Visitors

Two weekends ago we had some of our good friends from Chicago in town for a visit. Alison and Justin Sjovall came to Lux after being in Ireland and the Netherlands. They got here on Thursday, March 15th and were heading back to Chicago on Saturday the 17th.

They took the train in from Amsterdam to us and Aggie met them at the train station in Lux. The three of them just relaxed at the apartment that evening and were sipping on some wine and beers when I rolled in from work. The rest of the evening we just chatted and caught up. It was great to see them!

On Friday Aggie took them via train to Trier, Germany where they walked around and grabbed a late lunch. We said they had to get an Erdinger, a brat, mashed potatoes and a pretzel in Germany. So, they did and all the food was much to their satisfaction! They then came back to Lux and walked around the city center for a bit.

That evening, I was to supposed to pick Emily and Nimesh Patel up at the Lux airport around 7pm. Em and Nimesh were flying in from Prague. They too had been wondering all around Europe the week before (e.g., Rothenbourg, Munich and Prague). Unfortunately, they missed their connecting flight from Prague and instead they got in around 9:45pm….no worries though! We found ways to pass the time (e.g., drinking some wine and beer) and then all 4 of us went to get them at the airport. Talk about a welcoming committee!!

We went straight to dinner at a place called Edelwyss. Edelwyss is an awesome little restaurant in one of the small villages close to ours. The restaurant was packed even though we were just arriving at 10:15pm. The atmosphere in the restaurant was really warm and comfortable, kind of a “homey” sort of feeling.

The main reason you go to Edelwyss is for their raclette. What is raclette you ask? Well, it’s a very European social, eating event that is kind of similar to fondue. (Edelwyss offers delicious fondue too….) Anyway, the server brought out this contraption that is about 15 inches long and 5 inches wide (insert joke here) and set it on our table. There are 2 layers/shelves on this thing and the shelves are about 3 inches apart (one on top of the other, with space in between). Then, he brought out mini cooking pans and mini spatula/fork utensils. He plugged in the contraption and slapped a piece or two of raw bacon on the top shelf to create a grease/oil base for grilling.

Then, he brought out a big bowl of baked potatoes, a plate of raw beef chunks, another plate of raw chicken, pork, beef and cheese, and then a plate of veggies. Plus, he brought out a huge cheese fondue with bread chunks and another of just boiling oil to fry the beef chunks. It was quite a spread!

The best part no one knew what was going on because he seriously just kept coming with things to the table and then running off to get something else! Finally he stopped and the wine started flowing and meat started grilling!

Obviously to eat the fondue cheese and beef chucks, you just “dunk” the items into the pots - the bread chunks into the cheese and the raw meat into the oil. Raclette is a little different. Basically what you do is put a baked potato on your plate and break it up/open. Then you grill whatever meats you want on the griddle’s top shelf. Underneath on the bottom shelf, you take the small pan and put veggies in it; then you lay cheese on top of them. You place the pan on the lower shelf for about 3-5 minutes and the magic happens! You have melted cheese on your veggies that you in turn scrape onto the potatoes. And of course after grilling the meat you can just eat it over the potatoes or melt cheese on it, etc.

That night we all went home, full and happy!

The next day, Saturday, Aggie and I woke up early and took Alison and Justin to the Trier train station where they caught the train to Frankfurt’s Airport. Then Ag and I went to the bakery and got fresh croissants and pastries to enjoy back at the apartment with Em and Nimesh. After breakfast we headed into town to do some site seeing and enjoy the day!

Well, it was St. Patrick’s day and of course, there were two huge 6 Nations Rugby games on….Ireland vs. Italy and Scotland vs. France. So, after walking around for a bit, we went into one of our favorite pubs in the Grund area, Oscar’s, to watch the games. There we enjoyed some Guiness, ciders, etc. At half time of the first game, we headed into the city center where a huge tent was set up for the St. Patrick Day celebrations. In the tent were several stages for bands and then a few big screens that were showing the games. Some of my work friends were there as well and we all just hung out and drank, as people are known to do on St. Patty’s Day.

After the first game (an Irish win) we were HUNGRY! We headed back to the apartment and on the way we called our favorite Indian place to do a take away. Unfortunately there was no answer. Not even a minute after hanging up, my phone rang. It was the Indian place asking if we had just called and wanting to know if we wanted to place an order! He said they didn’t open till 6pm (it was 5:30pm) but that we could get it at 6:30pm if we wanted. Talk about service….
We enjoyed the food in the comfort of our own home and by 7:30pm I was sleeping on the floor! Too much work + rugby and beer + a full belly = tired Matt.

Aggie and I drove Emily and Nimesh to the Trier train station the next morning and off they went to catch a plane at the Frankfurt Airport back to Chi-town.

We were very sad to see our friends go; it was so nice to have them here!

This past weekend we went out to my friend Luc’s for dinner. Luc lives in Belgium and Aggie teases me all the time because I love working with Luc….he is a simple guy, very nice and humble, a good worker, has great family values, etc. So when I get home from work, Ag always asks how my boyfriend is doing! Anyway, Luc and his wife had us and our other good friends Alexandra and Robert out for a relaxing evening. His wife made a delicious 4 course meal that everyone loved….I would have licked my plate if that were socially acceptable!

This weekend Aggie is going to London to visit with our friends, Matt and Brandi. She is also going to celebrate Laura’s birthday. (Laura is Robbie White’s girlfriend.) Apparently they have a Saturday full of CRAZY girl events….can’t wait to hear all about them!

We will be visiting Zurich this week to see apartments. Ag and I are so excited to check out our new hood! Aggie has already been in touch with the Catholic church in Zurich and joined a few clubs online as a way of networking, and we are hopefully in finding some new friends and connections.

That’s it for now. See you later…

Hello there!

As of March 14th, I only have 37 more working days in Luxembourg!! Woo-hoo!! Not that I am excited to leave the city, but I am ecstatic to be finished with working here. The past 8 months or so have been tough, there’s no doubt. I have learned a lot of great things as well as “what not to do”. The good news is my hard work is paying off and I am starting to see and end in sight! (It might also be the fact that I am leaving the country soon and that is why things are starting to wind down?!)

But before I jump ahead and tell you all about our future plans, let me fill you in on the past and what has been going on….

A few weekends ago, I went to Ireland for the Ireland/England 6 Nations rugby game with my good friend, Robbie White. Robbie and I were staying with our buddy, Brendan Fitzgerald, at his apartment in Dublin. We all used to work together here in Lux so it was a great time just catching up, hanging out, drinking (quite) a few Guinnesses, etc.

So this was a HUGE game for Ireland because the game was in Dublin against their arch rivals and being played in a special venue. Ireland’s normal rugby stadium (Landsdowne Road) is under renovation, and so the men in green were using the gaelic games stadium - Croke Park - for their tournament games. Croke Park has only ever hosted gaelic (Irish-only) games, such as gaelic football and hurling. Only Irish amateur athletes have ever played on the field, and it was sort of a law that no other sports could be played there until this year for the rugby. The last time an Englishman stepped foot inside the stadium and on the field was during the Irish independence movement against England when a handful of English soldiers stormed the field during a gaelic football game and opened fire into the players and spectators, killing a lot of Irish citizens. So, needless to say, there was a lot of emotion on both sides for this game, and people were offering up to EUR 1,500 for tickets! Brendan’s reaction to the fact that Rob offered me a ticket instead of him (an Irish lad) was, “You are going to take this Yankee over your own to that game?”

So, the pre-game drinking was great, the game was great, and Ireland ended up winning by about 30 points. All in all, a great time!

The same weekend I was in Ireland, Aggie went to visit our friends, Jacob and Annette, in Amsterdam. Annette was a super-star and took Ag wedding dress shopping. Although they found one dress Aggie liked a lot, she wanted to wait to see what she would discover in Lux. They had a great time though biking around the city in the rain and catching up! Ag hopes to go back up one more time to visit them again and visit the Keukenhof (a huge flower park) and to the Apenheul Park (a park where monkeys run free).

Aggie then went wedding dress shopping with our other good friend, Sally Carter, in the local tri-country area if you will. Ag had checked out a few places in Germany on her own and then Sally and Ag went to a few boutiques in Lux and France. Sally was wonderful to go with too because she was able to translate everything to the sales lady! Ag and I know a little bit of French but trying to describe what type of “robes de marriage” you are looking for is hard! Again, Ag found one dress that she really liked but did not buy.

Anyway, so that was another weekend. Then this past weekend we went to Les Deux Alpes in France for the annual E&Y ski trip. The itinerary was as follows:

- Leave the E&Y office at 10pm on Friday night.
- Drive through the night and arrive at 8am on Saturday morning in the Alps.
- Ski all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday
- Leave at 10pm on Monday night and arrive back in Lux on Tuesday morning…just in time for work.

We got in on Saturday morning and headed to the breakfast buffet for our first of many feasts. After breakfast everyone got settled with their ski rentals and off we went to conquer the mountains! The group that stuck together most of the time was another of my good friends, Robert McEwan and his girlfriend Alexandra, a Belgian guy we work with, Phillipe, and his girlfriend Elodie. And of course myself and the Agster.

We skied for a bit that morning. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day! Alexandra and Aggie realized quickly that they were not exactly at everyone else’s level, (both have skied 3 times in their lives) so after a big buffet lunch, those two went with a few others to take ski lessons. The rest of us attacked the mountain runs! Phillipe is extremely good, as he’s been skiing since he was 3 years old. It was a blast trying to weave around other skiers and hurtle over small hills, etc, trying to keep up with him!

The ladies met up with us back at the lodge around 4:30pm that evening. There we all sipped on some drinks…beers, Baileys, Mojitos, you name it, the bartender made it! It was a great time and after skiing all day, that first beer, once it hits your lips….(well, you know the rest)…
We then showered and met back in the lounge for a few drinks before dinner. The dinner buffet was excellent and very delicious! The lodge had entertainment that night, dancing and such, but we were so wiped out from the lack of sleep (on the bus) from the night before and skiing all day that we just went back to the room and hit it.

The next morning our group met for breakfast and then headed out to the slopes again. Aggie and Alexandra hung out together that morning practicing their skills while our small group ventured up to the top of the mountain. We all met up at the lodge again for lunch and enjoyed some cold brews and warm food.

After lunch Alexandra and Ag went with us to the very, very, very top of the mountain. It was pretty cool getting there…we would go from one lift, ski a bit to the next, go to “zeee egg” (what we call a gondola) and up a bit more, then to another lift and finally up in a mini train that actually went through the mountain and emerged just in time to put you right at the top peak!
Now, getting down the mountain consisted of skiing several blues and reds….and blacks if you were brave. (For those of you who don’t know, green is the easiest, then blue, red and finally black.) The girls attempted the blues and long story short, we finally made it close to the bottom. The one problem was that because it was so nice and sunny the whole time we were there (believe me I am not complaining!), the one green slope that got you to the lodge was closed because of the lack of snow. Therefore, the girls had to take the lift back down. The only other option to get down was to take the black…which I did!

That night we went straight to the lounge again and sat on the patio sipping on our drinks as the sun set. After showers we were off once again to the feast! As I said, the meals were great and all tables had bread and wine flowing. It was really a fun atmosphere!

Sunday night we did go to see the dancing and entertainment for a bit. The “entertainment” was a combination of really bad dancers trying to re-enact music video dances. Then, some older guy came out and got the crowd fired up. All of the sudden, everyone was up doing these crazy line dances. Imagine the Macarena x 10!

So, off to bed we went hoping to erase the sight we had just seen so that we wouldn’t have nightmares!

Monday morning we finished packing our things and left our luggage in a few of the vacant rooms that all of us were to use later that evening for showers and changing. We met everyone for breakfast and set off to get to the top of the mountain. Ag and Alexandra skied in a blue area for some time and we went off to the reds and blacks. All of us met at one of the restaurants on the mountain for lunch. It was crazy how nice it was! The sun never stopped shining. We ate on the patio and soaked in the rays and enjoyed the good food and good company.

At that point, it was close to 2:30pm and we knew we had to head down the mountain soon to get back in time for showers. Well, as most of you know, Ag’s a good athlete. She is strong, gets the hand-eye coordination thing, etc. Unfortunately, on our way down, she had one too many really hard falls right away and was mentally checked out. I will admit, her falls looked really rough; they were not graceful that is for sure! A few tears were shed and the time it took us to get down was long!

I can only say this because I know she loves me…and because we were laughing about it later….but after her crashes, she wasn’t concentrating. She seriously looked like a new-born horse trying to walk for the first time. Honestly, you talk about knees coming together and knocking, legs wide apart, etc. I would just plop down at the top of one run and just watch her try to weave her way down, then when she would fall, I would go to make sure she was okay and then I would sit again, etc. After another fall, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “Get me off this F*&KING mountain!” We eventually made it down and Ag has a few pretty bruises on her back and knees to show her efforts. I was proud of my snow bunny for making it but I’ll be damned if she is giving up! We are moving to Zurich (see below) and I promise you this time next year she will be saying to me, “Eat my snow!”.

Anyway, we got showered and situated, turned in Ag’s rentals, etc and then met up with everyone in the lounge for a few drinks. At 7pm (in French time, which is 8pm to normal people) we went to a local restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately, the food wasn’t nearly as good as the lodge but what can do? After dinner we all jumped on the bus and took off for Lux.

We got back around 7:30am on Tuesday morning and headed home to prepare for the day. I went into work and Aggie went off to clean and baby-sit. That night I picked her up from babysitting and met the “boys”, Ethan and Kyle. Kyle is 2yrs old and loves to scream when he sees Aggie. The funny thing is, I came in to their house and he came right up to me and started talking in baby talk. We played catch with a tennis ball and then started playing a little soccer…it was fun! The mom, Grainne (pronounced Grow-nia), texted Ag the next day to say that all that night and all the next morning, Kyle kept saying “Matt”. I tell ya, I have a way with kids!

This weekend we have our friends from Chicago, Alison and Justin, coming into town. They are here until Saturday. On Friday night, our other good friends, Emily and Nimesh, are visiting as well and are here till Sunday! We have lots of fun activities on our agenda for them so we will be sure to post about them next week! There’s a restaurant we’re going to called Edelwyss which is supposed to be really really good raclette and fondue. Cannot wait!

Other happenings:

- Congrats and “bon courage” to my cousin Brent and his fiancé, Erika. They recently had a beautiful baby girl, Sophia Danielle. Brent is graduating from U. of Virginia’s graduate business school and is moving the new family to Baltimore to start his new job with Black and Decker. We wish you the best!

- We are going to Zurich in a few weeks to check out our new home….I don’t think I have blogged about this yet!? Long story short, we had all things organized and settled for our move back to Chicago. (This was mid-February.) Then I got a call from the Zurich office to discuss an opportunity working for E&Y there, supporting the corporate headquarters of UBS Bank, one of the firm’s biggest clients. There’s not a better career move I could have made, Agnes can get a work permit in Switzerland, Zurich has the highest “quality of life” rating in the world, and we were just generally not ready to leave Europe. So, in summary, it was an opportunity we couldn’t resist and so voila! We are staying for another 2 years.

- My last day official day with E&Y Lux is April 27th but I am taking the last week in April for Aggie and I to organize our lives. We also want to travel a bit and visit Belgium and the Reims area of France before we are no longer within driving distance of each. Then we will move to Zurich around the 24th of April. I will start working again on April 30th. Busy, busy, busy, busy…..