As Promised...

So, last night was Lisa's performance at the"IKEA house." The performance was AMAZING. Lisa is an opera singer, soprano, and sang with another girl who is a mezzo soprano (other girl sings at a lower pitch). I have never really seen opera before, only "The Magic Flute" which I saw here earlier this year (with Lisa in it).

This was actually in an old greenhouse which was a really cool setting. So the 2 girls sang and one guy played piano for about 100 people. It was so cool because the setting was really intimate, and the acoustics in the greenhouse were awesome! Anyway it was just an absolutely brilliant performance. This might sound weird but when I first heard the notes, it was like being hit with a gust of wind in your face or something, or jumping into a cold pool. Just like, WHOA!! She can sing so loud and has such a range, it's just beautiful. So I really enjoyed it. Afterwards when we were all enjoying cocktails they sang happy birthday to someone and it was the most amazing version of happy birthday I had ever heard. All sorts of crazy harmonizing going on.

OK now for you little gossip hounds, the rest.

1) I found out the guy is not the owner or the founder of IKEA. Apparently he is the architect of all of the furniture, which is much cooler in my opinion. I googled and wikipediaed him though and couldn't find anything. I did meet him, and he was dressed in all black and wearing a cowboy hat. It's June 8th. Naturally.

2) I never saw the house. As I mentioned the concert took place in a greehouse which happened to have a huge guest or servants kitchen whatever around the other side. The grounds on which this took place were about the size of a football field and had all these rosebushes, trellises, little paths, hedges in shapes, etc. Gorgeous. The whole scene reminded me of the old lady's property from the movie "Great Expectations" with a little less swamp and "dark and twisty" elements (as Meredith Grey would say). I kind of saw a GIANT house when passing this gate on the way out, but no clue if it was this guy's.

3) There were not meatballs or cookies. There was however veggies and a ton of cheese, champagne, beer which was left in the fountain as a cooler, and homemade fudge.

I think that's about it. Anything else you want to know?

As Iadmired the sun was setting over the mountains, watching the stars come out at 10pm and sipping champagne on this well manicured lawn, I was thinking when the heck else in my life will I get to listen to a private opera concert inside a greenhouse? It seems like there is always something special happening over here.

First...some social commentary

I'm sorry to throw this in, but I'm going to have to. WHAT is the big deal with Paris Hilton going to jail and then going back to jail? It is really unbelievable how much coverage this story has gotten. This is the top story on yahoo (ok, explainable) but also on supposedly reputable sites like tribune.com and cnn.com. I just checked CNN and actually this story is now third, behind the space shuttle and one about 2 guys meeting who just happen to be Bush and THE POPE. So Paris is just slightly less important than the Pope?!

Also all of the pictures of her crying, articles about her being hysterical...come on. I am 26 and if someone sentenced me to jail I might not throw a hissy fit, but I might be pretty uspet. Then again, I would not be idiotic enough to drive drunk on a suspended license or whatever she did.

Anyway I generally do not get involved with this sort of things but the whole thing is a little bit voyeuristic and gross and I had to comment. I will admit that I read the articles, but only for purposes of research for this post. Do people really care so much about this kind of thing? Gross!

There's a band playing outside my apartment

No seriously. So what happened is, I came home on Friday night and there was a big white tent in front of MY apartment. I have the corner unit on the first floor, so literally it was right in front. I had no clue for what. Then yesterday I woke up and found out there was this random street fair going on on my block. I don't really understand what though, because as far as I could tell, no one was selling anything except the ice cream vendor. People maybe were bartering? There was just all this random crap like records and baby clothes laid out everywhere. Now this morning there is a band playing. I like the sound, it's kind of jazzy salsa type with a good beat and lots of sax. It just makes me glad that I don't have a hangover.

Yesterday I had a solo adventure at IKEA. Dave and Lisa couldn't go but I was bored and decided to go by myself anyway. Actually, what I didn't realize was that the train stops right across the parking lot so it is really easy. I got some things I needed and some I didn't need. I am the most excited about a new backpack I got. My backpack is shot and my laptop bag, being free from work, is of course a piece of you know what. So this bag is perfect for my laptop and other stuff, and it also unzips in the middle into two smaller backpacks. C'est cool!

IKEA is so crazy though. I figured out why they have the arrows on the floor (which I consistently ignored), because if people didn't have something to follow, they would be constantly running into each other like cars at an intersection when the lights go out. It was actually maybe a little better to go by yourself because you can weave around people who are standing around wondering "why are the Cubs SO bad?" (well they are probably not thinking about the cubs, but another question that boggles the mind and cannot be answered) I had lunch there as well because you just cannot pass up those meatballs. The funniest thing was I saw a cart with 1 kid and 2 dogs in it. Can't one of those stay at home? I was only at IKEA for 2 hours but maybe some people really do spend like 6 hours there. Anyway, I recommend that if you ever go on a foreign assignment by yourself that you go to IKEA. I think I may start going more often. After being in IKEA, with thousands of screaming kids, slowest walking people on earth, dogs, etc, all you want to do is just go home and be by yourself!

I went to Ingvill and Laurent's house for dinner which is always fun, because they always make really good food, have lots of drinks, and play good music! Since it has been a little cold, we made fondue. mmmm delicious. Ingvill and I also made cupcakes or "muffins" as she calls them. I love cupcakes!! They are so cute and just make me happy. And they should make you happy too. They turned out really good.

Well I am heading to work and later to the lanudro of course. However I bought some cute new sheets at IKEA so that is an incentive for me to go wash things!

By the way, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CHICAGO CUBS?!!!!

It's Friiiiiiiiday

This has been a LONG week and I am so happy the weekend is here. I like to chill and be antisocial on weekends. I know that sounds lame, but be serious with me. After a long week at work I just like to chill and not deal with anyone or anything. Doesn't drinking wine and watching movies on your couch on a cold rainy night sound perfect? Seeeeeeee? And that's what I did.

As most of you know I am way behind on movies, I have seen probably around 10% of the number of movies of an average 26 year old person. Tonight I watched Mission Impossible 2 on loan from Dave and it was predictable but entertaining. Tom Cruise looks really awful with long hair though and I kept wanting to cut it. It was like he was shaking his bob just to piss me off.

I also read about the Zambrano-Barrett fight which is hilarious. Those two are both crazy and I think they should extend it to a 3 minute cage match to see what happens. At least I am not missing any good baseball being over here because the Cubs are awful right now.

Last item of this random post, I found out about this Chicago band called Red Line District and I finally listened to some of their songs tonight. They are super good, playing around Chicago and you can download their songs on myspace. I am always promoting more good music so check it out.

The IKEA house

So some of my readers (I love saying this, as if I am really a famous columnist) are wondering about my planned sojourn to the IKEA house. Honestly I don't know much about it at this point. Here is all I know:

-On June 8th, Lisa is giving a duet performance at someone's house. Someone who happens to be the owner or founder of IKEA. I don't remember which, but it's safe to say that they are rich. And I don't know who Lisa is singing with, but I would be willing to bet my "Leksvik" coffee table that it is not him

-He has a big theater sized room in his house that can hold like 150 people, all of whom probably will look something like this:

-He is contributing 150 CHF to the party, which at IKEA can buy you 4 "Leksvik" kitchen chairs and accompanying cushions

-Dave is buying champagne, a bottle of which will at the cheapest be 10 CHF, which was how much one of my "Jeff" chairs cost.

I have a super cute dress to wear so I am excited about that! I promise to take photos and provide major scoop, at least as major as I can. It should be a very fun evening. I am going to IKEA this weekend actually with Dave and Lisa to rehearse. Just kidding. But they need to buy some stuff and I can't think of anything I need, but I'm sure once I get there I will. I will definitely need, for example, to eat some meatballs. And I need desparately to get some picture frames for my apartment and some extra pillows and blankets for some summer guests. Oh and I know you thought I was kidding about the cookies, but I'm not.

So stay tuned!

By the way - if you go to You Tube and look up "Five Day Old Baby Kitties" you will find a video I took of Aimee with Karen's baby kitties!

Work has totally sucked this week, and it is cold and rainy. Feels just like home! But the good news is tomorrow is June 1, which means just one more month until Justin and I are reunited! And tomorrow is Friday.

The next four months

One of my loyal readers, Abby (admittedly probably my only loyal reader, ha ha ha) has asked me to confirm my summer itinerary in the event people would like to make plans with me. So, below, I give you my next four months:

June 8: Watching Lisa perform at the owner of IKEA's house (I am planning on bringing the IKEA chocolate chip cookies and trying to pass them off as my own)
June 15-17: Oslo, Norway

July 2: Justin arrives!
July 11: I turn 27! YAY
July 14-16: Prague, Czech Republic
July 19-22: Paris, France
July 22-28: Dogsit Java again in Dardagny. July 26-28 Justin's mom comes to visit and is staying with us too!

Early August: Likely taking a trip in Switzerland but nothing definite yet
August 17-27: Italy (Florence, Cinque Terra, Venice, Tuscany and some other stuff, not in that order - Justin is planning)

Sept 6-11: NY NY for Jess and Kevin's wedding. yahoo!
Sept 22ish: Likely Greece or Oktoberfest
Sept 29: Justin leaves
Sept 30: I drink an entire bottle of vodka and sing "Everybody Hurts" over and over from my balcony

So there you have it. Its a little full. But I have a lot of room so all visitors are welcome. I am going to see the world!!

By the way...

Friday, 25 May marked six months that I have been living in Geneva! I'm 1/4 of the way done with my assignment!

Dreissypalooza 2007!!

I'm starting with what happened most recently, because it was really cool. Aimee and Chris came to visit me on May 17 for a week. We didn't really have any concrete plans until Tuesday before they came so it was going to be quite an adventure.

17 May - I raced into to the airport, as always, and meet them outside customs with lots of hugs. We come back to my apartment which is approved of. After lunch, Aimee and Chris take a short nap. Around 4pm we left to catch the train to Lucerne. The weather was horrible, cold and rainy, and even worse in Lucerne. We arrived around 8pm and checked into our hotel, which was used as a jail until 1998!! www.jailhotel.ch After a quick change, we meandered back through town to find a traditional Swiss restaurant. We decided it would be better for the three of us to all share 3 entrees than to eat our own. We had fondue, beef stronganoff and bratwurst with rosti. Mmmm! Well Chris hated the fondue, and the stroganoff had nothing on Aimee's version, but it was still good. After dinner, we headed back to jail and went to the bar there, which was playing really loud dance music. Although we were all tired, we decided it would still be a good idea to drink a few beers and take Jager shots! yay! When we got up to the room, there was a problem. Chris had lost the room key (which had a password on it that was punched into a keypad to open). We remembered the password, but the problem was the room key had our room number on it, so anyone who found it could just come right in. As punishment Chris had to go look for it with no success. I went back with him and miraculously we found it at the unmanned reception desk, snuck away and went back to our "cell." I slept in the top bunk, which was about 3 meters off the ground, and there was no bar. So to prevent me from falling out, Aimee and Chris strapped me in by tying 2 belts together around my bed and then I slipped in underneath. Strapped in just like a real prisoner!!

May 18 - We woke up and wanted to go to the top of Mt. Pilatus, but it was too cloudy. The woman at the TI suggested we go check out the street artists fair, but we had a better idea. We took a boat cruise around Lake Lucerne. The clouds cleared while we were on the boat and it turned into a nice sunny day! We stopped in a little town called Weggis for lunch and shared again. Aimee and Chris tried their first Filets de Perches and enjoyed it! Weggis was pretty sleepy, so we got back on the next boat we could at 2:30 to take us back to Lucerne. We then walked to the famous Lion monument. It is very pretty and cool to see, and the area was filled with tourists. Nearby this was the Glacergarten or Glacier Museum. This place was so random. Apparently it is built over a huge rock that was left there by a glacier. That was kind of cool to see. Then there were some other exhibits about glacier formations. But there was also some random furniture and utensils and things around to see, as well as a big pond full of goldfish and some bunnies. We went to the top of the lookout tower and then saved the best, the hall of mirrors, for last. I had a difficult time and kept walking into the mirrors which made all of us crack up. We left after feeling kind of dizzy and nauseated, but it was pretty fun.

That night we went to this really good brewery on the river for dinner. The beer was delicious and you could only get it there, so we drank a liter each. We also had the best pretzel ever and Alpenmacaroni, which is macaroni and cheese Swiss style, which is outstanding. After waiting for our check for about 45 minutes, we headed to the casino! I taught Chris a little bit about blackjack and soon we were each up about 200 CHF. It was really fun because we were playing at our own table. But then in a flash, things turned, and I left down 100, Chris even. Later I tried to redeem myself at the 10franc table but could never win more than like 30 francs, so I gave up and we went home. We had plenty to drink at the casino, so we went straight to bed.

May 19 - The next morning I forced Aimee and Chris to get out of bed early, which they were not happy about. But it was fortunate that we did as the day was gorgeous and we were headed to Mt. Pilatus! The mountain is supposedly named for Pontius Pilate whose ghost is said to haunt it; however Rick Steeves dimissed this and said it comes from the Latin word for "cloudy." It is also supposedly enchanted with dragons. Apparently the legal absinthe over here has quite an effect on the Swiss imagination. We barely caught the train to Alpenschad, which is where the cogwheel train leaves from. Once we arrived, we got in a really long queue but were fortunate enough to catch the 12:10 ascent. The train goes at a very steep grade, 48% in some places, and is the steepest in the world. The ascent took about 40 minutes and was very scenic. Once at the top, the views were breathtaking. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it felt like you could see the entire world below you. We had brats and beers for lunch and enjoyed the views. After lunch we hiked a short way up to Eiger which is the highest viewing point at Mt. Pilatus. Just the pure magnitude as Chris said, was unbelievable.

We took a gondola down and at the first stop, Chris encouraged us to try the "Seilpark" - a ropes course. These things scare the crap out of me and Aimee wasn't too keen either, but all that Alpine air and seeing people skydive and paraglide everywhere raises your adventure spirit a little bit. So we tried it! There were 7 small courses, each more difficult than the next. After 2, Aimee and I watched Chris do an extra hard one where he zip lined about 50 meters with a view of the Alps in the background. We then did a hard one together which was really hard and scary! But I was glad he made us do it.

After we got back, we boarded the train for Interlaken. As you near Interlaken, you come around the side of Lake Thun, which is absolutely stunning. The train looks like it is riding right over the lake, which is smooth as glass. Once we arrived and checked into Balmer's, we headed out for a late dinner and then came back to the Metrobar. Balmer's is a hostel basically like a fraternity house and this bar was no different. Everyone was pretty well behaved though and they played good music. By the end of the night, we paid witness to an international dance off that happened in the middle of the bar!

May 20 - We woke up hungover and an hour late for checkout, so we had to scramble to get out of the room. We stumbled down to the train station to try and decide what to do. Aimee suggested we head to Grindelwald and take a gondola up to First, which had a hike you could do to a beautiful lake. With 3 minutes until the train left, we hurried and bought our tickets and hopped on. Switzerland has a lot of these smaller open air trains where you can open the windows and really enjoy the air and sunshine. The gondola ride up was about 30 minutes, and we had drinks at the top to enjoy the view. We decided to try to hike to the lake, which was supposedly 1 hour 40 minutes roundtrip. We didn't have hiking clothes though, or boots, and of course we trudged through a lot of mud and SNOW!! We arrived finally at Lake Balchalp (we think), but to our dismay, it was frozen. We still took some nice photos anyway and then headed back. We enjoyed some beers on the gondola ride down and hopped on the train back to Interlaken. There we had dinner at a delicious Italian place and then just as we boarded the train for Bern, it started thundering and pouring. Perfect timing!!

May 21 - After the long weekend, work was pretty difficult for me to do. That day Aimee and Chris slept late and then wandered around Geneva. We took it easy at night, making a random dinner at home of chicken, salad and raclette, and had a beer at Pasha's.

May 22 - Aimee and Chris went to the Chateau de Chillion in Montreux. That night we had dinner with my friends Karen and Christophe at their apartment in Lausanne and met their new kittens! The kittens were born only over the weekend so they were sooooo cute and tiny. They didn't even have their eyes open yet.

May 23 - Aimee and Chris went to Gruyeres. We met up at the Alibi for a few drinks and then went to Pickwicks to watch the AC Milan/Liverpool championship. Very exciting, even though Liverpool lost. Got a little drunk and ate some really good hamburgers and took a loooot of pictures as you will see...

May 24 - Aimee and Chris hung out in Geneva. I met them for lunch at a really good Italian place by my apartment. We met up again around 6 at Balexert, did a little shopping, went to the Alibi again to meet Dave for drinks and then we went to Ingvill and Laurent's for dinner and had tacos! We had a really nice time and were there until about midnight. Instead of going downtown to see the lake, we decided to go home, but took a detour and ended up at Pasha's. We talked with him for a long time and had beers and ice cream, and Chris tried a kebab.

May 25 - Aimee and Chris left. waaahhh. It was so much fun because it was really our first vacation just the three of us, and we definitely got to do a ton of stuff.

Dreissypalooza part two will be in December 2007!

Links to photos:

Lucerne and Interlaken:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=5lax6oc9.85m0esjt&Uy=-u53l2a&Ux=0

Rest of the week:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=5lax6oc9.3iwmuss9&Uy=-ph4cli&Ux=0

The Tick and Lisbon

Well I think I will abridge my versions of dogsitting and trip to Lisbon, because it was like 2 weeks ago now and the trips with Aimee and Chris were much much cooler and more exciting things happened.

I went out to Dardagny to dogsit for Dave and Lisa for 5 days while they were in Greece. They have an adorable chocolate lab named Java. Dardagny is only about 25 minutes drive from Geneva but is literally in the middle of nowhere. You might recognize it as "The Shire" because its all valleys and vales and probably hobbits somewhere. There are also a ton of winemakers and vineyards there which is super cool. The week got off to a great start - we went for a long walk outside and explored some trails and streams, played with his ball, and made a nice dinner and watched Shrek 2 (I LOVE this movie!). Monday I walked him before work and came home around 6, at which time we went for a long walk in the vineyards. Tuesday I was a little late coming home and took him for a walk before even entering the house. After a 45 minute walk, wherein we were caught in a massive downpour, we came home and I noticed the house smelled kind of bad. I peeked around the corner up the staircase and saw at first what I thought was pee. But I realized, it was not pee. It was dia. And it was all over the tile staircase. My face scrunched up with each stair I ascended as I realized that the damage was not limited to one area of the house. There were two other large dia piles and then, as a crescendo, a pile of vomit. Not having a dog, I had no clue what this was, if this was revenge because I came home a little late, or he missed mom and dad, or what. But for the next hour, I cleaned and tried not to vomit. Dave and Lisa happened to call around 9 and said that he was probably just extremely stressed because it had thunderstormed that day.

So I went to bed around 1 and at 2:30 woke up to Java sitting up very alert. I sensed something was off and asked him if he needed to go outside. He answered me by vomiting. Ugh. But I felt really really bad, because I may have been tired, but I wasn't the one who was sick. We went out like 5 more times that evening/morning and I decided to stay home from work rather than risk coming home to a house that looked like a set from Double Dare. Around our lunchtime walk, Java didn't follow me upstairs like he usually did. I called him, but nothing. So I went downstairs where he was laying on the floor, looking sullen. "What's wrong?" I asked. Java kind of rolled over on his side and lifted up his arm, where I saw something that looked like a skin tag. I knelt down for a closer look and realized that skin tags don't have legs. It was a tick. Dave had warned me, with a cautionary "you need to pull the suckers out by the head, but don't worry, you won't have to deal with that."

I looked around for some kind of special tick removal apparatus and found nothing. So I grabbed my eyebrow tweezers and asked Java to lay still. I absolutely hate bugs. HATE. Cringing, I squeezed as close as I could to Java's skin and pulled slowly. After about 5 seconds, the little bugger let go and I dropped him into a plastic bag (per mom and dad's instructions, if I found any ticks I needed to keep them so they could check with the vet if they were diseased). Java and I looked at each other, then the bag, then each other again. Suddenly, Java's tail began to wag like crazy, and he jumped up and put his paws on me like a hug and started licking me like crazy. We did it!! After I cleaned him up and put the tick in 2 more plastic bags and a jar, I did some research and found out that the tick I grabbed was like 5 times a normal sized one. Not sure what that means, but I found another one later just on the fur which I easily removed, and he was tiny. Let me just say that had I found the big one later, knowing how SICKASS those things were at that point, I'm not sure if I would have been able to pull it out without puking or crying. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. I am definitely ready to have a dog of my own or be a parent after that, although not for a while.

After Javapalooza, I headed to Lisbon for the weekend with my friend Ingvill, her twin sister and 4 of their friends, all from Norway. I learned quite a bit about Norway and the different dialects over the weekend! Lisbon is a cool city, very old but pretty clean, and not too busy. We did not do that much sightseeing because we spent most of the weekend shopping. We did go to one castle and on Sunday while waiting for our flight, Ingvill and I took one of those cheesy bus tours. Actually it was pretty good. Unfortunately it was REALLY windy and we were freezing on the roof driving at like 60 kph with the wind whipping us. Lisbon is super cheap which was also nice - dinner each night including a drink and a coffee, was usually around 20 euro a person (that would be like 50 francs or more in Geneva, 20 Euros is probably around 38 CHF). My favorite thing was that all of the old buildings had tiles on the facades instead of paint. The tiles are all patterned in blues and yellows and greens and really pretty.

Questions

Well hello there. It has been almost a month since my last post, but I have been incredibly busy with a lot of adventures! I plan to spend some serious time updating this puppy today. Even better I have about 200 photos to share.

Just to summarize what I have been up to:

May 6-10 - Dogsitting for Dave and Lisa
May 10-13 - Trip to Lisbon
May 17-20 - In Lucerne and Interlaken with Aimee and Chris
May 21-25 - Entertaining Aimee and Chris in Geneva

And I was working almost that entire time too.

So just 3 questions before I launch into a 10 page update -

1) Do you guys have MIKA over there? I am obsessed with him. He is one of those artists that I am sure can be extremely annoying to a lot of people. However I think his music is really fun and upbeat and it is good to listen to all the time. He sounds a little bit like a cross between Queen and Jason Mraz or someone like that.

2) Opinions of the LOST season finale? I thought it was ok. As usual resolves one thing and opens the door on 10 others. SPOILER ALERT Abby I completely agree with you on the alternate reality. The producers have come out and said that they want to be "fair" to the viewers so I don't think that is it, but still weird. Anyone else completely not fooled when the 3 gunshots went off? Sayid is not leaving the show. at least he better not be. We have now seen Penny in 2 consecutive finales so when the heck are they going to tell us how she is making contact with the island?!!

Also does anyone else think it is kind of weird that Charlie and Kate are married in real life? She is so much cuter than him. But maybe once he gets rid of his Driveshaft tatts and nailpolish and shaves, he's a real knockout.

3) Opinions on the Grey's Anatomy season finale? SPOILER ALERT I was really looking forward to watching this and I thought it sucked. Absolutely nothing was resolved and in fact things were just made more of a mess. SPOILER ALERT why didn't Bailey get chief resident?!!! I bet they thought they were really clever introducing Meredith's half sister as a new intern but if you were paying attention last week you would have remembered seeing her pull Meredith's father away and then later flirting with McDreamy. I don't like where that is going. Every single character has become a total wuss on that show except for Izzy and it is getting annoying. Do something people!

Ok, that's it for now.

The Bunny

Ok, those of you who have been to a foreign country, or even just another state that is kind of weird (you know like Texas or Wisconsin), have you ever encountered something that just totally rocked your world? That made you think, "what the...I never knew this could be possible!!" One of my friends told me she had an a-ha moment like this when she was buying butter in Europe and realized it didn't come in a thick rectangle like we are used to. It came in a flat rectangle. And she thought, I never even thought butter came any other way. But there it was, and that was normal, although at the time, to her, was tres bizarre.

My first moment like that here (well, besides stupid things like not being able to wash on Sunday or take the elevator to my own floor at work) was when I discovered that legal paper does not exist in Europe. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate legal paper. It just always gets wrinkly or inevitably someone will hit the button which causes your entire print job to go onto legal when you really really needed it to be on letter. But one day I needed to print something that was really long and A4 (the Euro sibling to 8 by 11 paper) just wasn't cutting it.

So I asked my office mates if there was legal paper. What? Oh 8 1/2 by 11 paper? No, I said, legal paper. It is like the same height but wider? And they had no clue. So I took a walk around the office and asked some more people. Someone claimed to know what I was talking about and showed me paper called A3. Ok, for those of you who have not seen A3 paper, it is the size of a blanket. I mean it is HUGE and in no way should be used in an office. So I said, no, I do not need this blanket sized document, don't we have legal paper, that is somewhere in between the blanket and the weird Euro A4 paper? But we don't. As the French say, ne existe pas. So that was the first time I was like....where am I?

The second was over the weekend. I give you, exhibit A.

The picture is a little blurry, but you know what it is right? Pink bunnies. Seems harmless enough.

Now, exhibit B. Notice anything weird yet?

Uh huh. I see. Ok, one more look. Exhibit C.

Did you figure it out? Did you see what caused me to do a double take at Carrefour and spend 10 francs because I simply could not believe my eyes and needed photographic evidence?.....

Did you know that there is a Duracell bunny??

That's right, a Duracell bunny. He is not the shades sportin, drum totin, going, going, going, hip hare also known as the Energizer Bunny. The pink bunny I know and love. That you know and love too. This bunny is in some weird tracksuit and what's more, he apparently has a friend. And he looks weird.

Anyway, I realize some of you might think that I have officially lost my mind but I thought this was just really strange. Kind of like that "Bizarro" episode of Seinfeld. There is an explanation though, and a good one, on Wikipedia. I really encourage you to read it, not only to educate yourselves but also because I think it is pretty funny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duracell_Bunny

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energizer_Bunny

If you want the abridged version, apparently the reason we have never seen Duracell bunny is because he actually does not exist in North America, only in Europe and Australia. And also because of some patent things.

If you have had and a-ha moment while traveling abroad and would like to guest post on my blog, just let me know via the comments section! I would be happy to post your story and photo!

Bain de Paquis

Yesterday I went to the Bain de Paquis with Dave and Lisa. This is basically a little beach on the lake that is made up of docks and concrete to lay on (i.e., basically a beach). I found it absolutely awesome that I was laying out in my bikini, when 3 weeks ago, I was snowboarding!! J'adore ca!

After a short sunbathe, we had a nice lunch! Asparagus is in season and all over the menus. It is like 5 of the 6 daily specials. So naturally I had an asparagus salad and some prosecco, followed by a walk back to the lake and des glaces (ice cream) mmmm. I got chocolate and banana. They put it in a side by side cone instead of stacking it. Brilliant eh? Most exciting of all was that I got a subscription to a movie rental place near me so now I can rent movies!! It is 7 CHF per day, per movie. So, not cheap, but ok as long as you watch it.

A great day overall. It is just so beautiful here that it makes me happy just walking out the door. Not to be cheesy but, you can see for yourself when you come visit!

The next wave

My next wave of visitors/visiting has officially begun! This could not be coming at a better time since as I mentioned earlier in the week, I was pretty sad to leave Justin. In 3 weeks my brother and sister are coming, which I could not be more excited for!

On Thursday, my friend Aya came for a visit. She is on her way to India for a 6 week rotation (same that I wrote about in last year's blog) and stopped through Geneva. A lot of people are going to India these days so it is convenient to live over here, kind of a little hub for all of the travelers! She got in at 9am on Thurs and I unfoturnately had to work, seeing as I just took 4 days off. She met up with me and Dave for drinks after at the Alibi and then joined us to try our hand at the casino. Which I am really starting to hate. I mean, take my money but can't you let me play blackjack for more than 5 minutes? And yes, I have heard the saying that the more you gamble, the more you will lose, thank you very much. I prefer "if at first you don't succeed, try try again." Anyway, after that Aya and I went to a little Italian place by my flat for dinner. Apparently she was impressed with my french, which I find interesting since I have not done any homework lately and have missed my last 3 classes.

Friday I was able to take the afternoon off so we could hang out. After running to the airport (in a cardigan and pearls...) we caught a train to Montreux. This place is on the other end of lake Geneva and it is gorgeous, naturally . They have a famous jazz festival every year (this year 6-21 July) where everyone goes and drinks wine and sits on the lake, listening to jazz and watching the sunset over the French Alps. No wonder Europeans are so happy.

Aya and I visited a castle right on the lake called the Chateau de Chillon.
http://www.chillon.ch/en/index.html Aya has the photos so those will be coming later. It sits right on the lake, looking out at the mountains and Montreux, so the views both of the castle and from the castle itself are just stunning.

It is too bad that there are no castles in the U.S. (besides those of the white and enchanted variety). They are so cool. First, they are massive. Second, they are SO OLD. This place was built sometime before the 11th century and then gradually improved upon by all the various Counts who lived there. And it had cool little prisons and spooky gallows and things. I felt like this in India too, just kind of amazed at how long some things have been around when our little USA has only been around for the past 200 years.

Consider for example the Statue of Liberty...which was acquired in 1886. At that time, the canton of Vaud decided to start RENOVATING the castle. This thing was occupied as far back as the time of the Romans. You can read about its cute little history on the website.

After hanging out in the castle for a while, we went back to the main part of Montreux and walked around, enjoying all of the sunshine and flowers blooming all over the place. We then headed back to Geneva and walked down to the lake, which was packed with people. We grabbed a bottle of wine at a little cafe while waiting for this guy Matt, also in town working for our same company, who I invited to join us for dinner.

The restaurant was called Restaurant Edelweiss and I had heard it was traditional Swiss. So, here are some things which might have given us a clue of how traditional it was:
1) You are greeted by an enormous St. Bernard stuffed animal walking in the door (like the size of a lion). Another one is inside.
2) The menu is fondue, more fondue, meat fondue, raclette, and meringue. Some other things too, but that is mostly it
3) The waiters wore these little red and blue vests with flowers on them a la a member of the Von Trapp family (which I realize is Austrian, but you get the idea)
4) There is live music, consisting of 2 guys who play a variety of instruments, including the accordion, cowbells, and that BIG horn...think riiiiiiiiiiiiiiicolaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....and encourage people dining to get up and try the horn (essentially, make a fool our of yourself)

It was so cheesy but the food was really good and a fun place to bring tourists for sure. So this morning at 5:30 me and Aya jumped on the 10 with about 400 pounds of luggage for her to make her 6:30 flight. I plan to work this afternoon and possibly make a trip to the landromat...yaaaaaay!

The View

Here is a photo I took from the plane which I thought was pretty awesome.

See all of the yellow squares? That is rapeseed, also known as rape, also known as a plant which immature people will need to make stupid jokes about. I actually thought it was just a really pretty weed. But I just found out that rapeseed is also used to make canola oil and biodiesel. It is everywhere here now and really bright yellow and pretty. I was just amazed at the contrast I could see from so high. This was taken about 15 minutes before I landed in Geneva.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed

Tell us bout the boy from New York City

I just got back from a crazy weekend in NY with Justin. And Justin's family, friends, brother's friends, my friends, and random celebrities (Justin's brother had an altercation with Geraldo at the entrance to a men's room).

Highlights of the trip (excluding seeing Justin which was of course THE highlight):

1) The weather. It was so beautiful while we were there. We actually did not have much in the way of summer clothes but it was just warm enough to be nice without making you too hot.

2) Chipotle. Sorry, but it's true. It is impossible to get Mexican here and it was sooo good. Also we had awesome, cheap thai at Lemongrass Grill and NY paper thin pizza which I love. Ok, I won't talk anymore about food.

3) Mets game (against Braves). We saw Glavine vs Smoltz which is pretty cool. We also had Nathan's hot dogs (sad to say they might be better than Wrigley dogs) and lots of beers. There is nothing better than watching a baseball game on a sunny day with a cold beer and someone you love.

4) Surprisingly, the Hotel Chandler. On 31st and 5th, it was not too expensive and pretty nice. You could tell that it used to be a dump and they had refurbished a lot. Some shortcuts were a little obvious (for example, they had really nice tvs, but the remote did not really work too well, and they offered free wi-fi, but it was really slow). However, the bed was really comfy with nice linens, the shower was huge with good pressure and free Aveda shampoos, bathrobes (always a huge selling point with me), and my 2 favorites were the iPod alarm clock so you could plug your iPod in and charge/listen to it all day and also a free New York Times every day!

5) Meeting Justin's friend Chuck, who I have heard a lot about but have never met.

6) Accomplishing my goal of not coming back to Switzerland with any pennies (ok fine, I ended up with 2, but I left them along with my Vanity Fair magazine for Ruben, my bartender at JFK for about 3 hours).

7) Mister Softee ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles!!

I will say that I was disappointed by Ruby Foo's, where Justin and I had dinner Thursday. Maybe it was the jet lag but the sushi tasted like feet and the waiter was only around until we ordered and then vanished. He left us all the plates and silverware and we actually had to serve ourselves. Annoying. Also I did not enjoy paying tax on top of the stated price. It was very confusing after being so used to just paying the sticker.

Even though it was the same amount of time as he spent in Geneva 2 months ago (in fact, almost to the hour), it felt way shorter. Which sucks!! Why??!!! His flight on Monday left at 3pm and mine not until 730, and from JFK (he was at LaGuardia), so I spent the afternoon reading Vanity Fair and drinking and generally feeling miserable after we parted. In fact I felt so miserable that I bought some new perfume at the duty free shop and 2 books.

I am back in Geneva with 2 suitcases yet to unpack and an empty fridge, as usual. Fortunately, once again I have a guest coming in town right after I see Justin to cheer me up. My friend Aya is coming on her way to India for assignment. Unfortunately since I was just on vacation, I need to work most of the time she is here. But hopefully we can get in a fondue and some gambling...

Zermatt photos

I still never wrote about Zermatt, which was freaking awesome. YES the Matterhorn is real, not just a ride at Disney. Here it is in the background.

I will just give a short recap. I went with my friend Katie who I used to work with in Chicago. We took a really cute train ride through all of these valleys and vales and 4 hours later got to Zermatt, which does not allow cars which means they had cute little electric ones. We met 10 Swedish dudes (well technically, 9 Swedish dudes and one known as "The Dane") which was great luck because they were able to show us the good skiing and drinking places. Basically, we spent 2 full days skiing our butts off and 3 nights out really late drinking. It wasn't exactly a relaxing ski vacation., but Zermatt is a very special place. It is probably the best place I have ever skiied. Huge gondalas and nice chair lifts and so many runs. The lines can be long, especially because Europeans don't know how to queue, but once you get off the lift, the people somehow disappear. It's got to be as big as Vail but not many trees, so it is like having an entire mountain of gorgeous packed powder allll to yourself. You can go up as high as 3800m (we did) and also ski to the Italian border (also did but did not go in). I have a lot more photos but here are some!!

The North Wall, where we had to settle for pizza instead of fondue. But it was ok, because this is were we met the Swedes, who then took us to fondue the next night!

We skiied allll the way to the other side of the mountain on Frida for this sunny lunch spot. It was completely away from everything else. We sat in the sun, had real restaurant food (rosti!), drank beer and took in the view. Perfect!

Me and Katie at apres ski! We skiied to this place also. And we had to ski down. We played some drinking games with the Swedes, including some sort of bizarre hand jive and moose game. We taught them "two truths and a lie."

Jac in action...on the "good skiers only" run. Seriously, at the top of the run was a sign that said "good skiers only" and the run was not marked a particular color (eg, red, black, etc). Just that cryptic message. Apparently, I am a good skier!

http://www.zermatt.ch/index.e.html

The rendezvous

Today I somehow scrambled to finish all of my tax returns and left the office in a super good mood because I am going to New York tomorrow!! I am meeting Justin for the weekend. Spring in New York...que romantico! Especially with the record rain and winds, oh la la!

Well we had wanted to meet in the middle somewhere this spring. At first he was going to come to London but then I found a "cheap" fare to New York. Conveniently enough, his parents will be there as well for part of the weekend, and his brother and sister in law and super adorable wonderful little just turned one baby Dylan will be there too. After almost 4 years I know Justin's family pretty well so it will be great to see them as well.

To be honest, I am probably most excited to go to a Duane Reade past 7pm and buy something.

So bonne weekend toute le monde! More posts upon my return. I am going for my first haircut tomorrow so hopefully it is not un catastrophe!! Coupe pas beaucoup SVP!!

The first photo...

...is of a baby panda. Porquoi pas?

I just realized that I think the images taken by my camera are maybe too big or "heavy" as they say here for uploading. They are almost 1MB each. So any one who knows how to compress jpg files, please let me know.

We are making slow and steady progress. By next month I promise you one photo of Geneva actually on my blog!!

In the style of Queen...

I paid my dues
Time after time
I waited for a modem
But never got mine

So down at Swisscom
I made a plea
I said please man, can you send me my router?
And they mailed it to me!!

And while it installed I was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting

We have the internet, my frien-ends!
And we won't have to steal it ever again...
We have the internet,
We have the internet
Time to read Yahoo or maybe buy iTunes...

I took out the package
The instructions were Francais
And I thought, crap man I am really screwed with this thing
Install won't take place
But despite those directions
I made it through
Complete with my mot de passe pour votre modem
Merci a vous!!!

Ok, that was really cheesy and terrible, but if you understood the MOMENT OF GLORY I just experienced here at Rue Liotard 44, you would sing too. I actually just did a little song and dance routine in the hallway because I HAVE INTERNET!! AND I INSTALLED IT IN FRENCH!! I understand maybe words like "continuer" might be obvious, but how about "Pour pouvoir vous servir de le Bluewin ASDL, il vous faut d'abord vous enregistrer comme client Bluewin ADSL aupres de Bluewin." Actually I still don't know what that means, but enregistrer is "computer" I figured out. To be fair there were actually a lot of nice pictures which helped. But still. This is a true expat success for me!

So Merci a Vous bluewin!! I have arrived! And now I will not be blacked out of Cubs games anymore, which is unfortunate, because it might be better if I was blacked out.

Gruyeres - the S is silent

Well I am sure you will all be pleased to know that I did recover from my hangover, did laundry, dishes AND rearranged furniture last night. Great success!

Today I got up early and met my friend Louise for a 9am trip to Gruyeres. If you don't know what Gruyeres is, let me give you a hint. Ever had fondue? French onion soup? That's grueyere cheese, and Gruyeres, in the Fribourg canton, is where it comes from. It was another stunning day in Switzerland, I swear that all of the good weather in the world seems to be concentrated here. The train ride was about 2 hours and incredibly beautiful, especially the part when I was awake. We arrived in Gruyeres about 11 and since it was not "cheese making time" at the factory which is right near the station, we hopped on this little tram which took us up to town about 5 minutes down the road.

The tram ride was hilarious as they were piping in this yodelelelelele he hoo music and you hear the driver pointing out things a la gauche and a la droit. As we wound around the road, below us were lush green fields with cows here and there in between villages. Surrounding all of this were large snowcapped mountains. And the tram pulled up to a 13th century castle. You think I am kidding? It did seem surreal, I will admit. This place is just kind of like that; probably every other day I shake my head for a moment in disbelief that I actually live here!

The castle was pretty cool and offered excellent views. I will give you a SHORT history of the castle. First, the word "grue" means "crane" in French and this inspired the name "Gruyeres." Don't really remember the details on what the crane has to do with it, my guess would be that the guy who founded it came back one day from battle with a crane as his trophy and then, after a bottle of Valais white and some fondue, asked the little crane if he might like to have a grand village named after him. The crane agreed and the rest is history. The castle was home to 19 counts and then to various bailiffs and I would imagine cheese barons (I learned that yes that is a real job and sounds very good to me). In 1849 the castle was sold to some rich families who went there on holiday and refurbished it, and then the canton bought it back in 1938, turned it into a museum and as the French would say, Voila! The castle we have today.

We wandered around the castle for a while and then walked down and around into town. We found a sunny terrrace perfect for lunch. And of course we had fondue, even though it was probably about 75 degrees outside. I mean, when in Rome...the fondue was excellent and it went very well with the dried meat (see, that again) and also a delicious chardonnay. For dessert I tried a little ice cream with merengues which are also famous here. It was an excellent, lazy Sunday lunch that somehow lasted almost 2 hours. But who's in a hurry when you have views of the mountains and a big bowl of cheese?

We walked back through town and skipped the tram, passing fields of cows on our way (dairy cows, I still have not seen the ones with the big ol bells yet). On the way back, I heard a "cock a doodle doo" - a legit rooster crow in the middle of the day. I thought this was hysterical and we sought out the crower. He was just hanging out by the side of the road and when Louise shot a movie of him, he crowed again, right on cue!!

We got back to the cheese factory having just missed the afternoon cheese making. However, we were able to take an audio "tour" from a nice "guide" named Cherise. A cow who was born during the cherry season, and apparently is British because that was her accent. The "magic" in Gruyere cheese comes from the cows, she told us. This is because all those cows eat a bucketload of grass all day. 100 kilos A DAY. Not kidding. And they eat up all the nice herbs and things that are in the Swiss countryside which is why Gruyere is so special and tastes soooo good. Apparently you can find as many as 75 different smells in Gruyere, according to "Cherise" (and also to the musuem). It was actually a very interesting little tour and we got a free sample!

We caught the train and of course after lots of cheese, sunshine and walking, we both fell asleep. This would have been very nice except every three minutes, since we were on a local train, the whistle shrieked CHOO CHOO!! So freaking loud and I swear, each time I jolted upright in my seat. We decided to stop in Lausanne on the way back just to check things out, since it was such a nice day. We walked up a BIG hill and then a BIG set of stairs and got up to the Notre Dame cathedral. It is under construction (has been since at least Justin and I came in September) but the inside was beautiful. The organ which was stuck waaaay up there in the ceiling was the size of a house, and I think some of the pipes were as thick as telephone poles. After that, we strolled down to Ouchy which is right on Lake Geneva. Ouchy is gorgeous and was swarming with people – quire possibly all of Lausanne could have been down there. We had a beer and looked out at the glassy water surrounded again by snowcapped mountains. Ahhhhh….what a lovely way to spend a Sunday.

Check out my photos at: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=5lax6oc9.389wkgzh&Uy=-sfbhga&Ux=0

The Hangover

Well today s my first Saturday not working in a long time and unfortunately I am suffering from a massive hangover. I don't really know how this happened. Well, that is a lie, actually I do know. But I have not been this hungover in a long time. I had many plans for today. I was going to enjoy the sunshine and get up early, do about 50 loads of laundry and clean. Instead I have managed to get in and out of my bed about 15 times and watch Lost and 2 Grey's Anatomys (actually, I just listened to Grey's as I thought it would be better to keep my sleeping mask on to keep the light out). I just talked to my mom for about 40 minutes and she told me to go get a little grease and some caffeine. So I think I am going to cave and go to McDonald's, because it is the closest to me and the closest thing to home hungover food. I am still going to have to do battle with my laundry.

Last night we had the April 15 party which is why I am in this state. Last year I was in India and watching skits , eating naan and not drinking. Last night I went to the casino (maybe not a good idea on Friday the 13th), ate sushi and drank plenty. It was at the Alibi (not the "Alpine" as I called it for 6 weeks and no one ever corrected me, one day I just found out and felt like a jerk) which is in the Movenpick hotel, attached to the office, conveniently enough. The Alibi bar is like our "Cheers;" we get a good deal from the bartenders there and they get good tips from us. So somewhere in between my 4th glass of chablis, while the piano player was playing "the girl from ipanema" for the second time that night, someone decided to order sambuca. By the way, they play the girl from ipanema EVERY NIGHT in that bar. Anyway, I have never had sambuca, and I did not enjoy it at all. I liked the coffee beans but that was about it. I don't think the sambuca liked me very much either as I was extremely confused when I woke up this morning and in a lot of pain. Anyway other than the massive amounts of alcohol consumed, it was a pretty tame party since we are a small group. The casino was disappointing except for the fact that I convinced Ingvill to play blackjack and she won 20 francs, so at least someone won money.

Well I imagine this post seems a little discombobulated but now you know why. If anyone would like to come over to help me get my life in order, and possibly bring me an egg and bagel sandwich, I would sincerely appreciate it. Hopefully I can post more later on whether or not I succeeded with the laundry.

Le Printemps

It's spring here in Geneva! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous since last weekend. Stepping out of my building in the morning I am always hit with a bit of a cool air that is full of fresh flowery smells. Usually by midday it is around 70 degrees F and has been mostly sunny all week too. It is a nice change from April in Chicago which is always very questionable! Everything here is green and beautiful.

Over the weekend I went snowboarding one last time in Contamines. We all packed into Annie's red mini cooper (soooo cute and I want one!) and had a wonderful day of snowboarding in "champagne slush." It was sunny and hot, perfect spring skiing weather and also of course drinking on the terrace weather! I was actually using a rental snowboard also that had been freshly waxed because I was zipping down the mountain at high speeds!! It was a little weird that there was so much brown and green everywhere, but most of the resorts are open this weekend as well. However considering it is supposed to be 24C tomorrow (about 80F), I think that we may skip going one more time.

On Sunday, after we got back, I went to my friend Dave's house for Easter dinner. Lisa (Dave's wife) is a fantastic cook so I was really excited and of course not disappointed in the slightest! They live in Dardagny which is about 20 minutes drive outside Geneva, but it is in the countryside and feels like worlds away. We started out with some nice white wine from the area (some of the best Swiss whites are made right down the street from them) and some light appetizers (curry peanuts which were awesome although I am pretty sure this would be Abby's worst nightmare). Then we took Java, their chocolate lab, and Kasha, a little black spaniel they were dogsitting, out on a long walk through the vineyards. It was a warm, fantastic day and perfect for walking outside. Every once in a while we would stop to rest for a minute and look out at the huge fields of flowers, grass and baby grapes. It was like a big green puzzle!

Once we returned, we had some fabulous scallop bisque, followed by steamed asparagus, super creamy potatoes and lamb with fresh herbs. MmmmmM!!! After dinner we took another shorter walk and met some of the animals that live out in Dardagny, including 2 donkeys and 2 llamas. Donkeys are very soft by the way and cute. And apparently llamas make excellent sheep dogs!

After walk 2, we headed back to the house for some dessert which was chocolate ice cream doused in peppermint liquer served in martini glasses. This was great because once you were done with the ice cream, you had a nice chocolatey mint martini leftover. Mmmm encore!! We ended the evening with more wine and watching the Cubs lose. What's going on with them anyway?

Tonight we are going to celebrate April 15 2 days early and everyone is already in a silly mood. Should promise to be a fun evening. Annnnnd I have my internet finally so I will be installing that over the weekend!!

The Professor

Well I need to go back and recap some things that have happened to me since I have been here which I didn't discuss before. One of the first ones that comes to mind is my French teacher from the course I took in January.

I don't want to sound stereotypical and judgemental, but if you could picture a "dirty old French man," this guy would be it, to a T. To be honest, it was absolutely hilarious and entertaining to be in his presence for 2 hours a night.

Alias: Professor
Age: 53
Marital Status: Divorced 3 times
Car: Rides the bus
Languages: French, English, some Spanish
Stature: About 5'10", large gut covered by an orange button down shirt which he wore every single day of class, chin length white hair and a big bushy white beard, like santa. And he laughed a lot, like santa. Except santa doesn't smell like cigarettes.

In my class were 5 youngish girls and 2 guys. This was a good ratio for Professor. When we would work in our workbooks in class, he would come around and check how everyone was doing. For the girls, he would literally lean RIGHT over you and was so close you could feel him breathing on you. Then say some comment like "Oui, Oui, you are beautiful and smahrt" or one that I got was "marvellieux, marvellieux, I lave you, ho ho ho ho ho!!!" Also one night when we were riding the bus home, he told me that I was a very quick learner in French, and also, that he "ated" the bus but when riding with me it was ok, because when it stoppped he bumped into me.

He was a very good professor actually. While he told us that "Zee best vay to learn zuh langugage ees on zuh pillow," he had some very good examples of how to remember French vocabulary.

Example: "Tante" (meaning, tent as in camping, or aunt)
"Ze word 'tante,' zis can be for faire le comping or can be zuh seester of your mohzer. For me, I sometimes would preefur to be undar ze other tante zan zuh comping tante. Ho ho ho ho ho!"

Example: the verb "choisir" (meaning, to choose)
"Par example, en zuh marning, I can ask Jeckleen (note: this is how my name is pronounced here) after she stay at my ouse and kuk me zuh breakfast, if I should choisis le chemise blanche ou le chemise rouge. Ho ho ho ho ho!"

Example: the verb "batre" (meaning, to beat)
"Zere is a saying we ave, 'Batre su femme tout le matin...' do you know zees saying? 'Beat your wife every morning, if you don't know ze raison why, she will,' ho ho ho ho ho!"

All in all, despite the fact that these comments would sometimes toe the line of harassment (I think it is safe to say were this in the U.S. he would have been sued), it did help us to laugh a lot and put the class at ease, which was a relief a lot of times. And he did teach us a lot and encouraged lots of talking in class which is the best way to practice. French can be so damn frustrating with all of the stupid masculine, feminine, the articles, the pronunuciation, ahhhh catastrophe!!! I am signing up for another class next month and hope to actually see Professor again. I tried going to another one after his ended but the class was too far advanced, and the lady professor was an old battie with awful B.O.

So, would you rather be hit on by a harmless old man, or have to spend 2 hours a night sitting in the stench of an old battie? I'll take Professor any day.

And finally...his class handouts, while very helpful, reeked of marijuana. Definitely a man who appreciates higher learning!

Leysin...aka Antarctica

I just wanted to post 4 pictures from the journee de ski in Leysin. I said it was foggy and the visibility was bad right? I just reviewed my photos and they are ridiculous. Really it was not even that cold but I think I could have sold them as photos of a south pole expedition. See for yourself!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=5lax6oc9.6a4lfiid&Uy=-1fjxba&Ux=0

by the way...totally random aside but I just found out there is a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie? Did anyone see this? I am really interested in a review.

Suggestions?

Just another quick message...since I am under major blog maintenance!

I added a link to my friend's blog, Endless Capacity for Useless Information. This is hilarious and is full of good travel tips and stories so I suggest you read it!

Also I would like to know...what questions do you have about my life in Switzerland? Then I can address this on the blog.

I can answer a few of them maybe right now.

1) Am I homesick? No. Not really. The weather here and the food make up for everything I would miss about Chicago. However I did get a little misty eyed when watching "While You Were Sleeping" the other night, which takes place in Chicago.

2) Do I miss Justin? This really is a silly question. Of course I miss him and it totally sucks. But we are surviving and have nice things to look forward to like spending a week in NYC in the spring and spending all summer together in Europe.

3) Do I eat a lot of cheese and chocolate? Yes. Probably a little too much. But sometimes you just have to say to yourself when in Rome.

Anything else is open! Let me know.

"Prochain arret..Servette"

Well now I have really gone over the moon. FOUR posts in 24 hours people!! So since I have been totally pathetic at doing this for the past 4 months, I need to catch up. So I will now profess in words my love for one of my most favorite things in Geneva: the public transport. For today we will discuss the bus. I love the train perhaps 100 times more. But everyone likes trains better. I bet you did not know how wonderful a bus system could be.

Oh Transports Publics Genevois is wonderful, at least for me. Let me give you some reasons why:

1) I can take the 9, 29 or 10 bus to work and 9 and 10 home. I never have to wait more than like 3 minutes for a bus to work because of this. Yes I happen to live at a good stop but this is a moot point, I still love the bus.

2) The buses follow a schedule (gasp!) and they stick to it! This means that when I want to go home, I can actually leave and not have to wait on an L platform for 45 minutes tapping my foot and wondering why the thing is late.

3) A lot of the buses are electric which is good for the environment!

4) Most of the buses are "accordion" that I take which means they are long with lots of room. And they are also usually very clean so it makes for a pleasant ride to work.

5) You can get Le Matin Bleu (equivalent of the Red Eye) on the bus for free in the morning.

6) People can bring their dogs on the bus which is really cute and entertaining! Somehow the dogs always know to lay down and be quiet. I guess Swiss dogs are smart.

7) I just noticed that most of the little ticket kiosks where you can buy your bus ticket have solar panels on them, meaning they are solar powered (duh) which is also good for the environment!

8) The doors only open when someone pushes a button to request for them to open. This saves time loading people if there is no one there to get on and also keeps the bus warmer since the doors do not open for no reason.

9) If you are buying your ticket at the last minute, most drivers will wait for you to encourage you to not ride the bus without a ticket (this continues in point 10)

10) The buses and trams are on the honor system. So this means they trust you to buy your ticket and have it before you get on the bus. Since I have been here, my ticket has only been checked once. It is really exciting when this happens though! All of the sudden at the Balexert stop, 4 guys got on, one at each door, all in uniforms. Then they check the tickets in between stops so you cannot escape! I have an annual pass so as long as I have this with me, I am safe. Supposedly they fine you 60 Sfr if you do not have your ticket but worse than that is that they embarass you in front of the entire bus. I did see someone handing over money when this happened to me but they didn't embarass him. Maybe the bus was not full enough to make spectacles. Anyway, it was a real thrill, kind of like right after I turned 21 and I would still get nervous to go to bars even though I knew I was legal. Almost everyone except for that one man did have their ticket, so I think it is a good system.

Oh one other thing...the bus schedules are very clever and interactive! When you go to the bus lines, you can click on your stop and it will then show you the schedule for your line, but also it shows at the top how many minutes to get to each stop down the line. It is actually kind of sad that I am so fascinated by the TPG system but that shows you how terrible the public transport in Chicago has gotten. I would ride the bus in Chicago only if I was not in a hurry. It is extensive but totally unreliable.

If you are really bored you can check out the schedules at www.tpg.ch you can check out the clever schedule thing yourself! At http://www.unireso.com/files/horaires/20070305/9.pdf
and my stop is "Servette."

Pictures!

Well this thing is so silly and I can never post pictures. But I just added some to my kodak gallery. These are from Tim's visit, about 12 or so out of the 100 I think he took. But they are good ones! This was actually about a month ago now.

See I am getting better at blogging already. Yay!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=5lax6oc9.48eciofp&Uy=-t4wayu&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

decisions, decisions

By some miracle of technology, the internet is working yet again so I need to post! My problem with the internet is my own little monster and I need to kick it to the curb soon. The problem is, when I moved here, I signed up for Swisscom (essentially the only telephone utility provider in Switz) for phone and internet. However ordering the service on the website was all in German. Even now my french is not great, but I can generally understand what they are asking. German is just its own issue and for some reason my blogger page has also gone Deutsch so I imagine I am going to have a pretty difficult time changing any format or posting photos on here for a while.

In any case, I thought I ordered a modem to go with my internet package. So I stupidly waited around until January and went back and re-read the set up instructions I got later (in English) and realized I am actually not getting a modem. Then last month I tried to buy and install a modem and router but that didn't work. Basically I need to bite the bullet and call Swisscom to come save me, but I have to do so much other admin crap each week like paying a million bills, responding to letters threatening to kick me out of the canton because I didn't have health insurance, etc, and these are all in french so it takes a long time to deal with. Meanwhile I have been "borrowing" a wireless signal but I figure since I am actually paying for internet with Swisscom and don't have it yet, that this is not stealing.

Well I have some issues today. First of all I have no idea what time it is. I think it was daylight savings last night but I am really not sure. They don't advertise with cute little clock cartoons and things like they do in the U.S. I happened to hear about this last night at the journee de ski which is the only reason I think it might be true. My computer seems to have adjusted so I guess I should trust this one. Unfortunately I did not take this into account when setting my alarms last night so I was very proud of waking up early until about 10 minutes ago when I burst my bubble. Shoot.

Also, I need to go to work, and I have a lot to do as it is tax season. My boss has put a mandate that we must send out 60 tax returns by April 15. Which is about 3 weeks away. Any guesses how many have gone out??? It is a difficult process because they all essentially have to go through one manager and if he gets behind (which he already is) we are screwed. So I have to go in and fly through about 5 reviews today.

Also I NEED to do laundry and I'm not sure if you would understand or if I should tell you how desperately I need to do laundry. Recall that I have to haul my clothes 2 blocks down the street to do this so clearly, I have been saying I need to do laundry for about 3 weeks. It has gotten to the point where everything needs to be washed and I don't know what do to. I think I am going to go with sheets, snowboard clothes and pants and the rest will have to wait until later this week. I think I will just go to work first to get it overwith but I have a feeling Sunday night at the laundry mat is going to be verrrry busy. It is going to be a long 2 years of this I can tell you right now.

My last issue is that I have absolutely no food (lucky for me I ate a pound of fondue last night and can probably survive off this for some time). Since it is sunday, and evvvvverything is closed, I'm not sure what to do for making it through the work day. Working on the weekends sucks and requires some kind of motivation, for me this is usually good music and some nice food. But my choices are croissant, kebab or mcdonalds (I refuse) or nothing. I think I will go to work and try to convince someone to order lunch for us.

Well time to hit the shower. Does anyone else think the NCAA tournament is super boring this year? There is a chance, a good one, for it to be 3 #1 seeds and a 2 seed. I think that is really terrible and fortunately I have not really been able to watch the games this year. Vandy...sounds like they got a little hosed but I think they need more tournament experience. Next time they will make it out of the Elite 8!

Journee de Ski!

Bonjour tout le monde! I am so tired but I promised I would start blogging more and today is a good day to start because it was the Deloitte Journee de Ski (Ski Day!). It was a super fun day.

I of course was running late this morning but met up with everyone about 835 at the office. Actually there were not many people from my team there, but there was a girl Louise I have become friends with from audit and a bunch of other audit people and also some IT people. You could bring guests too so a lot of people brought spouses, siblings etc. So I have been on a lot of ski buses this season so far and this one was VERY posh. Nice new bus with pretty green seats and lots of room. It was lovely. On the bus on the way to Leysin, a few helpful individuals dished out croissants, coffee, pain au chocolat and juice, mmmm! A nice pre-ski brekky!

Leysin is in Switzerland a little bit past the lake when going around it (I think) so it only took about an hour to get there, maybe a little bit more. When we arrived, there was a slight problem. The mountain wasn't there. This is because it was soooo foggy that you could hardly see anything. It went kind of on and off like that throughout the day but for the most part the visibility was absolutely awful. Fortunately there was a ton of snow this week in CH so the snow was really good! None of the runs were even groomed which was verrrry interesting. Lots of steeps though so this was really fun for my snowboarding and good practice! The mountain was almost completely empty so we had the place pretty much to ourselves, which was fun.

At 2pm sharp was the slalom race!! I have never done a slalom before but apparently it is not an option, everyone has to do it and we wear little jerseys to boot. I was number 4 and the second one to go!! My first run was actually really fast and fun. After you get to the bottom, you can watch the rest and yell ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ! (go go go!) and bang your poles etc. We went up for the second run of the slalom and coming around gate 3 I caught a little bit of a bad edge and ooooops je tombe!! I popped back up though and finished the course in record time! (I thought) Turns out I actually came in last place for the women. However, the last place finisher got a nice box of chocolates so this is fine with me!!

We skied a few more runs afer the slalom and then had a quick snack (vino blanco, cheese, dried meat, little tart thingys) and then ended up skiing down for the true last run as the telecabine closed. The last run was very nice and still not groomed but a little bit easier to manage than the other runs in the morning.

Of course there is no better way to end a long day of skiing than with a nice meal. The group of us went to this very cute restaurant (of course they are all cute here made out of logs and super old etc) where we started out with a nice apertif (Kir for me) and vino blanco, then had some bread with this very nice herb butter and dried meat (Notice the theme of the dried meat here) and then a GIGANTIC pot of fondue and there were 4 of them!!! Mmmmm c'est bon!! The fondue was sooo good and filled us all up. After this we had some dessert and tea. It was a really fun meal and I got to know some of my other co-workers which was cool.

We trudged back to the bus and all settled in for the ride back to Geneva (sleeeeeeep). The worst part about the day was getting off the bus to go walk with all of our crap at 11pm to go catch the local bus. Overall though a spectacular day! And tomorrow, tax returns!!

No pictures

I know a lot of peoplw who use blogger and I think it REALLY sucks for uploading pictures. Anyone who uses blogger and can upload pictures, can you please tell me how you get it to do that??

Well my first wave of visitors is over. Justin came for Valentine's Day (yes, ok, and he brought a heart shaped pizza from Lou Malnatis) and stayed for 5 days. It was fantastic, we spent most of the time in Geneva, but also went out to the countryside for a fondue and about 5 bottles of wine (there were other people there too...Dave and Lisa), and it was really hard when he left. Missing people is very weird because I kind of don't think about it until I actually see them or talk to them or think of something that reminds me of a relationship and then it sucks. So I was in a state of major depression and then my friend Tim just came here to visit last weekend which cheered me up. We went skiing (meaning, we sat inside and drank and watched the blizzard in Flaine and took a ton of pictures), went to the Paquis (meaning, Tim got really excited looking for hookers) and in general probably weirded a lot of people out. We also took a lot of really good pictures of the jet d'eau which would be NICE if I could upload them.

Well this is a really lame post but I need to go to bed. IKEA is coming tomorrow with my couch between 7:30 and 9. UGh! I wouldn't mind except that I had a client meeting at 830 in Lausanne this morning, so I had to get up already at 6 today. Anyway I am going to bed. Still don't have the internet sorted out so the posts are going to continue to be at a very random pace. Sorry about that!

you suck (does anyone remember that song??)

So I am not too happy because I got completely screwed over at work this week and am now working on finishing a huge project essentially on my own. I'm not sure yet if people over here understand the concept of personal responsibility?

examples:

1) people ski into the lift line at speeds of 50km per hour

2) people ALWAYS try to get on the bus before you have a chance to get out

3) people let their dogs sh*t all over the sidewalk (seemingly especially on Rue Liotard)

4) people are content to let me work saturday and sunday by myself while they go skiing and tell me that I shouldn't work the weekend.

Anyway, I am having some wine, which I am at least happy about, not just because it is a delicious red but also because I am now getting discounts from the corner store on my bottles of wine. I don't even go there that often but I have found that the drink is the singsong "bonjour" or "bonne soir" PLUS a nice smile. Works every time.

I can at least talk about my ski weekend last weekend, which was "absolutely brilliant."

Right. There are a lot of Brits here so I am picking up a lot of those expressions.

I went to les Contamines in the French Alps with my friend Bhav and another girl Annie who works at Deloitte. It is about 1.20 from Geneva. We took the ski bus at 8am from Gare Routiere in downtown Geneva. For 70 Sfr you get a bus pass and a lift ticket which is a pretty great deal. Also the lift ticket is a magnetic card and you get to skip the lines to buy the paper ones which is also nice.

We arrived a little after 10 and got to the mountain by about 1030 after they had to rent some gear. Two gondola rides later, we were up on the slushy sunny slopes.

I am used to going skiing and...well, skiing. a lot. Not always so much in Vail when I go with Justin's family (which is good because I think my legs would fall off) but when I have gone with other friends in the states. I guess in Europe since people can ski all the time, it is a little more relaxed...

First thing we do, naturally is...have a coffee. An espresso to be exact and this delicious little panini called a pizzawich which is exactly what it sounds like. Then we went out for our first run. We were all snowboarding which was GREAT. Not that I don't like skiiers because I do, but honestly yall are so muchh faster and I always go skiing with someone like Ashley or Justin or Janine all of who are way better than me! So we took one run down the mountain which was fun, and then, we had a drink. After that, we took 2 more runs (this was when we had to take the chair lift, more on that later) and had lunch. Including some nice soup, a brownie, a blueberry tart, and wine. Yes we were really hungry after all that exercise.

The runs are called "pistes" and a lot of them are more narrow than in the U.S. This is not a problem except for the thing I mentioned about personal awareness before. People will ski down a catwalk and go so slow in front of you edging from one side to the other. Glad you are enjoying your leisurely ski, but catwalks for snowboarders SUCK and we just try to get down them as fast as possible. Now I am good enough that I usually don't have a problem unless a famliy of 5 decides to all ski abreast on one of these things. (to be fair this happens in the U.S. too and I probably deserve this for being a stupid snowboarder).

The chairlifts seem to whip around much faster than U.S. ones and usually drop you off about 10 feet in the air when you get off. Amazingly I didn't totally wipe out coming off the chair. Also the lift lines...ok. People ski into the line as fast as they can. Then, there are about 30 lines formed to go into a chair for 3 people. Everyone steps on your skis/board and cuts you off. This is SO irritating!!! I think it was especially bad because it is ski holiday for a lot of people and we were on the french side. Apparently in Switzerland it is more orderly (naturally).

Back to the skiing. After lunch Annie decided to take it easy so Bhav and I actually went to do some real snowboarding. We took 3 lifts and made it up to the top of the mountain. The snow was really weird - on one side there was lots, and on the other side you could see grass almost everywhere. it was also really sunny that day so I felt like I was skiing in the middle of May.

The view from the top of the mountain was amazing!! All you could see was the tops of the Alps as far as the eye could see. There were some clouds down below us too. I wish I had my camera...it was really stunning. I think maybe the best view I have ever had skiing!! We took a couple nice runs down and in about an hour met back up with Annie. By this time it was 4pm and time to take the gondola down. We returned our gear and had a lovely vin chaud (hot spiced wine, and yes good vin chaud is actually really good) and jumped back on the bus. We sat between the 2 most irritating groups of teenagers I have ever encountered. I cannot even write about it because I am seriously trying to block it from my memory. Let's just say that I would rather float endlessly in space than have to relive that.

So now that I have been snowboarding I am dying to go again. Justin is coming this week (YAY) and it is undecided if we will be going yet or not.

Closing time

One of the most irritating things about Switzerland has got to be the hours people work. I'm talking about the people in your neighborhood - your grocer, your cleaners, etc. I have been leaving for work at 7:15 or so and getting there at 7:30 (yes, it is SO wonderful to not ride the el. I do love Swiss transport!!). But stores do not open until 8 so I can't get any breakfast or coffees on the way to work. Not that I always picked up breakfast before but sometimes after a DT happy hour at Cactus which ended up at Trader Todds, it was nice to get a Cosi bagel and a diet coke on the way into the office. Uh uh. The closest thing I can get here to an egg and bagel sandwich is a croissant. Not a bad alternative but not the same.

Also I have been taking french class or typically working until 8. Stores close at 7. So I cannot buy groceries before or after work. So you are thinking, well, during the week I starve but on the weekends I can stock up? Generally yes. The grocery stores are open on Saturdays until about 6pm. But they are closed on Sunday. So this means two things. One, if you go out of town for the weekend, you are totally screwed if you need to buy anything for another week. Two, EVERYONE and I do mean that goes to the stores on Saturday. Not only that but they fill their carts with about 100 yogurts, walk extremely slow and manage to completely block every aisle or stare at a cleaning product for 5 minutes therey blocking me from getting my dish detergent AND generally have at least two bratty children or a dog in tow (the dog is ok with me). The store is not that big either.

So last weekend I was out of town and ran out of food last week. Literally. On Friday night I took stock of my fridge and cabinets. Here it is:

Cabinet - 1/2 bar of chocolate, 1 bottle white wine, 1 bottle champagne, italian seasoning. Yes that is it. But at least you know I have my priorities straight. Oh and paprika chips (a handful, and by the way they taste the same as barbeque. Completely fooled me into thinking they had something exotic over here).

Fridge - Lettuce (expired), carrot (expired), cucumber (expired), ONE egg (expired), milk (expired), broccoli soup (about a month old and I just opened it, covered in fur and white), butter, goat cheese (2 kinds), tiltser cheese (expired), parmasean cheese.

So I was totally covered in the way of condiments and desserts, but no actual food. Thankfully I did make it on Saturday and should be good for another week...unless I go snowboarding.

Which I will, because I went this weekend and it was amazing. More to come on that. The moral of this post is that you should be incredibly thankful for Jewel, Osco, 7-11 and etc!!

FINALLY

Question: A girl meets a colleague from Texas to have a German beer. They head to a restuarant, where the waiters speak German, but she speaks french and her colleague speaks English. They drink Swiss wine, she orders Austrian and he orders Italian. After dinner, they head to an English pub. Finally, she heads home looking at the mountains. Where the heck is she??

Answer: Switzerland of course!

Finally after 2 months here I am getting going on the blog. I apologize that it has taken so long to get it up. But I want everyone to know first of all that I am (so far) happy with my decision to move here. No, leaving behind your boyfriend and your cats is not ideal. Yes, I hate the fact that everything closes at 6pm or in the case of Sunday is not open AT ALL. It is a strange life I lead, but nevertheless I like it.

This weekend I am in Basel which is about 3 hours northeast of Geneva, about 100m from both the French and German borders, hence the reason for all of the various cultural references. I was just getting into being able to speak French pretty well and suddenly I am now in Basel where they speak Swiss German. Needless to say I was sitting on the tram yesterday like an idiot when someone had to tell me in English I needed to get off because the line was closed due to a protest (a pro communism anti capitalism one--ooooo!) But someone else also asked me in German if the seat next to me was free, and I responded "oui." Made me think that it is pretty amazing that people can still understand each other even though we have no clue what the words actually mean. All right, that was pretty philosophical, lets have a brief rundown of my life for the past 2 months:

Typical day for me involves the following:
9am on Mondays and Friday, various times other days, I go to work. Annoyingly I cannot go directly to my floor, I MUST go to the 4th floor and I also MUST say bonjour in my best singsong French voice to the receptionists or they will think I am rude (apparently I scared all of the staff people when I met them but now they all like me. More on that another time).

I immediately get my coffee, which I find delicious but most people who are not used to the shitty American coffee I had at Deloitte Chicago do not think it is that good. It is good, don't listen to them. Now you can smoke in the kitchen which is disgusting, so even though I fix a quick coffee, by the time I walk back to my desk I smell like I have been out at Irish Eyes bar all night and don't know why I bothered to shower.

Around noon I take a nice long lunch with the girls in the office and usually have soup (ok, I always have soup), bread, cheese and fruit. Occassionally a sandwich or something from the Maraicher restaurant which is really expensive. Anyway we have lunch for an hour usually and speak in varying English and French.

After work, I will head to French class or I will head to the Alibi bar which is connected to the office. Dave and Steve who I work with have established a good relationship with the bartenders and so the drinks are very cheap, we also get crudité and paprika chips! On occasion I will go to the casino (really, it has really helped me to learn my numbers by playing blackjack), or I will swing by Servette Kebab on my way home to have a beer and a chit chat with the owner, Pasha, who is the nicest man; he is about 70 years old, Turkish and only speaks French. So when I say we have a chat, he talks to me in French of which I understand about 60%, and I respond using some sort of oui, je....(hand motion) insert some noun or "trés bien."

Weekends are totally varied which include errands (because everything is closed Sunday), swimming, going out, soon skiing, and unfortunately working typically.

So that is a brief summary of what I am doing. My internet is about to run out, but another post will follow shortly.