Adventures in the mountains

Howdy there. I don't know what's gotten into me lately. Maybe I'm a touch more inspired to write these blogs than I was before, or maybe I've really been abducted by the Crab People as a part of their unending quest for domination over the world of man.(South Park reference, http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154111/crab-people) Whatever the case may be here's another quick turn around and update of the past two weeks for me here in Euroland.

The first trip was more of a local adventure. On Monday (April 4th) afternoon I took the train and then the bus up to Camp Des Cimes where Caleb works and lives. The camp is somewhere on the outskirts of the city Grenoble, which is an hour away from Chambery. The whole purpose of the trip was to just bro out with Caleb and to go skiing. If you remember I alluded to my skiing adventure in my last blog post. Oh yes, I went skiing for the first time but that's later on in the trip. For pics and vids check out my tumblr at mmalachi.tumblr.com. On Monday after the long and arduous journey on the train and bus, 95% of which I slept through, I finally met up with Caleb and his roommate Sam in the nearby town of Bourg D'Oisans. Monday was pretty chill we back to Camp Des Cimes and chef Caleb whipped up dinner. Pretty good too, I had to tell Catherine when I got back that her and Caleb are competing for my distinguished honor of Top Chef. Of course, dinner wasn't the end of the night we had to drink beer and play video games. No bro out would be complete without those two critical aspects.

On Tuesday after Caleb and Sam finished their work around the camp we sat down for lunch. More beer was drunk and more video games were played until it was time for Caleb and Sam to head back off to work. Caleb told me they would work for a couple of more hours and then we'd go out and jump in a nearby glacier pool and check out some of the scenery. While Caleb and Sam went off to finish their work I did my usual and hopped onto my computer until it was time to go. Caleb and Sam came back a couple of hours later and we headed off to the glacier pool. Caleb drove and when we reached our destination we had to hike over a couple of nerve-wracking footbridges to reach the glacier pool. Then it was show-time. The only way I can describe jumping in that water is it reminded me of the cold tub at NU but worse because the water was flowing and splashing everywhere from the water fall. It was a fun experience to say the least but I couldn't stand staying in the water for more than 5 minutes. After our lil Polar Bear dip Caleb drove around a nearby mountain pointing out ski lifts, hiking trails, and gave us quick tours of the little villages we drove through. We headed back after the impromptu tour and stopped at the grocery store to pick up food for dinner and of course more beer. For Dinner Caleb made three different pizza's with home made crust and all. The first was a ground beef and vegetable medley with tomato sauce. The other 2 instead of using tomato sauce he used Creme Fraiche, which I can't say without cracking up because of a South Park episode, (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360883/cafeteria-fraiche) as the sauce. The first of the Creme fraiche pizzas was a carbonara, which is sauteed onions and bacon, while the second was a tuna and corn mixture Caleb made earlier. For the Cheese it was a mix of goat and parmesan to finally complete these bad boys. Sam said his favorite was the ground beef and veggie medley was his favorite while mine was the carbonara, but all three were excellent. I bet you can't guess what we did after dinner. That's right, we shockingly played more video games and drank more beer.

Wednesday was pretty slow during the day. Just more of me hanging out on my computer until Sam and Caleb finished their work. It was all for good reason because we were having a BBQ later on for dinner, our homegirl Flo, sister of our teammate Xavier, was coming by to kick it, and the British pub up in town was having an event at night. Flo got to camp around 5 or 6 and soon after she arrived we headed up to the mountain to our BBQ site. We had to improvise when we reached the spot because a group of Brits already occupied the prime real estate. We just had to scoot over to the side so everyone could have their space. It was quite an amazing sight we had a perfect view of the mountain range in the distance and we were on the edge of the mountain away from the ski resorts. Our little BBQ was filled with beer, sausage, and acoustic guitar. I learned that Flo could play the guitar and sing. We sat out under the stars for quite a while just enjoying everything until it was time to go to the British pub. The event at the British pub was for groups of friends to make a music video of them skiing/ snowboarding and anything else they wanted to include. They were all pretty good except for the last video which the people who made the video inexplicably decided to rap themselves to the music instead of putting the real track. Hearing a terrible British accent filled (no prejudice from me, it just didn't help their case any because they the sound was awful and they sucked at rapping) remix of the Wu Tang Clan song "gravel pit" is not my idea of a good video. Other than the videos, the bar was pretty fun a lot of Guinness, Drum n bass along with dubstep music filled the bar for most of the night, (not the usual house music which is clearly king here in France) and the British inhabitants made the pub a good time overall.

Finally Thursday came and the day was finally here. We were going skiing. Caleb lent me all the clothes and gear I would need and thank God it all fit me. We headed out around noontime to Les Deux Alpes ski station after bidding Flo goodbye and watching her drive away slowly as tears streamed down all of our eyes. We went to the ski station after loading up on some water and other supplies at a store where Caleb knew the owner. (Caleb knows a lot of people everywhere we go) We bought our lift tickets and started the journey up. We took two different lifts and a train to the top of the glacier. It took about 30 - 40 minutes for us to reach that point and about two hours for us to ski down to the train while Caleb and Sam instructed me on what to do. I'm not gonna lie I was scared speeding down a snow covered peak with two toothpicks under my feet that I don't know how to control.  I also fell a million times but eventually the fear subsided and I began to understand the proper weight shifts needed to turn on skis. I was really motivated to learn because I was getting tired of all the little kids just speeding right on by me while i kept falling every 20 feet. (Which, luckily for everyone I gave my camera to Caleb so I have videos and pictures of me falling that I'll post to my tumblr.) We took the train back up to the top again and sat down to eat lunch. After lunch is when I really started to get the hang of skiing. (Which unluckily for me Caleb stopped taking videos before I started actually doing good lol) To compare though it took us to two hours to reach the train, which was the final lift we took up the mountain, on the first time down. The second time down we reached the first lift we took in about an hour and a half. When we reached that point we were all thoroughly exhausted and just went back to ground level. Skiing is a really hard leg workout, I used to just think it was a leisure activity but no it is definitely a workout. Thursday night was pretty much the same except we all went to sleep a little earlier from skiing taking the rest of the energy we had left after staying out the night before. Midday Friday Caleb and I headed back up to Aix Les Bains but of course before we got on the road we had to stop and get a kebab.

The next week on Monday I had a little mini adventure by myself. (April 11th to that Weds the 13th) Well not that mini I went to Amsterdam to see Nas & Damian Marley in concert. I had a pretty nice time enjoyed the concert (despite the fact Nas whispered the final bars on the last verse of one mic) and my stay overall in Amsterdam. Except for the fact that I dropped and lost my digital camera somewhere. I think it happened to me on the way to the concert because I kept pulling my map out of my pocket every five seconds to make sure I was going the right way because Dutch is a very complicated language, especially when you're reading street signs and the sign is supposed to be the same thing but the word looks different every time. Luckily I uploaded my ski adventure on to my computer before I lost it so everyone will get to enjoy that but my tumblr may die after that. I'm looking for a replacement out here though so it may be resurrected one day. Besides dropping my camera I did enjoy my quick trip to Amsterdam. Despite a certain person they didn't like Amsterdam because it was dirty I found it quite nice. The canals, except for those in the red light district, are very nice, the women are tall and beautiful, and the beer (along with all the other vice you may have) is plentiful. I went on the Heineken brewery tour and checked out the red light district during the day. The latter activity I do not suggest unless you are a fan of, how can I put this........ a more mature woman (lol). Even though my time was short I'm heading back to Amsterdam on Tuesday to meet up with my American friends I met in Venezia and then it's off to London on Thursday through Sunday. On Sunday I'll be flying and taking the train to Montpellier to play in our next game and then spending the first half of the week in Marseille, so unfortunately I'll have no pictures to share of that but I'll try and find a way. Until the next time..

Mommy's Visit pt trois, Paris (This one will be long)

Two blog posts in one week? What's wrong with me? The reality is I need to finish the story about my Mom and Aunt coming to visit because I also need to update you on my adventure of this past week. No hints about it either, only my mom, teammates here in le France, and the people who actually read my tweets know what I mean. As I've done in most of my previous posts I usually take this last part of my intro paragraph to make fun of how much my friends don't read my blog and say I only have a couple of readers. According to the new info passed on to me by my mother I now know that Mr. David Bradford (who is the man, I need to come by and visit you next time I'm up around that way) and a lot of my Mom's co-workers read my blog. Thanks for tuning in to my drivel and stop giving my Mommy a hard time because she tends to snore on long journeys. (Just kidding, don't hurt me Mommy Love you :D) Check out the pics of this adventure on my Tumblr here, Mmalachi.Tumblr.com

On Thursday March 17th (St. Pattys day which will come into play later)  my mother, aunt, and me jumped on the TGV (high speed train) bound for Paris. Of course we rode first class like only real bosses can do, actually it was only 10 Euros more than the second-class ticket. Catherine and Pierre dropped us off at the train station and bid my mom and aunt goodbye as this was the last time they would see them on this trip, but will more than likely not be the last time. The train ride from Chambery to Paris is about three hours and if you've never ridden on a high speed train its pretty nice. Comfy seats, quiet smooth ride, and going through the French countryside (which is as good as advertised) is a pretty nice way to enter the city of light. After we got settled in our hotel the first thing we wanted to do was take what should have been a quick walk through the Parisian streets to the Seine river and catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower. However, what should have been about a 30-minute walk max turned into a journey of time and space. It took us about two hours because Paris is also a very confusing city for us Americans. If you've been you'll understand what I mean, but for those of you who don't I'll illustrate what I mean. Paris as a city is a giant circle, and within this giant circle are streets jutting every which way leading most of the times to roundabouts. These roundabouts accommodate more than just the typical four way roundabout. For Example, the Arc De Triomphe roundabout has 12 different streets that lead into it, one of the more ridiculous traffic events I've ever seen. The other issue with the Parisian streets is that about every 2 or so blocks the name switches without even the slightest warning and all the street signs are on the buildings not posts like ours. In essence Paris has these streets that change the name every two seconds and intersections that lead off into a multitude directions, which makes being a tourist in the city quite hard. I wouldn't have minded this walk so much, because I quite enjoy getting lost in new cities, save for the fact the two evil sisters where cranky because we hadn't eaten lunch yet. They would go on and on about how I was trying to walk them to death and blah blah blah. Luckily Paris has shops on about every block so when they saw something that caught their eye, the whining would cease. Eventually I was finally able to figure out the map and get us going in the right direction, all matters of direction were given to me and they only followed my lead. We finally made it to the Seine River after taking the scenic route and saw the Eiffel tower in the distance, a first for us all. At lunch we decided we wanted to do a river tour at night to see city lit up. After we finished lunch and my Aunt's hunger for shopping was satisfied we went back to the hotel to rest up for the night tour. The night tour was pretty amazing. We got to see the Eiffel tower lit up & up close for the first time, Notre Dame cathedral, all of the different bridges (with people drinking under or along them dressed in green for St. Pattys day) along the Seine, along with the Lourve, and the building the US stole the design from for the White House. After the boat tour and dropping the children back off at the hotel I headed back out into the night to meet up with one of my friends, (Lil) Kati (my nickname for her) who happened to be in Paris for spring break. I met up with her and the friends she was with who happened to be a lot of younger guys I actually went to high school with (can't escape the Belen Mafia, no matter where you are) and had a pretty good time. For the readers who actually have read all my entries up to this point will remember I said that beer is cheap in France. This does apply to Paris in anyway shape or form. Felt like I was back on South Beach handing out 6 to 7 Euros per Guinness, but hey it's St. Patty’s day, I can't not drink Guinness. After hanging out until the wee hours of the morning and avoiding all the guys trying to get me to go into the strip club they worked at (forgot to mention the bar we went to was right by Moulin Rouge and alot of similar type venues lol) I left the bar and made it back to the hotel and fell asleep.

Of course it wasn't for very long because on Friday we planned on taking a bus tour and being on one of the first buses to see as much of the city as we could. We bought our tickets at a little Internet boutique around the corner from our hotel and waited out at the stop right in front of it. We rode the Paris L'Open Tour which operates three lines that take you all around the city. The main line takes you to all the major attractions in Paris. You buy the ticket for the day or however long you want, and you're able to jump on and off at any stop as long as you have your ticket with you. We took the bus that ran on the line by our hotel to the major line and started the tour. Looking at the bus route we planned out what we wanted to get off and see because it's not possible to get off at every stop and see everything all in one day. Of course, this plan fell apart once we actually got off the bus and visited the attractions. The first stop was at the Lourve museum. As I've said earlier and will continue to say we are nerds, but honestly it was worth it. The bus company sends a bus by each stop around every twenty minutes for people to continue the tour and we claimed we were only going to be inside the Lourve for 50 minutes - 1 hour at the max because we just wanted to check out the major attractions and continue the tour. Major fail to say the least, I think we spent about two and a half hours in the Lourve and we only intentionally visited 4 exhibits. The rest we saw as we walked to our targeted areas. The only exhibits we went to see were the Venus de Milo, the Egyptian section, the Mona Lisa, and Napoleon III's apartments. The Egyptian section and Napoleon's apartment were my idea. The Egyptian exhibit is what took us the longest by far. The Lourve is a humungous building and to visit every exhibit in the museum would take probably 4-5 days at the least. We're going through the early parts of the Egyptian section and it's little trinkets, statues, different small things and we had already been through about four or five corridors. I was started to get a little disappointed because I hand't seen any sarcophagi. That all changed the deeper we got into the exhibit. Not only did they have about 100 different Sarcophagi, including the sarcophagus of Ramses III, there was actual mummy preserved in it's original state, and actual pieces of pyramids. I don't mean a slab or granite or two either, there was a giant chunk that you could walk in and look around for yourself. Which my Aunt Jackie didn't want to see because she was being crabby from being tired of walking and hungry, but due to me and my mom's constant insistence she finally went to see and her jaw pretty much dropped. We saw all of these things and we didn't even finish the entire Egyptian exhibit, there were still a couple of rooms left but we just had to call it quits before we spent the entire day at the Lourve. The Mona Lisa had a huge crowd of people around but the most impressive thing is just how many people go to see that tiny painting when the entire wing is filled with huge and impressive works of art. The Venus de Milo was pretty packed too but not as much as the Mona Lisa. The walk through Napoleon III's apartment was a walk through life as a true baller. One of the more impressive things was the dinner table sat almost 50 ppl comfortably. After we were finally able to escape the Lourve's grasp we sat down for lunch at a nearby restaurant. Actually we technically sat down twice for lunch because the first place we went, after taking one look at the menu we had to dip up outta there. While eating lunch Caleb met up with us for a drink because he was in Paris for the weekend too. After lunch we said bye to Caleb and went back to the bus tour. Yet you couldn't really tell any of us actually paid for the tour as we all caught the itis and took quick naps on the bus in between the ride from Notre Dame Cathedral and the Arc De Triomphe. We all were awake as we approached the Arc but I had to pretty much drag my mom and aunt off the bus because they weren't truly interested in seeing the Arc up close, but I was. One of the more memorable things about the Arc is the unique traffic situation surrounding it. If you recall I mentioned earlier there are 12 streets leading into this roundabout so there's pretty much a constant queqe of cars in the roundabout. Our bus driver did not seem to care and even with all of the cars already in the circle he didn't stop and was jutting in and out of traffic as if we were in a small car. Not exactly the most calming thing while sitting on top of an open top double decker bus. After checking out the Arc we got back on the bus and finished out the tour. We decided we wanted to check out the Eiffel Tower at night when it's lit up and it turned out to be a great decision because it started to rain as soon we got around the Eiffel tower. After we finished the tour we headed back to the hotel to rest up. We wanted to try and see if we could have dinner in one of the restaurants in the Eiffel tower but of course the line was about 300 people deep so went down the street to the Pullman hotel, which had a nice view of the tower. The Eiffel tower has flashing lights every 5 mins at the beginning of the each hour from sunset until midnight, and it was nice to enjoy this sight while eating dinner. (if I remember what the boat tour guide said correctly) After Dinner we headed back to the hotel and no late night shenanigans for this night because we had another early morning wake up planned.

Saturday was our last day in Paris and we actually didn't spend the day in Paris. We decided to take the train out to the beaches of Normandy and check out a tour of the beaches and whatever else we could get in. Before we headed to the train station we decided to check out the Sacre Couer. A church on top of a hill overlooking Paris with a spectacular view. Thanks to a great suggestion by Caleb I definitely enjoyed, because my mom and aunt refused to take anymore stairs. The trip to Normandy was an experience I'll always remember. If you've never been to a large WWII memorial I highly suggest it. I've now been to Pearl Harbor and the American Cemetery in Normandy and I've teared up at both. It truly is amazing to see the sacrifices made by everyone involved with the war and really just how bloody WWII was. On our tour was a late middle-aged couple from Arizona and our tour guide was a young French guy nicknamed Sly.  The first thing we saw was the Pointe du Hoc, where a battalion of Rangers had to scale 100 ft high cliffs on Dday as apart of the invasion effort. Along the ground there are still huge craters from all the pre-invasion bombing that took place to help soften up German defenses along that point that were heavily fortified due to the positioning of 6 anti-infantry guns. The bunkers for the most part are still pretty much intact which is insane considering the bombardment they took, as evidenced by the surrounding land. After the Pointe Du Hoc, which overlooks Omaha Beach, we rode down to Omaha beach and walked around. There are still German guns left there on purpose as apart of the monument and many bunkers are scattered across the hills. It was a beautiful day outside and people were calmly walking up and down the beach, a far cry from the scene that took place on Dday. Even with the craters of the Pointe du Hoc and the guns left on Omaha beach the most powerful place is the American cemetery. The cemetery is the final resting place for 9,387 Americans who died not only during the invasion of Normandy but also during the preceding battles and battles that took place afterwards. First in the Cemetery layout is the garden of the missing, where a huge wall lists all the names of the soldiers that are missing in action, a total of 1,557 names. The total number of lives lost is always staggering but when you the white headstones stretching out far out across the cliffs over looking Omaha beach it's quite a powerful moment. We also got to catch a small ceremony where the American flag was lowered and Taps was played over a loudspeaker. After the checking out the rest of Omaha beach we headed over to Gold beach to check out another German encampment where four artillery batteries are still left intact. Three of the guns have sustained pretty heavy damage but one is still in working condition. After checking out Gold beach we headed back to Paris and had our final dinner together in Paris around midnight. Awesome Thai food restaurant named Madame Shawn, which Caleb suggested and it did not disappoint. In the morning I my mother aunt and I took the Paris subway up to the airport. We were all leaving Paris that day me by train, and them on a plane back to Miami. I kissed them both good bye and hopped on the train to continue my adventure here in Euroland. If you actually made it this far thanks for reading all of it, I know most of my friends won't because some still don't even know I'm not in the US and others ask me to update them as if that's not the entire reason I write this blog lol. Until next time.

Mommy's visit pt Deux

Hey Kiddies, here's the exciting conclusion of  adventure time with my Mom and Aunt. Before I get into that though, I have confirmation of an increase from four loyal readers to a whopping total of five. Hey Lauren (Pardo, of course, everybody else back up off her shoutout lol) :D.

So yeah I know its been a while since I've touched my blog or tumblr (mmalachi.tumblr.com) but I'd rather take my time and write these entries rather than just shovel some boring drivel out every other week like my mom would prefer. She pretty much wants an update every week. Honestly, I don't think anyone wants that because when I'm not traveling or playing the highlight of my week is if Killian and I reach a new level on the new Zombie map, Ascension. 27 is our current record, in case any of my nerd friends were wondering. However, luckily this is the second part of my mom's visit to France and we did a lot of traveling.

On Monday (March 14th) was the beginning of our adventure. Pierre agreed to take me and the two evil sisters to Annecy to walk around and take in the beautiful day. It was around 65 degrees and sunny so spending a day in Annecy walking by the lake and through the town was an ideal situation. Of course, before we went to Annecy we had to stop and get Kebabs. Even though my mom doesn't eat meat she enjoyed the awesomeness of the vegetarian option kebab. I also introduced my Aunt to the beer Desperados, which is made with tequila and she fell in love. The rest of the week she spent trying to find Desperados and would get semi upset if the place didn't have it.  My Mom and Aunt agreed that the Kebabs were awesome and even began to think about if there were any places we could go back home to enjoy this delectable meal. I've gotten to be pretty cool with the guy who runs the Kebab shop as I'm in there no less than once a week, and once he learned that my Mom and Aunt were visiting he gave us some Turkish sweets to try. They were amazing, this was the first time I had them and they did not disappoint at all. After we had finished stuffing our faces along with drinking our wine and beer we headed off to Annecy. On the way there, about a 30 minute drive, both my Mom and Aunt fell asleep. Once we got there they both finally stopped snoring and we spent a great day walking around the city and shopping because of my Aunt Jackie and her need to go into every shop that she sees. I'm not too upset about that though because it led to the buying of my beret, my FB friends know what I mean already. For pics of our adventure and pics of me in my Beret, check out my tumblr, (link above), because me describing the beauty of Annecy lakeside won't do it justice but the pictures do a pretty good job.


On the way back from Annecy my Mom and Aunt realized that Geneva is really close to Aix Les Bains, roughly an hour away by car or train, so we made plans at dinner to get up early and check Geneva out.
Early Tuesday morning we hopped on a train to Geneva. Now my 5 loyal readers will remember last time I said I'd go more into detail about Geneva and here it is. We took an early train to Geneva and found a nearby place to sit down and have breakfast. Where we realized that we had no idea about where anything in Geneva is but we had goals for the day. The first was to hit the United Nations building and check out a tour. So after asking the people where we ate for directions to the tourism office and wandering around Geneva for about 30 minutes trying to find it, we finally, well I (common theme on this trip) finally figured out the city layout on the map and reached the tourism office. Of course the quickest way to reach the UN is to hop on a bus or tram so we walked back to the train station and hopped on a bus that would take us there. (Walking is another common theme of this trip, which both my Mom and Aunt complained about to no end) Luckily when we got to the UN a lady who was on her way to work directed us where to go because once again we had no idea where we were going. Once we got through security and actually went on the tour it was really enjoyable, if you're a history nerd like my Mom, Aunt, and I are. We got to see an actual meeting from the rafters and check out various meeting rooms throughout the building. The UN has amazing artwork decorating the halls that each of the member nations has donated to the collection. The coolest one though was a Chinese tapestry of a temple(I forget what the name is but its one of the more famous Chinese temples). The cool part was that it was optical illusion and no matter where you stood in the room and looked at the picture the walkway would always be in front of you, following you no matter which angle you looked at it. After the tour we decided to check out the rest of Geneva so we found the tram and went back towards the center of the city. As I mentioned earlier Geneva is baller central. I told my Mom and Aunt about all the exotic cars Kevin, Killian, and I saw outside of the car show last time I was in Geneva. Once we hit Pont Du Mont Blanc they saw exactly what I meant. Everywhere you look on this street you can see evidence of Geneva's wealth pretty much everywhere you look. Pont Du Mont Blanc is one of the main streets and bridges in Geneva and each side of the bridge has its distinct feel. On one side is a bunch of banks, luxury hotels, and of course the cars you see are jaw dropping. On the corner in front of The Four Seasons hotel there were a collection of Aston Martin's, Bentley's, Land Rover's, and the worst cars being Benz's. Most of the cars also had the drivers who were waiting and keeping watch over the car. On the other side of the bridge is the shopping center. Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Vacheron Constantine, all types of ridiculously expensive stores are along this strip. On this side of the bridge is also the old town of Geneva and the Promenade du lac, my favorite part of Geneva. The old town of Geneva is pretty cool, standard old european city but the promenade du lac has been one of the highlights of my entire time while here in Europe. Honestly I love that place, theres the flower clock where they plant flowers to make a clock face and have hands to make it an actual working outdoor clock. The million dollar view though is lakeside. Lake Geneva has a huge fountain that shoots water hundreds of feet into of the air and at the Promenade du Lac you get a front row view of this. I fell in love with that spot and we spent the last hour or two chilling on a park bench just soaking in the moment. Obviously no trip to Switzerland would be complete without stopping in a store to get some Swiss chocolate and we made our stop before we hit the park. When you get a chance  go to http://maps.google.com/ and put in Pont Du Mont Blanc, Geneva and check out what I mean.

Wednesday was our slow day of the week. The highlight of the day was that Joe the head coach of the team, a fellow American, invited my Mom, Aunt and I over for lunch at his house in Chambery. Joe served up Raclette which I don't recall if I've ever described this meal but it's one of my personal favorites here in France and it quickly became a favorite of my Mom and Aunt. It's a fairly simple meal: boiled potatoes, a spread of different cold cuts and raclette cheese. The cool part is that in the middle of the table is the raclette machine which will be hard to comprehend unless you've already seen one. There's not really anything I can compare it to back home in the states but for a better idea just go to google images and put in raclette machine and that should help. Anyway there are two tiers to this machine the top one is to keep what ever you want warm, such as the boiled potatoes etc. The second tier is where you put your cheese to melt and once its done melting you scrape it off your personal metal pan to spread over your potatoes and meat. So simple but awesome at the same time. It was a really good meal my Mom and Aunt got to know Joe a little better because they wanted to know how he ended up coming from philly to coaching football in France and vice versa. It went really well and after lunch we went back to Aix to have the final dinner with the family, which was an adventure like all of the previous ones and get ready to head to Paris by train in the morning.

I'm going to make this three different posts because Paris needs its own post. Hopefully I'll do it soon 'till the next time pals :D