December 22, 2022. The ‘hood, The museum, Franck & Saundra

 December 22, 2022

Yesterday, we woke up a bit late. The day before, at 8 am, the church bells rang for about 5 minutes. They went on and on and on. Fabi and Francis said that the bells clang like that every morning. I hadn’t heard them before. This morning I awoke at 7:45 and decided to wait until the bells clanged before getting up.  BUT the next time I opened my eyes it was 8:40. I hadn’t heard the bells. We told Fabi that we would come over at 9:00-ish. It was definitely an “ish” morning.

The offending church….

After le petit déjeuner, we went to the bank where I was finally able to get cash. Then we walked around the neighborhood. I love Alsatian architecture and in this old neighborhood, there was a lot of it. Even the little shops are interesting. This is where Francis buys our morning pastry. 

Notice the little man in the top window….

Old traditional houses have interesting construction. Take a look at the next three pictures as I zoom in on the window that shows how the house is made.

In the afternoon, we went to the Modern Art Museum. They had a special exhibition of Lewis Carroll and other surreal art. It included an “interesting” exhibit of insects and other animals in jars of formaldehyde. No pics. Use your imagination.

For dinner, we went to Franck and Saundra’s. Saundra has high positive energy all the time and is a most interesting woman. She has collections of movie stuff. She likes Johnny Depp and has many items from his movies. Her favorite, however, is Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King. So EVERYWHERE there are things related to Jack. Here are some photos of her house.

We started the evening with l’apéritif…Crémant d’Alsace with potato chips, pretzels and tapenade on delicious bread. Here you have it…

For dinner, Saundra prepared Duck!! and potatoes au gratin (aka “gratin dauphinois”) for the first course.

The second course was salad, the third was cheese, then there was dessert—cookies and berry sorbet. Oh, then there was the coffee and finally the schnapps—a shot of limoncino (not sure of that spelling). Everything wa incredibly delicious.

After dinner, Mia received a Christmas present from Franck and Saundra.

Tickets to the Soprano Concert

Finally, we left. It was 11:00 and we were so tired. So much fun! And culture!

Last night I had nightmares. I dreamt that huge insects with strange men on their backs were flying over my village and grabbing people. Everyone was running every which way and I was afraid I would be caught. Was it the museum? Jack Skellington? Or did I just eat and drink too much?

Today it’s a lazy day. We’re going shopping later since it’s raining. Fortunately the temps are in the mid-50s about every day. Life is good.