Been a long time....

Hey there folks. Sorry for the long delay since our last post. Last time we wrote, I mentioned we had a few upcoming trips. Well, I went to Oktoberfest with the boyz (that's right, with a 'z') and it was a blast! Plus, Aggie and I visited Reims, France a couple of weekends ago, and we ended up coming homewith 8 bottles of champagne! Then last weekend we attended our first toga party. It was COLD outside, but did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? NO! And neither did Agnes or I.

Our adventures began a few weeks ago when I went to Oktoberfest with 3 guys from work (Oct 5-7). Dave, Kevin, Jeff and I left Zurich on Friday after work and drove up to Munich...about a 4 hour drive. The details of the weekend are basically as follows: drink, eat, drink, drink, eat, drink, etc. We got to our tent on Saturday morning around 11am. The three yay-hoos I was with were in complete lederhosen gear. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to get my outfit as we arrived too late on Friday night and all the stores were closed (they bought theirs the weekend before). Don't you worry though, I'll be back next year in full get-up. Anyway, we took our seats at the table and started with a round of steins and basically....we drank several liters of beer, enjoyed the music and the atmosphere, talked to people, ate some delicious pretzels, brats, sauerkraut, drank some more, etc.

The music was very lively and set an awesome mood for the day! About 14 hours later my head hit the pillow back in the hotel room...the time in between somewhat of a blur. Needless to say it was a long drive back on Sunday. The rest of the day I was a waste of space and just hung out on the couch with Ag. Her one question to me was "Did you get a rotisserie style chicken or duck!?" (Please read about our last trip to Oktoberfest in the "Munich....Beer we come" post to understand why she would ask such a thing) To answer her question (and to her disappointment), I did not. Anyways, I worked in Zurich on Monday and turned around and drove up to Luxembourg that night.

I worked in Lux all that next week (Oct 9-12th) on one of my old clients that I never could quite get away from. One night I had a chance to meet up with Laura and Robbie, and then another evening I had dinner with my old "possy": Luc, Robert and Nicolas (see the posting, "Au Revoir, Luxembourg"). After hanging out, I realize that I totally miss working with those guys but I don't miss the struggles and frustrations they are still dealing with in that office.

Anyway, Aggie took the train up to meet me on Friday evening in Lux. We went to Laura and Robbie's for a bit, then we went to Robert and Alexandra's apartment (Robert is part of the old "possy"). Robert and Alexandra actually moved into our old place, so it was kind of a weird/familiar feeling staying with them.

We ordered Chinese from our old place on the corner and I swear the lady recognized my handsome face as soon as we walked in! It was pretty comical...she asked me how come I haven't been there in so long. Ha!

The next morning, Ag and I went for a run in the forest....it was my old, favorite running route. It was beautiful...and I'm not just talking about Aggie here, I'm talking about the forest! We got back, showered up and hit the road. But not before stopping at the grocery store for a beer and a metwurst.

The one thing we loved about going to the grocery store on Saturday mornings in Lux is that they would always be making fresh waffles, grilling brats and mets, selling beer, etc, right at the entrance. It always made going to the grocery store more enjoyable. At least for me anyway! For some reason, Agnes LIKES going to the store even when you can't get beer and mets. Any-who, the food was delicious! So we grabbed lunch and then headed out to Reims. Just in case you don't know, Reims is the capital of the Champagne region of France.

The drive to Reims was very uneventful, but the weather was prefect and it was very pretty. Once we got to the city, we were really lucky to find our hotel right away. It was smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian shopping area and surrounded by bars, restaurants and shops. We checked in right away and began to explore.

We found the tourist office, got a map (it's all about the map!) and went into the Notre Dame Cathedral. Then we continued to explore the city...went to a few champagne shops, bought a few bottles of champagne...stopped to drink some champagne...shopped some more, took a few more pictures, etc. Needless to say, we had a very fun afternoon of sightseeing, drinking and shopping!!

We grabbed an early dinner and then crashed at the hotel for about an hour. Then we rallied and went to find a place to watch the Rugby World Cup. It was the quarter finals and France was playing England, so this was going to be a great game! We found seats at this swank, loungy restaurant just a few doors down from our hotel. (There was an Irish pub right next door where we had dinner but it was way too crowded and and way too smoky for our liking)

It was a really close game till the very end and unfortunately (for our lounge mates) France lost. When we walked out of the restaurant, the pub where we were earlier for dinner had about 100 or 200 people outside, standing in the street watching the pub's tv. Crazy!

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the Pommery Estate for a champagne tour and tasting. It was pretty cool and interesting to learn about how champagne is made. Then we jumped on the road and headed back to Zurich. We loved Reims and are trying to figure out when we can go back again in the future....

So...last weekend, our friends had a huge toga party to celebrate four birthdays. It was interesting!! Sunday, we went to the Zurich Open, the women's pro tennis tournament. Serena and Maria got knocked out early, so we saw Justine Henin (current world #1) vs. Tatiana Golovin (a relatively young newcomer). We've put the pictures up from those two events already, and we'll be writing about them soon (like, this weekend).

In the meantime, take care and we will be in touch soon!