"with a pint of green chartreuse ain't nothin seems right, you buy the sunday paper on a saturday night" -- Tom Waits
We have Internet! And TV! And video games! And a home phone (well, we have the line but we probably won't actually buy a phone to go with it). But we're not paying any extra for it, it just comes with everything (like the built-in video games and the 200 TV channels) that is included with our internet. So, here's the long-awaited Annecy post. But it also includes some St. Patrick's day pictures! How exciting!! Oh ya -- we also get all the French radio stations on this thing!
So, on Friday March 9 we took the train to Annecy. We made it to the Gare with plenty of time to spare (see picture below...)
We arrived in Annecy around 1:30 pm and though the weather wasn't as warm as it had been (and as it was this past week) it was still really nice and sunny and not too cold. We walked along the lake and around the old town and went to the castle. Annecy has some canals just like in Venice (though of course not as extensive) and we walked along them and had coffee in some cafés on the canal and it was really cool.
The next day was my birthday! As I said in my last 'post', Sandi got me some new bike shorts and they're really nice. I don't have a picture yet though. On this past Saturday (St. Patrick's Day) we went for a 50 km bike ride along the river from Grenoble towards Lyon (but only probably got about a quarter of the way there.. a couple months from now though we'll have to be pretty much biking there and back for preparation for the Ironman!). Anyways, Sandi also got me a bottle of Chartreuse which (quoting Wikipedia) "is a French liqueur made by the Carthusian Monks since the 1740s. It is composed of distilled alcohol aged with 130 herbal extracts. The liqueur is named after the Monks' Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains in the general region of Grenoble in France. The liqueur is produced in a factory in the nearby town of Voiron." Cool eh? So it's like the Grenoble drink but we hadn't tried it yet. And we didn't try it on the weekend either but we did have some this past weekend for SPD and it fit perfectly because it's green.
After I got my presents we went around the town, by the lake again, went for lunch, and then in the afternoon we did some shopping. I decided to also get myself a present so I got a new jacket and a scarf (so I'd fit in with French people). We also bought a bottle of champagne (not very expensive here! -- and I think actually only the second time I've ever had 'real' champagne). Here I am showing off all 3:
We had the champagne in our hotel which was a really cool small 'boutique' hotel in the city centre and we somehow lucked out and got the very top floor which has a really cool sky light. Anyways, after that we went for my birthday dinner to a French restaurant where I had steak with many many many potatoes (see picture below) and Sandi had salmon (very original in the streak/salmon choices [not])...
Finally, (bored yet?), on Sunday we (what else?) walked around, had some food, had some coffee, and I modelled my new birthday clothes. Below I'm standing in front of the old prison that's its own little island in the canal! We took the 2:30 train home and when we got back we went for a run...
On Saturday we celebrate St. Patrick's day which is quite the event in France it seems. Especially because we live right above an Irish Pub. Well, not RIGHT above as in it would be the same building, but pretty much right above as in it's across the street and if you jumped out of our window you'd pretty much be there. We went to the Irish Pub ('The Shannon') in the afternoon and had some Irish beer and watched some of the England-Ireland rugby game and cheered for Ireland with everyone else. Then in the evening we hosted our first party! Well, not really a party party but more like a get-together but we had people over so that was fun. Only Sandi and I dressed up for the day though (Sandi is wearing the Guinness shirt I got her in Dublin and a green hoody and I'm wearing the Ireland shirt that mom/dad got me when THEY were in Ireland)...
In this picture we're on the street in front of the Irish bar by our apartment. The whole street was completely filled with people and it was pretty cool.
It was really exciting when the tram went by because the tram goes right down this street so everyone would have to move out of the way and we really wanted a picture with the tram in the background and we finally succeeded but that's why we look like we're in a rush:
La fin.
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