After the best fully prostrate red eye experience we’ve ever had, we arrive in Paris, pile into some vans, and then pile onto a train. When the rental car pickup doesn’t go as planned, we pile onto another train from Strasbourg to the idyllic little town of Colmar. It’s darling. Decorated to the nines for Christmas.
The next morning, the boys and Amy and I set out to explore. We visit markets, Amy and I drink multiple gluhweins (white and red), and we pop into various shops.
We find a specialty store of spices and teas and Amy buys a present for some friends at home. As she’s making her purchase, the surly shopkeeper turns sweet, bopping the forehead logo on her pink beanie. Turns out they’re both wearing the same beanie brand.
After five or six Christmas markets, we mosey our way back toward the hotel. But first we’re beckoned into a cheese shop. Huge wheels of cheese are displayed just out of reach. The young kid entices us with free samples and engaging Frenglish. We all try the truffle cheese. It’s sheep’s milk so oui, of course we must try all the truffle cheese. The boys agree, the cow’s milk is so much better. We also try nettle cheese and at this point, we’re having so much fun that another man associated with this shop joins in.
Somehow this cheese tasting conversation takes on an… innuendo. As perhaps only the French have mastered. The language barrier is real. It morphs into Spanish. The new guy, Esteban, is built like a a cheese wheel. Barrel-chested if we’re being generous. He’s a man who enjoys his job, suggestively flirting with me while enveloped in a voluptuous vape cloud. I’d forgotten how good I am at flirting with French strangers in Spanish.
They wrap-up and vacuum seal our $50 worth of truffle cheese. Esteban wants to know my name. He definitely bites his bottom lip.
My name?
Zhah-may.
Do you know what that means in French? A flirtatious squint.
Neh-ver.
And we sweep out of the shop with our cheese. Always leave them wanting more.