Bern

Steve and I spent the weekend in Bern, Switzerland with Steve’s cousin, Anna, and her husband and two kids, Louise and Jon. Louise is 12 and speaks four languages. Bern is the capital of Switzerland and has a large international community. This site explains it better than I can. We had a great time chatting and catching up, and eating a lot of wonderful food, including my favorite, fondue. For those of you who attended the wedding, Anna is Louise and Conal’s youngest daughter.

Pictures

A few recent pictures for you.

Chartres

Steve and I went over to Bon Marche on Saturday. It’s a great store, but their food store across the street is even better. It’s actually a very close replica of Whole Foods, with endless gourmet offerings, a beautiful fruit and vegetable department, and a great prepared food section. It was also crawling with Americans. If we lived closer I would probably do a lot of my shopping there, so it’s good we’re not next door.

On Sunday we took an hour train ride to Chartres. The main attraction in Chartres is the cathedral, which is very impressive. The stained glass was like nothing I’ve really seen before, and the interior of the church was literally amazing. It was the most gorgeous spring day outside, but inside it was freezing and dark. Grace Cathedral and Chartres have a connection, including the labyrinth which Grace copied from Chartres. Because it was Sunday almost everything was closed in the town, but we walked all around and really enjoyed the day. It must be puppy season because we saw four yellow lab puppies – so cute! The town is very French, very old, and full of adorable winding roads, a stream crossed with beautiful old bridges every few blocks, and a lot of very well dressed French people out for a Sunday walk on a beautiful day. Steve was particularly happy because no one responded to him in English, which drives him crazy; although I maintain that the French are so polite that they are only trying to make him feel comfortable (because they assume Americans can’t really speak another language). I'll post pictures soon.

The election

In May the French will elect a new president. I doubt this race is getting much attention in the US, but I find it rather interesting as there is a good possibility that they will elect their first female president. Segolene Royal is running against Nicolas Sarkozy. The first election will take place in April with the final runoff in May.

Hemingway's at the Ritz

Not too much to report this week. Steve and I had our six month wedding anniversary on Friday, but we both forgot (oops!). Forgetting was actually a good thing because we started the night off by having our friends who we had invited to dinner call and cancel 30 minutes before they were to arrive, which turned out okay because then our oven broke, again. After eating a very modified menu of what we were planning to have, we trekked over to Hemingway's bar in the Ritz. It has an interesting history, but also charges €25 per drink so when the snobby hostess told us there was no room because it is fashion week we headed off. We ended up at another bar which we thought was okay until we noticed a handful of transvestites, so we called it a night.

Saturday night we made it to a crazy club which was so much fun it made up for Friday night's lack of fun.

I made my first ever tart, which I am pleased to report turned out to be delicious. I followed this recipe, but added in powdered hazelnuts and skipped the pears, instead I topped the tart with a ring of raspberries. Delicious!