Since I’m so behind in creating blog posts, I practically forgot about our Week 13 adventures! After searching my memory and consulting with Natalie and Jason, I did manage to recall the high (and, unfortunately) low points of this week.
Let me start out with the high points – I didn’t have any overnight guests by the name of Baboutcha, I got to go to DDC, Jason was home all week, which meant family dinners every night, and Natalie and Jason took me to Chamonix where I discovered a pleasant little stream perfect for tadpole fishing.
For the most part, I certainly can’t complain about my daily schedule and the weekend adventures I get to take part in. However, it seems like poor health and injuries are sometimes my friend, as was the case with this week.
Early on in the week, Natalie noticed that my tail looked a little (in her words) ‘gimp.’ Natalie was right in that something was definitely not right. My tail wouldn’t follow my emotions or my silent commands and when I tried to wag it, it wouldn’t really move and just shifted to one side.
This little ‘problem’ was quite a burden and painful, so much so that Natalie, Jason, and Otto from DDC (thanks Otto!) all agreed I should visit Dr. Luka, my veterinarian.
I obviously never look forward to a vet visit and this one was no exception. What made it worse was that Dr. Luka was not in and I had to see someone else. The Dr. was nice enough, but I am used to Dr. Luka.
At the vet, my back and tail got x-rayed and Natalie actually helped the vet do the x-rays, since the vet’s assistant was pregnant. I’m not sure how I felt about Natalie holding me down to get those pictures taken of my insides. She’s supposed to be my advocate, not help the vet in putting me through torture!
Well, the x-rays found nothing, so the vet just chalked it up to tendonitis, or something else unknown. Either way, going to the vet is never a fun visit, especially when there isn’t a solution for my problem.
Luckily, the tail slowly improved throughout the week, but I wasn’t allowed to play as hard, or dig. To this day, we don’t know what caused my ‘gimp’ tail. I’m happy the condition has finally gone away and I certainly hope this doesn’t happen again. Not being able to wag my tail is like Natalie and Jason not being able to smile.
My tail issues were the week’s low point for me. For Natalie and Jason, the tougher part of the week came towards the end at a certain festival called ‘Fêtes de Genève.’
Fêtes de Genève is an annual festival held along the water in downtown Geneva. The festival contains rides for all ages, from bumper cars to roller coasters that spin you up, down and sideways, plentiful amounts of fair food, concerts, and of course, many stations for cocktails, mocktails and the like!
Thousands of people visit Geneva each and every year for this festival and, in addition to the many tourists filling the streets and attempting to drive on the somewhat confusing roadways, the City of Geneva also closes down certain roads for the festival. One of those roads happens to be the one that leads to our house.
Now, Natalie and Jason are not necessarily festival people and the blockage of traffic definitely caused them to dislike festivals even more so than before!
Since Fêtes de Genève is such a big event for the city of Geneva, Natalie and Jason did feel obliged to at least walk through the festival during one evening in the middle of the week. They were actually pleasantly surprised! I stayed at home, of course. Festivals, with all the crowds, are really not my thing.
According to Natalie and Jason, the festival was not overly crowded. The food was good (they enjoyed Nutella crepes!) and the environment was lively. Natalie and Jason were quite mesmerized by this one particular roller coaster that hung people upside down at the very top of the ride, which was at least 100 feet up in the air!
(One of the cocktail and mocktail booths at Fêtes de Genève. The individual drinks were taken (or more like siphoned :-)) from those giant glasses!)
This would not be the end of Fêtes de Genève for Natalie and Jason, but I will get to that later on in this post.
Besides veterinarian visits and an intro to the ‘festival that takes over Geneva,’ the other highlight of this week was, of course, food – specifically, in the breakfast pastry category.
This week, Natalie discovered the perfection of the Pain au Chocolat (French for chocolate croissants) from Manor. Manor, as I’ve mentioned before, is Switzerland’s major gourmet grocery store. For you Bay Areans, it is similar to a Mollie Stones.
One thing Manor has that Mollie Stones doesn’t is an eat-in café that serves European-style sandwiches (think cured ham with butter on a fresh baguette) and breakfast pastries.
Well, on one weekday morning, after Natalie dropped me off at DDC, she decided to stop in at her neighborhood Manor (which is in Vesenaz) and get breakfast. Natalie had been to the Manor café many times before and had even eaten their delectable regular croissants, but she had never ventured to try the chocolate croissants.
On this particular morning, the chocolate croissants looked extra delicious and Natalie could not stop herself from trying one. Needless to say, she’s glad she succumbed to temptation.
This croissant, by all standards, was large - it was about the size of a 6 x 8 picture. However, Natalie could’ve eaten one the size of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, without regretting one calorie.
The croissant was, of course, extra buttery; however, it was not overly buttery. The pastry itself was flaky and light, but not so flaky that remnants from the meal were visible in your teeth for the world to see, or got all over your lap when trying to bite into it. The croissant was also not so light that it felt dry.
The chocolate was soft and if you weren’t careful, the chocolate would dribble on your chin a little bit after biting into the croissant. The chocolate was also a perfect amount to not overwhelm the pastry, and not be overwhelmed by the pastry.
All in all, this chocolate croissant was unparalleled to any Natalie has ever had and it’s safe to say there will be many future trips to Manor just for that croissant!
(The perfect chocolate croissant from Manor's café)
Besides the chocolate croissant discovery, Natalie also made a breakfast pastry at home to continue fulfilling her self-determined requirement of baking a treat-a-week. For this week, the treat exercise was brioche!
Now, Natalie is a fan of brioche and really, who isn’t? It’s buttery, rich and versatile. It can be used for bread pudding, French toast, or as hamburger buns.
Natalie decided that she did, in fact, want to make brioche hamburger buns to accompany one evening of meals and she also wanted to make brioche muffins.
The difficult part about this week’s task was the yeast. There are varying types of yeast in France and Switzerland and Natalie wasn’t sure she had the right one. The yeast Natalie ended up choosing for her brioche was called Hefe Levure. It had a picture of challah on the front of the package and since Challah is a similar type of dough to that of brioche, she figured that she was on the right track for the type of yeast to use.
Luckily, Natalie incorporated the correct type of yeast and the brioche she created was probably her best ever! She’ll obviously test and taste the recipe again to make sure the first time was not a fluke, but regardless, Natalie and Jason enjoyed delicious gruyere-burgers that evening with brioche buns! There was even plenty of dough leftover to make the brioche muffins and give a few to Christianne.
(Natalie's brioche muffins!)
As the end of the week neared, Natalie and Jason were looking forward to their first and last weekend together until September 4th. Soon, Natalie would be going to the U.S. to visit family and as soon as Natalie returned to Geneva, Jason would be taking a trip to California!
On Saturday morning Natalie went for a 16 mile run in preparation for her marathon in October, which is going to be in Palma, Mallorca.
We all spent Saturday afternoon taking a leisurely drive around the nearby French towns, which included me going for a short, easy swim in Amphion (my tail was still not totally healed), Jason and Natalie buying bookshelves for the loft in the bedroom, and an espresso break in the charming little town of Samoens.
Unfortunately, Saturday evening was not nearly as enjoyable as the daytime, thanks to Fêtes de Genève.
As mentioned earlier, Jason and Natalie’s leisurely stroll through Fêtes de Genève during the week would not be the last time they’d visit the festivities.
On Saturday night, Natalie and Jason went to Fêtes de Genève to see the end of festival fireworks everyone said was one of the best fireworks displays ever. Well, Natalie and Jason weren't the only ones with the great idea to see the fireworks. 500,000 people also crammed themselves into the small downtown area by the lake to catch a glimpse of these must-see fireworks. I, luckily, stayed home.
Natalie was not happy. Large, stuffy crowds are definitely not her ‘cup-of-tea’ unless she’s fighting her way to the front seats at a U2 concert. The fact that she was shoved between people at a festival and watching fireworks (which, she’s never really been a huge fan of) was cause for Natalie to be in a not-so-great mood. Poor Jason, who enjoyed the fireworks and the corresponding classical music that kept in time with the firework display, had to endure Natalie and her frustrations.
(The firework display at Fêtes de Genève)
(The firework finale - see the jet d'eau in the middle. It started jetting (on purpose, of course!) as the fireworks were going off all around it)
It was a long night (they didn’t arrive home to see me until 1am!) and we were all happy to climb into bed and sleep off a very interesting evening.
On Sunday, after having rested and recovered from the night before, we all went to Chamonix for a walk and lunch. We also visited the Micro Brasserie de Chamonix, where Jason and Natalie had their usual beers and French onion dip.
(Here I am in Chamonix begging for some poulet roti, which is roasted chicken in French)
On Sunday evening, we all had a lovely barbequed meal in the garden with Christianne, Silvio, their friends, and Christianne’s daughter Laura (who, by the way, has started meeting with Natalie for a French-English language exchange...Natalie needs all the help she can get in this area!)
The weather was nice and it was a relaxing end to a week of adventures as we continue to navigate our way through this interesting city and amazing country.
Paws,
Sabrina
(Harvest is almost here! The fruit on the vine has grown and has even started changing color from green to the familiar dark blue-purple of the wine grape)
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