Pru!!!

A loooong time ago, I graduated from university and decided to travel around the world while 'mulling over' the rest of my life. I decided to start in New York, and that was pretty much the only planning I had done. In the youth hostel, I met this English girl who told me she wanted to get a "drive-away" from NY to Las Vegas. She had found this other, Australian bloke in a hostel nearby who wanted in on it too. He found a couple of Swedish blokes to round it out to 5 of us, and off we went... in a Buick Regal.... with 5 very big rucksacks. I don't know if Drive-Aways are still done, but back then it was an unbelievably cheap way to travel (remember a gallon of gas for under a dollar?). We were given 7 days to get from NY to LA, so naturally we took turns and drove through the night to maximize days sightseeing. It was a brilliant intro to the U.S, especially with the company. We left the English girl in LasVegas, and carried on to LA, then up to SF (on the Green Tortoise) hehehe. She met us there a couple of weeks later, we took another Green Tortoise trip to Yosemite, and generally saw the sights of the Bay Area. The English girl decided to go to the Exploratorium one day, I had no idea what it was, but it sounded like fun.... I met a cute, brown eyed, long black haired American boy, who gave me his phone number. He told us to call him to come to a halloween party in Berkeley... we went to the Castro instead. I called him after that and we arranged to meet in Berkeley and he would show us around. We all enjoyed beer at Jupiter and some pool. The boy (Walter) took the English girl to her aunt's in Richmond. The rest is an exhilarating, marvelous history.

So the English girl is partly (Walter's late Aunt Mickey is the other part) responsible for US! Her name's Pru, and she made my trip across America super fun :) The next time we saw her was at our wedding. She was working in Australia, and had some business in LA at the same time! After that, she was traveling all over and we lost touch. Nearly 13 years later, she came to visit for a long weekend (from London where she has now put down some roots). We showed her some Suisse.

We took a ferry ride form Neuchatel to Morat (Murten), which took about 1.5 hours. Ohhh the weather we had... Made a contrast to the previous week's 6 inches of snow.

Pru and the wee boys. They had a great time with her. Allie asked Walter "How did you know which one to marry?"

On the canal between the Lac de Neuchatel and the Lac de Morat.

Final destination: Morat.

On the train home (that took 20 mins), we were all knackered and sunburned.

SNOW

One really must go to the snow in Switzerland, if possible. The weekend that Pru was here, the weather was doing its 'don't know whether it's winter or spring' thing. We had just had a bout of wintrishness, so we took her to Creux-de-Van, partly out of the vain hope that the metairie was open, and partly because we weren't sure any ski areas were open. Foolish us. There was a good couple of feet of pristine, untouched (mostly), delishushness. Below, on the way to the edge (see the post on Creux-de-Van in the summer).

Looking over the edge. Hard to tell where it ends in the snow.

Pru looks toward France.

Stop for lunch before the real work begins......

....the work of building snow centaurs! The snow was on the wetter side due to spring, so it made perfect snow balls. Walter would eventually be the only one with the strength to push the balls around!

Who knows what Allie's doing there. The boys spent a lot of time eating handfuls of snow. The poor centaur was destroyed in a bloody and fearsome snowball fight. He was replaced by the 'little people' standing gaurd over the fortress.

The lovely Pru enjoying homemade raclette after our adventure. She also got to enjoy a boozy fondue with us in Neuchatel. All bases covered ;)

We had a super time catching up. It certainly won't be another 13 years!

Fortee in Paree!

Walter turned 40 a couple of weeks ago. Fortuitously, he was traveling for work which ended in Paris. The boys and I took the TGV (hehe love saying that) to meet him after he was done. My parents even made it down from Scotland, and Meghan and Grace even popped by to celebrate.

First stop, the Eiffel Tower! The wee boys had a bee in their bonnet about going up it, so I made reservations at the restaurant 'Altitude 95' for a biffday lunch.

The Eiffel Tower is all the way over there???

The grassy wall on the way to the Eiffel Tower. Can't remember the museum, but it does smell fousty.

Parisiens may not wash their hands when they go to the loo, but they do make good nosh. Even the children's menu has nice salads. This restuarant (Altitude 95) was recommended as being child friendly, with a bit of a view and good, relatively inexpensive food. It's on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, so I made reservations and we went in the special "there's no line" line to get there, walking past hundreds of poor schmos.

!!!!BIFFDAY BOY!!!!!

After the feast, below the beast, with the BIFFDAY BOY!!!

NOT too chilly to relax at a roadside cafe.
If you look carefully at Toby, you'll see he's pulled up his trouser legs. He spent the better part of a day running around like that, holding onto his trouser legs. He was apparently too hot, unlike the rest of Paris.

the label on the gloves says.......

Now it's time for the "Things growing out of your head" series.

Rodin

A birthday trip to the Rodin museum. We made it only as far as the gardens, where the boys got to run around and we got to ponder just how melancholy Rodin was.
I couldn't pass up a different view of "the Thinker"
The last time Walter was in Paris, the glass pyramids at the Louvre weren't there!
The Tuillerie Gardens in front of the Louvre. Allie took maaaany pics of this spider. Bleurk.
Mother lion. Rooar!
!!!!HANDSOME BIFFDAY BOY!!!!

Mmmm Angelina's. The best place for Hot Chocolate in the whole wide world. And we've been around the block a few times hotchoc-wise. They even deigned to put us in the window. Fools.

Why Mummy, this cake is delish. I will certainly not smear it everywhere, then grab yours.

Why Mummy, these frys are delish. I will absolutely not drop my plate on the floor.

Ach, never mind kids, Mummy's high on hot chocolate.

Grace came a callin' with Foie Gras, champers and cake for Walter.

It was a lovely weekend: lovely to see Walter after him traveling for a week, lovely to see my parents, lovely to show the boys some cool Paris sights and especially lovely to celebrate Walter getting to the milestone of supreme cuteness!!!

The latest mode.

According to our local paper, Nicolas Sarkozy has started a new fashion here. Socks!!! Now I found this especially funny, because we've noticed a big difference in the "socks +/- shoes" aspects of men in Europe vs. the US. In Europe men wear sandals-with-socks and trainers-no-socks (tennis shoes). Americans wear sandals-no-socks and tennis shoes (trainers)-with-socks... usually ankle socks. This may be a generalisation, but my dad, brothers and Walter have all proved me right. hehe. Anyhoo, Mr. Sarkozy likes to jog, and cuts a dash in his wee, just below the ankle, jogging socks. Now we're all being encouraged to doff them. I can't imagine how the local 'young things' will wear them. They already expose their mid-riffs in temps below zero....