JMJ arrive to help us eat our way through Alsace

Jean-Marie and Joanne, Axel's dad and stepmom, arrived from Montreal last Friday for 3 days of culinary heaven. Needing to go to Switzerland and then Lyon and the south, and then Paris, it was a natural pitstop for them to spend a few days hanging out with us and resetting their jetlagged selves. I was impressed at their ability to not only be mildy awake but downright enthusiastic this entire weekend.

Some highlights include lunch in Freiburg, going to a source of the Danube (don't ask what the name of the town was...all I remember is it started with a D and ended in something german...JM, help me out...edit update: it is the city of Donaueschingen),






traditional Alsatian dinner in cold cute Colmar (note the meaty dish that Joanne got, choucroute regular and choucroute aux poissons and of course the only vegetarian meal in Alsace, tarte flambe),









(in case you didn't know, Colmar is where Bartholdi is from...the dude who designed the Statue of Liberty. So they have a mini one too, except it doesn't have as much fan fare as the big one in NYC. It's in a roundabout next to the McDonald's on your way into the city centre).


and their last day in Strasbourg during free museum Sunday.





It was on this trip to Germany when I realized how completely different German was from french. Which means Axel's 3 months in Koln for his internship will be extra fun with this funny language thrown into the mix. Jean-Marie studied german and did an exchange there soon after WWII. This made the trip less challenging when we looked at signs and way more entertaining as we listened to Jean-Marie recite all the funny words. And then he tried to convince us that german can sound really pretty by playing this sweet romantic german song on his phone. Needless to say, I'm still not convinced.