Europe Journal

04/03/04 Saturday Goodbye USA Hello Europe and France

04/04/04 Paris Sunday

We get back to the hotel, and almost everybody is there. We were only about 5 minutes late, but some other people came in after us, so it wasn't too bad. I fell asleep during most of the meeting. The tour guide, Toni, was just going over the itinerary anyway. During the introductions there is a couple named Mary and Wayne. Mario and I chuckled since those are my parents' names. So, we break and then meet again for a little walk to our bus. I fell asleep on the bus, and missed half of the riding tour of Paris. Oh well, I'll see it during the rest of the trip. Then we go straight to the restaurant. It's called "La Varangue, Philippe's restaurant". Our salad was already sitting on the table, but it looked good. It had a tomato off to the side covered in a white sauce with lettuce and mozzarella cheese. There was fresh black pepper sprinkled on the top. It was good; the white sauce was yet another mustard sauce with a subtle hint of ginger. We then had our main course which was chicken breast in a tarragon and nutmeg sauce over mashed potatoes. It was way tasty, the tarragon wasn't too strong and the nutmeg added an interesting dimension to the dish. The potatoes were just a palate for the sauce which was a light beige. It was very, very tasty. We had a glass of red and a glass of white house wines. The wines were good, the white was a nice match to the chicken. I didn't like dessert, which was a lemon tart with a meringue topping. The crust tasted like bad milk or a weird egginess that I just didn't like. The flavor just spread to the filling too. While we were eating, we began talking to Mary. Her husband was an engineer for the air force and she's a nurse. How funny, just like my parents. Their dynamics are even the same as my parents. It was too weird, too unreal. So we talked with her about traveling and adventures, and generally enjoyed the meal.

We went back to the hotel to get our camera and see the Eiffel Tower. Howard came along with us. He's a pharmacist from Sonoma California. The three of us went to the tower while it was all lit up. It was neat. We were all taking pictures and showing each other the newest one snapped. The light show is definitely better in person than it is on TV. The light show has these white lights that are flashing all over the place, making the tower seem to sparkle like a jewel in the bright light. The tower itself is lit in an orange, slightly yellow color. When we got there the light was fading, giving a rich blue background to the tower. It was breath taking. Just on the edge of dusk and you see the tower in its perfect essence, you see it the way Eiffel envisioned it. We were there quite a while and then the temperature dropped, and we went back to the hotel.

04/05/03 Monday

Notre Dame on the outside is absolutely beautiful, I didn't think it would be so pretty. The carvings were incredible, and in greater detail than I should expect for their age. The flying buttresses are completely amazing. The stone carvings are incredible, so much detail in this hard stone. I was wowed. At the back of the cathedral there were these girls singing. Mario liked their music a lot. I bought him their cd. It was neat to take a break and listen to the pretty music in the spring and the garden.

Singing girls

Lunch was at a restaurant called "Auberge des Deux Ponts". We started the meal with an aperitif. A kir which was reasonably tasty. Mario and I chose the same main dish, veal wrapped around some kind of fine ground stuffing, potatoes, and green beans. The veal was good, and covered with caramelized onions. There was a little juice for the potatoes which were fried. The beans were just beans. The meal was tasty, but last night's was better. The wine at the "Auberge" wasn't very good, it was a little musty and watery, no life to the wine at all. In whole though, the meal was a good lunch.

We moved on to Le Musee Cluny.

It had a lot of medieval artifacts. Some really neat stained glass windows from St. Chapelle. There was a cool series of tapestries from the Burgundy region of France. They were this lady and a unicorn in 6 tapestries. The first five were about the five different senses. The last one was "My Only Desire" which was her giving up a bunch of jewels. Then we were done, and on our own again. So Mario and I started walking back to Notre Dame. We stopped at a couple of stores, and got D.J. a pack of French magic cards. We then actually made it back to Notre Dame and went in. It's so dark in there, but very amazing. The architecture and the stained glass windows were just fabulous. The way that the light lit them up was like a glowing in the dark, with colors. They were luminescent, I can see why Catholics would be extremely proud of their architecture.

Well, we left and headed to the metro, but instead of getting on the metro we got on to the RER. We totally got lost, first we went to the tracks that were for the "B" line and had to go up to get to the "A" line, but then we were trying to figure out how to get to the right side, because of course we were in the "B quai" and needed to be in the "A quai" to get to our destination. Finally we were on our way, and made it back to the hotel. We stopped off at a patisserie and got snacks. Mario got an apple tart, and I got a chocolate filled croissant square. It was good, they used real chocolate. Mario's tart was tasty and wasn't too sweet, it tasted of fresh apples. Mmmmm. He's smoking a nasty cigar right now, truly offensive. It smells like tar for a few minutes, then it smells like nasty, musty feet. I think it is one of the worst cigars he has smoked since I've known him.

Well, it's off to dinner. We went to Fontaine du Mars. Mario liked the house merlot, it came with little slices of salami that were very tasty. So eventually we went upstairs for dinner. My starter was goat cheese with artichokes, and preserved tomatoes. It had greens on top. It was extremely creamy without the gaminess that goat cheese has. It matched very well with the tomatoes and the artichokes, almost a little too strong for the artichokes. Very well done. I had with it an opening wine called a Longbernac, it was a white, late vintage harvest '99. Mario had a duck terrine for his starter, and didn't like it, he said it was very gamy. For the main course I had a steak with au jus that was thick and gravy like, with warm foie gras. It was salty and meaty and very good. The foie gras was a nice match as it added depth to the meaty taste and helped mellow the saltiness so that it wasn't too much. I had it rare, which surprised the waiter, he acted like no Americans ever order their red meat rare. He asked me if I was an American, and then said that I couldn't be American. Mario had rosemary lamb for dinner. He liked it, he said it wasn't impressive, but good. He also didn't like his vegetable, it was a zucchini au gratin, that was too watery and bitter. Mine was huge, and had potatoes au gratin that were made with a creamy but strong cheese. Has to be one of the best potatoes au gratin I've had in a long time, it wasn't too mild, you could actually taste the cheese influence. For dessert I had the crumble chocolat avec chocolat glace noir. It was like a thick chocolate mouse that was warm with crumbles like what you get on top of pie. It wasn't as sweet as I prefer but when you ate it with the dark chocolate ice cream, goodness was it perfect. Even though I was full before dessert, I was able to get through almost all of dessert. Mario had raspberry sorbet and prune ice cream. He liked the raspberry sorbet, but thought the prune ice cream was too much due to the prunes being liquored up. He thought the ice cream part was good, and said he should have gone for the vanilla. We would eat there again. Mario thought the place was only a B, but I give them an A minus.

04/06/04 Tuesday My Birthday

We wandered up the hill in a turning twisting kind of way listening to the history of Montmantre. We stopped at the "I love you" wall, where I love you is written in hundreds of languages. We stopped near the house of Van Gogh. We also stopped at the place where all of the impressionist painters like Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and others, were living, that were actually slums. It burned down around 1915, so the actual structure doesn't exist, but looking at the pictures, we saw how tiny the flats were, and how filthy.

Finally ending up at the base of L'Eglise de Sacre Coeur. What an absolutely beautiful chapel. It's blindingly white, they used a different kind of stone than the big gothic churches in the 7th arrondissement. It's cool, it self washes in the rain, and was built to bring peace after all of the martyring that was done in Montmantre. I got yelled at when we were inside, as I didn't see the sign that said no photos. Wow, what a beautiful church inside as well, I almost cried when I stepped inside. Well, we walked around, and Mario actually took a couple of pictures. Then we left and went to the little heart of Montmantre, where you can get your picture painted, or buy crappy souvenirs. We, then met back in front of L'Eglise de Sacre Coeur, and headed off to lunch. We ate at L'Ete en Pente Douce. We had a choice of coq au vin or Sheppard's pie. Mario had coq au vin and I had Sheppard's pie. I liked mine, it had tomato sauce that was salty and creamy, but without actual cream. Mario didn't like his coq au vin, it looked like beef, and almost tasted like it too. It should have had a more of a wine taste to the sauce and the chicken, but it didn't and the noodles just sopped up the flavor without maintaining it, the flavor was lost. For dessert I had chocolate fondant (tart) and Mario had an apple torte, but his tasted more like apple pie, and he didn't like it. We both liked mine, it was creamy and chocolaty without being overwhelming.

As a group, we all headed to Le Musee d'Orsay. This is the museum that houses all of the impressionist works, and some of the pre-impressionist works. Of course, I wanted to go straight to the Monet and Renoir section. The building is very interesting, it is made from an old train station. We had fun. We even saw furniture made by Frank Lloyd Wright. We actually spent a long time there, but neither of us were really in the mood for the museum. So we headed back to the hotel, and did a wine tasting with the group.

We left for my birthday dinner. We walked to the bateau mouches, we went to the port for Bateaux Parisienne. We got on the bateau, and they seated us by the window. We had an aperitif, I had champagne and Mario had a kir royale. They then took our order for dinner. While we waited we had our pictures taken, boy are they funny looking, now that I'm sober. I don't think I like them, but I made Mario buy them anyway. For starters, Mario had prawns in butter sauce, they were tasty prawns in puff pastry with a fruity butter sauce that was thicker than a normal butter sauce. I had an oriental cannolli that was vegetarian. It was stir fried veggies, in a pastry, it was ok. For our main courses, Mario had yellow Pollock with some kind vegetable. I had pan feared scallops with young artichokes that were mashed, in the center was a artichoke heart in a little disk, with an herb sauce. It was kind of weird to me, but tasty. He liked my scallops better than I did. He didn't like his Pollock. We had a bottle of Chablis for the table and it was really good, I like the French Chablis. It was lacking bitterness, and woodiness. We also had a red wine with the main course that was good. The boat had a live band on board, and a dance floor, and we danced to a song all by ourselves, but the time that we got to the floor, everyone who was on the floor dancing had left. For dessert I had a fallen chocolate caramel cake, that was warm, and gooey, that was very good, and sweet. Mario had apricot and violet corn cake that he really liked. I really liked being on the boat and going down the Seine, and seeing all of the great sights. We stopped while we were in front of Notre Dame, and the band sang Ave Maria. Well, we finally left and as we were getting off the Maitre D said "bravo for the dance". It was a good time. I definitely think it was the second best birthday ever.

04/07/04 Wednesday

We then went to the Pompidou center. Wow, is it as ugly in person as it is in pictures, a horrid building. I didn't like it. Mario, of course did. We wandered inside for a while, and I have found that I really don't like modern art, and can't really get into it. While we wandered, we decided to check out the multimedia section, and we passed this 14 year old watching a woman kneading clay in her lap, he had headphones on so we don't know what she was saying. Mario whispered to me that he thought it was a little inappropriate, and he was kind of turned on by it. On our way back out I looked over at the kid, and he was kneading his groin area in time with the chick on the computer. Ha, kids these days have strange places they like to get off in. We then headed back to the hotel to meet with the group for dinner.

We went to Le Bosquet for dinner. We all had a kir au Bourgogne aligote, I had potage d'arblay for my starter and Mario had salade campagnarde. The soup tasted like sweet potato soup, that needed salt, lots of salt. Mario liked his salad, it had "lardoons" which is French for bacon. Mario had the saute d'agneau, which was really good, it had a yummy gravy over the lamb, and it went nice with his mashed potatoes. I had the piece de boeuf sauce poivre that was supposed to have gratin dauphine, but ended up coming with mashed potatoes. It was ok, a little bland, but it had taste so it was, again ok. They brought out the potatoes dauphine, they were gross, they were nothing but nutmeg tasting. We had dessert, mine a chocolate mousse, his strawberries in chantilly. My mousse didn't taste like mousse, it was way too thick for mousse. His was excellent, the strawberries were ripe, and delicious. We came back to the hotel room, and I tried to sleep but couldn't get to sleep until about 3 in the morning.

04/08/04 Thursday

We then went to Saint Chapelle, and waited in line for over 30 minutes. It's the smallest chapel that I've seen in Paris, so far. But when you go inside and up the stairs, it's absolutely beautiful. It is almost all stained glass, and the way they painted the walls, it looks like it was done to make you think of tapestries on the walls instead of it being paint. We sat inside for a while because they were supposed to have a little music going on at 3 but we waited until 3:30, and nothing happened.

We got some ice cream at this little place just down the way. I had raspberry sorbet and coconut ice cream. Mario had apricot sorbet and vanilla ice cream. We both liked it very much, of course the temperature dropped as soon as we started eating and then it started raining which made eating the ice cream a test of how masochist we really were. The weather beat me out, I ended up giving my last 2 bites to Mario. We got to the hotel, and napped.

When we woke up to get ready for dinner, Mario complained that he didn't feel quite right, we thought it was because he slept too long. We took the metro to the restaurant, and we could not find it. We wandered down the street it was on, but it wasn't at the number it said it was at. So we ended up asking some guy, and I had to ask in French, and did a very good job too. He pointed us to a restaurant, and we asked them, and they said down the street. We just hadn't gone far enough for the restaurant, Les Elysees du Vernet, a 2 star Michelin restaurant. We went inside and they seated us. We started with an aperitif of champagne, a vintage from 1997 cuvee Taittinger. We decided to get the tasting menu, which was 8 courses. They brought out some fried calamari, that was salty and good and the breading was light without being too oily. Then they brought out an amuse bouche, which was a creamed pea, with onion chantilly on it, wow was that really great. I don't even like peas very much, but this was tasty. After the amuse bouche they came around asking what kind of wine we wanted, so we asked them for a suggestion, which they gave us of a Burgundy. I asked the waiter if we could have a copy of the tasting menu, and he said yes, and later they brought out a card with our wine and the menu on it. They marched out the canard foie gras for our approval, and then the brought out the slices of foie gras. Way too gamy for my taste. Neither Mario nor I liked it, which caused some consternation with the maitre d. He came over and asked what was wrong with it, and we told him nothing just preference, we don't like our foie gras so gamy. He asked if it was the cooking, and we told him no. He then checked to make sure that cooking the tuna and the lamb rare would be ok, we said yes. They then brought out the tuna, which was tempura style with pickled vegetables, and a little pizza with tapenade. Mario didn't like the tuna, he thought it was greasy. I thought it was good, just a bit fishy. I liked the little pizza and Mario thought it was too olivy for him. Our wine was brought out, and I though it was a good match. It was light, with only a hint of oak in it. A perfect wine. At about this time, Mario said he was feeling weird and went to the bathroom, for an embarrassing long time. He came back saying he was starting to feel not so well. He then got up about 5 minutes later, and returned shortly after. Then they brought us a coffee cup that had white foam on top and green stuff on the bottom. The foam tasted just like crab, and the green stuff was tasty, it had bits of crab and pistachio in it. I thought it was brilliant and tasty. Mario wasn't impressed, but to me the brilliance was in the foam tasting like crab. They brought out the next course which was the langoustines in this yummy champagne butter sauce. Mario liked it, but then he had to get up again, and left. When he returned, he didn't eat any more of this course. He got up again shortly after they took away the course, and the whole time, I'm the only one drinking the wine, and enjoying myself. The waiters, asked me if everything is alright, and I tell them in French that, "My husband has become a little ill. Till up my wine glass, thank you." They brought out the next course, which was lamb, but Mario wasn't back, so it sat there waiting for him. Finally he came back and they presented the dishes, which made Mario sick and he had to leave the table. I ate and drank while he was away. The lamb was the absolute best I've ever had. It was not gamy, it was meaty but also light at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was sorry Mario couldn't. They had this green parsley and cilantro sauce that had a hint of mint in it that went perfectly with the lamb. When Mario came back, I told the waiters that he was done, and to bring some tea for him. Mario, left again, and the waiter brought out my cheeses. I had a chevre, a brie, a camembert, and one other mild creamy cheese. The camembert and brie were stronger than I am used to but still very good. The chevre was tasty, and the other nameless cheese was good as well. Mario came back just as I was finishing with my cheese. Then they brought out a strawberry gelatin with raspberries in it covered in a thick cream that had vanilla in it and hibiscus, which is something else indescribable that I've just been calling the French taste. Once I mixed the cream with the gelatin, it was good. I got through about half of it before it became too much. Mario couldn't even drink his tea, or his water, he said it was making him sick. Then the final course came, it was huge, on one plate there was an egg with 3 little confections, one was chocolate, one pistachio, and one mint. The second plate had a little cup that had a frothy cream with citrus and pepper coulis. Those were called the gourmandes. They were tasty, the imitation egg was sweet and lemony. The cup of coulis was good, it was heated with the pepper, but was refreshing at the same time. The main dessert was a fallen yellow cake with a lemon citrus molten center covered with this tasty creamy, lemony, minty, thymy taste. Very good, a little overwhelming, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The little side of marscapone ice cream was tasty, sweet, light and unexpectedly good. Then dinner was over. I had the waiters call us a cab, and as we were leaving they brought me out a long stemmed white rose. I think they felt sorry for me. Well, I felt sorry for Mario and picked up the bill. Oh, My God, 415 euros. That is about $545. The wine was an 80 euro bottle and the 2 glasses of champagne was 60 euro total. Jeez. Well, Mario shouldn't have to pay for something he didn't get to enjoy.

We took the taxi home, and I argued about the spelling of the name of the street with the taxi driver, but that's ok. We got home regardless and I apologized to the driver. Mario was violently ill when we got home. Turns out he had food poisoning from the damn cafeteria in the Louvre. He shouldn't have kept eating the pork, I had even offered to give him some of my steak, but no, he kept eating his pork. Dumbass.

04/09/04 Friday

I got him a baguette, and myself a sandwich from the boulanger from around the corner. The sandwich was good, the baguette was too much for Mario. Then I went to the last dinner with the tour group. It was a lot of fun. The food was ok, I liked the quiche Lorraine and then the boeuf Bourgogne, which was basically tasteless. For dessert I had a chocolate cake. After we got done, a bunch of us went to the same place where we had dinner before, and got crème brulee and wine. I drank too much and had a great time with Howard and Diana. We went up to the room to tease Mario, we were going to say that Diana and I were going to give him a manage a trois, but he wouldn't wake up to get the door. I had to go downstairs to get the door opened, and by the time I came back up the joke lost it's edge. C'est la vie. Poor Howard, he had his head against the wall looking like he couldn't believe we were doing this.

04/10/04 Saturday

04/11/04 Sunday

We went back to Fontaine du Mars for our last dinner in the city. I again liked everything that I had. I had a kir to start with. Then I ordered a half liter of their house white wine. It was good. For my starter I had cream of mushroom soup which was fabulous and not overpowering. Mario had a salad with ham and cheese on it that he liked. For my main course I had sole meuniere, and Mario had cod with garlic aioli. Both were good, but Mario didn't really like mine, too plain for him. I had cherry schnapps with vanilla ice cream and Mario had strawberries with pistachio sauvignon and vanilla ice cream. If I weren't completely wasted I would have liked the cherries, but they were too strong for me. Mario liked his dessert. Then we went home and crashed out.

04/12/04 Monday Goodbye Paris Hello Arnay le Duc

We got lost on the way to the freeway, but eventually found it. On our way to Arnay Le Duc. So we get lost once we're in Arnay Le Duc, which seems to be a running theme, for us. We check in and it seems that they don't speak very much English. We have to walk all of our heavy suitcases up these tiny stairs, and I'm still not feeling too good. The room we had was very big and very cute. It was also freshly painted. We leave the windows open to keep the air circulating. We go downstairs to have dinner, and have to wait for a table. We think the old lady that works there is a very cute little old lady, she's even shorter than I am. They served us an aperitif first, Mario had a champagne named cremant, it was pretty good. I had the house aperitif and it was fruity, like grapefruit juice and champagne, it was good then sweet at the end, very well balanced. So we finally sit down to dinner after ordering while waiting, and what we order, we have no idea, just some guesses, as French class doesn't go too deep into the food part of the French language. Well for appetizers we had snail balls and snail ravioli and also homard (lobster) with veggies. Mario liked his snail balls, but didn't really care for the ravioli. I liked the homard (it was cold), but Mario didn't like it; he said it hurt his jaw chewing on it. That's ok because I thought that they were good. Then came the main course. Mario had rabbit a whole bunch of ways, and I had some kind of beef dish, chamboisie or something like that. It wasn't bad, just a little gamy, but on the whole, I liked my dish. Mario only liked the rabbit ribs and the liver/heart. He didn't like the rest of the way the rabbit was cooked. Then for dessert, Mario got their fruit gratin and I got their plateau of dessert. He disliked his fruit gratin, and I liked 3 of the 5 desserts. The 2 I disliked had nothing but egg flavor, one was apple cake (cake my ass, more like apple omelet that was too high) and fruit gratin with strawberries for the fruit. I liked the ice cream although it was a bit sterile tasting, cleansing, like soap. I also like the other 2 desserts but can't remember what they were.

We go upstairs and fall asleep. About 3 in the morning I wake up from a weird dream, and notice that I feel like I've eaten too much, and about a half hour later, my stomach is cramping something terrible, and I end up throwing up. I throw open the windows because I feel stifled, like it's the paint fumes, and that makes the room noisier and colder. I end up throwing up another 3 times, 4 total. Wow was I ever sick. I think it was a combination of food poisoning and the paint fumes. I definitely was in pain, I felt like my intestines were trying to escape through my mouth. I threw up so violently it hurt, it even came out my nose.

04/13/04 Tuesday Beaune

We then go upstairs and freshen up and go to dinner at a restaurant called Café Fleury. The amuse bouche was nasty, I just don't think that I like French foie gras. I was definitely not feeling up to a full meal, so I didn't get an appetizer. Mario does, and it's asparagus. It smelled revolting at the time, but I know that if I weren't sick it would have smelt good. Then our main dishes come out, Mario had some kind of fish thing and I had stuffed chicken breast with veggies and some kind of white sauce. The veggies were good in the white sauce, the chicken was too dry and they put nutmeg in the filling. What is the French obsession with nutmeg, it's only good in certain things, and then only in moderation. Then we get dessert and Mario had chocolate fondant and I had peach soufflé with a peach tartlette. Mine was really good, and peachy. Mario liked his chocolate fondant, so apparently this restaurant which the concierge at the hotel said was simple was really only good at desserts. We go back to the hotel and I fall asleep.

04/14/04 Wednesday Goodbye France Hello Switzerland-Bern

Back on the road again, and we come closer and closer to Switzerland. I can feel Mario's excitement, and so I am getting excited too. We get to the check point and the guard was pretty rude. He asked us where we were going, so we told him Bern, he said "and then”. We said Lucerne, and he said "and then”. We say Innsbruck and he says "aaaah, Innsbruck, that will be 25 Swiss francs or 30 euro please. We give him our passports and the money, and he returns with a sticker for the car for the highways, and say "have a nice day” in his very German accent. So, we got through it ok and then headed off, onto the wrong ramp. Mario waits until after I am past where I need to be to tell me where to go, and we get totally lost in this little Swiss town, and I have decided that I hate driving where I don't know the language, or know where I am going. We finally figure out our way to the high way, and make it to Bern, but Mario tells me the wrong place again, and I miss the exit I'm supposed to be on. I take the next one, but Mario doesn't think ahead and try to figure out where we are and how to get to the hotel from there, he just flounders worse than I do. But I figure it out after we go past where we should be, then we turn around and it turns out that we were on the right street to begin with. Well we find the hotel and check in. Then we go walking around Bern. I have decided that I really don't like Bern very much. It's very, very green. The buildings are green, the streets are green with moss, the river is green. It's all green, and hazy, very hazy. I don't like it at all.

We go to dinner, and I'm still not feeling up to speed, and we go some place called the Anker. The food there was very good, I had the studentente something or other. It had a hamburger patty with a half cooked egg and bacon, and onions and a pickle and cheese all served on top of fried potatoes. It was good. I liked it but it was too much food for me. Mario had something similar, but different, it had sausages instead of the hamburger and his wasn't as good to me. Outside the restaurant there is a fountain of an ogre eating children, it was funny and grotesque at the same time. We then wandered back to the hotel and went to bed. Let me say this, in Switzerland, they don't use sheets the way we do, nor provide extra pillows, or anything like that. Just plain white comforters, with big down pillows that make you feel like your sleeping on a brick under your head. The bed wasn't as hard as the beds in France, but having separate comforters is kind of annoying, and the bed was really 2 twins put together. The furniture in the room was definitely Ikea.

04/15/04 Thursday Bern

Then we went to get something to eat for dinner, but the restaurant that Mario wanted to eat at was gone, it doesn't exist anymore. I felt bad because he really wanted to eat there, it seems that they had a major meat fest. So we wandered some more, and decided to go to dinner at the Kornhaus Keller, which means corn house cellar. We go down the stairs, and at the base is a door that opens into the restaurant. We walk through the door, and are at the top of a set of stairs, there is a bar that is in on both sides to the right and left of the top of the second set of stairs, and you're at the top of these stairs that look down on this huge vault. The ceilings were painted and the columns running up to the ceiling were painted in German relief. It was amazing, huge and very cool. The lighting was low, almost like candle light. So we sit down in this out of the way table under the bar, but we were able to look out at the vaulted room. I have to say that this was one of the coolest restaurants that we've eaten at. It turns out that even though we were avoiding Italian food, we ended up getting it anyway. I started with the tomato and bread soup. Wow, what a great soup, it was fresh and salty and tasty and hearty. It was so very good, it was tomato tasting, like tomato sauce but with better tomato flavor. It had little soft garlic bread crumbs in it and shredded basil. It was way tasty and Mario and I both thoroughly enjoyed it. I got the gorgonzola risotto and Mario got the lamb. My risotto was tasty, the cheese wasn't too much and there were fresh vegetables in it that helped balance the gorgonzola, the only problem with it was some slightly underdone rice here and there, but on the whole I really liked it a lot. Mario's lamb was pretty tasty, the breading for it was good and garlicky. It was pretty tasty, I almost didn't notice the gamy flavor. His potatoes were really tiny and sort of sweet. We both had red wine with our dinners. Both were perfect matches for the dinners we had, unfortunately I don't remember the names of the wines because they were in German. We ordered dessert, I had tiramisu with apricot, and Mario had some kind of passion fruit crème catelana. The Swiss are not good at desserts. Mario's was plain old nasty and wrong while mine was actually ok tasting. The apricot sauce was very good, but the tiramisu needed work. On the whole though, we both enjoyed dinner immensely. We had been trying to get a good dinner, and finally did. We went back to the hotel, and then to sleep.

04/16/04 Friday Lucerne

About 20 minutes into the waiting we start trying to call Avis at the nearest pay phone which is only about 50 feet from the car. Mario can't figure it out and comes back to wait. And we wait. I decide to give the pay phone a try, and figured out how to work the pay part, but I am unsuccessful with the dialing. When I come out of the pay phone there are 2 cabbies talking. They kind of shout at me, and I tell them that I don't speak German, and one of them starts talking to me in English. They ask if we need help, and I say sort of. They end up calling the police for us to get help, even though I told them someone else already called a car for us. They were very helpful without our needing to ask for it. The police come around in about 5 minutes, and help us get the car out of the road by revving the engine and pumping the car full of gas (which is what I had told Mario to do the first time). They also call a tow truck for us. One of the police doesn't speak either English or French, but the other speaks a little English and a little French, and I think I speak more French than he does. So we wait, and we wait, and the police tell us it could take about 20 minutes for the tow truck.

So we wait some more, and the first guy in a yellow car shows up, and the police leave. The tow truck shows up about 5 minutes later, and the guy in the yellow car tells the tow truck to go ahead and leave. The guy in the yellow car can apparently fix stranded cars where they are without having to go to a garage. Well, he can fix most things. So he doesn't speak English, he just points us out of the way with a grunt and goes about checking a whole bunch of things. He even has a laptop that he uses to check the engine computer. So he fidgets with the car for about 15 to 20 minutes trying to fix the car, when he smells the gas at the engine line, and then walks over and smells the gas from the tank. He then shakes his head, puts the lid back on the engine, closes the hood of the car, packs up his stuff, and preps the car for towing. I just keep thinking, "Oh god we put in the wrong gas, we put in the wrong gas." I mutter this to Mario, which pisses him off. I tell him, "It's the gas, it's the gas." The guy points us into the car, and we are towed by him, for a long twisty way. We end up leaving Lucerne, and I'm talking about the gas, and pissing Mario off. I tell him, "Shit, he's taking us to the dealership. This is a fucking rental." We park in the dealership, and get out and Mario pays the guy, and I'm thinking, "Help, we don't speak German, and we don't know what's wrong with the car." Well, some blond guy comes out and they start talking, and the guy in yellow is telling him what's wrong. The blond guy starts translating that the problem is with the ignition; it's bad, and it won't keep the gas ignited to run the car. It has to be replaced, so they are going to keep the car and call Avis for us. He calls Avis, and asks us if we want him to translate for us. We say yes in unison. I tell him there's a slight language barrier. So he tells the Avis person everything that happened, and he tells us she will be by with to pick us up and take us to the Avis office, but it'll take about 20 minutes.

So we wait some more, and we wait, and finally she shows up. It was about 20 minutes, but we feel like everything is taking forever, and Mario is afraid that we may have to wait for them to fix the car. I tell him that we won't let that happen as we aren't postponing our vacation for their car, and they can just give us a new car. It was a moot point because she said the car she picked us up in was going to be our car, and then we're off to the Avis office. It takes us about 15 minutes to get there, and she changes out all of the paper work. And we're off, back to the hotel, back on the road after about 4 hours of dealing with the car problem. It cost us 122 Swiss francs though, which we won't get back until we're in France.

We find parking pretty easily, and we start wandering around the lake area of Lucerne. It's pretty, and it was chilly, but warmer than we expected. So we wander around, and Mario doesn't listen to me when I tell him which way we should go. So we wander longer than we needed to because we finally go the direction that I told Mario to go in. We finally find our hotel, Hotel Pickwick. The signs says that the entrance is around the front, so we walk all the way around, and go into the bar which, of course, is the wrong entrance. They show us around to the hotel in the back, and it turns out that we could have used the back door after all. So we take our bags to our room and it's 2 beds in a row along the wall, they are head to feet, and the room itself is shaped like a slim rectangle. So we set our stuff down, and head outside. We wander all around the little city and it seems highly commercialized, just like Bern. Lots of shops to buy stuff in, but we are also looking for lunch, because we really need to eat, and the first place we go to is only serving drinks. So we wander around, and decide to eat at a place called Movenpick. I had their potato soup and a chicken salad, and Mario had the croque monsieur. My soup was good, but didn't really have any substance, it was creamy, and tasty, but thin. My salad was pretty tasty with bits of shaved cheese and a tasty vinaigrette dressing. Mario's croque monsieur was pretty plain, but it didn't have the nasty nutmeg taste that was so prevalent in France. It was just plain though. So we were pretty happy with lunch, and went to find the Lion monument. So we walk up this really, really, really long, high stair case. At the top of it there wasn't anything but more houses, so we sit and catch our breath. Wow there were a lot of stairs. It took us about 10 minutes to climb them all. I would say it was about 4 stories worth of stairs. Well, we head back down the stairs, and pass a game store, and we walk into it and look for Greg's game. I don't see it and Mario keeps telling me to ask, so I do and they have it. Yeah. Greg will be very happy. It was expensive though, 69 francs, which is about $55 US.

We continue on our way to the Lion monument, and finally find it a little ways from the game store. It's a sad looking monument, it's a big lion on his side with his mouth open, and part of a spear in his side, bleeding. It's carved out of the side of a stone hill. At the base of the carving is a little pond, and there are 2 little ducks in it. A male and female. The male has some pretty markings, his eyes are red with a thin white circle around them, and his head and neck were black with thin white stripes running down and around his face. The female looked like any other female. We sat down and Mario told me the story of the monument, which was to commemorate the deaths of Swiss mercenaries killed in a war (one of the French revolutions) in France when a castle was invaded and the king of France who had paid them told them to put down their weapons, and then they were summarily slaughtered. We watched the ducks and the little male is making little noises at his lady. He's kind of herding her around the pond looking for food, and kind of ducky chirping at her. We sat and watched them for about a half hour; they were very cute. The place was nice and peaceful and then a bunch of Japanese tourists came, so we left. We continued to look at the shops on the way to the hotel, and we went across to where the train station and docks are to see what the schedule for the boats were to see Mt. Pilatus. Well, we couldn't find anything, so we went back to wandering around the hotel area, and they have this pretty cool wooden bridge. In the roof they have these painted pieces of history, like little excerpts from Swiss and Lucerne history, it's pretty neat. So we finally head to dinner at this place Mario wanted to go to called the Stadtskeller. The food was ok, but they had a folklore band which played a bunch of Swiss music and yodeled. They were a lot of fun to listen to. We ended up buying their cd. I had tomato soup that was more beef broth than tomato, but it was hearty. I had smoked pork with boiled potatoes, sauerkraut, and sliced sausage. The pork was pretty tasty, as was the sauerkraut. I had a dark ale, a dunckel, that was actually tasty without being bitter, or making my stomach feel weird. When we got back to the hotel room, it smelled like smoke. That's the bad thing about renting a room above a pub.

04/17/04 Saturday Brunnen

Awe inspiring music

Getting out of the parking garage is a big hassle. You have to pay before you leave, and we didn't know this. So the lady behind me couldn't let me back out, and we're stuck. A guy who is an attendant comes and let us know how to pay, and Mario gets out and pays. So finally we are on our way out, and getting onto the highway was pretty easy, we just followed it keeping the lake to the right.

It only takes us about an hour and half to get to Brunnen. The drive was winding and scenic. It was the relaxing type of drive I think Mario and I needed. We checked into our hotel, and Mario got a room overlooking the lake. In the parking lot of the hotel, there is this huge black bull in the side of the hill overlooking the cars. It was interesting. We couldn't figure out how they got the square of space that the bull was standing in. The view from the room was very pretty, with the mountains with snow in the background, and the lake. They had ducks on the lake which was cool. We walked around the little town, and actually found a "Dirt" cigar which is on back order in the US, so we bought it.

We headed back to the hotel, and went to dinner. The way the menu read it had French and German. We thought we had a choice for dinner, and the girl didn't speak very good English. Mario got the veal and I asked for the spaghetti. I had a wine called dole that was good. Our appetizer was a little weird; it was dried ham with melon. Mario didn't like it, but I thought the combination was interesting because of the salty with the sweet. The soup was good, it was cream of spinach and we both liked it, it wasn't the best we had but it was pretty good, fresh spinach, not canned. The girl brought out our main course, and it was the same thing, and I thought that I was getting the spaghetti. The girl kept pointing out that I had spaghetti on the plate, and I was like yes but I have veal on here too, and should only have spaghetti, so she goes and gets the manager. Meanwhile Mario and I figure out that the way they wrote the menu, we didn't have a choice, they listed everything that was on the plate. What a huge miscommunication. The manager comes over and was like, "I thought you said the menu was ok," and we said that yes it was, that we figured it out, and there wasn't anything wrong after all. I drained my glass of wine. They did let me substitute coconut ice cream for the rice pudding. I had a white port too, it didn't taste as sweet as normal ports, and I didn't like it as much as the white port from Napa. The coconut ice cream was pretty tasty, Mario's rice pudding wasn't so good, the rice wasn't cooked all the way. So by the end of dinner I had a nice buzz going.

We decide to go for a walk by the lake before smoking our cigars. It was a nice night, but there were a lot of people around, so it wasn't as cool as it could have been. Mario jokes about going to the strip club that is under the hotel, and I tell him that if only I weren't on my period, that would be ok. So we smoke our cigars on the balcony and they were good. While we were smoking our cigars on the balcony, this boat on the left side was lighting the side of one of the mountains. We didn't think anything of it but they turned off their big spot light and headed our way. They pulled up to this white hotel building at the side of the docks, and they turned their big light onto it. There were shapes and colors, and they would go forward and backward like they were trying to focus. It was weird, but interesting to see. We kept wondering whether this was with permission or not, whether it was a new type of vandalism, and where are the cops. It was pretty funny, you could hear men yelling at each other on the boat in German. They even placed their spot light on the tree next to the hotel. After about 20 minutes, they moved on. Then we went to sleep.

04/18/04 Sunday Goodbye Switzerland Hello Austria-Innsbruck

There's a speed trap, so all of that speeding to get around these people and Mario is waved over. An Austrian cop walks across the highway into our lane and waves us down. Right while Mario is doing about 80 miles an hour, we almost run him over, what a brave man, the next time I hear a cop complain about the hazards of highway patrol, I'll tell him about Austrian cops. He he, he's given a ticket. It was pretty funny, the police officer asks for his license and explains that he has hit Austrian speed control, and in Austria 80 means 80, and he was doing 106 and that means he owes 29 euro. Mario asks if he pays now or later, the cop looks at him and says, yes you pay now, we take cash or credit card. So Mario pays, and is given a receipt, and the cop says to have a good trip. And we are back on our way to Innsbruck. The drive took a while to do, but was really pretty. I enjoyed looking at the scenery while we were driving through the countryside. We got into town and managed not to get lost. Finally, the directions Mario had weren't incomplete or causing confusion. We found parking pretty easily, and close to the hotel. We checked in, and it seems that everyone in a German speaking countries also speaks some English. We got a city map from the girl at the hotel and she pointed out where we were relative to everything else. We were pretty close to everything.

We went exploring. Both of us were hungry so we ate at the first café that we came to. They had a cream of tomato soup that was pretty good, seasoned Italian style. Mario had a soup with a great big "meat" ball. It was bread and bacon. He liked it, but said it was too much. I had 4 sausages that were like knockwurst but thinner, with pan fried potatoes (like mom makes only better) and sauerkraut which had bacon in it. The food was very good. I had a great beer, it was a little cloudy, but still tasty, not bitter or hoppy at all. After lunch we walked around, and it being a Sunday, everything was closed. Yet again, though it seems that everything is geared to buying. We walked around and found this big garden that Mario was looking for, but it seemed more like a park, there were only a few flowers. We went back to the hotel, and then headed to dinner. A lot of things seemed closed, so we ate at the restaurant in the Best Western. I wasn't really very hungry, I was just hungry.

There's something about being in German countries that makes me have an appetite. Mario made me order this shrimp parfait appetizer. It was pretty gross, I didn't like it, there was only one whole shrimp, and they basically took the other shrimp and made them into a mousse that was thick and very firm. It did not taste good at all. For my main course I had penne pasta with tomato sauce. It was a little odd, kind of tasteless, and there were caraway seeds in it. It tasted a bit watered down, like the tomato sauce was good, and they forgot to get all the water out of the pasta. We had a good dessert that was huge, Mario didn't like it, I did, it was like a big egg white puff baked with current berries it was good, too sweet for either of us. I ate most of mine, but Mario couldn't get past the smell, which smelled like dog spit. Then we went back to the hotel and slept.

04/19/04 Monday Salzburg and Vienna

Choir Music

Afterwards, we left for Salzburg. On the way it began to rain. It took us a couple of hours to reach Salzburg, but it was on our way to Vienna so it wasn't a problem. We found parking really easily, it was in a mountain. We walked around Salzburg in the rain. We saw the house that Mozart was born and raised in. We didn't get to see the house that he lived in, we didn't have enough time. Lunch is needed and we go get some good Italian food, at this little Italian restaurant called la Stella. I had the tomato soup, which had beer in it. It was very tasty, it had chunks of tomato in it and was very rich and tomatoie, I also had a good pizza, which was cheese with oregano instead of the usual basil for a Margarita pizza. Mario had monk fish with some kind of side pasta that ended up being spinach pasta with an unnatural orange-yellow color. He also had an appetizer of mini-ravioli that were with a tomato sauce and then creamed spinach. The creamed spinach was good, I didn't like the ravioli. I didn't taste his main course, I don't usually like the fish dishes he get. After lunch we go find this garden that he wants me to see that he liked the last time he was in Salzburg. We visited a real garden that was very pretty and had lots of colored flowers, and some cute little birds that were green-blue and yellow. We decide that the weather really wasn't very good, and so let's leave for Vienna. The garden was very cool with purples, yellows, and whites and oranges. After the garden we slowly wandered to our car and headed to Vienna.

It was about 6:15 pm when we left and Mario realized that he should call the hotel to let them know that we would be after our estimated time so we headed to the nearest rest stop. We tried using a phone with a credit card, and that was just pointless. We tried for about 5 minutes. We moved to the next phone and actually put money into it, and Mario dialed a couple of different ways. He finally was able to make the call work, and let the people at the hotel know that we were going to be coming in around 9 pm. We got back on the road, and continued driving. It was raining the whole time, and on top of that, there was road construction. They make the lanes too narrow, and sometimes we had to stay back from a truck or car because they would be in our lane. They also don't have lights lighting up the highway, so the only light you have is your head lights, and in the rain that sucks. So finally after about another 2 hours driving, we reach Vienna. We miss the street we're supposed to turn on because we couldn't see the sign. Mario in his infinite wisdom only ever prints up a map of a small part of area where we're going to be. He never actually gets a useful map printed. In fact, we have not ever used the crappy little maps he has printed this whole trip. Well, this time was no exception and we were relying on the city map in the map book Mario had, but that sucked too. There's this ring road that circles Vienna, but there isn't anyway to stay on it. We got completely lost, ended up on the wrong side of the river, had to get back to the same side of the river. I hate the city driving in Europe. They never light up their street signs, and their roads make no sense. Well in Vienna it was even worse. Most of the streets didn't even have signs. The streets that did had no way to see them. So we drove lost, I kept having to tell Mario to turn around, but he doesn't listen to me and instead of just flipping a u turn he goes down one way streets that lead to other one way streets, and never really turns around right. Very, very frustrating. We drive around for about an hour, and of course it's dark and late so there isn't anyone to ask help, not that Mario ever does that, it always has to be me to ask for help. Finally we slow down on this one way street and there is a cop, and I make Mario stop the car, and roll down my window and ask if he speaks English, and he does a little. We tell him we're lost and looking for our hotel and the name of the street, and he looks at our map in the book, which apparently we aren't even on anymore because we are so far off course. He tells us how to get to where we want to be, and we thank him profusely, but Mario doesn't ever fully listen to directions, and so we got lost again. Luckily we were able to find our way back to where the cop directed us. It's about 10:30 pm and still raining, and I see a street we should go on but Mario is driving too fast and doesn't listen when I say turn right, and he keeps going straight. Uuuugh! I hate Vienna at this point. So he turns around, and we are driving the wrong way onto a one way street, holy shit. So he flips another u turn and goes the right way. So we drive around the same 2 mile section of road trying to find this street where the hotel is, we drive on this 2 mile stretch of road circling, for about another hour and half. We know we're in the right place but just can't see the sign. Finally it's about midnight, and Mario is too frustrated, he says he's just getting a hotel and canceling our reservation at the other pension house that we can't find. So he parks in this garage for the Ibis hotel.

We check in and they can only give us the room for one night, and if we want to stay another night we have to check in the morning. Yeah, whatever. So we go up to the room, and it's about 12:30 in the morning. We've been driving most of the day and are tired, frustrated with not finding our hotel. It's started so good, and ended so badly. Well Mario calls the hotel to cancel the reservation, and the woman on the other end gives him a hard time, trying to get him to come to the hotel, and he tells her we can't find it and she says that's not true, like Mario is lying to her. So he tells her we've been driving for 2 hours in Vienna trying to find it and she tells him she is sure he is exaggerating, but he isn't, and I can tell he is getting ready to lose it. He tells her he is canceling the reservation, she says she'll have to charge him, and he tells her he knows, and she keeps trying to get him to come to the hotel. He finally tells her no, and they end the conversation. Mario and I haven't eaten since lunch about 4 this afternoon, but neither of us is hungry. He crawls into bed and tells me he is not staying in Vienna, and that we are going to Heidelberg. I say that's fine, I don't like Vienna. We go to sleep.

04/20/04 Tuesday Goodbye Austria Hello Germany-Heidelberg

We find the hotel, and they help us get a room elsewhere. We get a room at the hotel above the parking garage where we need to keep the car anyway. The hotel we're going to stay at is hotel Am Schloss. He asks if we want to see the room, and we say that we're sure it's fine, we don't not want to have a place for the night. We go into the room, and it has a great view. You can see the castle from the room and a cute little courtyard surrounded by old looking houses. It was very pretty. I took lots of pictures. So we were restless after all of the wasted time in Vienna, and so we went out to explore a little of the city, and decided that we were hungry. We went into this restaurant that looked german, and we couldn't tell what type of food from the menu, but good smells were coming out of it. It was Italian, of course, the german speaking countries really seem to like Italian food. I ordered the asparagus soup and this baked eggplant dish with basil and cheese and tomatoes. Mario had the farmer's salad and ordered the bacon and onion with tomato pasta. I liked the soup it was very asparagus tasting, fresh asparagus taste. I liked my baked dish. It was very cheesy which is always a good thing for me, and I liked the way the eggplant was in every bite. The basil was really good and fresh and tasted infused in the sauce even when I didn't have a fresh leaf in the bite. Mario didn't like it, his taste buds were weird, he thought he tasted nutmeg. I didn't and since it's my dish, my taste counts anyway. I ate almost all of it, my appetite in German speaking countries seems to be way bigger, almost bigger than when I'm at home. I keep telling Mario that it's the German in me. So the house wine wasn't too good, but it was good enough. I asked for a glass and the waiter gave me enough for 2 and a half. He asks us if we need a dessert menu and we tell him we already know what we want and he leaves. He doesn't come back, we keep waiting and I tell Mario that I think that he thinks we're done. So we both work on using our Jedi-waiter tricks, and Mario is unsuccessful getting the waiter, and finally I am able to get him to come over. I end up doing the ordering for both of us and it seems like I'm taking on a more manly role tonight. Anyhow, we ordered tiramisu for Mario and I got the panna cotta with amaretto. He brings out dessert and it looks like there isn't any amaretto in it. Then you put your spoon in it and out gushes the amaretto. The panna cotta was very good, even without the amaretto. I liked it a lot. I ate almost all of it. Mario didn't really dig his tiramisu.

I was 3 sheets to the wind, almost. Just mostly buzzed. I'm finally happy, I mean I was happy in some of the other places, but something about Heidelberg resonates in my soul. Maybe it's the German that my mom kept pressing on me, or my genes, or something, maybe I was conceived after my dad came through Germany from one of his tdy tours and that affected my personality. I don't know, but I was very happy. It could be how much I love Mario sitting across a dinner table with me. It could be everything. Anyhow, when the waiter took my bowl, he made a joke and said that I didn't like it, but I'm too buzzed to appreciate the joke and told him how good it was. He brought me the bill, and I paid it. My testosterone is really pumping and I am already for action after dinner in the room, but Mario takes too long getting ready for bed and I fall asleep. C'est la vie.

04/21/04 Wednesday Heidelberg

It was originally built in the 1400's, older than the US. It was very cool to walk around in, and the restoration of the inside that they have done is also impressive. The way they restored the inside was by looking at other castles in the area and extrapolating what the inside must have looked like. The ceilings were sculptured and then painted. While we were inside I had the camera on my wrist, the strap was around my wrist, I had just taken a picture and the camera slipped out of my hand and the strap ring came off, and the camera fell. Well guess who had the biggest, dumbest fit. I do what he asks, I have the camera strap around my wrist and that still isn't good enough. He says that I need to hold onto the camera with my hand and have the strap on, and that any time I drop the camera it will always be my fault, never mind that the strap has fallen off before, even for him, but no, it's a one way street with this piece of crap. It's a fucking camera, and he gets pissed off for something that was definitely not my fault. So of course he does make this big deal about it. At the end of the tour they have you go down to the cellar where the biggest wine barrel in the world is and it's huge, it's been filled 3 times in history, and it is amazing its like the size of an elephant. Then I bought a copy of the picture that they take because we don't have very many pictures of the 2 of us in Europe, and he criticizes me for it, and totally spoils it. After the tour, he stops talking to me, and I ask if it's because of the camera and he says yes, he's pissed, and he starts yelling at me about it. So we get into this fight, and I'm like fuck you, I can't ever win, this is bull shit, it's a camera, it happens. I walk to where I had told him I wanted to go, which was the tower that was blown apart and some of the out facing wall is still leaning against the inside of the tower, and has been for about the last 300 years. He doesn't follow me, he disappears, and I decide that I don't care, I shouldn't have to always follow him. So I'm gone about 10 minutes before he comes looking for me and he tries to equate the camera to a baby. Well you know what, they're 2 completely different things, the camera is replaceable, in fact he already has a new camera. The day before he dropped his bag which had my laptop in it and I didn't make a big ass fuss, and told him he is insane for thinking it's ok to hold that grudge and yet not even apologize for letting the laptop fall. I told him that I was tired of that type of treatment. He makes mistakes too, and I don't hang them over his head, like he does me. He sucks. I was completely hating him and told him to just stop talking to me. He leaves, and I start to follow the bastard, who happens to have the tickets for the castle, because he never gives me mine, that would be too convenient for me. It's a good thing I followed the jackass because they weren't going to let me in, and he was going to leave me. I was crying by this point. I was so upset with him, tired of never doing anything right, and he's the only one who's right, who never does anything wrong. So we walk into the castle together, and we go into the apothecary museum which was kind of interesting. We weren't speaking to each other, we were just with each other, if that makes any sense. Anyhow, we decide we've seen all that we were going to see, and leave for lunch.

Mario saw a place that does Turkish food and since neither of us have ever tried it we go to the restaurant, but it's only open for dinner. So we wander some more and decide that we are in the mood for Thai food. We find some Thai food along the lane that runs beside the huge gothic church in the center of kornmarkt (korn square). It was ok, we sat on the patio which was nice. We got their tom ka gai soup, and it was made from fish broth. Everything in it tasted good, except for the chicken which took on a fishy flavor. I had the red chicken curry, which wasn't very spicy, but it did taste pungent. I didn't really care too much for it; the dish was good, just not my thing. Mario had some chicken dish that was supposed to be fried chicken with chili sauce, but what came out was a little different, it was spicy but when they say fried I think they mean pan sautéed, not fried in batter. It was tasty, very woky. Mario said he liked it a lot. It was salty goodness. While we were sitting on the patio, we watched people walk by and there are a lot of good looking, good bodied women in Heidelberg, the most selection so far.

After lunch we go shopping, and go into an import store, and find some dirty Indian art for Mario. I gave it to him as his Christmas present because I still hadn't gotten to Flagstaff to buy the other one. It was expensive, more expensive than we thought it would be, but it's cool. I like it, it's 2 women in a spoon type of position, and a man facing the 2 of them, very erotic. So Mario was happy, and we walked down the longest pedestrian mall in the world, and it is very, very long. It took us a few hours to walk just one way down it, we didn't go into very many stores. I did find a doll for Kristen that I liked. And Mario bought me a hair clip made from amber, it's real pretty. So we wander back up this street, and I'm hungry but Mario says he's only snacky, so we buy some fries and Mario asks for the curry sauce. I thought it was weird, but Mario liked it. We sat down while we ate the fries, and looked at this church. When you come up to this sandstone church (a lot of their important buildings seem to be made from the sandstone) on the left is an adult shop. Very amusing and disrespectful at the same time. Mario got a picture of the sign in front of the church. Well, we check into our hotel, and we have this great view of the river and the old bridge over the river. It's an excellent sight. So we drop off the things we bought, and we take some pictures at this big monkey, and I'm sticking my head under this monkey's head waiting for Mario to take this picture, and he's taking forever when a whole group of Japanese come up and are pointing at me, and laughing and getting their cameras out, so I'm sure I'm in some pictures over in Japan. I like Heidelberg, anyway, so we walk across the bridge and down some steps to walk along the river. And we decide just to sit down and watch the skullers go by and the barges. It was nice and quiet and peaceful. We stayed there and watched people go by. Again a lot more interesting, good looking people go by. We decide to leave after this girl with her dog walk by. The dog has this great big stick in his mouth and he's happy. It's a really long, big stick and he's carrying it to one side of his mouth, on the right is just a short stub poking out of his mouth and on the left a big long stick, almost touching the ground. Very cute. So she passes by and a few minutes later we leave, and up ahead she is throwing the big stick into the river and the dog is going into the river after it. He looked a little like a black lab, golden retriever mixed mutt. It was cute and funny, when he'd come out of the water he would wrestle with her to give the stick back to her, and then she'd throw it and he'd chase it again. It was a lot of fun to watch. We then walked a little while and Mario was trying to get me to eat gelato, but I wasn't hungry for it. We couldn't find any conditioner, all of the stores were closing up as it was around 7 pm. The sun is still up that late, it's up until almost 8:30 pm in Europe. I thought that was strange, but Mario thinks the sun is up that long in Phoenix in the summer, and I don't think so.

Anyhow, after we wander, we decide to eat in the restaurant attached to the hotel. It was packed, and the waitress told us it would take a while, and I told her it was ok, which apparently to Mario it wasn't, as he never told me seriously that he was hungry. I didn't know he needed to eat, and he glared at me like I'm the one having problems telling him anything, Mr. Great Communicator. So we order drinks, Mario got a German white wine, and I got a half liter of Hoepfner Krisstallweisen. It was good, no bitterness, but a definite flavoring, a little nutty, and meaty and fruity, but not sweet, I liked it. While we waited a couple came in and asked to sit at the other end of the table, which was fine with us, and the waitress tells them something about it being a long time for dinner, and they look at each other and just get up, and Mario kept asking me what she told them, like I speak German. As the lady walked by she said "she said it would be a long time". By the time the waitress comes back to take our order I'm half through my beer. We wait some more and I got the potato soup and Mario got some soup special. The potato soup was ok, typical. Mario's soup was weird, green, and thin. He got almost half through it before he realized that there were tiny shrimp in it. Seems they were river shrimp. He liked it, but said it was a bit odd, and when I say green, I don't mean just the color, I mean the taste was a green taste. So we have to wait forever for our main course, and I'm through my beer, so we order another one. Wow a whole liter of beer. Mario liked his wine, but he was supposed to help me with the beer, but he doesn't manage to do that. My main course was 2 pork cutlets, some spaetzle and some weird big square thing, and some German gnocchi. I liked the gravy for the pork, and the pork was good, the spaetzle was only good in the gravy. I didn't really like the gnocchi, and the big square thing was broccoli with nutmeg in it. A lot of nutmeg, neither of us liked it. Mario got steak with onions, and he really enjoyed it. We got the check, and the waitress was real nice, and we left. We went back up to the room, and Mario smoked a cigar, and I fell asleep.

04/22/04 Thursday Goodbye Germany Hello France-Reims

So we hit Reims, and his directions were hard to keep with but we managed. We drove right by the hotel and I pointed out to him that it was the hotel, but he thinks we need to go farther, but the town ends, and so we turn around, and hit the hotel. It wasn't a bad hotel, the room was cute, not a great view, but the room was nice. While we are bringing in the bags it starts to rain, and it's about 5 pm and we don't really feel like doing anything, so we open the bags and decide we should do some packing to get ready for the trip home, and then we just lose the gumption, and decide to smoke a cigar. We go downstairs and they have a nice dark room for smoking in and when you go through it they have another glass enclosed room that looks out on their grounds. It was really nice. I was going to write, but ended up reading what I was writing to Mario. We were there for a while, and I had a white wine. It was actually good, but it started effecting me. We get done and go upstairs to take a bath together. The tub was really thin, very tight, and so the bath didn't last too long. Then we got ready for dinner. We start out with a champagne, it was Krug, it was pretty good. Apparently we only like expensive champagne. For dinner we decide on the tasting menu which they named "Retour aux Source". They give us an amuse bouche that was 3 little items. There was a salmon square with a soy reduced dipping sauce, it was very tasty. There were 2 tiny chicken pieces on toothpicks in a curry sauce, and they were tasty. Then there was something fried, it was meaty, but good. The second amuse bouche were oysters with a butter sauce and rice, it also was tasty, this dinner is starting well. Our first course comes out, and it is lobster on this tomato puree. Wow, this is good. I like it a lot and wanted more, but unfortunately it's all gone. This has to be the best match for the tomato and lobster. The next course comes, and it is foie gras that is seared in a cherry sauce. I have to say again that I like foie gras when it is seared and warm, and I don't really like it any other way. The next course comes, and it is yet again a great dish, boy this place is doing well. It is sea bass in an almond cream sauce with onions that are sautéed in balsamic vinegar. It still had the skin on it, which usually makes me squeamish, but it was good and had bits of sea salt and was crunchy. I liked this dish as well, very tasty. The next dish is lamb confit, it has a gaminess to it, but it is in the undertones so it doesn't ruin the dish, but this one, I like the least. We then had cheese, I had a few different cheeses but don't remember them. The dessert comes, and it is this tiny chocolate rectangle, and it is creamy with a crunchy bottom. Like a frozen kit-kat. It wasn't overwhelmingly chocolaty so it wasn't too much, but I was getting full, and Mario ended up finishing mine. There was a little bit of cinnamon ice cream, that was a nice match for the chocolate. After they took away the dessert plates, they brought out a lot of dishes with different little goodies. Mario ended up eating from most of them, as I was just too full. I end up having a glass of wine with my meal, it was a Burgundy red, and I really liked it and am getting a little drunk. At the end of dinner with dessert, I get a dessert wine. It tasted similar to a Muscat and a port combined but without the heaviness they both usually have. It was good. Towards the end of dinner, I was getting drunk and not feeling very well, so we finish and go upstairs to the room and I fall asleep.

04/23/04 Friday Paris

The drive to the hotel was okay as far as directions went, only the second time directions actually worked for us. I hate Parisienne drivers though, there are no lines in the streets, and you pretty much drive your car where you can squeeze in and drive as fast as you can to the next light, cutting off as many people as you possibly can. I'm not very good at this so I kept trying to keep up with the way the drivers were, and I guess I did ok, not too much honking at me, and I didn't crash into anyone. I'm just not good at revving and speeding to the next light when I don't know where I'm going. We found the hotel ok, and got all of the bags out and into the hotel. Then Mario took over the driving of the car to find parking. We then walked back to the hotel and checked in. The receptionist wasn't very nice, she seemed to be in a bad mood to me. We took our bags up to the room. And wandered to where the station was, and they were actually opened and the St. Lazare station is huge. We find the Avis office pretty easily and it turns out they have special parking in a garage. We go back to the hotel, and figure out the map, then get something to eat at the corner café. I had onion soup and salad with potatoes, ham, ammentaler cheese and eggs. It was ok, the onion soup was kind of watery and they didn't put enough of the good dressing they make in France on the salad. Mario got a salad with chevre cheese warm on the tomato and bacon. It was pretty tasty, Mario liked the bacon with it. And then he got the steak with béarnaise sauce, and he didn't really care for the sauce but the beef was good. He then ordered a tatin, which I thought was nasty and really didn't like. After lunch we returned the car, it took us a while as we got a little lost, but Mario righted the situation pretty well. We parked in the garage, and just left the car in a spot, but there were no Avis attendants, and no available Avis spots. When we go to the office, which is about a block away, we give them the key to the car, and they say we're done, we'll get the bill in the mail. We bring up the problem with the original car, and that they owe us 122 Swiss francs. He has a hard time understanding what we mean, even when I explain it in French. It takes a few times, and he takes the paper work, and I make him give us a photo copy of it to make sure they don't try to screw with us, and then we leave. We head to the metro station and follow this one road that turns out to be a pedestrian mall with lots of shops almost like a mini Champs Elysees.

We walk through it and find the metro station, the Hausman-St. Lazare metro station. It's really big. It's bigger than any other metro station that we've been to. In the other stations, you are walking through different hallways and tunnels to the different lines. At the St. Lazare station you see how big it is when you go into it. We buy a carnet of tickets, which gives us 10 tickets on the metro. We take the metro to the Champs Elysees Etoile exit, which puts us at the Arc de Triomph. Of course we go out the wrong exit. We are completely opposite where we want to be, and have to walk around the arc. We find the cigar store that Mario was looking for, and I see a pair of cufflinks that I like, but Mario doesn't like them so the girl brings out some others, and we find a pair we both like. They are square and silver, they have mother of pearl on one side and on the other they have black onyx. They are really nice. Mario buys them for me. We move on and walk down the Champs Elysees. We find the Maison du Chocolate. We buy Mario's mom chocolate and buy ourselves some chocolate too. The guy behind the counter only spoke a bare minimum of English and he had a hard time understanding us, but we were able to make it through, and get our chocolate. We head back to the hotel, because we only have about an hour and half before our dinner reservation.

We get ready for dinner and head out to the metro. We find the restaurant pretty easily, it's across the street, and just down from the Tuileries, it's called the Restaurant Meurice, or Le Meurice. We are the only ones in the restaurant for about the first half hour we're there. Mario decides that he isn't going to drink any wine outside of the aperitif. We start with a champagne aperitif and decide that the champagne isn't bad but we've had better. We decide on the tasting menu for dinner. They bring out bread while we wait and I get an olive bread that is really tasty and Mario gets a cereal bread. Mario said that he could kiss the chef in charge of their bread. They bring out an amuse bouche to "wake up our tastes". It was really good, and buttery, foamy and had an oyster in the center with 2 little fish mousse with caviar and little tiny chopped red peppers on top. The sauce they had for the mousse was very tasty and salty and buttery. We both really liked it, we were a little surprised because we didn't think we would like the mousse. So the first course of dinner came out to us. It was elegantly presented, in the center of the bowl was a medium size light green round object with a stem, on the bottom it had little dark green scale looking things on it. Turns out this is the baby artichoke, it was stuffed with crab and langoustine, and was on a colorful bed of veggie salsa. It was tasty to me, but needed salt, you couldn't eat the artichoke without the salsa though, otherwise it was tasteless and kind of gross. Mario didn't like it and on top of that he was allergic to something in it. I liked the salsa for sure, and only liked the artichoke heart when with the salsa. The next course was 2 long asparagus which were covered in brown parmesan and with little pink squares of bone marrow and a slice of parmesan on top. I thought it was very good, salty and tasty and the parmesan really brought out the good flavor of the asparagus. It was almost a perfect dish, due to the parmesan being cooked, it let out a little too much saltiness. Mario liked the asparagus plain he didn't like any of the toppings. The next course was langoustine tails that were served in a bowl with a yummy buttery sauce and with celery foam and next to it was a shellfish custard in a circle shape with caviar on top. It was ok. I loved the sauce, but that's usually the case. The shellfish custard with the caviar didn't really add much to the dish, but the langoustines were cooked a little on the rare side, and I found that I liked it that way. Mario just didn't like it at all. He barely ate any of it, which caused a little problem with the maitre d. He asked if there was something wrong, and Mario said no. He asked whether Mario liked it and Mario said no. Then he took our bowls. During this whole time I was drinking a white wine that was pretty good, when alone the wine was pretty dry, luckily not woody. There was a hint of oak, but the finish was short so it was just a light hint and not a long suggestion. When I was eating the different courses though, the wine would get sweet or fruity depending on what I had just eaten. I really liked the white it was called "The Thirst", Puligny Montrachet 1999 by Louis Carillon. The next course that came out was the sea bass on top of tomato puree that had sweet peppers in it. It was pretty thick but very tasty and on the outside of the dish was a white sauce that was a sardine cream. This dish was wonderful, not as good as the night before, but still very tasty. The bass was cooked perfectly and matched beautifully with the puree. I scarfed it all up. Mario liked this dish and ate all of it as well. The second main dish was 2 little round lamb chops with little thin potato disks on top and au jus around it. In the center of the 2 chops was a little leafy salad. The first bite was a lot of gaminess. I had to get past the first bite, to enjoy the dish. It was actually really very good. If you ate the greens with the potato and the lamb, it completely dissipated the gamy flavor. The red wine I had was Chateau la Mission, Haut Brion 1994 by Pessac-Leognan, it was a grand cru, and I liked this wine as well. I've found that I like a lot of the French red and whites. It also was able to completely remove the gamy flavor. Once the gamy flavor was removed from the meat, it was really very good. I enjoyed the dish immensely. Mario liked it too, but he definitely didn't like the gamy taste in the first bite but agrees that the gaminess went away after the first bite. He thinks it was the least tasty lamb he had the whole trip. We got through the lamb course and I just sat and drank my wine. It tasted of cedar and berries. It was also very grapy which I like. Mario thought it tasted like the inside of his humidor. He didn't like it. He thought it was dry and full of cedar. After a short time, one of the friendly waiters came by for the cheese course, and Mario and I both agree that he really likes his role with the cheese. He asked us if we wanted to choose our cheese or whether we wanted his selection. He said it with such enthusiasm he was glowing and you couldn't see his face for the smile he had was overwhelming. We told him his choice and I told him for me I wanted mild and liked all cheeses. So he gave me 2 chevre and 2 vache (cow) cheeses. The first chevre was a bit strong, but it was smooth and creamy, the second chevre was creamy and not as strong. I liked them both. The vache cheeses were very good. The first one looked like any other creamy cheese, and it was tasty and almost sweet. The second looked very scary, he had to spoon it out of a little wheel of cheese, and it looked very scary. It oozed off his spoon and he said it was tres, tres fort, which means very, very strong. So I approached this cheese with some trepidation, and was I ever surprised. It was very tasty, it wasn't strong like he said it was, I believe I ate most of it. The 2 middle cheeses, the sweet chevre and the creamy vache cheeses are what I ate the most of, almost all of those cheeses. Mario had 3 cheeses, one bleu cheese, a hard vache cheese, and an orange cheese that he said tasted like cheddar. He didn't like the vache cheese he said it tasted like a tire. He thought the bleu was too weak for his taste, and he wondered why it was green not blue. I told him that all bleu cheeses look green to me. Of the 2 of us I think I got the best cheese for this meal. Our first dessert was this brown rectangle that had little tiny strawberries on it. Inside the rectangle was vanilla crème brulee that was frozen. The tiny strawberries were good, and sweeter than strawberries I've had. They tasted almost candy like. Mario and I both dug this dish. It was light and yummy and the strawberries were the definite winner. I couldn't get through it all as I was getting full. I gave my plate to Mario and the maitre d came over and asked if everything was all right and we said yes. He said to me, "Too much eh?" and I responded, "Oui, je suis petite" (yes, I am small) and he chuckled and Mario scarfed up the rest of my dessert. We were given a small amount of time to rest before the final dessert. Then it came. It was a very tiny rectangle with a small side oval shaped ice cream on a biscuit. It was chocolate and caramel, and it was rich and thick, and I liked it, but it was too much for me. I didn't like the cinnamon ice cream. Mario didn't like it as much as the night before; it was the same concept, but not executed as well. They cleared the table and we sat there and talked. It was getting to be about 11:15 pm and I was getting worried that we wouldn't make the metro. We sat there for quite a while, as it had gotten busy while we were there. Finally, we were able to get the check and then they brought out a chocolate egg that was filled with thin chocolate caramel crisps. Like they took the caramel and spread it thin and let it dry. They were good, but again too rich for me.

Before I move on to the leaving part, I want to talk about the restaurant itself. It was a cavernous room that was painted in a sort of Renaissance style. It had gold and the walls were white with marble columns running up to the ceiling, but the marble was part of the wall and they weren't very thick (length wise). The vaulted ceiling was painted, and the painting on the walls and ceiling were colorful and flowery. I liked it. The place seemed popular with Japanese. A Japanese couple came in about a half hour after us, and then 2 Japanese women were seated at the table behind us, and at the table across from us was a Japanese couple with the mother in-law. And at another table across the room was a guy with a woman who looked Japanese. It was interesting to people watch and see who got the tasting menu and who didn't. In all I liked the experience, it was good. All of the waiters were very friendly, and the sommelier even wrote down the 2 wines I had for me. We headed out to the metro and made it back to the hotel room by about 11:45 pm. We went to sleep early because we had to get up early in the morning.

04/24/04 Saturday Goodbye Europe Hello Home

We go and have to wait another 10 minutes to check his bag. We've been here almost an hour, and only have about an hour and a half until take off. We go upstairs and wait, and never hear them call our names. They start boarding and we had given up our boarding passes to wait for the upgrade. We go to the counter next to the gate and she says we got our upgrade but we're not together, we're in front of the other. We say it's ok, and we'll ask when we get on the plane if someone will switch with us and we go to the gate. We get on the plane and put our stuff up, and the man who was in the seat next to me agrees to switch with Mario. So we get to sit together. Let me tell you, envoy class is so worth it. We weren't cramped and we were able to put our legs up. The dinner was ok for airline food, I had chicken tikka masala with basmati rice and Mario had the steak. I had a French white wine that was pretty good (though Mario didn't like it) and he had a Cote du Rhone by E. Guigal that he didn't like. We got a little snack towards the end, and Mario and I watched "Big Fish" together. We both really liked the movie. He didn't like the ending, but he liked the movie. I thought it was pretty good. So the flight into Philly was ok. It was long. I didn't sleep at all on the flight. We got into Philly and had to wait through the line for the port of entry. When we got up there, Mario was told he had to go to the INS office. It took the guy like almost 10 minutes to make that decision, he kept keying through whatever screen he was looking at and looking at Mario. He asked Mario for his social security and Mario gave it to him, and he still wasn't letting us through. I asked what was wrong and the guy said it was his name, looked at Mario and said, "you know how it is with your name, Hispanic and all". Mario went into the INS office and I waited outside in the luggage area, waiting for our bags. He came out about 10 minutes later, and said there wasn't anything wrong, they just had to make sure he wasn't one of the Mario Sanchez's that they were looking for. He said there were a few white guys that looked like Bubbas from Texas, and they made him sit down, and called each other over and looked at him and the pictures of the Sanchez's that they wanted. They finally had to call over the Hispanic INS officer who looked at Mario for a second and said that's not him and they let him go. So we got our bags, they didn't have to get searched by customs. We walked through the terminal, and got them rechecked. The wine bag appeared unharmed but we weren't checking it again. We went through security and found our gate with about a half hour to spare.

They boarded the plane late, and it wasn't very full. We moved from our original seats to the exit row because the guy next to me smelt like stale alcohol and nicotine. The flight attendant was really friendly, but Mario didn't like her; he thought she talked too much. We didn't watch the movie because it was "Big Fish" again. How funny. We got into Phoenix on time and Steve picked us up. D.J. brought the cats home, who were very glad to see us. Isis kept meowing as she walked through the apartment. She just kind of mewed a lot. Gandalf was happy and exploring the apartment. We went to dinner at Applebees, and basically we were home. It feels so good to be home. I fell asleep around 11:30 pm, at that point I had been up for a full 26 hours, and desperately needed to sleep.

General Observations about Europe

• Driving there sucks ass. The streets have no names that are displayed and you get lost really easy.
• Vienna sucks, only go there with a tour.
• German speaking countries also speak English.
• German speaking countries have some of the best food, and boy do they like their Italian food.
• European toilets smell like a urinal.
• European showers suck. The French are the worst because they want you to sit in the tub while you use a hand shower, this makes it cold and unpleasant.
• The worst drivers are the French because they have no lines in their streets, and you have to rush the car into an available opening.
• French food is highly over rated.
• French police are scary looking fuckers. They carry around automatic weapons and you can tell they aren't afraid to use them.
• The French metro system is cool, and we really dig the musicians.
• Charles Du Gaulle airport sucks.
• French boulangeries are awesome.
• German countryside sucks, and smells like cow and meat processing plants, keep your car vent on recirculate.
• Austrian countryside is the best, followed closely by Swiss.
• Austrian highway patrol cops are brave, brave men who will step in front of a speeding car just to give a 29 euro speeding ticket.
• Austria is about taking money from the tourists.
• Switzerland is highly commercialized, pandering to the tourist.
• German speaking countries have the cutest girls.