The Trip.....Day IV Aneccy!

Aneccy is a beautiful town in the Alps on a huge lake (about 20 miles around. It is crystal blue. The town itself is charming with lots of blocked off streets in which to roam. We slept till like 11:00 which is always cool. I have given up the idea of a hot breakfast on the continent as well as giving up on ever getting iced tea. We went to a patisserie and sat outside.

One thing I have noticed is how American eating on the go is a non-existent principal in France. You sit, waiters smile at you, you sit (sometimes for 10 or 20 minutes) before they wander over. You order some drinks or tap water. They bring it ten minutes later. You order your food. Sometimes it comes suspiciously fast, sometimes a lot longer. They come back and ask if you want coffee. You ask for the check. In ten minutes or so they bring it back. You look at it and try and hand them a credit card as they walk away. They come back ten minutes later and take your card. They swipe it on a little machine they carry. You sign. You leave. An hour and half has passed. You try and tell yourself this is cool and relaxed and continental. The bile for having sat there so long roils your stomach as you walk away.

That patisserie was nice. I ordered a croissant and a coke with ice. What is it about other countries and ice (for I have noticed this in Mexico and Canada as well)? They brought our drinks and I had a nice can of Coke with a cute little drug store soda fountain glass, and three little tiny pieces (to call them cubes would be like calling saying my penis was 10 inches long) of ice. Sandy laughed. I drank my slightly chilled Coke. Seriously, what is it about the ice? Is a cold drink a crime? It seems more precious then gold in these countries. Am I ice obsessed? Probably, but I think they do not have iced tea because they cannot figure out that it takes a lot of damn ice.

We looked around the town and then began walking on the lake on a bike path, and we kept walking ultimately ending up in another town a couple of miles down the road called Sevrier. We split a bottle of wine looking out over the lake sitting at a smaill table on a lawn. The only other table was filled with some 20 something aged French boys who came, greeted one another with two kisses on each cheek and then drank from the same bottle of Absinthe. We walked back and napped.
France seems to have lovely people but either the goth thing, or Johnny Cash has had a huge influence on these people. Why so much black...why all the time. The kids are all dressed from a “Les Miserables For Kids” collection of expensive clothes meant to look bleak and poverty stricken. My theory on all this blackness.... lack of enough ice. We had pizza for lunch on one of the canals around town. Did I mention the canals? they are lovely. No punting here, or gondaliers. I think we could have taken a boat ride on the river but we were out of season. The pizza is good. Northern Italian. Nice.

Before dinner we decided to walk up to the “Casino” on one of the tips of the lake. Our hotel proprietor was VERY concerned regarding us walking 1.4 Kilometers. He clearly did not understand that my wife has been walking us a minimum of 8 miles a day, just on general principal. So we walked up the lake and it was lovely and then got to the “casino” which was in a little hotel up there. We walked up to the entrance and he asked for our passports and then slyly told us that asking for passports was just their way of making sure that the dress code was abided by. We passed. The “casino” was three small levels filled with slot machines. We kept looking for gaming tables to no avail. I dropped 10 euros (approximately $143,004.32 U.S.) and then we left.