(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.

(April 17, Geneva): Team Housewife

On Tuesday the Fantastic 4.5 was sadly split up because Jonathan had to go back to work.  That meant that Ryan, Melanie and I were left to our own devices.  Thankfully Melanie is more responsible than us because if Ryan & I were in charge I feel very confident that we would have slept in our bat cave for the next 5 days.  Jake would have been able to have his way with the kitchen cabinets and by the time we finally emerged from the fortress of hurricane shutters, no lollipop or glass dish would have been left standing. 


Jonathan's return to work gave birth to Team Housewife.  Our little trio took on Geneva over the next 3 days and hilarity ensued.  Now, let me preface all of this with the fact that I am the product of an incredibly awesome stay at home mom/housewife.  There's not a snowballs chance in Houston in August that I'd be able to be a functioning adult without her.  I am WELL-ACQUAINTED with the fact that it is the hardest job on the planet.  Obviously not because I was difficult- I was a dream (haaaa) - but because it just is.  It's non-stop.  No sick days.  Completely ungrateful employees/staff.   Staff who flush entire rolls of toilet paper down the upstairs toilet causing it to overflow into the light fixture in the kitchen below.  You know- that kind of thing.  I could go on but I'm pretty sure everyone is on the same page. 


So, I thought I was prepared for the challenge.  Apparently I AM wrong sometimes. Consider my face shoved.  Let me just give some mad props to Melanie because being a housewife in Geneva (and I suspect all of Europe) is HARD WORK.  Cobblestone and strollers are not BFF.  Navigating the strictly time-controlled bus doors by yourself with a big stroller can lead to some precarious situations.  It's hard to fit babies AND groceries into a stroller.  Sometimes sacrifices need to be made (don't worry - it was never Jake).   Melanie works so hard and does such an amazing job that I just feel it should be pointed out.  Jake and Jonathan are two very lucky men.  One would think that having Ryan & I to "assist" would make things easier on her.  I'm not sure that was really the case, but we had a fabulous time getting to tag along and at least provide some comic relief.


So, for Day 1 of our Team HW adventures Melanie decided to take us to Rue du Rhone which is Geneva's fancy shopping street.  En route we stopped by the mailbox which contained an exciting surprise regarding the GPS Melanie had ordered a month (you read that correctly) prior in the form of a letter in French.  All that we could really determine was that it was not the GPS and that it seemed to say that the GPS was in Zurich.  Since we hoped to have it for our trip to Italy on Friday, we decided to swing by the Post Office to see if a little Fren-glish could get that situation sorted out.  That was most definitely a fail.  Something about taxes and receipts.  More on the GPS in my post covering Friday.

There's a cute little boulangerie/coffee shop type place within walking distance of Jonathan & Melanie's.  I think we went here nearly every day we were in town.  We made a quick stop before taking on the Swiss Post Office.  One needs fuel when trying to take on the government after-all.

While we're on the subject of French, let's talk about Ryan's grasp of the language, shall we?  I am not sure I've mentioned it on the blog, but I've been taking French at work.  Once a week during lunch we have class at the office taught by an employee who is fluent.  I am by no means picking this up easily.  However, I have at least a working knowledge of a few phrases, the numbers, the days of the week, a variety of nouns, etc.  I am super intimidated to use it though because I know that I butcher the pronounciation and French-speakers are not the most forgiving.  Conversely, Ryan has taken 0 French in his life and has absolutely no shame in using any phrase he hears.  What phrases did my beau hone in on?  Let's go through them.

1.  S'il vous plait.  (there's an accent here that I'm too lazy to look up how to type correctly).  This is pronounced (essentially) seel-voo-play and means please.  I would venture to guess most non-French speakers are familiar with its meaning.  Ryan would not be in the majority because I told him at least 4 times what it meant.  Typically after he would just randomly proclaim "s'il vous plait!"  For at least the first half of this day's journey he probably sounded like a kidnap victim running around saying "please! please! please!"

2. C'est bon!  This is pronounced say bawn and means "it's good!"  I'm not sure what day Ryan figured out what this meant, if ever.  Again- did not stop him from using it.  He would alternate between "c'est bon!" and "non c'est bon!"  The latter is not correct grammar.  Perhaps my favorite time Ryan utilized this phrase was as we were walking towards the bus stop, we encountered a lady who's yorkie took a #2 in the middle of the sidewalk.  Ryan looked her in the face as he maneveured the stroller around it and said "C'est bon!"  That, my friends, is actually NOT c'est bon.

3. Mon feces.  This means nothing but it's what we were under the impression was the phrase for "my son".  It was later determined that my son is actually "mon fils," pronounced mon fees.  You know Ryan was fully on board with pushing the stroller around and saying "excuse mon feces," at every opportunity possible.  And I do mean EVERY opportunity.

Most people say that French-speakers are much more apt to be nice to you if you at least try to utilize the language.  After 1 day of Ryan Martin in Geneva, they may be re-evaluating that policy.

Our view headed to Rue du Rhone.  C'est bon!  S'il vous plait!

Eventually, mon feces, Melanie, Ryan & I arrived on Rue du Rhone.  Those Genevans know how to jack up some prices, I can tell you that.  I fell in love with no less than 15 pairs of shoes.  Ryan convinced me these matches were just not meant to be by informing me the exchange rate was about 1.8.  I typically have a good idea of what the Euro exchange rate is from work, but I don't know the first thing about the Swiss Franc rate.  Jonathan later confirmed at dinner that it is 1.08.  Let that be a lesson ladies- study up on your exchange rates before you shop abroad or your sig others might talk you out of a shoe marriage that was meant to be!

After we had our fill of broken dreams, we decided to grab some lunch and head over to have a mini-picnic on Lake Geneva.  Melanie and I opted for some deli sandwiches on baguettes.  Ryan, being the adventurous eater that he is, selected a Greek shop to get his take out from.  All sounded on the up & up until we realized that the shop was empty and Ryan actually had to wake up the gentleman manning it to put his order in.  Luckily, no food poisoning was contracted and Ryan claims that his gyro was delicious.

Beautiful park on Lake Geneva.

Lake Geneva and it's iconic big fountain thing.

Our view while we ate.  Hey hotties!

Lake Geneva... now with boat.

My awesome partners in crime.

Ryno y yo.

After lunch it was pretty late in the day and we decided to head back to the apartment to start preparing for dinner.  Melanie made some mouth-watering baked chicken.  I maintained my usual post as watch-in-awer and every once in a while retrieving Jakey's truck from under the rolling island.  She also made the BEST cupcakes I have ever tasted for Ryan's birthday the next day.  They were white cupcakes with chunks of real fresh strawberry in both the icing and the cupcakes.  Just thinking about them makes me hungry.  I'm telling you... we were spoooooiled.

Yup, I married that.  P.S. This is the front entry/parking lot to Jonathan & Melanie's building.  Aren't the flowers awesome?

After dinner we once again shared a bottle of wine and watched some TV.  This particular night we got addicted to Family Feud.  The Steve Harvey version is SO MUCH better than the Al Borlin (I dont know his real life name) one.  Yet another fab day in the books.

Next up: Ryan's birthday and touring St. Peter's!

(April 16, Chamonix): The Pinnacle of Peanut Butter & Jelly Bits

On Monday we scheduled a tour back to France to see Mont Blanc (the highest peak in Western Europe), Chamonix (the ski town at the base of Mont Blanc) and a nearby glacier.  Melanie's brother had taken this particular tour when he visited earlier in the year and proclaimed it the best day of his life.  Obviously we had to do it.

We set out that morning for the bus station apprehensively as the weather was pretty awful.  A quick perusal of the live webcams on Mont Blanc the night before led us to believe that we would be lucky to see 5 feet in front of us let alone any mountains.  We actually tried to call and cancel but they told us it would be easier to be refunded if we showed up in the morning.  Being the rule-followers we are, we were seated and ready to go at the bus station on time. 

When our fearless tour guide, Neil, arrived he did little to dissuade our concern that we were wasting our money by informing us that the weather was terrible and it would be terrible for the next 2 weeks.  He disclaimed his statements by informing us he was British and thus very cynical.  We knew that Monday was the only day that Jonathan had off work and that Melanie found a sitter for Jake during our first week- so we put it all on black and decided to give it a whirl. 

The trip over to Mont Blanc was probably somewhere in the 1.5 hour range.  In the beginning of our trip Neil had us introduce ourselves.  There were only 2 groups of us since the weather was so ominous - the 4 of us and a family from Australia.  When asked where we were from, Ryan confidently (and red-neckly) said " 'Muh-rica."  I'm sure you can imagine how proud I was to have hitched my wagon to such a cultured man.  Neil was not impressed.  He continued to make jokes about how Americans only like to eat "peanut butter and jelly bits."  I presume he was referring to peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  I'm not sure what American caused him to have a terrible experience with a PB&J, but it seemed to have left a lasting impression as it came up a few times that day.  Keep that in mind when in the land of Nutella, my fellow 'Mericans.

A picture of the countryside from our moving bus.  

Upon arriving in town we were happily surprised to realize the sun was cutting through the clouds and that we would probably be able to see the mountain afterall.  The first activity on our to do list once we arrived in Chamonix was to ride the teleferic (gondola) to the Aiguille du Midi (sharp needle in Mont Blanc).  I'd like to point out a couple of parts of this equation.  1) Mont Blanc is 15,775(ish) feet high, 2) the gondola is one of the highest/longest/something in the world, 3) where the gondola dropped us off put us at a height 12x the Eiffel Tower and 4) some of us are afraid of heights. 

Already a little skiddish about this undertaking, we piled onto the gondola with what we thought were our game faces.  The 4 of us in our normal street clothes were greeted with about 12 hard core skiiers in extreme gear who looked as calm as they would if they were riding the bus into work for the day.  I think this only served to make Ryan & Jonathan feel a little less manly - Melanie and I were still a little scared.

You might have to click on the picture to make it bigger, but here is the view from the base of the gondola.

 

Melanie reminding Jonathan that if he touches her it equates to instant divorce.

When we arrived and stepped out of the gondola we were immediately struck by the beauty of the mountains.  I think in that moment we were all so glad that we didn't cancel the trip.  Something about the enormity of mountains has a way of putting life into perspective.  I took a zillion pictures but none of them seem to do it justice. 

Looking out the window at the gift shop and cafe on our way to the main attraction.

Vanna Blanc-ing (do you get it?!  because "blanc" is white in French AND the name of the mountain.  I'm obvi on fire today) the entrance to awesome-ness.

Melanie and I giving those skiiers our best "areyouinsane" look.

It was a little bit cold.

Manly men don't ski, they wear pea coats.

It's hard to tell what is snow and what is cloud, but isn't it incredible?

Definitely not in Texas anymore.

See ya, gondola hogs!  (P.S. There are no runs this high up.  They had to be chained to one another and hiked down in ski boots.  Certifiably crazy.)

What?  You want me to keep posting more pictures because it's so overwhelmingly pretty?  Fiiiine.

Skiiers making some progress.  Mountain still being beautiful.

Ryan, Jonathan & I decided to cross a bridge and walk across to see some different views.  Melanie made it about 2 steps before she decided it was getting too real.  I am sure this type of behavior had nothing to do with that decision.

I think Mt. Martin has a nice ring to it.  Maybe I'll write to the French government.

 

As Jonathan took this picture Ryan yelled "highest kiss ever!"  I'd like to say it was romantic except that I think he did the same thing to Jonathan 5 mins later.

Cliff-y.

The view when you walked through this tunnel was astounding.

Ryan & Jonathan decided to increase their manly factor by taking an elevator up to an even higher peak.  Melanie & I grabbed hot chocolate in the cafe.  The elevation is in meters here.  The next few pictures are from their little man date.

Jonathan contemplating life.

Ryan striking quite the pose.  I suspect he couldn't be convinced to get his whole body that close to the edge.  Or he's practicing his stance for if he ever does a Jazzercise video.

Can you see the crazy skiiers?!

Nothing says I scaled a mountain and have hair on my chest like a shot of jaeger right after.  I believe it was about 11:30 am in this photo.

A picture of the scenery heading back down the gondola.  Please note how steep this is.

 

Melanie looking a lot happier to be headed the other way... no divorces this trip!

After we finished our gondola ride we met back up with Neil.  He took us over to a cute little restaurant in town for a deeeelicious 3 course meal.  Nothing like some french onion soup and wine to get you warmed back up.  The boys enjoyed recounting their mountain scaling war stories while Neil continued to ask about peanut butter and jelly bits.  He also impressed us all with his knowledge of US politics and the storm that hit Galveston in the early 1900s.  The rest of the world is so much more knowledgeable regarding other countries than the US is.  It's almost embarrassing.  I find that taking a sip of wine kind of makes you feel a little better about that.

Headed into the heart of Chamonix.

 

Me creeping on Neil, J-Mc, Mel & Ryan.

Cute little stream.

The name of the restaurant we ate at.

Melanie & Jonathan ready to devour the world's best French Onion Soup.

Looking at this picture  makes me want to go back.  I guess the mountain pictures did too.

Delicious blueberry tart dessert.  These people saw me coming.

Post lunch, we headed over to the train station to catch an adorably picturesque train over to the glacier.  The weather got pretty nasty around this time, so sadly we weren't able to see the glacier as well as we would have liked to.  However, did take the stairs down to an ice cave they carved in the glacier.  400 stairs later, we were pretty tired but definitely not too tired to take some silly pictures.  Is there such a thing as too tired for that?

Does that train look like it's aching to be in a postcard?

 

Jonathan looks pumped to get his stair-stepping on.  Ryan looks... well, like Ryan.

It's hard to see but somewhere super far off in the distance you can see our destination.

I'm pretty confident that's not sanitary.

 

Work it girls.

"Coldest kiss!"

 

After our cave expedition we met back up with Neil in town and caught the bus back home.  That evening we had some belly-warming grilled cheese (PB&J for me of course) sandwiches, a bottle of wine and were introduced to Ryan's newest TV series addiction - the Walking Dead.  I can definitely understand why Melanie's brother proclaimed it the best day of his life- it was definitely one of mine.

Up Next:  Team Housewife takes on Geneva.