A Tribute to Ilham . . . who lost part of herself this weekend.

This posting is dedicated to Ilham who literally lost a part of herself this past weekend when she had her appendix taken on. On her birthday no less! And at the sacrafice of her holiday in St Tropez with Pascual. Poor thing! So here is a big round of good wishes for a swift recovery!

Happily she is recovering well and should be going home from the hospital early this week. That's what we're all hoping anyhow, a swift and full recovery so we can go play in France together in a few weeks.

Honestly, this may have been one of the most low-key weekends I've spent in Lausanne yet. Saturday Andrea and I just kind of took it easy (in between hospital visits that is) and wandered around Lausanne. We found this fantastic little boutique that just opened run by a kind crazy, way out there, gay Frenchman who is opening a restaurant upstairs. He dressed me in the most outrageous clothes, fabulous, but I truly think I'll need another year in Europe at least before I would ever be comfortable in anything so fashion forward. I walked out the dressing room at one point in baggy, low-slung shorts that hit below my knee, a sheer beige tank layered with another longer black top, then the guy slung some belt around my waist that looked like a sliver version of Wonder Woman's belt, some arm cuffs and a funky pair of sandals later and Andrea took one look at me with her mouth open and said "You look like you just walked off the pages of Vogue." Yup, a little too much for this ungirly girl. But fun to play dress-up for a little while.

After that we chilled with Mehdi and his friend Rami for drinks, went out to a Latin club and ended up just lounging at Andrea's hotel room in the Lausanne Palace for the rest of the night.

Sunday we had a visit with Ilham to wish her a happy birthday and then went down to the lake, and walked through some massive clouds of bugs before settling ourselves down at the Beau Rivage for lunch and afternoon sun.

Low-key and relaxing, definitely a change from most of our weekends together, but absolutely fantastic nonetheless. Hard to believe that Andrea will be gone in just three more weeks.

Oh! Last thought and image from this trip. On the way home I saw the most fantastic sunset over the clouds. Absolutely beautiful.

Parties, Inventories and Debra Winger

So this past weekend I was down doing my usual weekend in Lausanne with Andrea (I swear between Andrea and work Lausanne is like my summer home . . . ), although this time it was for the bittersweet purpose of helping Andrea pack up and inventory her apartment. Of course that didn't mean we weren't out having fun. Including a late night at the club, and a rather entertaining Mexican party at her friend Marcos's castello on the lake. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Friday night I arrived, met up with Mehdi, Ilham, Andrea, Ben and Vanessa (we've got quite a little crew going on these days). And I finally got to meet Andrea's friend Rania from Cairo. And (it's such a small world), it turns out that Rania is friends with the older brother of my college friend Saadia. Amazing. . . and random.

A crazy long night out at the club dancing led well into morning and a full day of Andrea going through her house while Ilham, Rania and I went out for a quick coffee. And no we were not abandoning Andrea! She had people coming by all day to pick up things that she had either sold or given away. It was a fun morning, a little shopping, a little coffee, lots of good conversation about Ilham's new business venture, The Wedding Architect. Very fun.

And that night we did the Mexican party that I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately it was pouring rain when we left to head there (and Andrea had decorated the yard so nicely!), but we arrived to a sea (ok maybe 40 people) of white. . . everyone looked amazing. And what a party. Marcos's friend from Mexico had cooked up the most amazing food (where they found Mexican ingredients in Switzerland I have no idea), the music was going, people were dancing. . . it was great. In fact I stepped away to take a quick phone call and by the time I got back Rania and Ilham were in the middle of a circle belly dancing! Not sure how that happened . . . and let me tell you they both were highly sought after for the rest of the night. . . :)

Now you may be wondering where Debra Winger comes into this weekend. . . well, as we're about to leave the party, this very random, quite intoxicated Spanish man came up to me. This is how our conversation went:

Random Spanish Man: "I'd like to tell you something in Spanish."

Me: "Um, ok." At which point he starts babbling in Spanish, and I'm standing there nodding my head with no idea what he's saying.

He finishes and I say: "I have no idea what you just said."

Random Spanish Man: "Let me translate in French."

Me: "Well, that won't do much good, I don't speak French."

Random Spanish Man: "OK, let me try English."

At this point, he's babbling at me in English and I can barely understand him because of his accent, so he finishes. I say thank you, he gives me a kiss on the cheek and I turn to Andrea and say, "I think it's time to go."

Before I can even get to the door Random Spanish Man is back with one last parting statement, "You look like a young Debra Winger from 'An Officer and a Gentleman'." And then, another kiss on the cheek and he turned and walked back to his friends.

OK. Right. I don't see it, but it's a random yet flattering comparison so I'll take it.

We finished the night off at Ilham's with amazing food (especially since it was 4am!). Moroccan sardines with tomatoes and spices, omelettes with Moroccon dried meat and of course cheese and crackers. . . by far the best late night snack I've had in ages! And then home by 5 am only to be up 5 hours later to start the valued inventory of Andrea's house.

All in all a pretty fantastic final weekend in Chez Fleitas! Although of course I'm headed down at least one or two more times before Andrea finally makes it off the continent. . . .

The moments I know I'm truly living in another country . . . .

They happen, quite often, but sometimes there's just something that's so glaringly different from home that I just burst out into laughter.

Take last night for instance. When I opened up the mailbox imagine my surprise to find not mail, but a handwritten note (in English) asking me to kindly sort my garbage the proper way. Now keep in mind that garbage sorting in Germany is a fairly complicated endeavor. They have four (yes four!) different garbage cans out front that you're supposed to deposit your garbage in. One for old packaging and paper, one for recyclable plastics and such, one for glass, and one for everything else that doesn't fit into the other three. Now I thought that I was doing a pretty good job at all of this after four months, but apparently not.

But honestly! Would that ever happen in America? I think not! No one would bother taking the time to sort through the garbage to see who wasn't following the rules. That's life in Germany though!

Marrakech

Another amazing weekend trip with Andrea (whatever am I going to do when she's moved back to the States permanently!). This time we headed to Morocco with her friend Mehdi (now my friend as well) to spend the weekend relaxing and soaking up the sun. Since it was 45 C almost the entire weekend I can't say we did too much sightseeing, but what I did see was pretty incredible.

Before I get to Marrakech though, I have to make a comment about the airport at Madrid. It may be one of the most beautiful, welcoming airport spaces I've ever been in. I actually didn't mind the fact that I had to spend almost three hours laying over. Apparently the airport terminal was designed by a guy named Richard Rogers who also designed London's Millennium Dome and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He received a pretty major prize for the design and it's obvious why. I hardly felt like I was in an airport while I was there.

After that I flew to Marrakech from Madrid surrounded by a group of slightly intoxicated, definitely amiably rowdy Spaniards. And I have to say, having grown up listening to Spanish spoken by Latin Americans and Mexicans, you can definitely, absolutely tell the difference between Latinos speaking Spanish and Spaniards speaking Spanish. There is definitely a bit of a lisp with the Spaniards. But I do really like the language, I think once I master German (ha!), then Spanish will be next on the list.

My first thought when I saw Marrakech as the plane came in for the landing was how the desert must have pushed up from sand dunes into sandy buildings. The entire city is the same color as the desert around it except for a few patches of green where agriculture is being forced. It was beautiful with the sun setting over it. And hot. As soon as I walked off the plane onto the tarmac it was like walking into an oven. The passport control was semi-organized chaos with no pens for the declaration cards and no direction as to what line anyone was supposed to get into. But it ended quickly and I found myself walking out to Andrea and Mehdi's very warm welcome.

Thursday night was a pretty traditional Moroccan meal complete with soaring carved wooden ceilings and belly dancers! It brought into even sharper focus how ridiculous I must have looked when I attempted a belly dancing class almost 6 years ago. Somehow an American girl trying those moves looks crazy, but a Moroccan woman. . . .that's a totally different story. The food was unreal, tagine with slow roasted beef and an apricot chutney over couscous, a delicious pastry filled with seafood, and of course excellent company.

Friday and Saturday days we spent at a place called Nikki Beach, a very cool club/pool/bar place where they have DJs playing all day long, good drinks and food, and tennis courts. It was honestly so hot you couldn't really do much besides lounge by the pool, swim and have a drink but it was fantastic. Medhi, Andrea, Mehdi's friend Yasmina and I played tennis in the early evening (it was still scorchingly hot) which was fun. I think I've forgotten all those things I was supposed to have learned in tennis class, but no worries just because I can't serve anymore doesn't mean we couldn't get some decent volleys going.

Friday night we went to the Jemaa market which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I had the most unbelievably sweet, refreshing and crisp orange juice I've ever tasted in my life. You drink a sip of this juice and I promise you it brings oranges to life on your tongue. Little bits of pulp pop open in your mouth and you just want to keep drinking it forever. I could have stood there all night and had orange juice but we moved on to have dinner too. I do think street food is my favorite type of dining. And here, Mehdi was telling me that they now have inspectors to make sure that things are sanitary. Delicious kebabs, fried aubergines and this amazing spicy red sauce that I don't know the name of. It was funny, Mehdi was instructing me on the proper way to eat the kebabs (with bread, some tomato sauce and this red pepper sauce). I love that aspect of traveling with locals from other countries. You learn so much more about the culture and the food and the people.

The market square itself is incredible. It must have been close to 11pm when we were there and the square was pulsing with groups of people. There were circles of locals standing around musicians singing, women offering henna applications, carnival type games where you had to get a ring around the top of a bottle of soda, snake charmers with wooden snakes, children selling flowers. . . . . it could have been the middle of the day if it hadn't been dark out. The smoke from the cooking stalls billowed out from the lights and there were rows of stands selling dried apricots, salted nuts, sugared nuts, chains of dried figs, dates. . . amazing and delicious. I could have spent days wandering around sampling foods, drinking orange juice and taking pictures, but we only had that night. Which means of course that I am going to go back just as soon as I can. And now I have several new friends that I can visit in Casablanca so that makes it even more fun for me.

At one point, Mehdi commented on the fact that Andrea, he and I were all sitting together, having a fantastic weekend and there we were a Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew. No worries, no conflicts, no stress. This is probably one of my favorite parts about traveling and living abroad.

So the last night in Marrakech was a night for the clubs. We went to this really fantastic club (actually a Marlboro sponsored club which was kind of cool because I got to see some of the work we'd done actually in a space). It was called Pacha. the DJ was pretty good, mostly electronic type music but some really nice stuff. I could have danced there till I had to get on the plane the next day, but somehow we made it home by 6am. Enough time for me to sleep a few hours, stumble out of bed, get Mehdi to stumble off the couch and head to the airport.

All in all a pretty spectacular weekend yet again.

Happy 4th of July!

Fireworks over Chicago

Just a quick note to say Happy Independence Day! I can't say there's much of a celebration going on here in Frankfurt this fine, rainy day but I have no doubts that there are lots of fireworks and bbqs going on at home.

I definitely miss the madness of the Taste of Chicago and having the chance to watch fireworks from Emily's balcony, but the street festivals in Frankfurt aren't half bad and every now and then they put on a fairly, ok slightly, respectable fireworks display. So I still get a little bit of the celebration now and then.

Happy 4th from Frankfurt!

A toast to Toast!

Vanessa, Andrea and I

This past weekend I headed down to Lausanne, my home away from home in Europe, to spend a weekend celebrating with my lovely Andrea before she heads back home to the States in August to become a brand new entrepreneur!

In keeping with the spirit of Andrea's new Wine Bar venture that she will be starting when she moves to Florida, it was an amazing weekend full of fantastic company and incredible Italian wines. The wines were provided courtesy of wine lover extraordinaire Stuart Prichard who also regaled us with details on the wine which came from his personal collection (Stuart, I'm sorry to say it, but I think we stopped listening to your explanations by the third bottle we tasted). Superb eggplant napoleon's followed the wine tasting served up with panache by Ilham in practice for her newest venture (for those getting married in Europe I highly recommend you check her out at: TheWeddingArchitect and yes I know this is a shameless plug for my friend, but she really is pretty fantastic at this).

After drinking and eating and talking for well over 5 hours, the dancing began at the house and it was pretty much madness after that. . . . yet another unforgettable weekend at Chez Fleitas! In the company of new friends (for me) and old friends, it was a bittersweet conclusion to Andrea's seven years in Lausanne, and I have to say that even though I'm incredibly sad that she's leaving now that I've finally arrived in Europe, I am so excited for her new adventure as an entrepreneur and owner of a fabulous new wine bar in Florida! I can't wait to be there for the opening!