Chamonix, France

After our New Years celebration at John and Helen's place, we took the liberty to relax and enjoy the day together on the 1st day of 2009. We caught up on a few things around the apartment, watched a few movies, and then we packed and prepared for our trip to Chamonix, France: Home of Europe's tallest mountain, Mont Blanc.

John and Helen rode with us and Dave and Ali came as well, toting everyone's gear. It worked out well and by 5-6pm we were all settled in our hotel. We had left a bit earlier than Dave and Ali and walked around the town after getting our stuff into our rooms. Needless to say, me and John were pumped and ready for the mountains (we grew fu-man-chu's for the trip, and yes, that's a John Deere shirt)!!



The hotel was situated literally right in the middle of the town. We could not have asked for a better location. Restaurants, shops, bars and even a casino were all within a one minute walk from our hotel door!

Once Dave and Ali arrived and we were all situated, we hung out for a small bit in our room, had some appetizer foods and drank some wine. Then, we headed out for dinner. We wish we would have known finding a place to eat on a Friday night would be so difficult!?

Long story short, we walked the town from one end to the next, stopping in a few places and got rejected, and finally settled on this random coffee shop that pretty much took frozen pizzas and baked them in the microwave! Kind of gross, but what can you do at this point? It definitely wasn't the nice French meal we are used to getting in France.

So, after our cardboard pizzas and refreshing beers, we headed back to our hotel for a night cap and went to bed. We all had high expectations for good skiing days ahead and wanted to get our beauty rest!

Needless to say, we were not disappointed by the skiing. The weather was beautiful and the views were amazing. We really lucked out! Every day we met for breakfast and then headed out to the slopes. (There's me - the slope bandit!) We would head back to the hotel around 3-4pm, take a nap and unwind, maybe sit in the sauna, etc and then meet for dinner.

One night, we stayed in and had cheese fondue. Ali and Dave brought their set and Helen picked up a few rotisserie chickens from a near by restaurant. We sat around, had some chicken and fondue, and watched the NFL playoff games via John's computer/sling-box. It was a nice evening and needless to say we went to bed full and happy.

Oh, and the best part was the hotel had these two dogs that just kind of wondered around the place. The one was 13-14 yrs old and basically blind (so the reception lady said). Needless to say, it didn't bother us at all. On the other hand, the other dog present was this "thing" (??) that was just a bouncing machine of muscle. It would bark, run in circles, jump up and down, poop in the middle of the floor, etc. When the dog smelled the chicken, it went crazy! We were finally able to "trap" it outside the dining room which was good.

So while we all skied/snowboarded, Aggie actually took up cross country skiing! She took some lessons on the first day and then went out to the trails the other days, which was cool. On the last day, I skied in the morning and then met her in the afternoon to try it. All I have to say, it was really challenging and I fell so many times! We had such a fun time hanging out in the middle of such a beautiful, scenic place and just laughing...it was a great day.

The last evening were were there, we went to a really nice restaurant for John's birthday. The food was traditional French and it didn't disappoint. The wine kept flowing and we all had a ball.

After dinner, we headed to the casino to see what it was all about. Obviously it wasn't anything compared to the Venetian or Bellagio in Vegas, but let's remember where we are people? Anyway, I sat down with 60 Euros at the blackjack table while Ag and Helen got drinks. Within 5 minutes, (maybe even 4) I was down to 10 Euros. I told Aggie to go to the ATM and take some money out, and she, of course, looked at me like I was nuts! John was like "Dude, you have that crazy look in your eye!" Long story short, she never went to the ATM and I didn't need her to. I started winning my money back on the next hand and walked away with an additional 75 Euros in my pocket. John had a great birthday night and walked away with 175 Euros!

The next day we were supposed to meet downstairs for breakfast and Helen had plotted to surprise John with a cake. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a party pooper. We had some issues when we tried to check out (they tried to over-charge us) and of course, I got all worked up about it. I was also sort of worried about the drive back, since we had to go through the mountains on some curvy roads, which were already very snowy/icy on the way into Chamonix, and the weather was calling for a big snow storm to roll through before noon. Anyway, needless to say we got it sorted and I freaked for no reason. Sorry John! Although I missed the cake, I was able to smoke a Cuban with John while we waited for the girls to go to the bathroom one last time before we jumped in the cars and said goodbye to Mont Blanc.


The drive back went very smooth and on the way we stopped for lunch at this fantastic Middle Eastern restaurant in Montreaux. John had been to Montreaux for a concert and stumbled upon it. It didn't disappoint - the food was awesome! We got home later that afternoon, unpacked and prepared for the rest of the work week.

Now it's already mid-February....my how time flies when you are having fun! We have both been working a lot as I'm in busy season and Aggie has very full days with the kids. Ag's health is okay, but we still have some "glitches" (as we like to call them) that need to be sorted. But we'll also get that all worked out, we are confident.

What else is going on?

- Agnes and I went to the Opera in Zurich last night for Valentine's Day...was really fun and I actually stayed awake for the whole thing!!

- I'm running in the Bern 10 miler on April 18 (Josh's Birthday!), which should be pretty cool (Bern is the capital of Switzerland and is an extremely beautiful place). In fact, the race is called "The most beautiful 10 miles in the world".

- Our plans for moving back to Chicago are falling into place which is excellent. My last day at work here is May 8, and my first day of work back in Chicago is June 15. In between is going to be a whole lot of fun travelling and such. We are trying to plan a few more trips between now and May to a some places within a 3 to 5 hour radius of Zurich that we still want to visit and see. Then we are heading to Thailand and Greece for basically the rest of May for our belated honeymoon. Awe-suuum! Then we'll be home sometime that first week of June.

- I'm trying to take advantage of the fact that we live an hour from the mountains and ski every weekend. So far it's going really well :-)

One last thing to report: For those who attended our wedding, you will remember Robbie and Laura (Rob read the 1st reading at mass, and Laura,his girlfriend, was one of the beautiful bartenders at our rehearsal dinner and read a Celtic prayer for us). Well, we got the news this morning that Rob popped the question last night at a romantic dinner in London, and Laura accepted!!! We couldn't be happier for the two of them and their families - they are perfect for each other and some of the best friends we could have possibly met over here!!


That's all for now...have a fantastic week!