ANNECY HAPPENS NOW After I talk about the GREs

Okay, I'm one post into my blogstravaganza (patent pending) tonight, and I clearly haven't had enough wine. But I don't want to use all of it tonight, so I'm making do. I guess the next logical post (screw it, I'll follow a somewhat reasonable chronology for this) would be Annecy.

AND IT HAPPENS NOW. (See, this is what happens when you get Rob writing at all, much less with wine.Caps Lock (had to see if there was a space in it) and parentheticals happen. ALL. THE. TIME.) (Well, not all, that would be an exaggeration, but you can probably see why Rob was able to dig on what he got through of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Douglas Adam's body of work.)

Around mid-October (maybe after the Nuit Blanche? Let's assume after to avoid the embarrassment of having said Rob would follow a reasonable chronology and discovering he was lying.), I went to Annecy! Why Annecy? Well, first off, I love me some French Alps. I really would have loved to have been placed in/around Annecy for the people, architecture, and scenery, but I'm glad I got to be in Paris, because I really like a lot of the assistants around here. And I'm tangenting again. No, I don't ramble. I just tangent. Repeatedly... But I digress/tangent.

Anyhoo, the other and honestly more important reason for going to Annecy specifically is because Lindsay "FrauBrow" Brownell was going there with her Swiss Semester kids. Kelvin Bates (of The Nuances fame) also came up, and although he said he would, Ben Riffe was unable to make it. But I don't really know Ben, so it worked out nicely for a Davidson reunion. And I took a TON of pictures, all of which are up on my facebook (http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/profile.php?id=9421694- friend me if you like) and my Picasa Web account (http://picasaweb.google.com/rbcameron3), and hold on my parents are calling on Skype so I can find out my Chem GRE results.

Okay, so the Chem GRE results are in! And I suppose I'll break chronology to talk about the GRE and add a bit to the title to reflect that change. So! I took the Chem GREs in France. There's a GRE site waaaay up north in Paris, and the guy who runs it is a total jerk. I think he was a New England transplant to Paris, but he was clearly unhappy with his job either way. He refused to speak anything other than English when giving priority instructions (even though he spoke French reasonably well) and was generally a pain. But hey, that's what the Subject GREs are all about, right? Pain and suffering. Anyway, I felt pretty good about the GRE, and I ended up scoring an 860 (90th percentile), which is great if I decide to do just a PhD while those scores are still valid. Unlikely, but hey, things like that can happen.

And back to Annecy after that sojourn into pain, suffering, and chemistry. Anyway, the reason why were actually there was teh Alpenage festival. For those of you not in the know about Alpine farming habits (I hear they're famous for their nuts), the Alpenage is when the farmers bring their animals/herds back down from the pastures in the mountains down into the barns and fields closer to home. Most cities might have a little parade or something. Not Annecy. Annecy brings every shopkeeper, every artisan, every giant horn-blower, every animal, and every bit of cheese or apple in a 10 mile radius into the city center for a delicious smelling festival. And the apples are made into cider. Delicious, unpasteurized cider.

Let's take a journey though pictures, shall we? Also Grace is totally IMing me right now and I'm trying to keep a flow, but she's quite awesome and will get some of my attention. Sorry blogosphereotopia!

Anyway, pictures?

Yes. Pictures.

Oh you wacky hostel dwellers.

First off, the hostel. It took some doing, but I DID find a hostel in Annecy, i.e. the only hostel in Annecy. It's a FUAJ one I think, and it's cheapish if you've got a FUAJ card, which I didn't. But they were out of cards, so I couldn't buy one even though I totally would have, and as a result, they gave me the FUAJ rate. Good story, right? But it gets better! After the Parisian hostel experience, I wasn't expecting much, so I left my computer at home to discover that the hostel was PHENOMENAL and had free Wifi. There was also a great continental breakfast (wonderful for working off hangovers when, say, you've had most of a bottle of red wine the night before), and it was super spacious. The only two complaints I had about the place were 1.) it was hard to get to. You had to walk up a hill on a pretty steep (30 to 45 degree) incline to get up there. Since Annecy is a skiing town, I can't imagine what it's like in the winter for backpackers, much less cars. The other one was that it was so spacious that it was hard to meet people. Granted, I was only there for a night and was meeting friends down in town, so that one might not be the best assessment, but it's what I saw.

Another funny story about the hostel! So I get there on the first day and wander into the kitchen, because I brought some snack food (fruit, cheese, bread), not expecting a full kitchen to work with. I feel a bit curious and decide to explore. And by explore, I mean see if the stove burners are on. And by see if the stove burners are on, I don't mean check the dials. Nor do I mean put the back of my hand a reasonable distance away to check the heat. No. I mean stick two fingers on my left hand (I'm left-handed) on each burner in succession to find that the one with the tea kettle was actually on and get two ridiculous 2nd degree burns on my fingers. But they're healed now, so it's groovy.

Anyhoo, I got to Annecy and started to explore that night/meet FrauBrow and co. for drinks. I did see a bunch of rollerbladers around city hall, but I couldn't get a good picture, so you'll have to settle for these pictures of Annecy's canals. If that's a problem, then please dial 382-5968 for a refund.

A nice side street

A main drag of restaurants and cafés

So after a good night's sleep and that wonderful breakfast (Cocoa puffs, toast, milk, etc), I headed out for the festival! And what a festival it was! For example, there were horns!

Everywhere. I cut the pictures down to a minimum on this, but if you look on the Picasa and the Facebook, you'll see that they. Were. Everywhere.

But for now they're right here, along with Kelvin who didn't know I was there yet.

And of course, since it's a festival about cows, you need more cowbell. And boy howdy was there. Possibly more than you needed.

False. No such thing as too much cowbell.

And honey. But more than that, your basic Nicolas Cage repellent: THE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

Thankfully not stinging my face. But I'm not punching women while in a bear suit.

And like most French open air things, there's this delicious stew. I wish I could make this delicious stew. I think they put it on sandwiches, but I would totally eat that straight. I can't really tell what's in it other than sausage and spices and probably onions and garlic, but I can say that it's absolutely delicious smelling. One day I'll actually try it. One day...

You tell 'em, Rob.

You also have your basic absurd amounts of meat. Wait. Why am I not doing this exposition in captions? Oh wait, because captions are groovy but they can cause issues and I can't remember what they are. Clearly I need more wine. Be right back as I get some maybe. Shouldn't, and actually I won't. Take that, liver!

Aaaand your basic folk-singers. There were yodelers and accordian players- I don't think there were any yodelers in this picture, but there's the accordian guy. And everyone is playing these slappy percussive instruments and dancing. It... was not as good as the food.

This gets captioned. I will leave you centered and caption you. The geese are supposedly in bowties for the parade, but we missed that part of the parade. Alas and alack, right? Right.

And more importantly than any of the other animals and such was, of course, the cider. The delicious, delicious, delicious, unpasteurized, got carbonated on the train ride home but was still deliciious, cider. Here's me with the cider. Also, this apparently shows how unhealthily I was eating the first month here? I don't really see the sunken cheeks people are talking about, but maybe I'm just in denial.

Or focused on that receding hairline.

And there's a picture of the prison and the canals in the daytime! And also the absurd amount of people at this thing. Seriously. You could barely move in some parts. Still, the cider and free samples from the cooking school made it totally worth it.



This would have been a caption, but that would have been stupid.

 Pies. The French can do pie in a very appetizing way, but they always seem a bit light for my taste. Speaking of pie, I"m going to reward myself with some once I've got this blog a bit more caught up. I would do it once it's totally caught up, but man, it's late. I had a 14 hour bus ride with a French dick who thought it was okay to crush my legs with his seat. And then I didn't get enough sleep last night. And then I taught today. I'm tired and will sleep. But I will have pie before I go to bed, because Bev is worried about it spoiling (not as if she's helping with the eating much, because apparently it's too heavy for her sensitive French tastes. This will go into a future Oh Bev, but I'll throw the tag on for the heck of it.), and it's too delicious to spoil. But the pie pictures will go up tonight!

And here are some pictures of the crowd and the parade. Wait.

Wait.

The flow is gone for a bit. Let me get it back. I can so do better than what I just did. Also the wine is done from my glass. Saaad day.

Okay, let's get this flow back. Mafia Wars is always good to numb the brain for a bit.

So after a day of wandering, FrauBrow, I-Got-A-Fever-And-The-Only-Cure-Is-More-Kel-Bell, and Yours Truly, The Insane Nicknamer and Blogger Who's Probably Not Reaaally Insane But Who Can Tell These Days Anyway And Where Are the Hyphens And Why Is The Capitalization Not Consistent went out to the parade. Probably a bit later than we should have- we had wonderful coffee with gummy gators...

I feel like we named the gators. Did we name the gators?

... and it was groovy, though pricey. But hey, Annecy. But we got to the parade and found this:

Pictured: This.

Thankfully, some people did end up moving, so we were able to shift up and get some good pictures. Such as these!

What? Nine-Cowsand?

But wait! There's more!

Christmas? A humbug, uncle?

Yeah, those captions subtle enough for you? I thought so. BECAUSE I READ SHIT. Ooops. There's another swear. And an irrational one at that. We'll see if I can actually get those pie pictures up. I hope I can. Eep.

But then we've got some nice couple shots.

Frau Brow and IGAFATOCIMKB

Whatever the long nicknames were and Rob's fanny pack birthing a cider

Don't judge the fanny pack. It has swallowed up greater men than thee.

And before my sanity slips tooooo much more, let's leave with a nice picture of the mountain by Annecy (taken from the Annecy park).

That's right. Soooooothe the crazy.

All in all, a fabulous Davidson reunion in Europe. If only there had been more cider to take home...

Okay that's a crappy way to end the post. We can do better than that? We can do better than that.

Okay, maybe I can't. I'm getting a bit groggy and such. We'll end with the thought of the upcoming entry on pie. Nothing can beat that.

NOTHING.