Grindelwald, Switzerland

Daniel’s parent’s came in for a visit spending about two days with us in Paris before the four of us headed out to Grindelwald, Switzerland.  I realize I have fallen behind in some of the things we have been up to but I figured it was a good idea to post our most reason days and do the catch up posts if I can get around to it. 

Switzerland!!!

Daniel and I went to Grindelwald for the second part of our honeymoon and Bonnie and David are very much in love with this little tourist snow town so we were happy to join them there for four days. I was happy for a chance to speak English to everyone for a few days, despite the local language being German everyone speaks English.

Grindelwald is a beautiful town in the Swiss Alps and we had amazing view of the mountains from our hotel balcony.

While the town isn’t covered in snow there seem to be endless hiking trails, which is largely what we filled our time with.  The first day we went to the Jungfrau, billed as the top of Europe.  And has plenty of snow year round.

We hiked for about 45 minutes on top of the glacier to a lunch hut in the middle of no where.  It started to snow on the way back and I got my first experience with a white out.  Hiking in the clouds sounds a little neater than it actually is (clouds are very cold) but a neat experience still. 

Hello from the Top of Europe! 

(I know realize I look like a frog in this picture)

 Day 2

The next day we decided to not in a winder wonderland but in grass.

Though the mountains are the background to every hike.

Bonnie and David decided to twin it up for the day, much to Daniel and I’s delight. Aren’t they adorable.

We experienced a little Swiss wildlife on our hike up to lunch, Sheep!

This guy was not particularly impressed with us.  

We got caught in a pretty sizeable storm on the way down from our lunch hut so not much in the way of pictures from the way down.  I did get some good use of my rain jacket David got me for Christmas.

Day 3

This day had a very “Sound of Music” feeling to it as we hiked from one field of wildflowers to another.

Day 4

More Snow!

We were told the hike we were going to take was closed due to snow, but that didn’t stop us.  Well it did when we figured out we had missed our turn and had taken a different trail. Daniel and David still aren’t a hundred percent sure where we ended up going.

Still had a beautiful view for our picnic lunch.

Here is my Swiss candy bar in front of a Swiss waterfall.  This is super tasty and will be seeing if I can get it in Paris ... or the states 

I even made friends with a cow, who seemed to be there just to entertain the tourist hiking.  When I was being too timid a friendly Russian insisted if I just stuck my hand out the cow would lick it, which she did.  Imagine a gigantic cat’s tongue that is what a cow’s tongue feels like.  

Everyone wants to pet a cow.

The euro cup (soccer) has been going on for the past few weeks and last night we enjoyed the cultural event of watching Germany beat Greece in the hotel bar filled with guest and workers cheering for Germany.  After the game we chatted with a fellow from Belgium.

We are already headed/ back to Paris by this point well rested slash a little tired from our hiking trip.

At the end of our finally hike I decided it was a good time to make sure I got a frolic through the wildflowers. Daniel has a whole series of this “frolic” which is probably more accurately described as a stumbled wading.  

Lebewohl!

Notre Bonne Anniversaire de Mariage

(Our Happy Anniversary)

Sorry I have gotten a little behind.  The weather has been really nice and we have been out doing things.  Daniel's parents came in yesterday so we have also been busy catching up with them.  We are off to Versailles tomorrow and on Monday leave for several days of hiking in Grindelwald, Switzerland.

Today Daniel and I celebrated our five year anniversery in the place we took our honeymoon. We had dinner at the same restruant we had our "fancy" dinner during our honeymoon.  We didn't remember the name of it we just happen to be staying  a block away from it and it looked famaliar.

June 16, 2007

June 16, 2012

We had a great day, hope you did too. I will be doing some back posting from the train on Monday.

Musée d' Orsay et Futball

(Musée d'Orsay, I mean that is its name, and football) 

We have been hanging out in the apartment quite a bit due to the weather and decided by Tuesday we needed to get out and since it was still kind of crappy it seemed like a good time to hit up a museum.  I mean everyone else had this idea as well so you can imagine the line we stood in.  

Don't be confused by the blue skies in the background I forgot to take a picture from the outside so I borrowed this from the internet.  The Musé de Orsay besides being a wonderful museum of impressionist and post-impressionist art is a beautiful building.

This photograph I took does not do it justice at all, it use to the be a train station and has persevered a lot of those elements in the decore, giant clocks on either end, and the tall arching entrances to the wings that use to lead to tracks.  They have a wide collection of Degas and George Seurats.  We left the Monets and Van Goghs for our next trip.  I sadly do not have any pictures of what we saw there as they had a strick no photo policy. I of course did not realizes this until after the above picture. Daniel and I went here on our honeymoon and I swear I took pictures last time so I am wondering if it is a new policy.

Since there are no photos I sketched this for you.  I mean I always have my sketch book with me and is how I tend to kill 10 minutes. I was sitting behind the statue so a lovely turban head.

I was disappointed about the photos, there is such wonderful works in here including this statue that I had a fascinating view from the third floor balcony, so another sketch.  I did a very quick sketch which is ok...

I found this picture on their website, the lady in the center is on the right in my sketch. 

We spent about three hours and saw a third to half of the museum before it closed for the night.  We plan on going back soon, there is a special Degas exhibit this summer.  They had an Art Nouveau furniture exhibit last time (5 years ago) and I would love to see that again.  I am really a sucker for architecture and furniture from that movement.

The weather was playing nice for a couple hours the day before we we went out for a café. I mean I had a café Daniel had a beer. Stella Artois seems to be the Bud Lite of Paris, cheap and available everywhere.  You will notice my sketch pad it is what I like to do while we café.

While we were finishing up our drinks the France/ England Euro Cup (Futball) game came on and how could we miss that.  The cafe has several big screen televisions and the tables filled up quickly.  The waiters had a blue, white, and red crayon they had streaked their checks and were kind enough to offer it to table from Englad to draw a flags on their cheeks.  We ordered another beer and hung out until half time, we cheered when the French scored, sighed when the English scored. I found it quite the cultural experience. 

 Continuing to order my own cafés and have finally started looking waiters and sales people in the eye. I even bought our ticket at Orsay. I am currently riding this streak and fearing when to comes to a crashing fault.  I even Rosetta Stoned yesterday morning, first time since we got here, I think I should keep it up though.

Sud de France Wine Festival

(South of France Wine Festival)

We ended up going out to breakfast Sunday morning, Daniel ran out to get croissants since were were out of bread and eggs, but came home empty handed. Of the three places you can buy a croissant in our neighborhood none were open this Sunday morn.  Breakfast out is usually a croissant, a piece of bread, butter and jam, coffee and orange juice. Be warned Paris does not believe in the bottomless cup of coffee.

There was small wine festival happening on the left bank of the Seine over this weekend and today we got a chance to go check it out in between rain clouds.

There were a few food venders but mainly small wineries, with was fine with me. For a euro each we got a souvenir wine glass and 5 free tasting, the wineries were trying to sell some wine so they weren't exactly sticklers about the 5 tastings.  All the wines were good unlike a particular Muscadine NC wine festival I went to once. Mike, Sarah, I am not looking at you.    

My sourviner wine glass in hand and we are off.

After were were through with our 5 (or more feee samples) we got a bucket of mussels for lunch.  All the tables were full in the eating area so we just sat on the ledge next to the Seine and broke into them with are bare hands, but we had wine so you know it was still classy

Daniel doing his best duck face. So I am made him stop.

I went off to buy my glass of wine after the tasting. Despite practicing how to order it with Daniel, I completely blanked as soon as I walked up to the counter.  The woman working it was very sweet, looked at me and just said "you can use English if you like" which I did.  I did ask her not to tell Daniel if we came back by.  I did however order in mostly french when we went back and got a bottle of wine from the vender. So 50% win, ok probably more 45%...40% win.

Our carnage and my glass of wine.  So tasty... 

I will admit it I was a bit buzzed by the end of the event but it was wine buzzed so you know, still classy. We ended up getting two bottle of wine, 6 euros a peice! Wine is so cheap here! We also got our first sourviner for someone ... but I am not tell who or what.  We really considered flying home some olive oil, but despite how good it is I just don't want to chance it exploding in my luggage, I don't care how many bags it goes in. 

Promised from earlier: What our bathroom looks like when we trying to dry laundry.  You will notice the drying rack straddling our tub.  

Les Lumières de Paris

(The Lights of Paris)

Daniel has recently compared our trip to a staycation we just went to Paris to do it. This seems to be very accurate. Saved enough, earned enough miles, sold enough to afford a fabulous Paris summer we did; save, earn, sold enough for a fantasy Paris summer we did not. So if it seems most my post revolve around shopping for dinner, adventures in maintaing a home and the cheapest of activites walking around Paris is because we are not on a endless budget. Now that isn't to say there are certainly allowances for these faboulas macarrons I have scored.

Rose Petal, framboise, chocolat, citron vert et basilic, et Pistaches

(Rose Petal, Raspberry, Chocolate, Lemon & Bail, and Pistachio)

 But to make sure we don't run out of money in three weeks and I can keep enjoying two macarrons a week we spend a lot of time walk. Besides I came here to sit in cafes and sketch which I am doing quite a bit of, so let the staycation continue.

 When you are planning your own Paris staycation here is one thing you should absolutley keep off your itenariy of inexpensive things to do: go to the Les Halles Mall. It combines everything you dislike about American malls: noise, crowds, lottering preteens with the added horror of everyone speaking a forign language and being underground. I don't often suffer from clostiophia but this place was certainly making me consider the appeal of it. It didn't help get got lost and could not find the escalator to the next floor for over 20 minutes.

The entrance is only escalators down into the ground.

In better activities, we walked to the Eiffel Tower last night.  A hardy 45 minute walk from our apartment turned into a hardier hour 20 minute walk going, what my grandmother describes as, the scenic route. I was surprised how crawling with people it was at 10:52.

Our belonged walk did time us fairly perfectly for the on the hour light show on the tower.  It is very pretty, greeted with "ahhs" from those on the lawn.  The show is about 5 minute and the lights speed up over the time or at least that is what Daniel convinced me of, though he has been know to lie before.

I took a quick video of the show you can see HERE. And no I don't know how to right the video. Daniel has more pictures of the night on our flicker stream.

We stopped for a nuttella crepe (my first crepe of the trip) on the way out and it was delcious.  The stand was fairly cute and you can see a TV over my left shoulder that was on a cart for those eating at the picnic tables. What you can't see is it is playing CSI Miami in French. 

It is was way more dramatic when David Caruso says the line in French and then takes off his sunglasses.  It was all we could do to not break out laughing in the crepe line.  On the subway home, wasn't about to chance the extend walk again, we watch some German fans taunt and finally moon a Portugal fan in our car from the platform.  Germany/ Portugal game in the Euro Cup last night.

The sun is breaking, out to take advantage of it.

Tous ne sont pas Gagnants

(Not all are winners)

So I had my first true crash and burn of speaking frenching two days ago.  I had assisted in the purchase of buying some cheese "et une petite coupe de ca, s'il vous plaît" (and a small cut of this, please) the day before in an open air market and was feeling pretty good.  So when we ran out for a sandwich and a coffee around 5 I had all intentions of ordering my own sandwich and was feeling up for ordering a craft of water for us as well.  This confidence soon quickly fell away as I made my order and was greeted with a confused look and asked if I had order a coffee, which I did not order.  I did not give up and requested my order for water, less assured, still in french. Sadly we did several rounds of this, finally I gave up Daniel ordered, didn't work, I ordered in english and pointed to the menue.  Turns out he didn't catch the "The Croque Madame"  (Miss Sandwich) which is why we kept going around in circles about the water.  It was about the only sandwich I eat and the only thing I could say on our last trip, so I was particularly disappointed in failing at this word.  This disaster of a ordering shattered my delicate pride and I may or may not have sniffled and dabbed an eye just a bit before my sandwich showed up.  

I tried to remind myself I can barely understand the Chinese take out lady when I order orange chicken and I am sure her english is much better than my french.  It was also coffee time, not sandwich time and "cafe de cream" and "croque madam" do pace themselves similarly.  I ordered our cafes after we were done eating and told a women at the louvre that the bathrooms were closed, ok I might have only said "closed" but I got the message across. So I did rebound and have not booked my ticket home yet.  Maybe I should just remember to keep Rosetta Stoning.

Side Note: La Croque Madame is a ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top and very taste. Le Croque Monsieur omits the fried egg.  Picture next time, I am sure that will be in like two days.

But on to the fun of Paris:

Pink Beans!

More open air shopping and despite that we were only picking up lunch how could I pass up pink beans? So I carried around a pound of pink beans in my bag for a couple of hours.  

We are starting to learn to deal with the hour of beautiful skies and then hour of pounding rain and have learned to run outside for these short moments of pretty, one of these such moments were a  picnic in the park.

Cherries, cheese, and bread, Salami of the mountains is in the white paper, were bought from our second open air market, Paris seems to have lots of them.  Daniel and I have decided that is is our favorite way to eat lunch so most are spent in a park with a simliar menu.

This is the cute picture took of me while we had our lunch in the Jardin de Plants (The Plants Garden)

These are the two picture took of me before he took the cute picture.  I will call them a Study of Katie in Motion.

For a better understanding of buying your cheese from an open air french market Daniel took this picture.  I was very intruded by the cheese that looked like a petrified rock in front but was not brave enough to order.  We got the white cheese double stacked in the back.

Next time French Malls and how they combine all the horrible things about american malls and dystopian disaster movies. 

But first: Smart car truck ... kinda... I mean it has that thing that resembles a cover truck bed...sort of... I mean I don't drive it.