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New Year's Eve in Prague

We normally stay in town for New Year's eve, but since it's our last NYE here, we decided to travel. We wanted to go somewhere different, and decided on Budapest. Until we started looking at plane tickets. There were no direct flights and we had to connect in Prague and it would take a minimum of 8 hours. There were just no flights to get us there in a decent amount of time (a direct flight would take about 2 hours).

So, since all flights connected in Prague, we decided to do Prague. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, but not without a little drama at the airport. When we tried to check in we were told our reservation had been canceled. After lots of phone calls and back and forth, it was discovered that if you make a change using SkyEurope's online system they cancel your reservation without warning.

The short story is you have to pay for each piece of luggage you check. We realized the night before we would need to check luggage. I tried to add it to our reservation, but it failed. Worse yet, I received to notification that it had failed and, of course, it never occurred to me our reservation would be canceled! Well, we were able to get on the plane after we paid twice as much at the airport to check our bags.

We arrived and checked into out hotel and had a walk around the city. Boy, was it cold! We had scheduled a night-time walking tour, so went back to our rooms to add another layer of clothing before the tour, where we learned about the ghosts of Prague! Lots of intriguing stories, but we wondered how many were made up for tourists...

The next day was New Year's Eve. We did some shopping and sight-seeing, then in the evening we made out way to the river front to board our boat for a jazz ans dinner cruise along the Vltava river. It was a small intimate setting with about a dozen tables, a buffet of cold appys, and a hot entree. The jazz quartet was very good and played at a volume that still allowed you to talk. The view of the city from the river was wonderful.

At midnight was headed up the the top deck to see the fireworks. It was an amazing night.

Christmas 2008

Decmber 25

We celebrated Christmas with our Copenhagen family. This time at Nanda & JJ's. JJ made a delicious duck, twice-baked potatoes with goat cheese and chives, and green beans. For dessert, Heidi and Scott brought was pumpkin pie and chocolate cake. We had it easy and brought a ham. We toasted our South African friends, who are now back in South Africa, probably BBQing on the beach as we freeze our a**es off here in CPH.

December 8th - Munich Christmas Markets

December 8, 2008
Munich is famous for it's Christmas markets. We saw almost all of them this weekend! It was all very festive - lights and food and arts and crafts. And lots of Italians. I guess because Munich is close to the Italian border and it's, well, cheaper. It's all about the food, right? Well, we had some really good street food. Mostly sausages that I can guess are horrible for you, but, damn, they're good! My theory is if you add enough spicy mustard it somehow cancels out the heart-clogging fat.

And then we had dinner at this mazing restaurant. no - that is not a typo! This restaurant was truly a maze. It was the Ratskeller beneath the town hall. I'm telling you this place was huge - must have been 20 rooms. A ten minute walk later, we were shown to our room and our table. The walls and ceiling are painted pale yellow and painted with frescoes of romantic foliage and art-deco women. And the food was quite good! We bought some German Christmas ornaments, but mainly enoyed the ambience of the outdoor markets. Oh - and there was a singing stuffed moose at one of the markets.

Thanksgiving in CPH, 2009

We had another great expat Thanksgiving celebration with our Copenhagen family at Andy and Heidi's. We ate good food, played guitar hero, and started a new tradition - the Springboki! This drink, named for the South African rugby team the Springbok, is a tasty little shot of peppermint liqueur and Amarula (a South African drink that resembles Baily's). This was the last Thanksgiving celebration for Johan and Karine, as they returned home the following week.

Cathy and Sharon do France and Italy

Cathy and I met October 17 in Paris. We immediately hopped a train to Beaune, where we rented a car and drove to our B&B, which was nestled in the vineyards of the sleepy little town of Villers-la-Fay. We had good maps and found our B&B very easily, and had an unexpected beautiful drive through the vineyards.
We checked into our cozy little home around 6:00 then drove to the nearby village of Nuits St Georges. There we found a little cafe with a friendly owner and had our first French dinner - onion soup, a very large serving of beef bourganion, followed by a cheese course and coffee and brandy. We felt like minor celebrities, as there were 3 or 4 guys at the bar who took turns sitting with us. We didn't speak much French, they spoke no English, but we raised our glasses in toast. Vive la France!
The next day we prowled the Saturday market in Beaune collecting delicacies for a picnic lunch. To complete our picnic, we headed to Dominie Henri Naudin Ferrand to taste some wine. Unfortunately, our good driving karma from the day before had vanished and we got lost on the way and ended up and hour and half late. But they were gracious enough to let us taste some wine and, of course, we bought several bottles. We found a perfect picnic sot on a bluff over-looking the golden vineyards.
After our picnic, we visited the winery of Philippe Amiot (who we had met the night before.) He produces maybe 300 bottles a year and looks like Santa Claus. We got to sample several of his wines in his tiny - and very moldy - wine cellar. We spent about an hour with Philippe, then visited a few more wineries in the area. That evening our host invited us for an aperitif in his private cellar. With broken English and broken French, we managed a conversation over kirs (white wine and local Cassis). Our host recommended a restaurant nearby and it turned out to be the best meal of the trip. I can't tell you what we ate, as the menu was in French and they pretty much told us what to order... but everything was fantastic!
Sunday morning we awoke to a beautiful day and hot air balloons sailing low across the valley right outside our window.