For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth. Colossians 1:16

Monday, October 8, 2012

On Friday evening, Randy suggested that we go to Annecy for the afternoon on Saturday.  After we finished up at church in the morning, we picked up Anthony (one of the guys from church) and headed out for the Alps.  After a little bit of a drive, we arrived in a town that was straight out of Beauty and the Beast.  It probably wouldn't have given me the slightest surprise if townsfolk started popping out of the upstairs windows singing "Belle" while we walked about town.  But alas, I don't live in a Disney movie, so we began a walk around the lovely lake there which reflected the tops of mountains and sailboats bobbed up and down with the waves.  About every five minutes, Anthony would call out to Randy to wait because I had stopped to take pictures.  I may have looked like a tourist, but hey, I was.

 After an hour or so of walking along the shoreline, we walked through town, over quaint bridges that every American who ever thinks of a small French town imagines, past old stone buildings, brightly painted apartment buildings, and dozens of souvenir shops.  While we were standing by a bridge trying to figure out if we needed to make a reservation at the restaurant at which we wanted to eat, a woman came up to me and asked if I spoke English.  Without thinking, I said "Oui, je parle Anglais."  Because that's helpful. Luckily, I had nodded as I answered and she was so excited about how lovely the town was that she didn't noticed I had answered her in French.  I took a couple pictures for her, and we started chatting about what a lovely town Annecy is, and found out that she was from D.C. and beginning a little European tour with a friend of hers.  After a little while, she continued on her way and we went off to try to get into a restaurant for fondue.  Unfortunately, this particular restaurant required reservation a week in advance for Saturday nights!  So, we found another restaurant but they weren't going to be open for another forty minutes.  And what is the best way to spend forty minutes before eating fondue?  That's right, getting ice cream.  We stopped at different stands, got our ice cream of choice, and waited on a bridge near the restaurant until they opened at 7.  Randy and I explained to Anthony that in the U.S. restaurants would open around 4 for the early dinner crowd, and throughout the course of one evening, tables could be turned over five or six times.  Here, the table that gets taken first is basically that party's table for the night.  Just one example of the cultural differences.

Neither Anthony nor I had ever eaten fondue before coming to Annecy.  I mean, I've had chocolate fondue, but never cheese fondue.  Good gracious me, it was delicious.  After a lovely meal, we headed back to the car, bid farewell to the lovely town that had entertained us for the afternoon, and started the drive home.





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