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