Venture more

Has anything ever happened to you that defied explanation?

Me too! I had finished up my dose of reading for the day, and it was late. But no matter how much I kind of wanted to have my smoothiesnacktime and get some sleep, I went on ahead and met my friends at The Capital, which has a Guiness Record of some sort for widest beer selection (I might

have made that up) {I will leave that up to you, reader} So we had two beers (both of which were new for me and both equally delicious) then we decided to have some whiskey by the river. To “top if off” we went for some pizza. While enjoying our pizza, Antonia went to make friends with the owner and learn why they changed locations. During her venture, a semi-familiar face joined James and I at our table. After a few looks, I remembered him as the owner of an Italian restaurant we had visited a month or so ago for some limoncello. He sat for a while, bought us all a Stella, made us laugh, had a piece of our pizza, then invited us to his restaurant to make us pasta. Before ya knew it, we were on our way to La Rotonda and upon arrival, he pulls out more stellas for us and flips on some music. In no time, he had whipped up probably the best penne and tomato meat sauce I’ve had in years, topped with basil and parmesan (obviously), drizzled with jalapeno oil.  It took some perseverance, but I scraped every bit from my plate with my bread. After all, living several years with Ferracano had trained me for this. As if this weren’t enough, he opened another round of Stellas then showed us how he makes fresh pizzas which were also superb. When the time came to head home, he wouldn’t accept any money, and my claim hours earlier for an infinite appetite for food was proven false.

Sometimes things happen, and less questions are better.

Strasbourg, France (Photo credit: Beatrice Thompson)

A few days later, some friends and I rented a car and drove to a cottage in Vienville, France.  I drove the Mercedes to Strasbourg, France where we picked up Meredith. She and Maxim showed around, to the beautiful cathedral and to enjoy some French cuisine for dinner. We split a bottle of wine and I tried a dish called Rilette De Canard, a duck meat spread on good toast. It was alright, made better paired with some of my bud’s zucchini and cheese version of the dish. We shared. From there, we took on the last leg of our trip, arriving at our cottage around 11 at night.

We really had a nice time: reading, writing, drinking, sleeping, and eating extraordinarily well. 

Being in the Lorraine Forest area, we did some hiking too; some more than others.

 One particularly pleasant evening was spent by the fire, sipping whiskey and wine while Merideth read and translated a story from French The Little Prince. I want to know what happens.

On our last day there, a few of us took the day to visit Colmar.
We picked just about the perfect time to visit this town: before the summer tourist rush, yet just in time for pleasant weather and vibrant Easter decorations. I was awestruck by the entire day, the brilliant, even eccentric environment and also my absolutely lovely companions, it was just about too many awesome things to handle at once.

From there we went to visit a vineyard. This company, The Adam’s Family, impressed me by the pride they took in the integrity of their product. They care for their wine such that rather than tilling their land with heavy machinery, they use horses. The bottle they sell their wine in has a design unique to their company, and no one else may use that design.

The following destination was a village called Riquewihr, a village with brilliant colors and medieval style where we bought treats and more wine.  Our path through the town brought us by a patio where a group was loudly chanting. In one of the shops, we were asked if we were the ones invading the city for theweekend. We were not.                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Before making our way home back home, we scaled up a grape vineyard embedded in a steep hill; we saw the whole village and then some from up top.

And just like that, it was time to head back to Leuven. On the way, we stopped for a picnic lunch at a castle, Haut Koeningsbourg. We were short on time, but we managed to return the car in time; James drove us all the way home with great focus and care.