Dinner and Monkeys

I had dinner with my host family from last year! It brought back so many great memories! Here are a few of them...

My former host mother is sort of an alcoholic. She can't get through the day without a good whiskey or gin and tonic. And that's before the bottle or so of wine with dinner. So of course, I was tipsy before the meal even began!

My former host father is hilarious! For example, their backyard is all dug up because they're having a swimming pool built, and he calls it their little "Iraq."

My former host mom is meticulous when it comes to being polite. She shudders if elbows are on the table, never serves things out of order, cuts cheese only with the special cheese knife, taps her wine glass on the table after it is poured only one third of the way full by the head of the household before taking a sip, stirs the salad only seconds before serving it to the guests, tells us exactly where to sit at the table and why (I don't know why but that's a french thing), etc.

She's a rockin cook!
Guests: Me, Gabriella (my boss), Schuyler (another intern), Christine (my former host mom), Alain (former host dad), Hortense and Amelie (former host sisters).
Menu:
Appetizers: Olive spread on mini breads, fancy cheese appetizers, olives, gin and tonic
Entree: Pork and ground beef stuffed roasted vegetables (they looked gross, but were DELICIOUS!)
Salad: Lettuce and salad dressing - simple but amazing
Bread and Cheese: 4 types of cheeses, and they were all out of this world
Dessert: Praline pie aka candied almond deliciousness which sounds weird but is amazing
and of course... great red wine!

After dinner, we went to this crazy Noctibules carnival festival thing in Annecy. The entire city was out and about - young and old. There were disco lights everywhere, insanely strong acrobatic people, a giant tin man dancing to live conga music, a strange man in a suit that made him like a sock-em toy so he rolled and bounced around, etc. Oh cultural arts!