Wine, Eurovision and croque monsieurs

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Saturday was an open day for our local wine region, which incidentally produces very drinkable, very reasonably priced wine that the Swiss seem to snub. To get there we took a bus, changed to an extremely crowded train, got out a stop early, and then walked up a hill to discover we could see our apartment from the vineyards. We spent the morning wandering through a few cellars, and then walked home.

That evening we took a local white and a heap of strawberries and cheese to a Eurovision house party. We watched beautiful people from miscellaneous European countries try to sing and dance, and then we watched people from Ukraine dressed in silver space outfits jump around like aluminium Wiggles. For me there was no question. The Ukranians were a standout. They were better than the toilet paper tree. Better than the air hostess outfits. And most importantly, they were better than Serbia, who ranked bottom of the party poll but won the actual award because they had more friends. The UK can only count Ireland as a friend, so they come last every year. The year the UK invaded Iraq they received zero points: not one single point from even one country. It’s obviously a song contest where singing counts for pretty much zero.

Sunday we wandered Lac Leman, marveling at how many people still use roller skates and wear eighties knits and hairdos. Much of Europe seems to have been caught in a time warp. During our walk two separate groups picked Doug out of the crowd to ask for his photography services, which indicates how long it’s been since he cut his hair. For lunch we each had a drink and a jambon et fromage croque monsieur (ham and cheese toasted sandwich), and we walked out $20 poorer. We now think this is outstanding value.

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Photos

Doug in le cave...
...buying bottles of crisp cool white!

Some yummy horse...
...served at some random restaurant in the hills...still in Switzerland but feels like France!