I actually am a very happy person, as most of you know, but there's just one thing I am starting to get a bit sick of.
I know that Ameri.cans have gotten ourselves a bit of a bad reputation for being notoriously bad at certain things. To list a few:
-Poor at geography
-Culturally insensitive
-Culturally overly sensitive
-Self obsessed/no idea of what is going on outside of the U.S.
-Loud and obnoxious
-Wasteful and constant need for instant gratification
I would say that the above list is somewhat fair. I know a lot of people who fall into at least a few of these categories.
HOWEVER I will also say that some of them are maybe not so bad after you think about it. For example, is there really a need, in 2008, to make numerous sexist jokes in the workplace? Regarding the instant gratification bit, is it really so bad to ask that a store be open until 8pm once in a while or that you don't have to wait 45 minutes to get your freaking check at a restaurant? I don't think so.
I find that I get labelled pretty badly as an Ameri.can, which means people think, for example, I am the following:
-Poor at Geography
Ok, I was once asked where "Aiti" is. "Excuse me?" "Aiti." I had to apologize and say that I had never heard of Aiti, to which this person replied it was pretty pathetic that I didn't know the islands in the Carribean considering how close it is to the U.S. "Oh, HAITI!!" I said. I mean is it really my fault that people don't pronounce their H's here? I know that a lot of people probably expect me to speak Swedish when I come home. But I won't. And I would like to inform you that I came in 4th place of the entire Kennedy JH 7th grade geography bee. My geography is not bad.
-Culturally insensitive or overly sensitive
Sure, a lot of people don't make an effort to learn French. I have, and it is also not my fault that my country does not use the metric system. I like the metric system!! Also I get made fun of a lot for having a positive attitude and wanting things to be "fair" and "equal" and everyone to play on a team together. What is so bad about this? I realize that the world is not so sunshiny and wonderful, does that mean we have to always be trying to screw each other over??
-Self obsessed
OK, this is the main reason I am writing this post.
First of all, I just got in a long argument with a guy who was telling me that it is "50 times cheaper" to ship my things by sea than air freight. Yes, I know. I work with expatriates on a daily basis. I am an expatriate. Yet, he was trying to convince me that instead of paying for an extra bag on my flight on Thursday to the U.S., that I should ship it through the post office. Because apparently, since it is 50 times cheaper, it is only going to cost like 2 francs to ship it, because the extra baggage fee (and I JUST checked) is 100 bucks. I have several small packages of like 2 kilos each to the U.S. through the post and it cost like 40 CHF each. So don't try and argue these things with me and act like because I am not so wordly like you, Mr, that I don't know how much these things cost. I do.
Second, what the heck is Can.adian thanksgiving? Apparently there is such a thing. I first heard about it on HIMYM but my friend Anji verified that it is real. Ok, so fine. There is CT. Do you think in grade school we learned anything but about the AT? No, of course not. And by 3rd grade, we were a little busy learning multiplication tables and didn't have time to hear about yet another group of settlers and indians who got together. I accept the fact that it exists and it's unfortunate that we were only informed of our own tradition. When I was discussing this new found fact with a few people, one girl said to me "How long have you lived in Geneva? One and a half years? yes, well, that's the problem with your people, you think that everything that exists in the US can only exist in the US and no where else." Hello!? I'm not saying we are the only ones with independence day or christmas. I'm saying thanskgiving, which is kind of a unique holiday. That would be like expecting me to believe that something like the Escalade also happens in say, Italy, which it very well might but as far as we know, no one else threw soup over the wall at the french except for the genevois.
Everyone has their faults and just because I don't speak 5 languages and want things to be open on Sunday and might not finish all my food and tu someone when I should vous them doesn't mean that I should be a social pariah. We have nice things too. Like late night food. Really, REALLY awesome customer service. TJ Maxx. All the good movies and songs that euros LOVE. Maybe we are a little bit less cultured, but we sure as hell are not so stuck up and are much more friendly. And we don't wear tapered jeans or ankle booties.
So my point is, I am really sick and tired of having these pre conceived notions. Of course they probably think I'm being overly sensitive.
And by the way, the brits are by far louder and more obnoxious. I'll never look at one of their cute red phone booths the same way.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Stupid
I have about 3 months left of my assignment and I still don't understand:
WHY DOES EVERYTHING CLOSE SO EARLY?!!
I got stuck at work and raced home in an attempt to make it to the pool. But the pool closes at 830. Why can't it close at 9? 9 is normal. 830 is like...annoying. I was walking out the door at 805 and came back in frustration. When things close here, they are SHUT. Seriously they turn off the lights in the grocery store when it closes. At 7pm. So I could bet you anything that had I tried to get just a 15 minute swim in, they would have denied me even to get in.
Other annoying things:
A light blew out in my kitchen, or should I say, THE light, and I can't get another one because the stupid store is closed. So I had to cook in the dark.
I am out of toothpaste and conditioner. Again, I cannot go to the store. I realize I can go to the corner store but I don't want the random brands. I want MINE that I normally get, at a normal store, that is open at normal times!!!
To top it off I now get to go to the laundromat. The bane of my existence!!!
WHY DOES EVERYTHING CLOSE SO EARLY?!!
I got stuck at work and raced home in an attempt to make it to the pool. But the pool closes at 830. Why can't it close at 9? 9 is normal. 830 is like...annoying. I was walking out the door at 805 and came back in frustration. When things close here, they are SHUT. Seriously they turn off the lights in the grocery store when it closes. At 7pm. So I could bet you anything that had I tried to get just a 15 minute swim in, they would have denied me even to get in.
Other annoying things:
A light blew out in my kitchen, or should I say, THE light, and I can't get another one because the stupid store is closed. So I had to cook in the dark.
I am out of toothpaste and conditioner. Again, I cannot go to the store. I realize I can go to the corner store but I don't want the random brands. I want MINE that I normally get, at a normal store, that is open at normal times!!!
To top it off I now get to go to the laundromat. The bane of my existence!!!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Busted Rustbucket
I know you have all been waiting for a picture of my dear friend Rustbucket. Here he is, in all his rusted, grey glory:
We had quite a big weekend together. On Saturday, we went to wakeboarding at 8am (15 min ride) , then home, then back to wakesurf at 230pm. Wakesurfing, by the way, is awesome. Everyone sits on one side of the boat and it makes this little wave. You have a mini surfboard which is not attached to you at all, but somehow you just surf in this wave. And I got up on the first try!! I have to admit I was pretty darn pleased with myself. There are not many things I can get on the first try. Anyway, after that, we rode across the lake to the windsurf club (30 min but we did in 20), then rode home (30) then rode back to windsurf club (20) then rode to this boat to have dinner (15) then rode to a bar (10) then rode home (20). Then on Sunday we went to Versoix, which is maybe 40 minutes away, and of course we rode to dinner and then we rode back home.
This morning was a bright sunny day, and we were off for another adventure. Until some frenchy mechanic started yelling some jibberish at me about my velo. "Mademoiselle!!" And they pointed to my tire. I got off my bike and bent down to take a look.
"Ah merde." I said. My back tire was completely flat. Remember the story about Justin's flat tire? Yes, it was just as flat. I had a ton of stuff to carry and hated the idea of having to drag it all on the tram.
As I was parking it back by the other bikes, frenchy mechanic and friends came over to me with a hand pump and offered to blow up my tire. I have to say I was really touched that some stranger would stop and do this. Yes, I was freshly primped for work and yes, they were 3 crusty mechanics but still. The pump was tiny and it took quite a bit of effort. After a few minutes, RB was in stable condition and we pedaled off to work after many merci's were doled out to my new friends.
However, once at work, I solicited the help of my colleague Simon, and when we went out to check out my bike at 11am, once again, the back tire was completely flat. So today I bought a new tube, or as they call it in French, a "chambre a air" (literally means "a room for air") which Simon will help me install tomorrow. Let's hope this does not spell the end for our dear friend RB!
This is taken outside of my work. He's much rustier in person.
And I know you're tempted to make fun of the basket. Feel free. It is so practical. I put everything in there - laptop, workout clothes, towel, groceries. Two weeks ago, I tried to put Bhav in it. That didn't work so well and we ended up crashing onto the pavement (not to worry, we were drinking and didn't feel a thing until the next morning).
As you already know, RB accompanies me to work every day that it doesn't rain. And we go wakeboarding together and other errands. But lately, me and RB have been having even more adventures. For example, he now gets to come out late with me to bars and escorts me home at 2am. It's really sweet. And because he is so ugly and rusted, no one would ever want to steal him. He has become my constant companion.
We had quite a big weekend together. On Saturday, we went to wakeboarding at 8am (15 min ride) , then home, then back to wakesurf at 230pm. Wakesurfing, by the way, is awesome. Everyone sits on one side of the boat and it makes this little wave. You have a mini surfboard which is not attached to you at all, but somehow you just surf in this wave. And I got up on the first try!! I have to admit I was pretty darn pleased with myself. There are not many things I can get on the first try. Anyway, after that, we rode across the lake to the windsurf club (30 min but we did in 20), then rode home (30) then rode back to windsurf club (20) then rode to this boat to have dinner (15) then rode to a bar (10) then rode home (20). Then on Sunday we went to Versoix, which is maybe 40 minutes away, and of course we rode to dinner and then we rode back home.
This morning was a bright sunny day, and we were off for another adventure. Until some frenchy mechanic started yelling some jibberish at me about my velo. "Mademoiselle!!" And they pointed to my tire. I got off my bike and bent down to take a look.
"Ah merde." I said. My back tire was completely flat. Remember the story about Justin's flat tire? Yes, it was just as flat. I had a ton of stuff to carry and hated the idea of having to drag it all on the tram.
As I was parking it back by the other bikes, frenchy mechanic and friends came over to me with a hand pump and offered to blow up my tire. I have to say I was really touched that some stranger would stop and do this. Yes, I was freshly primped for work and yes, they were 3 crusty mechanics but still. The pump was tiny and it took quite a bit of effort. After a few minutes, RB was in stable condition and we pedaled off to work after many merci's were doled out to my new friends.
However, once at work, I solicited the help of my colleague Simon, and when we went out to check out my bike at 11am, once again, the back tire was completely flat. So today I bought a new tube, or as they call it in French, a "chambre a air" (literally means "a room for air") which Simon will help me install tomorrow. Let's hope this does not spell the end for our dear friend RB!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Bad Jac
I know, I'm SORRY. I don't have any excuse other than I have a totally awesome, action packed social life. So now let's take a trip in my time machine and see what it was that kept me away from all you lovelies for so long.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Sailing Trip
This post is LONG overdue. And it's going to be lengthy. So get yourself a glass of rose and get ready. Or skip straight to the pictures.
Sometime near the end of June, I was down by the lake drinking rose and suntanning with Bhav and Annie and some other friends, and Bhav's friend Anjali's boyfriend Markus came along and stopped by to chat with us. The next day he sent a message to invite us on his catamaran on Lake Geneva in the afternoon. So the 4 of us sailed around the lake on this baby cat for an hour, which was really fun. He was telling us about a sailing trip he was planning beginning July 5, to go between Mallorca and Ibiza, Spain, for a week on a 10-person catamaran. Unfortunately there were still 2 places on the boat which were not full and the trip was 2 weeks away.
Something started buzzing up in my brain. "Well, give me the info...maybe I can go." I said.
The fact that I have never been sailing and that it was with 9 random people kind of scared me at first. But then I kind of looked at it with the same philosophy I had when I was considering Switzerland. What's the worst than could happen? I get seasick? Everyone is mean? I would still get to see beautiful beaches and get a tan. Plus Bhav knew some of them, so it was like having a referral (I found out later they included me partly for the same reason). So I decided that not really knowing the people was a stupid reason not to go, and the other thing I was worried about (missing work) was an even more stupid reason, so I decided to go for it and ask for the vacation. I was supposed to go to Greece the weekend before and it ended up the flight was cancelled. So I saw this as a sign that instead I was supposed to go on the sailing trip. Right? Right.
Overall we were 2 Germans (Markus, the Skipper, and Voelker), 1 Swiss (Carola) , 2 French (Youcef and Flo), 2 Canadian (Anj and Sherrie), 2 American (Greg and me), and one Polish (Agnes), 6 girls and 4 guys, ages from 24 to 40. It was like a little floating UN. Or a week long version of Real World, Semester at Sea. All I knew was that I was flying into Palma, sailing to Ibiza, and at some point sailing back to Palma to fly home. And also that I had probably packed too much.
There were 6 of us who flew out on July 4th, which happened to also be Greg's birthday. Random small talk was made at the airport and on the way to the hotel. Later we met up with the rest of the crew in an area of Palma that had somehow been transformed into a pub-filled street in Germany. We ended up going into this bar called Uberbaynen where one half of the bar played techno and the other played traditional German songs. Guess which side was 10 times more popular? Markus translated some of the songs for us, my favorite of which had a chorus which went "I'm a doner kebab, I have an onion on my head." Next thing we were all sharing one of those fishbowl type drinks with long goofy straws and belting "Country Rooooooads." Yep, I pretty much knew from then it would be a great trip.
Saturday morning we took a bus to Porto Colom, which was where we were picking up the boat. We sat in 100 degree heat and tried to figure out how to buy food and drinks for 10 people, for a week. Of course there was always someone who wanted apple juice, not orange. Whole milk and not "lite milk." But overall everyone was pretty flexible. Being the accountant, I was assigned the task to track all the money for the trip and promptly collected 100 EUR from each crew member. Then me, Voelker, Greg, Youcef and Flo headed to the grocery store. 50 liters of water. 60 cans of beer (lasted for less than half the trip). 6 bottles of rose (gone by Weds). 3 kilos of tomatoes...387 euros later, we were headed back to the boat to stock it and get ready to leave. Markus gave us all a very detailed safety lecture and showed us how everything on the boat worked. There was a spot for everything and all sorts of nifty things like all the sitting areas were actually the cabinets.
I am sure you want to know. How did one shower and use the toilet on the boat? Well there were 2 bathrooms (SMALL), one of which had a shower. To use it, you just basically sprayed the water around the entire bathroom. So no one used that one. There was another outdoor shower on the back of the boat. To use the toilet, you had to bring in water by pumping this handle 10 times. Then you would turn a switch and pump another 10 times to "flush." It worked fine, but I will just say that the crew took advantage of every minute we were in port to use the "land toilets."
Around 4pm, we set sail from Porto Colom. We sailed for about 3 hours and then anchored near a nice beach for a swim and to make dinner. We had a stove and oven on the boat, so it was fairly easy to cook (when we were anchored of course...while sailing, even making a bowl of cereal was difficult). I didn't do very much cooking (or cleaning, or anything), but everyone was very helpful. It seemed that everyone took turns with responsibilities, and there were never any arguments about who was supposed to do what. After a nice spagetti bolognese and waiting for the sun to set, we picked up again and started sailing through the night towards Ibiza. This was to be done in 2 hour shifts (Skipper let me sleep through mine, so I never had to do anything).
There were 4 cabins on the boat which were very small. As there were 3 couples, then 2 other girls who roomed together, Greg and I had the last room. What this meant for the trip was that at any time one of us had the room all to themself and the other one would be sleeping outside, which was really nice since the beds were so tiny. So the first night, I slept in the room. But it's not so easy to sleep on a boat when you are not used to the rocking motion. Or the fact that my room was under the captain chair so I heard everyone walking about that was sailing. Or the fact that the freaking MOTOR was right next to my head. I think I slept about 2 hours.
At 6:15, Markus rose the crew to watch the sunrise. I emerged from "down below" to a rosy-blue sky, with nothing else around. No boats, no land. Just our Gemini and the sea, and then after about 15 minutes, a bright red sun. Less than 24 hours since our sailing had started and already an incredible memory.
I have to say that the trip was a bit of a blur. Not because I was TOTALLY WASTED which I know is what you all are thinking (maybe, I was a little wasted at times). Just because...well, you wake up everyday to a clear blue sky and a clear blue sea, and you have some breakfast, and then you think, hmm, which sunscreen do I put on? Where should I sit on the boat for the next hour? Do I want to read a magazine or nap? And meanwhile we sail around to beach after gorgeous beach and then sometime in the afternoon we start to drink and then anchor at a another nice beach or cozy port and watch a sunset. And then repeat it for a week. No one ever knew what time or day it was, and no one really cared (ok, maybe Markus cared because he had to keep us on course and was checking the wind and crap like that). We had music but obviously no tv or anything like that. It was really difficult to be so relaxed and do NOTHING. But I got the hang of it after...I think about 1 day. Anyway, I will not go into so much detail about each place we went. You can see the pictures (there are a total of 1800 which were taken by the crew - I have condensed them). Everywhere was gorgeous and perfect. I will just go through some of the many highlights while taking you through the rest of my week.
After Sunday's sunrise, there was napping etc until we anchored at a nice beach for a swim. That evening after over 1 day of sailing, we checked into port (don't ask me the name - I think it was St Eularia or something like that). I had MAJOR land sickness. Everything was moving so much - especially when I used the nice port shower and leaned over to get my shampoo. Whoaaaa!! Also at dinner, I had to practically hold on to the table. I was so happy when we got back to the boat. Totally bizarre. Incidentally, I did not get seasick on the trip, but I did feel a bit sick at times. Anytime you were sailing and you went inside the cabin...everything was moving around SO much, and it was so hot...it was awful. So I was inside the boat for as little time as possible, less than 1 hour per day (and I was usually up at 9 and in bed around 1...or later...) Also there were these "seats" on the two front hulls of the catamaran that would kind of "surf" up and down on the waves. This was my favorite spot on the boat. You would think that you would get totally seasick, but maybe because you were moving even more with the water and all you could see was water, which basically just looked all the same...at least for me, it was perfect. At times we were in big waves, and it seemed like the cat was going to fly out of the water.
Other things about the boat while I'm thinking about it...there was this awesome hammock type thing in the front where you could lay and get a suntan and underneath you, hear the waves and occassionally get a splash. It was SO nice, and I always fell asleep there. Come to think of it, that was maybe my favorite spot. Also, we didn't sail very much. We had the sails up for part of the 12 hour trip each way between Mallorca and Ibiza, but most of the time we were using the motors, because the wind was either blowing the wrong way or not fast enough. It was really nice and peaceful with the sails though. I drove the boat for an hour or so when the motors were on....it's hard. So most of the time we were also on autopilot.
Ok, back to the trip. On Monday morning, we had a nice brekky and left port to sail to a nice beach (like I said...you repeat). I think at this point we were in Formentera, but I'm not entirely sure. We anchored and made lunch, swam a bit and afterwards, a group took the dinghy to shore, where there was a nice Shark bar serving caiprainhas and pina coladas and that sort of thing. We hung out there for a bit, jumped back in the dinghy, at which point, the motor broke, and we had to paddle to the boat (as we approached the boat, it started working again - go figure). We left this spot, and sailed for a few hours to a completely natural beach. Nothing there except sand, palm trees, and of course...naked Europeans sunbathing! Come on, of course they are! Fortunately there weren't too many, because they let it ALL hang out. Really.
At this beach, there was a mud lake which Markus led us to. It was a huge lake that reeked of sulfur, and had a thick salt crust on top. Markus sold it by saying that afterwards, our skin would be baby soft. Then he promptly stripped and sat down in the mud, happy as a piglet in a pen. "Come on," he said, "It's really perfect!" Some people followed his lead while others of us maintained our bathing suits, but nevertheless proceeded to get completely covered. Afterwards, we strolled down to the sea, no doubt scaring all the small children we encountered on our way, and swam around in order to wash off the mud. It totally worked for my skin by the way!
We played around on the beach while the sun was setting and then headed back to the boat (me, Agnes and Greg swam back). For whatever reason, maybe it was the mud, it ended up that Monday night - day three, I would like to remind you - was the craziest night on the boat. Me, Anjali, Greg, Voelker, Markus and Agnes were up quite late drinking, chatting, generally acting stupid (see the photos). The night ended with everyone jumping in the water, then getting out, then Greg puking, then me sleeping outside on the boat which was really nice until I woke up the next morning with a massive headache and had slept next to all the booze bottles. Classy, I know. So how did I cure my hangover? I immediately jumped in the water, of course.
Because Monday night was pretty late for most of the crew, Tuesday was a fairly calm day. We left our nice beach spot around noon and sailed back to Ibiza (this was the time when I drove the boat...I think). We stayed that night at a port in San Antonio, which is I guess the big city in Ibiza. All the big clubs and everything are in the area. I agree that Ibiza does have a big party scene (and far too many annoyingbrit tourists, in my opinion), but I also saw a ton of families there and chill couples. And it's GORGEOUS. So don't rule it out.
Tuesday night we went to the famous Cafe del Mar to watch an amazing sunset over a beach packed with tourists. The sun was so red that it looked like it would blow up. We had some more drinks at the cafe and then tapas for dinner, but decided against going clubbing until the following night. Probably a wise choice, considering Wednesday we spent walking around the city.
Did I mention how hot it was on the trip? It was en fuego. I think it was +30C everyday, and I wore 50 sunscreen on the boat for the first part of the trip (totally got made fun of, but what I didn't get, my friends, is wrinkles. so there!). On the boat, you have the sea and the breeze to take off some of the heat. But in town...blazing. No wonder everything shuts for siesta, because I think it is seriously dangerous to be out and about in that. I was feeling pretty lousy when we got off the bus into town - absolutely exhausted and SO hot. I went to lunch with Carola while some of the others decided to hike up to the top of this cathedral. The lunch was pretty awful, and I was feeling progressively worse. Finally, I was really shaky and felt like puking, and had to excuse myself. I felt so awful, although the walking helped. I found an oasis - an airconditioned jewelry store. I hung out in there for about 15 minutes until my core temperature returned to normal, then got a popsicle and big water, and I was much better. Better enough to do some shopping for a few hours and then head back to the boat!
We didn't go out to dinner, but instead just snacked on some remaining boat food and got ready to go out. Around 1245 me, Anji, Greg and Agnes left for two nearby clubs. It ended up that we got into the Eden for free (cover is normally 40 EUR) which was awesome. We didn't really drink, partly due to the expense, but also because we were sailing back to Mallorca the next morning. Hangover + 12 hours sailing = really bad idea. Instead we danced our pants off. The music was so good and really fun. We went across the street to Es Paradis just to see it, which was terrible, at least that night, so we went back to the Eden and stayed there dancing until...5am! We were setting sail at 6am, so what to do for an hour, since sleeping was obviously pointless? We wandered into town and natutally went to KFC - popcorn chicken in Spain is soooooo not the same - and went back to the boat to wake up our skipper. We helped Markus to prepare the boat and took off. Some of us had some late/early morning beers while watching the sunrise over some cliffs. Then around 730am, I went to bed.
Thursday was a lot of napping due to the night before and the fact that there wasn't much to do for 12 hours. We dropped anchor around 6pm near another beach close to Palma. We made dinner on the boat and watched another beautiful sunset. That night was supposed to celebrate my birthday, but everyone was too tired. Around 1am, I watched the moon set into the sea and curled up in my sleeping back on the back deck of the boat.
"Wake up!" was the next thing I heard. Markus and Anjali had woken up to go lay in the nets at the front of the boat, and Markus came back to get me to see the sunrise. I sleepily wandered to the front of the boat and laid down in the smaller net. The sun had risen for about 15 minutes already and was glowing yellow right in front of the boat. It was beautiful. "We ordered it just for your birthday!" Markus said. I tried to keep my eyes open, and contemplated getting up to get my camera, but in the end, I was too tired to move. I closed my eyes and felt the warm sun on my face and thought how lucky I was to have a sunrise like this for my 28th birthday.
I woke up again around 9 when we were sailing to a beach back towards Porto Colom. It was very secluded and had the most fish of anywhere we had seen. The water was crystal clear, with amazing turquoise and azure colors everywhere we went, but it was really funny to see all the fish at this area. Youcef had the brilliant idea to start feeding them the bread from the boat. I was floating around on a raft and suddenly, fish were jumping everywhere. Next the whole bag went in, which brought literally, a huge school of fish that was just swimming around all of us. It was totally weird but also hilarious.
We sailed back to Porto Colom where Markus had to "park" the boat under the worst conditions of the week (wind blowing the wrong way) and not only that, but he had to essentially parallel park it. It was really amazing how much he knew and how well he handled the boat and the responsibility of being the skipper. We went to dinner in port that night for my birthday and drank sangria and ate yummy fish. The crew surprised me with a cake and singing Happy Birthday, which was really sweet. It was so funny to think that a week earlier, I didn't even know these people and now, we were celebrating my birthday together like old pals.
Saturday morning we woke up early and walked 30 minutes to the bus stop, with our bags, only to find out that...there was actually a stop RIGHT next to the port. Oops. The rest of the day was spent walking around in Palma and sightseeing, eating some really good gelato and tapas, and then going to a really cool bar at which I unfortunately kept falling asleep, despite the vodka limons the crew kept feeding me.
And then Sunday morning, we flew back to Geneva. And voila!! That was essentially, the Sailing Trip. Probably one of the best weeks I have had here, if not in my entire life.
So if you still have some free time on your hands, you can check out the pictures now to get a real feel for what it was like!
Sometime near the end of June, I was down by the lake drinking rose and suntanning with Bhav and Annie and some other friends, and Bhav's friend Anjali's boyfriend Markus came along and stopped by to chat with us. The next day he sent a message to invite us on his catamaran on Lake Geneva in the afternoon. So the 4 of us sailed around the lake on this baby cat for an hour, which was really fun. He was telling us about a sailing trip he was planning beginning July 5, to go between Mallorca and Ibiza, Spain, for a week on a 10-person catamaran. Unfortunately there were still 2 places on the boat which were not full and the trip was 2 weeks away.
Something started buzzing up in my brain. "Well, give me the info...maybe I can go." I said.
The fact that I have never been sailing and that it was with 9 random people kind of scared me at first. But then I kind of looked at it with the same philosophy I had when I was considering Switzerland. What's the worst than could happen? I get seasick? Everyone is mean? I would still get to see beautiful beaches and get a tan. Plus Bhav knew some of them, so it was like having a referral (I found out later they included me partly for the same reason). So I decided that not really knowing the people was a stupid reason not to go, and the other thing I was worried about (missing work) was an even more stupid reason, so I decided to go for it and ask for the vacation. I was supposed to go to Greece the weekend before and it ended up the flight was cancelled. So I saw this as a sign that instead I was supposed to go on the sailing trip. Right? Right.
Overall we were 2 Germans (Markus, the Skipper, and Voelker), 1 Swiss (Carola) , 2 French (Youcef and Flo), 2 Canadian (Anj and Sherrie), 2 American (Greg and me), and one Polish (Agnes), 6 girls and 4 guys, ages from 24 to 40. It was like a little floating UN. Or a week long version of Real World, Semester at Sea. All I knew was that I was flying into Palma, sailing to Ibiza, and at some point sailing back to Palma to fly home. And also that I had probably packed too much.
There were 6 of us who flew out on July 4th, which happened to also be Greg's birthday. Random small talk was made at the airport and on the way to the hotel. Later we met up with the rest of the crew in an area of Palma that had somehow been transformed into a pub-filled street in Germany. We ended up going into this bar called Uberbaynen where one half of the bar played techno and the other played traditional German songs. Guess which side was 10 times more popular? Markus translated some of the songs for us, my favorite of which had a chorus which went "I'm a doner kebab, I have an onion on my head." Next thing we were all sharing one of those fishbowl type drinks with long goofy straws and belting "Country Rooooooads." Yep, I pretty much knew from then it would be a great trip.
Saturday morning we took a bus to Porto Colom, which was where we were picking up the boat. We sat in 100 degree heat and tried to figure out how to buy food and drinks for 10 people, for a week. Of course there was always someone who wanted apple juice, not orange. Whole milk and not "lite milk." But overall everyone was pretty flexible. Being the accountant, I was assigned the task to track all the money for the trip and promptly collected 100 EUR from each crew member. Then me, Voelker, Greg, Youcef and Flo headed to the grocery store. 50 liters of water. 60 cans of beer (lasted for less than half the trip). 6 bottles of rose (gone by Weds). 3 kilos of tomatoes...387 euros later, we were headed back to the boat to stock it and get ready to leave. Markus gave us all a very detailed safety lecture and showed us how everything on the boat worked. There was a spot for everything and all sorts of nifty things like all the sitting areas were actually the cabinets.
I am sure you want to know. How did one shower and use the toilet on the boat? Well there were 2 bathrooms (SMALL), one of which had a shower. To use it, you just basically sprayed the water around the entire bathroom. So no one used that one. There was another outdoor shower on the back of the boat. To use the toilet, you had to bring in water by pumping this handle 10 times. Then you would turn a switch and pump another 10 times to "flush." It worked fine, but I will just say that the crew took advantage of every minute we were in port to use the "land toilets."
Around 4pm, we set sail from Porto Colom. We sailed for about 3 hours and then anchored near a nice beach for a swim and to make dinner. We had a stove and oven on the boat, so it was fairly easy to cook (when we were anchored of course...while sailing, even making a bowl of cereal was difficult). I didn't do very much cooking (or cleaning, or anything), but everyone was very helpful. It seemed that everyone took turns with responsibilities, and there were never any arguments about who was supposed to do what. After a nice spagetti bolognese and waiting for the sun to set, we picked up again and started sailing through the night towards Ibiza. This was to be done in 2 hour shifts (Skipper let me sleep through mine, so I never had to do anything).
There were 4 cabins on the boat which were very small. As there were 3 couples, then 2 other girls who roomed together, Greg and I had the last room. What this meant for the trip was that at any time one of us had the room all to themself and the other one would be sleeping outside, which was really nice since the beds were so tiny. So the first night, I slept in the room. But it's not so easy to sleep on a boat when you are not used to the rocking motion. Or the fact that my room was under the captain chair so I heard everyone walking about that was sailing. Or the fact that the freaking MOTOR was right next to my head. I think I slept about 2 hours.
At 6:15, Markus rose the crew to watch the sunrise. I emerged from "down below" to a rosy-blue sky, with nothing else around. No boats, no land. Just our Gemini and the sea, and then after about 15 minutes, a bright red sun. Less than 24 hours since our sailing had started and already an incredible memory.
I have to say that the trip was a bit of a blur. Not because I was TOTALLY WASTED which I know is what you all are thinking (maybe, I was a little wasted at times). Just because...well, you wake up everyday to a clear blue sky and a clear blue sea, and you have some breakfast, and then you think, hmm, which sunscreen do I put on? Where should I sit on the boat for the next hour? Do I want to read a magazine or nap? And meanwhile we sail around to beach after gorgeous beach and then sometime in the afternoon we start to drink and then anchor at a another nice beach or cozy port and watch a sunset. And then repeat it for a week. No one ever knew what time or day it was, and no one really cared (ok, maybe Markus cared because he had to keep us on course and was checking the wind and crap like that). We had music but obviously no tv or anything like that. It was really difficult to be so relaxed and do NOTHING. But I got the hang of it after...I think about 1 day. Anyway, I will not go into so much detail about each place we went. You can see the pictures (there are a total of 1800 which were taken by the crew - I have condensed them). Everywhere was gorgeous and perfect. I will just go through some of the many highlights while taking you through the rest of my week.
After Sunday's sunrise, there was napping etc until we anchored at a nice beach for a swim. That evening after over 1 day of sailing, we checked into port (don't ask me the name - I think it was St Eularia or something like that). I had MAJOR land sickness. Everything was moving so much - especially when I used the nice port shower and leaned over to get my shampoo. Whoaaaa!! Also at dinner, I had to practically hold on to the table. I was so happy when we got back to the boat. Totally bizarre. Incidentally, I did not get seasick on the trip, but I did feel a bit sick at times. Anytime you were sailing and you went inside the cabin...everything was moving around SO much, and it was so hot...it was awful. So I was inside the boat for as little time as possible, less than 1 hour per day (and I was usually up at 9 and in bed around 1...or later...) Also there were these "seats" on the two front hulls of the catamaran that would kind of "surf" up and down on the waves. This was my favorite spot on the boat. You would think that you would get totally seasick, but maybe because you were moving even more with the water and all you could see was water, which basically just looked all the same...at least for me, it was perfect. At times we were in big waves, and it seemed like the cat was going to fly out of the water.
Other things about the boat while I'm thinking about it...there was this awesome hammock type thing in the front where you could lay and get a suntan and underneath you, hear the waves and occassionally get a splash. It was SO nice, and I always fell asleep there. Come to think of it, that was maybe my favorite spot. Also, we didn't sail very much. We had the sails up for part of the 12 hour trip each way between Mallorca and Ibiza, but most of the time we were using the motors, because the wind was either blowing the wrong way or not fast enough. It was really nice and peaceful with the sails though. I drove the boat for an hour or so when the motors were on....it's hard. So most of the time we were also on autopilot.
Ok, back to the trip. On Monday morning, we had a nice brekky and left port to sail to a nice beach (like I said...you repeat). I think at this point we were in Formentera, but I'm not entirely sure. We anchored and made lunch, swam a bit and afterwards, a group took the dinghy to shore, where there was a nice Shark bar serving caiprainhas and pina coladas and that sort of thing. We hung out there for a bit, jumped back in the dinghy, at which point, the motor broke, and we had to paddle to the boat (as we approached the boat, it started working again - go figure). We left this spot, and sailed for a few hours to a completely natural beach. Nothing there except sand, palm trees, and of course...naked Europeans sunbathing! Come on, of course they are! Fortunately there weren't too many, because they let it ALL hang out. Really.
At this beach, there was a mud lake which Markus led us to. It was a huge lake that reeked of sulfur, and had a thick salt crust on top. Markus sold it by saying that afterwards, our skin would be baby soft. Then he promptly stripped and sat down in the mud, happy as a piglet in a pen. "Come on," he said, "It's really perfect!" Some people followed his lead while others of us maintained our bathing suits, but nevertheless proceeded to get completely covered. Afterwards, we strolled down to the sea, no doubt scaring all the small children we encountered on our way, and swam around in order to wash off the mud. It totally worked for my skin by the way!
We played around on the beach while the sun was setting and then headed back to the boat (me, Agnes and Greg swam back). For whatever reason, maybe it was the mud, it ended up that Monday night - day three, I would like to remind you - was the craziest night on the boat. Me, Anjali, Greg, Voelker, Markus and Agnes were up quite late drinking, chatting, generally acting stupid (see the photos). The night ended with everyone jumping in the water, then getting out, then Greg puking, then me sleeping outside on the boat which was really nice until I woke up the next morning with a massive headache and had slept next to all the booze bottles. Classy, I know. So how did I cure my hangover? I immediately jumped in the water, of course.
Because Monday night was pretty late for most of the crew, Tuesday was a fairly calm day. We left our nice beach spot around noon and sailed back to Ibiza (this was the time when I drove the boat...I think). We stayed that night at a port in San Antonio, which is I guess the big city in Ibiza. All the big clubs and everything are in the area. I agree that Ibiza does have a big party scene (and far too many annoyingbrit tourists, in my opinion), but I also saw a ton of families there and chill couples. And it's GORGEOUS. So don't rule it out.
Tuesday night we went to the famous Cafe del Mar to watch an amazing sunset over a beach packed with tourists. The sun was so red that it looked like it would blow up. We had some more drinks at the cafe and then tapas for dinner, but decided against going clubbing until the following night. Probably a wise choice, considering Wednesday we spent walking around the city.
Did I mention how hot it was on the trip? It was en fuego. I think it was +30C everyday, and I wore 50 sunscreen on the boat for the first part of the trip (totally got made fun of, but what I didn't get, my friends, is wrinkles. so there!). On the boat, you have the sea and the breeze to take off some of the heat. But in town...blazing. No wonder everything shuts for siesta, because I think it is seriously dangerous to be out and about in that. I was feeling pretty lousy when we got off the bus into town - absolutely exhausted and SO hot. I went to lunch with Carola while some of the others decided to hike up to the top of this cathedral. The lunch was pretty awful, and I was feeling progressively worse. Finally, I was really shaky and felt like puking, and had to excuse myself. I felt so awful, although the walking helped. I found an oasis - an airconditioned jewelry store. I hung out in there for about 15 minutes until my core temperature returned to normal, then got a popsicle and big water, and I was much better. Better enough to do some shopping for a few hours and then head back to the boat!
We didn't go out to dinner, but instead just snacked on some remaining boat food and got ready to go out. Around 1245 me, Anji, Greg and Agnes left for two nearby clubs. It ended up that we got into the Eden for free (cover is normally 40 EUR) which was awesome. We didn't really drink, partly due to the expense, but also because we were sailing back to Mallorca the next morning. Hangover + 12 hours sailing = really bad idea. Instead we danced our pants off. The music was so good and really fun. We went across the street to Es Paradis just to see it, which was terrible, at least that night, so we went back to the Eden and stayed there dancing until...5am! We were setting sail at 6am, so what to do for an hour, since sleeping was obviously pointless? We wandered into town and natutally went to KFC - popcorn chicken in Spain is soooooo not the same - and went back to the boat to wake up our skipper. We helped Markus to prepare the boat and took off. Some of us had some late/early morning beers while watching the sunrise over some cliffs. Then around 730am, I went to bed.
Thursday was a lot of napping due to the night before and the fact that there wasn't much to do for 12 hours. We dropped anchor around 6pm near another beach close to Palma. We made dinner on the boat and watched another beautiful sunset. That night was supposed to celebrate my birthday, but everyone was too tired. Around 1am, I watched the moon set into the sea and curled up in my sleeping back on the back deck of the boat.
"Wake up!" was the next thing I heard. Markus and Anjali had woken up to go lay in the nets at the front of the boat, and Markus came back to get me to see the sunrise. I sleepily wandered to the front of the boat and laid down in the smaller net. The sun had risen for about 15 minutes already and was glowing yellow right in front of the boat. It was beautiful. "We ordered it just for your birthday!" Markus said. I tried to keep my eyes open, and contemplated getting up to get my camera, but in the end, I was too tired to move. I closed my eyes and felt the warm sun on my face and thought how lucky I was to have a sunrise like this for my 28th birthday.
I woke up again around 9 when we were sailing to a beach back towards Porto Colom. It was very secluded and had the most fish of anywhere we had seen. The water was crystal clear, with amazing turquoise and azure colors everywhere we went, but it was really funny to see all the fish at this area. Youcef had the brilliant idea to start feeding them the bread from the boat. I was floating around on a raft and suddenly, fish were jumping everywhere. Next the whole bag went in, which brought literally, a huge school of fish that was just swimming around all of us. It was totally weird but also hilarious.
We sailed back to Porto Colom where Markus had to "park" the boat under the worst conditions of the week (wind blowing the wrong way) and not only that, but he had to essentially parallel park it. It was really amazing how much he knew and how well he handled the boat and the responsibility of being the skipper. We went to dinner in port that night for my birthday and drank sangria and ate yummy fish. The crew surprised me with a cake and singing Happy Birthday, which was really sweet. It was so funny to think that a week earlier, I didn't even know these people and now, we were celebrating my birthday together like old pals.
Saturday morning we woke up early and walked 30 minutes to the bus stop, with our bags, only to find out that...there was actually a stop RIGHT next to the port. Oops. The rest of the day was spent walking around in Palma and sightseeing, eating some really good gelato and tapas, and then going to a really cool bar at which I unfortunately kept falling asleep, despite the vodka limons the crew kept feeding me.
And then Sunday morning, we flew back to Geneva. And voila!! That was essentially, the Sailing Trip. Probably one of the best weeks I have had here, if not in my entire life.
So if you still have some free time on your hands, you can check out the pictures now to get a real feel for what it was like!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
From the Left Hand Side
My summer so far has been considerably quieter than my winter here this year. Except of course for the engagement, that was pretty exciting! But you may remember in the winter I was out doing snowboarding or some other activity every weekend. Partly because the weather has been crap and partly because I am somewhat lazy, I haven't done much other than take Rustbucket around town on a weekend (he's a very cheap date).
Well today I think I found a new summer activity. My friend Bhav has been trying to get me to come wakeboarding with her since last year. The idea of getting up at 7am to go jump in a lake is not very appealing to me. I used to get up at the same time to catch the skibus, but at least for that we got on the bus, had a little snooze, got a coffee and a croissant, got on the nice relaxing chairlift, and THEN started snowboarding. Oh and there's that little part about being dressed in 4 layers, instead of practically naked (bonjour!) and soaking wet. But she was going today at 9, which I agreed would be more feasible.
We biked about 20 minutes to the wakeboard club on the lake and met up with 2 other guys, plus the driver, Nicolas, who would be taking us out. The sky was greyish and it was quite cool (60F), but the water was calm and as smooth as glass. I have a longjohn wetsuit from my triathlon days, although I completely forgot to pack my bodyglide which meat it took me a bit long to get on (and was seriously difficult to get off too!!). We all climbed into the boat and headed out.
First up was this guy Alex, a big, happy guy from Norway with a beard. He jumps into the water and the boat speeds up. Immediately he is up, carving in the wake, riding switch, doing all sorts of jumps. Basically, looking super cool and making it look really easy. It was really fun to watch actually. I didn't realize until then that one big bonus of going wakeboarding was that you get to ride around on a boat on beautiful lake Geneva with nice chill people, blasting music and having a little wakeboarding party for yourself. The sun came out while Alex was riding and on the stereo was blasting "Pass the dutchie from the left hand side." Hilarious.
Next was little Bhav who jumped in the water and proclaimed that it was nice and warm. Although she didn't do as many tricks, she could still do jumps and was attemping to turn a 360, where you pull the rope behind your back and then grab it with your other hand. She was able to grab it and turn and stay up for a few seconds before falling. Still very impressive!
Next up was me. I grabbed a life jacket, and Nicolas helped me to put on the board. Amazingly, it is exactly like a snowboard. The bindings look almost like snowboard bindings except the boot is attached and your toes are exposed. Obviously it's wider than a snowboard, and obviously it floats. Very comfy too.
I eased into the Lac Leman for the first time since arriving in Switzerland and gasped sharply as my breath caught in my chest. Warm!?!?! Of course, Bhav is not really sensitive to temperatures, as you might remember from our picnic in the snow. The water was 60 degrees. And the sun had gone back in. Great. "Ok," Nicolas instructed, "You don't pull wiz ze arms, you pull ze knees hup to your chest when ze boat start to go, you stay bent and slowly you let zeboat pull you hup. And you don't try to turn until you are all ze way hup." "Ok," I answered though clenched, chattering teeth, my heart hammering. I felt like I could barely move or breathe in my wetsuit, which I haven't worn in a long time. I gripped the handlebar with white knuckles and yelled ok.
The boat started to move and I pulled up, and fell forward immediately, getting a huge facefull of ice cold water. It was seriously shocking and not fun. I popped up and gasped for air. "You pulled wiz your arms. You stay bent and let ze boat pull you hup," he instructed from the boat. "Ok, got it." I said. Starting again...I got about halfway up, and fell again. And again. "You don't turn ze board until you are all the way hup. Just wait, zen turn it once you are standing hup." "OK, got it, no turning." And then on the fourth try, I stayed bent at the knees and slowly, slowly let the boat pull me "hup." And I was standing, and I turned to my snowboard position, and I was wakeboarding!!
I decided not to try any jumps or anything on the first time out, just to practice carving a little and get the feel for it. It is pretty much exactly like snowboarding so once I was "hup," I did pretty well. Falling was also similar to snowboarding - impossible to do gracefully, although thankfully I didn't have any more face-first choke sessions like I did on the first try. I ended up having about 4 long runs after I was finally successful. I smiled back at the boat while I concentrated on carving the blue and white wake. Finally, after about 15 minutes, I was done. It is seriously exhausting on your arms - mine kill right now. But it was super fun, and I of course got a huge confidence boost out of the fact I was actually able to get the hang of it pretty quickly (snowboarding took me about 2 full days and I broke my wrist in the process).
I got a "forfait" which means a pass to go back several times. It's not that cheap - about 40 CHF per time. But snowboarding was more, and I did that every weekend, so I can justify it. Plus hopefully it will get my arms all buff.
Next weekend I am bringing my camera so hopefully I can put up some photos and videos. Dude!!!!
Well today I think I found a new summer activity. My friend Bhav has been trying to get me to come wakeboarding with her since last year. The idea of getting up at 7am to go jump in a lake is not very appealing to me. I used to get up at the same time to catch the skibus, but at least for that we got on the bus, had a little snooze, got a coffee and a croissant, got on the nice relaxing chairlift, and THEN started snowboarding. Oh and there's that little part about being dressed in 4 layers, instead of practically naked (bonjour!) and soaking wet. But she was going today at 9, which I agreed would be more feasible.
We biked about 20 minutes to the wakeboard club on the lake and met up with 2 other guys, plus the driver, Nicolas, who would be taking us out. The sky was greyish and it was quite cool (60F), but the water was calm and as smooth as glass. I have a longjohn wetsuit from my triathlon days, although I completely forgot to pack my bodyglide which meat it took me a bit long to get on (and was seriously difficult to get off too!!). We all climbed into the boat and headed out.
First up was this guy Alex, a big, happy guy from Norway with a beard. He jumps into the water and the boat speeds up. Immediately he is up, carving in the wake, riding switch, doing all sorts of jumps. Basically, looking super cool and making it look really easy. It was really fun to watch actually. I didn't realize until then that one big bonus of going wakeboarding was that you get to ride around on a boat on beautiful lake Geneva with nice chill people, blasting music and having a little wakeboarding party for yourself. The sun came out while Alex was riding and on the stereo was blasting "Pass the dutchie from the left hand side." Hilarious.
Next was little Bhav who jumped in the water and proclaimed that it was nice and warm. Although she didn't do as many tricks, she could still do jumps and was attemping to turn a 360, where you pull the rope behind your back and then grab it with your other hand. She was able to grab it and turn and stay up for a few seconds before falling. Still very impressive!
Next up was me. I grabbed a life jacket, and Nicolas helped me to put on the board. Amazingly, it is exactly like a snowboard. The bindings look almost like snowboard bindings except the boot is attached and your toes are exposed. Obviously it's wider than a snowboard, and obviously it floats. Very comfy too.
I eased into the Lac Leman for the first time since arriving in Switzerland and gasped sharply as my breath caught in my chest. Warm!?!?! Of course, Bhav is not really sensitive to temperatures, as you might remember from our picnic in the snow. The water was 60 degrees. And the sun had gone back in. Great. "Ok," Nicolas instructed, "You don't pull wiz ze arms, you pull ze knees hup to your chest when ze boat start to go, you stay bent and slowly you let zeboat pull you hup. And you don't try to turn until you are all ze way hup." "Ok," I answered though clenched, chattering teeth, my heart hammering. I felt like I could barely move or breathe in my wetsuit, which I haven't worn in a long time. I gripped the handlebar with white knuckles and yelled ok.
The boat started to move and I pulled up, and fell forward immediately, getting a huge facefull of ice cold water. It was seriously shocking and not fun. I popped up and gasped for air. "You pulled wiz your arms. You stay bent and let ze boat pull you hup," he instructed from the boat. "Ok, got it." I said. Starting again...I got about halfway up, and fell again. And again. "You don't turn ze board until you are all the way hup. Just wait, zen turn it once you are standing hup." "OK, got it, no turning." And then on the fourth try, I stayed bent at the knees and slowly, slowly let the boat pull me "hup." And I was standing, and I turned to my snowboard position, and I was wakeboarding!!
I decided not to try any jumps or anything on the first time out, just to practice carving a little and get the feel for it. It is pretty much exactly like snowboarding so once I was "hup," I did pretty well. Falling was also similar to snowboarding - impossible to do gracefully, although thankfully I didn't have any more face-first choke sessions like I did on the first try. I ended up having about 4 long runs after I was finally successful. I smiled back at the boat while I concentrated on carving the blue and white wake. Finally, after about 15 minutes, I was done. It is seriously exhausting on your arms - mine kill right now. But it was super fun, and I of course got a huge confidence boost out of the fact I was actually able to get the hang of it pretty quickly (snowboarding took me about 2 full days and I broke my wrist in the process).
I got a "forfait" which means a pass to go back several times. It's not that cheap - about 40 CHF per time. But snowboarding was more, and I did that every weekend, so I can justify it. Plus hopefully it will get my arms all buff.
Next weekend I am bringing my camera so hopefully I can put up some photos and videos. Dude!!!!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Swissness
Hi there! I've been putting off posting about some random things because I wanted to keep my super spectacular post about my recent news on top. But I have some things to comment on and can't figure out how to rearrange my posts on here. So I'll just put a link to my love story, in case you still want to check out how it all happened.
I feel I've occassionally strayed sometimes from discussing Switzerland, so I will do that today! Two things I have recently learned which I thought were awesome:
1) Switzerland has air rescue service throughout the country, something called REGA, which can dispatch a helicopter or air ambulance to come get you. Everywhere in the country, except the Valais region (which is the big mountainous valley area with awesome skiing and wine) can be reached within 15 minutes. AND they also cover the ENTIRE WORLD using jet aircraft if necessary to come rescue little Swissies stranded atop some mountains in Peru or Nepal. How much does it cost to get such insurance, you might ask? Like 1000 bucks a year? 500? No. 30 Swiss Francs if you are single or 70 Swiss Francs for a family. That's cheaper than going out to dinner in Switzerland! And it is completely private - not one cent from the government. If I had known about this before, I definitely would have joined for ski season. I honestly don't know how they figure out some of this cool stuff.
2) Geneva has recently been voted by Mercer the #2 place to live in the entire world!! That's right. So how lucky am I that I have been able to live here for almost 2 years? Number #1 is Zurich, which is nice but...they don't speak French and I can't imagine they have as much good wine and cheese as we do here in Geneva, because we're closer to France. So just my personal opinion...I know that normally they are also rated 2 of the most expensive cities in the entire world, but I have to say I have certainly not gone into any sort of debt living here (although if I did more shopping and eating out, I definitely could). The U.S. didn't even crack the top 25 - only Honolulu landed on there, at #28. Even the U.S.'s northern neighbor managed to sneak 2 cities, Toronto and Ottawa in there (clearly, the writer of the article was bought ooout). Obviously if Chicago was able to upgrade its public transport system and recycling programs to a grade above where they are now (D+ for transport, F for recycling), and the winter was 3 months shorter (4 instead of 7) and maybe they could make some big mountains nearby for skiing, it would be just as good as Geneva.
Did I mention the sun is setting at almost 10pm every night at the moment? So cool.
You can read an excerpt of the article here.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
That's how you know
It's been almost 2 years to the day since I first got the e-mail asking if I might be interested in working in Switzerland. Who knew a one line e-mail could completely change my life. My job, where I lived, my friends, the languages I could speak, my lactose and alcohol intake. I knew it would be exciting and fun (it has been) and probably a bit challenging (I may have slightly underestimated that one). The one question I always got pegged with was "What's going to happen to you and Justin?"
Surprisingly, this is the one thing I didn't worry too much about before leaving for Switzerland. Everyone else worried plenty, believe me. I still remember going to dinner and telling him what I thought were the pros and cons, and getting ready to write out a list (I'm a nerd, I know, he tells me too). Justin just looked at me and said, "Well, it's an incredible opportunity, and I think you should take it if you want to do it. But you have to promise to come back." And that was that. Of course we both knew that living 5,000 miles apart was not going to be easy. Personally I always swore I would never find myself in a long distance relationship and then suddenly, I had created one for myself. But I don't think we ever worried "would we make it?" I didn't. And let's be honest, girls obsess about those kinds of things. We just kind of knew it would all be fine.
This year has definitely been more of a challenge, partly because Justin is working. Which means, he's not home from business school every day anxiously awaiting my call in between rounds of dubious, dilligent studying and maybe a game or two of Tiger Woods golf with an ice cold mug of juice. We can only talk really on the weekends and just email during the week. Now I know you might say "Well, in the olden days, you could only send letters, and people didn't even have email or cheap international long distance!" But I didn't grow up in the "olden days," and so that doesn't really help. We miss each other and a lot of times it seriously sucks. But we've made it this far.
Justin came back to Switzerland about 3 weeks ago for his first visit since last summer. I had last seen him in March for about 55 hours, and that includes time we spent sleeping and on gross planes, so really, it was not very quality time. The week before he arrived was, as usual, agonizingly and painfully long. In fact the only week longer than the week before his arrival is the week after he leaves. On May 23, I met him at the airport and gave him a key and a quick kiss. Then I dashed back to work, because I had to re-do a stupid project that one of my lazy, good for nothing co workers, failed to do correctly (he shall remain nameless but if you come to visit me, I promise to properly introduce you). Plus Justin and I were leaving for Provence on Sunday, so I had a lot of things to wrap up.
I was able to escape around 4pm and got home to find a few things. Justin was asleep. No surprise there. I walked further into the living room. Hmmm roses nicely arranged in a vase? Quelle surprise! That's a rarity. I immediately became suspicious and walked into the kitchen to investigate further. I found cheese and more cheese. Again, not surprising. Therefore, I decided nothing was going on and went to wake up my jet lagged boyfriend.
I'm expecting for Noah to pull up in the ark any day now, which will give you an indication of how much it has been raining here lately (except for when my parents were here, I'm pretty sure it's been raining since April. Every day.). Thankfully the day Justin arrived, the weather was nice again. We went to the store to pick up a few things. We came back and opened a bottle of champagne (my Christmas gift from work) and some cheese and just relaxed in each other's company on the balcony. We decided to watch some Top Chef.
After the episode ended, Justin decided to shower. Then five minutes later, decided not to. Ok, whatever, I understand completely that the jet lag makes us all really confused and tired. I didn't think anything of it. Nor did I think anything of his pacing around the apartment. We had finished our champagne and he suggested we refill and go back out on the balcony since it was still light and now was much quieter, so I went into the kitchen to top off the glasses.
As I was coming back, I noticed him standing and leaning out over the balcony, then turn his head around over his right shoulder, just to give me this look, this half flirting, half serious look, which at the time made me think, "What is that look??" but retelling this now, I realize exactly what that look was.
I stepped outside and handed him his glass, and we did a little impromptu cheers. "Well," Justin said...
...well, gentle reader, you must know what he said to me. What he asked. If you want the story, I will be more than happy to tell you personally, but I am not posting the details of this for the entire world. But, I will tell the entire world this:
I said YES!!!
It was a completely surreal, emotional, laughter and tear and hug filled, deliriously happy moment. We kept trying out new lines like "hi fiance" and "we're engaged!!" and then bursting out laughing. He did have another surprise which I didn't find in the kitchen - a second bottle of champagne (which we followed with a bottle of wine...I mean if you don't celebrate the day you get engaged, when do you?!). We spent a good hour or so just relishing the moment and looking at my new ring (I suppose that was more me...) before we called our families.
Mine of course, were all out (j'ai de la chance!!), but we spoke to Justin's parents, who were very excited. About 45 minutes later, my mom called me back, saying she was out with her friend Kim. Then I said, "Well, you can tell Kim that Justin and I are engaged!," and my mom starting screaming with excitement. My sister as well, was completely shocked, at at Macy's. "Ohmigod, that's so awesome!!! How did he - hold on a sec - yes can I get this in a four? Sorry to keep you waiting like that, but my sister just got engaged!!" This was actually really fun, because Mom and Aimee were pretty much the only two who were REALLY surprised, which is thanks to my dad throwing them off the trail (thanks again Dad). We called Justin's brother Chris (the number one fan of "Jac Goes to Switzerland!") and his wife who knew already, and my brother Chris who confidently announced "Yeah well (insert loud, frat boy sigh here) I'm proud to say I kinda knew something, but I didn't say anything." Our friends we called later seemed to know that it was going to happen, given the circumstances of the trip and of our relationship.
Of course, we've probably known for some time. Since Justin agreed to go to Cubs games with me, or the day I bought a Sox hat. Since the time I tried skiing, and he carried my snowboard. Since five years ago, when I have started force feeding myself olives. Since he agreed to come to my parents' house to do yardwork and move pool furniture. Since we supported and encouraged each other through busy seasons, business school applications, triathlons, internships, working too late, staying out too late, and that liiiiiiiiittle part about me leaving for a foreign country.
There's something else I've always known too: I have no idea how to plan a wedding. I can only hope I learned enough as sorority social chair to plan an event slightly more complicated than a swap with DKE. But I can't wait. All I know is our wedding is going to be legendWAITFORIT...
dary!!!!
Surprisingly, this is the one thing I didn't worry too much about before leaving for Switzerland. Everyone else worried plenty, believe me. I still remember going to dinner and telling him what I thought were the pros and cons, and getting ready to write out a list (I'm a nerd, I know, he tells me too). Justin just looked at me and said, "Well, it's an incredible opportunity, and I think you should take it if you want to do it. But you have to promise to come back." And that was that. Of course we both knew that living 5,000 miles apart was not going to be easy. Personally I always swore I would never find myself in a long distance relationship and then suddenly, I had created one for myself. But I don't think we ever worried "would we make it?" I didn't. And let's be honest, girls obsess about those kinds of things. We just kind of knew it would all be fine.
This year has definitely been more of a challenge, partly because Justin is working. Which means, he's not home from business school every day anxiously awaiting my call in between rounds of dubious, dilligent studying and maybe a game or two of Tiger Woods golf with an ice cold mug of juice. We can only talk really on the weekends and just email during the week. Now I know you might say "Well, in the olden days, you could only send letters, and people didn't even have email or cheap international long distance!" But I didn't grow up in the "olden days," and so that doesn't really help. We miss each other and a lot of times it seriously sucks. But we've made it this far.
Justin came back to Switzerland about 3 weeks ago for his first visit since last summer. I had last seen him in March for about 55 hours, and that includes time we spent sleeping and on gross planes, so really, it was not very quality time. The week before he arrived was, as usual, agonizingly and painfully long. In fact the only week longer than the week before his arrival is the week after he leaves. On May 23, I met him at the airport and gave him a key and a quick kiss. Then I dashed back to work, because I had to re-do a stupid project that one of my lazy, good for nothing co workers, failed to do correctly (he shall remain nameless but if you come to visit me, I promise to properly introduce you). Plus Justin and I were leaving for Provence on Sunday, so I had a lot of things to wrap up.
I was able to escape around 4pm and got home to find a few things. Justin was asleep. No surprise there. I walked further into the living room. Hmmm roses nicely arranged in a vase? Quelle surprise! That's a rarity. I immediately became suspicious and walked into the kitchen to investigate further. I found cheese and more cheese. Again, not surprising. Therefore, I decided nothing was going on and went to wake up my jet lagged boyfriend.
I'm expecting for Noah to pull up in the ark any day now, which will give you an indication of how much it has been raining here lately (except for when my parents were here, I'm pretty sure it's been raining since April. Every day.). Thankfully the day Justin arrived, the weather was nice again. We went to the store to pick up a few things. We came back and opened a bottle of champagne (my Christmas gift from work) and some cheese and just relaxed in each other's company on the balcony. We decided to watch some Top Chef.
After the episode ended, Justin decided to shower. Then five minutes later, decided not to. Ok, whatever, I understand completely that the jet lag makes us all really confused and tired. I didn't think anything of it. Nor did I think anything of his pacing around the apartment. We had finished our champagne and he suggested we refill and go back out on the balcony since it was still light and now was much quieter, so I went into the kitchen to top off the glasses.
As I was coming back, I noticed him standing and leaning out over the balcony, then turn his head around over his right shoulder, just to give me this look, this half flirting, half serious look, which at the time made me think, "What is that look??" but retelling this now, I realize exactly what that look was.
I stepped outside and handed him his glass, and we did a little impromptu cheers. "Well," Justin said...
...well, gentle reader, you must know what he said to me. What he asked. If you want the story, I will be more than happy to tell you personally, but I am not posting the details of this for the entire world. But, I will tell the entire world this:
I said YES!!!
It was a completely surreal, emotional, laughter and tear and hug filled, deliriously happy moment. We kept trying out new lines like "hi fiance" and "we're engaged!!" and then bursting out laughing. He did have another surprise which I didn't find in the kitchen - a second bottle of champagne (which we followed with a bottle of wine...I mean if you don't celebrate the day you get engaged, when do you?!). We spent a good hour or so just relishing the moment and looking at my new ring (I suppose that was more me...) before we called our families.
Mine of course, were all out (j'ai de la chance!!), but we spoke to Justin's parents, who were very excited. About 45 minutes later, my mom called me back, saying she was out with her friend Kim. Then I said, "Well, you can tell Kim that Justin and I are engaged!," and my mom starting screaming with excitement. My sister as well, was completely shocked, at at Macy's. "Ohmigod, that's so awesome!!! How did he - hold on a sec - yes can I get this in a four? Sorry to keep you waiting like that, but my sister just got engaged!!" This was actually really fun, because Mom and Aimee were pretty much the only two who were REALLY surprised, which is thanks to my dad throwing them off the trail (thanks again Dad). We called Justin's brother Chris (the number one fan of "Jac Goes to Switzerland!") and his wife who knew already, and my brother Chris who confidently announced "Yeah well (insert loud, frat boy sigh here) I'm proud to say I kinda knew something, but I didn't say anything." Our friends we called later seemed to know that it was going to happen, given the circumstances of the trip and of our relationship.
Of course, we've probably known for some time. Since Justin agreed to go to Cubs games with me, or the day I bought a Sox hat. Since the time I tried skiing, and he carried my snowboard. Since five years ago, when I have started force feeding myself olives. Since he agreed to come to my parents' house to do yardwork and move pool furniture. Since we supported and encouraged each other through busy seasons, business school applications, triathlons, internships, working too late, staying out too late, and that liiiiiiiiittle part about me leaving for a foreign country.
There's something else I've always known too: I have no idea how to plan a wedding. I can only hope I learned enough as sorority social chair to plan an event slightly more complicated than a swap with DKE. But I can't wait. All I know is our wedding is going to be legendWAITFORIT...
dary!!!!
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Updates
1) The plant has been mysteriously removed!! It happened when I was on vacation last week. Almost as strangely as he came, he went. Well GOOD RIDDANCE is all I have to say to that sad excuse for foilage.
2) I would like to clarify a section in my Krakow post where Abby licked the wall of the salt mine as re-reading this, I think it paints a murky picture of our adventure. You may think, not knowing Abby, that this was kind of a stupid thing to do and that her observation ("It's totally salty!) would be quite obvious. First of all, everyone wanted to lick the wall, which was clean (including yours truly) but only Abby was brave enough. I kept seeing good places for licks but couldn't get up the gusto to do it. Secondly, Abby read this book called "Salt" which she recapped for us that sounded super interesting, making us all very excited to see the mine. And in fact it was not really known to us that the walls would be totally (meaning, in total, not meaning, "radically" or "mega" some other 90's word often used as a synonym for totally) salty. But the whole thing was really, totally salty, which we did would not have discovered if it were not for Abby!! Did I mention the salt mine was TOTALLY (and here I do mean it in the other context) AWESOME??!!
2) I would like to clarify a section in my Krakow post where Abby licked the wall of the salt mine as re-reading this, I think it paints a murky picture of our adventure. You may think, not knowing Abby, that this was kind of a stupid thing to do and that her observation ("It's totally salty!) would be quite obvious. First of all, everyone wanted to lick the wall, which was clean (including yours truly) but only Abby was brave enough. I kept seeing good places for licks but couldn't get up the gusto to do it. Secondly, Abby read this book called "Salt" which she recapped for us that sounded super interesting, making us all very excited to see the mine. And in fact it was not really known to us that the walls would be totally (meaning, in total, not meaning, "radically" or "mega" some other 90's word often used as a synonym for totally) salty. But the whole thing was really, totally salty, which we did would not have discovered if it were not for Abby!! Did I mention the salt mine was TOTALLY (and here I do mean it in the other context) AWESOME??!!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
It finally happened!
After such a long time waiting, I could hardly believe when the moment arrived.
My parents came to Switzerland!!
(haha, gotcha readers. don't worry, I'll soon provide the next post that some of you were expecting here instead!!)
A lot of you know that I have been waiting and waiting and WAITING for my parents to come visit me. My dad came to visit in January for a few days and we made a new friend in Zermatt:
But I really wanted them both to come and see my life and my home, and experience all the things I love about Switzerland. As you might imagine, my parents were not exactly thrilled when I told them about moving 5,000 miles away for two years. I get along very well with my parents (now that we are all adults) and disagreeing with them on something which was so important to me made the decision to move quite difficult. But in the end of course I am glad I came over and especially now, in year two, things are really good over here.
My parents arrived on May 1 which was fortunately a holiday here in Switzerland (Ascension Thursday). Unfortunately, as you well know by now, this meant that everything was closed. I picked up my parents at the airport along with beaucoup de baggage. The first thing we did was take Switzerland's excellent public transport towards my apartment. A little old lady came and sat next to me on the bus, speaking in French. Somehow she and everyone else must have known that these were my parents, because random people were speaking in me in French all week, allowing me to show off to my parents! Random people always talk to me - I must either look nice or like I know directions and timetables to all transport connections. However I used to freak out that someone would ask me a question in France and would always immediately answer "non."
Anyway, my dad tested the sleeping conditions in my apartment while I took mom to into town to check out the lake and window shop. After a nice lunch and a trip to a tea room, we headed back home to regroup and had a fairly lazy night, which extended into the next day. Around 1pm on Friday, I announced that jet lag was over and it was time to get up! Needless did we know the fun that lay in store for us that night...
As painful as this will be, I have to recount this story. A little context first: Before Rustbucket came into my life, I took the bus/tram roughly twice a day, every day. Having been here for 17 months at the time my parents arrived, and accounting for the time I spent outside of Switzerland when I didn't take the bus, that's roughly 950 or so times I have taken the bus. And my ticket has been checked 6 times. That's about 1/2 of 1% chance that you get your ticket checked. Now, where am I going with this?
Here's my adorable p's in Montreux. So unspecting of the impeding drama...
My parents and I went to Montreux on Friday night since it is pretty and has the Chateau de Chillon right on the lake. It was a beautiful night with the sun setting on the lake. We got to the bus stop and did not see a ticket box outside of the bus. However normally when this happens, there is a box on the bus where you need to buy the ticket. So we get on the bus and my parents obviously had no clue what to do so sat down. I was trying to figure out what zone we needed to go to and how much to pay on this weird machine, unsuccessfully, and freaking out that I probably didn't have enough money for us to get a return ticket. This took about 30 seconds and the bus stopped.
So gentle reader, a probability question: If your chance of getting checked is less than 1/2 of 1%, what are your chances of getting checked when you have 2 other people with you and none of you have bus tickets? You would probably say well, it might be slightly increased, to like 1.5%. WRONG.
The answer is, of course, 100%.
I figured I could just explain to one of the nice Swiss men that I was trying to buy a ticket but the machine I used ne marche pas and I was just about to go to the normal one. I did this in French. "Come with me," he said in English (never a good sign), and made me and my parents get off the bus and take our passports. We were then told that we were EACH fined 80 CHF for riding without a ticket and if we didn't pay at that moment, we would go to jail. Yes, jail. I confirmed later in one of my Swiss books that this really does happen.
Obviously things got ugly after that. Let me just say that Switzerland is not America. I love Switzerland, but if you think you can appeal to rulemakers with sweet talk, bribes, flirting, stripping, idle threats, real threats, or klondike bars, forget it. I tried explaining 100 times that I always carry a ticket and was just confused and my parents didn't know, etc. My dad used a bit stronger tone and the one guy started speaking very angrily and as fast as he possibly could in French to my dad specificially so he couldn't understand and to piss him off (sorry Dad, but actually I understood what he said and it was really funny that he did that). My dad wanted to test the threat that we would be arrested, but I refused and handed over 240 CHF. Then promptly made my parents take me to a nice dinner to pay me back. Needless to say, I think this is VERY bad for tourism in Montreux and left a terrible taste in my mouth. So BOO to you stupid city with your smoke on the water. I take Geneva (which gives free bus passes at the airport for tourists) any day of the semaine.
The rest of the trip, thankfully, was much more fun. On Saturday, we went wine tasting in Dardagny. My dad who denies he can speak French, had no problem obtaining numerous tastings of this delicious cabernet sauvignon which we later purchased. We went home and took a much needed nap and then had a fun night cooking in. My mom and I watched "Charlie Wilson's War" on my HUGE screen tv (read: 17in laptop) while my dad watched the Cubbies on MLBtv.
On Sunday we went to Interlaken! We checked into the Hotel Bellevue and got an awesome triple room (yes, all in one room, we love each other!!) with an adorable balcony and to die for view of the river and mountains. Nice photo below by Mom!
We took a boat cruise on Lake Brienz (the cleanest lake in Switzerland in 2005 until flooding; still looked pretty clean to me) and then had a nice dinner in a square on a quiet side of town. We decided to take a walk after dinner and that's when I noticed...the bugs. The BIG SICKASS bugs. I put my sweatshirt hood up and my parents thought I was nuts. They looked like cicadas though and I HATE bugs. Snakes or rats, throw em at me. Just not a bug of any kind. So we got back to the hotel safely and decided to open the window slightly. I was a bit worried because the screen wasn't super substantial. But we were on the 3rd floor right?
We took a boat cruise on Lake Brienz (the cleanest lake in Switzerland in 2005 until flooding; still looked pretty clean to me) and then had a nice dinner in a square on a quiet side of town. We decided to take a walk after dinner and that's when I noticed...the bugs. The BIG SICKASS bugs. I put my sweatshirt hood up and my parents thought I was nuts. They looked like cicadas though and I HATE bugs. Snakes or rats, throw em at me. Just not a bug of any kind. So we got back to the hotel safely and decided to open the window slightly. I was a bit worried because the screen wasn't super substantial. But we were on the 3rd floor right? I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and hear my mom yell AHHHH!!!!! IT'S IN THE ROOM!! Immediately I scream and lock the bathroom door. "Kill it Dad!!!" I yell from inside. "You're the one who likes the outdoor stuff! Carol, kill it!!!" He yells back. My mom yells a bit more but bravely somehow manages to get him outside. "Ok J, it's fine." I continue brushing my teeth. Warily. Very waaaar... "AAAAHHHH THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!!!" "AAAAHHH!!!" I yell again. "I'm not coming out of this bathroom until they are all gone, I'll sleep on the floor if I have to!" My brave, wonderful parents conspired a plan where they trapped the bug with a jar, then slid a piece of paper underneath, and then put the sucker outside on the patio. Such a good team!! Thanks for saving my life from the cicadas Mom and Dad.
On Monday, we went to the Top of Europe, which I went to with Justin in August. It was really cool to see it this time because there was a TON more snow. My parents loved it, and we had a lot of fun goofing around and taking pictures on the mountain. And we had an amazing lunch in this gorgeous resto on the side of the glacier. Nothing tastes better than Swiss french fries at 11,000 ft!
We were back in Geneva on Monday night and on Tuesday, I went into work to "regulate" while my parents stayed home - Dad to catch up on some work of his own, and Mom to take care of me by cleaning some things in my apartment (eg my oven, which you will recall was subject to a minor grease fire). That night we went to a traditional Swiss restaurant with my friend Ingvill which was really fun. We had fondue and filets de perche and Ingvill educated my parents about lots of Swiss food and customs. I know this too by now, but it's a little more credible coming from her since her husband is Swiss.
Sadly my dad had to leave on Weds and my mom and I went to Rome. It was the first time in probably a good 6 or 7 years I have been on a vacation with my parents and it was so much fun. They are both threatening to come back before they leave and I really hope they do!!
Here's some more pictures:
Family fun on the Jungfraujoch:
Mamoo and me
Finally Mom and Dad in the Ice Palace!
My family rocks.
The Plant
OK, I don't know why it's bothering me so much, but it is.
About two weeks ago, I went into the bathroom at work.
Let me backtrack a little and say that I really love our bathrooms. It is one of the few nice things about my office (the others being view of mountains and ability to watch all the planes taking off, and the recently installed teeny vending machine on the 4th floor). The stall doors shut all the way so you have complete privacy. There are air fresheners (broken at the wrong times unfortunately, but generally effective). And the lights are the energy saving ones that take a long time to come on. Needless to say sometimes when I am super hungover, I just go and shut the door and sit in the nice, quiet, dark, generally good smelling bathroom and take a moment to close my eyes and will away my headache. It's like a sanctuary.
So I went into the bathroom two weeks ago on a Thursday which was a holiday so the office was pretty much closed, and there was a disgusting smelling plant in our bathroom. In the sink, looking like someone had abandoned it. I figured that it would be gone shortly and just held my nose and ignored it.
The following Tuesday, I had to come into work and regulate on some people who decided to slack while mother hen (aka yours truly) was on vacation. I went into the bathroom and lo and behold, yucky plant is still there. This time on the counter, looking like he has made a home for himself. I asked one of my co-workers, "Who put that nasty plant in our bathroom?" But no one knew. It's kind of tall and leafy so how it made it in there without someone ,"what are you doing with that kind of tall and leafy and bad smelling plant?," I don't know.
I came back to work this Monday and guess what is there. Looking SAD I might add. Because let's think about this. Plants NEED sunlight, do they not? This is not some jade plant that you can give like a teaspoon of water and a drop of sunshine and it will grow. This is some random leafy plant which A) is being exposed only to artificial bathroom light and B) someone is REALLY overwatering. With each day, the plant looks worse and worse. Now it is about half covered in dead brown leaves and the rest are wilted. It is making me really angry. Who would be so stupid to put a cast-off plant somewhere that it would obviously die, and then make a mess, in one of the only nice places in our office?
Who does this?
And would I be a terrible person if I led the plant to its natural home (ie garbage dump/compost pile)? Maybe I should rescue it and take it to my office which gets lots of sun? Help??
About two weeks ago, I went into the bathroom at work.
Let me backtrack a little and say that I really love our bathrooms. It is one of the few nice things about my office (the others being view of mountains and ability to watch all the planes taking off, and the recently installed teeny vending machine on the 4th floor). The stall doors shut all the way so you have complete privacy. There are air fresheners (broken at the wrong times unfortunately, but generally effective). And the lights are the energy saving ones that take a long time to come on. Needless to say sometimes when I am super hungover, I just go and shut the door and sit in the nice, quiet, dark, generally good smelling bathroom and take a moment to close my eyes and will away my headache. It's like a sanctuary.
So I went into the bathroom two weeks ago on a Thursday which was a holiday so the office was pretty much closed, and there was a disgusting smelling plant in our bathroom. In the sink, looking like someone had abandoned it. I figured that it would be gone shortly and just held my nose and ignored it.
The following Tuesday, I had to come into work and regulate on some people who decided to slack while mother hen (aka yours truly) was on vacation. I went into the bathroom and lo and behold, yucky plant is still there. This time on the counter, looking like he has made a home for himself. I asked one of my co-workers, "Who put that nasty plant in our bathroom?" But no one knew. It's kind of tall and leafy so how it made it in there without someone ,"what are you doing with that kind of tall and leafy and bad smelling plant?," I don't know.
I came back to work this Monday and guess what is there. Looking SAD I might add. Because let's think about this. Plants NEED sunlight, do they not? This is not some jade plant that you can give like a teaspoon of water and a drop of sunshine and it will grow. This is some random leafy plant which A) is being exposed only to artificial bathroom light and B) someone is REALLY overwatering. With each day, the plant looks worse and worse. Now it is about half covered in dead brown leaves and the rest are wilted. It is making me really angry. Who would be so stupid to put a cast-off plant somewhere that it would obviously die, and then make a mess, in one of the only nice places in our office?
Who does this?
And would I be a terrible person if I led the plant to its natural home (ie garbage dump/compost pile)? Maybe I should rescue it and take it to my office which gets lots of sun? Help??
Monday, May 12, 2008
Krakow
Yes it's been a while, I know! I have been incredibly busy.
Things I find myself doing much more than a normal person:
a) sprinting down the street at full throttle, often in heels, to catch a tram/train
b) crying in airports
c) buying lots and lots of vegetables, and throwing them all away a week later (very bad I know, but I do compost them)
Lately I feel my life is a big jumble of racing from bed to work to french to bed etc and not much sleeping. And a lot of traveling. Let's start there.
Two weeks ago, I went to Krakow, Poland to meet up with Abby and Melissa (2 friends from college) and Cara. I LOVED Poland. The love affair began instantly, unexpectedly, like these things often do.
I exchanged some euros at the currency counter and received a neat stack of Polish zloty. "And this is for you too" she said, handing me a candy. When was the last time you exchanged money and got candy (ok I always got candy at the bank when I was little, I mean, as an adult)?? Then I got in a taxi with a driver who spoke about 10 words of english. "Hello" "Please" and "Tip I keep?" being half of that. Although we could hardly communicate, I told him that I was from Chicago, which is practically part of Poland, there are so many Polish people there. This was very exciting. Things heated up when I told him that my grandparents were Polish AND I knew how to say thank you in Polish! I was beautiful, I was told, because I am Polish. Score!
I had the wonderful fortune of arriving after the girls tried to check in to our first hotel, which was apparently a cross between a halfway house and a boxcar circus train from the sounds of it. So I arrived at the beautiful Sheraton in Krakow and showered my friends with hugs, kisses and of course, imported swiss cheese. Yum!!! You can read about some of the adventures we had on Abby and Cara's blog here.
Krakow was cheap, the food was good, the people super nice and the beer was outstanding!! I think we tried around 5 or 6. My favorite was called Dog in the Fog, a darkish local Polish beer. The slogan was "he will not lose his way" or something like that. I've looked for some stuff on google about it but have come up empty handed. You'll just have to trust me until I can get my hands on Abby's photos which prove it!
One of the interesting things we did while there was take a trip to Auschwitz, about an hour away. Why would anyone, on a sunny, fun filled vacation, choose to spend the majority of a day going to a concentration camp? We pondered it too. But we were compelled to go see it. It was one of those things that you don't necessarily want to see or do, because it is painful and heartwrenching. I visited Ground Zero earlier this year, which is different but the same in the way that it was the site of a tremendous atrocity and not something that you really want to do on vacation. In New York, I felt extremely emotional and near tears, maybe because it was something that happened during a critical time in my life and I still remember every minute of that entire day - and although it's in the past, for most people my age it is a memory that we live with constantly. At Auschwitz, it felt more like history, and while it was shocking, it was in some ways more difficult to comprehend everything. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the barracks looked more like college dormitories than places that used to house thousands of people. At one point we stood near a wall where many people had been shot, and a group of girls began simultaneously praying (what sounded like the our father to me, although it was in Polish so I couldn't tell). That stayed with me throughout the day, as did the hundreds of photographs we saw saying how long people remained alive there. Some were a year or more. Some were five days or less. I don't know if I forgot from school or I never really knew the extent, but I didn't realize the intent to basically eliminate the entire Polish population, regardless of religion. The quotes and photographs were truly mind-boggling and shocking, and I couldn't decide what astounded me more - the fact that people could actually think and act in such a manner towards fellow human beings, or the fact that other people could stand by and let them get away with it. The other thing which stayed with me for the day was walking through a barrack called "Evidence of Crimes against humanity" where you saw articles left behind from the holocaust victims. A room the size and depth of a large swimming pool filled with pots and pans. A large window, filled with thousands of pairs of spectacles. And another room, high and deep, and on either side, thousands and thousands and thounsand of shoes big and small.
I don't mean to be depressing, but the main thing I personally took away from the experience was that it is ok to feel uncomfortable and depressed and kind of angry about these things that happened, and to allow yourself to feel that way. Because it was really, really awful, and we should feel that way about it and work to ensure nothing like that would ever happen again. If you try to just glaze over it and numb yourself...well I think it was put best by one of the quotes at the site: "he who forgets history is condemned to repeat it."
Anyway...I had to get that off my chest. Back to the fun parts of Poland.
Going to Poland and experiencing everything was cool for me because I am half Polish, and it was the first visit I had to a country of my ancestors. The other fun trip we had was visiting a huge salt mine!! It was about 130 m underground and we had a super funny and cute guide to show us around. Salt is bad ass and was the world's first major trading commodity. There were a lot of really cool sculptures and an entire church which were completely carved from salt. However I think my personal highlight of the entire tour was when Abby licked the wall, and excitedly proclaimed, "It's totally salty!!"
After all the pierogis, beer, Polish history lessons (man they have had a rough time with the neighbors) and adventures, I felt more proud of my Polish heritage than I ever had. Which I commemorated by purchasing a super tacky bright red POLSKA t shirt with a huge eagle on it. Love you Poland!!! (thanks for letting me steal your line Cara!)
Things I find myself doing much more than a normal person:
a) sprinting down the street at full throttle, often in heels, to catch a tram/train
b) crying in airports
c) buying lots and lots of vegetables, and throwing them all away a week later (very bad I know, but I do compost them)
Lately I feel my life is a big jumble of racing from bed to work to french to bed etc and not much sleeping. And a lot of traveling. Let's start there.
Two weeks ago, I went to Krakow, Poland to meet up with Abby and Melissa (2 friends from college) and Cara. I LOVED Poland. The love affair began instantly, unexpectedly, like these things often do.
I exchanged some euros at the currency counter and received a neat stack of Polish zloty. "And this is for you too" she said, handing me a candy. When was the last time you exchanged money and got candy (ok I always got candy at the bank when I was little, I mean, as an adult)?? Then I got in a taxi with a driver who spoke about 10 words of english. "Hello" "Please" and "Tip I keep?" being half of that. Although we could hardly communicate, I told him that I was from Chicago, which is practically part of Poland, there are so many Polish people there. This was very exciting. Things heated up when I told him that my grandparents were Polish AND I knew how to say thank you in Polish! I was beautiful, I was told, because I am Polish. Score!
I had the wonderful fortune of arriving after the girls tried to check in to our first hotel, which was apparently a cross between a halfway house and a boxcar circus train from the sounds of it. So I arrived at the beautiful Sheraton in Krakow and showered my friends with hugs, kisses and of course, imported swiss cheese. Yum!!! You can read about some of the adventures we had on Abby and Cara's blog here.
Krakow was cheap, the food was good, the people super nice and the beer was outstanding!! I think we tried around 5 or 6. My favorite was called Dog in the Fog, a darkish local Polish beer. The slogan was "he will not lose his way" or something like that. I've looked for some stuff on google about it but have come up empty handed. You'll just have to trust me until I can get my hands on Abby's photos which prove it!
One of the interesting things we did while there was take a trip to Auschwitz, about an hour away. Why would anyone, on a sunny, fun filled vacation, choose to spend the majority of a day going to a concentration camp? We pondered it too. But we were compelled to go see it. It was one of those things that you don't necessarily want to see or do, because it is painful and heartwrenching. I visited Ground Zero earlier this year, which is different but the same in the way that it was the site of a tremendous atrocity and not something that you really want to do on vacation. In New York, I felt extremely emotional and near tears, maybe because it was something that happened during a critical time in my life and I still remember every minute of that entire day - and although it's in the past, for most people my age it is a memory that we live with constantly. At Auschwitz, it felt more like history, and while it was shocking, it was in some ways more difficult to comprehend everything. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the barracks looked more like college dormitories than places that used to house thousands of people. At one point we stood near a wall where many people had been shot, and a group of girls began simultaneously praying (what sounded like the our father to me, although it was in Polish so I couldn't tell). That stayed with me throughout the day, as did the hundreds of photographs we saw saying how long people remained alive there. Some were a year or more. Some were five days or less. I don't know if I forgot from school or I never really knew the extent, but I didn't realize the intent to basically eliminate the entire Polish population, regardless of religion. The quotes and photographs were truly mind-boggling and shocking, and I couldn't decide what astounded me more - the fact that people could actually think and act in such a manner towards fellow human beings, or the fact that other people could stand by and let them get away with it. The other thing which stayed with me for the day was walking through a barrack called "Evidence of Crimes against humanity" where you saw articles left behind from the holocaust victims. A room the size and depth of a large swimming pool filled with pots and pans. A large window, filled with thousands of pairs of spectacles. And another room, high and deep, and on either side, thousands and thousands and thounsand of shoes big and small.
I don't mean to be depressing, but the main thing I personally took away from the experience was that it is ok to feel uncomfortable and depressed and kind of angry about these things that happened, and to allow yourself to feel that way. Because it was really, really awful, and we should feel that way about it and work to ensure nothing like that would ever happen again. If you try to just glaze over it and numb yourself...well I think it was put best by one of the quotes at the site: "he who forgets history is condemned to repeat it."
Anyway...I had to get that off my chest. Back to the fun parts of Poland.
Going to Poland and experiencing everything was cool for me because I am half Polish, and it was the first visit I had to a country of my ancestors. The other fun trip we had was visiting a huge salt mine!! It was about 130 m underground and we had a super funny and cute guide to show us around. Salt is bad ass and was the world's first major trading commodity. There were a lot of really cool sculptures and an entire church which were completely carved from salt. However I think my personal highlight of the entire tour was when Abby licked the wall, and excitedly proclaimed, "It's totally salty!!"
After all the pierogis, beer, Polish history lessons (man they have had a rough time with the neighbors) and adventures, I felt more proud of my Polish heritage than I ever had. Which I commemorated by purchasing a super tacky bright red POLSKA t shirt with a huge eagle on it. Love you Poland!!! (thanks for letting me steal your line Cara!)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Me and Rustbucket
Well I think I am really starting to go turn into a Euro.
First of all, I am now speaking french 2 full days each week in the office. That might not sound like a lot, but it is and it's exhausting! It's quite easy to "bavarder" (chat) in French but it gets a bit more difficult to try and explain things and understand things work related that people are telling you. But I have to say it is good practice which I really need. Thursdays it is just with the 2 girls in my office and on Fridays, some brilliant lad that I work with started "French Fridays" where all the English speakers have to speak French. This is actually quite humorous to speak French with other Americans and Brits and Russians and South Africans and other people who don't normally speak french. Anyway it's a "bonne initiative" although today for example, I got so fed up with a situation that I switched to English for the remainder of the day to make it easier for me (and bought a chocolate, also to make it easier).
Second and more notably, I bought a bike last weekend. There is a secondhand bike shop in town and in my opinion, they just go around Geneva, steal bikes and resell them. That or pull them out of the lake because they are all a bit shabby looking. But they work. I got a silver one and put a basket on it and voila! I'm ready to ride around town. I fully intended to name it "the silver bullet," but it doesn't sound quite right for its personality. And like I said, it's a bit from hunger. So, I have christened my bike Rustbucket.
Geneva is actually an awesome city for biking because there are true bike paths everywhere to make it really easy and safe to get around by bike. In fact at some cross walks they even have separate "bike lights" that you cross when that is flashing. Not to mention the fact that you can ride around the lake and check out the French Alps every day of the week. And when you ride in the other direction, you can see other mountains. Yes, just one of the small bonuses about living in Switzerland. Anyway my adventure this week was to take my bike to work! Fortunately, my office is kind of away from town. Well, let me rephrase that. It is nowhere near town. It could actually be closer to France than town. But that means that I can walk through neighborhoods and stuff (and not like the gross pigeon filled sidewalk under the Quincy L stop for example) to get there which is nice. It is also right by the airport which is super convenient for traveling and even BETTER for when you have conference calls and can look out the window at all the planes. Anyway, currently I take the tram about 6-8 minutes and walk about 15 minutes to get to work. On Wednesday morning, I woke up with a slight hangover and pleasantly surprised to see it had stopped raining for seriously, the first time in a month. So I quickly got dressed, grabbed some work clothes, and hopped on Rustbucket.
The only unfortunate thing about the ride to work is it is up a long, gradual incline. Not exactly what you want to be doing first thing in the morning. But that is just the first half or so and the rest is not to bad. It takes me now about 15 minutes door to door which is awesome. Then I go upstairs to work and quickly turn on my crappy laptop, which takes about 10 minutes to boot up, run down to the fitness, get naked, say "bonjour!" to all the other naked ladies, shower up, more naked bonjours, get dressed and run back up to work and voila! In about the same time as it took me to get to work previously, I have gotten a bit of exercise and showered. Cool!
Going home is of course super fun because it's all downhill. In fact it's a little fast for little Rustbucket, and we have to apply the brakes gently so as not to crash into a bush. But two days in a row now, Rustbucket and I went to and from work. And I took my bicycle to French lessons tonight.
All that's missing now is a beret.
First of all, I am now speaking french 2 full days each week in the office. That might not sound like a lot, but it is and it's exhausting! It's quite easy to "bavarder" (chat) in French but it gets a bit more difficult to try and explain things and understand things work related that people are telling you. But I have to say it is good practice which I really need. Thursdays it is just with the 2 girls in my office and on Fridays, some brilliant lad that I work with started "French Fridays" where all the English speakers have to speak French. This is actually quite humorous to speak French with other Americans and Brits and Russians and South Africans and other people who don't normally speak french. Anyway it's a "bonne initiative" although today for example, I got so fed up with a situation that I switched to English for the remainder of the day to make it easier for me (and bought a chocolate, also to make it easier).
Second and more notably, I bought a bike last weekend. There is a secondhand bike shop in town and in my opinion, they just go around Geneva, steal bikes and resell them. That or pull them out of the lake because they are all a bit shabby looking. But they work. I got a silver one and put a basket on it and voila! I'm ready to ride around town. I fully intended to name it "the silver bullet," but it doesn't sound quite right for its personality. And like I said, it's a bit from hunger. So, I have christened my bike Rustbucket.
Geneva is actually an awesome city for biking because there are true bike paths everywhere to make it really easy and safe to get around by bike. In fact at some cross walks they even have separate "bike lights" that you cross when that is flashing. Not to mention the fact that you can ride around the lake and check out the French Alps every day of the week. And when you ride in the other direction, you can see other mountains. Yes, just one of the small bonuses about living in Switzerland. Anyway my adventure this week was to take my bike to work! Fortunately, my office is kind of away from town. Well, let me rephrase that. It is nowhere near town. It could actually be closer to France than town. But that means that I can walk through neighborhoods and stuff (and not like the gross pigeon filled sidewalk under the Quincy L stop for example) to get there which is nice. It is also right by the airport which is super convenient for traveling and even BETTER for when you have conference calls and can look out the window at all the planes. Anyway, currently I take the tram about 6-8 minutes and walk about 15 minutes to get to work. On Wednesday morning, I woke up with a slight hangover and pleasantly surprised to see it had stopped raining for seriously, the first time in a month. So I quickly got dressed, grabbed some work clothes, and hopped on Rustbucket.
The only unfortunate thing about the ride to work is it is up a long, gradual incline. Not exactly what you want to be doing first thing in the morning. But that is just the first half or so and the rest is not to bad. It takes me now about 15 minutes door to door which is awesome. Then I go upstairs to work and quickly turn on my crappy laptop, which takes about 10 minutes to boot up, run down to the fitness, get naked, say "bonjour!" to all the other naked ladies, shower up, more naked bonjours, get dressed and run back up to work and voila! In about the same time as it took me to get to work previously, I have gotten a bit of exercise and showered. Cool!
Going home is of course super fun because it's all downhill. In fact it's a little fast for little Rustbucket, and we have to apply the brakes gently so as not to crash into a bush. But two days in a row now, Rustbucket and I went to and from work. And I took my bicycle to French lessons tonight.
All that's missing now is a beret.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over
It's over.
The first major chapter of my stay in Switzerland has closed. Today was the last day of the ski season, my second season here and likely to be the last "season" I ever have in my life. I actually felt a little emotional when getting up to go on the chair the last time today. Let's face it, I will NOT be driving to Alpine Valley every weekend when I get back to the U.S. Snowboarding and skiing in the midwest is just awful and not worth it. It is absolutely freezing, the conditions are terrible AND the runs are like 25 feet long. Hopefully I will go out to Vail or Jackson next winter (I am taking 3 months off work, so anyone who wants to go on a ski holiday...call me!)
So Bhav and I went to Flaine which is in France. By the way I almost always went to France - only Crans Montana, Leysin and Zermatt which I went to are in Switzerland. We got there and did a few runs and then decided to have another picnic because it was super sunny. This one was mildly more successful than our last one - there were lots of other people picnicking too. But of course as soon as we sat down we were battling clouds until the moment we finished. It was yummy though - a nice multi grain bread, avocado and cheese. With apple crumble and coffee for dessert (we got that bit in the resto). It amazes me how the Swissies and Frenchies eat when skiing - it's not uncommon to see someone get tartiflette, which I have not had yet, but it is basically potatoes, cheese, cream, onions and bacon...sounds good but during the middle of a ski day? And then wash it down with a chocolate tart and a bottle of wine. And how are Americans the fattest country in the world? Because I guess the Euros still do 4 hours of skiing after, whereas we tune in to a marathon of "The Hills."
After lunch we got serious and snowboarded for the rest of the day without stopping (unusual for us as we get tempted by various apero bars located all over the mountain). We did two or three runs on one side of the mountain and then kept taking this one awesome run. The chairlift to get up was HUGE. It was an 8 person chair which I have never seen. It was like sitting on a really comfy sofa that flew through the air at super high speed! Also it went over a waterfall and a bunch of trees. Cool. The run itself was great, starting off with a big open bowl at the top and opening into a wide flat bit where we practiced riding goofy (the other way), then narrowing up before dropping you down a steep mogully slushy bit which dropped into a flat bit and you went super super fast! Then more steep and narrow and then steep and wide and then just normal and back to the sofa chair. We went nonstop for about 3 hours and then finished off the day with a kir royale in the sunshine.
We totally passed out on the skibus and when we got back, our driver said thanks and announced that it was the last bus and he would see us all for another season and everyone clapped and cheered. It was cool but a little sad too.
Welllll in any case, this was a bonne saison all around, not just on my board, and with the exception of the few weeks I was trapped in major study lockdown for my work exams, I think I made the most of it.
I will remember the most:
-My first ski lesson in a blizzard
-My second ski lesson when I almost died and some nice guy saved my life (he was like 45, don't get any ideas)
-The amazing views in Chamonix when snowshoeing quietly through the woods, where all you could hear was the snow crunching underfoot
-The taste of a delicious pizzwich at the top of Signal in Les Contamines
-The adorable town of Les Gets and its super slopes
-Being on top of the world in a huge flying bumblebee balloon
-Seeing the Mont Blanc every single weekend
-Someone always pointing the Mont Blanc out to me every weekend
-When I took a snowboard lesson and got my confidence back (and have kicked ass ever since, ha!)
-When I would swing my ice ax just right and hit a sweet spot
-Sitting up top of a huge piece of ice I climbed and not hearing anything except people sniffling and carribeaners gently clinking together
-The first time I rode goofy and turned 5 consecutive times (and promptly fell on my ass)
-The awesome orange apero bar in Crans Montana
-Flying at super speed down the Nantes-Rouge run in Contamines
-Hearing the sound of the waterfall coming down the run today
-When I successfully took a button lift without falling!! (after falling twice before)
-The shots of Jaegermeister Bhav made us do at ONE PM
-The huge white slopes
-The wide blue skies
-The sunshine
-My last run
It was a good season.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Escargots
A short post about snails.
Seriously, it has been raining and cold all week which is unusual, as I heard the weather in Chicago is nicer than here. Incroyable!! This is GOOD news for me because that means it is probably still snowing in the mountains and that will give me another weekend of snowboarding. Hooray!
On my way home from work however, I spotted a snail on the ground in the rain. I have honestly never seen a live snail crawling around outside of Switzerland when it rains. However here I see them all the time. He was totally sprawled out and everything, and I picked him up and he curled up inside his shell, just like they say. It just amazes me sometimes the things that you will find here walking home from work that you would never see in Chicago. Or has anyone ever spotted a snail outside of say, the Tin Lizzie (also known as in my opinion the worst bar in Chicago)?
By the way, if you have never eaten escargots, they are DELICIOUS and if you are a picky eater, go with a friend who is not and have them order it and get some bread to dip in the yummy garlicy herby buttery escargot-ey deliciousness sauce. YUM!
Seriously, it has been raining and cold all week which is unusual, as I heard the weather in Chicago is nicer than here. Incroyable!! This is GOOD news for me because that means it is probably still snowing in the mountains and that will give me another weekend of snowboarding. Hooray!
On my way home from work however, I spotted a snail on the ground in the rain. I have honestly never seen a live snail crawling around outside of Switzerland when it rains. However here I see them all the time. He was totally sprawled out and everything, and I picked him up and he curled up inside his shell, just like they say. It just amazes me sometimes the things that you will find here walking home from work that you would never see in Chicago. Or has anyone ever spotted a snail outside of say, the Tin Lizzie (also known as in my opinion the worst bar in Chicago)?
By the way, if you have never eaten escargots, they are DELICIOUS and if you are a picky eater, go with a friend who is not and have them order it and get some bread to dip in the yummy garlicy herby buttery escargot-ey deliciousness sauce. YUM!
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
CERN
Have you read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown? Or are you a big nerd? If either of those is true, you are probably familiar with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Both are true for me which is what piqued my interest in visiting CERN, and also this "open house" which was on Sunday.
As I understand it: CERN is a bad ass physics laboratory where scientists all over the world come to play and study and make cool new things happen. So they built this particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider and it goes underground - it's 3km (almost 2 miles) underground and 27km (about 17 miles) in circumference, spanning the Swiss and French borders. The LHC is new, and they are going to flip the switch I believe in the summer. It was open to the public to go underground on Sunday, which is where I went (after like 2 hours of waiting and 1 hour of taking random shuttle buses). What happens then is they send little particles zooming all around France and Switzerland at super high speeds. Then they smack them into each other, and it will re-create conditions that existed around the time of the Big Bang (or the "beeg bong" as I kept hearing the Frenchies call it). This will teach us more about the universe as we know it and such things like random particle masses that existed after the beeg bong and why the Cubs cannot win a world series (ok seriously, the answer must lie in science because there is no other explanation!!)
That is my layman's explanation of the LHC but you can read more about it yourself on the webpage dedicated to the new LHC. I basically spent my day wandering around CERN and its various sites and trying to learn about physics, which was quite complicated enough for me in school, when I was so horrible at physics that my reputation preceded me and most people refused to be my lab partner...Anyway a lot of the explanations were in French, about half of which I understood. You get my drift. It was also massively crowded because the open house was for ONE DAY ONLY and you see, even in Switzerland, people are not so refined that they can resist this kind of American gimmicky advertising!
Well CERN was interesting, but it won't make for much of a blog. I leave it to you, gentle reader, to explore the world wide web (which was invented at CERN) if you have more interest in these subjects. There's a lot of cool experiments going on over here!
As I understand it: CERN is a bad ass physics laboratory where scientists all over the world come to play and study and make cool new things happen. So they built this particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider and it goes underground - it's 3km (almost 2 miles) underground and 27km (about 17 miles) in circumference, spanning the Swiss and French borders. The LHC is new, and they are going to flip the switch I believe in the summer. It was open to the public to go underground on Sunday, which is where I went (after like 2 hours of waiting and 1 hour of taking random shuttle buses). What happens then is they send little particles zooming all around France and Switzerland at super high speeds. Then they smack them into each other, and it will re-create conditions that existed around the time of the Big Bang (or the "beeg bong" as I kept hearing the Frenchies call it). This will teach us more about the universe as we know it and such things like random particle masses that existed after the beeg bong and why the Cubs cannot win a world series (ok seriously, the answer must lie in science because there is no other explanation!!)
That is my layman's explanation of the LHC but you can read more about it yourself on the webpage dedicated to the new LHC. I basically spent my day wandering around CERN and its various sites and trying to learn about physics, which was quite complicated enough for me in school, when I was so horrible at physics that my reputation preceded me and most people refused to be my lab partner...Anyway a lot of the explanations were in French, about half of which I understood. You get my drift. It was also massively crowded because the open house was for ONE DAY ONLY and you see, even in Switzerland, people are not so refined that they can resist this kind of American gimmicky advertising!
Well CERN was interesting, but it won't make for much of a blog. I leave it to you, gentle reader, to explore the world wide web (which was invented at CERN) if you have more interest in these subjects. There's a lot of cool experiments going on over here!
Friday, April 04, 2008
Vampire Weekend
No, those are not my plans for tomorrow. It's a new CD I downloaded after being recommended by a guy I work with, Geoff, after his mate (friend, for those of us non-Brits) recommended it to him.
If you know me, you will know that I am obsessed with music. If you are a random person who has stumbled upon my blog, let me be the first to inform you, gentle reader: I am obsessed with music. I NEED it to function and survive, especially sometimes to get through mundane tasks like my job or cleaning house, and to be my happy self. As much as I love eating, if I had to give up either eating (assuming I would not die) or music, it would sadly be food. I think the iPod is the greatest invention ever for a music lover. What could possibly be better than having your entire musical collection with you wherever you go?! I am happy to report that I have a 4 year old iPod with the black and white screen...I think it was the last model they released before the color one.
Anyway I love music, almost any kind, and concerts, and live music, and finding new music. But unfortunately I live in the equivalent of the dark ages here in Switzerlandin that respect because I have no radio or really anyone who can give me suggestions of new things (or old) I have not heard of, especially because I have a rather limited social circle (and life for that matter).
But I downloaded the self-titled Vampire Weekend CD last night and it is REALLY cool! Apparently they have played on SNL and are playing at the Metro this Sunday, so maybe I am just totally behind the times. I really like it and recommend it.
So anyone have any musical suggestions for me? My tastes are fairly simple:
Generally I like happy, upbeat music (I do not like, for example, scary bands like Korn) and not stuff that is too weird (for example, 8 minutes of a digeridoo). I like also other genres that people often hate like country and I like good old fashioned classic rock. I am ready to spend spend spend on iTunes because I have been dying for some new music lately, so if you have any ideas please pass them my way!
If you know me, you will know that I am obsessed with music. If you are a random person who has stumbled upon my blog, let me be the first to inform you, gentle reader: I am obsessed with music. I NEED it to function and survive, especially sometimes to get through mundane tasks like my job or cleaning house, and to be my happy self. As much as I love eating, if I had to give up either eating (assuming I would not die) or music, it would sadly be food. I think the iPod is the greatest invention ever for a music lover. What could possibly be better than having your entire musical collection with you wherever you go?! I am happy to report that I have a 4 year old iPod with the black and white screen...I think it was the last model they released before the color one.
Anyway I love music, almost any kind, and concerts, and live music, and finding new music. But unfortunately I live in the equivalent of the dark ages here in Switzerlandin that respect because I have no radio or really anyone who can give me suggestions of new things (or old) I have not heard of, especially because I have a rather limited social circle (and life for that matter).
But I downloaded the self-titled Vampire Weekend CD last night and it is REALLY cool! Apparently they have played on SNL and are playing at the Metro this Sunday, so maybe I am just totally behind the times. I really like it and recommend it.
So anyone have any musical suggestions for me? My tastes are fairly simple:
Generally I like happy, upbeat music (I do not like, for example, scary bands like Korn) and not stuff that is too weird (for example, 8 minutes of a digeridoo). I like also other genres that people often hate like country and I like good old fashioned classic rock. I am ready to spend spend spend on iTunes because I have been dying for some new music lately, so if you have any ideas please pass them my way!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Caprices
So as I mentioned last week, there was a big music festival going on in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, that I booked last-last minute tickets to for my friend Bhav and me. I think I also mentioned work has been pretty stressful. Needless to say I practically had a panic attack on my way to RUN to the 6pm train to get the heck out of town. I caught it at airport and Bhav met me at the main station in town. After a few minutes of throwing our bags all over the seats, we settled in for our 2 hour ride with some strawberries and a bottle of champagne. I never saw so many heads turn with jealousy as when that I released the cork for that ever so distinct *POP!* There's nothing quite like the sound of champagne opening to signal a holiday commencing!Two hours, miles of gossip and a bottle of champagne later, we arrived in Sierre and asked till we found the funicular which would take us up the mountain to the resort town of Crans-Montana. I thought it was really cool that you took a funi up to the town instead of having the town situated way below (a lot of ski resorts here are like this). Our hotel was located conviently right behind the festival so it was close enough to hear the action and see the tents and walk home (you would think...more on this in a minute) but not loud enough to keep us awake. Brilliant!! We primped up for our night out - I decided to wear heels (again, more on this) and Bhav had some sexy boots of which one of the zippers broke as she was zipping it up. We were so clever that we laced it up around the outside with one of our long snowboard boot laces...function and fashion!! As we could not look any better at this point, it was time to head out.
We had dinner at a delicious little italian resto called La Raphaele. Yes, I am going to talk about the food, but I will limit it to just describing the tagliatelle pasta...it was thick and not flat, but more dense...I suppose in some way like the shape of a flattish carrot stick? Anyway, it was in a delicious super fresh tomato sauce with smoked mozzeralla and basil....mmmmmmmmmmm. The rest of the meal was also good, pizza, dessert and limoncello!
Next we headed out to the concert, again asking all the way there. Bhav, besides a fun friend is an excellent person to have with you when traveling, as she is never afraid to ask anyone for anything (leading to directions and also good tables and free drinks) and also seems to make friends (or flirt, though she dismisses this claim) with everyone around. And people always know her wherever she goes so there is further support to this argument. I digress...we were making our way to Caprices. So it turns out that the festival was in this humongous tent city. We walked into the tent city and went down about 80 flights of stairs and ended up in this big downstairs basement like thing filled with woodchips and drunk people. From here we walked down the hall to see...Eagle Eye Cherry. The best part was that we heard "Save Tonight" within about 3 minutes of walking in there. And it was THE LONGEST version of "Save Tonight" I have ever heard, at least 10 minutes, full of all the gimmicks...audience participation, clapping, reggae breakdowns, solo jams...saaaaaaaave tonight!!
After Eagle Eye we wandered around and saw another cool band called Nouvelle Vague. That's "New Wave" in French. The band does covers of older songs but adds this cool jazzy, bossa nova brazilian type flavor to them. Apparently there are several female vocalists but we saw 2, one of whom was more serious with a really good voice and the other who was a total performer and looked like she was doing a cross between a pole dance and having a seizure the entire time she was on stage. The music was really cool though, and it was definitely a good concert. After this we saw GrandMaster Flash which was fun. It was just like being in a big frat party. Surprisingly for being considered a total badass DJ, he was really cheesy and funny. He kept telling us to jump up over the mountains and how awesome we were. Anyway we were totally dying of thirst and it was about 2, so we climbed back up through 80 flights of stairs and emerged from the underground.
Remember what I said about my heels and the hotel? Somehow when I was leaping up to "Jump" by Kris Kross in my heels I felt fine, but as soon as we were outside my feet were about to fall off. I have never worn heels to a concert in my life and I will NEVER do it again. Yes, I looked good. But not worth it. We emerged totally lost and despite the fact that our hotel was so nearby, we could not find it. I walked around in my stockings while Bhav asked every person passing by if they knew where the hotel was. Finally we were directed the right way and got there. And guess who got in the elevator with us. Eagle Eye!! Well I don't know for sure. But seriously he was a rocker dude with a cool attitude and he really LOOKED like Eagle Eye. Within about 30 seconds I was asleep despite the fact that we could hear the festival going on well into the night.
The next morning we woke up and to our surprise, realized we were staying in an AMAZING hotel. Check out the view!!! 
We went down for breakfast and who did we see again...yes EAGLE EYE!!! There were quite a few randoms talking to him. So we think it really was. Anyway, after this we went for a little swim in the pool and then headed out to the ski rental place which was across town. Town was super super cute and reminded me a lot of Vail.
We went down for breakfast and who did we see again...yes EAGLE EYE!!! There were quite a few randoms talking to him. So we think it really was. Anyway, after this we went for a little swim in the pool and then headed out to the ski rental place which was across town. Town was super super cute and reminded me a lot of Vail.Here's a tip for when you go to Crans Montana. Everything closes between 12 and 2:30. INCLUDING SKI RENTAL PLACES!!! We got there, and I had already booked (and paid 40 EUR for) snowboard hire and the place was shut. Fortunately Bhav again made some friends who told us that there was a hire shop just below the cable car up the mountain. We went there and picked up some boards and headed up.
The slopes at Crans-Montana were amazing. Wide open and sunshine and we had no queues for the lifts. The snow was excellent. But my favorite? Well the apres ski bars of course. There were 2 really cool ones - one of which was in the middle of a slope!! Despite last week's resolution to not drink and board, I had to make an exception for the holiday. The place was COOL and we had to take advantage!
Notice the nets under the tables to hold all your ski gear. Clever!
Around 5:30 we boarded down to the bottom and continued our walking around town. For dinner we tried to get seated in this Thai resto but the guy was a total jerk and resistant to Bhav's charms. Then we tried for takeout (the resto was advertised as takeaway) and he told us that the other "customers" would be first and we would have to wait at least an hour. Funny enough when we asked if we could just get 2 pad thai tofu, it only took 10 minutes. Ah well.
Anyway the rest of the night we ate our thai and drank wine at the free apres-ski party in town called "Swatch Get Hot" and then made our way back to the hotel and funicular and train...alllll the while still in our snowboard clothes mind you and boots (I was SO happy I decided to leave my board at home). Of course on the train ride back to Geneva the loudest people in Switzerland sat right behind us. I moved half a car down and was able to sleep despite them.
Long story short...Crans Montana is cool. Another top trip in Switzerland!
Two fun facts
Hello gentle reader! Well I have much to blog about from my weekend. But 2 things first -
1) Brooks Brothers no iron fitted shirts are beyond my wildest dreams in terms of awesomeness. I recently acquired one (thanks Mom!) when I was home and gave it its first washing at my favorite place..oh you know it, yes the laundromat, last night. Directions say to wash, tumble dry, remove and hang promptly. Well I did just that and even schlepped it home in a duffel bag before I hung it and it looks perfect!! They are expensive but I think well worth the investment or at least add a few into your wardrobe. Since I moved to Switzerland, I stopped dry cleaning (wash and press shirts are 7 francs A SHIRT) and although I have become really expert at ironing and somewhat enjoy it, I would still prefer to not iron. And frankly this shirt looks even better just out of the dryer than my ironing job.
2) I found out that there has been a billboard of my belle-mere (Justin's mere) put up near one of Chicago's most historic landmarks. Now if you know where I used to live, it's over there, and you can find it and check it out. I think it's really cool, and honestly, has anyone out there ever personally known someone featured on a billboard? I'm not going to post the photo, you'll have to hunt it down yourself like a scavenger hunt! How's that for a fun fact?!
1) Brooks Brothers no iron fitted shirts are beyond my wildest dreams in terms of awesomeness. I recently acquired one (thanks Mom!) when I was home and gave it its first washing at my favorite place..oh you know it, yes the laundromat, last night. Directions say to wash, tumble dry, remove and hang promptly. Well I did just that and even schlepped it home in a duffel bag before I hung it and it looks perfect!! They are expensive but I think well worth the investment or at least add a few into your wardrobe. Since I moved to Switzerland, I stopped dry cleaning (wash and press shirts are 7 francs A SHIRT) and although I have become really expert at ironing and somewhat enjoy it, I would still prefer to not iron. And frankly this shirt looks even better just out of the dryer than my ironing job.
2) I found out that there has been a billboard of my belle-mere (Justin's mere) put up near one of Chicago's most historic landmarks. Now if you know where I used to live, it's over there, and you can find it and check it out. I think it's really cool, and honestly, has anyone out there ever personally known someone featured on a billboard? I'm not going to post the photo, you'll have to hunt it down yourself like a scavenger hunt! How's that for a fun fact?!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
It's sittin by the overcoat, the second shelf, the note she wrote
It's been a long day. It's been LONG week. I mean truly, from a work perspective, one of the longest in my entire career. And it's Thursday only. It's not that the days are so long - I am coming in around 8 and working till around 8 or 9 - I've worked longer. But the stress in my office at the moment is incredible, and everyone is just really streteched.
Anyway, tomorrow is the weekend and Bhav and I got in last minute to the Caprices festival thingy! So tomorrow we leave work around 530, hop on the train, get to Crans Montana where the snow is supposed to be AWE-SOME DUUUUUDE and then we check into our four star hotel (balla!!!), go to concerts and boogie all night long, then drag ourselves out of bed on Saturday to hit that pow. Yeaaaah!! I am super excited. I just washed out my ski clothes in the sink. It has to do for now.
Ok, gotta get some sleep so I can get up early and pack. But we got concert ticket, 4 star hotel stay, and ski pass for about 250 CHF each. Good right? Stay tuned gentle reader, I have a feeling we will get some stories out of this one!
Anyway, tomorrow is the weekend and Bhav and I got in last minute to the Caprices festival thingy! So tomorrow we leave work around 530, hop on the train, get to Crans Montana where the snow is supposed to be AWE-SOME DUUUUUDE and then we check into our four star hotel (balla!!!), go to concerts and boogie all night long, then drag ourselves out of bed on Saturday to hit that pow. Yeaaaah!! I am super excited. I just washed out my ski clothes in the sink. It has to do for now.
Ok, gotta get some sleep so I can get up early and pack. But we got concert ticket, 4 star hotel stay, and ski pass for about 250 CHF each. Good right? Stay tuned gentle reader, I have a feeling we will get some stories out of this one!
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