Melinda reached out to take this picture of today’s skiers this morning while they were riding a télésiege (chair lift) that can seat 6 across. Yes, you are correct in noticing that Laurent and Romain are absent. Of course I’m not there because I’ve never in my life been on a télésiege, or a télécabine, or a téléski, or a télé-fill-in-the-blank, for that matter. Well, come to think of it, I have been on the telephone and even on the television, but both of those words are missing the cute little French accent marks above the letter E.

You might say I’ve digressed.

Laurent took Romain to Geneva today so he could catch a plane back home to Nantes. School keeps Romain busy and with it resuming on Monday he wanted some focused study time in an empty house in order to be as productive as possible. I would have said that the car trip to Geneva from Les Carroz is 45 minutes, but Laurent returned to Les Carroz a little late and with a story to tell. At the France-Switzerland border he was stopped and told he needed to pay a 40 Euro toll to continue on the road to the Geneva airport. He balked at that, turned around, and took a path through France that doubled the travel time but saved him the 40 Euro toll.

The short of all of this is that the skiers who departed from our apartment this morning were female. Ella again skied until just after lunch, then rested in the apartment. I did a little reading and then went for a 3 mile run before meeting up with Ella. Once Laurent returned, he took me for a little walk before we sat down in the afternoon sun for a beer.

On a side note, noticeably absent from the blog so far is anything having to do with last night’s incredible dinner. We went out to a restaurant that serves melted cheese in a variety of styles and fashions. If I don’t say more about this soon, I at least want to have this record of last night’s dining experience here, dedicated to my cheese-hating brother, Scott.