Skiing in Val Thorens, France

We've been looking forward to Christmas Break for months. It was going to be packed of new adventures.  The break starts with a flight to Geneva and a 2.5 hour shuttle to Val Thorens, France. Skiing for 4 days and then returning to Geneva to spend the night in order to fly to Prague to meet up with my parents! We are meeting my parents and brother and sister in Prague for a 2.5 week tour around Central Europe. But I digress. 

A group of 8 of us, all friends from Fancy's school, were planning a weeklong ski trip to Val Thorens, France. It was still early in the season but we had heard VT would have snow. 

Fancy's athletisism continues to impress me. I know most of you would peg me as the natural athlete, but I'll just say Fancy can hold her own, especially on the slopes.

It would be my third day ever on downhill, needless to say there was apprehension going into the week. I've been excited about skiing, but I still needed to figure out how. 

Early morning leaving Budapest.

The Geneva airport had a 'picture book' of a kissing scene from Gone With the Wind. As a proud Georgian, I was pleasantly surprised to see this and still have no idea how that would be connected with a place like Geneva, Switzerland. Anyone?

I'm very inexperienced. But jacket is very experienced. I've actually owned this yellow North Face jacket since the year 2000 and this was the first day it was used as a ski jacket. 

The village of Val Thorens.

A man and his coffee. Photo cred: Shanti. 

Sunrise over Val Thorens. 

Thanksgiving = Wine + Wine

For this year's Thanksgiving we joined another couple to experience Hungarian wine country.

The four of us rented a car from the city and drove 2 1/2 hours to southern Hungary to a small town called Villany. We spent three nights in the city drinking wine, exploring the small picturesque town and drinking more wine. 

We left with heaps of wine that none of us could drink after our weekend of indulgence.

The town was situated among a bunch of rolling hills and was as picturesque as you hope. That, and the delicious red wine must have enhanced our environment also. Despite restaurants closing super early and one restaurant literally closing the door in our face and removing their schedule off their window (that states they were still open for another hour) it was a great Thanksgving weekend. 

A massive bowl of goulash, even for my high standards. 

This lady is super proud of her sausage - inappropriate?

Fancy's 'development' in Warsaw, Poland

One of the benefits to Fancy's contract at the American International School is each year she receives a stipend for 'professional development'.

There are countless conferences and courses a teacher can take all over Europe and I was excited to explore the different cities we might go for Nancy to develop professional. I am in the midst of a glorious mini-retirement so wherever Fancy ends up, I plan to join.

There were options for Croatia in the spring, Nice, France in the summer -- so, you can imagine my disappointment when Fancy tells me one afternoon that she thinks the best conference for her will be a long weekend in Warsaw, Poland in November. Despite my best attempts, she was excited about this conference above all others (who knows why?).

Yay! Poland. Grey. Winter. Cold. Gloomy.

I actually love Poland and appreciate it for enduring an extremely violent, tragic and ofter overlooked history.  It's Old Town was completely decimated during WWII by the Nazis that were, at one point, were killing 3,000 Polish per day. It's a very sad history to learn.  The photos of their decimated city are almost unimaginable.

I would spend my days wandering the streets of Warsaw while Fancy was mostly in her classes - not a terrible tradeoff.  Eventually, Fancy's classes ended and we were able to eat their famous pierogis and happily explore together.

The photo shows an entire section of old town Warsaw was purposely destroyed by the Nazis.

All that remained was the church, which was only saved so Nazi snipers could have an elevated position in the city.

The nuns were giddy over their sweets. 

Hot wine comes with a shot of vodka.

I don't think this is the translation they were going for.

3 Hours with Matt Damon

Budapest has already provided Fancy and I with some unexpected experiences, unforgettable memories and exciting adventures but nothing more thrilling than last Sunday night.

After being invited by a friend from Fancy’s school, we’ve recently joined a small group of friendly expats on Sunday evenings to watch NFL football. To clarify, I actually watch football, Fancy uses it as an excuse to have a beer order some ‘American food’ and socialize since kickoff is usually around 7pm local time.

We were planning to skip it this past Sunday because we had just returned from a long week of traveling (Italy, no, you shouldn’t feel bad for us).  It was almost 7pm and we were both already in PJs and looking forward to relaxing for the evening.  However, tonight I learned that there are actually two things that will get me out of PJs.

The promise of good food

Matt Damon

Enter Matt Damon

Relaxing at home, Fancy and I simultaneously received different messages from our friends already at the ruin pub.  Fancy received a photo she couldn’t quite make out but the message said “the view here is pretty good” and I received a message from my buddy telling me that he was sitting right next to Matt Damon.  It didn’t make any sense to me, because I’ve always told Fancy that Matt Damon is my favorite actor and Good Will Hunting is my favorite movie, but my buddy didn’t know this about me and I couldn’t understand why he would reference this celebrity as a joke (obviously).

“Todd, what is this picture?”

** I was going to write this blog and tell you how cool, calm, and collected we acted, but that would be completely false. **

I look at Fancy’s phone and … OH. MY. GOD. It’s a photo of Matt Damon sitting at the bar where we watch Sunday night football!  It was a moment of utter confusion as I slowly began putting the pieces together.  

“H@ly Sh!t!! That’s Matt Damon”.  Our pajamas were already coming off. 

We aren’t really part of the inner core of the expat NFL group, but we had been before.  We were afraid that by showing up late, we might actually appear like the MD-chasers (that we were unashamedly becoming) but carpe diem….it’s Matt Damon.

One of the people in the group works with with VIP clients at a prestigious hotel in the city and apparently told Matt Damon’s friend about the Sunday NFL-watching ritual. Matt is apparently a big Patriots fan (and personal friends with Tom Brady, because he’s Matt Damon) so he and his buddy decided to join.

He was in town doing some preliminary work on next film The Martian.  Various tax rebates and financial incentives, along with Budapest’s diverse landscape and city views have resulted in several well-known movies being filmed in Budapest recently.  Coincidentally, we actually saw a scene being filmed around the corner from our apartment earlier the same day for a different movie.  “The Martian” is based on the book by Andy Weir (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/).

We raced over quickly, but attempted to arrive casually.

Fancy’s friend saved her a spot next to her, which also had the prime advantage of being located directly in front of Matt Damon.  I’ve never seen Fancy in such a hurry to sit down.  Also, for some reason, Fancy didn’t seem to mind that her back was against the projector screen for the entire game and she wouldn’t be able to watch any of the action.

We’d met some of the folks before, but there were also some new faces, so our friend began to re-introduce Fancy to everyone.  “You know friend A, and this is friend B”.  As she gets to Matt Damon’s spot at the table, there’s an quick pause and then Matt Damon extends his hand to Fancy and says, “Hi, I’m Matt”.  As I recall there was a sparkle off his teeth, his eyes twinkled, or one of those things that naturally happen to famous people.

I’m sure Fancy’s heart melted just a little.

Up to this point, Fancy had pretended that we didn’t know Matt Damon was going to be watching the game.  Surely, we weren’t like all of ‘those’ celebrity-chasers. Fancy gave her best Hollywood performance complete with a shocked expression.

“Oh myyyyyy….Nice (pause) to (pause) meet (pause) you,” she finally managed.

It was surreal.  The entire table burst into laughter.

I was particularly thrilled to see that he was drinking Cabernet Franc, one of my favorite wines and one of the many things we have in common. It was clear we were destined to become friends.

At one point during the evening, he tells us this hilarious story of his buddy Ben Affleck (the fact that the story was being told by Matt Damon made it even more surreal). Anyways, ‘Ben just learned a new form of card-counting this his other friend, a Harvard professor, had created’.  These are the types of people Matt Damon is friends with.

Ben spends the weekend in Vegas (Matt was invited, but couldn’t go) and proceeds to get kicked out of each and every casino on the Strip.  His last attempt is at the Wynn; he is quickly asked to quit playing blackjack.  Matt tells us that Ben is pissed and actually calls up Steve Wynn (I guess that’s what you do when you are a celebrity, you just call the man whose name is on the building) and Steve tells him he will fix the problem.  He then promptly calls Ben back 5 minutes laters and says “yep, you’re done, you gotta go.”  I guess you’re not able to argue with the guy whose name is on the building.

You can check out the story here: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/ben-affleck-banned-blackjack-hard-rock-las-vegas-source-article-1.1777684

Later on in our magical three hours, Fancy and I were amazed when he brought up Micheal Stipe and REM.  For all of our Athens, GA readers:

Matt shared a story about getting dinner with Michael Stipe in Berlin and called him “one of the greatest musicians in our lives”.

Fancy and I were beyond ourselves that not only did he bring up the Athens, GA hometown band of REM, but that he has (had) dinner with Michael Stipe.  It was all we could do to not interrupt his story and shout “We are from Athens, GA! And… this one time we saw him at this fancy restaurant in town and secretly snapped a photo of him”.  Thankfully, we said nothing.

Here’s the photo we took:

At the risk of pretending like I’m trying remember every word he said (which is impossible, because I did try) I won’t recount the entire evening.  However, I think everyone was amazed how completely normal and relaxed he was the entire evening. He sat at a table with a bunch of strangers and watched the entire Patriots game with us, sharing stories, his thoughts on the movie industry, Michael Stipe and REM, Ben Affleck getting kicked out of all Vegas casinos.  Three hours!!

You try to pretend it’s a normal conversation, but it’s not.  It’s a conversation with Matt Damon.

He would save the best for last.  As he said goodbye to everyone, he graciously took photos with anyone that asked and didn’t do it begrudgingly, but always responded “I’d be happy to”.

His buddy that was with him went to pay their tab and chatted for another few minutes before leaving.  The rest of group waited around to smile and chat in disbelief about what just happened.  Finally, someone went to go pay their portion of the bill only to discover that the bill for the entire table was picked up by (wait for it) Matt Damon.

The greatest night had just become better.  He was absolutely the most gracious, humble and cool dude you could hope for.  When my buddy and I told him that it’s really great to meet him in and obviously, we’ve seen a lot of his films, but the fact that he’s a really cool guy in person makes it all even better.  He responded, looking us directly in the eyes, “Hey, Fuckin’ A, thanks for saying that man”.

Coolest guy every.

I only wished we had ordered more Cabernet Franc.

(in)frequent blog update.

Hello world,

It's become apparent that updates from Fancy and I are not as steady as we would like.

The reason is blog posts take much more time for me to write than I would like. Trying to write something that is somewhat entertaining and while simultaneously limiting my most embarrassing anecdotes is a surprisingly lengthy process.

All of this is to say, we want to send out more blog posts.

As an example, it took several months to finally post about my new friend in Budapest: http://compasscomfort.blogspot.hu/2014/11/3-hours-with-matt-damon.html

In the future, we will create more posts with a different format.
Think, more pictures and less writing. Instead of spamming everyone on Facebook, we will try to use our blog as a more detailed 'window' inside our life in Budapest.

AirBNBing Lake Como -- Northern Italy's Best

Lake Como is one of those rare places that can make you stop talking and just stare.  It reminds you there are still undiscovered places in the world that inspire you to continue exploring. Words will fail to describe its uniqueness.

On this trip, we were reminded of the simplicity and excitement of "discovery".  I realized my favorite days traveling tend to be the days we include the phrase “explore”.

Let’s hike down there and explore.

Let’s just get to the village and explore.

Let’s just walk down at sunset and explore.

Exploring is when there is no definite destination and you aren’t set on arriving.

My favorite memories are the memories when we are in the middle of an experience (good or bad) and you stop to be present in the moment and know you’re going to remember this experience for the rest of your life. That is one of the most fundamental reasons for travel and one general reason we decided to move abroad.  These moments are some of my most treasured memories.

In Lake Como, we found a unique property via AIRBNB in the small town of Vezio. It’s actually a small village built around the Vezio castle that sits perched above the town of Varenna.  We rented out the bottom-level apartment of the home we rented from it’s owner, Claudio.

Our arrival was more eventful that even either of us planned.  We reserved a mid-afternoon train from Milan to Lecco and then continuing north along the lakes to Varenna.

Unfortunately for us and the numerous other gray-haired tourists, there was a problem with the train / track / weather. No one in Italy was surprised there was a problem with the train, but everyone was surprised when the problem wasn't the result of a strike! Instead, an incredibly windy afternoon had blown the roof off a building which landed on top of the tracks which prohibited us from continuing North from Lecco to Varenna.

Instead, as we are kicked off the train along with about 200 hundred other riders -- don't even think about asking for a refund!  We find ourselves in a town that is still about 20 minutes from our destination where we were supposed to meet our owner at the Varenna station.

No other instructions just ‘this is the last stop’.  No one knows what to do, especially the foreigners and tourists.

We were a mass of people curiously looking around the outdoor station for some sort of guidance or suggestion, someone that looks like they are in charge, of which there would be none. #italyproblems

30 minutes later… everyone is still standing around, loitering, expecting someone to tell them what to do. Based on my limited knowledge of Italy travel, I realized these things tend to happen without any reason or explanation and no one is going to feel bad about a bunch of stranded tourists outside their vacation destination. #firstworldproblems 

No buses arrive. Nothing happens.

There are a few taxis coming and going where I presume some of the locals that live nearby could use them. Finally I decide to beg a nice-looking local girl (using my charm, of course) to ask if we can use her mobile to call the only contact number we have for our AIRBNB host.  Fortunately, she says yes (of course she does!) and our host answers.  

Fast forward through a fast-speaking Italian conversation and we are lucky to learn our host (somewhat begrudgingly) is driving to Lecco to pick us -- despite his best attempt to tell us to just get a long and expensive cab. This girl was a lifesaver!

We anxiously wait another 20 minutes looking for a “Blue Citroen”.  Fancy constantly is asking “is that it?” with each passing blue car. Finally, our knight in a sweatpants arrives. I was a little confused by this man in his mid-50s blasting Green Day like a teenage from his car but hey, I guess Green Day is big in Como right now. #loudmusicproblems

On our way to the AIRBNB property we stopped by a small grocery and picked up a few essentials…mainly 5 bottles of wine and prosciutto which was incredibly cheap. We weren't sure if 5 bottles would be sufficient for 3 nights but decided to risk it.

The man, the myth, the legend -- our AIRBNB host Claudio.

Hard to get this guy to keep his eyes open!

Our village -- Vezio

We knew that Vezio was a small village connected to Varenna but didn’t realize it would be one hellacious climb up the side of a mountain to arrive to it (when we weren’t escorted by car by our AIRBNB host).

Lake Como Adjectives

Any attempt to capture Lake Como in words would be difficult.  The lake was easily the most picturesque lake setting I’ve ever experienced.  Our elevated view from Vezio would also provide a unique vantage-point above the lake.

Because of the delay in our arrival, we arrived just as the sun was magestical setting (that's a combo of majestic + magic).

Our incredible private viewing of sunset over Lake Como each and every day.

We decided to hole-up in our apartment the first night with this unbelievable sunset. To watch the sun gently set behind the mountains, while simultaneously watching the evening lights slowly awaken in each small village was unforgettable.

In the morning, our first full day was incredibly windy -- like most windy day in 5 years! Our plans to take the ferry were thwarted as the ferries were not running, but it was a beautiful day.

No ferries on this windy day.

It was so windy it literally blew the sweet ole grandma's underwear off her drying hooks and onto the front yard!

We pretended not to notice.

We made the most of our day exploring the town of Varenna and indulging in a two-hour lunch, followed by one-hour coffee, followed by one-hour lakeside bottle of wine.  It was ‘productive’.  Interesting sidenote, we had lunch in a restaurant that has been the same restaurant in the same location for over 100 years -- I even found the pictures to prove it.  I love stuff like this.

This is a photo of the "Sole" taken 1913.

This is a photo when we went to the "Sole" 2014.

We returned to our basement apartment by completing our first hike up the ‘mountain’, cursing all the way except Fancy always seems to take joy in these grueling hikes (or maybe it's just my complaining).

The next day we woke up early and took the ferry to Bellagio. We wanted to explore the town but we’d also read about an amazing panoramic view “about 15 minutes outside of the city”.

Based on this description, I think Italians are liars, moreover, they fail to disclose the elevation gain in this mis-stated time allotment. Fast forward 40 minutes…and we are still walking and I’m sweaty. We are literally the only people hiking up this god-forsaken road. While I couldn’t convince Nancy to hitchhike, I finally convince Nancy to hop on a public bus —anything must be better than the arduous hike up.

Little did we know getting on a public bus would involve coincidentally riding with 30+ elementary students who happened to be getting out of the school at the same time (the public city bus doubles as the school bus). Of course, we are riding for about 2 minutes before we realize the bus has turned the wrong direction and we are know going the opposite direction. #bellagiobusproblems

We hop off at the next stop and find ourselves somewhere outside Bellagio on the side of a dusty road. Well, at least it's interesting.

We are lost.

Fortunately, the GPS on our iPhone works and we are able to find our location and the march continues. My ingenious plan to take the bus has saved us about 4 minutes and 100 feet.

The hike next to unique Italian signage.

20 minutes later of walking along an inclined road (think Pyrenees mountains) and after getting numerous confused stares by the local drivers we finally arrived at Hotel Il Perlo Panorama and what a beauty it was. It was well worth the hike up (which is saying something coming from me). Even though we arrived a little after Noon, I knew we wouldn’t be leaving this amazing spot for hours.  We made sure to the sample almost the entire left side of the menu and later the right.  The host was incredible friendly and generous and we would recommend to anyone visiting Bellagio that they take the time to get out of the touristy village-center and find this gem.

We sat here for hours.

More photos from the weekend.

Exploring the walkway around Varenna.

Enjoying a sunset with Fancy -- love the way her hair glows in this photo!

Varenna views.

Ferry, bound for Bellagio!

Of course, Fancy is "patiently" waiting at the front, first to get off the ferry.

Arriving in Bellagio.

That's the look I get when I'm taking too many pictures (Bellagio).

Varenna from the ferry.

Sunset form our AIRBNB, overlooking the castle of Vezio.

Fancy decided to hike in her new "hiking" shoes.  I was annoyed since we were walking extra slow, until I was the one that clumsily fell then I stopped talking about her shoes. And she never even tripped once.

Thanks again for your time and following us!