And so it twas the day after Thanksgiving and Europe said, "let there be light" and the Christmas lights came to life! I love Europe at Christmas time. There are Christmas markets going on all over France and Geneva especially looks beautiful right now with all of its lights and markets. The streets and shops are full of people and music is blaring on the loudspeakers throughout the neighborhoods. As if Europe wasn't already romantic enough, the Christmas spirit and cheer make it all the more so!
In addition to the Christmas lights, things look very different around here for another reason: SNOW on the mountains! Yes, yes, yes! It started last week and you know what that means: SKI SEASON has begun!! We went today with the Ski Club here in town. We woke up at 6:30am, met everyone on the bus and headed to Courchevel (a ski resort in the Savoie about 2.5 hours away). There are resorts much closer to town but we had to go somewhere with a really high elevation so that there'd be enough snow since it's so early in the season. Lauren and I are ski junkies and had a huge smile on our faces all day long. We met the group back at the bus at 4:30pm and fell asleep within 5 minutes of our departure.
We came home exhausted tonight! Not only from skiing though! From what, you ask?! Well, yesterday we ran in the 2009 Geneva Escalade Race along with 30,000 other people. Yep, that's right friend. 30,000 runners. [sidenote: we're raising money to build a well so check out
justgiving.com/escalade2009. ] Anywho, we showed up at 11, walked around, cheered on the runners and then got our game faces on for our race at 1pm. We started at the Parc des Bastions and ran 5 kilometers all throughout the Old Town of Geneva. It was a beautiful run and a gorgeous day! There were bands and people lined up all along the course pumping us up and spurring us on. Afterwards, we were given two souvenir glasses and some free food and hot tea.
After walking around for a bit, we headed to a friend's apartment located right on Lake Geneva. We had some lunch and watched the clouds roll away to give us a majestic view of Mont Blanc (the highest mountain in Europe) glistening in the background of Lake Geneva. A surreal moment in the company of great friends. Ahh, I love this place.
Last night, we went to another friend's apartment and introduced everyone to the deliciousness of a thang called Gumbo! We have been telling them bits and pieces about Louisiana culture but they were particularly interested in the food aspect (and rightly so). So Lauren and my cooking skills were put to the test yet again as we cooked a huge pot of chicken and sausage gumbo and made a potato salad to go along with it. Today was one of our good friend's birthday so we celebrated last night by eating a yummy pot of gumbo and all the fixins and then surprised her with a lemon birthday cake! Our friends, who are from South Africa, Senegal, Spain, Austria, Germany, and the US, had their first gumbo experience and are already asking for more. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
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