Post by Lauren
It’s an exciting week in our Swiss household! We have guests Pascal and Giselle, in from Richmond, VA. Geneva has been really behaving, showing its pretty blue sky. We didn’t even know that was possible in the winter here.
So, we feel very grateful that while they are here, they can actually see the mountains instead of the perma-cloud layer that hovers above us usually.
When they arrived, we forced them to stay up and took them around to Carouge Saturday market day and then to Annecy, France so that they could be out in the daylight to help with the effects of jetlag*.
Market day was a little quiet in the winter vs. summer, but still very enjoyable as Carouge always is with its simple Italian architecture and colorful artisans:
A quiet day at the Carouge market
Next, we went to Annecy, France for lunch. Pascal and Giselle had their first savory crepes. Did you know that a crepe can be a dessert and a meal? Kind of like a wrap…with a pancake. They ordered hamburger ones….check them out below. Even though it was about 20 degrees, there were still a ton of people enjoying the Saturday blue skies and even a crew team practicing in frigid Lake Annecy below snow capped mountains.
The next day, we ventured to Chamonix & Mt. Blanc. We took the Auguille du Midi to the top, the world’s highest vertical ascent cable car. Gabe and I had done this back with Henry Birmingham on July 4th weekend, but boy, what a difference winter makes.
Everything was snow covered and beautiful. We were in awe of the off-piste skiiers.
After the dizzying adventure up Mt. Blanc, we had a nice warm raclette meal in Chamonix, the base village. Very soon, there will be a cheese tutorial on The Swiss Watch Blog so you can learn more about this fabulous Swiss dish. It’s soooo good.
The famous French ski town was bumping at dusk and into the evening, full of skiers and snowboarders returning from the mountain.
You are probably wondering why we keep taking Pascal and Giselle all over France when we live in Switzerland. Actually, because Geneva is surrounded by France, the alpine areas of France are much more accessible to Geneva because of the topography. See my ski map, complete with flags, to check this out.
Don’t worry, we’ll take them around in Switzerland soon. Stay tuned….
*When you visit us, we will also do such mean things as to not allow you to sleep and force you to be in the daylight to reduce your chance of jet lag.
The Swiss Watch Blog 
Can’t wait to see your paintings based on this trip. I lllooovvveeee your paintings blog addition. Wish it wasn’ t such a pain in the neck to ship. Guess I have to wait until you move back when you will ship some of those wonderful paintings back home.
So is there a formula for coming up with code names for your visitors, or how are they determined? I need to know if I need to start thinking of one now before we come visit, or if it’s something that is provided by you as the hostess? All of your adventures look like a postcard, keep posting away the beauty!
You can choose to be your initial or you can make up a fun name. An unnamed person started the trend of replacement names vs. the initials that I had been using. If you remember the fable about the street you grew up on and your first pet, this is how he got his name. But…more recent guests have adopted their Spanish name (Andres) and now a current guest is using his French name (Pascal). Most people never thought they would use their grade school fake names and then along came our blog! Actually for all I care we can use your real name. Its just to protect the privacy of those who are sensitive to the name/photo matter.
I better get to thinking of a name now then. “727 Snuggles” doesn’t have quite the ring to it that I would like :), and we didn’t get names in Mr. Ward’s Latin class, so that’s another dead end. Since we don’t have a flight booked, I think I’ve got some time to come up with something, another fun thing to look forward to. 🙂
Gabe laughed out loud when he read 727 Snuggles. I had to explain that we didn’t have road names in the Appo until recently so that it was a Highway. He is from a rural area and he should know better.
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