Hedonistic Weekend!

On Friday, our friend Dave came into town on leave from serving in Iraq. We had thought he wasn't coming in until tonight so we had made some plans for the weekend, but just decided to do as much as possible in a short period of time.

Friday night, as Matt was taking the bus in from Gex, Dave and I grabbed dinner at Scandale and then, Dave was zonked and headed to his hotel. Matt arrived in town and we went to a fantastic party hosted by a co-worker at an apartment in the Old Town. The party was pretty fantastic -- I met an attorney who was in law school at Vanderbilt when I was in grad school there and there were fascinating people to talk to. There was a lot of dancing and much fabulousness. Matt and I had decided we would take the Nocturne bus home which was also an adventure (though fairly tame). The bus runs at about 1 and 2 am on Friday and Saturday nights and is pretty much the drunk teenage bus. There is a security guard on it and a special handler, in addition to the driver, so it was the most well behaved group of drunk 18 year olds you can imagine. I was regretting our decision when it was 2:30 and we were hiking up the mountain, but the party was great fun, so it was worth it.

Saturday, we went with Dave to the outdoors market in Ferney-Voltaire, which is supposed to be one of the best in the region. The reputation is well deserved as there is a huge variety of sellers -- fresh pasta makers, cheesemakers selling parmesan from Parma, many farmers, bakers, and butcher, and, my favorite, the fishmongers. One of the first things I noticed (which I knew about in advance, but was still odd) is that the food is a lot less sanitized -- as Matt says, the food still looks like what it came from. If you buy a chicken, it still has its feet and head (with feathers!) attached. At the fishmongers, many things are still alive. We saw a little boy staring at a crab that was walking around and then he started telling the fishmonger that it was running away. The fishmonger picked up the crab and put it in front of the little boy so he could get a better look at it. The best best part by far is that the fishmongers sell raw oysters and set up small tables. We got a half dozen (at 11 am and of course, it comes with wine), watched the guy open each of them, and put them on a small tin plate. I love oysters and eat them any change I can (when it seems like they will be safe) but I have never had any that were so fresh, briny, and absolutely perfect alone with no horseradish or even lemon juice. We purchased a lot of food and all headed back to our apartment so I could cook a late lunch. We had langoustines (again, with the honesty about food, these were whole, with heads and antennae attached. I made Dave clean them), sauteed leeks, and pasta with lemon sauce. We also got some Epoisse cheese but were stuffed after meal so we have not tried it yet. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and recovering from the large meal.

Today, Dave came over and we had a big breakfast and all hung out watching the biking World Championships which are currently going on on the other side of Switzerland. The Swiss are very excited that their own Fabian Cancellara won the time trial. I am ecstatic about Kristin Armstrong's win and Cadel Evans had a great finish today that was fun to watch. We also began following some of the Swiss and French news websites as the Roman Polanski story came out, because it had become especially huge here. The French statements and treatment of this is striking and not necessarily surprising, but still seems very strange. Less of it seems to be about Polanski and more that the French ministers are upset that Switzerland seemed to plan to arrest him when he came to the film festival and did not consult with France concerning their plans. We are wondering if Switzerland is planning on quid pro quo-ing with the U.S. and giving up Polanski if the U.S. leaves UBS alone. Since all of this is going on, I think we are going to spend the evening watching Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

Next weekend we are going to Gruyere for a dairy tour and several cheese and fondue tastings. I think the weekend after that we may head to Zurich, Barcelona, or Berlin. I would love to go to Barcelona or Madrid, but have a feeling that we will be heading to somewhere German speaking. Merde.