This past Friday, my hiking group went to Les Pleiades above Blonay, Switzerland. This is where you ski in Winter. I don't, but you can. One lost tooth is enough for me, right Meggan? In Spring you go hiking to see the Narcissus bloom in the fields. Get the song connection now? You have to be narcissistic to sing this song, or act like the guys in the video.
The Narcissus, Narcissi, Narcissuses, grow like crazy here. Fields and fields of them. And they smell so good! If I was going to be turned into a flower like the Greek guy was, I would choose that one too. Though he actually did not choose, did he? Am I even correct on that story? Since it was on the ski slopes the hike was very very steep. I think when all was said and done, Hans said I did 71 flights of stairs. All in two hours! It was a lovely day. I will be bringing my family back here over a weekend!
What was best? At the end I got to see my spirit animal! (See http://fernandez-brazil.blogspot.ch/2011_07_01_archive.html)
I swear, my children never go to school. There are more days off than I can count on all of my digits. In April, out of 24 days of school possible, they went 11. Nutzoid right?!
So in May they had off for Ascension and we went to Interlaken. Then they had off Pentecost Monday, which is called Whitsun - had no clue what that was until now. We cleaned that day since even France was closed. But that Saturday, we decided to get out of Dodge. Again.
Where'd we go? Lyon of course! And yes, there were so many people that it did road louder than a tiger, kinda like a lion maybe? Okay, so it is a stretch, but White Lion does not have a self-titled song. Maybe I could have gone with Big Country's "Big Country," but then that would not have made any sense. Or any more sense than this one. We waited too long to look for overnight somewhere. Everywhere I looked the town was booked solid. So we only did a day trip. Wasn't bad, only 2/2.5 hours to get there. The drive to Lyon was like going through Tennessee and the Appalachians. Though with old castle ruins along the highway. There were parts of the road that stretched over gorges, some almost 1500m long. At times it looked like we were going to drive right over the edge and into the sky like the end of "Grease." Sorry there are no pictures of this. I was concentrating on not falling off the side of the mountain.
In Lyon, there were so many people it put Disney to shame. The old town was very lovely. Old world cobblestone streets packed with cute shops. There was one street called Rue du Boeuf (cow meat in French) which actually smelled like steak. Probably because there was a steak restaurant on the corner. I wonder if that was where the old meat market was? Makes sense. Not that kind of meat market you sickos!
There were also some old Roman ruins that date back before Jesus. The boys thought that was cool. My husband thought he could live in Ancient Rome. My boys asked if I could. My answer was not appreciated. I said I could not live in any time where women were not free and mostly equal, and where they did not have underwear. They did not understand that comment. So I explained the importance of underwear to women. They were not hungry after that.
We did eat typical Lyonaise fair and had a great time. We really enjoyed our day, minus the underwear discussion.
So two Fridays ago my hiking club walked to the Gorges du Chauderon outside of old Montreux. It was a very nice walk up the mountain through the woods with friends. A couple of us commented on how it looked like the set for Jurassic Park, and we wondered in a T-Rex would come out of the forest and eat us like a poor goat. Fortunately, that did not happen. But it coulda!
Then, a little further along I commented on how it actually could be scenes from "The Hobbit" or "Lord Of The Rings." I was ready to look for my precious.
My lovely friend said that she did not like those movies and has never seen them. I gasped, "What!" Well I am not a Hobbit fan either. But you have to watch LOTR just for Vigo Mortensen alone! Especially because he is dirty a lot. Again, she had no clue what, or should I say whom, I was talking about. Again, gasp! What! So I showed her this...
Now she understood. Then I told her he was on my list. Again, confusion. What?! These Brits and Europeans missed the classic "Friends" episode (season 2 ep. 8 "The One With The List")! So I explained the list to them.
I think they thought I was crazy. But that is a given. I mean the theme song to my life is Ozzy's "Crazy Train." Duh! But it took our minds off of waiting for a raptor to corner us in a field and attack us.
