What a relaxing weekend! Just staggered in the door after my second multi-connection international 10-hour train ride this weekend. Thank goodness for SNCF, else the Deutsche Bahn would have taken me through 3 other provinces for a marathon 13-hour, 6-transfer ride!
And it was worth every minute! I met up with 5 of my former ISU masters classmates in a log cabin on top of a hill in the forested French foothills of Jura. We danced, we ate pungent French cheese, drank wine, cooked, ate and played
le chapeau, a game I suspect Thomas invented. It involved my red hat, some progressively less legible words on scraps of paper and a lot of exasperated exclaiming in several languages as we tried to explain, guess and finally mime our new-found vocabulary. There was cheating, recriminations and a lot of name-calling
- badger cougar sasquatch! But it was so much fun we were still playing it on the train home - much to the amusement of the French passengers, I'm sure.
The weekend began with Dag's birthday and ended with a mad dash for the borders. There was a critical juncture involving a train, a 100-meter dash across a closed crossing, 2 police and a 1-way road. In the end, I learned art of survival French includes being able to sweet-talk a conductor into waiting for your luggage to join you on the platform in the company of your panting friends.
In the middle of it, my friends threw themselves off a mountain on little wooden sticks while I explored
les Cernois from hilltop to lakeside. There was a lot of food involved - authentic
raclette a.k.a. the French ritual suicide by cheese,
endive and
fennouil,
quiche,
pain de l'ail,
comte with a rack-full of wine ...
...
... I'm back, just had a sudden craving for cheese.
, I had a good dose of proper winter - sliding down a snow hillside, skirting a frozen lake, tracking rabbits, deer, lynx through the conifers, and knitting next to a roaring fireplace.
In the end we all made it home in good time and good spirits. Thanks to Thomas for preparing a sumptuous spread, Dag and Dave for delivering Rodolphe, and Annelie for supplying Belgian chocolates.
I am learning about German Fasching, which is the Lent season. Today was Weiberfastnacht, the Eve of the Women's Fast - when the women get to cut off a man's tie ... in exchange for a kiss. One of my colleagues was a good sport and constructed a paper tie.
Following dinner, we popped downtown to a tiny side room of a tiny pub to see German folk music live. This trio delighted a packed room with funny and sad songs from the Middle Ages to the mid-20th century. Click on the pic to hear a few of their songs!
Good night - Ich bin sat. (I'm full.)
It was a spur-of-the-moment thing - Ahmet called me up and pitched a road trip to Holland, since he had a business meeting in den Hague Monday.
Saturday night, we took in the notorious red light district, coffee shops and kebab. Sunday we discovered the flower market. Then we hit the road and braved the cold North Sea, walking the strand in Noordwijk.
I stayed over with friends in Leiden and joined more ISU alumni at ESTEC for lunch.
A tasty dinner in den Hague with more friends, and then the long drive home through snowy Belgium surrounded with a chorus of Russian and Turkish and a Canadian trying to remember Frêre Jacques to keep the driver awake.
My boat was buried under a foot of snow last week. Thanks to a kind neighbour who threw on snow chains to dig out my boat.
More snow to come!
