The Marriage and Reception Part I

In the morning Carol, Jocelyn and Floriane go to the hairdresser.  Didier shops for lunch and gets the car washed and CJ rests and writes.

The marriage is scheduled for 1500 at the Marie (City Hall) in the village where the bride and groom live. The city official with his Miss America like sash makes a long speech (fortunately in French) and the ceremony is over in less than a half hour.

 

Hard rain greets us on exiting City Hall.

Maxim guides us through a steep climb and numerous switchbacks to the reception location high up in the mountains.

 

Smoothies and the seemingly endless picture taking session (according to the groom) precede the hors d'oeuvres and drinking part of the program where champagne is the drink on offer. The pictures are of the bride and her brother, Didier and Jocelyne with Floriane, and the bridal party.

      

 

The couple will honeymoon in Greece but both love Japan and will visit next year.  Japanese is the wedding theme. Prior to dinner grilled fish and shrimp are served for about a half hour.



Alpe d'Huez

Following a simple yoghurt and baguette breakfast in the room, Didier and CJ charge off to climb the crown jewel of the Tour de France; the Alpe d'Huez. Through his skiing adventures he's climbed quite a few of the routes by car and bus.  Now we are close enough to the premier climb to check it off CJ's bucket list.

And what a climb it is;  hard by car.  We see guys struggling up the mountain on bikes.  They are all crazy.  The wedding groom, Vincent tells us he "does it all the time and it's not all that difficult."

This first picture shows the village on the floor of the canyon where the climb begins.  The picture is taken about 80% of the way up. The village remains above where we took this picture.

 

You might be able to make out the ski slope and snow cannons in the picture below.



 

 

 This is a part of the climb of the Tour de France as it goes through the final part of the climb.

 

 Each of the turns on the climb is numbered and dedicated to a winner of the stage. They have climbed the Alpe d'Huez so often now that some signs have two stage winners from different years named.

After picking up Jocelyn at the market, we return for a light lunch in the room.  What isn't lite is the bottle of 2006 d'Aranburg Coppermine. Lunch is on the patio of Didier's room.

Jocelyn's mother and husband have arrived as have Didier's cousin from St. Memoir. We have drinks on the patio waiting for Jocelyn and Maxim to return from decorating the reception venue. Eventually we'll have to meet them at the restaurant.

 

Didier has selected an Italian restaurant. Five years ago you could get pizza; now French food. Carol has Dorade (fish) and CJ beef.  The remaining orders are another fish preparation.  Those smoked mashed potatoes with CJ's beer are delicious.

 

Dinner is completed with the chocolate volcano. The waitress informs us that Carol's volcano is Italian; it's the "leaning volcano".

 

 

 

 

The Reunion in Grenoble

With one of the largest conferences in Lyon history taking place the parking garage (all three floors) is full and causing a traffic jam and nearly creates an access problem for our loading of Carol into the car.

We pull into a petrol station desperate for diesel and are treated to a crazy old coot who makes filling up quite entertaining.  He and Carol babble in French during the entire fill up and after; even when CJ is paying.  Who says the French don't love Americans?

We have a wheelchair! Although our GPS lady had problems getting us to the address in Miribel we have a wheelchair for the week. The crowning feature of the city along the Rhone is this statue.

 



Carol spied a restaurant on the banks of the Rhone River packed with locals and we had a good lunch with the pleasant owners providing great ambiance. The food is simple and delicious. That is our car pictured on the banks of the Rhone.

 

 

 

Carol decides we'll drive to Grenoble avoiding the toll road.  CJ is over that plan about a quarter of the way there. Where did all the bloody round-abouts come from in this country?

Didier meets us in the parking garage of our apartment building.  How great it is to be together again.  The apartment is wonderful.  After getting settled we enjoy a couple of hours of cocktails before preparing for dinner. We even have views of the mountains surrounding Grenoble from our patio.

 

 

 

We join the bride and groom for dinner at Restaurant Le Sens. It advertises the food as "cuisine franchise modern". The menu is weird to say the least but very good. Most bizarre was the radish offering.

 

To the Wedding (On Crutches)

Carol is out of the cast and in the dreaded boot. Crossing the Atlantic was quite a challenge for both of us but we survived and are now comfortably relaxing in a beautiful two room, double balcony suite compliments of an IHG upgrade on our "free night" room. We couldn't get the Marriott located in the same massive convention complex to cut us any sort of deal so we used the free night that came with our IHG credit card.

We had an adventure in Frankfurt when at the last minute they informed us that our departing flight to Lyon was parked out on the tarmac.  See the cool gizmo that eventually delivered Carol to the plane through the galley service door.

 

With no wheelchair available at the hotel, we first started taking Carol in on a luggage cart which the staff replaced with one of their office chairs. She went to lunch on the desk chair from the room. Clement has been a dream to work with here at the hotel.

 

Having arrived in Grenoble this afternoon after his own harrowing experience on the motorways, Didier has called to check on us .  Fortunately this evening they are dining at the bride's home and we're certain copious quantities of wine will make him forget about his near death experience.

Return Home

The trip home begins with a long day in the Marriott before departing for our late night flight to Doha. A hearty breakfast tides us over until afternoon tea at 1400.

Bangkok's airport is modern with gorgeous orchid displays and these ethnic presentations.

 

Qatar uses Royal Thai's lounge. Who ever heard of a lounge with liquor and beer and no wine?

Qatar Airlines has great service and very good people. We get a bit of sleep on the first flight, a bit more in the lounge in Doha, and quite a bit on the 13 hour flight to Washington.

 

Before sleep, one must get into their Qatar jammies, even more comfortable than the Roo jammies of Qantas. Do you only get jammies on airlines beginning with the letter "Q"?

Here's something you don't see on most flights.

Qatar might be the only airline that's made the boring safety briefing not only worth watching but doing so over and over; and taking pictures. Since they own Football Barcelona FCB, Lionel Messi's team, the build the entire briefing around the players and soccer themes.  This heart throb is Carol's favorite.  His walking through the airport is the prelude to swooning ladies needing oxygen masks.  The guy caught smoking in the lavatory gets red carded by the referred.

Somewhere over northern Iran or Turkey CJ observes snow covered mountains just before turning in.

It's been a wonderful trip.  The Thai and Cambodian people are wonderful and friendly.  We had great service everywhere we went.  Now if only they could turn down the heat a bit.

As the song goes, "See you in September." The blog will be back online in late September when we head off to France for a wedding. Or perhaps if CJ needs relief from work again sooner.

Until then cheers.