Thanksgiving

 

This year Emilie helped take my mind off what I was missing back home by organizing a real Thanksgiving experience. It entailed a full day of cooking (almost exclusively by her) and we were joined by her mother and sister to round out the family atmosphere.

Here's the guest of honor -- the turkey. While it was smaller than the turkeys that we normally have back home (it was "only" 9 lbs), the oven was barely big enough to accomodate it.

As seen in the photo below, Emilie was clearly excited by her successful initial foray into American holiday cooking.

The meal was fantastic and went a long way towards addressing my annual Thanksgiving homesickness. I think Emilie's mom and sister also enjoyed their first real exposure to the holiday.

After the meal we had plenty of leftovers -- including about 2/3 of the turkey itself, which I still had to carve. That was fine by me as I love eating Turkey the week after Thanksgiving.

My only complaint -- all the clean-up required after the meal. In all my Thanksgivings, I don't think I have ever done my fair share in terms of dishes. As such, I had no real clue of the actual clean-up required (particularly if, like us, you don't have a dishwasher).

Intouchables

Tonight we went to see a French film called Intouchables (Untouchable). It was released early this month and has become a phenomenon in France (and Switzerland), generating extremely positive reviews and strong word-of-mouth.

The film was inspired by true events and tells the story of a wealthy Parisian, who is paralyzed following a paragliding accident, and the full-time assistant he hires to help him with his daily life. The duo come from very different backgrounds, but they share a common bond and over the course of the film develop a meaningful friendship.

While the film is comedic throughout, it also is filled with dramatic elements and by the end is one of the more touching movies that I've seen in a long time. I think even the most hardened individual will shed a couple of tears at the end.

The U.S. distribution rights for the film have been bought by Harvey Weinstein, so it should be arriving in the U.S. at some point. And in the meantime, I found a trailer online that includes English subtitles. You'll probably want to expand the video to full screen (click button on bottom right of video next to "YouTube") in order to be able to read them.

Unfortunately, the subtitles are horrendous (there's no way this is an official version), but I figured that a version with bad subtitles would be better than one without any.

I don't think that the trailer really does it justice, though, so you'll have to trust me that the film's a must-see.

Fondue

Tonight Emilie invited her friend Nina over for dinner in celebration of her transfer back to the U.S. for work. And in order to make it a true Swiss send-off, Emilie decided to prepare fondue.

The meal was great, as demonstrated by the fact that not a drop of cheese remained at the end. Emilie got the consistency just right and prepared the perfect amount -- just enough for us to be full, but not too much to leave us suffering from massive food comas afterwards.

Proud to be an American?

 

While there are many stereotypes for Americans who visit Europe, “loud and obnoxious” is one in particular that gets a lot of airtime. And though I generally disagree with the label (most American travelers that I’ve come across represent the country well), there are unfortunately a small group that live up to the stereotype and make the rest of us look bad.

An example…

The other day I was on the train and there happened to be a group of fellow Americans sitting in an adjacent section of seats. The train was basically full, so there were plenty of conversations going amongst the travelers, yet one group managed to drown out everyone else with their blabbing: the Americans. It was as if they were in their own private compartment and the rest of the train simply didn’t exist.

The best part was that they spoke as if English were some obscure language that no one else on the train could possibly have understood. Regardless of how offensive, vulgar, impolite, culturally-insensitive, etc., a topic was, they had no problem discussing it. Meanwhile, I’m sure that at least half of the other travelers on the train understood every word that they said.

Back from China

On Sunday Emilie and I returned from a two week trip to China. Though it was technically vacation, there wasn't much time for R&R as we tried to cover as much of the country as possible during our maiden voyage to the Middle Kingdom. And while we saw a ton, it was clear that we only scratched the surface during our visit.

The following is a brief list of the main cities / sights that we saw. I'll go into more detail and add pictures (I took ~1,500) over the coming weeks as I get caught up. That said, I'm still lagging on my early-October plan to get caught up on my already delinquent posts from September (most notably covering my parents' visit and the trip to Brittany for Emilie's sister's wedding), so perhaps I should set lower expectations.

Main Cities and Sights:

• Beijing: The Forbidden City / Tienanmen Square / Summer Palace / The Great Wall
• Pingyao: Ancient city walls / Shuanglin (Buddhist) Temple
• Xian: Great Mosque; Terracotta Army
• Chengdu: Panda Reserve / Leshan Giant Buddha / Mt. Emei Golden Summit
• Huanglong: scenic nature reserve / Tibetan villages
• Jiuzhaigou Valley: scenic nature reserve / Tibetan villages
• Shanghai: The Bund riverfront / acrobat show / tea houses

Otherwise, the highlights of the trip were definitely the food, the culture and the general experience of being absolutely helpless / clueless in a land nothing like anything remotely close to your comfort zone. That said, there were negatives as well, which I'll also cover -- e.g., the clearly visible societal and environmental consequences of the country's massive growth.