Turkey

Turkey is one of those destinations that, once you've traveled a few other places, it quickly moves up on the list of cool countries to visit. It's a different travel experience from the rest of Europe, yet not so far off the beaten track that you end up eating dung beetles or other things due to the fact that you can't understand the menu. There are crazy landscapes, beautiful beaches, and a vibrant history dating back to Old Testament times (trivia fact: a shocking amount of the Bible was written either in, or to, the various locales of Turkey).

We started our trip in Istanbul. Istanbul is the only major city in the world to cross two continents (although since a continent is an arbitrary delineation defined by men, it really doesn’t mean a whole lot). Situated in both Asia and Europe, it's been a trade route for thousands of years, and was once the center of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, it's a bustling city with millions of residents and all sorts of cool things to see and do, and boasts a skyline dotted with mosques and palaces. In addition, the city is separated by the Strait of Bosphorus, essentially splitting it in two.

While there are a lot of things to see, one of the main attractions is the Grand Bazaar. Something like 10,000 stalls have set up shop within the roofs of the bazaar, and you could spend a week just wandering the corridors. There's also the Spice Market, which is similar, albeit smaller, and is heavy on spices and cooking products, while the Grand Bazaar has everything from knock-off clothing to the softest bathtowels money can buy. As there are no prices on anything, you haggle with the merchants to pay whatever you think is the right price (regardless of how successful you are with this, things still cost way less than you would get them anywhere else).

The other attractions in Istanbul worth noting are the mosques. First, you have the Hagia Sophia, which wasn't originally a mosque, but since it's an awe-inspiring structure and the country is now 98% Muslim, it was converted into one. The Hagia Sophia was built in about 600 AD, and was so far ahead of it's time that a larger church wasn't built until the Italians completed the Duomo around 1500 AD. Also impressive is the Blue Mosque, a gigantic, umm, mosque, that happens to be blue. Ok, so it doesn't have the most original name - and I clearly don't know any synonyms for "mosque" - but it's pretty cool nonetheless, although the 5:30 am call to prayer was a little hard to sleep through, considering our hotel was about 100 yards away from the loudspeakers mounted on its spires.

Having seen Istanbul, the next leg of our journey took us to Cappadocia, home of the famous fairy chimneys. The fairy chimneys are natural rock formations wherein you have these large mushroom-shaped spires dominating the surrounding landscape. It's very surreal, and very cool-looking, and as the best way to see it is via hot air balloon, we climbed in one and took a tour of the countryside. True story – the same air balloon company we took would, one week later, crash one of their balloons and plummet to the earth. As you will see, near-death experiences followed us everywhere on this trip. Other than the fairy chimneys, Cappadocia is a fairly barren landscape, but it also houses an intricate network of caves and other structures carved into the rocks (other structures being, tourist hotels).

While here, we decided to brave a Turkish hamam. For this, they stick you on a warm marble stone, in what is essentially a sauna, and then a big Turkish dude comes out and scrapes your top layer of skin off with a cloth. Sounds brutal, but it wasn’t all that bad. Apparently the Turkish visit a Hamam once a week, which seems a bit much, but hey – when in Turkey…

Leaving Cappadocia, we took an overnight bus to Fethiye, which is on the southern coast. Had a close call on that one, as the bus almost left us at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere without our coats or passports! Oddly, the Turkish keep very clean buses, and stopped on two separate occasions to spend a good half hour washing it from top to bottom.

Our final leg was in Oludeniz. For some reason, this area has become a vacation hotspot for the British, which is kind of weird, but whatever. It's home to what is billed as "The Blue Lagoon", which is a nice little cove off the Mediterranean where you can sit and look at calm water with trees and hills as the backdrop. We took advantage of some activities in the area, such as rafting, paragliding, and a boat trip, the boat trip being notable in that there was a slide built into and through the boat (it’s the little things that sometimes amuse me). The rafting trip we took was part two of that near-death experience thing, but I’ll let Soph tell you the story in person if you want to hear it. Suffice to say, when we finally got back on land, I felt guilty for having made her go on the trip, so I gave her one of my watershoes to replace the one of hers that had been violently ripped off by the rapids. I then had to carry the raft across hot sharp rocks with only one shoe…

As far as the Turkish people go…they were pretty cool. I mean, when you go to tourist places, you kind of expect everyone to do whatever they can to convince you to part with your cash, but the Turkish were so friendly about it that you can’t help but give them props. They’d make their pitch, laugh and joke, and when it was all said and done, they’d be like “listen – thanks for parting with your cash. Now I really want you to have a good time while you visit my country. Of course, if you need to part with any additional cash, come back to me, otherwise just have a good time”. One of the guys at the restaurant next to our hotel made it his sole mission of the weekend to feed us a good Turkish dinner. He saw us at another restaurant and flagged us down later, and said “listen – you’ve had their food; now I want to make you a real Turkish dinner. Let me prepare a feast for you.” We said yes, because how can you say no to someone who wants to prepare you a feast? We were then greeted that night with an amazing, off-menu barrage of flavors and spices, and a chef who was extremely happy to see us enjoying his dishes.

All in all, another great destination, and another great trip. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to drink more Turkish coffee – only averaged about two per day. However, I did purchase a cezve, and will be perfecting my technique over the next few months!

Loire Valley

The Loire Valley…former playground of France’s nobility, now it attracts lovers of chateaus and, well, lovers of chateaus, the world over. But is that all there is to the Loire? Of course not, or else we wouldn’t have come here. I mean, Soph likes her chateaus, and she definitely wears the pants in the relationship, but to be able to drag me on a vacation where the only thing to do is look at glorified manor houses? Even I have some standards…

And standard number one is…goat cheese! Yes, the Loire is possibly the world’s finest purveyor of goat cheese. It’s so good that they even mold it into shapes before selling it to you! St. Maure is a cylinder; Valencay is a pyramid; etc. Not sure that it adds much to the taste, but it does make it just a little bit more fun to eat. Anyway - we were discussing over one of our fromage plates how it turned out that I, who never really ate cheese up until a few years ago, ended up being the one of us who now loves cheese (this was realized when I took seven cheeses from the dessert tray, and then stole one of Soph’s because I knew she wouldn’t like it). I mean - I hated macaroni and cheese growing up so much so that I don’t remember having actually eaten it. Maybe therein lies the reason? Not having my cheese taste-buds stunted by the green glop that is Kraft, I’m now able to enjoy the stinkiest of stinky cheeses? Probably not - but it’s been a fun progression to start with tame cheeses such as Gruyere, and on the second night in the Loire Valley to graduate to Roquefort, the king of moldy cheeses. I couldn’t have even smelled that stuff a year ago, but now - bring it on!

Regarding the rest of the food of the Loire…I know I’ve said this before, but the French really know what they’re doing when they cook. Once again, we had some crazy-good eating experiences, including the single best French Onion Soup the world has ever witnessed. The food is really at it’s best when mixing flavors, such as a venison with a raspberry and black pepper sauce, or a spiced chocolate mousse with cream, vanilla and burnt sugar. Best of all - we didn’t eat Asian food for five straight days! I think that’s a new record (although I’m writing this the day after returning, and Soph has already cooked us a full Korean dinner…)

That brings us to standard number two…wine! Ok, we’ve done a lot of wine stuff already, but the Loire is one of those underrated regions that produces some very nice wines, relatively cheaply, but doesn’t get much press. As such - we were able to visit some of the top producers here, tour their caves, and get really great wines for almost nothing. Of course, we had to fit them into our suitcases, which kind of sucked, but that’s all part of the adventure. The thing I really like about the Loire wines, however, is the sheer number of producers who have gone biodynamic with their processes. I don’t want to sound like a hippie or anything, but it’s kind of neat seeing a lot of younger vignerons having success with these types of methods. It generally takes them a few years to see the results, but many of the growers have found the quality of their wines has gotten better, and a handful of the top domaines here are now fully biodynamic. One of the first producers to do this, Domaine Huet, now even has tulips growing on their vines - the only place in the world where this happens. We ended up driving by their plots, and it was interesting to see theirs versus other growers in the same area who aren’t biodynamic, as the contrast is staggering.

Standard number three is, obviously - tuffeau caves! Tuffeau is a type of rock unique to the Loire; it’s fairly soft, and back in the day was extensively mined as a building material (for many of the chateaus, actually). Today, you have tons of caves from where it was excavated – caves which hold cool things like mushrooms and wines! We did a couple of tastings in tuffeau caves, which was neat because the temperature was perfect for wine storage. It was also perfect for fungus growing – some of the older bottles of wine were completely covered in mold! And while I generally don’t have much of an opinion on caves in general, these were fun, as you walked in on the ground level and the temperature was instantly colder, as it stays constant throughout the summers and winters.

All this fun stuff aside, the real draw of the Loire Valley is, of course, the chateaus…because really, who doesn’t like a nice chateau every now and then? And the Loire is filled with some of the best. Gothic spires, crazy gardens…one of them even had a working drawbridge! Of all the castles and whatnot we’ve seen, I think this was the first actual drawbridge; unfortunately there was no ogre in the moat, although there was a dude with a large nose who demanded a 10 Euro entrance fee, which at the end of the day is kind of the same thing.



While I don’t necessarily get into the whole “this chateau was given to this king’s mistress, and then the queen banished her to this other chateau” thing, Soph enjoys a lot of the political drama that comes with them. For me, I find them interesting because they’re basically castles that were built for comfort and beauty, rather than as defensive structures, which I think marks a major shift in how the role of government was being executed. Architecturally, most of the chateaus have some feature that is both unique and interesting, whether it be their location, the grounds / gardens, or even the floor plan. One of them, Cheverny, is still even being lived in by the owners! That said, the most impressive of them was, without a doubt, Chambord. Chambord was merely the king’s hunting lodge, and he ended up spending something like 60 entire days there in his lifetime. Interestingly enough, Leonardo da Vinci came and helped design it as he was getting older, and spent a few of his final years living here. As such, you have some features that are clearly ahead of their time. First, the inside is planned on a strict geometric basis, with all sorts of rooms upon rooms that allow not only for large gatherings, but also a lot of privacy. Then there is the double-helix staircase, which is designed in such a way that people going up will never pass people going down (it’s also set up so that a single lantern at the top of the staircase can light the entire chateau, or at least the main halls – which would have been very useful in the pre-electricity days). Finally, of course, is the view of the keep from outside. Chambord is so monstrously large and imposing, and so ornate, that you can’t help but gawk at it. It’s very impressive, and as such, I’ll just post some pictures, rather than try to describe it.


Lastly, I have to say this one more time…we once again had good experiences with the French. We even took a wine tour in French, although it was more like a half of a wine tour, because midway through some other English-speaking people showed up, and the guide thought it would be easier to just give the tour and switch between languages, at which point her French became completely unintelligible to the non-native speaker. Still - good times!

Next week: Chamonix!

Berlin!

This is now our third city-trip in Germany, and Berlin is so shockingly different than the other two German cities we went to that one would wonder how they’re related. In some ways it’s like any other European metropolitan city, with huge malls, neo-classical facades, and a well-maintained metro system. However, once you start looking, you find so much more...

While I don’t want to get into the political and economic history of what occurred there over the past 60+ years – mostly because people will inevitably disagree with any interpretation I give – I do want to point out this is precisely why it’s an interesting city from a travel perspective. Clearly there is a difference between the east and the west, although massive construction has significantly blurred that line in the past twenty years. However, Berlin’s true appeal today is how it has culturally handled that transition. What you had were two sets of people who were exactly the same but, because of where their houses / apartments were located, they were split. Almost fifty years later they were put back together, but in that timeframe they went in drastically different directions. So what happens now?

Well, you get a massive artistic explosion, for one. From architecture to music to fashion to just about anything, Berlin is not only on the cutting edge, they’re driving it. The number of modernist buildings is staggering; the entire city seems to be a playground for progressive architecture. Every street has some concept-building begging to be looked at, from small row apartments to large office buildings, and you could probably spend weeks trying to see them all.

Galleries and studios also proliferate, many of which have extremely interesting stuff. For instance – there’s a clothing store that, on the main floor, is just an empty white-plastered room, no signs or anything, and a lone staircase heading down. If you take the staircase, you get into this immaculate basement with crazy men’s/women’s clothing from local designers. In addition, you see a lot more Eastern European influence in many of the stores, which rarely ever makes its’ way into Switzerland or the US.

Another way in which Berlin is setting itself apart from the rest of Europe is in the bar / club scene. The only way to truly describe it would be as “completely out of control”. Any type of music you want to hear is being played somewhere – opera, jazz, alternative, balkan electronica – you name it. Just walking into stores you hear styles of music you’ve never even considered. This all leads into a lot of unique venues and concepts. For instance, one bar we went to was full of nooks and beanbags, which was great for lazing around with your honey! Another bar we went to was basically an art squat inside an old shopping mall that was apparently in the process of being demolished when the squatters took it over. There was graffiti everywhere and a couple of metal-working studios attached to it; you just don’t find this kind of thing in other cities!

Then the club scene…well, first of all, I’m too old for clubbing. However, Berlin is known for having the best clubs in Europe, if not the entire world, so of course I made Soph go to one with me. And of course, the first one we tried to go to, they took one look at us and said something in German that probably translated as “too old”, and wouldn’t let us in. Luckily there was another one up the street, and while we didn’t get any younger on the way there, they were letting everyone in, so it worked out. Good night – we made it out well past 3am!

As a side note, many of you are probably wondering how I was able to convince Soph to go to a club that plays electronic music. The answer is simple – I took her to get Asian food for lunch both days. Marriage is all about give and take…

At the end of the day, would I recommend Berlin? Actually a tough question; in some ways, it’s the most exciting and vibrant city we’ve been to, possibly anywhere. The energy is contagious, and the sub-culture is so far past any other city that it’s not even funny. That being said – if you take that element away, Berlin is just another city, albeit with some really cool architecture. The main sites are interesting enough that it’s hard to skip those in favor of exploring the rebuilding and soon-to-be gentrified neighborhoods – however, a good number of other European cities also have “main sites” that are just as interesting, if not moreso. However, what’s going on in parts of East Berlin is what makes it unique – which makes sense, because it’s still trying to catch up to the west. Buildings are being torn down and replaced; low rents are attracting international talent; I mean, we had coffees in a minimalist concrete-furnitured organic coffeeshop. Where else will you find something like that? That said, it will probably all be gone in another twenty years and replaced with a Starbucks. Speaking of which - check out how crowded the one below is!


Next trip: Loire Valley!

Lyon!

This weekend, we headed off to the city of Lyon, for a gastronomic tour of epic proportions. With 27 Michelin-starred restaurants, Lyon is known as the culinary heart of France, which means it’s also considered one of the top eating destinations in the world. Since it’s only an hour and a half train ride, we decided to hop the TGV and make a weekend of it!

First of all, the food…as many of you know, Sophia doesn’t mess around when it comes to eating. She knows her chefs, her ingredients, and is among the best restaurant-searchers I know. As a result, we were able to get reservations to the brasseries of two of France’s most famous chefs, Paul Bocuse and Georges Blanc. And let me tell you…they served some heavy dishes! Escargot in a thick butter and herb sauce, chicken in a rich butter sauce, quennelle that melted in your mouth (probably with some butter thrown in there somewhere)…everything was so good, that we even tried liver! It also was ridiculously good. The bonus part of all this, is that each meal was still cheaper than the average meal in Geneva…as such, it’s going to be tough to ever surpass this in terms of an “eating weekend”.

The city of Lyon itself is pretty cool. It has one of the larger old towns in Europe, as well as some decent Roman ruins. There is also a great view of the city on a nearby hillside, where one of the most impressive and ornate cathedrals I’ve yet seen sits. That said, the city itself is kind of…dull somehow. I think it’s due to the fact that almost every street is filled with chain stores and bank branches. Outside of the old town, none of the streets had much of a personality, which is kind of the exact opposite of Paris. Also, there were an inordinate amount of pubs. We counted 8 just on Saturday, and we weren’t even exploring like we usually do. Only ran into one Starbucks though…which is odd, because in most French cities the pub-to-Starbucks ratio is the other way around! Lastly, there was a huge mall there – one of the biggest in Europe, apparently. As we were walking through it, Soph and I both looked at each other and said “this reminds me a lot of Columbia Mall (in Baltimore)”. Weird.

We didn’t have too many dealings with the locals, but in true French fashion we did receive at least one dirty look. We were on the subway, and Soph winked at a little child who was staring at her. The kid scrunched up her face trying to wink back, at which point the father barked at her and glared at us. Ahh, France…on the other hand, we went into a wine store (which was ridiculously awesome), and the guy went over my list of wine producers and spent about fifteen minutes telling me the story of each one, and what made them good / bad. Wine store guys rule!

On the whole, this was a fun weekend – especially for a Valentine’s Day. Soph got to eat at a lot of good restaurants; I got to walk around a cool Old Town; the weather was sunny (although cold)…what’s not to enjoy?

Next weekend: More skiing!

Verbier Deux!

Last year, on this very weekend, we took a trip with a bunch of friends to the Swiss ski resort of Verbier. It was one of those weekends that, among other things, became legendary for a variety of reasons. Part of it was the lodging we had, affectionately known as “The Bunker”. Another aspect was the skiing, which saw us have to deal with inclines that seemed more like cliffs than ski slopes. There was also the party scene, where a handful of us stayed out well past 4:00 in the morning, which is something that just doesn’t happen more than once every couple of years. As a result, there was a lot of hype that had to be lived up to, and this time we had an even larger crew along for the ride!

First, let me revisit The Bunker. The Bunker is, without any doubt in my mind, the single worst place to sleep in continental Europe. I would even go so far as to extend this distinction to the entire Western Hemisphere, as well as Asia and Australia. It’s literally an old World War II bomb shelter, with no windows, a set of air-lock doors, and a descent of about fifty yards into something that, if you were faced with it in a horror movie, you know there would be some kind of zombie or man-eating alien creature at the end of it. Oh, also there are no locks on any doors, it’s co-ed, and there are about 16 beds per room, and they are laid out so that every bed touches at least one other bed on either the right or left (and they’re all bunkbeds).

The other thing about The Bunker is, it’s not cheap. I mean, you expect to have bad accommodations when you’re paying hostel prices, but The Bunker runs about $50 per person, which is more than most Holiday Inns. Luckily this year, the trip organizer was able to score a deal with another hostel, which seemed like a palace in comparison. Thus, with lodging taken care of, things were looking good.

We’ve been lucky up to now in that we’ve generally had good weather for skiing. As I’ve said before, it’s hard to beat going out to the mountains and seeing not a single cloud in the sky. This weekend, however, we were caught in a raging blizzard. It was probably the hardest snowfall I’ve ever been outside in, but that being said, it was awesome. Most people left the slopes (due to extremely low visibility), but a couple of us stayed on, and were rewarded with excellent powder and tons of wide-open space. The visibility did make it a bit dangerous, as you couldn’t see bumps or small changes in elevation, but that also made it kind of exciting. All in all, it was a good day for skiing, and again, no major injuries were sustained.

Lastly, there was the nightlife that we had to live up to. This time, everybody was ready, and we headed out to a lounge, and then a club. It’s odd being in a club anymore, as I always expect to feel like the old guy in the corner; but in Verbier, there were plenty of other old people (in club years, which means you have to multiply every birthday by 5 after the age of 21). And as far as the whole 4am thing…well, there were about eight of us who made it! Was actually a lot easier than it should have been, although it kind of sucked when the hostel came in and told us to get out at 10am the next morning. Leave it to the Swiss to be sticklers on their check-out times!

Next weekend: Lyon!

Random Snowboard Weekend

Another gray weekend in Geneva, another beautiful sunny day in the mountains. While Geneva’s weather is by no means bad, there sure are a lot of sunless days during the winter. Since it had been a couple weeks since I’d seen the sun, I jumped on a ski bus and headed to France. The first hour of the trip seemed like it might have been a waste, as we kept gaining in altitude, but the clouds didn’t disappear. Finally, though, we cleared them, and bright, sunny skies awaited.

I’m continuing to work on the snowboarding thing that I foolishly started this season. This weekend, I was working on what is called “connecting turns”. To the layperson, that means “turning”, and as you can understand, it’s a somewhat important trick to add to your repertoire. The good news is, I made it through the day without sustaining so much as a minor injury, which is always a positive. The bad news is, I still fell probably more than 30 times. I think I’ve just learned to fall on the parts of my body that are less important, such as my head. I’ve also learned how to say “I’m going to fall” in French, and I repeated it to just about anyone who would listen. Hey – that’s using the future tense – that’s a positive step!

On the topic of snowboarding, I want to revisit something I mentioned in an earlier post; that is, the J-Bar. Previously, I had called these things the minions of evil, and went on to describe why this was a correct statement. Since that first time, I had thought that maybe I had been a little harsh. The past two times I went snowboarding, I really didn’t have any trouble with them, and they had been kind of convenient in many ways. This weekend, however, they decided to remind me of how thoroughly vile an apparatus they are. When I first got on one, I was all ready to go, and the thing paused for a moment, then shot me from 0 to 25 mph in about half a second. I managed to stay on, but let’s just say that the future generation of Wintermeyers weren’t particularly happy. The next time I tried the J-Bar, there was no way I would be able to hold on, so I just let it go, at which point the guy who was running the lift thought he would try and berate me (what he didn’t know was that I’m impervious to yelling in the French language). So I then used a different J-Bar, and within about 20 feet of getting up the hill, the machine broke down; just wasn’t my day I guess. That said, a third incident saw some other guy try to use the J-Bar (who happened to be 2 people in front of me), and the entire thing fell off the line it was attached to! That was totally meant for me, but thankfully machines aren’t yet advanced enough to get their timing down.

All in all, however, it was a good weekend snowboarding, with beautiful sunny skies, relatively warm weather, and no major injuries. Also, Geneva wasn’t the place to be anyway, as there were riots going on downtown. Yes, riots – apparently the police fired tear gas at some protestors, which is pretty cool. I don’t know that it was getting particularly violent or anything, but our theory is that the police normally don’t get to use their muscle around here, so on those rare occasions when they see demonstrators, they go all out and just wail on them. Gotta love Switzerland!

Next weekend: Verbier!

New Years in Paris!

Ahh, New Year’s Eve…I’ve realized that the older I get, the less I want to celebrate this changing of the calendar in the confines of a club, bar, or other establishment meant for partying. However, I also feel pressured to do something “fun”, or at least with the appearance of fun. So, when we heard that people in Paris celebrate New Year’s Eve by walking around the Champs Elysees and basically just, well, walking around, that sounded right up our alley, so we booked the train and headed off!

As the past couple of trips have pointed out, we’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors walking around cities in the freezing cold. Well, since we don’t have any museums in Paris we’re aching to see at this point, the itinerary lent itself to continuing the subzero-walking thing we’re getting so good at. This time we armed ourselves with maps of a handful of restaurants, a smattering of bakeries, and more Asian grocery stores than you can shake a red pepper at, and headed out on our “random neighborhood” tour of Paris!

Let me just say, we hit some gold mines. Paris just has so much to offer; you can find virtually anything you want. Need a new frying pan, and don’t want to pay Geneva prices? Go to Paris! Need some Korean fish sauce, and can’t find it in Geneva? Go to Paris! Want some organic wines from up-and-coming producers in the Loire Valley? You get the idea…but as a result, we had one of our best city trips, without seeing any of the real sights.

This type of travel is fun, as it lends itself to weird occurrences. My favorite was while we were walking through one of the markets, just south of the Eiffel Tower. One of the stands had some freshly-cooked chicken wings, and as Soph and I hadn’t had chicken wings in over a year, nor had we eaten breakfast yet, we decided to buy a little bag of them and scarf them down. Finding a park bench off to the side, we ravenously dug into them, breaking the all-important French rule of not eating with your hands. As we were doing this, an old woman walked up to this pile of boxes on our left, which were clearly trash, and started digging through them. Within a minute she had found a raw chicken breast, and she picked it up and put it in her bag! I can’t make this stuff up; anyway, as she looked normal enough, I couldn’t tell if it was an issue of her not having enough money to buy a chicken from the vendor, or if she was simply thinking “hey – free chicken!”

The true funny part of this story, however, is that as this was going on, one of the vendors saw us sitting on the bench, eating our chicken wings (which were awesome, by the way). He then yelled over to us, half-mockingly, half-friendly, “bon appetit!” We smiled and yelled “merci” back, at which point the five Parisians standing in his line slowly turned their heads to us, and in succession, either sneered or completely ignored us, then turned back. Not even a smile at the ingenuity we were showing by eating the chicken wings right there, rather than waiting to take them home and eat them. No issues with a woman going through the garbage and taking out raw chicken breasts, but don’t eat chicken wings until you’re out of the confines of the actual market! Guess they’re afraid the tourists are going to invade their market, which is a reasonable enough fear, because that market ruled! I mean seriously – they had awesome croissants, specialty cheeses, and chicken wings – where else on earth can you find all three of those in the same place?

One thing I would advise against visiting in Paris are the sidewalk cafes. I know it sounds sacrilegious to skip these, but at the end of the day they don’t serve a quality product, and virtually all of them charge exorbitant prices. The coffee you’ll get will be decent, but the hot chocolates are often just cocoa packets with water, and the wines are below average at best. The only bright spot of these is that you’ll get to sit down for as long as you want, which is good for people watching in the summer, and escaping the cold in the winter, but they’re not the cultural experience they should be. That said, if you look hard enough, you can find some stellar wine bars that serve great stuff. Same goes for restaurants – we found a couple of fantastic, moderately-priced bistrots that were simply phenomenal. Have a couple more we didn’t get to, so guess we have to go back to Paris in a few months!

So yet again, Paris has proven itself to be a fantastic city, offering up everything we were looking for. And New Years? Well, after walking around the Champs Elysees (with our open containers; the American in us just can’t get used to that, so we kept hiding them whenever we’d see police!), we headed to a bridge over the Seine, where we had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. No fireworks or anything, but it did light up at midnight, and everyone cheered, then went home. More or less uneventful, but really, it’s probably more fun that way. 2009 is looking like it’s going to be a good year!

Next week: Sitting around doing nothing!

Ducks from Divonne

Today Tyler and I decided to take the Mobility car out and venture over to Divonne, France, where purportedly, there is a great food market. If not for having previously visited Ferney-Voltaire’s market a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have freaked out and slobbered all over this market and spent like 200 Euros. But, having gone to Ferney’s and fallen in love with that one (dude you can buy whole, unplucked geese and rabbit…not that I would), we merely splurged on a duck roast, marinated in honey, rosemary, and figs; some great cheeses; as well as some very nice bottles of wine that are a little more difficult to find in Switzerland (and much more expensive). So of course we had to sneak those wines in. Funny note on the wine shop we went to; Tyler broke out some pretty impressive French and asked the owner what wine she would recommend from the Loire Valley. She proceeded to answer us in English, which made us give each other the knowing look - the secret glance of “Wow that pisses me off, but at the same time, I‘m so glad” look. Hence our slow slow progression with the French language. Anyways, she recommended a few wines and we bought four, two of them being Chinons, to taste and prepare ourselves for our Easter trip to the Loire Valley, where the cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc grapes reign.

I was very excited about this duck roast, as I had never really cooked duck before. I love peking duck, but have not really tried it any other way. Apparently duck meat is darker because ducks are more active than chickens, which results in more blood pumping through their muscles, and therefore darker meat. The vendor told us all we had to do was to roast it in the oven for about a half hour, turning it over midway through. So that’s what I did. And I watched as the fat just melted around it. It’s amazing how much fat a duck breast has, but I guess it needs a lot in order to float and survive in winter! It finished roasting and I cut it open to find the figs and half cooked meat, which was a little disconcerting so I decided to put it back into the oven, which of course led to me forgetting about it, and the duck coming out a little dry. But better that than raw duck meat! Normally, we cut away all the fat that is present with the meat, but this dish was definitely enhanced by the crispy deliciousness of the fat. It mellowed the gaminess of the actual meat itself. No wonder they tell you to only eat duck maybe once a month at most! Tyler decided to open a St. Joseph wine that we had purchased earlier in Divonne, and after decanting for about a half hour, it matched wonderfully with the dinner. The turnip mash I fixed on the other hand was dismal. Sometimes I feel like a really good cook, and other times I feel so incompetent! On the whole it was a great day, French markets, new food, great wine, and relaxing on the sofa with a movie with the Christmas tree softly glowing in the corner. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Christmas in Geneva

As many of you know, this year we decided to spend the holidays in Geneva, rather than flying back to the US. Obviously we would have liked to have come back and catch up with friends and family – but we didn’t, so there’s no use dwelling on it. Hey – if you want sappiness, you’re gonna have to talk to Sophia!

Anyway, the original plan was to spend a couple days with our Christmas tree, sitting around and reflecting on how great a year it’s been. And, of course, watching tv. In fact, the whole reflecting thing was never gonna happen, especially considering we have like fifteen shows we need to catch up on. We also were going to spend a day or two skiing, but since the seemingly minor injury I sustained last weekend has yet to heal, I thought it best not to push my luck just yet. Sophia, of course, needed no convincing to stay in the apartment in lieu of hitting the slopes, so it was an easy decision.

A really quick note on the Christmas tree: it was a debacle getting that thing. As we don’t have a car here in Geneva, getting a Christmas tree involves either A) renting a car B) taking the tree on the public tram C) carrying the tree all the way across town. Since B and C sounded kind of silly, we opted for A. On the bright side, we can rent a car for short periods of time, such as two hours, making it relatively inexpensive to use a car for an errand such as this. On the other hand, we still had to rent a car to pick up a Christmas tree, which seems somehow ridiculous. But, that’s what we did. It wasn’t until after purchasing the tree that we realized we didn’t have anything to tie it to the top of the car with, since we normally don’t have a car in which to tie things to the top of. That, and I’m not even sure if it’s legal to do this in Switzerland. Thus, in true improvisational style, we folded down the seat of the compact car and chauffered the tree through Geneva in the front. On the bright side, it was a much quieter passenger than Sophia normally is, and it smelled like pine, rather than Asian food. Sorry honey – but that’s what you get for making yet another batch of kimchi!

We did take the opportunity on one of these days to drive over to the outdoor market in Divonne, France. Once again, we rented a car for a couple of hours (actually turned out to be the same car, and with no trace of pine needles!) and drove across the unmanned French-Swiss border to buy way more scarce necessities (such as red meat and wine) than we are legally allowed to bring back into Switzerland. This was yet another good market, and even after seeing so many of them, we still think that markets are awesome.

One quick shout-out to the city of Geneva: somebody did an amazing job decorating the downtown area! Colors all over the place, one of the churches has a cascade of white light pouring from it, there’s a nice Christmas tree in one of the squares…it really makes the city look great! I normally feel Geneva doesn’t go the extra mile when it comes to decorations, but this year they did really well on the Christmas lights. Not sure if the pictures will do them justice, but I braved the sub-zero temperatures to go out at night and take these, so I’m posting them regardless!

Other than that, we did some nice relaxing, a lot of good eating, and some more relaxing – so it turned out well. Even got to see “A Christmas Story”, which is pretty much the all-time greatest Christmas movie, a fact verified by TBS each year as it runs it in a 24-hour loop. TBS rules!

Next week: New Year’s in Paris!

Ski Weekend: Year 2, Version 1

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!