Bonjour... Merci...

Traci and I ventured to Montreal this past weekend to see some of my beloved family and my friend Alex from China.

I had a chance to bust out my very limited French. (very, very limited French that I learned when I was in Francophone Africa for a month back in 2000. Here is what I did back then to express myself, say the word in English with a French accent, and if that didn't work, try the Spanish word with a French accent, all with lots of gesturing. It was like a big game of charades. Sadly enough, my French had become more limited since then) It was fun to watch my cousins switch from English to Mandarin to Cantonese to French depending on who would call them on their cell phone. These non-Americans, they all speak so many stinkin' languages!

Montreal is a very charming old city with beautiful European architecture and the whole French speaking thing just adds to the romance of the city. Sad to say that I really did not get any pictures of Montreal in our hectic weekend.

One thing we did do (as we always do around my family), is that we ate well. Since we spent much time eating, I do have pictures of some decadent desserts. If you've ever wondered how people turn out, growing up in a culture where there is so much good dessert, I will give you exhibit A: my cousin Thomas.

We show up at this nice French Restaurant, and the first thing he tells the waiter was, "please set aside one of each of the desserts for us." (Apparently they are very good and they tend to run out of them.) We teased him about it quite a bit, though to his credit, he was right, the dessert was quite good.










If you want to hear about the Chinese food we ate, check out Traci's blog entry.

Bon Appétit!