Settled in.

Kitchen and dining area of our Chamonix apartment

View from our bedroom window towards the centre-ville

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The first thing we did on our first full day in Cham was go to mass, since it was Sunday. There is a lot of variation in, shall we say, pomp, in masses; I was charmed, because this little tourist-town parish seemed exactly matched to our own. It was completely full. There were maybe eight young male altar servers, and my 14yo said he could easily have served that mass and known exactly what to do. We felt very at home in the liturgy, and of course everything is the same, even in a different language; you know what is being said when. The children had their Magnifikids, but I don’t think they looked at them much. There were two priests, a young fellow who was the main celebrant, and an older one who gave the homily.

Perhaps because he is used to an international audience, he spoke very slowly and clearly, and the homily was carefully structured as if given from an outline according to the rule of three. I had no trouble following him at all. (Mark had taken the baby to the vestibule, which had been retrofitted with glazing to turn it into a sort of cry room, so I didn’t have too much to distract me). The Gospel being Matthew 18:15-20 (“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault…”) the theme of the homily was “fraternal correction” — that correction is not fraternal and cannot be received peacefully unless it is given out of real love for the brother and for Christ, with discussion of three examples: between spouses, parents correcting children, and between nations.

After that, most of the day was the business of feeding and clothing ourselves. For lunch we ate some pasta in our teeny kitchen — rotini with sinoke tomato sauce and some fresh ravioli with asparagus filling, which I boiled and then sautéed in butter with minced ham. The big boys and Mark planned to go out on the glacier with a guide the next morning, but much of the boys’ gear had been in the lost suitcase. Air France gave us an allowance so they went out to replace items. Then after they returned, having found some kind of clearance store that stocked most of what they needed, I went out with a couple of nylon shopping bags in search of food for dinner.

It being Sunday, the big stores were all closed, but I found a little grocery that was open, sort of a convenience store. I needed to keep it simple: I had in mind to try to buy chicken, noodles, carrots, and onions for a soup, and also to buy bacon, tomatoes, and onions for pasta sauce. I found almost all of that: two cold, packaged, roasted chicken leg quarters which I thought would make a broth, a fresh chicken breast, carrots and onions; packaged bacon cut into lardons; a local pasta shape called crozets, little squares about 7mm on a side; cream. Also milk and bread, frozen haricots verts, and some grated parmesan. I came home and with the help of my Haute-Savoie cookbook I made crozets with lardons and cream and onions.

And then we all went out for ice cream.

Enjoyed the chilly night air and the sight of the sunset on the mountains. (Having iOS photostream syncing trouble — will try to add that later…)

Walked around the town, completely deserted at 8 pm on a Sunday except for a few people lingering in a few restaurants. Picked out a pizza place and a raclette place to eat at later.

This morning I am heading out with the youngest three while Mark and the big boys practice glacier travel. They are ready, so I’d better go…

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