30th Birthday in Bordeaux

Wine tasting in Medoc

I had a wonderful co-birthday celebration with Ann Marie and great friends in Bordeaux.  Trevor arranged a long weekend for us full of wine tastings, tours of vineyards and great dinners, Greg found a beautiful Chateau for us to stay in for weekend, and Andrea, Jose, Ryan, Ben and Marc ensured we always had plenty of incredible wine to enjoy!

Chateau Margaux in Medoc

We started off our first day with a wine tour through the Medoc region of Bordeaux.  None of us knew much at all about French wine, so it was great to meet with the wine makers and learn from the source.  We toured two Chateau’s that afternoon, Chateau Kirwan and Chateau Desmirail, where we visited their vineyards, their cellars and, the best part of course, their tasting rooms.  We also stopped by to see the world-famous Chateau Margeaux, one of the Premier Grand Cru vineyards.  We purchased a few too many bottles of wine but thoroughly enjoyed them over hours of card games and a worm dance off party (I really wish I had pictures to share…) back at our Chateau.

Our beautiful Chateau for the weekend, Chateau Meyre

We drove to the coast the next day to explore Lacanau Océan.  The beach was beautiful, but the wind and tides were rough, so we took shelter in a cafe before heading to more wine tastings for the afternoon.  Our first tasting that afternoon was at Chateau Lafon Rochet.  Then, we toured Chateau Lynch Bages which had a truly impressive facility and fantastic wine as well.

Saint-André Cathedral in Bordeaux

Our friends headed back to Zürich on Monday morning while Trevor and I travelled into the city of Bordeaux and stayed two more nights.  Neither one of us had done much research on the city of Bordeaux in advance of our arrival, but we were pleasantly surprised.  Our friends, Jeremy and Laura, recommended a great B&B, Les Chambres de Camille, and the owners shared tons of great tips about the city. They helped us get a reservation at Le Bistrot Gabriel which ended up being, without a doubt, the best dinner of our trip. During our meal, a gentleman at the table next to us introduced himself as the owner of the Chateau of the wine we were drinking. It was great wine, and he invited us to visit his Chateau the next day. He was extremely kind, but we had to pass on his offer as we had reservations for a full day tour to St. Emilion for the next day. Maybe next time though…

Enjoying the evening in Bordeaux

We had an incredible dinner here at Le Bistrot Gabriel

The next day, we enjoyed our trip to the beautiful village of St. Emilion along with a tour of a Chateau there and in Pomeral.  St. Emilion was incredibly charming and Bordeaux was a beautiful city with fantastic architecture and history, great restaurants and bars, and ton of people our age out and about enjoying it all.

We took a ton of great pictures of the entire trip on Trevor’s camera, BUT he managed to lose our camera with all of our pictures from my birthday AND I managed to lose my iPhone with all our pictures from his 30th birthday…  FAIL.  But thank you friends for donating pictures to us for our blog posts. And regardless of our picture losses, I had an amazing time celebrating my thirtieth birthday in great wine country with wonderful friends. Thanks so much to everyone for making it an incredible time!

30th Birthday Adventure Weekend in Austria

I was extremely thankful to have 15 of my closest friends join me for an adventure and fun filled weekend in Oetztal, Austria.  Megan was amazing and planned everything for the entire crew – lodging, transportation, guides for canyoning and rafting, and a birthday partay to boot!  It was without a doubt one of our best overall weekends while living abroad and an awesome way to wrap up my 20’s and start my 30’s!

We left Zürich on a Friday evening train to Öztal, Austria and made it in time to take over and subsequently close down the the only open bar we could find.  It was an awesome way to kick off the weekend, but we were certainly feeling the early wake up for canyoning on Saturday!  We awoke Saturday morning to see a foreboding sign the morning of our canyoning trip – snow not too far up the mountains.  But even with the near freezing river, we had an blast canyoning on Saturday.  Everyone had fun and stayed safe making for a successful outing.

Megan organized a great dinner for everyone at our cabins, complete with custom coozies and neon wayfarers to help celebrate in style.  After dinner, we wrapped up the evening at Oilers, a biker and rock bar a bit out of town.  As with the night before, it was a great time!

Birthday dinner festivities

Shenanigans at Oilers

We wrapped up the weekend with an awesome rafting trip on Sunday.  We also have a Go Pro video from the rafting trip, but I haven’t been able to put together a video just yet.  I will share the edited video later though.

Thank you very much to Megan for spending all the time organizing the entire weekend and thank you to Andrea, Jose, Ann Marie, Greg, Petra, Stefan, Ben, Marc, Ryan, David, Kristi, Mike, Mel, Kevin and Jenn for celebrating with us in Austria.  It was an awesome 30th birthday!