International Murder Mystery

I have been waiting to write this blog for a very long time! I'm so excited. This all started when I showed our friend Tobias some pictures of the Murder Mystery party we had with my church in the US. He fell in love with the idea and we had to put it together for him.

Eric and I did some internet sleuthing and came up with an idea for what our Murder Mystery should be about. We decided on a "reading of the will". Most Murder Mysteries are hosted by purchasing a kit that has all the clues and story line written out for you. We had 3 problems with purchasing one: We are cheap, No one ships to France and Our party needed to be BILINGUAL. Many of our friends only spoke french. So Eric decided to write the script himself. I tried to help, at a certain point, Eric didn't want me to know who the murderer was, and he had to be the one to write it in french and english. 

Since all of our friends come from different countries, we wanted to find a way for people to dress up in traditional clothes from their countries or to dress in character. So we wrote the script like we were all one big international family that was spread across the world. I think the break down was something like this:

Eric was the American

I was Austrian (we already had a German & an American in the group)

Robin is from Germany.

Jorge is from Columbia.

Tobias is from Spain.

Ghennadi is from Russia.

William is from Scotland.

David is from France.

Coraline is from France, so Eric decided she would come from Japan. (???)

And there were a few other people invited that I didn't know as well. 

This was my "character" Beatrice CaschMoné. 

Since I couldn't do any script writing, I did what I could. I made fake euros for the participants to use when bribing each other for information...

I turned Eric into an old man using "www.yearbookyourself.com" We used the picture to create a memorial for poor murdered "Artiche Q. CaschMoné". Tobias and I found one candle and the saddest flower we could find in Limoges.

And Tobias and I prepared the food for the party. After everything was finished, I took a look around at the food and I was like "When did I start throwing parties that included red wine, baguette, paté, and french cheese? I guess I'm in France now." Tobias and I were a little nervous about our selections, being that neither one of us is actually french. We were afraid the true french would snub our selections. But it went over really well. 

Allow me now to introduce you to a few of our characters and explain the various costumes:

Let's see, this is Coraline on the left and me on the right. She was the 1st wife and I am the 2nd wife. Eric wrote into her script that she should hate me and I should keep trying to apologize to her and tell her I didn't know he was married when I married him. Nice, thanks. Coraline got a special award for how "in character" she was during the game.

William was our undercover detective. 

We tried to make him a kilt from a blanket but that picture is just too embarrassing to post.

There really weren't that many pictures of me taken until the very end because I'm usually the one taking them, but Eric got the following series of me without me noticing. I love them because the guy in the black shirt is Ghennadi (pronounced like Kennedy with a G at the beginning) and he's the murderer, Eric named him "Bob Builder". Ghennadi is Russian, speaks french, and knows just enough english to confuse me. I was trying to decide if the murderer was Robin or Ghennadi. Watch as Ghennadi talks me out of my decision, notice I start out pointing at the correct murderer. 

Now Ghennadi is talking me out of it, and I'm thinking... 

Robin's hoping I don't accuse him.

Now I'm officially confused, and Ghennadi changed my vote from him to Robin. Actually I still wanted to vote for Ghennadi as the murderer, but Eric talked me out of it when I was voting because he said 3 people guessing the murderer correctly was too many. 

Allow me to introduce you to our winners! Robin & Jorge!

Eric really enjoyed revealing who the murderer was.

And our murderer is... Ghennadi! I think he loved being the murderer, non?

I just want to thank everyone for participating, speaking english with me and for making it such a great and memorable event!

I have a few more pictures to post for my friends. Most wanted to have their picture taken with the German dress, and me of course! (Please email me if you want your own copy.)

Quick Picture Vote

Hey everyone, 

I'm interrupting the European adventures for a quick vote. Which picture should I use to update the "Meet Laura" page on my photography website? I usually disable comments because of spam, but I will enable them to allow people to make suggestions for other pictures of me.

Thanks for your help!

Current picture:

Greek blue door?

My Christian music CD album cover?

The one where I'm actually holding a camera?

Thanks so much! I will be updating the website slowly but surely over the next few weeks so keep a look out for changes. By the way voting is on the right side of the screen, you may have to use the little scroll bar to vote for your choice.

www.GallerybyLaura.com

Andorra

Part 3: Andorra!

I had never heard of Andorra until about a week before we left for Spain. It's a beautiful, very small country between France & Spain. It started as a city atop the Pyrenees mountains. At different points in history both France and Spain have tried to conquer it, but due to its awesome mountain top location, this was not possible for either country. So they gave up and said "Be your own country." And a tax free country they became. They are best known for skiing and duty free shopping. 

Here's just a few of my favorite pictures of Andorra.

Please note the goats/cows/sheep that are roaming free throughout the mountains.

Here's a video of my dessert at our dinner the 1st night of camping in Andorra. (Our campsite had a sit down restaurant, so much for "roughing" it.) Anyone seen the movie Amelie? In the movie, Amelie lists her favorite things and one of them is cracking Creme Brulee. So this is for my roomie, who loves the movie.

Camping in Europe has a bunch of luxuries that I never would have dreamed of in America.

We ate in a restaurant, had showers, laundry facility, grocery store, and duty free shopping!

Here's a tour of some of the other amenities our campsite had....

(Oh, and I figured out what that sign in the video meant, its for the people 

who bring their own camper vans and have to dispose of chemical waste.)

I love camping in Europe! Seriously, one of our other friends went camping for 2 weeks in 

France and had a mini fridge in his tent, I think maybe even a bed? All that was missing 

were the walls.

One last picture, we got stuck in the most annoying traffic jam when we went to the top

of the mountains. There was really only one road leading down the mountain and through

the center of town, this means that whenever someone slowed down to make a turn off

the main road, it slowed down traffic, pretty much for the entire country. We sat in traffic,

and when I get bored I take pictures...

If you didn't read the Barcelona blog, go back one entry and you can find pictures 

for Toulouse, Carcassonne, Barcelona & Andorra.

I'm pretty sure the next blog is going to be about something pretty fantastic! So stay tuned...