The french are most definitely not a$$holes

after molly's healthy lambastation (yeah, i made that word up) of me and my rick steves tendencies, i have nothing to say except my work will be in the infamous Rick Steves' newsletter before her. (It's a bet - go!)

(rick bet spoiler alert: if she beats me, she will have indirectly eaten all her rick-bashing words; if i win, i win twice:)

so, setting aside the domestic squabbles, a quick update is in order. for christmas and new years we took to the road with our sights on gay Par-ee to meet up with jr and his petit ami (jess). jr's sister hennessy was visiting for a few weeks and jess' bruder gene arrived christmas day so jr's 300 sq.-meter apartment was comfortably cramped.

although the drive to paris took a full 3 hours longer than our gps unit "Ingrid" said (ok, we had a few "detours" in the French countryside looking for gas stations and the drug deal in the french ghetto we just couldn't take our eyes off of), we entertained ourselves with made-up games like, memory "you smell like A,B,C ..." and the "sing a strand of songs following the last word" game which ended abruptly with the word "orange."

in addition, the french music, which is actually in french, rocked. (unlike german radio, which is mostly recycled american top 40 -- they sure love them some richard marx).

another joy - the french toll booth operators -- rrrrrrr! it seemed like most of the toll booth workers were cute, 20-something girls -- the kind of toll booth operators you almost don't mind giving $30 to for a 4-mile stretch of road. i'm pretty sure i made a lasting impression with my fluent "bonsoir!" and my nervous "ca va" response to one girl's "au revoir."

(for the record, "ca va" is like the word "smurf" -- it can mean anything and everything: "how are you" "i'm good" "let's get coffee" or "i think the asparagus gave me gas and we should find a drug store quick." it is rumored frenchmen have had entire conversations with only those 2 words.)

anywho, we spent much of the trip catching up with old friends over wine and a few cheese boards, seeing the sights and games of farkle and chess.

molly and i also took a 2-day trip to the loire valley (more toll booth operators!) for some wine tasting and to see a chateau or two. ok, we were chat-ted out after chenonceau, but we'd recommend at least one chateau if you go.

we had really positive interactions with the french and got a good feel for the culture, so much so that our french vocabulary rivaled our german. but after more than a week it was time to say au revoir -- to our friends, the awesome food and, of course, the toll operators.