The Last Hoorah

And now for my (probably) last story: Marcie and Mike's trip to visit me. No mere blog entry could do justice to the amount of fun we had, but here goes ...

We started off in Annecy, a little French town on the shores of a beautiful mountain lake. I soon discovered that my months spent in Europe had desensitized me to certain things, like castles (heck, there’s a whole slew of them around Thionville) and pastry shops (they’re a dime a dozen!). Being with Marcie and Mike helped me see things with new eyes.

It took Mike a while to feel comfortable in Europe. Tiny hotel rooms, telephone-booth-sized showers, teeny-weeny cappuccinos … everything was smaller than what Gigantor—uh, I mean, Mike—was used to in America, the land of jumbo-this and extra-that.

Despite his initial difficulty with size differences, Mike soon embraced French culture by jumping on the baguette bandwagon. You give him a fresh baguette and a hunk of cheese, and he’s happy as a clam. As soon as we set foot in Switzerland, Mike bought into another cliché that, I fear, only fueled his bread-and-cheese addiction: a genuine Swiss Army pocket knife.

While Mike was busy with his knife and camera, Marcie got down to business learning French. The efforts she put forth were nothing short of stunning, I must say. She was tossing out the “bonjour”s and “merci”s to anyone who would listen! I was so proud of her!!

Our next stop was Zermatt, a little Swiss ski resort town, nestled in the Alps and filled with colourful-shuttered brown cottages and people with goggle-shaped sunburns. Amazingly, conquering the “big” slope at Hidden Valley ski resort in MISSOURI does NOT prepare you for even the (supposedly) easy slopes in the real mountains. Marcie managed to get me down the first one, giving me advice and encouragement as I concentrated on avoiding the Cliffs of Death on either side of me. (Meanwhile, three-year-olds were whizzing past me at breakneck speed, probably impatient to get to the black diamonds.)

Marcie, I discovered, has evidently overcome her Great Plains roots and become quite a skilled skier. Mike is right at home on the slopes, too:

Me: Are you bringing your nice camera with you?!?
Mike: Of course!
Me: But what about when you fall???
Mike: Ha! I’m not going to fall.

Unfortunately, in the cable car on the way up to the neighboring peak, I had a mental and emotional breakdown that caused us to toss out our original plans (which included skiing across the border and into Italy for lunch) and take the shortest path down the mountain. (Mike later went to Italy to discover his roots by himself.) The scenery was breathtaking; it just would have been nice to view it right-side up, rather than while lying helpless on a practically vertical slope with one ski pathetically out of reach.

As head-turning as my skiing skills were, we opted not to ski at our next destination, Interlaken (which, by the way, my dad visited about thirty-five years ago--yikes!). Instead, on Easter Sunday, we took a train up to the “Top of Europe,” on a beautiful and glacier-y mountain called the Jungfraujoch. Our time in Interlaken was "très tranquille," as the French love to say, just a couple of days of beautiful warm weather punctuated by bike rides, picnics, and fondue.

Finally we had to make our way to Basel, where we celebrated Mike’s birthday with Thai food before shipping him and Marcie back to America the next day. I was sorry neither of them could stay to galavant around the Côte d'Azur with me, but hey--somebody has to earn some money around here.

Now, if you want photos, you'll have to look on Marcie and Mike's blog, because I left them in charge of photography (of course)!

Becky and Kate go West

After Sarah left me, I joined up with my trusty travel partner, Becky, to explore La Bretagne, a windy, rainy, Celtic-influenced and crêpe-filled region in the west of France. First, we went to Mont Saint-Michel, which claims to be the second-most recognizeable monument in France, after the Eiffel Tower. (Actually, it also claims to have more visitors each year than the Eiffel Tower, but I remain skeptical about that.) Mont Saint-Michel is some type of abbey (I took a tour--shouldn't I know this?) that was built on a craggy island in the Atlantic, which makes for a great--if a little foreboding--atmosphere.


After winding through all the narrow streets (seriously, there was one alleyway where I actually wasn't sure I was going to squeeze out the other end. My winter coat, you know ... it's so poofy ...) of Mont Saint-Michel, we headed to Saint-Malo, which takes the cake as far as beautiful coastal towns. We spent all of our time in Saint-Malo wandering around the ramparts that surround the old city and bumming around the beach. The weather was a bit shifty, but the storms passed quickly and we bundled up and went shell seeking anyway.


The best part about Saint-Malo was a certain island that was just off the rocky coast; when the tide was low, there was a stone path leading up to it. (When the tide is high, you'd better get the heck out of there or else you'll be swimming back.) We lay around on the grass and let the salty sea breeze mess up our hair. A famous French writer is buried there--on his tombstone, he said he wanted to hear only the wind and waves for eternity. It's a pretty magical spot, even if you are still alive.

Our last stop was Rennes, a very student-y and Bohemian city with a great Saturday farmer's market, lots of book and antique sales, and musicians doing their thing on the street. My kind of town!