Loving the Girls Weekend in Florence

After our girls weekend in Florence in April was such a success, we had to find a weekend to do it again and that turned out to be two weekends ago.  It was perfect being that it was almost 6 months after our first trip.  We were ready for more Italian food and wine, shopping and of course girl time!  So I met up with my Zurich friends Friday evening and we got up early on Saturday but this time it wasn’t for Prada but for some culture!!  That’s right, we decided to learn a little bit about the history of this very charming city.  So we took a guided 3 hour walking tour around the city and got lots of interesting information about the history of Florence, visited a few churches, learned a thing or two about a few paintings and got ourselves all sorts of culturized.

Now that the culture piece was done, it was time to start shopping!  I think people don’t realize just how much shopping there is in Florence but you definitely have lots to choose from.  We shopped until dinner, all finding something we couldn’t live without.  For me I found a pair of these Italian leather boots that I definitely can't live without.  :)  

We had a wonderful dinner, lovely wine and dessert, chatted and caught up.  Sunday was pretty much more of the same minus the culture piece and before we knew it, it was time to part ways and say goodbye to Florence.  

I think we have officially created a tradition now out of our little girls weekend in Florence and we’ll be aiming to do this twice a year.  Next up, March where I look forward to another relaxing weekend with the girls.

Florence really is such a charming city and I realize how much I love it more and more every time I go back!

Like Mr. Miyagi said....it's all about balance

Sure, you remember when he told Daniel "Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?"  Or when metaphorically telling Daniel that the balance lesson “not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?” (btw, did he finish every sentence with the word understand? Somebody IMDB that for me) 

And then they cut out that part where he says this also applies to wine.  This they don’t tell you on IMDB but I’m pretty sure it’s true ‘cause we learned on our most recent adventure, the key to great wine is balance.  This according to Les, resident innkeeper and wine merchant in the town of Blaye in the heart of the Bordeaux wine region. 

But before we get that far down the rue de Chateau - May have mentioned before, but there seems to be significantly more interest from friends and family in visiting Paris than there was in Zurich.  Maybe it's because the first year went so quickly and people didn't have enough time to plan, maybe Zurich is not all that exciting (which is fair) or it could just be that Paris is Paris.  The latter being the most likely reason and don’t worry, none of these offend us.

Already having had a few visitors since our arrival in July, up next visiting us straight from the mean streets of Alamo, CA are the Lamson's!  Coming for a little over a week and bringing a new element in the form of their 2 year old son Ethan, were our friends Aaron and Kristine.  On tap - adventures around Paris, a few World Series games, and a trip to Bordeaux.  Oh, and Cleaver and I had to find time to work along the way as well, save for a National holiday here in France on November 1 plus a second "bonus day" that everyone gets here.  (They get a lot of these apparently.)

To start, arrival Friday by the Lamson's and a fairly casual first night out for dinner, kept it short because they were trying to adjust to the time change and Aaron and I had a little something called Game 2 of the World Series to watch that night.  Aaron being perhaps an even bigger fan than I, no way we miss this.  Watching the games here means watching the next day and trying to avoid the internet all day long at work so you don't find out who won.  It's not as fun as it sounds, but hey, when you love your team you do what you have to do. Game 2 =  Giants win!

Late start on Saturday and head out for some sightseeing, really did this for most of the weekend.  Paris is really walkable, things are not all that far apart which makes it easy to kill a day or a weekend just wandering the streets even with a 2 year old dans la stroller.  While wandering we gave them a taste or our normal life here, which consists of going to the market, fromagerie and boulangerie for the French tradition of Pain / Fromage / Vin (Bread / Cheese / Wine) - of which we eat and drink in copious amounts.  Especially cheese, oh is the cheese good.  All of the Lamson's including Ethan agree.  Happy hour was not just a weekend thing, this was the norm for the whole trip. And Sunday night Game 3 = Giants win!  

Go Giants!!!

Monday back to work, Cleaver off to Zurich for a one night work trip while the Lamson's venture out on their own.  Coming back together that night for a quick dinner and Game 4 of the World Series.  Trying so very hard to not find out the score all day proved a futile task as both my boss and another guy on my team who are Americans took it upon themselves to ruin the surprise.  So while thanks to these two clowns I knew the outcome, it still didn't diminish the fun.  Game 4 = Giants Sweep! Another World Series victory, just wow!  This also forced me to make "bad decisions" with Aaron after the victory whereby we head out on a school night to the local Scottish pub near our house to celebrate.  Let's just say good thing my calendar was clear Tuesday morning.  While I certainly missed the excitement of being in the city, glad to have Aaron and Ethan with me to watch and will always remember where I was given the unique situation.

Finally make it to Wednesday evening and a 4 day weekend (remember the holiday and bonus day) and head off to Bordeaux that evening via train.  Clearly this was very exciting for a 2 year old boy - and the adults of course enjoyed the ride with Pain / Fromage / Vin. I mean, what else are you going to do for 3 hours? Arriving late in the little town of Blaye we stayed at this excellent B&B type place where we were introduced to our hosts Clarissa and Les.  We had a large 3 bedroom apartment to stay in which was perfect for all of us.

Waking up on Thursday we had arranged a winery tour with Les which took us to Chateau Rousseau where we walked the vineyards, saw the operation complete with tanks named after the 7 dwarfs and a first taste of Bordeaux wine.  The few days in Blaye were quite nice, small village right on the Garonne river which is HUGE and has a really neat 17th century Citadel / Fortress overlooking the water.  We had a relaxing couple of days enjoying good food and of course good wine.  The weather left a little to be desired but didn't ruin our good time.

Back to Paris on Saturday afternoon and we planned a night out on the town.  We had a babysitter arranged which sort of worked out - eventually anyway - and enjoyed an evening out sans Ethan.  Last day was Sunday for more wandering and a trip to Jardin du Luxembourg which has a huge playground which Ethan seemed to really love.  Needed to get the boy out and run him a bit, spend some energy as opposed to running laps in our living room.

The week really felt like a vacation of sorts eventhough we did have to fit the work schedule in there.  Had a wonderful time with the Lamson's and had our first (but not our last) trip to Bordeaux.  As we have now seen a few different areas of France, starting to really appreciate the food, culture, and countryside.  Looking forward to the next adventure!

And Go Giants!

Making Croissants

Shortly after we found out we'd be moving to Paris, I got this idea in my head that I wanted to take a class to learn how to make croissants. I figure, I love a croissant, especially pain au chocolat, and how fun would it be to actually know how to make it! Well this weekend I finally got the time and chance to do that. People have told me that it's a very long process and a complicated one and that it's much easier to just go down to your local boulangerie and buy one there. But I didn't care. Even if I never make croissants on my own, I wanted to learn how I could if I wanted to.

So I recruited two of my girlfriends, Amy and Jacalyn, and Saturday morning we headed over to La Cuisine for our 3 hour lesson on making croissants.


Now we did learn that making croissants does indeed take a long time. There are multiple steps that require waiting for 30-60 minutes before moving on to the next.

Here we are making our dough

Then through the magic of having dough that was prepared earlier, we moved on to the step of adding the butter. It's all about getting a slab of butter and basically wrapping the dough in it and rolling it out. But to get the butter thin and ready, you have to pound it with the rolling pin.

Once you've got the butter combined with the dough, we are able to roll out the dough.

And create our croissants. We made three kinds. The regular croissant, pain au chocolate and croissant aux amandes (croissant filled with almond cream).

 

Here is my croissant aux amandes

And the pain au chocolat which are ready to rise and then bake

And yet more croissants

And then voilà!  Yummy croissants!

Now the question is if I'm actually going to make these on my own. I would like to try it just to see if I can do it. And imagine your very own kitchen smelling like a boulangerie! So perhaps one of these days, when I have a whole weekend free, I'll give it a shot. Until then, the boulangerie will continue to get my business....happily.

Oktoberfest Take 2

It’s that time of year again where the tents go up in Munich and it’s a crazy party for 2 weeks. After our lesson from attending Oktoberfest on opening day last year, we decided we’d take a day off work and go on a weekday. We headed to Munich a week ago on a Thursday after work and had our first beer in hand by 9:30pm. And wow did it taste good. I’ve been drinking mostly wine here in Paris and it made me forget how good beer can taste....especially when it’s German beer straight out of Germany. We had a delicious German meal that night and met up with our friends Stacey and Alex. They were with us for the craziness of last year so they were also ready for a more successful Oktoberfest. Alex surprised us saying that he did the impossible and at the very last second was able to get us a 4pm reservation on Friday in the Paulaner tent. I don’t know how he did it but it was great news!!! We now had a guaranteed spot in a tent.

This year we also decided to change it up and truly participate in all of the festivities.  That’s right, we decided that we needed a dirndl and lederhosen.  And that’s what we did on Friday morning....we went out and purchased ourselves a genuine Oktoberfest outfit.  Eventhough it was the last weekend of Oktoberfest, we were lucky enough to at least find something in our size.  We were now ready to head to the tents!!!!  We first went to the Augustiner tent and found a spot at a table quite easily.  We made friends with the people we sat next to and enjoyed a few liters of beer.  Before we knew it, it was time to head to Paulaner for our reservation.  We got our table for 10 (at that point there were only 4 of us), sat down and were immediately bombarded with people who wanted to be our new best friends.  Along with our Paulaner beer we enjoyed some delicious roasted chicken (almost as good as that fried chicken from Jazz Fest) and good ol’ German potato salad.  

Before we knew it people were on the benches dancing and we were having a great time singing along with the band.  There were a ton of drunk people (I know, shocking) and things were starting to get a bit crazy.  The tent was packed.  If people weren’t packed into tables then they were standing in any empty space.  It was all really fun but soon it got to be time to leave.  Afterall it had probably been almost 8 hours since we had arrived and that was plenty of time to be there.  

The next day we met up with my friend April who had run the Berlin Marathon the weekend before and was in Munich before heading back to San Francisco.  We headed to an outdoor market near Marienplatz which had a huge outdoor seating area in the middle of the market.  The weather was perfect and we found ourselves a spot at a table, ordered some beers, some sausages and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon hanging out.  Before we knew it, she was off to catch her plane and we met back up with Stacey and Alex and a few of their friends.  Had a nice dinner in Munich and said goodbye the next morning.  

So overall I’d say it was a successful Oktoberfest this year.  Lesson learned....attend Oktoberfest on a weekday.

Stockholm

It was another one of those weeks where I traveled to Zurich and Oslo for work and Nate was in Helsinki so we figured we’d take advantage of being in the Nordics and visit one of the cities up there for the weekend.  Since Nate is up there quite often, I asked him to pick the best one out of Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.  He suggested Stockholm eventhough he said all of the cities would be great choices.  So after my travels to Zurich (which was strange and familiar all at the same time but felt so great being back) and Oslo, I was off to Stockholm Thursday evening.  I worked from our Stockholm office that Friday and met up with Nate Friday evening.  It was finally the weekend!

The weather was a bit chilly and rainy all weekend but we were off to make the best of it.  Friday night we explored a bit of the old town on Gamla stan, grabbed a drink and had dinner.  One thing about Stockholm, and the Nordics in general, is that speaking English is never a problem.  Everyone there knows English and they speak it very well.  So from that perspective, it was a bit of a language vacation for us as well.  

Right outside City Hall

Saturday we were up and off to City Hall for the tour.  Stockholm is the home of the Nobel prize awards ceremony. The ceremony takes place at Stockholm Concert Hall and the banquet takes place in City Hall.  While we were on the tour of City Hall we saw the giant hall, which they call the “Blue Room”, where they host the big banquet dinner.  We also saw the “Golden Hall” where the dancing takes place.  It was pretty cool to see and quite pretty both inside and out.  City Hall sits right on the water which makes for lovely views.

We were then headed back to Gamla stan to check out the Nobel Museum (pretty cool....it highlights all of the Nobel prize winners and talks about Mr. Alfred Nobel himself, the founder of the prize), Stockholm Cathedral and the Royal Palace.  We walked around, shopped and had dinner in a nice local neighborhood and before we knew it, were on a plane the next morning headed back to Paris.  

It was a quick but very pleasant weekend and was a good chance to get a feel for Stockholm, check it out and enjoy some Swedish meatballs.  I think it’s a beautiful city and it feels very “European” to me with the buildings and cobblestone streets.  Nate says I should join him back there again in February when I can get a true sense of winter in the Nordic region.  Uh, yeah....meet you there babe!

It's not a full vacation but….

Hey, we'll take it!  Taking 3 days off work while not quite as good as a whole week and definitely not as good as two, is still a very good thing given how busy things have been.  Two people who did take the whole week off to join us in Paris and the South of France were our friends Ehren and Julie coming from DC.  Julie having lived in Paris for a year herself was excited to be back and show us a few of her favorite places in town.  

Arriving early on Saturday morning and after getting a refresher nap in, we started out on a gorgeous afternoon to do one of everyone's favorite things to do in Paris - Go to a park with cheese, wine, and meats to sit in the sun and simply enjoy.  Meeting up with some of Julie's friends in the Jardin de Tuileries we spent several hours outside in the park before moving on to spend that evening sitting along Canal Saint Martin which was packed end to end with people given just how nice the weather was.  Literally the best weather all summer long.

Jardin des Tuileries

After a nice lazy Sunday Ehren and Julie left Paris on their own for a few nights in the South of France while we worked the first few days that week.  Cleaver and I left Paris Wednesday morning on the train to the town of Nimes where Ehren and Julie picked us up on our way to île de Porquerolles which is a little island town just off the coast.  On our way from Nimes we stopped in a medieval town of Arles for lunch.  We then headed to Hyeres on the coast where Porquerolles was a short 15 minute ferry ride away.  It's a small town with a nice little town square and several beaches you could reach easily en velo (or bike). 

île de Porquerolles

Our few days there were quite relaxing, starting with a breakfast we made in our hotel room, then renting bikes and heading out to the various beaches.  The first day we found this great little cove where we just sat and took in the scenery for a bit.  Leisurely we worked our way back to town by late afternoon for happy hour consisting of the usual bread, cheese, wine combination before heading out for dinner.

Looking out over the water

The island had maybe 15 or so different restaurants and given that we were there in the middle of the week post-vacation time in France it was all fairly empty which added to the relaxing feeling we had.  We enjoyed this lifestyle for a few days before heading back to Paris on Saturday morning.  I would be remiss without mentioning on this train ride back to Paris that we had probably the loudest screaming crying baby right next to us for the entire ride.  This was unpleasant.  Very unpleasant.  But let's not dwell on that and just move on.

Back in Paris Saturday night for one last outing before Ehren and Julie had to head back home on Sunday after a great week in France!

Mischief and Mayhem - Just a day in Burgundy

Well after all of the craziness going on in our lives these past few months, we finally had a day where we could go explore beyond Paris.  Louis was in town....a quick weekend stopover in Paris between work trips in Portugal and Geneva....and he had a request that we leave Paris and explore somewhere else.  After presenting a few options, we decided on Dijon and the region of Burgundy.  More specifically, we went to Beaune which is a small town about a 20 minute train ride from Dijon.  We did just a day trip although if we had it to do all over again, I think we’d be better off spending the night.  We headed out on the TGV early on Saturday morning and just a little over 2 hours later, we were in Beaune.  It was a chilly day but at least it wasn’t raining, which was good because our plan was to rent bikes and explore the wine region of Burgundy.  Our friends Stacey and Alex recommended a bike shop in Beaune and Cedric (the guy who worked at the shop) helped us out by not only renting us bikes but also giving us some great suggestions on where to go for both tastings and lunch.  We headed off on our bikes and shortly after leaving the small town, we found ourselves amidst the vineyards of Burgundy.  It was pretty amazing and surreal.  I mean here it was just a regular old Saturday and we were bike riding through Burgundy.  Amazing!

We just happened upon a small little winery called Mischief and Mayhem where the lady was from the UK and spent some time telling us a bit about the wine region.  The wines were only ok although Nate and I bought a courtesy bottle.  The strangest part at this winery was when this lady poured us the reds she told us that she wasn’t sure how long they had been open and if they would be any good since she hadn’t been in the tasting room for a while.  Umm, ok?  Perhaps she wasn’t interested in really selling wine and more interested in getting to her lunch (after all, the wineries all close from about 12:00 to 1:30/2:00 for lunch).  So yeah, as nice as she was, it didn’t leave a great impression.

We headed off to our lunch at a restaurant recommended by Cedric.  It was a very homey feel of a restaurant and very typical French food.  The meal was delicious and we met a fellow bike traveler visiting from Boston.  All in all, a very lovely lunch.

We were back on our bikes and ready to explore and find another winery.  We again just happened across this one winery that seemed interesting.  It was called Edmond Cornu & Fils.  A lady greeted us and took us down into the wine cellar where she proceeded to pour us a few tastings.  Now she didn’t speak any English but luckily Louis is French Canadian and therefore could help translate.  She spent quite a bit of time with us and the wines were fantastic...as evidenced by the 7 bottles we bought between the 3 of us.  And we would have bought more too but there was only so many we could fit into that empty backpack we brought along.  It was overall a great experience and she even gave us a special taste of their Corton Grand Cru.  We are all still kicking ourselves for not making room to buy a few bottles of this one.  

Nate & Louis learning all about the region from this sweet lady

In any case, we had a wonderful experience here and in fact spent so much time there that we needed to start heading back to the bike shop to return our bikes and catch our train back to Dijon and then Paris.  Again, it would have been great to have had more time....there is so much to explore!!  We were mainly in the Aloxe-Corton and Ladoix areas but the southern part of the region was highly recommended as well.  I think it will definitely be on our list of places to head back to.  All in all it was a brilliant day and one that I think we will all remember for a long time to come.