(April 18, Geneva): Salsas En Frescas

Wednesday marked the beginning of Ryan's last year in his 20's (laymen's terms: it was his birthday).  While it wasn't ushered in with 20 different celebrations like last year, it did take place in a different country... and with some fabulous cupcakes.  I'm not actually sure which one I would rank higher?  Upon reflection, I'm really setting some pretty lofty expectations for this guy, aren't I?  Whooooops.

Team HW hit the streets to check out St. Peter's (St. Pierre's) Cathedral.  One of it's claims to fame is that it's where John Calvin gave his sermons in the mid 16th century.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  One of those kinds of days that come around once every 5 years here in Houston. 

I love that spire.

This picture makes me think of the opening to that old show Night Court.  Which did not occur to me once until just now.  Why did I watch Night Court as a youth?  Some questions have no answers.

Pardon the blurriness of this photo - flash-free zone.  Those ceilings make me swoon.  Do you think there's some kind of DIY alternative to add these to our house on Pintrest?

Just gorgeous.

Organ trail.  (Does the pun ever end here?  Noooope.)

Melanie has, of course, been to the Cathedral a few times so she opted to play tag with Jake (I think Melanie was usually it) while Ryan and I did the full tourist experience.  We  paid about 8 CHFs to get our historical stairstep on.  Cheapest gym membership ever!  Thankfully this spiral staircase was more Texas-sized human friendly than probably 90% of staircases in churches in Europe**.

Breaks in climbing make for good photo ops.

You can ring my beeee-eeeee-eeeeeelllll.  Ring my bell.

View of the lake from about halfway up.  Also included: pretty spire and the iconic Geneva fountain thing.  (You following all these technical terms?)

Mini window.  Or am I a giant?

I'm a sucker for aged wood.  It doesn't look nearly as beautiful here as it was in real life.

View from the real top.  If my sense of direction was accurate (which is always questionable at best), this is looking out towards Mont Blanc. 

Self portraits are not our specialty.

After getting our fill of breath-taking views and beautiful architecture (siiiiigh... such a rough life), we headed back to Chateau McClain to meet up with Jonathan for lunch.  More cupcakes were consumed.    The remainder of the afternoon we rested.  Tourism is very hard work!  At the birthday boy's request we watched the rest of the first season of the Walking Dead while Jakey took a nap. 

In the evening Melanie and Jonathan got a sitter for mon feces and we headed out to celebrate Ryan's newly minted old age.  Our first stop was to get drinks in Old Town where we met up with Jonathan.  The place we met at was awesome.  It was so relaxing to sit outside, do some people-watching and pretend to be locals.

So... the menu advertised "beer with grenadine."  Anyone present at New Years 2009 knows your girl has a fondness for that delicious red nectar.  Ryan ordered me a small beer with grenadine and himself a large beer.  Somehow he also wound up with beer with grendadine.  Clearly he was pretty enthused.  Painting your beer red is the new painting the town red?

Our view. 

Cheers to manly beer.

After a couple of beers we headed over to Melanie and Jonathan's favorite Italian restaurant, L'Incontro, for dinner.  "Delicious" doesn't really do the meal justice.  Ryan & Jonathan ordered calzones which were literally about twice the size of their heads.  Jen likes to attest to the fact that my beloved had a large dome, so that is really saying something.  Melanie had some kind of baked cheese pasta thing that looked good even to yours truly - the cheese detester.  I had an ah-mazing shrimp pasta dish complete with baby lobster sized shrimp.  It was all heavenly.

It didn't hurt that this meal was probably the one that we laughed the most at.  Jonathan must have taken a page from Ryan's guide to being multi-lingual because when asking for jalapenos he ordered "salsas en frescas".  Of course at this point in the trip we'd also heard him say "Parlez-vous Inglesias," so perhaps we shouldn't have found this completely shocking.  Not many people speak church by the way.  To top it all off, we got some complimentary limoncello at the end of the meal.

Man vs. Food goes to Geneva.

 It's a little hard to see here but that is indeed my new friend, Prawn-y.  He comes complete with cherry tomato accessories.

After dinner Melanie & I headed back to the house to relieve the sitter and the boys headed over to a Cuban Restaurant for a nightcap.  All in all I think it was a birthday that Ryan will never forget.  Probably mainly because of that calzone.  Merci beau coup to our awesome hosts for making it so wonderful.  Salsas en frescas for life!

Next up: Castle time.

** completely exaggerated and unfounded statistics are my specialty.

We're going to call this photo the outtakes during the credits.  For anyone who is curious if 29 is the age at which men mature... it is not.