La Vie En Rose (really in "pink")

I'll start this posting with a Conor Update:

First, the bad news.  I dropped Conor off at "La Creche" (a.k.a. daycare) this morning and toute etait bien (all was well).  Around lunchtime, I got a call that something was wrong.  I couldn't totally understand but it sounded like something was wrong with his eye.  Something that sounded a lot like "conjunctivitis."  Isn't that pinkeye, I wondered.  Indeed it is.  The poor guy has a case of pinkeye in his right eye.  We have to apply eye drops and this orange ointment which he hates.

Additionally, all day at work people were telling James how tired he looked.  He thought it was strange because we had an incredibly mellow Sunday and both of us got a great night's sleep.  After looking in the mirror, he thinks he also has pinkeye in both eyes! I'm sure my pinkeye isn't far behind. 

Second, the good news.  While we were at the pediatrician's getting all the pinkeye medications, the pediatrician discovered that two teeth broke through.  I'm a little concerned because they do not appear to be coming in straight.  Maybe I shouldn't be surprised considering Conor's British heritage and my own long history of dental issues.  I'm also concerned about what this will soon mean for breastfeeding and biting!  So ... maybe this isn't such good news (for me at least). 

In other news, while Conor was apparently in the throes of teething, the three of us spent Friday night and Saturday in Zurich.  Our friend Parag came along as well.  Here's a pic of Parag:

Zurich
We only spent about 24 hours in Zurich so I don't have much insight into the city, its people, or Switzerland in general.  We decided to go because James and the other IRCAD (where James works) fellows had a meeting on Friday at Karl Storz - an endoscope company located in BFE Germany.  Zurich is less than 2 hours from Karl Storz so, we figured, why not check it out.

We had to get up pretty early on Friday to make it to Karl Storz and James had offered to give some of the other fellows a ride.  Much to our (my) horror, our car had been utterly violated during the night by a flock of pigeons:

This picture barely does the carnage justice.  Bird shit was everywhere - on the door handles, in the windows, everywhere!  And, I'm positive it wasn't there the night before.  Furthermore, I've since walked by other cars parked in the same spot and none have been shit on like this.  Could it be some sort of bird conspiracy?  Just something to think about ...

Anyway, back to Zurich.  Like I said, only being in a city for 24 hours is not enough to really form any opinions.  Its definitely a very beautiful city.  The lake is framed in the background by huge, snow-covered mountains (I assume these were the Alps but I'm too lazy to confirm this with what would probably be a 20-second google search).  Here are a couple pics:

Conor looked especially cute during our walk in his fur lined jacket:

In addition to cruising around the lake, we tasted some excellent cookies at a famous chocolate shop.  We did not taste any chocolates because the cookies looked too good to pass up.  We also ate some delicious Lebanese and Italian food.  I guess that bring up one of my issues with Switzerland ... is there Swiss cuisine other than chocolate and fondue?  Also, Switzerland is very expensive.  From the exorbitant prices, designer boutiques and multiple Bentley's we saw around town, its obvious the Swiss have money.  But, do they have any personality? Any culture.  Again, 24 hours was too short a time to tell. 

Paris

Last weekend I (yup ... "I" in the singular) went to Paris to hang out with Lauren and Ben for their last weekend in France.  James is studying like a madman for his surgery boards in November and was nice enough to offer to watch Conor for the weekend so he could hang back and study while I took off for a little adventure. 

The TGV (which was luckily running even though another strike was supposedly happening) from Strasbourg to Paris takes only about 2 hours and is quite a nice way to travel.  No security so you can bring your shampoo.  Reasonably priced wine and beer available.  No stops.

I hadn't been to Paris for about a decade but even a ten year long absence didn't make me want to re-visit the main Paris attractions. Luckily, Lauren and Ben were also interested in just hanging out so we had a great day wandering around the Marais.  For lunch, we had some delicious oysters and crepes and shared two bottles of cider.  Exactly my kind of meal.

You may remember from a past post that I compared French strikes to Fourth of July parades.  Maybe the Strasbourgeoisie are better behaved than Parisians because we came across the following post-manifestation carnage while strolling around:

It actually was kind of artistic in its own way. 
For dinner, we ate at Derriere http://derriere-resto.com/restaurant/paris/derriere/, which is equal parts restaurant and fraternity house.  None of us could concentrate on ordering drinks because our cocktail waitress was basically topless (think see through lace t-shirt with chunky cardigan covering everything but her chest).  Our table was directly behind the ping pong table.  The food was average and expensive but we had a great time nonetheless and stayed out until a respectable 2:30 a.m.

CONOR UPDATE:  Its getting cold!  Which means I get to start dressing the man in all the adorable winter clothes I've bought for him (at the used baby clothing store where I'm a frequent shopper).  Here's an example:

You can't tell from this picture but the red thing is actually a full body "costume" which I have to zip him into.  I've had to learn to zip from upside down and around since there is no such thing as sitting still anymore for Mr. Man. 

Finally, for those of you (Garrett) who were outraged that you could not link to Rob Mac Myer's myspace page to listen to his American Country-Folk music a la francais, here is the link again:

http://www.myspace.com/robmacmyer

Upcoming Posts:
The Most Amazing Daycare Ever
All Your Questions Answered About What James Is Doing Over Here
All Your Questions Answered About What Jenn Is Doing Over Here (just kidding ... blogging, obviously)
The Famers' Market I Can See From Our Window (Almost)

Coontry Mewsique (that's French for Country Music)

We had a big night last night.  We stayed out past midnight to watch Robert Myer (a native Alsacian) play classic American Country music.  The song clips on his myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/robmacmyer)%20don't do him justice as his voice is amazing.  He sounds a lot like Eddie Vedder.  He played a great rendition of John Denver's "Contry Roads"- a song which always makes me feel very patriotic. 

However, the comical highlight was when he played Keep on the Sunny Side.  You might know this song as it was covered in O Brother Where Art Thou.  Every - I mean each and every - French person in the bar knew every word.  It was quite a bizarre sing along where I knew the chorus but then listened to the French people for the rest of the lyrics (pasted below).  All in all a very enjoyable night. 

James had fun and was reminded his Alabama roots.  The music also reminded him of the following funny little ditty which I'll share with you.  Here goes:  "But where I come from, rain is a good thing.  Rain makes corn and corn makes whiskey.  And whiskey makes my baby, a little friskey."

For those of you wondering where Conor was for our big Wednesday night out (i.e. his grandparents), we left him with our new babysitter, Ariel.  She is an American foreign exchange student in Strasbourg for the year.  She's from Colorado Springs.  She's very nice and lives two doors down from us so its very convenient.  I feel like I was the one doing the babysitting not so long ago so the whole role reversal thing is a bit strange.  I wonder if she thinks we're cool young parents (obviously the case) or that we're old and unrelatable.   I probably try too hard so its probably the latter :)

Conor Update:  Conor is a rolling over machine these days.  There's no stopping him.  Today I had to change his dirty diaper (a very dirty one if you know what I mean) from behind as he tried to jump off the changing table.  At one point I had him by one leg as he was simultaneously doing his best to dip the other in poop and lunge in the other direction.  

I don't have any new pictures to post so here's one from a few weeks ago:

for those of you still reading, I was just about to post when I came accross this rediculous piece of journalism in sfgate: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=74547&tsp=1.   Should our politicians really be worried about the "ins and outs of urban living" for BIRDS!!  I'm officially starting the "lights on San Francisco" campaign against birds. 

Keep On The Sunny Side

There's a dark and a troubled side of life

There's a bright and a sunny side, too

Tho' we meet with the darkness and strife

The sunny side we also may view

[chorus]

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,

Keep on the sunny side of life

It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way

If we'll keep on the sunny side of life

The storm and its fury broke today,

Crushing hopes that we cherish so dear;

Clouds and storms will, in time, pass away,

The sun again will shine bright and clear.

Let us greet with the song of hope each day

Tho' the moment be cloudy or fair

Let us trust in our Saviour always

Who keepeth everyone in His care^[3]

Maybe You've heard that French people like to go on strike ...

In the past month there has been a strike about once a week over Sarkozy's proposed reforms of the retirement systems.  These strikes are actually quite festive (think Fourth of July parade) and totally peaceful.  However, they cause massive disruptions to the public transportation system and general functioning of the government.  At a birthday party last night, someone confessed that these strikes have no hope of changing anything and that Sarkozy's reforms are sure to get pushed through. 

My favorite is the picture of the strikers passing the Hermes store.

STRASblog #1

Fun Fact: Did you know that in the 1800's, Alsactions slept in a semi upright position?  It's true.  They slept sitting up in these short little cubby-like beds with a ton of pillows bunched up behind them. 

According to Karen Roeper, who learned this fact with me during her visit to Strasbourg:  "They didn't even know they were uncomfortable."

We've been here over a month now and we're comfortably settled into our apartment.  After weeks of waiting (and a few tears at the internet store), we FINALLY got internet, telephone and cable set up at home.  The silver lining to this laborious process was that in the month we were here sans wireless at home, Conor and I spent a lot of time walking around and I think we've been on every little rue in this whole town.  With all that exploring, I can now navigate Strasbourg pretty well - especially the shops and my favorite used baby clothing store :)

We've had two great visits from friends in the US so far.  First, Jamey Carman's mom, Karen, spent a few days with us last week.  We had a blast.  I picked her up at the airport in our new car.  Literally, it was our brand new car because I took the tram to the dealership, picked up the car and then went directly to the airport to get Karen.  Here's a picture of us in front of Strasbourg's amazing cathederal:

Ben and Lauren (the Munsons or the Thurmonds ... depending on who you ask) also visited us this past weekend.  We showed them around Strasbourg for a couple of days, but then decided to get out of town and go on our first road trip.  We headed southeast down the A35 to Bourgogne, one of France's most famous wine regions where they are known for their Pinot Noirs.  On Friday night, we had eaten at a great restaurant in Strasbourg and really enjoyed our Bourgognian wine.  So, we entered the town the wine was from into Mappy (our new sassy GPS) and off we went.  We ended up locating the winery, which was really the wine maker's house, and ended up finding the wine we had liked so much at dinner.  Now we have several bottles to enjoy in the comfort of our apartment.

After winetasting we headed to La Chouette Qui Chante, the B&B we found at the last minute.  It was adorable and run by the nicest British couple.  Here's a link to their site in case you're planning a weekend in Bourgogne:

http://www.b-break.co.uk/3.html

Here's a picture of the house (converted barn) we stayed in:

On Sunday, we explored a medieval village and, of course, treated ourselves to a nice big lunch.  I had the Boeuf Bourguignon because when in Bourgogne ...

Here are some more pics of our day:

Now we're back at home and waiting for our next round of visitors.  Hopefully that will be Garrett and Jess who've promised to come visit us for Thanksgiving!

CONOR UPDATE: Conor did great on our roadtrip and, in general, is loving France.  He started going to a Creche parentale, which is like a daycare but way better.  I'll write more about this on a separate post.  Suffice it to say that he's cuter than ever and very close to starting to crawl.  Here are some recent pics:

For those of you who are still reading, I'd like to eat at this place upon re-entry into the Bay Area: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/10/FDJ11FH656.DTL

A La Prochaine (until next time),

Jenn