More Foreigners.... What the ???

Saturday afternoon I made my next trip to the Geneva airport. Mom and dad landed at 4:35pm, right on schedule. They got their luggage and we were off. They loved the drive down to my place and were thrilled to see where I have been spending my time these last few months.
From there we trekked through a few small towns and found our way to Chamonix. We walked through the town and I showed them where they will do their adventures in the city. We then found a great place for dinner. Me and dad had some pasta and mom had a pizza. We had a great red wine. For dessert mom got her crème brulee and dad and I got some ice cream. It was a good start to the trip.

We walked around the rest of town and then headed back to my place.
Sunday we got up and headed for Annecy. A little under an hour drive, we go to town and found parking along the lake. From there we walked to the old part of town. Lucky us, it was their market day!! You would not believe all of the people. We got some fresh pastry. We sampled some cheese, sausage and more. It was incredible.

We ended up buying a sausage log rolled in fresh pepper, a slice of fresh brie and a large French baguette. Dinner was the best!! Add in some good wine and the day was a success.
The weather has not been great so far, rain the last two days, but the sun is creeping out so hopefully the week gets better.

Mom and dad did a half day and the local thermal spa today while I worked. We then went to Chamonix and found lunch and some good dessert. We are relaxing now, resting up for the rest of their adventure.

Pictures and more stories to follow soon….

Paris

What can I say about Paris? We had a blast. We went to the Museum de’ Orsay, the Louvre, Notre Dame, a medieval restaurant, road a boat on the Seine, saw the Eiffel tower at day and all lit up at night….. It was an amazing trip. We road the train, which you heard about earlier, and then got used to the Metro and Paris. It was a great 2 days. Check out some pictures below of our trip.

Venus de Milo at the Louvre

The Seine at Night

My favorite Van Gogh, "Sunflowers"

Notre Dame

A Funny Thing Happened on a Train...

Contributed by Kate Holinka:

After a wonderful day of relaxing at Beth’s house we got up early the next morning and hopped the train to Paris. Beth was smart enough to take advantage of a good deal and we were able to ride in First Class. It was awesome…big seats, a table to play cards on, and enough room to eat our homemade sub sandwiches. Then “it” happened…We had to make 3 very quick stops before our train picked up to a speed of 180mph and our first stop brought us a very interesting character(s). The ‘passengers’ sat across from us in a little 2-seater area with a table. One passenger was clearly a woman that was very hoity-toity (sp?) and the other was a mystery. The first woman looked about 20 years younger than the other so I was thinking it was a possible mother-daughter duo. Beth and Shannon thought they were a couple…the jury is still out. The two people were clearly French and bitchy!

The Small Sandwiches- "American Size"

I knew going into this vacation that there would be people that would figure out that we were Americans and instantly not like us for that reason. I spent time preparing myself for the fact that I might not be liked. (p.s. That is one of my issues that I am working on). But these women picked up on our “secret” right away, especially the sexually-ambiguous one. Beth will be inserting a picture below to show you what we were dealing with on the train.

Besides that general sneers and French talk about every one that walked by- the best thing happened at our last stop before reaching Paris. On the last stop we had an unexpected passenger joined our 4-seater table and I handed my bag to Shannon and asked her to throw it up above our seat so this girl could sit down. Now we all know that Shannon has a lacking in the butt area, the “lacking” being that she can’t keep her butt-crack in her pants. Shannon gets up and exposed “THE CRACK” to the two frenchies while putting my bag away! THE SHOCK, THE HORROR! These two people had the most amazing looks on their faces…like they didn’t have butt-cracks themselves! For the rest of the train ride they pretty much looked at us and spoke French, it was great. Note to self…learn French. So just a little heads-up to anyone that wants to travel to France…they don’t like our fancy American low-rise pants or our butt-cracks.

On a side note I would like to publicly thank Beth for the amazing vacation. It was a once in a lifetime chance and I am glad I took it with two such amazingly beautiful people. Beth is an awesome planner and tour guide. Shannon kept us constantly laughing with our, “let’s see if Shannon can do it” moments and her ever-present butt crack. I can’t wait to do it again in 5 years, or so

Glacier Train

After we returned from Italy, we spent the next day around where I live. We went to Chamonix and took the Tram du Mont Blanc to the glacier, Mer de Glace (sea of ice). It was a 20 minute ride up the mountain, climbing 900m on the 5km trip.

We got off the train and were looking around, wondering, where’s the glacier. We saw piles of rocks on some snow coming through the two mountains. After we took the gondola down, we realized that all of this snow and huge valley was filled with the glacier. It was massive.

There was a cave cut into the glacier that we got to walk through. It was very cool the ice is such a beautiful light blue.

There were skiers who had skied from the top of the mountain ending up here to take the train back down to Chamonix. It was a very cool experience and gave us a day to rest a little before we headed to Paris….

Florence, Italy

From Pisa we drove 45 minutes into Florence. We used “Daniel” (my GPS) and found out hotel on the outskirts for the city center. We got checked in, well we told them we were there and then he sat behind the desk for 10 minutes before he could tell me our room would not be ready for 30 minutes….. and then continued to talk to himself about what a bad day it was. Interesting chap. So instead of waiting, we decided to jump back in the car and head into the city. We drove about 10 minutes and found parking right across from the city center.

We saw the Pont Vecchio, the most famous bridge in Florence. The streets were crowded as it was Easter Sunday and a holiday the next day for all Italians. We walked through the people and marveled at the shops lining the bridge.

From here we walked into walkway leading you downs columns and past one of the most famous museums. We tried to go in but the wait was insanely long so we just walked more. We walked into a courtyard and were absolutely stopped dead in our tracks. We were surrounded by amazing sculptures. It was beautiful.

It was only after we had taken pictures and had sat down to lunch and heard another group talking that we realized we had just seen the famous “David” by Michelangelo. Just sitting, in a courtyard, outside, for all to observe, for free. Pretty amazing. Of course we went back for more pictures.

We walked all around the city the rest of the day and the morning of the next day. Sadly, we did not sleep a lot due to the disco club that thought it was fun to play loud music until 2am, on Easter Sunday….

But we survived Florence, and 7 hour drive home with traffic that afternoon. We were all ready for a night at home to relax and unwind. But Florence was a city of amazing art, architecture and churches. We will never forget it.

Unexpected Treasure...

Pisa, Italy- We arrived in Pisa at about 10:30am, on Easter Sunday. We found a side street, parked the car and walked over to the square. As we approached the entrance gates, our mouths dropped with awe from what we began to see. The gate opened into a huge courtyard lined with street vendors selling everything under the sun dealing with Pisa and that leaning tower. We stopped and tried to take in all of the sites.

It was very crowded as we learned Easter mass was starting shortly. But the bonus with mass going on is that we got admission to the Duomo Cathedral for free! We stood at the entrance and saw 6-8 priests, some quite high up in the priest chain, as they prepared for the procession.

We made our way down to the front of the church and saw the amazing architecture of the old cathedral. We also could hear the beautiful sounds of the choir as mass was beginning. Kate got some amazing video, listen below.

After we attended Easter mass (this is for the moms’, we only stayed 10 minutes), we walked out the door and to the base of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was a site to behold. We took a ton of pictures as we walked all around the tower. As you can see below, sometime the tower magically straightens up for some pictures, can you see the difference? Can you guess who took the pictures?

After we saw the Tower, we walked back to the street vendors and bought some gifts and souvenirs. From there, we loaded the car and headed off for our next adventure.

Cinque Terre, Day Two

On day two in Cinque Terre we ventured out to hike between some of the cities. We took the ferry one city down and then hopped on a trail which was described as difficult and should take us 1 ½ - 2 hours. We started out by hiking up and seeing a gorgeous view of Vernazza, the city we had just left.

The trail had many stairs, steep climbs, hills, rocks and more. Kate, Shannon and I did well for the first ten minutes, then the excitement of “oh, let’s go hiking” wore off. The trail got the best of us after a half hour or so, so we stopped for lunch. After many swear words and brief stops, we made it to Corniglia.

From here we stopped to explore the town and of course, find some Coke Lights and gelato!! Kate decided she had had enough of the trails on hopped on the train to the next town. Shannon and I made the predicted 45 minutes hike in just over 35 minutes. We met up with Kate, did a little window shopping and then caught the ferry back to Vernazza to finish up our shopping.

Upon arriving back to Monterosso Al Mare, we walked into the part of the city called “old town”. We found some great shops and restaurants. We decided we wanted pizza and found little hole in the wall shop. They had about 70 different pizza options and we just had to tell them the number we wanted. It was great!!

We spent our last night in Cinque Terre walking the beach and finding some good deals at the grocery store on some beer and local wine. We went home, packed and got one more night of sleep in the land of Ikea.

Cinque Terre, Day One

So Friday morning Kate, Shannon and I loaded the car and headed off for Italy. It took us about 5 hours to get there, including a stop or two for some snacks and a bathroom break.

We arrive in Cinque Terre, in a town called Monterosso Al Mere. We found our apartment and were pleasantly surprised at the size of it!! It was cut and paste from an Ikea catalog. Stickers still on many of the utensils! After dropping our bags we ventured into town. About a 5 minute walk lead us to the beach.

We walked along and checked out the shops and restaurants. We walked over a hill and found the “old town” and the ferry to the other towns. We had no real agenda so we decided to jump on the next ferry to go exploring. We were blessed with good weather and checked out a town called Manarola. Cinque Terre means 5 towns so we thought we had a good day hitting two of them right away! The towns were amazing with colors, people, food and GELATO!!

We walked and found some good shops and pictures. Check out all we did our first day there.

Foreigners in France....

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while, I have visitors!! Kate and Shannon arrived on time last Thursday. I picked them up in Geneva about 8am and then we were off on our adventure. We started with some showers and then we headed to Chamonix for the afternoon. We did the Aguille du Midi, which is a gondola/cable car which runs you up to 3800 M, just shy of the 4800 of the Mont Blanc. It was an awesome ride and gave us some great pics. The view was amazing and if you can believe it, people take this car up and ski down!!!

From there we went to a town called Cluse to check out a waterfall coming down the mountain. It was really neat to see.

After the waterfall I showed them the lake where I run and then took them to the store to get stuff for dinner. We went to bed pretty early as we were planning to be on the road by 8:30am on Friday to head to Italy. I have many more pictures to share, so check back later this week when we are back form Paris and I will share more from our trip to Cinque Terre, Pisa and Florence.

Annecy, Round Two

Saturday marked my second trip to Annecy. If you recall, my first visit was to see the doctor and get my medical clearance for my work visa. It was a rainy day and not that much fun. This time was different! I went with two women I work with and we could not have asked for a better day. We met at 9:30am in St. Gervais and headed off for the 50 minute drive. The sun was shining and we were all so excited.

We arrived in town, parked the car and started walking the town. We stopped for a coffee, tea and a Coke and sat along the little canal that runs through the old part of town. There were cute little stores and restaurants lining both side of the canal.

I stopped in a shop and bought a new shirt. It is like nothing I have seen before so I love it!! Really cool designs, but kind of a pricey store so we stayed by the sale items.

From there we walked to the lake and decided to drive to the other side of the lake for lunch. It was a wonderful drive and we ate at a cafe right on the lake. It was gorgeous.

We walked for a short while after and came to this amazing hotel. Looks like something out of a movie. It was built in the 20’s or so and is just huge on the edge of the lake. Pretty cool.

From there we went back to town to hit the mall. It was crazy. Lois, one of the women I was with, knew of a cookie store she said we had to go to. She was right!! This place was kid heaven. OK, I was pretty excited too. I bought a tub and could fill it with whatever different kind of cookies and biscuits I wanted.

From there we headed back to St. Gervais where we each went our separate ways. We met up a couple hours later for dinner in Chamonix. It was a great day and I slept very well.

Sunday I got up and had some more adventures, but I’ll save that for my next blog….

My Office

I realized that in my 2 ½ months in France, I have not yet shown you where I work!! It takes me about 12 minutes to get to the office from where I live. Well you know I work at the Polaris France office. It is quite different than the Medina, MN corporate office I am used to…. I work in a log cabin. Yep, me and Grizzly Adams could be pals. Here is our reception area and small kicthen/coffee bar.

There are two other buildings that house the warehouse and the financial people, but the main building I am in is one big room with 5 people. I have my own big desk; the GM gave up his desk for me. I felt pretty special. I am in the room with the France Marketing manager, product manager and the 2 people responsible for Southern Europe sales. My desk is on the very left.

We have some cool units in the office. A very old snowmobile and an “exploded” ATV.

I am back on my European schedule now and am excited for my visitors in 6 days!! I have a fun trip planned.

Thank for checking in….