The World is Your Oyster

I haven't blogged in a long time, and I'm beginning to feel guilty. Again and again I have experiences worthy of a blog posting, and at moment of the happenings I think "wouldn't this be grand on my blog?!" Subsequently I'm amused for the proceeding half-minute I try to out-do myself with clever ways of recounting my stories.
Unfortunately for you, reader, these musings occur mostly in my head and rarely make it to the world wide web. Unfortunately for me, my sporatic blogging has caused me to feel guilty about 1. leaving my devoted readers in an undesired state of suspension and 2. the possibility of leaving out something or someone meaningful I have encountered on this trip.
It was unfortunate timing that my impatience with blogger.com grew past its tolerable threshold during my time in Germany. I loved my week with Ulrike in Hamburg. She worked during the day at her neuroscience lab where who knows what she really does. I like to imagine her with a Mary Shelly mindset: potions brewing in flasks and test tubes in musty dark cave with only the sound of electric current buzzing to muffle the screams of mercy of her "patients." Our evenings were some of the happiest times of my entire trip: we'd run or rock climb and henceforth celebrate our sporty and diciplined lifestyles with elaborate homemade salads and of course, red wine. Our philosophical yet analyltical conversations went late into the night, and many of the world's problems were discussed and resolved. Unfortunately I neglected to write down our brilliant solutions so sorry folks, George Bush will be president until I can come up with something else.
Uli and I traveled to Berlin to visit mutti, my German grandmother and Ulrike's real grandmother. Although many fun times were had during our weekend get-a-way, the highlight just may be when I discovered that street vendors sell pickles to eat on the spot. Walking down the street eating pickles in Berlin. Life ain't bad.

There are many stories from my two weeks in France, but I especially loved one lunch with Krystel, Dominique, and Krystel's father, who is 80 years old and incredibly old-school French. He spent several years in the US just after WWII, so clearly he was an expert on the US and had plenty of things to impart to me about my home country. Everyone at the table, other than myself, roared with laughter when he mentioned his experience with "mees keen-too-kee." I had no idea what they were talking about. Think, Kate, think: if you were French trying to communicate something, what would you mean by "mees keen-too-kee?" It dawned on me: he was saying "Miss Kentucky." He had dated Miss Kentucky while he was in Louisville in the 50s! A hilarious round of questioning ensued, but mostly I gathered from the nostalgic twinkle in his eye that Miss Kentucky of 1950 was quite a looker with a cute Southern accent, and this Frenchman before me still thought about her from time to time. Classic.
I also loved the moment when my 12 year-old French sister, Celia, discovered that I wore contact lenses. The conversation went something like this:
"You wear contacts, Kate? What is your real eye color?"
"Same color you see here, they're not colored contacts."
"Why not?
"I don't know, I guess I thought it was ok to have my own eye color."
"But if you don't change your color, why do you still wear contacts?!"
I guess sweet Celia hadn't been educated about secondary reason for wearing contacts (just a positive side effect): to help with vision.
One afternoon I went mushroom hunting in the woods near Thonon. We were searching for "morilles" which are rare and delicious (so I hear). We were a team of two guys and two girls; the guys knew how and where to find the mushrooms, and Stephanie and I mainly wandered around fields after them. When she and I discovered the abundance of pretty wild flowers, our nearly non-existent interest in finding mushrooms vanished altogether, and the rest of the afternoon was focused on arranging boquets. Sometimes I truly love to be a girl. The boys didn't find any mushrooms anyway.
I swam with the Club de Nageurs de Thonon twice during my stay, and although it was nice to "workout" (in quotes because hey, this is France. No offense to my fellow CNT swimmers), I was mainly there to gossip with former teammates whom I haven't seen for 4 years. I also enjoyed 2 days in Lyon to visit an old swimmer buddy, and although I don't particularly love large French cities, this one has its appeal. Not only was the weather flawlessly sunny, but Lyon has an unusual public service of renting bicycles! With many different locations to pick up and drop off, the bicycle service provided amusing outings mainly focused around my careless and directionless riding and Nicolas' continual state of agitation and stress (I don't think he appreciated my riding one-handed looking backwards simultaneously talking and taking photographs). I traveled to Lyon easily - only 3 hours by train from Thonon - and stayed in the apartment of my friend Nicolas and his girlfriend Audrey. I spent my two days there making a mission of embarrassing Nicolas with my American antics. I used to think that in France I fit in relatively well. However, according to Nicolas' reaction it seems I was nearly the cause of an international disaster because I ordered something salty at the boulangerie for breakfast. "We only eat sweet things for breakfast in France." He said it quite seriously. I thought it was hilarious that he would even care, let alone mention it, so naturally, the entire duration of breakfast I shared over and over again how well my salty quiche went with my sweet coffee.

The park in Lyon, my favorite place! Nicolas fortunately still spoke with me even after the quiche incident.