiss wines aren’t exactly world-class, so no big loss there.
Next, on to Gimmewald. Gimmewald is possibly my favorite place in Europe. It’s this little village – not even big enough to be a village, really – that sits on a giant 
cliff above the Lauterbrunnen valley. It’s steep, and it directly faces the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains, which are massive – so you essentially have this gigantic rock wall in front of you that stretches up almost through your entire line of vision. It’s impressive, and surprisingly not overly traveled, meaning it’s also peaceful and quiet. It also boasts what I call “cow hikes”, meaning that you tend to run into herds of cows on the actual trail. I love cow hikes. Anyway – we went there for two nights, did a couple hikes, and just enjoyed ourselves. Sam found an awesome cheese shop in the town over, and armed with local mountain cheeses, we were set to sit around and relax (assuming a nice hike is your idea of relaxation).
One quick thing about traveling with kids - the nieces are at that age where they’re able to travel and have fun while doing so. They’re also at that age where it’s possible to get them into trouble; for instance, Rachel, 13, is learning the power of “talking back”. So in return for all the meanness my sister inflicted on me growing up, I of course found the most opportune times to get her to say something that would bug my sister. Ahh, family bonding! Julia, on the other hand, will say just about anything if you agree to “heelie” her, so between ninja punching lessons, I also taught her to say “duh-uh”, when somebody says something stupid. Her mom loves that one…
On to Provence…I always thought of Provence as the land of paced living, sun-drenched landscapes, and herbs growing like wildflowers. I will admit I expected it to be…greener. That said, 
it was pretty cool, and had it’s charms. We started in Arles, a city known for something or other (Soph told me, but I wasn’t really listening), and used that as our base. It’s a medieval city with old walls and all that, and apparently was the place where Van Gogh painted a bunch of his more famous works (there are a couple of spots where they put his painting in front of the scene it was depicting, to show the similarities / differences). While here, we also saw a bullfight – although French bullfighting is different than Spanish bullfighting. They don’t actually kill the bull here, but rather, they have like 20 guys running around trying to touch it’s head. Yeah, weird – but it was in an old Roman arena, and it was cool to sit there and watch. Of course, we were all rooting for the bull – and he almost got one dude, which would have been great – but he didn’t have the closing speed I expected of him. For some reason, the bulls kept jumping over the fence, which was funny at first, and then got kind of boring. In the end it’s just a weird custom.
Les Baux is another town we stopped in. It’s basically this old castle on a hillside, with lots of touristy stuff to look at. The castle was kind of neat, and they 
advertised a “catapult shooting”, which should have been awesome, except for the fact they only shot it like three feet and didn’t destroy anything. What’s the point of shooting a catapult if you aren’t going to destroy anything? Ridiculous. Unfortunately, we had our only casualty of the trip here, as the mistral winds kicked up a rock that flew into Heather’s eye, and forced us to stop at a hospital. She was probably cool with this, however, as it meant we took the kids out to the lavender fields, while her and Sam got some alone time in France. It was during this period that Soph and I learned we will be terrible parents, as it was well past 2:00 and we hadn’t yet fed the nieces, whereupon we finally found a small little supermarket and bought them some…bologna. Yeah - I need to start praying for our offspring…
We also stopped by the Pont du Gard, which is an old Roman aqueduct that spans the Rhone river. It’s an extremely impressive feat of engi
neering, and it’s also a great place to stop and go for a swim! We spent a little over an hour here, and while Morgan and I didn’t don our speedos (much to the chagrin of French women everywhere), we did wade out into the water a little.
The last stop was a town called Avignon, which had a giant castle or something that we didn’t see the need to go into. As I’ve said before, it’s easy to get “castled-out” if you do it too much, and since we had seen a couple already, there wasn’t much of a need to pay 12 euros apiece to get in. The exchange rate is brutal right now!
Sadly, everyone had to leave on Saturday, as we all have work and stupid stuff like that to go back to. But as with all family trips, we got a couple of good lines that will be inside jokes pretty much forever, which is always important. We also started planning our next European family vacation, so there’s that to look forward to next year!
Next weekend: Man Weekend / Girl’s Night!
Paris Deux!
Some more visitors this week; my favorite sister in the entire world, Heather, and her two daughters (aka, my two favorite nieces in the entire world), Rachel and Julia, made their first tri
p to mainland Europe to come see what all the hype was about. And of course, they wanted to visit Sophia – I like to pretend they wanted to see me, but I know the truth. After spending a day or two in Geneva with them, we took them to one of the most visited cities in the world – Paris!
Now, let me step back a few months; last time Soph and I went to Paris, it was amazing. Nice people; great sites; cool bakeries on every corner; it lived up to its’ reputation. Let me step back even further, to the time when I was growing up in the Wintermeyer household. One thing we learned from watching our parents is that we have really bad luck. I’m not talking the “born into poverty in a third-world country” bad luck, because let’s be honest – that’s really bad luck. Rather, I’m talking “things that don’t really matter but are mildly annoying” bad luck, such as losing at raffles, getting served last at dinner by the waiter, and stupid things like that. Hey – it’s still bad luck! Just wanted to clarify though.
Since I met Soph, I’ve kind of laughed at the “bad luck of the Wintermeyer clan” theory. Sometimes stupid things happen, but I chalk them up to coincidence and the law 
of averages, or just figure that most people have these same experiences, and it’s just the way it is – not that it’s related to some divine force trying to slowly and methodically beat my family down. However, my family thinks I’ve abandoned the old ways, and that I’ve fallen prey to the glitz and glamour of that concept we call yuppie-hood (something my sister has clearly done).
Well, put my sister and myself together, and the bad luck forces are too strong to deny. Paris was apparently mad at the fact I liked it last time, and decided it would take some vengeance on us for leaving happy! I won’t bother you by going into the details, but let’s just say it got dicey (I actually planned on going into the details, but they sounded trite and silly once I got into them, and I realized it was merely coincidence and the law of averages.) Anyway…onto the trip.
The first morning (after having an argument with a waiter completely in French – all those hours of studying are starting to pay off!), we climbed the couple hundred stairs to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral. I hadn’t known you could do that, and if I had I probably would have complained and said “that’s a lot of stairs!”, but it was pretty cool once we were up there. Had some great views of Paris, as you can see the Eiffel Tower (as opposed to the view from the Eiffel Tower, where you can only
see…well, all of Paris except the Eiffel Tower.) Soph also got some good pictures of me and the nieces doing our best gargoyle impressions – gargoyles rule. After that we walked to the Museum D’Orsay, which has an insanely great collection of paintings, and which I would recommend over the Louvre (while the Louvre is much more massive, the D’Orsay is nice because you can do it fairly quickly).
On Sunday we debated walking up the Champs Elysees to watch the end of the Tour de France, for as my brother-in-law Sam would say, “how could you go to Paris on the final day of the Tour, and not go see it?” Our response was easy – “it’s a bike race…who cares?” Sacrilege, I know, but seriously – I’m not wasting a day in Paris to stand in a huge crowd to have a bad view of a pack of bikers zip by. A couple of you can address the hate mail to the address on the right…I know we disappoint you.
Instead, we went to Versailles; I was looking forward to this, as I thought it was going to be cool. Well - it wasn’t - but we still had a good time. Why wasn’t it cool? First of all, the gardens, while nice, weren’t in nearly as good of shape as the gardens just about everywhe
re else we’ve gone. They just seemed kind of…lifeless - not sure how else to explain it. Second, the Hall of Mirrors was kind of gross; you could barely tell they were mirrors due to the amount of accumulated dirt and grime on them! I was hoping for something out of a Bruce Lee movie, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. Third, there is a “fountain show” in the gardens twice a day, which we patiently waited for, dreaming of Las Vegas-style Bellagio action. And you know what the fountain show turned out to be? Simply, the turning on of the fountains. Regular fountains; nothing synchronized, choreographed, etc. Just fountains doing what fountains are supposed to do all the time, only they turn them on twice a day and call it a show. In their defense, it’s an impressive marketing technique. So while I wouldn’t recommend Versailles for any reason, we still had fun running around and exploring it.
I 
unfortunately had to go back to Geneva that night so I could make it to work the next day, but I left Soph, Heather and the nieces to another day of exploring (or probably shopping, if Soph’s threats were true).
One last note – many of you in the States are probably aware of “heelies”, which are shoes for kids that have wheels in the back. I guess they’re not very common in Europe yet, as Julia was heelie-ing everywhere, and without fail, people would stop in their tracks and stare at her, wondering what she was doing. Pretty funny; a lot of people did double-takes, little children flipped out, and one old lady stopped in her tracks as if a spirit were floating across the subway platform. If she’d ever met Julia, she would have known it was a spirit of mischief…
Next weekend: The Brother and Brother-in-Law come!