Happy Valentine's Day

Hello to all my family, I wish you a wonderful holiday of love!!! David and I have been doing very little with our computers (like blog updates) because "Old Reliable" (our nickname for my old laptop from high school) gave up the ghost - well actually just it's battery pack- so until we get our replacement, which is in the mail, we have only one computer which is proving to be very difficult at this day and age.

I just wanted to update you that David and I had a wonderful day excursion to Aix-Les-Bains which is quite close to Chambéry and sits on one side of the Lac du Bourget, the biggest natural lake in France. Although it was a very cold outing, it was a wonderful trip. We went for a walk to explore the city, walked beside the lake, and went into an aquarium museum (or do you just say aquarium?) which ended up being the highlight of our trip, as I'll explain below with the pictures.

We hiked all over the city and all through a park to get to this chateau that we spotted when arriving into the city by train, only to finally get there and learn that it was an apartment complex. Lucky renters I guess. But it was still a gorgeous building with an imposing facade over the city. 

These are the trees all trimmed up for the new season. I just thought they looked a little funny.

To remind you how cold it is here right now, here we are in front of a mini frozen waterfall. Sweet.

This is us beside the lake. Of course, the lake wasn't quite frozen but it was prolly around 20 degrees outside so all of our pictures have a supreme mist in the background from the lake. But no picture can really do this view justice. It was absolutely gorgeous there. 

Here is another picture from a slightly different angle. It was also really interesting how beautifully clear the water was. You could easily see to the bottom of the two meters of water that were right off the dock. 

This was the massive crawdad in one of the aquarium's tanks. He was enormous. 

And this video shows the reason that I had the best time ever in Aix-Les-Bains. They had a "tactile tank" where kids could touch some fish (enormous gold fish and carp... and some others but I forget) but the coolest part was that the fish were trained to give hands "bisous" which is the French word for kiss. The aquarium caretakers would always feed the fish by hand, so if you stuck your fist into the water, the fish would all swim up and give you a big suction kiss. Then, normally they would swim off because they realized that you didn't have any food. Well the guy in charge of the tank came up to us and gave us a few pieces of food and I got to get my hand massively "kissed" by a lot of fish at the same time! It was hilarious and it tickled like crazy, but David filmed it so here it is for your viewing pleasure. I would also like to comment that I was the first one (between David and Nicole and I) to actually put my hand into the tank to get a fish kiss. Admittedly I did jump when I got my first bisou because it was quite startling, but I am so glad I did. All of us spent the rest of the day with large smiles on our faces, walking around making fish kissing sounds. Truly fantastic. (NOTE: Apparently you have to actually view my blog, and not just its e-mail version, to view the video. There should be a link at the bottom of the e-mails)

Finally, just a really exciting update for today. David and I went and rented city bikes for the next 4 months, in other words for the rest of our semester here at Chambéry. It was only 20 Euros per person for all four months because we are students, and I am really looking forward to being able to bike all around to the nearby hiking locations, chateaux, lakes, and even the grocery store. And I am proud to say that we rode them from the gare to our apartment without any trouble at all. They are great. Tomorrow we are taking them out again to run some errands because I have a book that I have to buy for a class, I have to go to the library to rent a book, and we are going to go to the tourism office and buy a book that I found recommended online by the tourism office of Savoie with 50 hikes and hike ideas for the Savoie area. David and I are really stoked about the prospects of more independent travel with our bikes. 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!