A...u...g...u...s...t

Not much going on here, seriously. August is a REALLY slow month in France. Everyone is on vacation and many of the shops and restaurants have closed for the month. It even seems like the postmen are on vacation; we only got 1 piece of mail in 2 weeks time. I thought they forgot we still lived here. The cafeteria at Max's work site closed for 2 weeks too. My usual routine has been put on hold; the pool I go to is closed, my friends are out of town, and my AVF group has dispersed until late September.

(Reads: Annual closure, month of August 2010. Closed July 31 at 6:00pm, reopens Sept. 1 at 2:30pm. Happy vacation...)

Max and I usually stay pretty close to Chambery during this time of year too, since the roads are so congested with travelers. Needless to say, I've been getting a lot of cross stitching done, in between climbing the walls. I was really looking forward to the quiet time, but now I'm ready to start traveling again and to get back into my “normal” routine. That will all happen again before I know it. Do I really know what I'm asking for?!

Max's Trip to India as Told by Max

At the end of July, I spent one week in India for business. I was there to support a manufacturing plant located just outside of Mumbai. It was a very interesting trip. This time of year in Mumbai is the monsoon season. The monsoon starts in May or June and goes until late September. During this time, the weather is almost the same everyday, it rains about 1-2 inches per day in periods of light and heavy rain. We were lucky and almost saw the sun one morning. The upside to the rain is that everything is green and growing and it keeps the heat down to 80-90 degrees. The downside is that it is very humid and often muddy.

My Indian colleagues were very friendly and welcoming. They welcomed us with a traditional ceremony that included placing a red dot on our foreheads, lighting a large oil lamp and presenting us with flowers.

While the people were extremely nice and welcoming, the amount of poverty was striking at times. There are people everywhere. We were located some distance outside of Mumbai and all along the roads were small tents or simple concrete buildings were people live. The amount of construction and road traffic was amazing. Large apartment buildings were being built everywhere and many road projects underway. However, with all of the rains, the conditions of some roads were poor at best. Often drivers would drive into oncoming traffic to avoid large potholes. As one of my Indian colleagues put it, if you can drive in India, you can drive blindfolded in the US. As you can see in the picture below, you are looking at the front of several trucks and our rearview mirror on the front windshield of our car. I am just glad we had a driver.

And on top of worrying about the trucks, there were many of the these 3 wheel minicabs on the roads. They don't go very fast and often carry 5-6 people.

Overall it was a great trip. The people were fantastic and the food was good and spicy. After a week there, it was good to come back to France. I am looking forward to wherever my next interesting business trip takes me.

Rhone Valley Wine Tour with Jenifer & Karl

Shortly after Anna and Matt's wedding, my cousin Jenifer and her husband Karl came to visit us! They arrived in Geneva early Friday morning, and on Saturday, we decided to go wine tasting, since that had been on the list of things they wanted to do while in France. Max and I had not yet checked out the vineyards in the Rhone Valley and had been looking for any excuse to go...

The Rhone Valley runs along the Rhone River (above), south of Lyon and down past Avignon. Wine has been made here since Roman times and this used be a very popular wine producing area over a century ago. It is now said to be making its comeback. The region is divided into two sub-regions, north and south. We explored some of the tasting rooms in the northern region.

I have very recently, as in on this trip, become a big fan of the Viognier grape; no convincing was needed from Karl and Jenifer, who already know all about its wonderful flavor. This is the only grape used to make make wine from the appellations Condrieu (a new favorite) and Chateau Grillet.

Appellation, in terms I can understand, refers to the official place-name of the wine, the location where the grapes grew. There are a bunch of rules regulating the production of French wine and I am only beginning to comprehend them. I do know that only certain areas are allowed to grow and use certain grapes or combination of grapes for their wines.

We tasted over 25 wines from several appellations in the Rhone Valley. It was hard to keep track of them all! It was amazing to taste for ourselves how one bottle of wine could have the subtle flavors of cocoa and coffee while anothers had a rich, almost buttery taste. Many of the reds had a spicy taste, a characteristic commonly associated with the widely used Syrah grapes. We ended up taking 8 very different bottles home with us. We haven't been to Bordeaux yet, but the Rhone Valley has set the bar pretty high! I was very impressed.