Okay, Okay...

I realize that the last few blogs haven't been the happiest. Okay, so I had a bad week. These things happen. I didn't work that much last week and just hit some road blocks on the way to making this place feel more like a home. Things inevitably aren't always cheerful. Nevertheless, life here is not all that bad. I don't know where to find snow boots...I really want some Lands End boots but the shipping cost is too much, and I need to get an in-between jacket, something that isn't a winter coat. It is difficult not knowing how to solve immediate needs.

Last night Ronny and I went to a local event, the Salon de Vins. It was amazing! There were two spaces, one tent and one indoor room, full of wine vendors. We tried so much wine and ended with brandy. I had awesome real champagne and bought a nice bottle of Pinot Gris. People were buying cases upon cases--I've never seen anything like it. I guess a lot of people have wine cellars here, so they just stock up. We ran into one of Ronny's colleagues who speaks French, so that was very helpful with interacting with the vendors. It felt kind of weird drinking wine and then moving on. We felt a little bad...I guess it's an American thing. The Director of CERN was there. Ronny knew then that this was a big deal. There were a lot of wine snobs around too. One guy in front of us at a booth insisted that the vendor toss an entire bottle away because it was bad. He did the whole nose in the class, swish, and spit into a bucket that looks like a hat. It was very funny. Ronny had this really fancy, really expensive brandy and I tried this drink that was wine and brandy. Apparently, long ago a monk accidentally put wine in a barrel that still had brandy in it, he sealed it and the drink I had was the result. The walk home was chilly! We were there for about three hours. We had not planned on that at all! It was dark and windy when we were walking home. The temperature was about 53 degrees, which for those of you from Florida is cold. It is clear that winter is going to be interesting...fall might be interesting for that matter!