Family

Working and living overseas can be exciting and fun but there are downsides to it as well. For us, one of the downsides is being apart from family. Even when we lived in Canada, we were separated from our families by great distances, but we were still in the same country, celebrating the same holidays, experiencing the same weather and watching the same sports. Now we feel even more isolated from everyone.

Luckily, we've had family visiting over the past two weeks. First my aunt and uncle came to Paris to celebrate their 30th Wedding Anniversary and then Lori's aunt and cousin met in Paris and stayed with us as well. It was a busy two weeks, but it was a lot of fun. Lori and I hadn't been to the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre in almost a year, so it was nice to see all that again. Our next visitors aren't scheduled until June of next year when Lori's mom and aunt are coming to visit, so I have a few months before I have to brave the hordes of tourists trying to snap photos of the pyramids outside the Louvre.

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Raclette

My aunt and uncle are visiting this week to celebrate their 30th Wedding Anniversary. They are having a great time exploring Paris and we are having fun touring the city as well. Now that we live here, we forget about all the cool places we discovered when we first got here.

Since we have company, we thought it would be a good time to try out our Raclette grill. Raclette is a traditional Swiss dish, but it's popular in the Alpine region of France as well. The grill was given to us by a co-worker of Lori's who didn't want it. The idea is to grill your meat (typically ham or other cured meats) and vegetables on top, while you melt your cheese in little trays underneath at the same time. Then you pour the melted cheese over your ham or potatoes or whatever you are grilling. We had three different types of Raclette cheese. It's very mild and it melts very well. It is a similar experience to Fondue, where it's very social and you cook your food at the table while talking and drinking wine.

It was a lot of fun and very delicious. In fact, it was so good that I forgot to take a picture of the food covered in cheese. I was too busy eating.

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Munich Part 2

I hope everyone back in Canada is having a great Thanksgiving weekend with lots of turkey and pumpkin pie. I am very jealous. I did have a pretty good weekend myself, I was in Munich with my buddy Brad. I have been to Munich already, but it was during Oktoberfest so I didn't get to explore much of the city and surrounding area.

http://bevand53.blogspot.fr/2013/10/munich.html

Brad is still in the military and was on his way to Oberammergau for a course and he came in a few days early so we could meet up. We had a great time catching up over many of the local beers.

 We are also very big fans of the HBO series Band of Brothers and since we were in the area, we took a day trip to Berchtesgaden and the Eagles Nest. It's a beautiful area with great historical significance.

The Eagles Nest is now a restaurant and a tourist destination, which is understandable, but it was still a little odd to see. We both had an image in our head from the show and we were a little disappointed when the image didn't match reality. We were able to get inside and you could see where certain scenes were filmed. We also saw the Marble fireplace that was a birthday gift to Hitler from Mussolini.

It is still an impressive spot and quite moving when you consider what was planned here and at the Obersalzberg just below. It does feel a little weird that these places have become tourist destinations, but at the same time, the world should never forget what happened here.

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Party Time

Wow, I have not posted an entry since August. It was not intentional, I just didn't have anything to write about. It's funny how routine our life feels now. I'm not complaining, I like the stability, it's just very different from when we first got here and we had to see and experience everything before we left.

We have been focusing on getting our apartment set up the way we like with furniture and decorative items that Lori has added to the uncomfortable and ugly furniture provided. I have also been getting to know our neighbourhood merchants like the butcher, bakery and cheese shop. I even took a cooking lesson this past week. It was me and 7 women learning how to cook a leg of lamb.

It was fun, but I don't think I'll go again. We also threw ourselves a house warming party on Thursday night. Lori invited several of her work colleagues over to our place. I think we had 17 or 18 people in our apartment at one point. Thursday may seem like an unusual choice for a party but Lori discovered that weeknights are for friends and weekends are for family. It was a great success.

Lori also discovered a store that sells American and Canadian groceries and they deliver. In addition to Maple cookies and pancake mix, we bought several bottles of Clamato juice so I was able to introduce everyone to Caesars. They went over well.

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