Had to post this one. It is not on vacation but I just received it today. It is a photo from here in Lyon.

Mathieu is not to sure about Santa Claus. Christmas morning in Ft Lauderdale at our favorite hotel the Marriot.

Christmas morning in Ft Lauderdale. Gotta love our Christmas tree. You have to give up some things when you vacation over Xmas. No complaints here.

Back from Florida

We just came back from vacation in Florida where we did a home exchange in Ft Lauderdale. My mother came out and spent her first Xmas with Mathieu and family. Mathieu of course loved it and he doesn’t stop asking for Mamie. I think he wants more presents from her.

We spent our days at the pool lounging and happy hours at the cabana on the beach. Unfortunately, I found out there is really no surf in the area so that was a bit disappointing. On the other hand, we went over to Naples, Ft Meyers, and Sanibel Island and there were some nice waves but I didn’t have time to surf.

I got in touch with an old friend from high school, Mike Harris who lives out there. It had been 20 years and he still looks the same. We spent New Year’s Eve at his home in Boca Raton and had a blast listening to live Brazilian music and drinking Sangria. I had to practically drag Valerie out of the house at 3am. Thank you Facebook, for that.

We went to the famous Le Tub restaurant “supposedly the best hamburger in the country”. It was a really cool dive bar-type setting right on one of the canals. It was bit cold to sit outside but the interior was all about fishing. The hamburger was giant! it had to be over a half pound of beef. The hamburger was really good but I found it to be too big. Maybe I am becoming too French (small portions) or I just can’t eat like I used to.

As always the trip was too short but we left at the right time since the temperature hit all time lows a few days later. The last few days that we were there we actually had to wear pants and jackets. What crazy weather.

We had a bit of a problem on the return unfortunately. We took a train from Geneva to Lyon and when we got off the train in Lyon I forgot my backpack. I realized it about 15 mins later so I ran back to the station and the agent told me it had left for a cleaning depot. This was good news since that means the train was empty. 30 mins later the agent told me a cleaning crew found the backpack and that they would send it back on the next train. Well, when I picked it up I noticed that it was awful light. I looked inside and found out that someone had stolen our camera (all our vacation photos), my iPod, our American telephone, 30 American dollars, 2 bottles of alcohol purchased at duty free and some cards for Mathieu. The agent said it was probably a passenger and not the cleaning crew. Personally, I call bullshit. How would a passenger have had enough time to go through every little pocket of the backpack? Only the cleaning crew had the backpack long enough. I filed a police report but I highly doubt anything will happen. I am going to watch all the selling sites for the next month or so to see if my iPod and camera show up.

Anyway, luckily my mother took some photos. I will post those as soon as possible.