Last Thursday I met up with my friend, Yomi who I went to school with back in the Isle of Man. I met him at his office, less than 1 km from where we live. He was going to introduce me to some of his locals! First stop was Havana, where they have live music on Wednesdays. It was a bit quiet, but looked like a good place to just hang out. Afterward, my driver took us to another bar called Bachus. They have live music on Saturdays, but Thursday was Salsa night, so we thought we'd go in for a look!

The Salsa was in full swing and after a couple of Jack Daniels, Yomi and I couldn't fend the girls off any longer :-) and we submitted to some dancing (lessons). It was great fun and the bar was a cool design, with huge sofas placed in huge glass boxes sticking out of the building.

On Friday it was Earl's birthday and we were invited along with Linda and Eli, Glenn and Saija. It turns out that Earl is also a science fiction and fantasy buff like me, so we had some interesting discussions about authors in the kitchen while he prepared the Beef Wellington. It took a while to cook, but there was plenty and Champagne and wine, so we survived (just!)

Saturday was as busy as ever. We did the usual baseball, Cub Scouts, and pizza lunch. The boys learnt about finger prints at cub scouts, which was messy. After a swim, we started preparing for our Death by Chocolate Murder Mystery dinner party in the Evening. Inger-Lise and I had both had cheap outfits made for us for the evening.

Inger-Lise was Barbara Carthorse and she was wearing a pink ball gown, a pink feathered ruff, matching pink sandals and a tiara. I was "Little Fitz", a ventriloquist. I wore a blue and beige chequered waistcoat with a matching bow tie over a bright pink shirt!! Mathilde's cuddly penguin was my ventriloquist's dummy, Ziggy.

Peter and Paula came as Mike Bison the boxer and Maria Von Schnapps, Swiss chocolatier.

Dieter and Diane came as "Chocolate" Bertrand, Belgian chocolatier and Marchioness Duchamp the artist.

Albrecht and Marieke came as Dr Sigmund Fraud, psychiatrist and Dr Doris Johnson, Aztec archaeologist. They were particularly well fitted to their parts, being both Austrian and doctors. Albrecht grew a beard for his part, while Marieke managed to have all the gear for her part, even down to the satin coat and the Aztec belt!

The plot was that an American chocolatier had been murdered by an exploding Easter egg in a Paris hotel! We all had a great time and Salako played the part of waiter perfectly in his dinner jacket. We had salmon to start, followed by roast lamb (from Norway) and two chocolate mousses for desert. Inger-Lise even managed to find a french egg-shaped box of chocolates for afterwards.

Jeremy