A fancy outing

Friday night, we were invited by some local collegues out to dinner. This was a 6 hour affair. That's right, a dinner party for 6 hours.
It started out as a visit to a museum, where we learned about the history of Neuchatel and were introduced to the archives of the city. I think it would have been more interesting if it wasn't friday, and I wasn't exhausted from a long week. My French is so-so, but it still takes effort to listen to someone talking at you for 2 hours. Effort wasn't something I had on a Friday evening. I tuned out rather quickly, because I decided it was worth the minimal effort that was left in my body to focus on staying upright because I could feel my body swaying from fatigue. Also, I'm not very good at standing still for long periods of time, so it took effort to ensure that I wouldn't break out in a song and dance from boredom. I tried though...I really did.
Next was a tour of the city wine cellar. And a 2 hour wine tasting session. I feel exhausted just thinking about it. You'd be proud, I did taste two wines. The first was some random white wine that they served us first. Tastes even worse than I remember wine being. I really felt like puking after a small sip. Luckily there was bread near by to get rid of the puking sensation. On the tour of the cellar, we were offered some 2004 white wine. I know nothing about wine, and how to appreciate it, so the next part will be expremely funny to those who actually know what they're talking about. I like young wine better. Let me explain. First, I was thrown off by the fact the wine was so cloudy, but was told that it just hadn't been filtered yet. I prepared myself with a Tic Tac for afterwards, and took the smallest sip you could imagine. I was darn scared that I'd puke in the middle of our fancy affair. I was prewarned that it would taste acidic. Whatever. So it wasn't as bad as the other wine...I think this is because my brain registered sour (which it can stand) before the aftershock of wine flavour. So my body could accept this wine a little bit more because there was a first sensation that it was willing to deal with. I'm still very thankful that I had that Tic Tac handy. After two hours of small talk and being amazed at the amount of wine consumed, we finally got some dinner.
This is the fanciest restaurant in town aparently. Hotel du Payrou. Does it strike you as odd that the meal only cost 35CHF (taken care of) and a bottle of water with the meal cost 10CHF (not included)? All courses were absolutely delicous. If it was served 4 hours earlier, I'm sure I would have appreciated it that much more. It was still a nice evening and a good chance to work on my French listening and speaking ability.
It was also yet another day that I didn't have to cook dinner, but along with that, not get home until the wee hours of the next day. Being an adult is tiring.