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Published: August 2nd 2009
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Rob & Jean
discussing their favourite topic We arrived in Niedermorschwihr by car from Frankenthal. I realised on the way that we were actually one day earlier than planned - how did I do that? It dawned on me as I was looking at the calendar in my PDA/GPS and said to Lorenza, "you know it is Wednesday today". Sometimes travelling can stop your brain working properly?
It was great to be back in the land of cigognes, choucroute and Riesling. We were so happy to be driving from Strasbourg along the main highway in the direction of Colmar. The Vosges mountains to our right, with vineyards and villages in the foreground and the Alsace plain to our left full of maize, cabbage and other produce. Then we saw Mount Sainte Odile in the distance and Haut-Kœnigsbourg was clearly visible in the summer sky.
We took the long way via the rue des Vins and passed through familiar villages ending with "heim", "wihr" and "thal". This is where I feel my family names fits naturally into the landscape and matches the village and street names. My direct descendants may have left the region in the 1890's, but every time I visit I get a sense of
more food & wine
you are forgiven for thinking all we do is eat & drink connection - one of my Uncles described this same feeling when we visited together a few years ago.
Did we need an excuse to visit? One of the reasons for our visit was that it coincided with the Fête de la St Wendelin to be held on July 5th. I design and update the website for the association that maintains the twisted steeple of the local church. The committee had asked that the next time we visit Alsace they would like to meet with us and thank us for the work on the website. So, that was why we timed our visit to coincide with Saint Wendelin Day and why not come and visit when there is a celebration scheduled!
The speech writer Because we could not get to the south of France as we had thought we might, we invited our friend Florence to come visit in Alsace. We met with her in Arles in 2007 and wanted to try and meet up again. So, why not organise for her to fly to Strasbourg and come and stay for the weekend. As usual my cousins had a lot of people staying with them and they
organised for Florence to sleep at a neighbours house - that was so nice!
Luckily Florence did come visit, because I was told I would need to make a speech on the Sunday at the community hall as the committee wanted to make a small presentation to me. Florence got the job of helping to write the speech and check my pronunciation in French. I normally have no problem with public speaking, but the prospect of doing it in French had my nerves jangling!
At least if things went wrong on the day of the speech I could blame it on my speech writer from the south!
"the animal that is nothing" While writing the speech and having a few beers in Colmar, Lorenza and I noticed an animal of some sort swimming in the canal nearby. We asked Flo what it was and we were astonished to find out it is "nothing", or otherwise known as "the animal that is nothing" and "it is not really an animal, it is nothing". We still have no idea what this strange creature is, so if anyone knows the answer please contact us!
A house full of Jean & Lorenza
Where is your house from here? friends - old & new
It was so nice staying in such a full house. We met up with some lovely people from various parts of Europe - France (obviously), Germany, Switzerland, Italy, oh and us lovely Australians just to mix things up a bit! It was also great to see some familiar faces too. We had a lot of fun meeting Caroline's Italian friends. Plus, meeting up with the son of a German fellow we had worked on the grape harvest with back in 2005 was great also.
Our whole visit was full of fun and happiness - thanks so much!
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