100 Strangers Series: 23

We have a new coffee vendor in the Ferney Market! Allen Toocaram sells coffee which he roasts himself and tea. His business is called Grain & Feuille. Check him out sometime and tell him Maya sent you!

100 Strangers Series: 22

Meet Charly of Charly's Tartines! He has a new food truck at the Ferney Market and makes lovely tartines. This is my lox and cream cheese tartine. It was delicious! He also has good coffee. Stop by and say Hi! Say Maya and Janet sent you.

100 Strangers Series: 21

This is Alessandro who runs the local bakery near our hotel in Torino. We loved his food and him!

100 Strangers Series: 20

Meet Patrick Delaume of Atelier de Bijouterie. We stumbled across this lovely little jewelry shop while walking around Cordes-sur-Ciel. Patrick is a charming man and makes beautiful jewelry. We ended up buying a pair of rings from him. If you are ever in Cordes-sur-Ciel, look him up!

Address:
8 Grand'rue Raimond VII
81170 Cordes-sur-Ciel

100 Strangers Series: 19

My friend and I ate at a wonderful little Salon de Thé in Albi called Le Solelhou. We met David here and had a nice conversation with him. He is a very nice guy and likes to speak English. If you have a chance to eat in Albi, definitely stop by!

100 Strangers Series: 18

On Sunday we drove to Winterthur just outside of Zurich to help our friends meet their new puppy. Before reaching our final destination, we ate lunch at Tres Amigos (we are always looking for good Mexican food). The food was surprisingly good for Switzerland! This photo is of Michelangelo Valdez (or Dominik) who was our wonderful waiter. He is from Paraguay and speaks at least three languages that we know of: German, Spanish, and English.

100 Strangers Series: 17

I wish I had a better photo of Anica (I hope I'm remembering her name correctly). She was our fabulous server at El Mestizo. It is worth going there just for the service!

100 Strangers Series: 15 and 16

We got ourselves into a bit of a sticky wicket. Luckily, these nice men came along and helped us out. First a couple of young Frenchmen named Nicolas and Olivier (seen later paragliding), then the Postman (you see his truck in the background) who retrieved the man with the tractor. A big thanks to all of them! From now on, we'll just refer to this as "the incident."






The following are shots of Nicolas and Olivier practicing paragliding. We ran into them later on down the road after "the incident."

100 Strangers Series: 14

This man is Roland Leutenegger. We met him at the Basel Christmas Market where he sells these wonderful neck warmer things that you can warm up in the microwave. We bought a couple of them because we can use them (and also because he was so nice)!

100 Strangers Series: 13

Yesterday was my 800th post! It's hard to believe I've kept it up for this long. Wow.

This man is the potter Bernard Masset. We ordered some small dishes from him and his wife, Dominique, and when they were ready had a small adventure getting up into the French countryside to pick them up. Our GPS, named Winifred (Winnie for short), took us all over the place on tiny country roads to get to their place. It was a beautiful drive even if it took awhile due to all our wrong turns and Winnie's stern "recalculating" voice.

Bernard took us for a small tour of the workshop and explained how they create all their wonderful pottery. Needless to say, we bought quite a few gifts there (including some for ourselves)! You can see some of their work on the website.

100 Strangers Series: 12

This is Pam Scott, the librarian at the Library in English in Geneva. For a small fee The Library offers a large selection of books and you can borrow up to 6 at a time. They have a book sale twice a year which also funds their operation. We went to the sale and picked up a whole box of good used books for only 40 francs (about 40$)!

Pam showed us around the library and also told us about a Pantomime of Little Red Riding Hood put on by the Geneva Amateur Operatic Society.

100 Strangers Series: 10 and 11

We met these two men in Aarberg. They insisted we stop and have coffee with them. It was later than I should have been drinking coffee, but I obliged since they had already bought it. The man on the left is Herr Schneeberger and the one on the right is Herr Nestau. Herr Nestau didn't have a high opinion of Americans or Australians. Oh well, can't win 'em all!



The gentlemen informed us that the factory we saw on the other side of the bridge was making sugar. Thus the sugar packet seen here. I was told I had to have the sugar in my coffee. Luckily, it didn't kill me (being white death and all).

100 Stranger Series: 10

This is Ellen. She was asking people to sign her petition at the Dyke Rally. She and her fellow volunteers want to change the way the city council is elected from nine at-large Councilmembers to five District Council Representatives and four At-Large.

100 Strangers Series: 9

I happened to be at Stumptown on 12th the other day buying some coffee beans and they were having a coffee tasting downstairs! Charlie (pictured here) led us through the whole process. It was a bit like wine tasting, but there were a lot more rounds of smelling the coffee before the actual tasting. When tasting, we spit into a cup just like you do when wine tasting so we wouldn't get too over-caffeinated. I got to try some coffee that costs about $95 a bag!

100 Strangers Series: 7 and 8

We met Matt and Chris at the Grand Canyon as well. If you want to meet strangers, this is the place to be!






Matt owns Sonoran Desert Cycle (SDC) and they were hauling this motorcycle around with them at the Grand Canyon. Too bad they couldn't ride it!

100 Strangers Series: 5 and 6

We met a couple named Mike and Joan (Mike pictured here) that were also driving across the country (not part of the Gumball 3000) in this old Cord L-29. Beautiful car!

100 Strangers Series: 4

Lou the Ranger. She works at the LBJ house giving tours and sitting on the porch contemplating life when no-one shows up for one.

100 Strangers Series: 3

This is Natalie who is a native of New Orleans. She lives and works (at her own gallery) in the French Quarter and loves it. She is very friendly and stopped to talk to us as we were passing by.



Here is her gallery. It wasn't open yet (she was still drinking her coffee or tea when we saw her in the morning), so we couldn't go in and peruse. Judging by the website, her work looks lovely!

100 Strangers Series: 2

This is Miss Moochie. She works at the Chili House in downtown Meridian, Mississippi. We ate her food with relish!









A building in downtown Meridian.