Happy Anniversary in Burgundy!

The French countryside is all it’s depicted to be in the travel books, oozing with rustic charm and countless cute villages dotting the vineyard-laden landscape. I actually started getting carsick because I kept on whipping the camera out to take pictures while driving along the famous Route des Grand Crus (note we deleted over 2/3 of them, but hey - I had fun). And I can’t tell you how many people we saw in the various villages we passed through who were carrying around exactly 3 loaves of French bread, I guess for their Saturday dinner; it was just the cutest thing.

We started our adventure by renting a car from the Geneva airport, where Tyler, thank God, got behind the wheel to take on the responsibility of keeping us safe, and other people / bicyclers alive. It took about two and a half hours to get to our bed and breakfast, Le Petit Clos, which has to be one of the most adorable bed and breakfasts I’ve ever been to (ok, the only bed and breakfast I’ve ever been to - but it was perfect). The hosts, Elisabet and Denis, were unbelievably attentive, and their dog Polka rocked! (For the record, it really is spelled Elisabet – we’ve met a few people here with that name.) After settling in, they armed us with maps and sent us on to Beaune, which considers itself the wine capital of France (apparently there’s a capital of everything in France), and we began our wine tasting and vineyard touring. But not until we ate lunch at this little café/restaurant where we were served an amazing 3 course meal for only 11 Euros! I do have to say, the French definitely know how to cook. Anyway, Beaune is another quaint, cobblestoned city, with all kinds of caveaus (cellars), cafes, and boutiques littering the streets, as well as a historic hospital that has retained its colorfully-tiled roofing from medieval times. After a small tasting and a tour of the hospice, we went on to explore some of the world’s best Pinot Noir vineyards, of the ilk of Corton, Vosnee Romanee, and Veugot. It was amazing to stand amongst these vines, knowing that these grapes are the source of thousand-dollar wines. I have to admit, they were pretty yummy (we only plucked a couple!). Another amazing thing about the plots is how small some were, and that people actually handpick many of the vines (we saw a little of this, as we went during the vendage, which is harvest time). After driving through the vineyards and another tasting, Tyler navigated us back home through the narrow country lanes to our B&B; the roads were insanely thin, and at one point we had some oncoming traffic and Tyler exclaimed he missed a whole appellation b/c of having to concentrate on the road!

Upon our safe arrival back at Le Petit Clos, we were given a little tour of Denis’s wine cellar, where we picked out a wine to go with our dinner. Denis and Elisabet sat with us in their living room and talked about wine, their lives, and where we were from; I have to admit I thought I’d be uncomfortable with such a personal bed and breakfast, but they were just so easy to talk to and knew so much about the area, and are so passionate about what they do. Elisabet fixed us an amazing five course meal that started out with some puff pastry thing that was absolutely delicious…the French have perfected the puff pastry concept!!!! And it goes without saying that the rest of our courses were incredible; we could barely waddle up the steps at the end of dinner!

The next day, after a breakfast on their terrace, we headed out to explore the Chardonnay vineyards (THE best Chardonnays come from Burgundy). What was great was the fact that there were virtually zero other tourists here; not sure why, but at one point, we stopped on the road and were walking through a vineyard (in the famous appellation of Puligny-Montrachet), and a good twenty minutes went by without a car passing by. So of course we used this time to eat some more grapes...haha! We also stopped in Chassagne-Montrachet (still home to our favorite white wines) and Meursault, where we learned that the size of the village and the danger posed in driving through it are inversely proportional; the houses, built of stone, are built on one-lane roads, but cars drive both ways on them!

Anyway, we eventually made our way back to Geneva. It really was a perfect way to celebrate our anniversary, with such good food and drink, and of course each other. I still can’t believe it’s been one year already, as it feels like yesterday that I was frantically running around trying to get married! But Burgundy was wonderful and we will definitely try it again, although maybe not so soon, as we paid 90 dollars for a tank of gas. So everyone out there in the U.S. can’t complain to us about gas prices!!!!

Next weekend: Moving into our new place!!!!

Belgium!

Sep 5-9 Amazing gothic architecture…great food…easily navigable subway system…all these things make it hard to describe why there was something a little…off…in Belgium. It started when we bought our first Belgian Waffle (a nice, sticky, chocolate-covered slice of heaven). When we started to eat it, I realized we didn’t have a napkin. So I asked the vendor for a napkin, and he proceeded to rummage around behind the counter, come up 20 seconds later, and hand me – one – napkin. Ok, I thought, no big deal. I’ll just have to live with it. Later on, we went to a kabob shop, ordering the delightful meat concoction that every city should sell, and again, upon asking for napkins, we were presented with one, single napkin. Yet after that, we ordered some hamburgers at The Quick, basically a McDonald’s without the grease (why would you get rid of the grease?), and once more, after asking for napkins, we were given a lonely, solitary napkin.

This happened on, and I don’t exaggerate, 8 different occasions – which clearly makes it a trend. (Ok, maybe 6 occasions.) Why would all of Belgium, a country who prides themselves on being the best at so many of life’s luxuries – chocolate, beer, seafood, etc. – why when they have so many ways in which they make the world a better place, why are they so protective of their napkins? How, from a sociological evolutionary standpoint, does a culture develop the need to conserve as many napkins as possible? They’re not even nice napkins; they’re ordinary. I could understand if they were silk or lace, but they’re rough and scratchy.

It’s just odd. But I digress…

Belgium, napkin-hoarding aside, has a lot of charm. While we stayed in Brussels for the majority of the trip, we took day trips to Ghent and Brugge. Ghent is one of the nicer “small” medieval cities we’ve been to, and probably has more gigantic, beautiful cathedrals per square meter than anywhere else in the world (sorry – I’m thinking in the metric system - it probably has more cathedrals per square foot than anywhere else). Brugge, meanwhile, is a canal-medieval-city, and was great for biking around, as it’s a bit too large to cover on foot. Both were very beautiful. For the record, Sophia and I are horrible bikers. I’m a bit too kamikaze, especially considering I never quite figured out how to ride in a straight line (I blame the fact I grew up riding a hand-me-down bike without pedals on unpaved roads). And while Sophia is better than me, she has a habit of twisting her ankle when walking down the street; if you apply this level of balance and agility to bicycles, you get the idea (note that she tripped and fell in Brussels, severely scraping her knee and looking like a fool, her words). Anyway – it was cute, we took some pictures, they’ll be uploaded on Shutterfly shortly – blah blah blah. Time for the good stuff…

So my main objective in Belgium was, as some of you can guess, to try as many beers as possible (in moderation). I am, after all, a self-proclaimed beer snob! And for all you other blossoming beer snobs, let me just say that this is the place to hone your craft; good beer flows like water from the old-world pubs of Brussels! But it doesn’t stop there; we also made sure to eat as many waffles and chocolates as possible. This is what vacationing is all about…13 pubs, 34 beers, 8 waffles, 46 pieces of chocolate, 64 mussels, and we even got some Vietnamese soup in there one night! Anyway, I believe we took pictures of every beer, waffle, and chocolate shop we went to. A lot of pictures, and a lot of fun. Made for a different type of vacation, because we didn’t really do any “touristy” stuff this trip – yeah, we walked around and looked at buildings and castles, but that was more because the places we were going to (chocolate shops and pubs) caused us to cross by some of these things. And that’s why Belgium is cool – because you can go there, and not have to feel like you’re missing out on something if you don’t see everything, and you can just relax and indulge yourself.

Great trip on the whole. For the record, I feel I can now officially consider myself a beer-snob. So that leaves me with only a couple of further “snob” activities to learn from my European snobbery to-do list:

• Cheese
• Wine
• Cooking puff pastries
• Looking down my nose at people who don’t pronounce French with the correct accent

And these remaining snobberies lead perfectly into our next trip…

Next week: Burgundy!

Barcelona

Aug 24-26

Barcelona has become an absolutely enormous city; what used to be suburbs are now teeming city blocks, while the labyrinthine gothic quarter can occupy hours of aimless wandering (or hours of bickering when you inevitably get lost – although I don’t get lost). Yes, it’s hard not to love Barcelona – although some of the more famous areas have become too touristy since I last visited (it’s possible that I just notice this more now that I’m older, but I feel a lot more people are traveling now versus 10 years ago).

This was our first "take-a-flight-straight-after-work" out of hopefully many to come, so that we could spend Friday night hanging out in the city. Of course, as my fellow thirty-year-olds out there can attest, this is always a better idea on paper than in reality – but we did manage to have fun and stay out until almost 1:30 am – craziness! We had a lot of sight-seeing to do the next day though, so we ate what would become my favorite meal so far in Europe (involving many tapas such as fried baby squid, also known as chiperones - Soph loved that word), washed it down with some sangria, and just had a good time. I was amazed at how the chefs could not only broil clams to rival the best seafood restaurants, but also cook a potato, egg and sausage plate that puts Cracker Barrel to shame. One wouldn't think that a potato dish with a mayonaissy sauce on it can be good, but really, it's phenomenal how they do it - I mean, Soph tried to lick the plate. I guess that's the reason Spain is always on the culinary forefront.

The next day we walked the Las Ramblas and stopped by the famous La Boqueria market where all the chefs come to buy their daily menu, and then got our tickets for the tourist bus (I wanted to travel by subway, but I heartily lost that battle). We also saw a bunch of Gaudi’s works, including a park he designed for what was supposed to be an exclusive village for Barcelona's elite – which was pretty cool. What was even cooler, though, was the Borne district, which is where we went that night. It’s definitely my new favorite late-night spot, with its’ miles of small alleyways and endless rows of unique and interesting venues and tapas restaurants. It could be the perfect night-life atmosphere, with just blocks upon blocks of twisting streets and secret paths set amidst hundreds-of-years-old gothic buildings. Sophia also liked it, as this is where she had her favorite meal so far in Europe (another tapas place, which was also insanely good). Alas, the curse of being thirty struck again, as we had to lament our ability to stay out late as the taxi driver chastised us for going home at 2:00 am.

This time, though, we had an even better excuse, for we needed to get up early to see La Sagrada Familia (top pic), Gaudi’s most famous work (and one of the most famous architectural pieces of work in the world). For those who don’t know about it, it’s basically this giant cathedral that is just ridiculously cool-looking. Not sure that it needs more description than that – it’s just ridiculously cool-looking. It’s still unfinished as of now (it was begun in 1902, with Gaudi starting the design in the late 1800s), but when 2024 rolls around, you might want to take a trip here, as I can’t think of any buildings of the past couple hundred years that are anywhere near as interesting as this one. Unfortunately, our pictures don’t do it justice, although there are some good ones of the statues on either entrance (could spend hours just looking at the details).

The rest of the day we walked around the gothic quarter some more, stopped at a couple of awesome cafes, checked out the Mediterranean beaches, and ate some more paella. Walked probably 6 miles in total, which pushed the limits of my knees, but in a good way.

We accomplished quite a bit on this trip – I was able to break out a little Espanol (can I tell you how nice it was to “kind of” understand a language again, because French just doesn’t make sense?); Sophia got to break out her paella-eating clothes (rice + seafood * a lot of it = happy Soph); we got all the tourist stuff out of the way (so that next time we come here we can base the trip around eating and going out); and yeah, it was just a great place. Spain rules.

Next weekend: chillin’ in Geneva!

Swiss Alps

Aug 17-19 Gimmewald is slowly losing it’s status as one of the best-kept secrets in Switzerland. The local saying is that “if heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmewald”. And rightfully so – it’s easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We arrived shortly after midnight because, oddly, the impeccably efficient Swiss train system broke down on our way there (anyone familiar with my train-luck can appreciate the fact that my karma single-handedly took down the Swiss). Luckily, we caught the last cable car (apparently they’re called “gondola’s”, even though there are no Italian guys singing in them) up and found ourselves on a steep mountainside in total darkness, with some cowbells ringing eerily close to us. Armed with our printout map, we made our way up a rocky trail and found our hotel/hostel/whatever you call it, only to be greeted by, well, a building with all the lights off and nobody awake inside. After trying to figure out how to contact someone for about 15 minutes, we finally decided that we weren’t going back outside, and that we’d find an empty room and just sleep in it, and deal with everything in the morning. For the record, I would NEVER do this in the US. Anyway, we came down to breakfast the next morning, and the owners had a good laugh about it, as they had heard us come in but said in their singsong german accented voice “we were too lazy to get out of bed to show you the room, we figured you would find it”. Great place – and the views were spectacular.

Anyway – back to Gimmewald, the town is, as one of our fellow hostellers put it, “totally rad”. Hey, cut him some slack – he was born in the 80’s. But there was zero tourism, it was extremely small, everyone has a garden; cows are running rampant, there are absurd views of the mountains, and there are no stores, shops, or anything really, except a couple of hostels / bed and breakfasts. Developers aren’t allowed in, so it’s very unique in that it retains the old-world village lifestyle and feeling, and it’s almost impossible to get to by car, so if you don’t take the cable car or hike there, you would never know about it. Really an amazing place.

When we woke up, our plan was to go to the top of the Schilthorn (used as the bad guy’s lair in the only James Bond film starring George Lazenby ) to look at some mountains, go for a hike to look at some more mountains, and then come back to Gimmewald to, um, spend the evening looking at mountains. We accomplished all this, and even managed a couple other things, such as: we saw part of the “Inferno” triathlon, which involved swimming through glacier water, mountain biking, and running uphill well past the tree line; ate some wild blueberries and raspberries; walked through fields of grazing cows; filled our water bottles with fresh swiss alpine water; etc. And speaking of pictures, we took 378 of them! They’re not all posted on Shutterfly, but a lot of them are – we tried to keep it to a reasonable number though.

On Sunday, we had to take it a little easier, since we’re not as young as we used to be, and hiking an alpine mountain path puts a bit of strain on the body. We still walked a good three hours, but it was more along a mountain stream on a well-worn footpath. While the original hike was awesome in that it took you completely away from any remnants of modern civilization, this second hike was nice in that it was geared towards the masses, meaning it was really easy and still had great scenery.

Overall, there were a lot of cool things about this weekend. For instance, the owners of the hotel were this old Swiss couple, and the guy would just shuffle around in his overalls and laugh as he spoke a few random phrases in English, and the woman would cook dinner for the guests every night (which was probably the best food we’ve had over here, by the way), and that was pretty much their thing. They were just cool. There was also this middle-aged British guy who stayed there in the summers to help them out, and he would go paragliding just about every day. And of course the views of the Alps – you’d have lush, green meadows below you, imposing cliffs across the valley, and snow-capped peaks above – good stuff. We also met a handful of travelers one night, and got to share interesting stories as the night went on, as well as discussing that since we’re in Europe, man-purses are completely acceptable (so are tight pants, as well as the color pink. Speedos are still a no-go though). We jumped a lot of cow patties, ran into a herd of wild mountain goats, learned what the “mountain” setting on the camera does, cheered with about 50 people jam-packed in a cable car as it broke through the clouds to get the first up-close view of the Swiss peaks, had a local guy teach us a couple German phrases on the train; and what is really odd, is that even the cats in Switzerland are nice. They don’t try to bite you, and actually want to be petted! Guess the mountains just make everything a bit nicer.

Next weekend: Barcelona!

Nyon

Aug 11 - This weekend, we went to the town of Nyon (see picture). Nyon is known for, well, being a really cute little town (that Caesar settled), and also being only 15 minutes away from Geneva. And since one of the greatest fireworks (better known as camera tricks to all you Wintermeyers) shows in Europe was taking place in Geneva later that night, seemed like this would be a winner!

Nyon is a great little excursion; it’s further up Lake Geneva, and has some amazing views of the old town (and a castle!) and the lake. We spent some time at one of the best vantage spots I’ve yet seen, and just watched the sailboats out on the water. There were also some old Roman ruins there, dating back to the first century AD, which Soph thought were pretty cool (I know this because she took like 800 pictures of them). Also was referred to an awesome Michelin rated restaurant where we experienced "filet de perche," otherwise known as fish from the lake.

After getting our fill of Nyon, we headed back to Geneva to prepare for the night. While Sophia was blowing fuses and knocking out our electricity for the rest of the weekend, I was getting pumped for the fireworks show! We had an inside tip on where the absolutely, positively best place in Geneva to watch the fireworks was, so we trekked into the Old Town and got front-row seats watching the fireworks above the city’s buildings. Turned out to be great, as we had a view of the show over the heart of Geneva, and there were only about 150 people up there with us (compared to the lake, which was crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with people). The fireworks were phenomenal, and if anybody wants to visit next year, I highly recommend booking the flights around this time so that you can enjoy the Fete de Geneve.

And speaking of the Fete, since we’re only 1 block from the lake, we were able to spend a lot of time there. The Fete was basically this giant street festival that stretched about 3 miles around the lake. It’s been going on since we’ve been here (although the first two weeks were the “pre-Fete”, which translates into “pre-festival” for you non-French speakers). It’s been a lot of fun having it so close.

Next weekend: Swiss Alps!

Things That I Had To Get Used To

It's not so different here from the U.S. (outside the obvious of course, and b/c it's such an international city) but there are some things that I definitely had to get used to. Here's a little list (good and bad!)

• Bagging my own groceries (stressful when you have someone behind you glaring you down if you're too slow)
• Not even having bags to put your groceries in (some places you have to bring your own, which is actually very environmentally friendly)
• Lack of bar soap (I miss Irish Spring!)...everyone seems to love the liquid washes. Unrefrigerated eggs and milk...the milk concept is actually pretty cool...you can buy a couple to store and you put it in the fridge once you open it.
• When you ask someone (train ticket guy) in French if they speak a little English, and they say no, and then proceed to yell at you in English after you stumble through a couple of phrases. Sigh...that only happened once, but can I tell you how traumatizing that was!
• Nobody returns anything here! Gone are the days of buying three outfits with the promise to myself that I'll return two of them (ok, I never did return them) :)
• No glass, paper, or plastic in the trash; very very heavy emphasis on recycling here, which is awesome.
• The three cheek kiss greeting...I love this actually, so get ready for me to lay some wet ones on you guys when I come home!
• The expensive meat...I think the cheapest boneless skinless chicken breast I saw was like 8 bucks a pound. Ouch. And I won't even get into the steak costs, although ground beef isn't too bad, at about 5 bucks a pound (both are sale prices).
• Scheduling a day and time to do my laundry. Yikes. Let me tell you that was an interesting conversation with my landlord (who spoke no English whatsoever).
• Not driving. I love it. I think my blood pressure has been drastically reduced...the public transporation system here is truly great.
• If we did drive - no right on reds, and there's a yellow before the red turns green!

It's been a month since we've been here (my how time flies). While walking around last night, Tyler asked if I was starting to feel like this was our home, and I thought for a second, and smiled and replied yes, because I feel we are truly embracing this place and just letting go of preconceived notions and habits. I don't think it will ever completely be our home because of not having our family and friends nearby, but it'll do :)

Wknd Trip to Montreux and Gruyere

We hopped the wonderful and very punctual Swiss train system to the towns of Montreux and Gruyere. Montreux is a lakeside town, pretty much on the opposite side of the lake as Geneva. It took about an hour to get there by train. The town is situated beautifully with rock-capped mountains fringing the lakeside; we walked the promenade to the Castle de Chillon, one of the largest castles in Switzerland, which has some history behind it that probably only the Swiss care about (something about Byron and some poem he wrote). In it's defense, the castle is actually pretty cool, and totally knocks the socks off of the studio we're staying in.


After touring the castle, we had lunch and then hopped another train to go to Gruyere, a medieval village a little northeasterly of Montreux. Gruyere is famous for (drumroll, please...) Gruyere cheese, although the "local butterfat-rich double cream" is pretty impressive also. On a side note, the person who designed the aliens in the Alien series was from Gruyere, and they have a themed bar and museum dedicated to his pieces - for the record, this completely does not fit in at a Swiss mountain-town. Regardless, we ate at a fondue/raclette restaurant, which could be better described as "eating as many calories as you can in one sitting", or also "totally sweet"...potatoes, sweet pickles/onions, dried meats, and bread dipped into melted cheese. And, of course, we finished that off with the double-fat-cream stuff. Overall it was a wonderful day of touring the rolling countryside and cutesy towns. More pictures can be found at shutterfly listed on the side of the blog.

Geneva Markets

The open air markets here are absolutely wonderful. All the fresh vegetables, baked bread, and smoked meats, are enough to make anyone want to cook. Here is a picture from the Plainpalais market that I went to (more are at shutterfly); about ten minutes by bus from where we live now. We're actually looking at the Plainpalais area for our permanent housing. Geneva is such a compact city, making city center easily accessible from all areas.

In the beginning...

So we're here and things are going great, discounting a few bumps in the road with adjusting and getting settled in. We're enjoying the beautiful (and amazingly mild/not humid) weather, as well as getting reacquainted with our legs. Even though the public transport is great, we're still walking a ton, which I'm glad of, otherwise all the cheese we've been eating would settle directly on my hips! We miss everyone at home, but are looking forward to sharing all of our experiences through this blogspot. BTW, you can click on the pictures to supersize them :) and there's a shutterfly link to the right which will house all our Switzerland albums.

Love,
Soph and Tyler (Swiss Mrs. and Mr.) :)

(edit:) Tyler: Hey Soph, how are people going to know which one of us is writing this blog?

Soph: You better not mess this blog up!

Tyler: I probably will. Sorry.

Soph: That's ok honey. We'll just have to put a note warning people that the writing style might change mid-paragraph. I think this qualifies as that note.