Strands and Strange Lands

Progress!

2012-01-01T21:05:00.003+01:00

By the time I complete and post this entry, I will have blogged 25% of last year's total...

I know you're impressed.

At this pace, I'm guessing no one reads this anymore and I'm totally okay with that. As a result, this is going to be a very ME-centric post.

Last year was probably the most difficult year I have ever gone through, but not in an unpleasant way. We took a couple memorable vacations, made some new friends, found some new music, and got to know our little MISS BEE very very well. Also, by the last two weeks of the year, we finally started getting some sleep again. Last year I didn't get a lot accomplished outside of the whole learning to be a mom thing, which I'm fine with but this year it's time to get to work.

So here we go. I want to post a quick resolution run down because I find that typing it up makes me think about my goals in greater depth and putting it "out there" makes me feel just a little bit more accountable. This year I have three big areas to focus on: health, French, and jiu jitsu.

Goal 1: Lose half a pound a week. I'm still carrying around a bit more of my baby weight than I would like to be, and since the baby is now a toddler, it's probably about time I stop using "baby weight" as an excuse. Half a pound per week feels like a healthy rate that won't make me feel too stressed or like I'm starving myself, especially with the results of Goal 3 factored in... More on that shortly. I've broken my pedometer back out and am aiming to log a minimum of 7000 steps per day except on Wednesday and Friday. I plan to increase my steps goal after a couple months, once the weather gets nicer here. To track everything, I'm using the sparkpeople.com website and iphone app.

Goal 2: This is the year I am going to start speaking French. My reading and comprehension have gotten so much better in the past year, but I still find myself too uptight about sounding silly to actually try and speak to people. That has got to stop. Working together, the Mr and I have come up with a list of 52 topics. Our plan is to focus on one topic per week as a way of increasing our vocabulary while limiting our studies to keep us from getting overwhelmed. Additionally, I will be getting together with a neighbor for 1-2 hours every Friday afternoon and working on my French and her English. Since we don't know each other very well, I think it will be easier to start speaking French right away because I'm less concerned about embarrassing myself and all those "getting to know you" topics (what music do you like, what's your favorite food, nice weather we're having today) are great for beginning language practice. We're hoping to go for a better residence permit this year and that process included a fluency test, so this really is very important.

Goal 3: Jiu jitsu. I studied jiu jitsu for about a year and a half before I got pregnant, but in a very haphazard and, to be honest, half-assed manner. Now that I've been going back (16 months later - EEEEP), I've really thrown myself into it and I'm anxious to make some progress this year. I can already feel myself improving and I take a great deal of pride in not losing fights at practice right now. Where I train, I am typically the only female, on top of being 5-10 years older than most of the other students. And, ya know, completely out of shape. That's why not losing, right now, feels as good as I imagine winning will someday. My goals for jiu jitsu this year are to get my blue belt and to compete in one tournament. I go to class twice per week for two hours at a time. It's a great start but I probably need to add a bit more conditioning in on my own time. That's something I'm going to come back to in two months - for now I want to focus on attending regularly and giving a solid 100% when I'm there.

I have a few mini-goals as well: blog on occasion, break out the paints once more, craft a bit more, read a book a month but those all come in second to the big three.

And there you have it - 25%.

Book Project 2

2011-03-13T11:06:00.002+01:00

Month: February

Book: "200 Crochet Blocks" by Jan Eaton

Experience: A little bit late, but better than never. My original goal was to complete a small blanket made from stash yarn and a few different blocks from this book. As I suppose should be expected (BEE BEE BEE BEE BEE), that didn't happen, but I did get the time to work several different blocks. I found the patterns to be well-written and easy to read. I loved the interesting color combination and patterns suggested by the book, covering a wide range from traditional to surprisingly modern looking. I found lots of projects I would love to tackle at some point when I have a little bit more free time.

Verdict: This one is a definite keeper.

My great-grandmother taught me to crochet when I was about eight years old. After I got the hang of making a basic chain, granny squares were the second thing I learned to make. For years, I made squares out of any little scraps of yarn I could get my hands on. My Barbies wore granny squares as ponchos and skirts. The beds in my Barbie house were covered in granny square blankets and topped with pillows made from granny squares folded in half. I made granny squares cat toys and granny square dog toys (not popular) but I have yet to complete a full-sized granny square blanket.

And I still haven't.

But one day, I will - and that's one reason I'm going to keep this book. Another reason this one is worth keeping is that I'm already looking forward to teaching Bee to crochet and I think granny squares are a great place to start. Once she gets the basics down, I think she'll really enjoy all the different variations in this book. I imagine us one day working on a blanket together, each adding our own squares to a giant pile and arguing over who has to weave in all those obnoxious ends.

I bet it will be me.

Next book: How to Write Funny

Book Project 1

2011-01-19T15:23:00.003+01:00

Month: January

Book: "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg

Experience: As of the middle of the month, I'm just 30 pages in and have only written about four pages of my own. Part of that is laziness and part of it is a lack of time, lack of energy, lack of being-into-this. The book is well-written and I've found one or two ideas in it I can grab onto and a couple quotes I really like, but I've not found the couple writing exercises I've tackled to be particularly thought-provoking. This could be because I'm just starting out or it could be because my brain's just not into it right now - at this point, I'm still fairly confident that the blame lies more with me than with the book.

Part of it, also, could be that two months after the birth of a baby isn't the best time to tackle a project that most people agree benefits from being done for a set amount of time, at the same time each day. Bee's schedule varies far too much for me to do that - unless I want to get up REALLY early and try to write, but the problem then is my brain won't be ready - I am not a morning person and never have been. Late at night isn't really an option either as Bee is a light sleeper and seems to know when I'm not in the room.

* * *

And here we are at the end of the month. I confess I only made it about two thirds of the way through the book. For me, it started to seem very repetitive and focused far more on the author's personal philosophy and experiences rather than on writing and how to improve your own. As it went on, it started to feel more like a memoir that just happened to be centered on writing.

Verdict: Obviously this book appeals to many people as it's considered one of the best books for writers and often used in workshops, however it was a bit too emotional, abstract, and philosophical for my taste, so I'll be looking for a new home for my copy.

Next book: 200 Crochet Blocks

A shelf of books

2011-01-18T11:56:00.003+01:00

And this is part two of "getting stuff done" this year. In general, I have no problem getting rid of things I don't use, with one exception - books. Shelves and boxes and stacks of books. Most I've read, several I've read repeatedly. Some I know I should read. Some someone else thought I should read. Several are completely mysteries - like strays, they appeared one day and made themselves at home.

When we were living in Virginia, Mr K and I used to go to the BIG BOOK STORE a couple times a month and find new books, typically art and craft related. We always planned to put these books to use, but what usually happened was a book would get read for a day or two and a technique might get tried out, but then the book would end up back on the shelf as we made another book store run. This pattern left us with a pretty big collection of books that are all in near-new condition. I know we need to unclutter, but it seems crazy to get rid of a book without knowing what's in it. The problem we run into is when you look at a whole shelf of these books, the size of the task kind of seems overwhelming.

On January 1, I went to the shelf and pulled down 12 under-utilized books. I plan to read and use one per month. After a month with the book, I'll decide if I want to keep the book or pass it along to someone who would get more use out of it than I will. My chosen books are a mix of writing instruction, crochet, sewing, lots of watercolor, and some drawing.

I know the whole pattern of buy-books-for-self-betterment-and-shelve-those-suckers-unread says a lot about something or the other, but I don't have time to get into that now. I have a book to read.

Pick a Card

2011-01-16T22:35:00.005+01:00

We're not exactly lazy, no.. we just don't like leaving the house.

Also, maybe we're a little bit lazy.

Our first year and a half or so of living in Switzerland, we were out every weekend, seeing things and doing things and socializing with friends. We had originally signed on for a two-year stint here and we felt that we had to get the most out of every weekend before we had to leave. Around the 18 month point, we decided to stay for much much longer and Mr K transferred. The good thing about this was - obviously - that we were staying in Switzerland. The bad news was the lack of a departure deadline gave us all the excuse we needed to kick into lazy mode. Our outings slid back to once a month or so. We spent more time wandering around Fribourg and just relaxing at home. A few months later, Fetus Miss Bee made her first ultrasound appearance and laziness gave way to exhaustion, but with much the same result. We were rarely leaving our town, but when we did, we usually only traveled as far as Bern. Many naps were taken. Many DVDs were watched. Not much else was seen.

This was okay in the short-term, but with Bee's arrival and my starting to feel more like myself, Mr K wanted to make sure the laziness habit didn't stick for good. On January 1, he grabbed a spare deck of playing cards (you do NOT even want to know how many decks we have in our home - trust me) and a Sharpie and started making plans. Mr K reasoned that, once you remove the jokers, there are roughly the same number of playing cards in a deck as there are weeks in a year. On each card, he wrote one activity : invite friends over for lunch, spend the day reading, internet-free weekend, go someplace new, and many others. Sometime between Monday and Wednesday of each week, Mr K shuffles the cards and I draw one: that's our activity for the weekend. We draw the card early enough in the week to give us time to make plans, alert friends, and gather supplies. If a card is not seasonally or weather-ly appropriate, we are allowed to put it back in the deck and reshuffle. The only other acceptable excuses are sickness or baby-breakdown (we are realists, after all...)

We also got a big green album with just over 50 pages. For each activity, we will take at least one photograph to put in the album, along with the card and any relevant receipts, tickets, or other souvenirs. After a year, we should have a nearly empty deck of cards and a nearly full book of memories.

Our first three cards have been:

Take a trip to Montreux
Invite friends for lunch
Read a book

All three have been completed, mostly successfully. The trip to Montreux was a bit baby-stressful, but we survived.

I can't wait to see what's in the cards for us next week...

Bee's Birth Story

2010-12-08T00:25:00.005+01:00

Four weeks ago today, thing got more interesting. (Caution: Post contains bodily stuff.)

On Monday night, the eighth of November, as we were getting ready for bed, I was hit by a wave of emotion. Something told me that this was the last night I was going to be feeling little squirmy moves in my belly because the baby, who was due the day before, would be born the next day. I told Mr K, but he wasn't completely convinced as I had no symptoms of labor of any kind. We went to bed and had a pleasant and uneventful night of uninterrupted sleep.

I woke up around 9 in the morning the following day, a Tuesday. I let Mr K sleep in a little bit while I started my day. As I was walking into the kitchen to fix a cup of tea, I felt a small woosh. I stopped but didn't feel anything else, so I continued with the tea-making and then ran a bath. After another small woosh, I let Mr K know he might want to wake up and slowly start getting himself and his camera bag ready to go. I soaked for about 30 minutes as he got ready. Around 10:30 I did the thing I had been dreading the most: I called the hospital midwife and did my best, in French, to explain what was going on and get some guidance. She told me to grab my bag and head in for a “control.” At least, I thought she said to grab my bag, but I was so nervous, I wasn't completely sure, so I called a friend and had her call the hospital to make sure I understood everything. She was unable to get through on her first try, so we sat around the house and waited a few long minutes while she tried again. Soon enough, she called us back to say we had understood everything, so we grabbed our bags, I said goodbye to the kitties, and we headed out. I dropped off pre-written notes for our favorite neighbors to let them know we were hospital-bound.

On our way the the station, we realized it may be a while before our next meals, so we headed down to the grocery store to grab a couple sandwiches and cold drinks. We got to the bus stop and saw we had a few minutes before our bus arrived, so we popped into the station for a quick final pictures as a twosome in one of the photo booths. We caught our bus and I was still contraction-free, so the ride was uneventful. We arrived at the hospital around 11:30 and headed up to the third floor, where we checked in for our control. After just a short wait, we were shown back to an exam room staffed by a midwife (the same one who had taken my phone call) and a midwife-in-training. I laid on the table as they put the monitor for contractions and for the baby's heartbeat on my belly and we laid and watched the needles wiggle for the next 20 minutes – baby doing fine, zero contractions. The midwife sent Mr K down to get a card from admissions for me and for the baby and while he was gone, the midwife-in-training got to practice her needle work by getting my IV all set up and ready to go, should they need it later. I spent the next 36+ hours with that needle and the little gauze bracelet holding it in place. Once that was done, they got me back on my feet to head to my room, where lunch would be waiting for me.

I reached my room and settled in to eat. Lunch was a couple slices of roast beef in a brown gravy, a baked, stuffed tomato, some soup and some noodles – not bad at all for hospital food! I ate almost all of it, after offering to share with Mr K, who wasn't feeling much like eating. After I ate, the midwife suggested we go for a walk to pass the time and see if my contractions would start.

We headed up to the roof of the hospital around two in the afternoon. It was pretty cool outside at this point, but the fresh air felt good. The view was impressive – Fribourg in every direction. We could see Mr K's work building and our apartment building. We walked a few laps and I began to get some twinges in my back but nothing in my abdomen. Mr K thought they were contractions and suggested I start timing them, but I didn't think they were. We walked a bit more until I felt like I needed a break and then we headed back to my room so I could lay down for a few minutes before we tried walking some more. The back pain got worse and worse and I soon found myself climbing out of bed and leaning over when the pain came, with my legs and back straight and my chest and face pressed into the bed. I still didn't think the pain was contractions, though. Mr K finally called the midwife when I refused to and they brought the belly monitors back in to watch for another 20 minutes. The midwife checked me and I was about 4 cm dilated – it was around four in the afternoon at this point. The monitor showed a strong baby heartbeat still – as well as fairly strong contractions coming about 3 minutes apart. By this point I was soaked in sweat and a little bit shaky – I'm not sure why I still thought the pains weren't contractions... The midwife showed up and asked if I was okay to walk to the birthing room and I said I was, but about three steps later, as I was leaning against the wall, immobilized with pain, I realized walking wasn't an option and gratefully accepted the wheelchair she offered. The wheelchair ride itself is a complete blank in my memory.

When I opened my eyes, we had arrived at the birthing room (the one I had liked when I first saw it during our prenatal course) and the midwife was running a hot bath for me. All modesty gone, I stripped naked in the middle of the room and made a beeline for the bath. The midwife had added several oils to the water and it smelled amazing. Mr K handed me my apple juice, which I sipped as I soaked in the water. The contractions got worse and I spent nearly all my time with my eyes squeezed shut. The midwife showed Mr K how to grab my belly during the contractions and wiggle it gently from side to side – this really helped with the pain. I soaked in the tub for around an hour as we waited for the anesthetist to show up for my epidural. The midwife said there was an emergency somewhere but that he would arrive as soon as he could. After one particularly bad contraction, the midwife looked at me and asked if I had felt like I needed to push for that one – I did. She waited for the next break between contractions and had me get out of the tub. As I stood next to the tub, she got a bathrobe half on me before another one hit followed, immediately, by two more with almost no break between them. I clung to a rope hanging from the ceiling, trying to remember to breath as the midwife and Mr K dried me off. My memory blanked out again but the next thing I knew, I was laying in the bed, wondering how the pain could get worse. The midwife checked me again and found that, in less than 2 hours, I had gone from 4 cm to 9 cm and she got a little nervous. Typically, I think, that takes closer to five or more hours : this is why my pain was so bad.

About half an hour or so after I got out of the bath, the anesthetist arrived. It was such a relief to see him. He suggested Mr K go for a walk and have a smoke or something and come back in a few minutes as he got everything set up for my epidural. I rolled onto my side and got hit by another three really harsh and close together contractions. We waited for a break in the contractions, but none came, so the anesthetists quickly got the epidural in (around 6:15 pm) as I held as still as possible. He assured me I would feel better in a few minutes.

Around 7:30 I was feeling much better – the contractions still hurt, but not nearly as badly. The midwife came in to see if I was ready to push. I gave it a good try, but wasn't quite ready, so she told us they would be having their shift change soon and to just relax and breath for a bit before we would try again. At 8:30, the new doctor and new midwife showed up and we got ready to go again. The midwife instructed me wait for the next contraction to start and then to take a deep breath for a count of three, and then to hold my breath while pushing “like you need to use the bathroom.” I only had to wait about thirty seconds before the pain came again and I did what she said. About two seconds into my pushing, the midwife began chanting “Again again again,” so I exhaled quickly and inhaled again and got confused when she looked disappointed. After repeating this another couple times I realized she meant “keep pushing” when she said “again” so the next time I kept it up and she got even more excited. After a couple pushes, I was having a hard time telling if I was making any progress. The midwife asked if I would like to feel the baby's head and helped me to reach down to where just the top of it was visible. The minute I felt the baby's soft skin and wet hair, I completely lost it and burst into sobs. This was the moment that I finally finally finally realized we were about to have a baby – the whole pregnancy had felt unreal and it never completely hit me. My hysterical sobbing got Mr K going, so we both cried together for a minute. The midwife (who was maybe 5'3 and 120 pounds) told me to put my foot on her hip and to push as hard as I could for the next contraction. Though I was concerned I would knock her down, I listened and when the next contraction came, I dug in my toes and pushed as hard as I could. I felt a rush (but no pain) and the next thing I heard was the midwife saying “Take your baby take your baby” as the warm, wet, pink baby was placed on my belly, cord still attached. Hot towels appeared and the midwife began rubbing the baby down as she (though we didn't know yet whether she was a she or not) lay on my chest. “Breathe, baby, breathe.” she said as she dried the baby off. A split second later, a little cry came out of the baby and got louder. I finally asked if it was a girl or boy and we checked – girl! Bee arrived with a ton of bright blonde hair and lovely pink skin. She weighed 3570g (7lbs 14 oz) and 50.5cm (about 20 inches) long.

A bottle of bubbly water, some dinner, and a few stitches later, we were back in our room, blissful and ready to sleep. Happy four weeks, Baby Bee!

Loss

2010-09-20T21:13:00.005+02:00

New Years Eve 2006
I made Texas Caviar because you insisted it wasn't possible to have a New Years without black eyed peas - for good luck. It was just a small party - I think there might have been six people. Hardly a party at all, but it felt special. I can't remember what else we ate, which is unusual for me. We all tried to go see Asharah dance. All of us squished into Chris's car, but when we arrived at the restaurant, it was packed and none of us had enough cash to get in. It was maybe 20 minutes until midnight. You and Chris decided you needed cigars or cloves or something festive to celebrate with. We went to the 7-11 and at this point, our memories diverge : I remember you getting cigarettes and smoking out the front door, but Chris remembers 7-11 being closed. Either way, we were all laughing at how high school it was to be driving around frantically trying to find cigarettes in the middle of the night.

We all went back to Chris's little house in Sterling. He and I didn't have cable, so we couldn't even watch a countdown. Chris wrote a shell script to make the computer that we had hooked up to the tv countdown for us, so we all stood around the white screen and watched the tiny numbers change until midnight. Then we played DDR for a few hours.

None of this was anything special, and yet it's one of those evenings that we refer back to fondly and frequently.

November 21 2009
This was the last time I saw you in person. Chris and I were back for a visit and got a small group together to go out to dinner. I was so excited you were able to join us. We went to Texas de Brazil in Fairfax. For some reason, I only took one picture that night. I'm kicking myself for not taking more pictures, not having more conversations, and not keeping in touch as well as I could have.

Thank you for looking out for me at work, for humoring me when I drug you away from your desk and made you eat in the cafeteria, for being my only reason to smile on some of the darker days in the office. I feel so fortunate we got to be friends and so, so sorry I didn't get to see you more often. I have so many more scattered memories, but I can't pull my head together so well right now.

I miss you.

Car, boat, car, pool

2010-07-27T18:02:00.009+02:00

Home again, home again!

Saturday evening we arrived back in Switzerland from our holiday in Corsica and, though I was happy to come back to cool temperatures, I kind of miss the swimming pool!

The trip to Corsica was an adventure in itself - all 30+ hours of it! At midnight, we drug our luggage downstairs and tossed it in the already-packed trunk of our friends' car. We had quite a group for this trip - three husbands, three wives (two of us are six months pregnant), and two kids under two years old. As you might guess, that combination for a nine day vacation adds up to quite a bit of luggage. The four of us headed out to meet the rest of the gang outside of town and then our drive began. Fun fact - you can get gasoline here at all hours despite the fact the gas stations are unattended - you just pay by card. (Can you tell I haven't driven in a while?) We had a drive of about six hours to Savona, Italy where we would then load the cars and ourselves onto a large ferry boat. I had hoped to sleep in the car, but unfortunately the curvy mountain roads conspired against me and I was unable to sleep for most of the trip. Little did I know, this was only the beginning! (Spoiler: Wikipedia describes Corsica as "the most mountainous island in the Mediterranean.")

After the first couple hours of driving, we ended up on a more major road and I felt well enough to get a little bit of sleep. We arrived at the ferry right on time and took our place to wait for our boat. We sat outside, surrounded by tourists and cars, and watched the sun come up over the water. Soon, the ferry arrived and we hopped back in the car for the surprisingly orderly putting-of-the-cars-on-the-boat. Once parked, we climbed a couple staircases to get to the floor where two of our friends had been kind enough to reserve a comfy little cabin. We all had a little picnic and then took turns napping in the four bunk beds in the cabin. The six hours of the boat ride passed surprisingly quickly and I was feeling much better by the time we arrived in Corsica.

From where we left the ferry in Bastia to our hotel in Corte (I think), we had another couple hours to drive. I have never in my life seen roads like this - you know those luxury car commercials were you see cars smoothly tearing along deserted curvy mountain roads? Yeah, it was like that, except with lots of other cars (many in various states of destruction and disrepair, no doubt because of the roads) and about three times the curves. Oh, and fewer guard rails - as in none. Just steep hills, sharp turns, and sheep everywhere you looked. Now, I've never really had problems with car sickness much in the past and, even more surprising, I have had no nausea at all with the pregnancy, but this drive found me making up for lost sick-time and in a big way. I have never, ever felt so sick in a car in my life. We took our time on the drive, but nothing really made much of a difference. Eventually we arrived at our hotel, a mere 18 hours after leaving our apartment. Mr K and I both immediately collapsed in bed to rest for a bit and try to get our bellies in order.

After about an hour of rest, we got most of the gang together to grab some dinner at a nearby restaurant. By this point my tummy was calmed and starving - it had been a LONG time since our ten AM picnic on the boat. The weather was gorgeous - warm and breezy. At the restaurant, we took a table on the terrace, overlooking a wooded area complete with melodically babbling brook. Dinner was excellent - I had a pork filet in a rich herb and wine sauce with veggies and crisp bread. Mr K started with a green salad that I, of course, helped with and then had a grilled kebab of two different fresh-caught fish with saffron rice. At the beginning of the meal, we ordered the apple tart recommended by our waitress, who informed us it took around an hour to prepare. The tart turned out to be about the size of a dinner plate and we were very happy to have decided to share it. It was amazing - one of the best desserts I have ever had. With happy tummies, we returned to the hotel and were asleep by ten.

The next morning we woke up and grabbed breakfast from the hotel's buffet - a carb celebration of the sort you only find here. Tens of different breads and cakes and tarts, butter, cheese, yogurt. I still miss the typical American breakfast of ham and bacon and eggs and what-not, but this was still good. I worried that we would not be stopping for lunch (I was right) and so I ate way more than I normally would have and soon we were back in the cars, heading to Ajaccio, where our rental house was located.

Once more, we managed to get sick within about fifteen minutes of entering the car. At one point on the drive, we pulled over to the side of the road so one of the other couples with us could feed their kids and give them a chance to stretch their legs. I spread my large wrap out on the ground and Mr K and I laid in the shade and got our breath back. Soon, we were all back in the car with just another hour or so to go.

After a quick trip down the most terrifying paved hill I have ever seen in my life (you know how it looks when you crest a hill on a roller coaster, right before you drop, and you can see straight ahead but there's nothing there? This hill was like that) we arrived at the house and everyone instantly felt better. The owner met us at the gate and walked us in and we found surprise number one - glorious, glorious air-conditioning. We walked out the back door and saw the gardens and pool and everyone started oohing and aahing. This is the first time I have ever seen a rental house that was actually prettier than the pictures posted online - it was just perfect. The owner pointed to the field next door and introduced us to the neighbors, a sleepy group of sheep snoring in the grass. Surprise number two was the three-day-old lamb who poked his headed out from behind his mother to stare at us - too much cuteness!

Back in the house, we figured out who got which room and unloaded the cars. The two drivers then piled back in to go off in search of groceries while the rest of us pulled on our swimming suits and hit the pool as quickly as possible - and this was where Mr K and I spent most of the rest of the week.

And this is where I'll leave this post. In the next couple days, I'll post a bit more about what we saw, what we did, what we ate (of course) and how we got home. First, though, I need to get Mr K to put a couple pictures up. See you soon!

The new project

2010-06-30T10:13:00.003+02:00

Apologies for my three month absence - and after I was doing so well with my two-posts-a-month goal, too. Ah well.

The good news is I haven't been completely lazy and negligent this whole time - though it would certainly have looked that way had you wandered into our place anytime in the past few months and found me and two cats draped across the couch or curled up in bed. We've been working on a new project and I have to admit, it just plain wore me out.

Now, though, I've gotten my energy back so I'm going to take advantage and start catching up on the piles of unfinished everything sitting around.

So, yes, to put it out there - baby. First week of November!

We're not sure on boy or girl as the little thing is exceedingly uncooperative every time we get an ultrasound.

We've found a great doctor here which has made the whole thing more enjoyable. Yesterday he was trying to determine the baby's boy-girlness yet again, and once more getting no cooperation. After about 15 minutes of checking and measuring various things he said he needed to wait for the baby to change position, and while we waited he was going to check on another patient. Turning to Mr K and holding out the wand, he said, "Here - you ultrasound for a little while." And with that, we got to spend the next 15-20 minutes just looking on our own, which was a ton of fun.

In general, I get the feeling that everything is more relaxed and sane here. I've never been pregnant in the US, of course, so I can only go on the stories I hear from other people and things I read, but I've been very happy with the level of care we've received combined with the down-to-earth nature of the advice I get. "Eat healthy, stay active."

And with that, I'm off to grab a snack and go for a little walk.

"But don't you get bored?"

2010-03-26T19:06:00.003+01:00

One of my internet-buddies, Terry Border (wire-manipulator-extraordinaire), published an interesting discussion on his blog about a phrase he finds to be particularly annoying : "They must have too much time on their hands." You see this line pretty regularly in response to interesting pieces of art, video, and music people post on-line. I hadn't really noticed before he pointed it out, but he's right - it's everywhere. I don't think it's usually meant as an insult, but it does have some pretty sad implications. Terry challenged those of the "too much time" declarations to try using some of their own passive-entertainment time (be it watching tv or surfing online) to create a little content of their own instead of dismissing the work of others.

In response to Terry's post, I wanted to write a little bit about a phrasal-pet-peeve of my own - one that I think comes from a similar mindset: "But don't you get bored?" During the past nearly-three years that I've been a stay-at-home-me, I've heard this line at least once a month, if not more. Each time another friend or acquaintance finds out I don't have a job, this is the response I get. "Aren't you bored?" "Don't you get bored with nothing to do all day?" "You must be so bored - have you had any luck looking for a job?" Each time I hear one of these variations, as well-meaning as I think they are intended to be, it surprises me all over again - the implication being that if you're not working, there isn't much of anything else to do. When did this happen?

I've found the past two years to be much more fulfilling than any in my working life. I now have the time and, even more importantly, the energy to explore things that interest me and to develop my hobbies. I have time to keep up with the chores and errands so C doesn't have to. I have time to focus on our meals. We both have more time for relaxing, we are under much less stress than we were before and we're the healthiest we've been in years. I don't understand how that can be seen as boring.

Despite the recent renewal of interest in craft and cooking and all those other grandmotherly skills our generation shunned just a few years ago, it still seems like most people have few or no hobbies that they pursue on a regular basis. I'm at a difficult point in this post now, where I don't want to come across as smug, but someone's going to think I am anyway, so here we go: more people need to turn off their tvs and step away from their computers for just a few hours a week and spend some time for their brains and bodies. (I'm sorry!) Once you get used to entertaining yourself, I think you come to find it a much more enjoyable way to spend some time. I'm not saying to never watch tv, to never use your computer (pretty sure a certain someone would consider kicking me to the curb for that kind of remark) but I do think it's far too easy to get in the habit of plopping down in front of one (or both) at the end of a long day or in a spare moment and lose yourself. A little tv is fine, a little computer time is good, a few video games are great, too. Sometimes, though, it's nice to do something else.

Confession time: before we moved here, C and I had quite the World of Warcraft habit going. We told ourselves that it was okay because we played together, so it was bonding time. We played with our friends, so it was social time. More than anything though, it's escape and it shouldn't have become nearly as much a part of our lives as it did. If I had spent half the time I spent playing that game practicing my banjo, I would be able to play that thing by now. If I spent half that time writing, I would have a passel of stories in my hands. If we spent a quarter of it exercising, we wouldn't recognize ourselves. It went from an occasional diversion to our only diversion... and ultimately, for us the only answer was to quit entirely - it isn't one of those games we could play casually.

So now, in the wake of my gaming addiction, in the aftermath of employment, what do I do when I'm feeling bored? Here's a small section from my 'always something to do' list:

Food stuff:

Cook something to freeze
Look for new recipes
Read about new ingredients
Send a favorite recipe to family and friends

Creative stuff:

Draw a picture
Sew something
Knit something
Crochet something
Take apart something you made but never used - arrange materials for reuse
Write a story or a joke or a list - anything

Social stuff:

Write an email (a long one - not just a couple lines)
Write a letter
Write a postcard
Ask random questions: learn new things about a friend or family member
Browse online and start bookmarking gifts for future birthdays and holidays
Play with your pet or pets

Healthy stuff:

Go for a walk
Stretch
Do a fitness dvd
Eat a piece of fruit
Go for another walk

Indulgent stuff:

Take a long bath
Take a nap
Sit in the sun and relax

Random stuff:

Learn a new skill or relearn an old one(think girl scout/boy scout stuff you know you forgot - knot tying, cloud identification, first aid etc)

Stuff you'll be glad you did once it's done:

Deep clean one small thing
Quick clean everything (I'm a big fan of putting a cd on and spending one song per room seeing how much I can get done)
Go through a cabinet or closet and find things to give or throw away

Sorry to have gotten so long-winded on this... turns out I had more to say than I thought! Anyway, I'm done now but would love to know what you think about it - and if you have any suggestions for the "always stuff to do" list, I would love to see them in the comments. I'm going for a walk.

It's oh so quiet - again

2010-03-10T12:20:00.005+01:00

My parents are now safely back in Pennsylvania and I have to admit our apartment is way too quiet. Taco and Waffle keep looking for their grandma to play with the laser pointer with them and I keep looking for the bags of pastries dad would bring home from his morning walks - we were spoiled!

We started off their two week visit with a sunny trip to Mt Moléson for some sledding. Before sledding, we took the cable car all the way to the top to enjoy a breathtaking view. The weather was perfect and clear - mountains in every direction. We grabbed a couple drinks and enjoyed the sunshine while watching the skiers and snowshoers. As we headed back down to start sledding, I must admit I had my concerns. When my first hill of the day proved to be more ice than snow, I didn't get any less concerned. After a couple more hills, though, everybody got the hang of it and we all survived despite a couple tumbles, a lot of snow in the face, a lost-then-found glove for C and the incident where I ran over somebody's hand (ouch!).

After a full day of sledding, everyone was starving so we met up with Dani and Steph and headed to Café du Midi for some fondue. We opted for the full three course meal - a plate of local cured meats with bread and butter (Dad proclaimed this greens-less dish 'The best salad ever') followed by fondue with bread and potatoes and ending with meringues and double cream.

We all spent the next day chewing ibuprofen and comparing bruises. On Tuesday, we went to the University to meet up with Dani for lunch and get a tour of his department. Dad was impressed with the University's lecture rooms and took several pictures. We went to the Villars café afterward and enjoyed some nice chocolate and coffees - the dark chocolate with a saffron center was my favorite by far.

On Wednesday, mom and dad and I headed to Zurich for a walking tour in the morning followed by lunch followed by meetings with a colleague for dad and lots of shopping for mom and I. We spent an hour in a huge toy store,where we bought nothing, and followed it up with another hour in an English-language bookstore, where we bought several things. We returned to the station to have some drinks and wait for dad to finish up after which we all headed to dinner.

We had another day of relaxing on Thursday - Chinese carryout and LOST on dvd.

On Friday, mom and dad went to Gruyères to see the cheese museum and walk around the town and castle. Friday night, our friends Oli and Célia brought their two kids and joined us for dinner - chicken tortilla soup, which seemed to be a hit as I had only the smallest dish of soup left over!

On Saturday, mom and dad left early to spend a weekend on the Glacier Express, sipping wine and looking at many many miles of Swiss countryside. They spent a total of ten hours on trains on Friday, but mom said it was the prettiest scenery she's ever seen in her life and now we look forward to taking a ride on it one day. Mom and dad spent an extra day exploring and came back on Monday. We all had raclette for dinner and passed out from cheese-overconsumption.

On Tuesday, Oli took dad to see the fire station here in Fribourg - he came back with a ton of pictures and cool publications.

On Wednesday, mom and dad headed to Thun for more castles and exploration. Thun is one of my favorite places to visit here and I was glad they had a chance to go see it and good weather to enjoy the views. Wednesday night, Joël took dad shooting while mom and C and I stayed home and relaxed.

Thursday night everybody but C, who wasn't feeling well, went to Steph's parents for a delicious Vietnamese dinner - no forks allowed! We gorged ourselves on grilled duck, mushroom omelet, soup, shrimp and a plum dessert. We had a great time, eating and laughing and talking until late and despite the required use of chopsticks, we all left with pleasantly full bellies.

On Friday, we did last minute laundry, shopping and packing. Mom and dad had never had donër kebab so we grabbed some for lunch - it was a hit. Once all the cleaning and packing was done, we stayed up late finishing the last season of LOST and early the next morning, mom and dad were on their way to Munich.

Whew - too much fun for one post!

Resolutions month one - checking in

2010-02-23T22:22:00.003+01:00

The problem with February is all our excitement is coming at the end of the month, which is why I've been neglecting the blogging. My parents are here for a visit now and we're having all kinds of adventures, however I'm going to save those stories for another post and spend this one checking in on how I'm doing on the resolution front.

One goal was to read at least one new book per month - that one's been no problem. I read The Year of the Flood in January as my brand new book. I enjoyed it but not nearly as much as Oryx and Crake, its companion book. I thought The Year of the Flood started off much slower and, though I know the sing-songy poem-hymns are supposed to be pretty integral to the story, I found them distracting. Once the new characters in the story introduced began to intermingle with the more familiar characters from Oryx and Crake, I thought the book picked up and got more interesting. Of the two, I think Oryx and Crake is the more re-readable.

In addition to my new book, I also reread Lord of the Flies and Brave New World as I haven't looked at either book in easily sixteen years and was interested to see how well, for me, they've stood up. I remembered large sections of both but was surprised to realize I had completely forgotten both endings - I remembered a ton of detail and names but somehow my brain lost the ends. For February, I've started reading Jim Crace's The Pesthouse but am really finding the writing style to be an obstacle to getting into the story itself. I keep picking up old favorites from my shelf rather than The Pesthouse - I have to really make myself keep going with it.

Enough about books. I still haven't roasted a chicken.

As for my making something weekly, I've done tolerably well. I sent off a little watercolor painting for some friends to hang in their nursery for their soon-to-arrive bebe and I knitted hats for both my parents. I've done some sketching for a project I'm doing with a friend. I have done absolutely no writing at all. I have been practicing my banjo, though. CLAW ham-mer CLAW ham-mer CLAW ham-mer.

Haven't attempted a dessert but that may change soon since my mom brought me a big new cookbook that's really got my brain going, my hands itching, and my tummy growling.

I haven't yet tried to break the walking record but I've been at the gym a ton in preparation... okay, maybe not a ton, but three times a week easily.

As the the three new countries? Knocking two of those out in March - we're heading to Munich in a couple weeks and then I'm off to Milan for an overnight while I happily help Miz Asharah lug her dance-goodies to a workshop.

This one time, I totally spoke some French. Fer real.

And have I learned any German yet? As Mr K would say, in his best "Old Swiss Guy" impression...

NAY NAY NAAAAAAAAY.

What about you? How are your resolutions holding up?

Sledding

2010-02-12T22:57:00.000+01:00

Waffle-opolis!

2010-01-22T18:10:00.003+01:00

This past weekend we took advantage of both an Easyjet sale and my in-laws' hospitality and hopped a plane to (less-than) sunny Brussels for some frites, waffles, touristing, beer and family togetherness.

We arrived a couple hours later than we had planned thanks to flight delays but all of our travel-stress vanished as we were greeted with a Southwestern-inspired meatloaf and cheesy-chili-rice - mmmm!

The next day we all slept in a bit late. Once everyone was awake and dressed and fed, we ran some errands and did some shopping. We ended up at a huge culinary store that sold pretty much every food-related item available in the history of all things nom-worthy. Behind the butcher counter, a hoof beckoned from the Spanish ham it was still attached to. The muddled scents of the cheese counter almost knocked me blissfully out. Rumor has it the chocolate aisle glows with an inner light and someone mentioned hearing harps while passing through... but I couldn't make it past the cheese and chips and crackers. Among other things, I found red onion chutney kettle chips that were luscious as well as bacon-cream-stuffed crackers that we actually forgot to eat!!!

On Saturday we awoke in a more timely manner as we had "things to do" and "places to see." We figured out the bus and the subway and headed to the downtown area. We checked out the Grand Place before heading to the Musical Instrument Museum, which was really well done. Upon arrival, you're given a pair of headphones. As you walk from exhibit to exhibit, the headphones play bits of music related to the display you're looking at. In an effort to stall on our return to the cold just a bit longer, we had lunch at the museum's restaurant, where Mr K learned that "filet americain" is Belgian-French for "steak tartare" which is Switzerland-French for "MEGA raw cow - moo moo." Mega-tasty raw cow, that is...

After lunch, the parents headed back home to care for the doggies while Mr K and I went off in search of a brewery my touristy book mentioned was worth touring. We only had a vague idea of where to find it, so we did some wandering through some of the more colorful parts of the city before finding it. The first thing that hit me was the smell - like plants and rain and peppery mold, but in a pleasant, nose-tingling way. The tour was self-guided and finished with a taste of two of their beers. I'm not a beer drinker, so Mr K won out on this one as I took a sip of my two beers, made the requisite "yucko" face and passed them to him. We got a tee shirt and a pack of beer to take back and share with the parents and made our way home for dinner - mmmmm veggie soup!

On Sunday, we headed back out in search of the Comic Strip Museum. It was fascinating to see so many original pages by so many different artists - the shrunk-down printed page does not even begin to do justice to the colors and lines and details in these originals. Comics (generally of the non-super-hero variety) seem to be much more popular here. The book shop in our mall has a whole hallway of the large-sized hardback format that is the most popular here. Sadly, they are expensive - usually 15-20 dollars/francs per book - a far cry from the 2.50-4$ soft copies in the US. Despite the price, I'm tempted to pick up a few for the French practice. After the museum, we met a friend who showed off the Mannekin Pis before taking us to a pub, where Mr K tried a variety of beers while I sipped a couple of the fruitier variety. I was interested to find that each beer comes in its very own distinct glass, no two beers alike. Our favorite was the Kwak glass. After a couple hours of sipping and catching up, we went for a short, waffle-punctuated walk before heading home for some hot chili and a rousing loss-er-game of Trivial Pursuit, Ancient Edition. I forgot how much fun that game is, even when you have no idea what the answers are!

The next day we headed back to Switzerland, stopping first at possibly the greatest art supply store I have ever seen in my life. We left with only four new pens, thanks to our already-stuffed backpacks. (Oh yeah - I forgot to mention we took only backpacks this trip - I felt so Euro-backpackerly!) At the airport we took advantage of Switzerland's not being part of the EU to hit duty-free for some chocolates. Back home, we cuddled the cats and collapsed to dream of frites.

And waffles.

Swiss Cookbook "Vegetable Soup"

2010-01-10T11:24:00.004+01:00

One of the treats Christmas brought me this year was the fabulous Betty Bossi Swiss Cookbook - in English, even! Betty Bossi, it was explained to me, is sort of like the Swiss equivalent of Betty Crocker - think home-cooked meals that are hard to mess up. The recipes in the book are divided by region and ranked by flags - three flags is what your Swiss grandma might make while one flag is a more modern take on traditional ingredients. Two flags is somewhere between those two. The first thing I did was flip to our region, where this vegetable soup recipe, a three flag, immediately caught me eye. As far as I can tell, this is basically Soupe de Chalet, which we absolutely love. Pasta, cheese, cream, spinach - what's not to love?

Vegetable Soup
Prep time - 40 minutes or so

1 TBSP butter
1 leek, white and light green thinly sliced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 kohlrabi, diced (I substituted a waxy potato, diced small)
1 carrot, diced
2 cups vegetable stock
2 ounces dried macaroni (about a quarter cup, uncooked) [I used whole wheat - it was tasty]
2 tablespoons milk
1 can of white beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup cream
3 1/2 ounces of baby spinach
2 ounces grated Gruyere (It's all about the cheese, so definitely spring for the Gruyere... though, honestly, cheddar would probably be nice, too - just not American Swiss cheese)

Melt butter. Cook leek and onion over medium-low until softened. Add kohlrabi (or potato) and carrots. Add stock and turn up heat. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about ten minutes. Add pasta and milk and bring back to a boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer for another ten minutes. Uncover and add beans, cream, spinach, cheese and warm through over low heat.

Season with pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

PS I changed the measurements to a more US-friendly version... if you want the original grams and mls, let me know!

Resolutions are so boring...

2010-01-02T17:16:00.004+01:00

... nonetheless, all two people who read this blog are about to be subjected to mine. Honestly, I've never been much for resolutionifying and this is probably the first time I've taken the trouble to write any down in years. The main reason I'm writing them here is to remind myself - feel free to send reminders of your own if (when) you catch me slacking off.

I want to read a new book every month - fiction or non-fiction, but I'm not talking grocery-store-best-sellers. I'll try to remember to tell you what I've picked and, afterwards, if it's any good.

I am going to roast a chicken - it's silly that I've never tried, but it's true! Feel free to send any tips and recipes if you have them.

I'm going to find something to blog about at least twice a month. I'll try to make it interesting.

I'm going to create something every week - be it a doodle, painting, crafted project or piece of writing. When my whatever doesn't turn out perfectly, I'm not going to worry about it.

I am going to hunt down and perfect "my" from-scratch go-to dessert. Then I'm going to make it all the time. Again, suggestions welcome.

I'm going to break my long-walk record of 12 miles in one go... 18 would be nice.

I'm going to visit three countries I haven't been to yet. (Already have two planned, so maybe this one is too easy?)

I AM GOING TO START SPEAKING SOME FRENCH ALREADY. Enough stalling. Maintenant!

I'm going to try to learn a little German while I'm at it because I should. Genau.

I'm sure I'll think of some more - and you?

Edit#1:

I'm going to make a skirt - and actually wear it.

Just a taste - or several

2009-12-06T20:20:00.000+01:00

Back in Switzerland and behind on my blogging - as usual. We've recently returned from two weeks in the US, most of which we spent showing Dani and Steph as much of the "real" America as we could without either scarring them for life or convincing them to move... We did, saw, ate, and bought so much that, honestly, I'm just not sure where to start.

Which means - food. When all else fails, we start with food.

I'm just going to run through this in list format and will be back later to expand on the more memorable meals and activities - think of it as a "to-do-been-done" list. Or ignore this post and come back later for the meatier versions.

Thursday Mr K and I arrive. Pick up rental car. Hit Chipotle. After Chipotle, Mr K goes back to hotel to pass out. I head to Falls Church to meet up with the amazing Asharah and see Amanda Palmer in concert. Go to bed at 2 AM after having been awake 30+ hours.

Friday Dani and Steph arrive at Dulles from New Orleans. We pick them up, get them checked in and head to Uncle Julio's Rio Grande Cafe for margaritas and actual fajitas so they understand why we found the ones here so funny.

Saturday we all head to the Mall to see some museums and monuments. We watched Dinosaurs 3-D IMAX. That night, we went to Texas de Brazil for a really spectacular dinner.

Sunday Dani tries to recover from the spectacular meal. Steph helps. Mr K and I head to IHOP to brunch with our old gaming buddies. Dinnertime comes and Dani is still recovering. Steph joins us and some other friends for yummy dinner at an Irish Pub. Everyone else goes back to hotel while I head to IHOP for the second time that day to catch a late night (11-1 AM) dinner with my old boss.

Monday everyone is recovered and it's time for some shopping - Leesburg Outlets. Pre-shopping sustenance provided by Panera Bread. Post-shopping recovery dinner care of Red Robin.

Tuesday Dani and Steph sleep in while Mr K and I meet up with his coworkers for lunch. After lunch we return for Dani and Steph and head to air and space museum (Dulles version). Dinner Tuesday night is at a Japanese hibachi restaurant. Dani scores a 66% at aerial-shrimp-catching.

Wednesday we breakfast at hotel and pile into the car to drive to York. Our luggage and the four of us just barely fit in our rented SUV. We arrive to hot pepperoni pizza, which we promptly destroy. We rest a short while and then pile back into cars to head to Reading for more fajitas and the Brian Setzer Holiday Extravaganza of Festive Ear Destruction (hee hee) courtesy of my dad - thanks dad! Great show but way louder than I expected. A holly jolly time was had by all.

Thursday we woke up and skipped breakfast in preparation for the approaching Turduckengeddon. If you haven't tried one, do so - greatest turkey ever!

Friday is spent in recovery. Leftovers for lunch and soup and salad for dinner.

Saturday we polish off last of leftovers. dad shows us his fire trucks and ambulances (yay Super Truck!) Dani drives the Mustang and Steph drives the lawn tractor. Saturday night = Medieval Times - the most fun activity ever in the history of jousting-related mealtimes.

Sunday Mr K and I head back to VA. We meet up with friends for "New Food Sunday" and I eat a tasty but complex sandwich involving a corn hoagie roll, smoked pork, lime crema, roasted peppers, jalapenos and cheese.

Monday Dani and Steph head to New York. Mr K and I head to the dentist. Mr K retires to a bar for a short Happy Hour while I meet a friend for a super tasty Italian dinner. After dinner, I meet up with Mr K, who is continuing the short Happy Hour... for a couple more hours.

Tuesday Mr K consumes some Gatorade, some Tylenol and a cheeseburger and is pronounced fit for duty, so we go shopping some more. We eat kebab at the Mall and we love it. Tuesday night we and another friend meet up with Papa C at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. we all wish Mama C could have been along. I eat a tasty pasta dish involving breaded chicken, pesto cream, prosciutto, and lemon-dressed arugula.

Wednesday we wake up and pack, while continuing to eat my pasta dish from the night before. We pick up last minute items, mail packages, head to airport. Return rental car, check in, go through security. Drink. Buffalo chicken salad. Flight. Bulkhead seats - the galley light is bright.

Thursday we land in Zurich. Eat Egg McMuffins. Grab groceries, catch train. Come home, snuggle cats, eat lunch. I pass out while Mr K unpacks.

Give or take a few more days for recovery and here we are!

That turned out much longer than I planned - I have a feeling there is much more writing to be done! What am I missing?

Swix-Mex

2009-11-09T23:31:00.005+01:00

I haven't had much blog-worthy going on recently but that all changed last Friday, oh yes.

Last Friday we were invited to go for dinner at a new Tex-Mex restaurant in town. You might remember our last foray into Swissified Mexican food. Well, just over two years later, we were ready to try again and we were not let down.

The restaurant is located a short walk from our apartment and the first thing I noticed when we walked in was that it smelled wonderful. The next thing I noticed was that there were only four other people in the place despite it being eight on a Friday night. We went to our table and settled in. I got the giggles right away - on the table was a flyer advertising their Friday happy hour, which features "New York Hot Dogs" all-you-can-eat! The walls were painted a warm orange and decorated with "Californie," "Nouvelle Mexique," "Texas", "Kansas," and "Missouri" in beautiful olive-green painted text.

The real fun started with our drink order. Mr K and I introduced Steph to frozen margaritas when we kidnapped her from work a few weeks ago for a random happy hour. The waiter approached and asked what we would like for boissons. Before he even finished the question, Steph cries out "Margarita! Margarita!" The waiter furrowed his handsome brow in a look of confusion - a look we would be seeing much of that evening.

"No margaritas. Mojito? Caipirinha?" The waiter offered. That's right - the Tex-Mex place chose a Cuban cocktail and a Brazilian cocktail as their signature drinks...

We ladies opted for the mojitos while the boys drank bieres. Well, we tried to - a moment later we were informed there were no more mojitos...

While we looked over the menu, the waiter brought us two tiny plates holding 8-10 chips each and about a tablespoon of salsa. The most eye-catching items on the menu were the beef and pineapple fajitas (which I totally ordered) and the chicken fajitas with coconut and banana (which I totally considered). I was also particularly intrigued by the offering of chicken wings in the "Sandwichs" section. We tried to order the crazy chicken fajitas only to be told there was no chicken - and yet Steph's chicken chimichanga and Mr K's chicken burrito were available. Quelle cauchemar!

Overall, the food was pretty good in an entirely non-Tex-Mex way. A couple ingredients made me smile, including the use of yogurt sauce rather than sour cream. The fajitas were served with yogurt sauce, bitter greens, salsa and Parmesan cheese as well as both flour and corn tortillas.

Despite the oddity of the food, we all cleaned our plates. After dinner we went to the McDo for some sweets as the restaurant's dessert offerings weren't too enticing. While Steph and I enjoyed the Marron (chestnut) and Crumble Sundae (seriously swoon-worthy) Mr K and Dani opted for McFlurries, which Dani complimented with a cheeseburger.

With most meals, it's the company that makes it a memorable experience... this time it was the pineapple in the fajitas. Aiiee!

P.S. The company, of course, completely rocked as well.

Shake, Battle, and Roll

2009-09-30T16:41:00.004+02:00

This story took place nearly eleven years ago. If we talk often, you've probably heard it before, but for me, this one never gets old so I wanted to share it here.

After Christmas break my freshman year of college, I came back to find I had been assigned a new roommate - Lara - and would no longer be living alone. It would take me hours and hours to explain how it happened, but against all reason and all my expectations, this bubbly former-sorority-girl and I became BFFs within a year.

One afternoon, we were sitting around our room chatting when my dad called and asked if we wanted to go to a reenactment of the Battle of Aiken. I was in the middle of declining when Lara, the kind of Southern girl who could make Scarlett go green, picked up the other end of the Swatch twin phone and declared that we would LOVE to go. This was how I ended up cold and cranky and trudging through mud at seven in the morning just a few days later. In contrast to my crabbiness, Lara was downright jubilant, skipping ahead of me and then doubling back to breathlessly report on what she had just seen. "Oh look, a rabbit purse - I want that! Hey, sassafras soda - I want that! Look, a petticoat - I want one!"

A few minutes later, she interrupted her recitation to grab my arm and drag me away from my parents, dramatically explaining that she needed a cigarette but that good Southern girls don't smoke in front of parents. As my mom and dad continued on, Lara and I cut through several tents and she fished around in her over-sized purse for a cigarette. "The ground is jumping," she calmly announced as she searched for her lighter. She stopped to light her cigarette as I continued on, expecting her to catch up just a moment later. It took me about four steps to notice she hadn't, so I turned to see what was holding her up. Lara stood still, her lit cigarette clutched loosely in her fingers and halfway to her mouth. I noticed she was making a weird face - one eye was bigger than the other and one side of her mouth drooped down. Assuming she was making fun of some hapless Aikenite, I giggled and turned to see who her target was. I turned back just as she stiffened and headed for the dirt. Somehow, I got to her before the ground did and grabbed her as she fell, dragging us both down into the mud. Once on the ground, Lara stretched to her full five-and-a-half-foot length before balling up and violently twitching her way through the first grande mal seizure I ever witnessed. Not knowing what to do, I crouched over her and tried to hold her down while screaming at her to stop as she spit blood and foam.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up as a tall and hugely bearded man dressed in gray pulled me off of her. A shorter but equally-well-bearded man dressed in blue blocked my view of Lara and the two went to work on her. Nearby, a woman in a hoop-skirted-dress pulled a cell phone from her bodice and called 911. My parents showed up just a moment later, drawn to the crowd. I ran to them, screaming that Lara was dying, because what other explanation could there be. I'm pretty sure that seizure remains the scariest thing I've ever seen.

A few seconds later, the seizure was over and Lara's eyes were slowly coming back into focus. As the haze cleared from her brain, one of the two men crouched over her asked, "Do you know where you are, honey?" Lara looked, wide-eyed from one bearded face to the other before bursting into tears. "I don't even know WHEN I am." (A love of Southern history and a vague belief in reincarnation are a bad, but entertaining, combination.)

A four-wheeler pulled up and the men got Lara and I loaded on the back, as she didn't want to go without me. At the front gate, she was loaded into an ambulance, but again refused to go until she talked to me. Stepping into the ambulance, I leaned forward. "Get my fake ID out of my purse so they don't think I'm the wrong person," she whispered before laying back dramatically, possibly with her arm thrown across her forehead.

My parents and I followed the ambulance to the hospital, as I clutched Lara's purse in my hands and concentrated on not throwing up. We waited a little while before we got to go back to see her. Sitting in the hospital bed, flirting with the young doctor on duty, it was hard to believe this was the same girl who had been twitching and spitting foam just a couple of hours earlier. Feeling better, she was more concerned with getting her hair brushed and going to lunch.

Later that day, we left the hospital with a diagnosis of epilepsy and a bottle of extremely strong medication - Dilantin. The next day, I drove the two of us back to Berry as Lara sat next to me, bouncing along with each bump of the car. Her medication, before the dosage was dropped, made her feel "like a boneless chicken" (her words to a confused professor as she walked out on a philosophy class the next week.) Soon enough, though, we both got used to the changes, and months later she began to randomly make the seizure face to freak me out - her revenge for me making "dead hands" at her in the middle of the night. She also used the diagnosis as an excuse to make me drive us to Taco Bell and Waffle House in the middle of the night, hinting that if she went alone, she might seize and wreck the car - but I can't say that I really minded. More often, I imagine I was happy for the excuse to go for a snack.

Though scary and stressful, Lara's sense of humor and drama eventually turned the episode into a story we loved telling and I have to admit that the line, "I don't even know WHEN I am," still makes me laugh every time. There are many more bizarrely-charming Lara stories, but that's enough for one night. sweet dreams!

We spent over 200 francs and all we got was a stupid Twix

2009-09-09T22:11:00.004+02:00

Well, a Twix and Steph's forgotten house key...

Let's rewind just a little bit... These things happen. We all forget things. Sometimes it's just less convenient than others.

The four of us arrived home from our mountain trip a little past 5 in the evening on Sunday. (A full write-up of the trip is in the works...) I walked in the door, kicked off my shoes, tossed off my backpacks, hugged Chris and settled in for a night of laziness...three minutes later the phone rang - Steph calling to say they couldn't find their house key in their suitcases and asking if they could drop by our place to dig through their bags in comfort. Naturally, we agreed. When I opened the door to two stony faces minutes later, I knew the fate of the key as well as they did, though they insisted on searching anyway. No key. Chris and Dani retreated to the back porch with whiskeys in hand as Steph began making phone calls. Could her apartment concierge help? Nope, no master key. What about a spare key left with friends or family? Nope, no spare key either. This meant two keys were locked in their apartment and one was locked in a mountain chalet that would be uninhabited until mid-October.

So what were the options? Break in a door - expensive. Break in a window - cheaper but still pricey. Skip a day of work and spend eight or nine hours on trains, roundtrip, to retrieve the key in person? That's it - the only option that would work. Thus decided, we grabbed Chinese take-out and all settled into bed (and guestbed) for the night.

The next morning Steph and I got up at six to be ready to head out the door for the seven AM train (160CHF for both) - I was going along to provide moral support and lunch company. The biggest bonus of leaving at this hour was that we would only have to change trains twice on the trip as opposed to our five changes on the way home. We grabbed a couple little pastries and sandwiches as well as a big jug of mint iced tea and caught an absolutely packed train to Bern. In Bern we changed to an equally crowded train to Domodossola where we caught an emptier train to Verdasio. The train to Verdasio turned out to be a panoramic train, so we had to pay a 4 CHF surcharge (8CHF for both) to sit in a train with window that went all the way to the ceiling - something that would have been much more enjoyable had the other occupants of the train not chosen to promptly pull their sun shades down, blocking the view. Once at Verdasio, we took the Funicar cabin thingies to the top of the mountain (27CHF). By this point it was just past 11 in the morning and we had been awake for five hours. Once there, the house was only a 15 minute walk. We arrived and opened the door. Steph stopped long enough to de-boot before running upstairs to look for the key - there it sat, right on the narrow shelf it had been left on. Thusly reunited, we took a brief photo op to celebrate the moment before shedding our unnecessary belongings to go for a nice little walk before lunch. The next train didn't leave until 2:30 and there was no sense in us not taking advantage of the gorgeous weather. We walked for about 45 minutes and then headed to our familiar grotto for lunch (65CHF because we forgot to check our total - whoops!) . Steph had a huge bowl of minestrone while I enjoyed what looked like roughly a week's supply of pasta bolognese. We sat outside as we sipped ice tea and ate lunch, enjoying the breeze. Around us, six or eight retired couples out for a day in the sun munched risotto and sipped wine. I kept a constant eye on people's shoes, making note of how many were wearing hiking boots and how many in sneakers. Since I got my own boots, I'm now obsessed with this.

Soon enough it was time to head back home. Before we left, Steph grabbed a Twix from the restaurant and I bought a jar of mountain honey for our neighbors. In the yellow cabin thingie on the way back down the mountain, we got a sever case of the giggles over the idea that maybe we made the trip just to buy a Twix, hence the title. Back in Verdasio, we caught the panoramic heading back homeward (or other-train-station-wards more likely) we were probably the only people under fifty. Apparently when you retire in Switzerland, you go for long lunches in the mountains and take panoramic trains, because everywhere we look it's socks and sandals and heads covered in white hair - I love it!

An hour later we changed trains in Brig to catch train number four to Bern, where we'll catch train number five to Fribourg. Another packed train - I was really surprised at the number of people traveling during a business day. As an added bonus, this was the fourth time passport control walked right by us. By this point, we had been in and out of Italy twice on Monday and four times this week. The train stank of burning brakes and, faintly, of people. It made me really miss the 'normal' Swiss trains.

Despite the annoyance of having to go back for the key, we actually had a pretty good day full of conversation and laughter, though the last thirty minutes to Fribourg were among the longest in my life. As a final note, after four days of hiking and riding trains, I'm completely sick of smelling people.

Hikes hikes, baby...

2009-08-23T23:38:00.005+02:00

This was the kind of weekend that makes the thought of moving away from here almost impossible to contemplate.

On Saturday, Mr K and I headed to Vevey for the Street Artists Festival - mimes and clowns and magicians, oh my! I have to be honest - it was nice, but this festival didn't quite stand up to either the yodeling festival or the barrel organ festival. This one was just a bit too organized and crowded. We expected the performers to be spread throughout the city, but instead they took turns performing in set locations that we always arrived at far too late to get close enough to see anything. Still, the weather was gorgeous and it was nice to walk around a bit. (I was very impressed with the guy who managed to climb up and then back down a ladder he had balanced on a tightrope.)

Today, though, was just perfect. Steph and I headed out around ten in the morning (we left the husbands with their computers as is becoming our tradition.) We drove to nearby Schwarzee where we parked the car and hopped on a chair lift for my first chair lift ride - so much fun! Ten francs and minutes later, we were up high above the town. Steph pointed to a white dot of a chalet in the distance. "Our lunch destination." I clutched my tummy, my tiny ham sandwich from breakfast already half digested, and we started walking.

The sun was out but a nice breeze coupled with periods of walking in the shade kept us from getting too hot. The walk went surprisingly fast - we made it to the chalet in just under two hours. Upon arrival, our first goal was to secure a table in the shade. Moments later, the owner of the chalet, a charming old man with a pipe in his mouth and white hair to his shoulders, came out and greeted us warmly. Steph asked him what was for lunch (sausages or cheese) and we both decided on sausages and iced tea. Our lunch appeared a few minutes later - two still-sizzling sausages each along with a couple tomato wedges, some mustard (served in 12 gram packets), and a basket of tasty bread. The sausage were studded with whole cumin seeds and cooked perfectly, with a slight crunch to the skin - I was in food-heaven.

After we finished our lunches, we continued to sit as we sipped our tea. Another couple arrived with their St Bernard. After ordering two beers, the couple settled at a nearby table and the dog flopped down underneath it. I got a laugh when the woman pulled a bottle from her backpack and poured some liquid into the table's ashtray (after checking to be sure it was clean, of course) which she placed in front of the dog. I giggled because I just saw this out of the corner of my eye and I would have sworn she poured beer into the ashtray until I saw the water bottle make a second appearance. Hydrated and fed, we paid our bill (8.50 CHF each for lunch and drink - so cheap) and headed back down the last stretch of hill - the last really steep and small-pebble-covered stretch of hill.

This last hill was the important one. Part of our goal for today's walk was to put my new hiking boots to the test before our weekend hiking trip early next month. Well, I'm proud to say that after 17884 blister-free steps (or 8.45 miles) they passed the test!

Once we reached the bottom of the hill, however, our day was still far from over. We changed back into our sandals and threw our boots in the trunk of the car before heading back to go for a ride on the SUMMER TOBOGGAN RUN! It was way too much fun for words and I can't wait to go again. After our ride, we grabbed cold drinks and sipped them while we soaked our feet in the lake for thirty minutes or so before heading home.

Just when I thought my day couldn't get better, when I got home I remembered the kilo of IKEA meatballs in the freezer! Less than half an hour later, Mr K and I were chowing down on a dinner of meatballs in sauce on noodles with lingonberry preserves on the side. We topped the evening off with a little dvd watching and now, slightly sunburned and thoroughly tired, I'm ready to head to bed. What did you do this weekend?

Caution - mushy ahead

2009-08-16T22:54:00.005+02:00

Happy anniversary, mom and dad!

I just thought I would take this opportunity to say thanks for everything you've done and for the amazing influence you've been! When I was younger, I used to always say I would never get married and a large part of this was due to my observations of my parents' marriage. I know kids say that kind of thing all the time, but the difference is most people say it because they come from broken or unhappy homes. I said it because my parents have always had such a solid and loving relationship. Up until a few years ago I had never experienced anything that would compare, and as a result and I wasn't going to settle, hence the "never get married." I did finally meet the perfect person for me, as we all know, but this post isn't about me - it's about my family.

I can only remember one fight my parents had during my childhood and I feel so very very fortunate to be able to say that (I should add that by dinner time everyone was reconciled and laughing about it). Instead of arguments, my memory is full of images of my parents holding hands, laughing and joking, and being visibly in love. Growing up, I remember after dinner, after first taking care of my sister and I, mom and dad would go into the living room to watch the news and have "grownup time." They would sit together on the couch, mom's feet in dad's lap. As a kid, I had a vague notion that this time as important to them even though I couldn't understand why, but until I got married, I never understood how important or how special.

Thank you for always finding the time for Katie and I, but thank you also for always finding the time for each other. I couldn't ask for better parents or for better examples of what a happy marriage can be!

...but there were NO MONKEYS

2009-07-22T09:55:00.004+02:00

On Saturday, Mr K and I returned to Thun for the "International Barrel Organ Festival." First, and most importantly, there were no monkeys. Zero. Well, unless you count the vast army of stuffed toy monkeys that most of the organs were festooned with. Of course we were disappointed, but the sight of a ferris wheel looming over the river cheered us up considerably. Mr K has recently fitted me out with my own camera - he was doubtless getting sick of my "hey come takes pictures of this, hey can we look at the pictures, hey can you hurry and edit them so I can put them in my blog, hey how do you make a magnet, hey can you take a picture of the cats right now" etc - you get the general idea. So there I was, in gorgeous Thun, snap-snap-snapping away with my very own camera and camera bag and memory card and cleaning wipe with a kitteh on it - so nice! I digress...

So first things first, we popped in line to buy two tickets for the ferris wheel - this turned out to be easily the best 10 CHF we spent that day - the view couldn't be beat. I mean, wow. Mr K used his fancy-pantsy camera to make a swanky high-def video of one turn around the wheel - you can watch it on Youtube. I love the way at first you only hear the wind and then the organ music comes sneaking in, followed by some crowd noise and then back to the wind - I could watch that video on a loop all day.

The barrel organs were really interesting - neither of us could remember ever seeing or hearing one in person before - they're oddly beautiful and much more complicated than I imagined. Most of the players were dressed in different old-fashioned-looking styles, ranging from the very complex to those who just added a straw or top hat to a normal outfit. One of the highlights of the day was a mini-concert three organists performed together - again see Youtube for the high-def video. The music was so wonderful and sweet.

When not snap-snap-snapping or list-list-listening, we spent our time snacking, naturally. We started the day with tasty pretzels (one poppy seed and one with raclette cheese) and then later moved on to a chocolate covered banana, a real-sugar-Coke, a beer for Mr K, and whatever else looked good at the time. It was nice, but these people should really visit Texas to get an idea of what amazing stuff fair food can be! (We were slightly disappointed that the chocolate covered banana stand was not a frozen chocolate covered banana stand - I've heard there's always money in that kind of thing.)

Anyway, the festival was charming and we had a great time. This weekend, a barbeque with friends and relaxing because the calendar's looking pretty full for the next six weeks!

One little big step

2009-07-14T22:17:00.003+02:00

As you've probably gathered from my overly wordy blog, I like to write. Recently, I signed up for a six-week-long creative writing class from UCLA Extension. While I've participated in NaNoWriMo multiple times in the past, signing up for this class marks my first formal foray into creative writing. My big problem is, though I love to write, I am terrified of letting other people read anything I've done. In an effort to "do better," I'm going to post my first exercise from my class here and you're welcome to (gulp gasp) let me know what you think. Depending on how this goes, I may post more in the future. Our first assignment was "show, don't tell" and here's what I submitted:

The tabletop fan sat motionless, the newspapers in front of it unrustled. Of all the things to miss, it was the silence of the newspapers that was getting to him. Henry Midfield huffed in annoyance - this slight movement sent his glasses slip-sliding down the sweat of his nose where he caught them and shoved them back into place without noticing. The ice in his drink had long since melted and, next to his chair, the papers that needed grading sat untouched.

Across the room, the TV and radio stared mutely at him, their power buttons black and beady, like the eyes of frogs caught in the porch light. The silence sneaking in from the kitchen only made him more aware of how he had grown used to the hum and chatter of hard-working appliances.

At first the silence had been a pleasant novelty – something about which one could make small talk with neighbors and overly chatty cashiers. Now, though, in its third day, the silence seemed to be hanging back, an injured animal planning its revenge and it was making everyone just a little more unpleasant than usual.

Outside, the neighbor's children were sullenly splashing in a muddy looking wading pool. Sunset was approaching. Normally it was about this time that Henry uttered his first curse of the day, directed at but never spoken to the neighbor who installed a floodlight on his garage that burned through Henry's kitchen window, marring the pleasant banality that should have marked his post-dinner washing up. Today there was no floodlight and no washing up – two more things he never expected to miss.

He swayed up from his damp chair in the living room and waded through the humidity into his kitchen. The room felt cramped and the faded blue plastic cooler set directly in front of the refrigerator only made the room seem smaller. The cooler, like some scratched-up modern-day treasure chest, held the last of the food he had been able to rescue from the refrigerator – none of which was even remotely appetizing at this point.

Lurching back to his chair, Henry sat down and placed a cigarette between his lips, but didn't light it – even that flash of fire would be too much. The ashtray next to his chair was nearly overflowing with unlit but well-gummed Marlboros – the sight of it made him sick. Henry wiped the sweat from his forehead and, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, flicked his lighter and inhaled.

Why yes, it is time!

2009-07-08T10:01:00.002+02:00

160 for the 4OJ

2009-07-07T21:07:00.004+02:00

That title looks like a vanity plate - allow me to explain. This is my 160th post to this blog, which seems like a pretty darn big number to me... and from urbandictionary.com I learned '4OJ' is the super-cool-way-hip way to say "the Fourth of July" - I think they made that up, but it doesn't matter.

None of that matters when there's food to talk about!

As has become our tradition, we celebrated the 4th by filling our apartment with non-Americans and feeding them silly. Our menu this year focused on hot dogs and all the fabulous ways you can eat them. We started with a tray of pigs in blankets as an appetizer (along with a bowl of onion dip since I've gotten all our friends hooked now.) For side items, I made pasta salad, potato salad, ambrosia salad, cole slaw, baked beans, corn salad, green salad, and fresh pickles. Taking my cues from a collection of cookbooks and a brief search of Wikipedia, we offered toppings and written directions for six different variations of hot dogs:

the Willy Dog: (Alabama) ketchup, mustard, chili, sauerkraut, pickles
the Kansas City Dog: sauerkraut and melted Swiss (emmentaler) cheese
the Carolina/West Virginia Dog: chili, cole slaw, mustard, onions
the classic Chicago-style Dog: tomato, cucumber, dill pickle, sweet relish, yellow mustard, celery salt and NO KETCHUP
the Coney Island Dog: chili, onion, yellow mustard
the 7-Eleven Dog: a pile of chili and canned cheese

Our toppings bar (supplemented with rare imports provided by my mama) consisted of Cincinnati chili, diced onion, sweet relish, dill pickles, chow chow, Emmentaler cheese, cheddar cheese, Easy Cheese, canned nacho cheese, ketchup, mayo, Miracel Whip, Dijon mustard, grainy mustard, French's yellow mustard, spicy mustard, sauerkraut, Cholula, Tabasco, celery salt, and Old Bay.

Most people tried one or two variations, with chili and cheese being the most popular toppings. Steph "freestyled" her hot dog, pioneering her own unique Swiss-style dog (I have no idea what she put on it.) The star of the evening, as usual, was Dani "the Fromaginator", who made it his personal mission of the evening to eat one of each variation. All got positive reactions but the 7-Eleven style... we'll see what he thinks of the real thing in November!

Obviously all that salt is going to make you a bit thirsty - in order to combat this, our friends were kind enough to bring rivers of beer and wine and various other drinks. Max went so far as to hunt down an exclusive import: Miller Genuine Draft. We added a couple libations of our own to the mix - Lynchburg Lemonade and three flavors of jello shots.

Around midnight we grabbed sparklers and descended on our small playground courtyard for a moving (as in full of awkward movements) tribute to the 4th. Our friends were kind enough to finish the dishes for me and bag up all the bottles for recycling, allowing Mr K and I a much needed day of rest on Sunday. And that's our 4OJ - how was yours?

Through the blinds and over the rail - into the courtyard we go

2009-06-26T16:01:00.007+02:00

So last night we had our first major cat drama.

It was around one in the morning and we were just getting ready for bed (normal). I had just washed my face and was brushing my teeth when I noticed neither of my sidekicks were there to "help" me (not normal). I wandered out into the hallway, toothbrush still clutched firmly in hand, and found Waffle, but no Taco. Next I looked under the bed - no Taco. On the nasty nibble blanket? No Taco. Under the futon? Nope. Couch? Nope.

This was when I started to get worried.

In the kitchen I put some food in the bowl and then loudly rattled the box of cat candy - here comes Waffle. Only Waffle.

I woke Mr K up and we really started the hunt. Opening all cupboards and the wardrobe - nothing. Behind the washing machine? Nope. Under the dishwasher? Nope. Out on the balcony somehow? Nope.

Now I was getting really worried - he clearly wasn't in the apartment.

In our dining room, we have a window he likes to lay in - I even have an ottoman set up in front of it so he can look out the window in both style and comfort. I always keep the blinds down and tilted so he can see out but not get out - or so I thought. At this point, it was almost two in the morning and Mr K and I are out in the courtyard with flashlights. Our courtyard, which is probably somewhere around 5000 square feet in area, is really well planted with huge shrubs and masses of flowers. These shrubs, the primary target of our search efforts, play home to vast hordes of spiders and chompy ants who have created a complex metropolis of their own and who also really don't like it when you go throwing your arms through the plants all willy-nilly. One or two intrepid mosquitoes, on the other hand, were delighted to have some company and stuck close by us throughout the search.

Our first trip through the courtyard yielded nothing. Mr K, on impulse, went back up to look at the window sill outside of the dining room window - in the dust he was able to find fresh kitty toe prints - this meant at least that we knew Taco was definitely outside, and so back into the plants we went.

Just past three, Mr K whispered triumphantly across the courtyard, "I found him!" I looked up and there, glowing in the moonlight (and the sickly fluorescent glow of the motion-sensitive lights in the courtyard) was a wide-eyed and only slightly filthy Taco clutched in Mr K's arms.

I whisper-squealed my joy back at him and the three of us piled into the elevator. A matter of minutes later, we were back in the house, where Taco made it his first act to scramble under the futon and not come out. Waffle immediately sprung into action and conducted a follow-up investigation by cornering Taco and sniffing and snorting at all the strange planty-smells he must have been covered in.

As for us, we just collapsed and passed out.

Food and Family: The End of Our Trip

2009-06-23T13:44:00.004+02:00

A rainy day after a restful weekend feels like the right time to finish up this story!

When I last left you, we were heading away from the concert... but what were we heading towards, at 10:30 PM with a full tank of gas? My parents house in Pennsylvania, of course!

Our final big surprise of the trip was going to see my mom and dad... but it would only be a surprise for mom. Right before the trip, dad sent me an entertaining email about his latest weaponry purchase - as if he knew we planned to bang on the door at midnight in a matter of days or something! In addition to the growing arsenal, mom and dad also acquired a new dog that week - a ferocious beast named "Casey" - a bloodthirsty cocker spaniel of doom. Deciding it isn't smart to sneak up on the retired Army guy and his flesh-rending attack dog, we gave dad a heads-up as to our arrival but insisted he didn't tell mom.

After the concert, we made good time, stopping only once to get Burger King kids meals at 11:45 at night because...well, because we COULD. Still driving, we polished off our burgers, though we ignored the soggy fries and lame Pokemon toys. At 12:07 exactly we pulled up in front of the house and approached the front door, hoping dad was still awake - he was. He let us in and we hid in the kitchen while he went to wake up mom, telling her she had to come downstairs.

Walking down the stairs in the middle of the night, I think she probably feared that the dog had just had one of those new-dog-explosions that only women can clean up, but I digress...

So, we're hiding in the kitchen as mom come shuffling in, all bundled up in her robe. We popped our heads around the corner and she looked at us, blinked a couple times, and just started laughing. Our surprise was a success - she had no idea! She swooped at us with great big hugs and all our laughter apparently excited the attack dog, who proceeded to liberally drench my fantastic new Dansko sandals in puppy piddle - sigh.

Soon enough my shoes were cleaned back up and we were all gathered around the bar in the kitchen, sipping beers and iced tea and eating chips and salsa while mom tried to come to terms with the fact that we were really really there. We all stayed up until almost two in the morning at which point we were all near collapse. At some point, Mr K and my dad had graciously dragged all our luggage in from the car and all I had to do was collapse in bed.

My mom said the next morning she woke up three or four times in the night, convinced it was a dream. She would then get out of bed and peek out her door to see if the guest room door really was closed, signifying guests inside. So cute!

The next day we got up and had breakfast. Mom and I dropped the dog off for a long overdue haircut and fang-sharpening, as his prettiness hadn't been properly attended to at the pound. From the dog salon, we headed to the airport to pick up Mr K and dad, who had been returning the parents' rental car. All together once more, we headed to the mall to run some errands and stopped at Olive Garden for a brief, but really surprisingly tasty lunch. Oh, the big salad. Mmmmmm.

By the time we finished with errands, it was time to head home - we had to get the dog and some groceries. At the grocery store, I grabbed all the ingredients I needed for the meal I planned to cook for mom and dad, all the while giggling over the variety of breakfast cereal and relative cheapness of meat. For dinner, I cooked two Indian dishes - a spicy cilantro and onion chicken and also curried chickpeas. We ate a late dinner around 8:45 PM and all settled back to watch what may be the greatest TV show ever created - "Wipeout".

Soon it was bedtime as we were flying out the next day. It was sad that our visit was so short, but on the other hand, it was beyond wonderful to get to visit at all and to surprise my mom!

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, packed our stuff in to the car and headed to Baltimore. Our flight was delayed by an hour but soon we were in Newark and boarding our flight back to Geneva. We had two of the three seats in a middle row and we watched in trepidation as each person boarded, hoping silently that they wouldn't join our row. This worked out, except we forgot to also hope the woman with the two crazed children with overly-active kicking legs wouldn't be seated in the row behind us. Or that the couple with the crying toddler wouldn't sit in the row next to ours. As we sat, waiting for our delayed takeoff, the kid behind Mr K entertained himself by slamming the tray table up and down as his delightful mother read Cosmo. Fortunately for all involved, as soon as the plane took off, both kids promptly passed out and stayed that way until we landed. Not so for the crying-kid-couple. The father spent the whole flight asleep as the mother walked up and down the aisles with the poor little girl. As long as her mom walked, she was quiet, but the minute they stopped, she screamed and screamed... which meant the mom spent five straight hours just walking the plane.

Soon enough we landed in Geneva, grabbed our luggage, zipped through the "nothing to declare" line and caught our train back home. We arrived to an only slightly disheveled house (the cats like to knock the dining room chairs all over the place) and two very happy kitties.

As I close this adventure, I'm going to leave you with a couple highlights from the trip that didn't seem to fit anywhere else:

Great quote #1: Two girls in line in Newark compare passports. One points out her Italy stamp. the other frowns and asks when their tour went through Italy. Girl one responds, "On the train from London to France, remember?"
Great quote #2: As we pass a group of college age kids, one girls loudly proclaims, "I got a ham sammich, if you want it!"
Great quote #3: At the end of the agricultural scan, we're waiting for our baggage as a rude woman on her cell phone ignores her approaching bag, stating, "I'm having a doozy of a time getting to my kids." After you've slept 4 hours in twenty, "doozy" is seriously about the funniest word ever.
Leaving the airport, we pass a guy in a concert tee shirt with long hair. He's dragging a couple pieces of bright pink little girl luggage. Just as I point him out to Mr K, he notices us and see Mr K's tee shirt and shouts out "MISFITS!" while making funny hand horns. We were still giggling about "doozy" at this point and that completely sent us over the edge.

And that's it!

Meeting in Your Town and Rocking Out: Days Three and Four of the Surprise Trip

2009-06-17T17:19:00.003+02:00

Sorry it's taken me a couple days to get to this - I've been glued to Fark.com and Twitter, obsessively reading about the protests in Iran. I'm going to take a short break, though, to get this post up before I forget everything.

Monday morning we got up bright and early (thanks, in part, to our lizard brains still being on +6 Switzerland time) and headed out. Our first stop was the McDonalds drive-through (we haven't gone completely native, apparently) for BDCs (Big Diet Cokes) and breakfast burritos. Six dollars later (cheap cheap cheap!) we headed to drop Mr K off at work with a one kilo (2.2 pounds) bag of chocolate bars in each hand.

My next stop was the bank to close an account I rarely use. One thing we've learned living here is when you do your taxes, you have to report all your wealth, which means all bank accounts. We have two main banks we use, but we've also both acquired a few smaller accounts from various jobs and past locations putting us at a grand total of six banks - this is a pain when you have to track down paperwork on each and every one of them yearly, so one of our priorities was to get some of those closed down. I was shocked to find the bank still closed at 9 in the morning - they didn't open until 9:30, which seems so late to me. I decided to just park and wander around a nearby shopping center for half an hour and was again confused to find each and every store closed until 9:30 or ten in the morning - I didn't remember this being the norm.

Eventually the bank opened and I was second in line, which meant I got the pleasure of listening to a complete moron berate the poor guy behind the counter about absolutely nothing for 20 minutes before she realized he was right... that kind of thing I haven't missed one bit. When it was my turn, closing the account took all of four minutes and I was back out the door, cash in hand. I ran a few more errands, prowled Borders (a really gigantic book store, Max - like bigger than FNAC - dangerous for me) and grabbed a yummy Subway sandwich for my lunch. Soon it was time to pick up Mr K and head to our next big surprise...

A little background: I've been playing a Wii game called Animal Crossing for the past few months. The basic premise is you have a little town and you make it pretty and befriend your animal neighbors and fish and garden and things like that. If you have friends playing, you can meet up over wireless and hang out in each others towns. One of my good friends in Virginia just recently got hooked, so we've been Animal Crossing together for the past few weeks. On Monday, I sent her a message on Facebook asking,

"Still hooked on the Animal Crossing? I wanna hang out in your town tomorrow - you available around 4 PM your time? We can share fruit!"

See how sneaky I was? She quickly responded,

"I'll make sure I have my gate open at 4 tomorrow so you can come visit. I sent you mail today too. Nothing exciting though. See you in Death [her town name - hee hee hee] tomorrow :)"

Mr K and I were dying - this would be great! We planned to be a little bit late just to add to the suspense. At 4:07 we arrived and parked in front of her house. We found out later that their son saw us park and said "Mommy, Miz K and Mr K just parked in front of our house." To which she replied, "No, honey - they live in Switzerland now, remember?" It was about this time we rang the doorbell. She open the door and burst out laughing, calling us freaks. Mission accomplished! We all sat around and played Mario Kart and chatted until her husband got home from work and we all went out to dinner - it was so much fun! After dinner, Mr K went shopping with them while I headed back to have girlie night out with the friend who put us up for the weekend. We got our toenails done and then headed to Benihana for a great dinner and a big pot of green tea. All in all, it was a wonderful day with really wonderful friends!

Tuesday morning we got up early again and once more drove through McD on the way to taking Mr K to work for a half day. I finished up my shopping (walking the mall* for an hour before the stores opened at 10) and joined up with Mr K and 21 of his coworkers for a lovely lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

After lunch, we continued to run a few errands, with Mr K dragging me to my two least favorite stores ever - Guitar Center and Microcenter. (seeing both of those 'centers' is making me wonder if I got the names wrong...) Soon we were on our way to Maryland for the concert. A huge thunderstorm started just as our drive did, slowing down traffic and adding about 45 minutes to the hour and a half we expected to be driving. The rain stopped and we got to the venue right on time, though we didn't get to stop for dinner along the way.

We parked and headed inside , where we navigated the two huge lines to get our tickets from Will Call and then to get patted down at the security check. Soon we were inside and thrilled to see a stand offering burgers, chicken fingers, beer and soda. We bought one of each and then headed to the tee shirt booth, where we were appalled to see tee shirts selling for 35-40$ each - ouch! Oh well - seeing as we flew over for the show, we figured we pretty much had to get a shirt, so we picked one out and made our way into the grounds to see the show. The lawn section was on a large hill, which offered a great view of the stage. The problem with a large hill after a rainstorm is the muddy muddy mudslide it turns into. Our main pre-show entertainment was watching people spill their beers on themselves and the ground as they alternately fell up and down the hill.

The falling continued throughout the show, which was good in that it provided much-needed levity during the slow-and-ballady-and-not-good-for-a-giant-concert songs NIN interspersed between the really loud and screamy rockin' numbers. I've been waiting to see this guy live since I was 16 and not allowed to go to concerts - it's been a long time coming! The highlight of the show was the gorgeous sunset that turned everything flaming orange and burst pink for the last couple songs - Mr K and I joked that you know you and the band are getting old when you're watching "angry bands" play in the daylight. The last song of the set was "Hurt" and I can confidently say it was the worst encore I have ever seen in my life. It's a pretty emotional song until you hear it sung along with by thousands of drunken twenty and thirty-somethings.. then it's just kind of lame/funny.

Jane's Addiction played second and completely made up for our disappointment with NIN - they were amazing! We had another "you know they're getting old when" moment when the lead singer reached for his mug of hot tea after the first song. He self-consciously grabbed a wine bottle and chugged after that, but you know he preferred the hot tea. All joking aside, despite being 50 years old, he's one of the most charismatic, real "rockstar" kinds of performers I've ever seen. It's hard to describe, but the performance was just stellar. We were completely blown away even though we had to leave the show a little bit early - our next stop was 90 minutes away and we had to be there by midnight...

And that brings us to Part Three - come back soon!

* A note for non-Americans... "walking the mall" is an actual thing people do - they go to the local mall before it opens in their workout clothes and sneakers and they walk laps. It's mainly moms with strollers and older people. This is what happens when you have no sidewalks!

Root Beers and Rabbits Ears - Days One and Two of the Surprise Trip

2009-06-14T20:27:00.005+02:00

I've never been any good at being spontaneous. You know those people who plan things to death? Yeah, I train them. Our last trip to the US (last Christmas, which Mr K and I manged to spend both sick and stressed) I actually had a spreadsheet typed up of where we would be, what we would do, and who we would see for every day of our trip. I'm not bragging - I'm embarrassed.

So yeah, I'm not good at spontaneous. You may be wondering what this has to do with root beer. Well, for one thing, there is no root beer in Switzerland - that's your first hint.

"Get to the point already!"

Alright, alright - we just got back from a very impromptu trip to the US that all started with a stupid/brilliant idea to go to a concert. Two of my favorite bands from my high school days are touring together and I keep hearing rumors that this is probably "it" for both bands (as Mr K likes to put it, this is their first-last tour). Naturally, there are no European dates for the tour. Browsing a website around two in the morning about a week and a half ago, I noticed there were still tickets available for a show near DC. On a whim, I decided to look up flights, knowing they would be so expensive it wouldn't matter. One Expedia search later, this was not the case - roundtrip airfare was just over 400$ from Switzerland to the DC area...

Now I had a problem - actually going through with it. I was looking at tickets on a Wednesday to fly out on Saturday. I decided to go for it and ordered my concert tickets just about the time that Mr K started hemming and hawing about this not being a great time for a trip. His indecisiveness immediately made me start questioning the idea and, as of our one AM bedtime, we still hadn't made a decision, but we were already out 100$ for the show. I tried to go to sleep, but I just couldn't - I kept going back and forth on it. Around 3, I gave up on sleeping and came back to the computer, where an online chat with a friend convinced me to go for it. At this point, I decided to be brave and make the trip by myself. Naturally, Mr K woke up determined to go and so, at 5:45 in the morning, we booked our flights.

Once everything was arranged, the inevitable pre-flight-getting-stuff-done panic set in. Homework, cleaning, cat wrangling and packing, all in just two days. Before we knew it, we were in Zurich, boarding a plane and hoping we made the right choice. Prior to departure, we had decided to inform only three people about our visit: Mr K's boss for obvious reasons, my dad so we wouldn't get shot (more on this later), and our friends whose house we would be staying at.

We landed, got our car, dropped our luggage off at the hotel and headed out to do some shopping to supplement the two outfits each we had packed. Shopping done, we hit Chipotle for gigantic burritos before heading back to the hotel and promptly passing out.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast, packed our things and headed to meet up with some friends. After a flurry of hellos and hugs, we all packed into the cars, bags of fresh, hot cinnamon bread clutched in our hands, to head to the Virginia Renaissance Festival. We wandered around, enjoying the sun and eating turkey legs, drinking root beer and participating in authentic renaissance pass-times, such as the classic game "pay-a-dollar-to-throw-a-rock-in-a-mud-puddle."

A few hours and several pounds of kettle corn later, we all piled back in the cars for the 1.5 hour drive home. Once home, we had a delicious taco dinner and a couple hours of chatting before we all passed out.

That's enough for one post. My next post will cover a couple big surprises and the concert that started this whole thing!

Drool factory

2009-06-02T21:11:00.004+02:00

Apologies for my delayed posting - Mr K and I have been busy taking turns being sick and we're just finally back to both feeling better.

Way back before we got sick, we took a day tip with a group of friends to Martigny in Valais to visit the Musee et Chiens du Saint-Bernard - the St Bernard dog museum and kennel.

Martigny is a little over an hour by car from Fribourg. When we arrived, our first priority was to grab some lunch so we could explore with no distractions. Fortunately the museum just happens to have their own restaurant - Le Collier d'Or - the Gold Collar. Mr K had a plate of local dried meats and bread while I went for a vegetarian pasta - tasty, but nothing exciting.

Next up we cut through the gift shop and headed for the dog kennel. We saw a couple gigantic puppies and then got to pet a couple full grown dogs, including one of the world grand champions. I learned that the french word for champion (champion) sounds almost identical to the word for mushroom (champignon) to my poor American ears, leaving me a little bit confused for just a split second. I also learned the dogs eat about two pounds of kibble per dog per day. As you would expect, their poo reflects this - shudder. After petting and learning about the dogs, we went back inside to see the rest of the museum.

The main area of the museum displays a number of items related to Saint Bernard dogs throughout history, including a very large number of paintings showing the dogs as well as the stuffed body of Barry, currently on loan from a museum in Bern.

From July through September, it is possible to make a reservation to take one of the dogs for a 1-2 hour walk along the St Bernard mountain pass. The walks cost about 40$ per person, but I'm thinking it's probably worth it - after all, kibble isn't cheap!

How far would you go for onion rings?

2009-05-23T23:24:00.005+02:00

I hadn't planned on blogging again so soon, but events of yesterday (which I'm getting to) dictate I blog and the planned events of tomorrow (which I'll explain later) dictate I blog now if I don't want to be two posts behind...

Okay, so we're in the midst of a four day weekend here, thanks to a church holiday followed by a floating holiday that resulted in Mr K being off work on Thursday and Friday. Thursday was laze-around-the-house day, so Friday we knew we had to get out and do some seeing or we would feel guilty and also probably sit around the house and eat way too much. We called up MrPietBarber, whose first and last name must always be spoken together, and who will be referred to as PB from here on out. His family has already moved back to the US, so he needed some entertaining. Together we planned to head to Thun for more sightseeing.

First, we missed our train, so we waited thirty minutes for the next one. Once in Bern, we changed trains and a couple stops later, we joined up with PB. We arrived in Thun, got a big pretzel, and started our walk. We wandered along the river to the lake and then walked along the lake until the walkway ended at a boat dock - probably a good 45 minute walk. We looked at the time schedule and decided to catch the boat to Interlaken that was scheduled to arrive in 15 minutes.

The boat was right on time, so we boarded, bought tickets, bought beers and Prosecco, and settled back to watch Switzerland go by for the next two hours. We spent the first 45 minutes or so in the little boat restaurant, looking out the windows because, due to the gorgeous weather, there was no available outdoors seating on the deck. Two stops later, most of the people got off the boat and we lunged for their seats before the boarding passengers could get to them. Now we're seated on the deck, watching the mountains go by and reddening nicely. The sky was beautifully full of fat clouds and the constant breeze kept the temperature just perfect.

We arrived in Interlaken just in time for dinner and, after our nearly five hour transportation-odyssey, we were starving. PB lifted his sun-and-beer-reddened nose to the air, sniffed left, sniffed right, and immediately took off for our selected dinner location - Hooters Interlaken.

I should specify a few things before I go any further. Back in high school, I worked at an ice cream shop next to a Hooters - that was the closest I ever got to the inside of one of those places. Second, Interlaken is insanely touristy and possibly the ugliest town we've seen in Switzerland yet, so it's not like we were passing up a number of fine-dining experiences to eat at the Hooters. Third, I really, really, really wanted some onion rings. It's been 18 months.

So we go to Hooters. First thing I notice - no blonde employees. Second thing? All the waitresses were .... organic? 100% natural? Enhancement-free! They looked like real people - in really small shorts. As my super-cool Swiss buddy, Max, put it, "In the Swiss Hooters they're not taking it that serious with the oo in Hooters..."

But what do we care about that? On to the food! We got wings and onion rings and nachos to start with. Mr K got a buffalo chicken sandwich and PB got a vegiburger. I got a small green salad and stole part of Mr K's chicken - mmmm! When Mr K ordered his sandwich, the waiter (yup - a guy... poor Mr K, poor PB) asked how hot Mr K wanted the buffalo sauce, asking if he would like it "hot enough to burn out your ***hole?" We all giggled. (Asterisks are there for you, mom and grandma - see how polite I am?) Lots of food and 90CHF later, we were fed and wiping our hands with "Papstar" (I am not making this up) brand lemon-scented moist towelettes.

Stuffed full, we walked outside and sat in a park for a few minutes, watching the paragliders land before we headed to the train station. Once there, we picked up our return tickets and also grabbed some ice creams as well as some brochures for Interlaken adventures, including skydiving, paragliding, rafting, ropes courses, and canyoning so we could plan our next adventure.

The train ride home took around two hours, making our roundtrip travel time to Hooters just over seven hours.... but with views like these out the windows, who can complain?

P.S. More blog coming soon - tomorrow we go to the St Bernard dog museum!

Finger food

2009-05-22T00:11:00.004+02:00

Last Saturday we went out for our big too-many-birthdays-in-May dinner. Last year we went to an amazing local restaurant that I hear has sadly since closed due to a problem of some kind with the location. This year we went for something a little bit different - dinner at the Blindekuh restaurant in Basel.

The Blindekuh is a restaurant where you eat in a pitch-black room, served by blind and semi-sighted staff. We went with Dani and Steph and Scott and Sarah - two friends visiting us from the US.

Upon arrival at the restaurant, your first task is to put all purses, phones, coats, bags, and anything that lights up in one of the lockers in the lobby. Next, you are presented with the menu while still in the lobby and told to study it carefully and memorize what you want as there will be no more referring to it later in the meal - this includes remembering your wines and drinks. We thought this would cause a problem until we went into the dining room and realized the darkness was unnerving enough without adding the disorienting effects of the couple bottles of wine that usually go with dinner here.

If you didn't want to order your courses from the menu, you could also choose the surprise menu (carnivore or vegetarian) - which most of our party selected. I was relieved to hear there would be no sea or lake life as part of the surprise menu.

Choices made and memorized, we took one last trip to the bathroom (important!) and settled on the couches and chairs in the lobby to wait to be taken to our table. When it came our turn, we were instructed to "form a Polynesian" - a conga line. This is how we were "shown" to our table. We passed through several layers of blackout curtains as we twisted down a long hallway that doubled back on itself repeatedly before we finally arrived at our table. Sitting down when you can't see the seats is really hard.

Once seated, we all began spidering our hands across the table, finding our napkins, two forks, two knives, spoon, variety of glassware, and strangers sitting next to us (whoops). Plates of crostini were placed for us to snack on as we waited to order. We started off with a round of the house appertif - a delicious fruity-tasting concoction we sipped as our eyes tried to adjust to the darkness...something they would continue to attempt throughout the course of our meal.

I can't even begin to describe exactly how dark it is. I tried to raise my hand up in front of my face to look at it and I managed to smack myself in the nose. For 2.5 hours, we saw nothing except one tiny blip of orange light from some mystery electronic device. Later in the meal, we spoke longingly about that light. Because of the profound darkness, I can't tell you how big the restaurant was, how many tables there were, or if they were all full, though it certainly sounded busy. As we walked to our table, I had a moment where my heart tightened in my chest and I questioned whether I would be able to stand this darkness for the duration of a meal. I gripped Steph's shoulders tighter and reminded myself of how lonely I would be in the lobby if I turned back.

A few minutes after we finished the crostini (at least we think we finished them) our waitress came over and, in German, introduced herself as Helen. Should we need anything throughout the course of our meals (drink refills, an extra fork, a helping hand to the bathroom) we were to call out to her and she would come to us. Our first chance to call Helen was when everyone at our table received their first course but poor little Miz K! As the other sat and explored their plates, I fiddled with my napkin and arranged my forks. Just a few minutes later, though, Helen was back with my plate and I eagerly dug in.

I picked up my fork and stabbed at my plate - nothing. Stab again - my entire salad. This is going to be difficult. Next try, I rested my left hand on the edge of my plate and used my fingers to poke and prod at the food on my fork until I had a mouthful. After a couple bites in this manner, I abandoned the fork and gleefully drug my fingers back and forth across the plate, savoring eating without utensils or nasty looks. Marinated veggies, garlic cheese mousse, salad, crunchy bread - it was amazing. Touching the food and smelling it and tasting it was so much fun. It was also easier to identify the food than I though it would be, though not knowing what taste to expect until something is actually in your mouth is a really odd sensation.

Throughout the meal, we would occasionally hear small bursts of tinkling music coming from other tables - the sound of small music boxes being opened. When you can't see, you find yourself listening so much closer to everything around you, and these little bursts of sound were so sweet and welcome against the backdrop of conversations and clinking tableware.

Soon, our second course came out. While most at our table were back to attempts with forks and knives, I was sticking with my hands - it was more fun. Main course for the carnivores was a decent-sized, even big for Switzerland, piece of meat, green beans in a bacon and sun-dried tomato sauce, and small roasted potatoes. We debated back and forth, finally deciding the meat was pork, only to find out as we left that it was actually a steak. We attributed our mistake to the steak being a bit more cooked through than most of us take our red meat - it was still very tasty, just a slightly different texture. As the main course continued, I sat gnawing away at the steak in my hands and listening as my tablemates, one after the other, abandoned their knives and also used their fingers. At some point, we all giggled at the clank of a fork hitting the floor as a man at a nearby table muttered a brief German curse while trying to retrieve the errant piece of cutlery.

Sometime after the main course, but before dessert, a large group of young-sounding girls either arrived or got up to leave (no way to know) and proceeded to scream and giggle and squawk through the dining room, receiving several very Swiss "SHHHHHHHHHHHH"es when the shrieking got too out of control.

Dessert was a fascinating mix of several small bites and left us all guessing until we finally got our menu cheat sheet. In the chilled bowls were a small square of mango lime panna cotta, a fluffy mound of white mousse with cranberries, frozen banana mascarpone balls coated in chocolate and bits of fresh fruit and leaves of mint. Once the meal was over and we were ready to go, Helen returned to walk us to the door. We went back through the blackout curtains and stood in the semi-darkened hallway for a few minutes to give our eyes a brief period of adjustment. We stepped into the dimly lit lobby and it was the same shock you get when leaving a movie theater on a summer day - it hurt. We stumbled and blinked for a moment before rushing, en masse, to the bathrooms. Thus relieved, we retrieved our belongings, settled the bill, and discussed when we could return.

I highly recommend this restaurant if you find yourself in Basel or Zurich and you're feeling a bit adventurous. If you come visit us and want to go, just say "mooooo!"

Catching Up Part One: The Wedding

2009-05-18T12:48:00.007+02:00

So it's been a busy two weeks and I have a lot of catching up to do!

The excitement started with the marriage of two of our best friends nine short days ago. The wedding day was one of the busiest days we've ever had - possibly busier than our own wedding nearly three years ago.

At 10 in the morning, Mr K met up with the groom, Dani, and a couple other guys to head to the tailor to get his wedding suit. A few hours later, I met up with the bride, Steph, and a few members of her family. We all got together for lunch and then it was time to get everyone dressed and head out to take pictures. Mr K spent the day being the wedding photographer, while I carried his extra gear, kept Steph's dress in line, wrangled snacks and water, and just plain kept busy. After everyone was dressed and made up, our first stop was a beautiful chapel overlooking the city where we took advantage of the perfect weather to get some great pictures before the ceremony.

After pictures we headed into town for the civil ceremony. In Switzerland, from what I understand, a civil marriage is a must and a religious marriage is optional and usually occurs separately. A group of us were seated in a small room and the bride and groom were seated on a big leather couch, with the best man and maid of honor seated in chairs on either side of them. The whole ceremony was only about 30 minutes long and full of happy tears. Afterward, we all walked outside, with the bride and groom exiting last. Outside the building, a waiting group of friends pelted them with rice before we all headed to a local bar and cafe for drinks and snacks on the terrace overlooking the river. Mr K ran around shooting pictures while I sipped strawberry vodka basil punch and chatted with friends. Halfway through, it started raining lightly, but not enough to ruin anyone's fun - we just moved the party indoors.

Soon it was time to head to our next location. The bride's parents surprised our group with a stretch limousine to drive the bride, groom, best man and his girlfriend, maid of honor and her boyfriend, and photographer and his wife (me!) to the castle where we were having dinner and spending the night.

Two bottles of champagne later we arrived and all piled out of the car. Mr K did several large group pictures of various groups - bride's family, groom's family, friends of bride, friends of groom, friends of both, and so on. After pictures, we made our way inside for dinner and Mr K finally got to sit the camera down for a few minutes. Dinner started with a salad of mixed greens served with a sun-dried tomato tartare and a scoop of fatty, creamy cottage cheese. The main course was a buffet of grilled vegetables, roasted potatoes, grilled fish, chicken, pork, and beef, roasted peppers, marinated mushrooms, and bread. After dinner, various members of the party gave their toasts and we were treated to a retelling of Dani's bachelor party complete with a picture and video show and much laughter. Next we had dessert - a seriously delicious passion fruit cake covered in chocolate and fresh fruit.

After dinner it was time for dancing. Like most weddings, dancing meant we all watched and clapped as the bride and groom danced their first dance, after which the groom and all the other men fled outside to sip drinks and smoke cigars, leaving a big groups of girls to dance with each other.

By this point, it was well past midnight. At two, the music was shut down and the bar packed up. Someone, however, had the good sense to grab a case of wine and another of beer, so as soon as the concierge of the castle was bundled off to her home for the night, a small party started back up. Mr K went to bed around 2:30 and I followed about two hours later. Dani and Steph were kind enough to provide us a room for the night with a gorgeous view and a super comfy bed. The next morning we all had breakfast together before packing up the cars and heading home.

Later on this week, we'll be getting together with the newlyweds for dinner and picture-viewing, so keep an eye out for Mr K to post a couple more shots!

The Great Butter Battle of '96

2009-05-06T09:47:00.008+02:00

I've realized I write almost all of my blogs about things that are going on now - current events. In the calm before the coming storm of friends-wedding-and-guests, I thought I would take the opportunity to ramble about random events from the past.

One specific random event, to be precise.

I feel like I've written about this before, but it must have been in a journal and not this blog because I couldn't find any sign of it when I went through previous posts. I did find at least nine posts in draft that I should probably attend to at some point, but we'll save that for another day.

Today, though, today I'm going to share one of my favorite stories from growing up.

It's a story of the battle between good and evil - naturally, I was on Team Good, but if you ask Team Evil, she's probably going to disagree.

And she's probably got a right to disagree too.

But this is MY blog, so I get to be Team Good. She's free (even encouraged) to post her own version of events and we can let the world judge...

I'm talking about the Great Butter Battle of 1996.

It was thirteen years ago and I was getting ready to leave for college. All my worldly possessions were packed-and-stacked in the living room of my parents house. We were leaving the next morning to drive the four hours from Augusta to Rome and I was a little nervous.

Even on edge you might say.

As part of my final round of household duties, I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner on that fateful night. I was diligently loading the dishwasher and putting things away when my younger sister came into the kitchen and asked where my sinus medicine was. In my typically helpful fashion, I answered that it was packed along with everything else she owned and I suggested maybe she should just go find her own, doubtless in the kindest of words. She walked out of the room and I put the salt and pepper away.

Back to the dishes. Pulling silverware out from the soapy water in the sink, I heard a rattling noise coming from the other room. I dropped the silverware back under the water and, grabbing a towel to dry my hands, went off to investigate.

In the living room, I found my sister up-ending my boxes one after the other and digging through them. I sweetly asked her to stop, which she did, and I went back to the kitchen.

Five minutes later, I hear the same noise.

Back in the living room, more boxes tipped over. I give my sister a light smack on the arm and recommend in the interest of her own health and well-being that she refrain from such actions in the future. She leaves, I shove stuff back in the box and return yet again to the dishes. The water's cold by now.

Not five minutes later - that familiar noise. I rushed back in the living room.

"Villain," I shrieked. "Disassemble no more!"

My sister looked up, but not quickly enough. Not thinking for a moment, I grabbed hold of her with my right hand and, with the contents of my left, I began to beat her vigorously 'bout the head and shoulders.

"What was in your hand," you ask. "A frying pan? A rolling pin? A Nordic-ware specialty cake pan?"

Not quite...

That's right - it was a tub of Parkay. A tub that had been out at room temperature for at least an hour.

A very soft tub of Parkay.

Can you see where this is going? A couple thwacks in, the pressure of the beating gets to be too much for the little plastic tub, which explodes. Melted butter-food-product sprays up to the ceiling. It slides down the walls. It coats my sister's hair.

I stop immediately, tub still raised over my head. My sister glowers at me as the Parkay dribbles down her face.

This is where I make a critical error. I laugh. I can't help it.

This sign of weakness is all she needs - she quickly overpowers me and, knocking me to the floor, delivers a few swift kicks to my midsection. The kicks are mostly deflected by my clutching arms as I continue to laugh, but it's still a little uncomfortable.

She storms from the room as I pull myself together and begin cleaning up the mess, hoping my parents don't come back downstairs until I've disposed of all the greasy evidence.

Weeks later, I still find spatters and speckles of Parkay on my belongings.

The moral of my story? Sinus pain is serious business.

EDIT: Team Evil has posted her version - lies lies lies! Feel free to go read, but do NOT be taken in by her. This whole situation has made me aware of the necessity to set up a Big Sister Defense Fund to help protect and prepare Big Sisters from the assault of the Little Ones. As soon as Team Evil's oldest, the charming Miss Abbie, is ready (age five, right?), I'll be funding her enrollment in a Krav Maga class. It's the only way to be sure...

Bolly-wed

2009-04-27T22:19:00.003+02:00

Saturday we surprised Steph with a bachelorette party she was expecting to occur in early May.

At 1:30 in the afternoon, her friends began arriving at our apartment. Mr K had been gone since 8:30 in the morning for Dani's bachelor party, the details of which will be posted on his blog as soon as he gets sick of my whining. Before the girls arrived, my buddy Nipun came over to help me with the cooking. We planned a Bollywood theme for Steph's party, so Nipun and I made a couple batches of samosa-inspired baked curry puffs. Just as we finished the food, the girls began to arrive. I had ordered a collection of wraps made from vintage saris to wear, and each girls chose a skirt and got dressed. We poured our drinks and waited for Steph.

Steph arrived right on time - I told her I needed help shopping for a dress for her wedding in order to lure her over. She walked in and followed me to the living room, where everyone was waiting - and where she stood for about 30 seconds before she noticed them! We toasted and dried tears and snacked until it was time to catch our train to Bern...

Which we promptly missed.

The next train came fifteen minutes later and we were on our way to Bern. We all had a laugh when the ticket collector came by and pointed out that Steph had bought a ticket despite the fact she already had a one year Fribourg-Bern pass. We really flustered her!

We arrived in Bern just in time to start our Bollywood dance class. In only an hour and a half, we managed to learn 2 minutes and 40 seconds worth of chreography - the class was even more fun than we had expected and a couple of us are eager to take more classes. I spent about half the class taking pictures thanks to damage I did to my ankle when I fell down for absolutely no reason on Friday afternoon...

After our class, we spent a little while wandering around Bern. Steph was tasked with selling as many of her bangle bracelets as she could to help fund our activities. In about half an hour, she made 25 francs and a beer - not bad! The funniest sale was to three 20-something guys who traded a beer for three bracelets - bracelets that were much too small for them. Steph produced a tube of hand lotion and after a little lotion and bracelet-bending, the guys proudly displayed their new jewelry as Steph enjoyed her spoils.

Next, we headed to a nearby park for drinks and a delicious appetizer of fresh bread and cured meat, olives, couscous, meatballs and a vegetable relish. We picked up one more girl for our group and headed to a nearby Indian restaurant for dinner.

Dinner was just amazing - I may have a new favorite restaurant here. We sat around for a couple hours, eating and sipping wine and chatting. Around 10:30 we caught a train back to Fribourg. Almost immediately, we encountered a relic from Dani's party - a poster encouraging people to get their picture taken with Dani in a Hawaiian outfit and later to join him for some bowling - with Dani as the bowling ball. We had plans of our own and blindfolded Steph before leading her to a small fountain staged with floating candles and a bottle of apple proscecco. We chatted and sipped for a little while longer before calling an end to our party.

After all the excitement, I spent Sunday lounging around the house in my skirt, craving more Indian food. Mmmmm!

So close, yet so far - VEVEY

2009-04-06T12:36:00.004+02:00

After three or more snow-free weeks, I finally feel I can safely say... spring has arrived! It's been in the low 60s and upper 50s during the day and the 40s at night... I know to people in Atlanta, this might not sound like spring, but after the snows of the past few months, it certainly feels like it here.

We spent the past Saturday recovering from a particularly grueling jiu jitsu class on Friday night. By Sunday, we were walking again and eager to get out and get some fresh air. We dressed, ate sandwiches and headed to the train station. An hour and 6 minutes later, we were in Vevey, a small town on Lake Geneva.

One of Mr K's coworkers lives in Vevey and was kind enough to walk us around and show us the sites. His drive to work is about 40 minutes, which seems like such a long time after living here for a while and I wondered if it was worth it to live so far from work. About fifteen minutes later, I wasn't wondering anymore - Vevey is gorgeous. We spent a couple hours walking along the lake (with about a thousand other people - it seems that everyone was out to enjoy the weather yesterday!) Mr K and I got a sandwich to split as we walked and he and his coworker both sipped cold beers bought from a lake-side stand. Looking across the lake, you could just make out the snow-covered mountains peeking out of the haze.

Another thing you saw when looking out at the lake was a 25 foot tall fork standing off the shore. The fork was created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Nestle's food museum and was only supposed to be a temporary piece. It was installed, left for about a year, taken down and given to a cutlery factory. Ten years later, it was reinstalled. This time, a petition was passed to keep the fork and it now appears to have a permanent home in the lake.

In addition to the giant fork, Vevey is home to a camera museum and a game museum - unfortunately we went for our visit on a Sunday and both were closed. We're hoping to go back for another visit in mid-May when our next guests arrive. Near the game museum, our tour guide led us up a tower and through a really really tiny door to get a nice view over the town and the lake.

We walked for a couple more hours and then stopped at our friend's apartment for some coffee and water and food talk. He just got back from a couple weeks in the US and brought back a sack of loot for us - hurrah for new books and dvds and slash-proof camera strap and weirdo little flashlight (guess who requested what.....) As it was time for us to head back to Fribourg, we took one more short walk to see the Nestle corporate headquarters (HUGE) and a last view of the lake. As we walked back, we passed several kids playing on a skateboard ramp with their razor scooters (as some grizzled older "kids" with skateboards sat off to the side and sipped their beers). I marveled at the lack of a guardrail or fence or barrier of any kind between the ramp and the lake - it makes you wonder how many scooters and skateboards "accidentally" end up in the shallow water at the edge of the lake if only to give their owners an excuse to splash in and fish them out....

A short list of things that are noticeably absent from Switzerland

2009-03-27T13:49:00.004+01:00

Today is migraine day, apparently, but I still felt like I needed to get a blog out so here you go - a very random list of things that are difficult to find or nonexistent here.

Please note: this post is statement, not complaint... well, except for the parts about Twizzlers and burritos - that's complaint.

* Electric blankets (I did see a heated mattress pad once though)

* Small electric heating pads (the ladies know what I mean) ((nothing here but water bottles...))

* Crock Pots (I found one as a NEW ITEM at an upscale department store... for about 180$)

* Peppermint hard candies

* Cinnamon Candy

* Twizzlers or other non-gummy "red" flavored candy...

* Candy Canes

* Anything that combines peanut butter and chocolate

* Squirrels (I've been told they have some but that they only live in the woods... what kind of squirrel is that??)

* Frozen drinks (I'm sure some place here makes daiquiris and what-not, but we haven't found it)

* "Real" Mexican food... though we did see a place in Bern that we, ever the optimists, want to try

* Restaurants open late night/early morning

*Window screens (and yet we never get bugs indoors anyway, other than the occasional fly, which the kitties make short work of)

* American "cheese"

* Cheddar of various sharpness designations - there's only one kind of cheddar here - "cheddar" and it's white and pretty mild

Of all those things, I think the lack of squirrels and electric blankets surprises me the most.... well, and the lack of peanut butter-chocolate combination... how crazy is that??

Anatomy of a Movie Date

2009-03-16T15:31:00.004+01:00

So last night, we boarded a train and headed to Bern to catch an English-language showing of the Watchmen. This post is not going to be about the movie itself, save to say I loved it and was really impressed by how closely it stuck to the graphic novel, which I also love.

No, this post is about going to see a movie here. The movie was not showing in English in Fribourg, so travel to Bern was a must. We got to the theater around 6:45 to buy tickets for the 7:30 showing. Tickets cost 17CHF or a little over $14 each. Mr K grabbed a 16oz bottle of coke and I got a small bag of gummy bears - another 10CHF, though I suppose that's pretty close to concessions prices in the US, too.

The theater itself was tiny - only one screen! Even funnier, when you bought your tickets, you were assigned seating -we were in row 8 and I was in seat 16. The nice thing about theaters here is the seats are huge and cushy and impeccably clean. People don't talk on their phones. No one brought their kids along (which for this movie in particular was an excellent choice.) The movie-going experience was actually pleasant - a far cry from what I remember from the US. With just a couple exceptions, I quit going to movie theaters a few years back when the bad behavior just got to be too much to take. It was nice to go see a movie and actually hear each and every line of dialogue.

Halfway through the movie, there was a short intermission, coupled with an ad imploring us to "Go Eat Some Ice Cream!" - ice cream is the movie treat here. I think this movie is showing with an intermission in the US as well - it's about 2 hours and 45 minutes long. However, intermission is pretty much standard here. We had an intermission when we went to see Wall*E and Mr K says both movies he's been to without me also had intermission.

One last tidbit taken from the ticket: notice at the top, it says "WATCHMEN (E/D/F)"? That means the movie showed in English, but with German and French subtitles. I thought it was really interesting to see subtitles in two different languages at the same top - German on top, French on the bottom.

There you have it - our night at the movies:

26CHF for train fare for two
34CHF for two tickets
+ 10CHF for snacks during the movie.
___________________________

Ouch, I shouldn't have added that up!

B-b-b-barcelona

2009-03-12T17:34:00.007+01:00

C'mon - tell me that title made you laugh. Right? No? Hmm.

So, we've been back about a week and I'm finally getting around to the blogging our little minivacation - our trip to the location chosen by a poll right on this here blog - snazzy.

We left on a Saturday, and our flights both there and back were pleasantly uneventful. Both flights were five minutes late, which doesn't count as late at all. We arrived and caught a train to the city (the airport is located quite a bit outside of town) and then a bus from the main station to a stop near our hotel. We checked in, dropped off our luggage, and since it was about eight at night, we went back out to hunt for dinner.

We found a nice looking little restaurant just a couple blocks from the hotel and enjoyed a dinner of sausage and butterbeans for Chris and a plate of local coldcuts and bread and olives for me. We split a pitcher of Sangria de Cava, which was wonderful. At the table next to us, two charmingly cougary women and their gay boyfriend were enjoying a meal of far too much food and talking fondly about various Virginia neighborhoods close to where we lived, so a sangria-laden Mr K had to go introduce himself and figure out how they knew our old home so well - they were flight attendants, previously based out of Dulles Airport.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to relax and get some sleep.

This turned out to be a great move, as the next day, Sunday, we walked over ten miles of Barcelona sidewalk. On Monday, we walked another seven and a half miles, and on Tuesday eight and a half miles before finally boarding our flight and sinking into airplane seats that have never before felt so comfortable.

We woke up bright and early at quarter to eleven Sunday morning. We began walking towards the more downtown area and eventually ended up at the Barcelona Aquarium. Typically, we keep a pretty lazy pace when on vacation, but this time we had a list of activities from a local and we decided to see and to do. The aquarium was wonderful. In the center of it was a huge tank of sharks and other creepy-swimmies. You stood on a conveyor belt and rode through a tube, surrounded by fish-tank on all sides. The sharks and other funny guys would swim right up against the sides - gills and fins all akimbo.

We had a quick lunch and various snacks as we continued to wander, including some really fabulous gelato. We continued to walk and shop and shop and walk and see things until it got dark, at which point we headed to Montjuïc to see the lights on the fountains, however after twenty minutes wait, no lights and no water, we decided to head back hotelwards. By the time we arrived, we were starving and foot-sore. We solved these problems by ordering room service and soaking our feet in the bathtub until our food arrived.

On Monday we woke up at the break of ten and were out the door by eleven. Our main attraction of the day turned out to be worth the cost of airfare even if we would have seen nothing else: the Sagrada Familia. If you're not in a hurry, please go read the wikipedia page about this place - there's no way I can describe it enough to give you an idea of what it was like. For starters, it's huge - like really, really immense. Second, when they say unfinished, they're not kidding - the interior is packed with construction equipment and workers and noise and sparks. We waited in line for 40 minutes to pay a little bit to squeeze on an elevator with six other people for a ride to the top - once you arrived (150m or so up), the only way down was a really narrow spiral staircase narrow enough that the sleeves of my jacket occasionally brushed the walls as we walked. So far, Mr K has only posted a couple of pictures, but they're really good. I'll try to put a few more up this afternoon.

We had tapas for dinner - tiny burgers and steamed asparagus and tomato bread and a cheese plate and razor thin sliced-then-fried artichoke and almond cake for dessert. On our walk back home, we passed a building whose brightly lit letters proudly claimed it the home of "Mutual Cyclops." We lol'd.

Our flight left Tuesday night, so Tuesday morning we actually woke up at a decent time (8:30 or so) and headed to the train station to throw our luggage in a locker for one final day of exploring. The highlight of Tuesday was the "La Boqueria" covered market. I have never seen so much fresh food packed in one place in my life - as you walked up and down the aisles, the smells constantly changed from dried spices to fresh fruit to briney smelling fish and back again. We grabbed a light lunch from a vegetarian/organic stand in the back - a tortilla wrapped around a spicy paella, a few slices of vegetable tortilla (completed unrelated to a Mexican tortilla...), a pasta salad and fresh greens dressed with a carrot and corn dressing. Wonderful!

We walked around for a few more hours before finally catching our train to the airport. Once there, we checked in, dropped off our bag and headed in search of one last round of snacks. We settled on a couple " regional" sandwiches and, for Mr K, a couple pre-flight beers.

Our uneventful flight dropped us in Geneva around eight in the evening. We rushed to buy train tickets and grab a light dinner from the grocery that was still open. As we were waiting by the tracks, we polished off one bottle of water, so I ran upstairs to the shop to pick up one more. When I got back down to the track, Mr K was standing and looking bemused as a tiny blond who turned out to be something of a local mini-celebrity awkwardly hit on him. She told us briefly about the month she spent in the US, learning English, before the train arrived. She spent the rest of the trip talking loudly on her cell phone - the poor thing was traveling from Geneva to Zurich, where she would pick up her car and drive the last hour home - a trip of at least four hours total. We settled back in our seats, put on our Ipods, and counted the minutes until we got home to our kitties.

Coming soon

2009-03-05T22:20:00.002+01:00

We're back from Barcelona and I have some serious blogging to do. However, we're also trying to get all our taxes for TWO countries settled and done, a feat that is taking up all Mr K's non-work hours. Only after taxes are done will he be able to edit and post Barcelona pictures. Once the pictures are ready, I'll blog the whole trip!

Glimpses of Carnaval

2009-02-23T14:29:00.006+01:00

1. It snows all morning. The ground is covered in slush and confetti - it actually looks pretty cool. The colors don't run when wet.

2. The town charges admission this year, but make up for it by offering reusable warming packs for your hands or, in Dani's case, rear.

3. Mr K stands in line at a tent to buy a round of beers. An obviously drunk guy approaches him, and on hearing Mr K talk, starts slurring "Where you are from! Where you are from!" When Mr K answers he is from the US, the drunk guy begins to gleefully shout "OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA" while furiously fist-bumping Mr K. He then hugs Mr K and poses for a picture with a bemused companion who might have been his mom.

4. A trailer is selling MGD and Mr K and Dani immediately join the line to buy some. This is a foreign treat here. A small girl in costume and bright make-up bangs on the metal sides of the trailer with drumsticks. Nonstop. Kids here have some really impressive costumes.

5. A group of meticulously over-made-up teenage girls stand near a wall, giggling. Suddenly, a group of similarly-aged boys appears out of nowhere. Engaging in the age-old technique of displaying-amorous-intentions-through-torture, the boys tackle the girls and throw massive fistfuls of shaving cream directly into their faces. The boys run off as the girls stand in wide-mouthed shock. I contemplate tossing confetti at them to watch it adhere to the shaving cream, but opt to eat some churros instead.

6. Nipun and Dani perform a perfect demonstration of the differences between Americans standing in line and Swiss standing in line. In the 20+ minutes it took Nipun to get churros (caused by his allowing the ever-watchful Swiss to wiggle in front of him because he's polite and thus, in their eyes, weak) Dani made it across the most crowded section of Carnaval ground, walked two blocks, bought a sausage, found beer, walked back to us, finished the sausage and beer, and disposed of the trash. The churros were worth the wait..

Anatomy of a Grocery Receipt

2009-02-12T16:27:00.004+01:00

For the purposes of this post, one CHF (Swiss Franc) is currently worth about 86 US cents.

Most Americans (especially families) go grocery shopping once every week or two for the bulk of their food with just a couple small trips for odds and ends peppered in between "big" grocery days. When I was growing up, grocery day was a BIG DAY and the whole family went - we had to because shopping in the military grocery was such a phenomenal pain that mom and dad would fill two grocery carts to keep the number of these trips to a minimum. If mom and dad both went (one cart per parent) that means my little sister and I also went. This brings us to the story of the canned mushrooms and, on a related note, the possible reason I didn't like mushrooms until about a year ago. That story, however, may have to wait for another post because this post is about grocery shopping in Switzerland.

People here typically go to the grocery shop every day or every other day, excluding Sunday, when everything is closed. Most people use only small shopping baskets - if you're shopping for a crowd and need a cart, it's going to cost you a 2 CHF deposit (which is return when the cart is.)

The first item (1) on my receipt ties in to one of the biggest differences between grocery shopping here versus the US - my 30 cent grocery bag. The grocery here does have very very small bags you can use for free, but they're like the bags you use to bag your produce in the US - you might as well carry your groceries in a piece of tissue paper. I always bring my own cloth bag with me, however on this trip I needed an extra bag as I ended up purchasing just a little more than I had planned.

The reason for the extra bag is... there was a great sale on MEAT! (See items 2 and 3) I acquired a pound of ground beef for 7.95 AND 6 chicken breasts (Just under 2 pounds) for 9.85. The chicken breasts I buy are normally about 7 CHF for two, so you can see this is a great deal. Everything is divided and stowed in my freezer now - yipee! The item you might notice hiding between two and three is the 106 grams (or 3.7 ounces) of sliced ham I bought for 4.20. Ouch.

Moving right along, item 4 brings us to the spoiled rotten kitties. 7.95 for a bag of litter and 2.20 for a four-pack of kitty wet food, turkey-flavored. The kitties split one pack of wet food a day for dinner and have dry food to snack on, so the four pack lasts four days, unless they get whiny-cute and I feed them an extra packet.

Item 5 takes us to produce - a box of cherry tomatoes and my other find of the day - a kilo (2.2 pounds) of clementines for just 2.95! Item number 6 is a tasty loaf of fresh bread - it was still warm when I picked it up.

Thanks to today's shopping, we're good on meat for a couple weeks. Hurrah! Have any grocery-adventures of your own to share?

What almost was would have been bad...

2009-02-10T18:27:00.003+01:00

So if you've been with me since we first ended up in Switzerland, you might remember way back in October 2007 we were going through the stress of trying to find a place to live. Mr K's company was kind enough to provide us with a realtor of sorts who lined things up and served as our translator as well. We went to a total of seven or eight properties with the last one we saw being the place we ended up picking. Halfway through our hunt we saw a property unlike any home I've ever seen in my life.

The apartment was a loft-style two level layout in an old Swiss barn that was being converted into apartments. All the others were already taken but this, the most special one. We were told that the owner had been renovating this place to be the dream home for he and his wife - a project that had been ongoing for about two years. Each and every detail had been picked out by hand, from the hardwood cabinets hand-carved in France and then imported to Fribourg to the two side-by-side bathtubs with candelabras and a shelf for your wine. The kitchen was huge, with a built in steamer, coffee machine, and wine storage fridge. Even the front door was covered in hand-carved decoration. The whole downstairs was open. The upstairs was only an open bedroom and the massive bathroom, complete with an antique toilet on a stone pedestal - the potty-throne. However, in the time it took the guy to renovate the place, he and his wife had a baby and were forced to choose a more traditional home. You can check out a whole set of pictures of the place here.

Just as there was a lot to love about this place, there were also several factors that weren't so great. It was expensive, even by local standards, coming in at about 2600$ a month for a one bedroom. It was also located in a kind of suburb of Fribourg, meaning Mr K's morning commute would have taken about three times as long and involved changing buses a couple times. There was also no storage - no closets, and no cave (the bomb-shelter space that most people use to store their skis and wine). Mr K and I have a fair amount of random "stuff" that needs a home and, short of us spending a few thousand at IKEA, this place wasn't going to accommodate our things. Also, our furniture (being mainly IKEA) would not have begun to do this place justice and would have needed replacing - it was that kind of swanky. Lastly, we have to admit that the whole concept of a potty-throne turned out to be just a little bit scary - if you fell off the thing, you would break an arm or leg. (And yes, falling off a potty is a valid concern.)

So, after several agonizing nights, we decided that the pros and cons were too close on this one and we needed to go with something a little more practical and a little less unusual. When we first moved, I wondered on and off if we made the right choice. Our apartment now is completely amazing and utterly perfect for us, but something about that other one just stuck with me.

Today we found out that, right before Christmas, the other place burned to the ground.

Swing kids

2009-02-09T11:17:00.005+01:00

This past weekend neatly squished several of our favorite things about living here into a pleasantly compact two days.

It started out boringly enough with Mr K having a late work meeting on Friday night, causing us to miss jiu jitsu class. As always, I was both relieved and disappointed.

Saturday we ran a couple errands, did a ton of laundry and lazed around the house until the evening. Steph picked us up a little past six and the wonderfulness began - we headed to Peter's for fondue-eating, tv-watching, and music-discussing. We talked about best and worst concerts and the price difference between seeing shows here ($$$) and seeing shows in the US in the 90s and 00s ($). After dinner we had a wonderful sweet cake-thingie that I completely forgot the name of even though Steph told me twice. I made a fruit topping for it with berries and Grand Marnier and brown sugar - it was a nice combination. Well-stuffed, we headed home and to sleep.

Sunday we woke up to a surprising six inches of snow where there had been no snow the day before. We were slow to get up, slower to have breakfast, and slower still to get dressed and out of the house. We bundled into our snow gear for a walk because Mr K wanted to take some pictures.

Though we intended to walk downtown and possibly to the river, we made it less than half a mile from our apartment as we got distracted by the playground right across the street.

No wonder kids who play outside stay skinny - it's exhausting work! We took turns taking pictures of each other swinging on the swing, which led quickly to taking pictures of us jumping off the swing and into the snow. At this point, we started really regretting leaving the snow pants at home for fear of looking too dork-tastic. We swung and jumped and snapped and jumped for the next 45 minutes until we had compacted all the snow as well as our ankles and knees past the point of being fun. Next to the swing is a slide that, in summer, is truly terrifying. Now it was covered in snow, so that was our next stop. We spent another 15 minutes playing on the very wet and snowy slide before our jeans reached the snow-saturation point that we couldn't bear it anymore.

We headed home, but it was too early for cooking dinner. All our jumping and running and launghing in the cold had us famished though, and Mr K's throat was as dry as his jeans, well, weren't. I'm sure I mentioned several posts ago that pretty much everything but restaurants is closed here on Sunday. As it was just past three in the afternoon, the restaurants were also not serving food yet, so our choices were McDonalds or the small, overpriced shop at the train station. Since the train station was both closer and had beer, it won out. We grabbed a big bottle of Coke Light, a single beer, and a gigantic piece of pizza that tasted almost exactly like "pizza day" in middle school! Thusly provisioned, we headed back to the apartment to whittle down our 200+ playground photos to the few you can find on Mr K's page.

There you have it - recipe for a perfect weekend: food, friends, snow.

Anatomy of a Night Out

2009-02-02T23:53:00.006+01:00

Today we present another lesson in Swiss Life - the Irish Pub.

Saturday night our friends called around 9:30 and asked if we wanted to join them at the Irish Pub near our house for a drink. Taking a quick inventory of our wallets, we decided we had just enough for one round of drinks and a little bit of conversation.
You're probably glancing at the receipt to the right and realizing we may have misunderestimated our friends' beverage-consumption prowess. You would be correct.

Back to the topic at hand - how a night at a bar is different in Switzerland than a night at a bar in the US. We'll start with the prices. Corona - almost eight dollars each. Vodka and Coke (that's me!) just under nine dollars. Each. Kilkenny and Kronenbourg (two more beers) from 6.50 to 8.00 ... depending on what time they were ordered. Apparently drinks either get more or less expensive depending on the time of night - but I'm not sure which.

Annnnnd then there are the shots. Before our parents book flights to stage an intervention, I would like to add this was a tab for seven people,not just Mr K and I. The shots were tequila... and the first time they came out accompanied by a plate of lemon slices. Mr K and I LOL'd. Many people here are from the citrus is citrus school of thought and don't understand the importance of LIME in key situations. And speaking of limes, I think the 3 DASH 3 entry at the bottom of the bar is the charge for the limes/lemons to go with the shots. But maybe not. For all I know that was our foreigner surcharge or a tax on glassware or the cost of the table for three hours - I'm really just not sure.

What I do know is I had to provide my own aspirin the next day and this country really needs a Waffle House.

PS If you're thinking about what I said earlier about the state of our wallets and one round... well we have some really good friends. We love you, M and D and S!

Minivacation time!

2009-01-31T14:21:00.003+01:00

Easyjet has a great sale going on for the next couple days, so I'm trying to plan a little weekend trip for Mr K and I. My problem is we've been so few places so far, I can't decide! To the right you'll find a handy little poll to help us make our choice. The trips range from about 450 CHF (London) to 700 CHF (Marrakesh) for both of us, including hotel and flight (see what I mean about good deals).

If your recommended destination isn't on our list, please leave me a note in the comments and I'll price it out. The only catch is we have to book in the next couple days, so vote/suggest/act/move here now!

Another journey by train

2009-01-26T22:27:00.004+01:00

Sunday morning found us up, if not at 'em, bright and early. We were heading to Chateau D'Oex (pronounced roughly 'SHA-toe Dey'... of course...grumble grumble French grumble) for the International Festival of Balloons. Our trip began with a crowded bus ride from Fribourg to Bulle. From Bulle, we caught our first train of the day to Montbovon and from there we squeezed onto train #2 to Chateau D'Oex. When I say squeezed, I mean it - Mr K, myself, and another friend were all shoved in a doorway, holding on and praying the door of this considerably-older-model train wouldn't pop open from the combined pressure of three Americans.

Just under two hours after leaving Fribourg, we arrived at our destination. The sky was perfectly clear and the air cold, but not bitterly so. We were comfortably bundled up in our snow clothing though I would soon come to regret forgetting my sunglasses. The crowd was spread out over a snowy hillside with a perfect view of the balloon ground. We arrived in time for the "special shapes" category of balloons, which included three different chickens, a guy with a kilt, a turtle, some tiny remote-controlled balloons and a few other entries. Superchicken, pictured at the top of this entry, was my favorite even though he got stuck in the trees halfway up the mountain and spent the rest of the day glowering over someone's chalet.

After a couple hours of craning our necks and squinting at the glare off the snow, we went in search of the Swiss version of Fair Food - a hot dog crammed in a baguette and some salty salty frites. We wandered back to our spot on the hill, where I spilled ketchup and mustard all down my swanky wool scarf. The program promised displays of paragliding, parachuting and wingsuits after the "special shapes" balloons. I should add that the mention of "wingsuits" was the sole factor that got us up and out of bed that morning.

And so we waited, me fidgeting with my scarf as the faint scent of mustard floated on the air around me. Two in the afternoon came and went. Then it was three. No wingsuits. No wingsuits. We waited a few more minutes as balloons for passenger rides were inflated before we decided wingsuits were just not going to happen. I toyed briefly with the idea of taking a balloon ride myself - until I saw that it would be around $750 for Mr K and I both to go for a couple hours. I was feeling cheap an Mr K isn't so fond of heights anyway, so instead we headed back to the train station to make our three part trip home.

As a final note, you have to check out Mr K's amazing shot of a very photogenic family watching the balloons. Just look at that! The kids, the coordinating snow gear, the coordinating DOG. Amazing.

It's never enough...never enough...never enough

2009-01-22T19:48:00.005+01:00

So, more about food it is!

Mr K referred to tonight's dinner as "800% make again" - a far cry from the typical enthusiastic "pretty okay" lesser recipes have garnered me. (Before you get to thinking I'm a horrendous cook you should probably know that Mr K actually considers "pretty okay" to be praise of the highest kind...)

So I started with a recipe a friend sent me earlier this week. In the copy below, I noted my first set of changes in italicized type:

Lentils and Rice with Fried Onions (Mujadarrah)

PREP TIME 10 Min
COOK TIME 40 Min
READY IN 50 Min
SERVINGS

6 tablespoons olive oil (I used closer to three and it was more than enough)
1 large white onion, sliced into rings (One and a half small Swiss onions...)
1 1/3 cups uncooked green lentils
3/4 cup uncooked long-grain white rice
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup plain yogurt (optional) (absolutely not optional despite what the original recipe said...)

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onions, and cook about 10 minutes, until browned. Remove from heat, and set aside.
2. Place lentils in a medium saucepan with enough lightly salted water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer about 15 minutes.
3. Stir rice and enough water to cover into the saucepan with the lentils. Season with salt and pepper. Cover saucepan, and continue to simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until rice and lentils are tender.
4. Mix half the onions into the lentil mixture. Top with yogurt or sour cream and remaining onions to serve.

I thought this was a great starting point and I'm sure it would be delicious with no changes made, but I'm just terrible at leaving well enough alone. At step three, I added a pinch of saffron to the pot at the same time I added the rice for just a bit of flavor and color (the color failed to show but the flavor was nice and light). To the yogurt sauce, I added cumin and salt and pepper. I also doubled the amount of yogurt as we're yogurt fiends here.

As the lentils were cooking, I marinated a chicken breast in the other half of the plain yogurt with a bit of za'atar and a little lemon juice. Once the lentils and rice were nearly done, I turned my attention to the rest of the plate. I chopped half a cucumber to be stirred into the lentils and rice because I love a touch of cold veggie stirred into otherwise hot foods. I'm also a huge fan of the combination of yogurt and cucumber. When the lentils and rice had ten minutes left, I chopped up the chicken and sauteed it in the pan I used earlier for the onion (using the leftover onion-frying-oil).

Once everything was done, I plated it up and finished it off with sliced apple in an effort to get a bit more fruit and veggie into us. The sweetness and crispness of the apple turned out to be a really nice contrast to the rest of our dinner.

Now we're pleasantly full and I'm trying to decide if I feel like going to bed early or if I have the energy to do a little painting.

Drastic times and what-not

2009-01-21T22:54:00.002+01:00

Miz K (that's me) is suffering from a severe case of blog-block. Any requests? Twenty questions? Help me out or I'm going to start posting recipes again...

Last night something happened

2009-01-13T19:56:00.004+01:00

So this morning, I woke up to three messages to call home from my parents. Our cat Sega had a stroke and passed away. He was three months away from his ninth birthday.

Sega's life changed when we moved to Switzerland in 2007. Before we moved ourselves, we had to move Sega and his sister Atari in with my parents (thanks so much for adopting them, mom and dad). Earlier in the year, a routine vet visit for Sega to get his teeth cleaned turned into an appointment with the kitty cardiologist which turned into a hefty bill and a couple prescriptions to treat his newly-discovered heart murmur. We worried that a long flight wasn't going to make his heart matters any better so, with heavy hearts of our own, we left Sega and his sister with my parents.

Sega quickly became the favorite cat at my parents house as well - he had the best personality and just loved people. Over this past Christmas, we got to see he and Atari again and we were thrilled to find both cats even fatter, happier and more spoiled than we left them.

So, to celebrate Sega today, we've been eating black and white cake and trading stories of our best Sega memories. I thought I would share a couple of our favorites.

Soon after Mr. K and I met, he went out of town for a few weeks, so I stayed at his place to watch the kitties and keep them company. Right before I left to pick him up from the airport upon his return, I bought a bouquet of tiger lilies and put them in a nice vase on the coffee table. When we got home, the first thing Mr K said was "Sega-man, what happened to your mouth?" I looked at the cat and noticed his muzzle was Cheetos-orange. On the table, the vase held nothing but stems - Sega ate all the flowers off... and promptly barfed them up on the formerly-freshly-cleaned carpet. His muzzle stayed orange for over a week.

Sega had the worst kitty-breath ever. In desperation, I picked up some pricey kitty dental treats. He and Atari were supposed to get one treat each, twice a day. Somehow, Sega figured out how to get them out of the cabinet and then how to rip the foil packet open, after which he ate the entire bag of treats.

Sega loved to sleep under the blankets, right between us. He would curl up against Mr K's belly and roast the two of us with his kitty-heat.

Sega's favorite toy was a little plush Spiderman ball that came as a toy in a Happy Meal. We think initially the appeal was the smell of cheeseburgers permeating the thing, but long after the smell was bound to have worn off, he still gravitated toward that toy. We kept all his toys in a box in the living room and he would actually dig through the box to find his Spiderman.

Share your fun Sega memories in the comments.

We love you and miss you, Sega!

2008 in really bad poetry

2009-01-01T02:12:00.005+01:00

In January we flew to "Atlan-ter,"
Our family and friends with to banter.
We met little Abbie,
My sister's new “babby”
Who giggled and laughed with much candor.

February took us to Prague.
The architecture made us agog.
The buildings so old
And the air beyond cold...
Well, I wrote it all up in my blog.

On our menu for March we saw sushi -
A dish I find way too gooshy.
Dani disagreed -
On sixty bits he did feed.
A feat to be believed you must see.

April took us to CERN
A great opportunity to learn...
But our tour was in French
A word rhyming with “stench”
(No wonder our French teacher's so stern.)

Several adventures filled up our May
Month of our anniversary and birthdays.
A really great meal
Of ten courses - unreal!
Then a few days in Holland to play.

May was a hard month to beat
But June still brought us adventures quite neat.
A day trip to Lucerne
About yodeling to learn.
As we sipped some pomme-secco so sweet.

June brought excitement like none
And for a few days, stress by the ton -
Our realtor told
That our house finally sold.
And then C's parents arrived – so much fun!

In August we found ourselves smitten
By a family of small wild kittens.
One brown and one white
We caught (with some fight)
As C managed to not get all bitten.

September and we're back on vacation
Through three countries and just one train station
With my mom and dad
A great time we had.
( But I still don't eat no crustaceans.)

October, for the most part, was dull.
In our calendar, finally a lull.
Then one night our bus hit a car
Which then promptly caught “far.”
No injuries and no real damage – no bull.

Our November was busy again -
Many hours spent noveling and then
More time spent cooking
Our feast, quite good-looking.
Though turkeys here look more like hens.

December and back to the States
For Christmas on two separate dates.
We bought clothing galore
Books, camera and more.
And now we're wishing you all a “Cheers, mates!”

Words and Pictures

2008-12-09T16:38:00.005+01:00

It's been a very very busy past few weeks here and I'm worn out! The last week in November I managed to finish my novel for National Novel Writing Month. Much to my own surprise, this year my novel actually had an ending. In the six or so years I've participated in this exercise in insanity, this is the first time I've finished a story and not just written the requisite number of words! Now I'll take a few weeks off from it and in January I'll pull it back out again and see if there's anything at all salvageable about it - I'm not overly optimistic.

When I wasn't writing, I've been frantically trying to finish some cards and paintings for a nearby Christmas Market where one of my friends had a stall that she was kind enough to share a corner of. I sold a few cards and I don't know what else - I'll find out tomorrow, though I expect just the cards, which is still very exciting for me. I've never sold anything before. Early next year I think Mr K and I are considering opening a small shop on Etsy to sell prints of paintings and photos. I know my little doodles aren't exactly high art but I think they would be fun for brightening up kids rooms - we'll see!

Once the Christmas market work was done, it was time to start stocking up on the remainder of Christmas gifts we still needed to pick up and to finish a few small projects. Mr K and I stayed up way too late last night finishing up two of them - it was nearly three by the time we got to bed.

More fun this week - Wednesday is the last jiu jitsu class of the year. Thursday I get a haircut that, in my excitement to make an appointment entirely in French, I neglected to notice was at 8 in the morning. Friday is our jiu jitsu class dinner and Saturday is last minute shopping and packing before we fly out on Sunday. Too much to do!

And I'm going to sleep!

2008-11-29T21:51:00.001+01:00

Oooooooo it's Thanksgiving time and everybody's feeling fine!

2008-11-24T15:21:00.007+01:00

So says the singing card my parents sent us - and it's true!

Yesterday was a big day for me - my very first time cooking the traditional Thanksgiving meal all by myself. We invited nine of our Swiss friends for dinner, so I was cooking for eleven, which is also the most people I've ever cooked for at once. Add the size of a Thanksgiving meal and the number of people involved and I think I'm done cooking for the next couple days!

I split my grocery shopping over three days to keep my grocery-toting manageable. I ordered my turkey breast in French with a little bit of guidance from a friend. I borrowed one table, four chairs, three plates, four wine glasses, and one hour of baking time from Steph and Dani.

And then the cooking... I started at 10 in the morning on Sunday and finished at 7:15 Sunday night - just in time to eat around 7:30! Here's our menu and links to a few of the recipes I used.

Spinach Salad
with Cranberries and Nuts

Turkey-Bacon Roulade
Stuffed with Chestnut-Apple Stuffing

Cranberry Sauce with Red Wine and Lemon

Ham
with Apricot Horseradish Jezebel Sauce

Macaroni and Cheese
With Cheddar and Gruyere

Honey-Glazed Carrots

Traditional Green Bean Casserole
Topped with Fried Onion Strings

Sweet Potato Casserole
with Marshmallow Topping

Mashed Potatoes
with Butter and Cream

Pumpkin Pie
with Vanilla Whipped Cream

Joining up to demolish this massive pile of food were our neighbors, Monsieur et Madame Favre, Dani and Steph, Olivier and Celia and Danae, and Mr K's awesome co-worker Nipun (of shoe-swappin' IKEA-hikin' fame). We put a good dent in the food, completely finishing off 2 pounds (1 kilo) of ham and 3 pounds (1.5 kilos) of turkey. Mr K and I were lucky enough to end up with leftovers of all the side dishes, meaning I get the next couple days off from cooking! (Our guests are probably not aware of the fact that thanksgiving food always tastes better the next day when you eat it right from the storage container while standing in the kitchen... if they did, I imagine they would be over here right now!)We sent everyone home with some pumpkin pie and then, early this morning headed to Bern for the ONION MARKET...

But that post will have to wait for another day!

Also coming up this week "Son of Thanksgiving" - starring a boatload of Bern-dwelling-Barbers and even more turkey! Stay tuned.

Destructocats

2008-11-13T12:45:00.002+01:00

Attack kittens
Originally uploaded by hellomizk

So I've been slacking off on the blog posts, but it isn't because I haven't been writing this month - oh no. I've written a ton this month - just not things that any human is ever going to read ... that's right (I originally typed 'write' - my brain is fried), it's time for NaNoWriMo once more!

NaNoWriMo, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is National Novel Writing Month - this uniquely American invention (who else would think a novel could be written in thirty days, right?) takes place every November and this is the fifth or so year I've participated.

The normal response to having to write a 50,000 word novel in one month is to spend as much time as possible procrastinating and taking part in non-writing activities that have suddenly become pressing. For me, this meant breaking out my sewing machine I bought a few months ago but never got around to opening since the instructions are in a variety of non-English languages. Finally the other night I couldn't bear to look at my laptop anymore, so I figured it was a good time. To get myself and my machine warmed up, I started a couple stupid sock creatures inspired by the book of the same name.

In addition to mutilating some perfectly good socks, I also destroyed a pair of old jeans that are way too big for me now and turned them into a pretty okay jean skirt! I was actually able to wear it out and all the seams lay nice and flat - what an accomplishment! I'm eager to stock up on sewing stuff while we're back in the US over Christmas as Fribourg doesn't have much in the way of fabric and what you can find is, as expected, expensive.

Anyway, this is probably enough procrastinating for me - I have another 30,000 words to write this month!

P.S. Cats eat stupid sock creatures.....

Martina Topley-Bird

2008-11-07T01:25:00.004+01:00

Have I mentioned how much I love it that I can walk to concerts here? No more driving 40 minutes, paying 15$ to park and then having to drive home - nope. The local concert venue is only a 15 minute walk away.

Tonight Steph and I went to see Martina Topley-Bird (previously of Tricky-associated fame) play and it was one of the better concerts I've ever been to. She came out on stage dressed in a glittering pink strapless prom dress - very Barbie-chic. Throughout the night she chatted with the crowd (small venue - maybe 150 people - I don't estimate well) in French and English and also gushed about Obama on multiple occasions, at one point dedicating the song "Phoenix" to him.

She played several songs from both of her albums, including Carnies, Valentine, Baby Blue, Poison, Da da da da, Too Tough To Die, as well as a cover of Kate Bush's "Army Dreamers".

After the show, she stayed around to chat and sign CDs. I was amazed at how sweet and approachable she was - not what I expected at all. I wish I could go see her show in Geneva tonight as well!

MORE excitement!

2008-10-29T19:02:00.002+01:00

The excitement continues...

2008-10-25T22:26:00.004+02:00

So on Saturday we decided to see if it was possible to get to IKEA without a car - it is. It is not, however, easy to get to IKEA without a car - oh no. Mr K figured out our route online and we printed off our itinerary of train, regional train, bus and set out for Bern. Before leaving, we grabbed sandwiches and cokes - this was to prove to be very smart move as we were going to be needing those calories later.

Our on-train entertainment was listening to a couple American students chatting - and this was the first time in at least 6 months I've heard someone use the phrase, "And so I was like, whatever, you know."

We got to Bern in good time and, after a couple minutes' worth of confused wandering, we found the track for the little regional train - which would be leaving in 25 minutes. Rather than standing around, we went off to find the hot pretzel counter where we bought and rapidly consumed a giant buttered pretzel. Just like it sounds, this was a big salted pretzel that was sliced in half and spread with mounds of fresh, cool butter - it was heaven! Our tanks full once again, we headed back to the gate just as our tiny train pulled up. We took our seats and, in ten minutes, were on our way back out of Bern.

The fun started when we got to the little village where we were supposed to catch the bus to IKEA only to discover the next bus wouldn't arrive for another two hours. We checked the little map and saw IKEA was only four bus stops away. Mr K and his coworker popped into the grocery for cold drinks and directions and then we set out.

The girl at the grocery said something like "Go right, go left, go through the forest and you're there - you do have a car, don't you?"

We walked and walked, passing cows and green fields on both sides. We were pretty convinced we were going the wrong way, but it was a beautiful day and we had nothing else planned, so we just enjoyed the walk. This was the first place we've walked here without sidewalks, so we stuck to the side of the road.
Here you can see our route from the regional train station...

We finally arrived at the forest and, just a matter of minutes later, at IKEA. We arrived at 3:45 only to find they close at 5:00 on Saturday. No matter - at least we made it! We rushed madly through IKEA, and while Mr K and his buddy stood in line, I made the obligatory hot dog run since the hot dogs were easily 50% of our desire to go in the first place... I don't know why, but they just taste better after the stress of IKEA-shopping. We headed back out and caught the bus back to the regional train station, then caught the regional train four minutes later. Upon arriving in Fribourg, we picked up Chinese for dinner (ugh too much food) and swore to never eat again as we munch and sorted through our loot.

All in all, it was a really enjoyable day and the walk was probably the best part.

Another exciting day

2008-10-23T09:45:00.002+02:00

buscrash
Originally uploaded by hellomizk

So last night we're on our way to jiu jitsu on our trusty 7:30 bus. As always, it was crowded with people heading home for the day, but we were lucky enough to snag a couple seats right in the front. A rumpled-looking guy with a beer got on and took a seat near ours. Holding a beer in one hand, he gestured wildly with the other, pausing occasionally to talk to the empty space next to him. As the bus started moving, he continued chatting with himself while flipping off the nothing outside the bus window.

But that wasn't the really exciting part.

Out the right-hand window, we saw a car approaching the bus and signaling his intention to make a left turn.

But that wasn't the really exciting part, either.

The car's driver was looking to the right and, in his looking, managed to completely not see the huge bus directly in front of him, which he promptly drove right into the side of. This was the first auto accident of any kind we've witnessed since we moved here a year ago. As the driver realized what had happened, his jaw dropped and he covered his mouth with one hand - a poignant expression of "oh meeeeerde".

But that was only the semi-exciting part.

As we all looked out the window, flames started shooting up from the hood and wheelwells of the car.

Now, that was the exciting part.

Everyone started gasping and, as one body, all the passengers stood up and rapidly headed for one of the three exits of the bus. Our exit out the front door was only mildly hampered by the bus driver trying to pull a fire extinguisher from some hidden spot near his seat. The bus emptied in about 30 seconds, at which point all the passengers stopped, opened their umbrellas, and stood in the rain to watch the burning car. (We did, too) Of course, neither Mr K nor I had a camera with us, so all I have for you is the poorly-made dramatic re-enactment to the right.

Two police happened to be right there, so one started directing traffic while the other talked to the drivers and kicked random exploded pieces of bumper and headlight out of the road and under the bus. The driver of the car was unharmed and the bus was barely dented, so there were no injuries to anything other than vehicles. We watched for a few more minutes before catching the next bus to class.

Ta da!

This is Music

2008-10-21T21:33:00.005+02:00

Wandering through the Youtubes tonight, I hunted down a bunch of my favorite old songs and something struck me - this stuff is OLD! I was amazed that several of my favorites were 8, 10, 12+ years old. I remember when these things came out and, despite my terminally poor memory, I actually remember them pretty vividly.

The whole video-adventure started with Spiritualized "Do It All Over Again." In my brain, the album that song came from is still 'the new Spiritualized' (to differentiate it from Ladies and Gentlemen We're Floating in Space, Pure Phase, etc I guess). As I'm murmuring along with the lyrics, I notice the video is from 2001. If asked, I probably would have guessed I got this no more than three years ago. In some ways, it seems like my time in Virginia didn't ever register on my mental timeline.

I also found video of a show I was at way back when I lived in Atlanta (the video isn't dated, but I'm almost 100% sure this was the show I went to. I think I've seen them three times, but I forget.) I remember Acetone was the opening band and it was one of the best shows I ever saw.

A few more of the favorites I found:

Verve "Gravity Grave" (Seen live once)
Lush "Hypocrite" (Never saw live)
Slowdive "Ballad of Sister Sue" (Never saw live; saw Mojave 3 live)
The Cure "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea (Live from 1992)" (Seen live seven or so times)
Placebo "The Bitter End" and also "Song to Say Goodbye" (possibly the saddest video I've ever seen)
Radiohead "Karma Police" (seen live twice - one small show, one huge show)
Catherine Wheel "Judy Staring at the Sun" (Seen just once live, at the old Cotton Club)

I miss going to concerts. If you're reading this, did we ever go to a show together? If so, what did we see? All my ticket stubs have gone black with age...

Part the Third: Scotland

2008-10-13T15:18:00.001+02:00

Edinburg Rain
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

We're now approaching one of the highlights of the trip - the ferry ride to Scotland! I've never been on a big boat before (at least not that I can remember) so this was a new one for me. The boat had a couple little restaurants, a shop, and most importantly a video-game arcade! I tried to talk Mr K into a game of Dance Dance Revolution but, upon further reflection, we decided jumping up and down on a raised platform on a moving boat on some choppy water might not be our smartest move. We walked around, looked off the back of the boat, had some snacks, walked around some more, and did a little bit of reading to pass the 2.5 hour trip.

We arrived in Scotland and drove three to four hours (can't remember) to the crappiest bed and breakfast I've ever seen in my life. The house had a lot of potential from the outside, but all that fell apart when we got in. Mr K spent most of the night removing tiny spiders from his bed - they were obviously as cold as we were, which comes as no surprise when you hear that the heat in our room didn't work at all. The windows were frosted over on the inside! I spent the night sleeping in jeans, socks, and a sweater and trying not to roll out of my steeply-tilted bed and onto the ice-cold floor.

We got up in the morning and quickly took our hot, but entirely pressureless showers before heading down to breakfast. The hostess made a nice breakfast but the sense we were inconveniencing her that she exuded made it a bit harder to enjoy - as did the mild burns we sustained while trying to remove the blazing hot plates she left in a plate heater for us, while she took the oven mitt with her.

We spent the next day exploring Edinburgh Castle, which was really really amazing. We had a great day and were all dreading the return to the B&B.

We decided to leave extra early the following morning to get Mr K and I to the airport and Mom and Dad to the rental car return followed by the train station. We opted to settle our bill that night since we were leaving at six the following morning. The hostess gave us the total, which we were surprised to hear was double what we had expected (and 30 pounds PER room PER night over what local hotels charged...). There was really nothing we could do, so we paid up, packed up, and left the next day, the four of us swearing off bed and breakfasts for all future vacations. Despite the poorly run and dilapidated B&B, we still had a nice time and I think we would definitely go back to Scotland (to a hotel, of course).

After a pleasantly uneventful flight back, Mr K and I were happy to once again be in Switzerland. Seeing snow on the mountains from the window of our train coming home was a nice added treat!

Part Two: Northern Ireland

2008-10-10T16:54:00.005+02:00

Why yes, I am a slacker when it comes to updating sometimes. My parents are still here visiting, and between cooking and walking and visiting, I've been having too much fun to keep up with my little bloggie like I should.

So from Ireland, we headed to Northern Ireland for two days. We stayed at another bed and breakfast. There was nothing hugely wrong with this one, but it was just really blah. The house was completely uninteresting as was the breakfast. It seemed like every radiator in the house was topped by a sachet of potpourri and I found the smell overpowering but no one else noticed, so I might just have an overly sensitive nose. It wasn't an unpleasant place to stay, rather it was just unremarkable.

Our first big touristy goal was a tour of the Bushmills Distillery which was really interesting. The inside of the building smelled phenomenal - like whiskey and wood and fresh air - Yankee Candles needs to take a trip our there and work on a candle because it would be a great scent for at home.

We had a little lunch and headed out to see the Giant's Causeway. The weather was crisp and clear and the mist from the water made rainbows in every direction. Mr K took a ton of pictures. At one point, in order to get a better view, Mr K and my dad went scurrying up the rock, which went fine until my dad managed to descend a bit quicker than he had originally planned, sustaining some interesting scrapes and bruises in the process. We got him on the bus and back up the hill and into the car and headed back to the B&B to relax and get band-aids and aspirin. On the way back, we stopped to take a break since it was a pretty long drive and Mr K and I stumbled on some really cool old ruins. We walked around for about 20 minutes and then piled back into the car.

We were all hungry, but dad wasn't feeling so hot, so we skipped finding a restaurant for dinner - which worked for me as we got KFC to go instead! I haven't had KFC in over a year and it was a pleasantly unhealthy treat. Back at the B&B we had a little KFC picnic, spreading our wealth of chicken fingers, popcorn chicken, french fries, coleslaw, baked beans, beer, and cookies all out on a fluffy white towel. After eating everyone got some sleep in preparation for our trip to Scotland the following morning...

First in a series : Ireland

2008-10-04T16:00:00.006+02:00

Well, hello!

We're back from our vacation after many adventures - some good and some bad, but all exciting! I'll be breaking this up into a number of smaller posts for ease of reading for you and typing for me.

We started our vacation in Trim, outside of Dublin, at a beautiful B&B called Highland House. This was to be the beginning of a downward-slope of B&B quality, but we'll get to more on that later.

Mom and dad met us at the airport in Dublin, where we all piled in the car and marveled at the mis-placed steering wheel and pedals - crazy stuff! At first the GPS unit the car came with wasn't working, but a couple changes to the wires set everything right and we were soon on our way.

The B&B was just perfect! Mr K managed to contract my cold while at the airport in Geneva and was feeling pretty bad by the time we arrived in Dublin. The beautifully-accented owner of the B&B welcomed us inside and, when she heard Mr K was ill, gave him a pat on the arm and said she would be right back with a warm whiskey - it was delicious. Thus fortified, we headed out to walk into town and see what there was to eat. We found a promising-looking Indian restaurant and, since Mr K and I have been craving good Indian for months, mom and dad went along with it despite an unfamiliarity with Indian cuisine. The restaurant was beautiful and the food really, really tasty. We had butter chicken, chicken korma, chicken tikka masala, and tandoori chicken washed down with Cobra beers. The woman working the door seemed to be new (maybe to this restaurant, possibly to the whole concept of restaurants and food in general). This led to one of the funnier experiences of our trip. Mr K ordered a second beer from her and, looking confused, she went off to find one. When she came back to our table, she set down a glass, poured half the beer - and then, taking the still half-full bottle with her, wandered off. That beer didn't end up on our check, so no harm done I suppose.

The next morning we woke up and had a tasty Irish Breakfast before crossing the street to explore Trim Castle. The weather was perfect and we were all happily full from breakfast. We walked around for about an hour and a half before catching the bus into Dublin.

We walked around Dublin for a few hours, doing a little shopping and a lot of people watching. I was beyond overjoyed to find whole stores of books in English, but I was good and only picked up a couple. We had a nice lunch and walked some more, before heading back. All told, we walked just about six miles on our first day - not too bad! For dinner, we had sandwiches and soups before heading back to go to sleep before 10 PM - a trend we continued for the duration of the trip.

From here we headed to Northern Ireland - come back soon for more stories!

Vacation!

2008-09-26T22:43:00.001+02:00

Mr K and I are joining my parents for a whirlwind tour of Ireland and Scotland. We'll be sure to have a drink for you...and you! And you and you and you!

Hugs

A little walk...

2008-09-21T20:40:00.002+02:00

So today I went on a little 5k walk in memory of someone I don't know.

For the whole story, you can read this blog.

I should warn you that it's seriously depressing and uplifting at the same time. I wouldn't advise reading it without some tissues nearby.

It was a nice opportunity to do a little bit of thinking about life.

Keep it up, Matt and Madeline.

Counting down!

2008-09-15T11:52:00.004+02:00

In less than two weeks, we're off to meet up with my parents in Ireland for vacation and I can't wait! As far as I know of, none of us have been so it should be a really great trip. My dad is a meticulous planner and has everything laid out in spreadsheet form - who arrives when and on what flight, where we stay, where we drive and how far - it's impressive! We'll spend a week driving around and exploring and then Mr K and I fly back here while my mom and dad make their way to Switzerland at a more leisurely pace by train.

This trip will be the first time my parents have been to see us here and I'm so excited! They're going to be visiting us for several days and I'm busily trying to narrow down the most fun things we need to make sure we go do. Any suggestions?

The weather here has been pretty nice as it starts to cool off for fall. Some days have been cloudy and moody and other crisp and cool. On Tuesday the low is 37F last time I checked - that means bring a warm coat, mom!

Now I'm off to walk some recycling and then complete my French homework. Au revoir!

Fun Facts about Switzerland Part 2: Group E(vil)

2008-09-08T14:13:00.003+02:00

Every three months since we've moved into our apartment, we have received a bill for 50 CHF from Group E - the friendly local power company. With each bill, we would cheerfully pay, while marveling at the cheap electricity in this country of hefty price tags. After paying, we would go blissfully on with our lives of washing and drying clothing, running the dishwasher, and leaving a light on for the kitties.

Last week I stopped as I always do to grab our mail on my way to pick up groceries. The only envelope was a skinny little thing from Group E, which I opened as I walked back into the mall. Knowing the above about the 50 CHF/month bills of the past, you can imagine my surprise when I opened one for... 780 CHF. "Gosh darn!" I cried out. "Well, dang it all! Oh my gosh!." I can't remember exactly, but suffice to say this wasn't a pleasant surprise.

So, apparently power here isn't super cheap, it's just paid by a different system:

1. Every three months you pay a small flat amount.
2. After a year, you make up the difference between the small amount and the actual cost of the electricity you used.
3. If you are new, the power company sets the rate very low since they don't know how much you will be using. After the first year, the small flat rate will be adjusted upwards to prevent another huge bill in the future.
4. Power is cheapest between 8 PM and 6 AM and also on weekends. This means I ought not be doing laundry at 3 PM on a Tuesday - sigh.

After the initial shock wore off, we got a laugh out of it. Then I spent all weekend doing laundry - lesson learned!

Fun Facts about Switzerland Part 1: Snails

2008-09-01T15:33:00.004+02:00

There are snails everywhere here. These are not tiny snails - they're often the size of a large marble or a small meatball... possibly two of the worst examples I could have come up with, but I have a headache so we'll let that one slide. Let's say slightly larger than a quarter.

I don't remember ever seeing snails outside of small streams and aquariums in the US. Here I see at least one snail every time I go for a walk. They cling to branches and leaves. They hang from posts and fences.

The yellow one pictured to the right is a pretty common color. Near Mr K's office, there are various small, white wildflowers along the sidewalk. Clinging to the stems of these flowers are tons and tons of small black and white snails - these closer in size to a penny. Near the lightposts, piles of empty shells sit - I don't know enough about snails to tell you why.

One of my friends told me a story - when his parents were younger, they would spend some weekends collecting big baskets of mountain snails that local restaurants would buy. Since then, I think the mountain snails have become a little more rare and a little less snacked-upon.

One thing that hasn't become rare here - the most gigantic slugs ever. I also see these guys each time I go out for a walk and they're easily 4-5 inches long... if not more.

This concludes this week's "Fun Fact!" Stay tuned for more fun facts and cat updates.

An interesting article about ... oo look, a monkey!

2008-08-28T16:34:00.004+02:00

Earlier this week, a friend on Facebook shared a link to a really interesting article. The premise of the article is that the computer and internet have done more than provide a new means of accessing information - they have also changed the way we approach information and, potentially, the ways in which we process it.

"Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore."

Those few lines really hit me. I read a lot. A book a week is not unusual for me, but I've also noticed that I tend to have a harder and harder time sticking with longer pieces. When I was younger, people I knew would casually complain about trying to read before bed but falling asleep - I could never understand this. I was amazed that anyone could fall asleep reading, especially because I always had the opposite reaction - more than once, I've stayed up several hours too late, trying to finish a particularly riveting story. I typically read two or three books at a time, with fiction making up the majority of it.

The problem I have with Google and with Wikipedia and so many other online treats is I use them to waste time - time that a few years ago, I would have spent on the couch with a book. I don't know why - I don't know what makes it all so addictive, but when I find myself with a free thirty minutes, I sit down at the computer and start scanning various articles and blog posts. I read quite a bit but, as the author mentioned, I'm not reading deeply - I skim.

A classic example would be an online forum/news site that Mr K and I both love. When browsing this site, I have a bad habit of reading headlines, maybe skimming the related article, and then immediately going to the comments section to see what a bunch of random internet strangers have to say about the article. This has a way of making time go by, but I'm not sure I'm getting anything else out of it. I find myself very familiar with the headlines of what's going on in the world, but knowing next to no details about any specific event. Additionally and even more embarrassingly, I know way more about a selection of stupid celebrities than I should. I like to tell myself that this improves my Jeopardy game and my crossword abilities and that it's important to stay in touch with popular culture even if you don't like it, but basically it's just a big nasty gossip mill.

“What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

This thought, shared with the author by another blogger, bothers me as well. Some days I feel like my brain is so sluggish and thick. My eyes slide over enough text to fill a novella, but all those words just leave the slightest traces in my mind. Books tend to stick better and I've found when I really want to take information in - like I did with this article - I'm better off printing a hardcopy to read. I used to think it was just a love affair with paper, but now I'm starting to wonder...

What do you think?

Je vous presente.....

2008-08-23T17:31:00.002+02:00

Waffle St. John
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

WAFFLE ST. JOHN (JEAN)

So, your votes are in, and "No no no" won by one vote... which was convenient as Mr K had a last minute flash of inspiration: Waffle (you know, like the tasty treat OR like what we've been doing with picking a name for the past three days.) St Jean is the small church where we found the kitties, so it seemed like a good second name.

On Thursday, *Waffle St Jean and his brother **Taco Killer Qu'est-ce Que C'est (fa fa fa FA fa fa fa fa FA fa) had their first trip to the vet, which went fine. They got to take their first trip on l'autobus. They got checked for feline leukemia - clean. They got some Frontline for any nasty little passengers (les puces et les vers) they might have picked up from living outdoors. They got small patches shaved on their legs so they could have blood drawn. They got to hiss at two new people. All in all it went great - when we got home, they hopped right out of their carrier - Taco to the litter tray and Waffle to his food bowl. Both are still eating well, pooing well, and sleeping really well - then they're not busy throwing each other off the top of the futon.

* "Waffle" for short. "Waffa-waffa-waffa" for less short.
** "Taco" for short. Just "Taco".

Naming cats - serious business!

2008-08-21T21:27:00.003+02:00

Destroy!
Originally uploaded by hellomizk

Drama drama - the naming dilemma continues. We've named the white one "Taco" and he likes it. That leaves little brown kitten with no name! To the right you should see a poll - please vote this kitty a name! If you don't like any of these, that isn't a problem - vote "no no no" and leave your suggestion in the comments. Personally, I would like the names to be at least a little bit related, even tenuously. Foods, things that begin with "t", four letter words - help us out!

In other kitty news, today we had our first visit to the vet. Both kitties are, as we suspected, boys. They got shots and blood tests and some Frontline, in addition to the chance to hiss and spit at new people. By the time we got home, they were both ready for some cuddles and some play time. Now both little guys are asleep, no doubt resting up for a long night of dumping the water bowl on the floor and trying to fling themselves into the bathtub at high rates of speed. Ahhh, the life!

Please vote!

Caught - The Story

2008-08-19T15:32:00.002+02:00

Cat #2
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Last night, when Mr K got home from work, we collected all our various cat accessories - the cat carrier, a little toy, some tuna to lure them out with - and set out to give catching them another try, though we were fairly pessimistic about our chances of success.

Once we arrived at the church, I put a spoonful of tuna on a little plate and slipped it inside the gate. The smell instantly lured the kittens out of the underbrush in the garden, but wasn't quite enough to get them outside the gate. It might have been, given enough time, however it was at this point a small mob began to assemble. First came a woman who ran a small restaurant directly across the street - we'll call her Madame Restaurant. We communicated mostly through gestures and the occasional snippet of French. Gesturing wildly, she drug Mr K around the side of the building, insisting he climb the fence and showing him the best place to get over it. Within two minute he was inside and the kittens were so far back in the underbrush, we couldn't even see them.

Mr K gingerly stomped around in the brush for a little bit and Madame Restaurant eventually wandered back to her restaurant. At this point, a very stern looking older woman showed up (we'll call her the Stern Madame) and starting speaking in rapid Swiss German, which of course we don't understand at all. The scary thing about German is - and I know this is cliche - from tone alone you can't get much of an idea whether someone is cheering you on or about to call the police on you. Mr K hopped back over the fence and we returned to our original tactic of waiting outside the gate. Stern Madame slipped back and forth from French to German, speaking so quickly I could barely pick up a single word. She kept repeating something about needing to talk to "monsieur" and don't take kitties without talking to "monsieur". When I name-dropped the nice woman I had met before, the stern one visibly relaxed and nodded her approval - this neighborhood has an impressive grapevine!

As this was going on, an old man smoking a hand-rolled cigarette showed up to watch in silence and smile, nodding at me and Stern Madame both in equal measure. Then came another older woman, walking her dog - we'll call her Madame Avec le Chien. The crowd must have gotten the attention of Madame Restaurant, because she and two of her staff came back over. Just as all this was beginning to be way too much to follow for us, the man who I talked to before showed up - and it turns out that he's "monsieur." He assured Madame Avec le Chien and Stern Madame I was the one who he said could take the kittens. With this, Stern Madame walked off, only to appear a moment later with a key to the gate of the church!

Our hunt now had the necessary air of legitimacy. Mr K and I and Stern Madame walked back around the church, this time entering by the gate. It was back up into the shrubbery for Mr K and Stern Madame and I gave directions around the most dangerous obstacle to our hunt - the very angry maman chat who had returned a few moments before. Madame Stern, now very involved in the proceedings, kept shouting out the current location of maman et les chatons for Mr K as I translated. To the left! To the left! The white, by the wall! To the back! Attention la mere! It was exhilarating and exhausting. The first to be caught was the small striped one featured in my previous blog post. The kitten was passed from hand to hand (bucket-brigade style) out of the garden and, after a brief field trip across the street with Madame Restaurant (she took him inside long enough to show him off to the whole dining room) he was safely in the carrier.

At this point, we lost track of the little gray kitten who had been our second choice. Mr K was able to capture one of the white kittens and, as la mere had begun jumping out of the bushes at us, we decided that was close enough and quickly walked back out the way we came, the growls of mama cat loud behind us.

When we got back around to the front of the church, we were greeted by a mini-mob of jubilant locals and a carrier of two very scared kittens - no doubt nervous at the dogs nosing at the carrier - eek! We quickly lifted the kittens to safety and, after spending another 10 minutes thanking everyone and exchanging handshakes, we were on our way home with our new kittens!

Caught!

2008-08-18T23:07:00.001+02:00

K and Cat
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Longer post coming soon - I'm worn out!

On the prowl

2008-08-18T16:56:00.003+02:00

Evening Kitten
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Woot - my one hundredth post - and of course, it's about cats!

Last Sunday evening, Mr K and I went for a nice long walk to stretch our legs after dinner and show a guest around Fribourg. During our walks, we're always on the look-out for cats to pet as we had to leave ours with my parents in the US. On our route, we passed a small church that seems to be only used for private functions. Around the church is a neat little garden, secured behind a large gate complete with rusted old pad-lock. Just beyond the gate, we saw a pretty kitty sitting and staring at us. We looked back at her for just a moment before four tiny kittens poured out of the plants behind her and began playing at her feet.

Naturally, we dissolved into ooohs and aaahs.

Naturally, we determined to make two of the four our own.

Thus began my frequent trips into the old town, a ziploc bag of cat food in my purse. Since the first visit, I've also acquired a small litterbox, some litter, three kinds of kitten food (I found a brand called "babycat" - too cute) and a bottle of cat-milk.

On my first visit bearing food, I found the mama cat near the river, hunched over and waiting for someone to drop their lunch she could scrounge from - such a pitiful sight. This was my first day trying to feed her and she's obviously a stray (un chat sauvage) and terrified of people. I tossed pieces of food out and she munched on them, coming within about five feet of me. As I was feeding her, a very stylish middle-aged woman also approached with a plastic dish full of food. We start talking, French and English, and she told me she had been watching the mama cat for a few days and trying to feed her. She railed against her neighbor who refused to help feed the cat, even though he had three of his own ("Il est mechant! C'est affreux!"*) I told her about the kittens and we immediately headed back up the hill to look at them. I told her Mr K and I would like to adopt the two gray ones. She invited me to her house (amazingly gorgeous place - never seen anything like it before) to give me her contact information in case we caught them or just if I wanted to talk to her about them. She also told me she would be leaving for vacation in a week and I should feed them while she was gone.

Two days later, I went to check on the kittens again and found another man feeding them. He had replaced the plastic dish with a glass bowl of water and a nice glass plate of wet food - these kitties were getting spoiled! He introduced himself to me and told me about his 12 years living and working in Canada. He told me he preferred living in North American to living in Europe, adding that Europe had "too many nationalities." As I was admiring the cats, he said I was welcome to take the white ones, but some American lady (me, though he didn't know that at the time) wanted the two gray ones. Apparently the woman I had spoken to earlier about the kittens had gotten the word out - impressive!

So tonight we try again - to my arsenal, I've added two small cans of tuna, a cat toy on a string, a kitchen towel, and a cat carrier. Keep your fingers crossed, because if this doesn't work, we're going in the middle of the night and I'm climbing the fence. How exciting would it be if my first arrest was for breaking into a church garden while trying to catch some little Swiss kitties...

* "He is mean! It's horrible!"

A funny thing happened at two AM...

2008-08-11T09:21:00.003+02:00

So, one of the things we didn't really consider when we first chose this apartment was its proximity to the Irish Pub (aptly described to Mr K by our Irish relocation agent as "nearly as Irish as you"). Our first thought was, "How convenient - a bar walking-distance away." However, two 14 CHF Jack and Cokes later, we decided we were more drinking-at-home types.

One factor of walking-distance-bar we had not considered was the scores of other people who also lived walking distance from the bar... and the fact that outrageously drunk people don't usually tend to walk home via a point A to point B route... they stumble and stutter. They take detours. They stop beneath our balcony (which, being four floors above them, they don't even notice) and engage in long, loud, nonsensical conversations. Because of the noise, we have to sleep with the big doors in our bedroom closed, despite the perfect temperature of the night air. The problem is drunk-chatter isn't the kind of white noise like traffic or normal conversation you can ignore - it's crashing and sporadic like thunder. It sneaks up on you, shattering dead-silence.

Mind you, this one small inconvenience is more than made up for by the general fabulousness of our apartment, but some days it gets a little annoying. Here's where we get to the funny part - apparently some of the neighbors are even more annoyed about the drunk-chatter than I am. Last week I watched one of the neighbors get into a screaming match with the drunks below, him telling them to shut up and go home, them drunkenly apologizing in French before all piling into a minivan and swerving their way out of the parking lot of the bar. That was funny, but not nearly as entertaining as what happened around two in the morning on Sunday.

I had wandered out on the porch to see what all the noise was and saw a group of eight or nine guys standing around, hollering at each other. My French isn't good enough to know if they were going to fight or just agreeing with each other, so I quickly lost interest and came back inside. Not two minutes later, I heard an angry roar coming from outside. I went back out on the balcony and saw all the guys looking up at an apartment a couple down from ours. On the pavement near the drunks was a huge splashmark that clearly originated from our neighbor's third floor balcony - fed up, this little old couple threw a massive bucket of cold water off the porch at the drunks! The guys started screaming and swearing in a variety of languages, but the neighbors didn't come out on their balcony or reply. It gets better - one of the guys started fumbling with his pants, either to flash them or to pee on something (classy). Mr K was in his office, organizing his camera stuff so I called him and he brought his super-mega-flash out on the porch. Just as the guy started to drop his pants, Mr K set off the flash (he didn't take a picture, he just used the flash) and we ducked down behind our balcony railing, hidden from view but still able to see just fine. Well, you would have thought lightening struck the way those guys scattered! One guy "bravely" continued shaking his fist in the general direction of the apartments, but one more flash quickened his pace. Within thirty seconds, they were gone and it was silent once more. Sweet dreams!

No helmet, no waiver - no problem!

2008-08-05T15:00:00.007+02:00

So you've seen how much fun we've been having since Thursday or so of last week, right? If not, a short recap:

Thursday morning Celia and Olivier had their baby, so Thursday afternoon I got to meet little Danae. Thursday night we went to see WALL-E, which was a really really great little movie. Friday was Swiss National Day, so more food and more friends and some fireworks. Saturday we lazed around the house and Mr K played truly epic amount of Guitar Hero. Sunday was a tasty dinner with Steph's parents. All this brings us to...

Charmey Aventure Monday! Before you say anything about it, that is the correct spelling - we're all Frenchified now, remember? Ok then! So on Monday morning, I got up and sent poor Mr K off to work. Then I put on my most sportif clothing, packed myself a little lunch, and set off with Dani and Steph for an afternoon in Charmey (same little town we to go for our thermal bathing - mmmmm). We parked just a little ways down from the baths and bought our tickets.

Our adventure began with a sky cable-car ride up the mountain side. Once we arrived, we were harnessed up, given a seven-minute introduction on how to use our various pulleys and ropes, after which we set off to explore - no helmets worn and no waivers signed - amazing, huh?

Basically, Charmey Aventure is like a big playground - like the most extreme version of the playgrounds you remember from your childhood - all wood and cables and their attendant bruises and scrapes. There are five different difficulty levels of courses ranging from yellow (easiest) through green to blue to red to black (we'll come back to this one.) We started on the green track, walking across tightropes and zooming down ziplines. The majority of the stations were no more than ten to twelve feet off the ground - a nice, easy start. From there we went on to the blue before taking a little break to catch our breath, rest our legs, and chow down on the contents of our backpack o' sandwiches.

After our short break, we confidently headed to the red track. By this point we had over two hours of making our way through the various stations and we were feeling good. When we arrived at the beginning of the red track, however, we ended up in a short line behind a family with five kids, most of whom were a bit young for that specific course, so they were taking foreeeeeeever. We conferred amongst ourselves and decided to just head to the black course (I admit I had my misgivings but figured 'how bad could it be').

Well, let me tell you - my arms and legs are killing me today and I think about 75% of that pain can be attributed to the first station of the black course - a humongous spider web, about 15 feet off the ground. I made it about halfway across this thing and my arms and legs were shaking like leaves - at each little section of web, you had to let go with one hand so you could move your carabiners from one web section to the next. This only took a few seconds for each move, but it felt like forever, hanging my whole weight on one arm, my feet clinging to a thin wire underneath me. Dani had gone first and was waiting for me on the platform at the other side. When I finally made it all the way across, he said we had to go back - that the second station was too hard. You read right - if you got stuck at a station you have two options - go back the way you came or let the staff of the park come rescue you with ladders - how embarrassing is that?!?

I wasn't yet convinced the second station was all that difficult - it was just a 15 foot rope ladder leading straight up to the next platform. Dani headed back across the spiderweb and then Steph gave it a try, quickly joining me on my little platform while we contemplated the rope ladder. I took off my big work gloves, tucked them in my shirt and started to climb up the ladder. Wow, I had no idea it was so hard to climb a free-hanging ladder. It spun and the rungs slid unevenly as I moved from one to the next. As you may notice in the picture, there was also a huge distance between each rung, so you really had to pull with your arms to get to the next one. I was just too tired from all our previous exertions and only made it halfway up the ladder before giving up and heading back down again. Since we clearly weren't ready for the black course, we had to head back across the giant spiderweb once more. Somehow I made it and we decided to give one of the easier courses one more go before we headed back to Fribourg. Dani and I went with the blue course while Steph forged on ahead to the red.

By the end of the day, we were all completely worn out, having spent nearly four hours up in the trees. There were two other activities we wanted to try - one was the 1000m long zipline and the other was a giant-wheeled offroading Razor-style scooter for zipping down the mountainside. We were just too tired, though, and decided to save both those activities for our next visit, which will definitely include Mr K.

All this fun and I only managed to get three or four little bruises - that's less than our average jiu jitsu class!

Meeting The Parents

2008-08-05T14:55:00.002+02:00

Dinner!
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

We've been keeping so busy and eating so well these past few days!

On Sunday, our good friend Steph's parents invited us to a wonderful dinner at their house, which by the way, is just stunning. They have an amazing view of the mountains and surrounding countryside and Steph's mom has the greenest thumb I've ever seen - there were gorgeous flowers and trees everywhere you looked. They also have the tiniest pretty little cat, Simba - you could easily pick her up with one hand!

We had met Steph's parents briefly before (her mom took Steph and I plant shopping earlier this year and then Mr K and I bumped into her mom and dad at Fribourg's Jazz Parade a month or two ago but it was too loud for conversation), but this was the first time we got a chance to all sit around and chat. They have family in New Orleans and Steph's dad worked with the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina.

We had drinks and snacks in the garden, admiring the kitty and the plants and enjoying the perfect weather before dinner. Steph's sister Anne also came for dinner and we got to meet her super-cool boyfriend Marc, who had all kinds of entertaining stories about his extensive travels around the US and the rest of the world. We ate in the garden, under hanging candles and colorful strings of lights. Dinner was a variety of perfectly grilled meats, a potato gratin that would make you cry, and grilled veggie skewers. Dessert was a tasty currant tart with double creme. We sat and chatted, sipping wine and fresh herb tea until the stars came out, before all heading our separate way, happily full and relaxed. It was a perfect end to a great weekend!

Bonne Fête Nationale!

2008-08-02T20:44:00.003+02:00

F2
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Yesterday was our first Swiss National Day - the Swiss equivalent to the American Fourth of July. We had planned earlier in the week to head out to Olivier and Celia's to celebrate and everyone was looking forward to getting together - including Danae, who arrived on the 31 of July, just a couple days ahead of schedule!

Baby and mom were both doing well and were able to move back home in time for the 1st so, at Celia and Olivier's insistence, we happily stuck with our plans and got together to BBQ and watch fireworks. We arrived with bags of groceries, and while the guys tended the grill (rumor has it this involved a hair dryer, but we'll have to wait for Mr K to post the videographic proof to know for sure) Steph and I chopped onions and tomato, fried bacon, cleaned salad and set everything out. Danae sat quietly snoozing in her swanky carrier while Celia tried to get a couple minutes of sleep before dinner.

Once the burgers and hot dogs were ready, we all stuffed ourselves full (more of that bad American influence). We then grabbed flashlights and jackets - Dani, Danae, and Celia stayed behind to relax, leaving Mr K, Steph, Olivier and I to go exploring - and headed out to crawl around in an unlit and heavily spider-infested (read: super cool) barn, trying to see (read: catch and take home) some adorable chatons (kittens). Of course, the little kitties outsmarted us, so we went back outside to watch a chauve-souris (shaved mouse = bat) chasing bugs.

After a few minutes, it was time to gather our cameras, coats, tripods, and a tarp together to go see the fireworks. We walked about 10 minutes from Olivier's house to a big field overlooking the lake. Olivier and Mr K got their cameras all set up as smaller fireworks went off in every direction. Each little town has their own celebration, so in any direction you turned, you could see huge bonfires on the hillsides and small and large fireworks exploding overhead. We had a great view when the big fireworks display started, the lights reflecting disjointedly on the lake and illuminating a tiny armada of boats.

The fireworks display lasted almost half an hour, after which we headed back to Olivier's house, stopping only long enough to play with a friendly black cat and get peed on by our first Swiss toad. Dani was passed out on the couch and we were soon to follow, so we kissed our goodbyes and piled into the car to head home.

Food and fit

2008-07-28T19:17:00.004+02:00

Dani ski jumps
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

On Saturday, Dani and Steph picked us up and we all headed to Olivier and Celia's for a nice BBQ dinner. The weather was starting to look stormy, so the guys got to grilling immediately after our arrival (stopping only long enough to feed a snack to the neighbor's horses and to grab more beers) while the ladies hung out in the kitchen, Steph and I sipping drinks as Celia prepared a tasty pasta salad to compliment the grilled meats. As in keeping with nearly every meal we've eaten since we arrived here, it was wonderful and we were all happily filled up by the end of the meal - even the Fromaginator (Dani)!

What's the best way to wind down after a great meal? Lots of physical activity, of course! Olivier and Celia have the much-coveted Wii Fit and we were all eager to give it a try. I've read a ton of reviews on the thing, but this was the first time I actually got to use it - and I have to say it's even more fun and much more exhausting than I expected.

(On a totally unrelated note, I have to say most rap and reggae sounds even more lame in French and I'm seriously considering going down to make this point to the little Swiss gangsta-wannabe blaring his car stereo outside. Hey you kid, get off my parking lot - or at least spring for some decent speakers - your car stereo stinks and you should be mortified that other people can hear that tinny mess.)

End rant. Now where was I... oh yes!

Wii Fit is amazing and we all had a great time playing with it. I don't think it's technically meant to be a party game, so the little scale inside the thing was in a state of perpetual confusion as Dani, Steph, Olivier, Chris and I all took turns. We had a great time playing with the Hula Hoop game - I think you could convincingly argue that the people heckling from the couch were having just as much fun as those of us swirling around like crazy people, precariously balancing our imaginary hoops. Maybe even more fun, now that I think about it. The ski jump game was also entertaining and the yoga moves were just plain hard - it's humbling to see how unbalanced your center of gravity really is.

We have to get one of these things!

More Friday Fill-ins and a lift in the block!

2008-07-25T14:49:00.005+02:00

You know you want to play along, too!

So between all my whining yesterday about writer's block and the time I went to bed, I managed to start two more blog posts (saved in draft to be cleaned up before being released later this week.) This afternoon I got yet another idea that I've been playing around with, also in draft, so maybe I get a break from the block for a little bit. (Now before you get your hopes up, notice I didn't say I got three great ideas for blog posts ... or three good ideas... or even three passable ideas - I just said I got three so, you know, keep that in mind.)

On to the fun (my answers in bold, as usual):

1. I believe whatever doesn't kill you would probably taste good on toast with tomato and mustard.

2. If you're good at something, you still don't have to do it.

3. Why so many verbs in French have to be complicated, yo!

4. Something is out there, it's hiding behind the door.

5. If my life were a sitcom, it would be titled something with three words or less.

6. Sitting on my balcony [if you don't have one, use your imagination] I see a big ugly hotel, a small stage set up in the park, surrounded by Cardinal beer tents and, behind the haze, the Alps.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to Faux Pho and Guitar Hero, tomorrow my plans include a nice walk and taco salad and Sunday, I want to continue playing Guitar Hero and eating random things!

Rewind almost one year...

2008-07-24T14:14:00.004+02:00

Our first meal in Switzerland
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

So yeah, the writer's block is still hanging on. I've been sitting at my computer, staring at the screen and trying to think of anything at all to write for the past one and a half hours. As a last ditch effort, I started going through Mr K's Flickr stream to see if anything caught me eye. If you're at all familiar with Mr K's photography (he's really really good) then you just know something will catch my eye - and here it is! This picture got me not because of what it shows, but because of the memories it brings back - this picture was taken a matter of hours after we landed here.

The day we arrived was easily one of the longest days of my life. For our 12 hours flight here, we were seated in the very back row of the plane in not one, but TWO middle seats. Our flight left in the evening on the 17th of September and arrived the morning of the following day. I managed to not sleep at all on the flight and Mr K only slept for about two hours, meaning we were pretty much dead when we arrived at the oh-so-tiny Bern Airport.

(It was on the connecting flight from Munich to Bern we learned an important lesson - when the seventeen little old people on one's flight, all laughing and chatting together in Swiss German, pause their conversations just long enough to press their hands against the seat back in front of them during landing, rather than giggling, one would be wise to follow along otherwise one will smash one's face into the seatback in what can only be described as an uncomfortable manner - the landing is that abrupt.)

So, rubbing our recently-squashed noses and grabbing our bags, we leave the tiny customs-free Bern airport and head to our hotel. After nearly destroying a cab with the weight of our massive amount of luggage, we checked into our hotel. Just as I was preparing to collapsed on the gigantic and fluffily-made-up bed, Mr K insisted we go to open our bank account and also find some food. Though I really wanted a nap, I grudgingly agreed as I had been wearing a pretty healthy amount of travelers checks around with me and was a bit nervous I was going to lose the whole pouch of them at any moment.

We managed to open a bank account despite some linguistic complications and then had one more item to deal with before Mr K would finally let me sleep - food.

(By this point I had been awake well over 30 hours in addition to several nights of next-to-no-sleep right before we left. All our furniture was gone, so we were sleeping in blankets on the floor of our house right up until the day before we left.)

The problem with us wanting to eat was we weren't hungry during the nationally-sanctioned-times-of-meals (noon to two in the afternoon and six to late in the evening). It was around 3:30 or so in the afternoon and there was no way I was going to be able to wait until six in the evening to eat. Fortunately, Mr K remember we could get some hot food at Migros (grocery and department-type store chain) and there was a location located between the bank and our hotel.

The food was served cafeteria style, so we grabbed trays and tried to make a choice. I was so hungry I couldn't make up my mind, so I just got the same thing that Mr K got - pork on a stick. With gravy. He was good and got veggies but I also got noodles with mine - I was dying for comforting-carbs. Throw in a couple glasses of orange-kiwi juice and a kinderegg for me and I can honestly say it was one of the top five most enjoyable meals we've had since arriving here - not as much for the food quality as just for being hot food - I was almost in tears. After a heavy meal like that, we headed back to our hotel, too tired to even pay attention to the elephants out front, and collapsed.

We actually haven't eaten at a Migros since that day, but that meal will always be a memorable one for me.

Writer's Block

2008-07-21T16:48:00.003+02:00

It's what I have!

Ugh - I'm rested up, my chores are done, I'm at my fabulous desk, it's nice and quiet so why aren't the words coming? For the past week, I've noticed I keep starting and stopping other writing projects I'm working on and all my paintings have switched from squid to fat birds, which is all fine and good except I have a project to work on that requires people... and I don't really paint people. Not even cartoony people. Sure there have been one or two exceptions, but in general, no people.

So, not feeling the people-painting thing, I sit down to catch up on the blog. Then...... nothing. It's isn't that we don't have news, it's just that the news isn't getting my brain going.

Examples:
1. We finally sold our house in Virginia - yay! (Problem: Excellent happy news, but not that interesting to write about.)
2. We had a great visit with Mr K's parents! (Problem: Mr K already wrote it up really really well!)
3. I have new recipes and new cookbooks! (Problem: Ya'll don't wanna hear about it!)

We have French class tonight, which always has a numbing effect on my brain. Our instructor is pleasant enough but for various reasons we just hate and dread the classes. She moves too quickly and we never review. She doesn't speak English so even the most basic question of grammar leads to a 30 minute explanation as she tries to basic-French and pantomime her way through it for us with the end result that we nod and wait to look it up after she leaves... These are questions that 3 minutes of English explanation would instantly clear up but instead end up completely derailing the lesson. Topics seem to be chosen at random and nothing ties one lesson to the next. One week we did reflexive verbs... the next? Fruits and vegetables. Stuff like that.

So that's enough of a mini-rant for one day. Tell me something interesting.

A painting

2008-07-18T00:19:00.003+02:00

A big brown desk, a small address book, and what it means to be a grown-up

2008-07-15T00:21:00.003+02:00

I don't know where it came from, how much it cost, or whether it had any particular significance to my mom, but her desk was a source of fascination to me. It was a small to medium-sized, medium-brown-colored wooden roll-top desk. Two shallow drawers on the top held small items out of reach of little hands, while two wider drawers at the bottom held paper and folders and less interesting items. When the roll-top was opened, it exposed several small nooks and drawers for envelopes, stamps, and other miscellaneous office goodies.

The general rule of the desk was that we ('we' being my sister and myself - dad was probably implied, but not as strictly monitored) stayed out of mom's desk and only removed items from it with her permission or when asked by her. The really sharp scissors typically lived in the top drawer and were the item we would most commonly beg to retrieve. The scissors themselves changed out over the years, but the all-metal, shiny, unbelievably heavy sewing scissors were always my favorite.

The second-most-commonly-retrieved item was almost a sacred relic in my mind - my mom's address book. Small and spiral bound, the book bristled with various scraps of paper - some with neatly cut edges, others torn carefully from a larger something. Each time someone moved, my mom would carefully cross out the previous address and neatly add the new information in her enviably perfect cursive on the following row. The address book was typically only fetched during one of the two prime thank-you-note-writing times of the year (post-Christmas and post-birthday) and was immediately returned to the desk after use.

I've always wanted an address book of my own like the one my mom had - it was a fascinating work, detailing the movement of family and friends across the country and world. It followed the creation of new families and, in a couple sad cases, the dissolution of old ones. The pen changes, the ink color changes, but the handwriting remains the same throughout. I've never successfully kept an address book myself, preferring (out of frustration with my own attempts) to keep all my addresses on my computer - convenient but impersonal, lacking the subtlety and depth of my mom's book. On more than one occasion, I've selected a book and entered a few addresses, only to become frustrated with my inconsistent chicken scrawl and mixed use of nicknames and "real" names.

A beautiful address book, like a handwritten thank-you note, has become a much rarer item these days. Most people I know keep their addresses online or in various digital gadgets, sending emails and texts for all but the most serious occasions (weddings and funerals are still paper-only affairs nine times out of ten). When I was little, my mom's desk and address book were to me the most concrete displays of what it meant to be a grown-up. Now that I'm arguably approaching grown-up myself, I realize my mom, through these two everyday items, taught me a few important rules to live by: be organized and prepared, be conscientious, care for others and follow their lives and lastly, it's okay to keep a couple nice things (like the really sharp scissors) for yourself!

A poem.

2008-07-11T18:09:00.003+02:00

So sorry this blog's been neglected-
We have company, as you might have suspected.
Two parents are here
And there's much drinking of beer
And walking outdoors, pink-complected!

Pulling four pounds of chicken is more fun than you think

2008-07-06T23:33:00.004+02:00

On Sunday, I set a new personal record - I cooked for seven solid hours. I consider this good practice for the marathon of food that will be this Thanksgiving, when I give it a go.

My goal for Sunday was to give our Swiss friends a taste of a Southern Fourth of July (as close as I could get without an actual grill) and a couple of our local American friends an always-welcome taste of home. The first step was to get groceries - this took about three separate trips, since I have to be able to carry everything home by myself. Then I started prep work on Saturday. I hard boiled a dozen eggs and soaked then cooked a kilogram of dried beans (that turns into five pounds of cooked beans, in case you were wondering.)I chopped a couple things that wouldn't brown and made my Ambrosia Salad, since it gets better as it sits out. Now for the fun part - I proceed to grate almost a pound and a half of cheese by hand on my box grater. I see that it was good, and I rest.

The real work began at 10 in the morning on Sunday. Step one: poach and then shred 4 pounds of chicken breast. Poach in two batches. While poaching, begin browning bacon, onion, and garlic for baked beans. As browning happens, move on to batch two of chicken. Once chicken is all shredded, throw into gigantic heavy-bottomed pot and add a whole bottle of Jack Daniels BBQ sauce (from my stock of imported American delicacies) and then throw in half of a second bottle. Add a splash of ketchup, some molasses and dark brown sugar (also from my stock)and just a splash of cider vinegar. Cook on low for the next 5 hours. Mix up sauce for the baked beans and cook on low for the next five hours as well - this means I'm now down to two burners on the stove.

At this point, I'm feel hot and yucky from so much leaning over the stove and my arm is beginning to ache from stirring so much, so I move on to cooler tasks - deviled eggs. I made two different batches: one hot and spicy and the other with a hidden surprise - an olive underneath all the gooey yolk-tasticness. I got the recipes from one of my favorite cookbooks ever. Seriously, if you like deviled eggs, PLEASE buy this book. I've now made five different recipes and they've ranged from fantastic (springtime herb eggs) to sublime (spinach and bacon eggs - these almost made me cry). Once eggs were done and in the fridge, it was time to drag out ye olde box grater once again for some coleslaw-makin'. I grated a whole head of cabbage, a carrot, and cried my way through an onion. I should also mention that all this kitchen work was made much more fun by the slew of NPR podcasts I downloaded to keep me entertained while I cooked. One episode of radio goodness later and I'm sliding a bowl of fresh coleslaw into the rapidly-filling fridge.

Honestly, at this point, everything is starting to become a blur. I'm a clean-as-you-go cook and it was even more important to do so for this meal as I don't own enough big pots, pans, and mixing bowls for a meal of this size without using and reusing. All this cleaning means my fingers were completely pruned up by about four in the afternoon - this was a boon as it meant when I nicked myself with a paring knife or with my guillotine..sorry... mandolin (both of which happened) I didn't bleed at all! At some point I made a big batch of bourbon iced tea from Everyday Food magazine that was a huge hit.

Now that I think of it, ours was a very Martha meal (except I bet she's never run out of mixing bowls). My coleslaw recipe, macaroni and cheese recipe (cheddar, gruyere, and tilsiter cheese for me), drink recipe, and baked bean recipe (sauce section only) were all from various Martha publications.

Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T13:50:00.005+02:00

Happy Fourth of July! Tiny Playmobil Guy is asking you all(ya'll) to briefly lower your weapons and raise high your burgers and dogs in thanks to all our buddies in the military (past and present) who do so much for us. (I know I know - we're not all this heavily armed or thin. It's just that my Playmobil collection is still pretty limited, so this is the best pre-party reenactment you're going to get. Personally, I was just excited I had a little guy with a "4" on his shirt!)

Due to various scheduling conflicts, we won't be having a party today (the 4th) or tomorrow (the 5th) however on the 6th we'll finally get around to celebrating the fourth American-style! We're going to be having friends and a couple of Mr K's coworkers over for dinner and games. I have my menu picked out and about half my grocery shopping done. In the interest of keeping it a surprise for any locals who might be reading this, I'll wait to post the menu til Monday or so (not that anyone reading this cares - I saw the ZERO votes for food writing and recipes) but suffice to say I'll be spending almost all of tomorrow cooking - hurrah!

Back when I was an obnoxious little teenage (nothing personal against me - all teenagers are obnoxious at some point, right dad) Miz K living in Tennessee, the highlight of every Fourth of July was the neighborhood Pig Roast - a yearly tradition big enough to dictate tee-shirts be printed and distributed before the big event. The event centered around an entire pig (approximately obnoxious-teenager sized) slow-cooked for upwards of 24 hours in a humongous grill rented specially for the occasion. While all the men-folk were tending the pig (read: guzzling beer while sitting or standing near the pig), all the mamas in the neighborhood were busily putting together a mountain of side dishes: casseroles, salads, sauces, desserts.

One of the hardest parts of the Big Pig Roast was the wait for the now-cooked pig to be pulled apart and served (for those not in the know, you pull the pig apart, dress it with BBQ or just its own juice, and serve it on a bun). The kids, like small sticky vultures, would get as close to the growing mountain of pork as possible, snatching pieces of meat whenever we thought we could get away with it, and burning our mouths and fingers in the process, our eyes watering as we denied any porcine theft. Meanwhile, the neighborhood dogs were underfoot, fighting over the singed but still curly tail and crispy ears that had been cut off the pig especially for them.

Without fail, even after we gorged ourselves beyond reason (USA!USA!) there would still be a pile of pig left over in addition to multitude tins, pans and bowls still half-full of mac and cheese, baked beans, seven layer salad, ambrosia, and chunks of watermelon. The dogs would be passed out under the tables and chairs and most of the people would be in almost the same state.

I've never lived in a neighborhood quite as close-knit as that one since we left Tennessee (though my parents' current neighborhood sounds pretty close) but I hope someday to be able to organize that kind of feast on my own. What Fourth of July memories do you have?

Catch-up Bloggin' - Sunday

2008-07-01T21:06:00.002+02:00

Puppets
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

On Sunday, Mr K and I had planned to go to Murten to have a little picnic and play around and in the lake, however Mr K turned out to be on call and we had to stick a little closer to his computer(s). We spent a lazy morning in before heading out for a little walk and to feed some bread ends I've been saving to the ducks.

Mr K got some really amazing pictures of Fribourg as we walked around - you should definitely give them a look! It was nice and warm out, but we weren't too concerned about the sun as we planned to only be out for a few minutes. On the way, we happened upon the Swiss Puppetry Museum, which seems to only be open for a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Excited to be there at the right time, we paid our five francs each and headed in.

The museum was small but very interesting - I had no idea there were so many different kinds of puppets. We saw several shadow puppets as well as glove puppets and thread puppets. Some were very funny and some were serious, some were morbid, and some were amazingly ornate works of art.

After the museum, we made our way back out into the sunlight and headed down to the river to search for ducks. As we walked along, the urge to wade became too much and we spent a good hour stomping around in the river. the water was ice-cold and wonderful. We saw an armada of baby ducks and watched them fight with some fish over our bread crusts. At some point I noticed my shoulders were sizzling, so we made our way out of the water and made a bee-line for the funicular. We made one more stop to grab some Chinese (too hot to cook) and headed back into the cool darkness of the apartment.

Catch-up Bloggin' - Saturday

2008-07-01T20:35:00.002+02:00

Alphorns
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Bonjour, y'all! I'm a few days behind here, so let's try and catch up a bit!

On Saturday, Mr K and I headed to Lucerne to join what turned out to be about 349,998 other people to enjoy the Yodeling Festival, which takes place once every three years. The weather was beautiful and sunny, if a bit warm. This was our first trip to Lucerne as well - we'll have to make a return trip during a non-festival weekend to see what else there is to see.

The train ride took around an hour and a half - plenty of time to enjoy our tasty mozzarella sandwiches and the scenery. The train got busier as we went along, with several people in their yodeling garb boarding at each stop. The train was packed by the time it arrived at the station - but that was just the beginning. The station itself was chaos and it just got more and more crowded as we got out into the festival area.

A large portion of the crowd was dressed up, which was really fun to see. Some of the women had the cutest little flat straw hats that I just loved, so when I found a stall selling them, naturally I had to have one of my own. A quick glance at the 200 CHF price tag took care of that problem and instead we had a couple cold drinks and relaxed in the shade.

All in all, we spent a good five hours walking around, listening to the yodeling and people-watching. Five hours in the heat left us pretty tired, so we grabbed some gyros from a stand near the train station and caught the next ride back to Fribourg to nurse our sunburns. Halfway through the day, we found the sunscreen girls - a few girls with giant bottles of sunscreen who would give you a palmful of free lotion but didn't volunteer to apply it for you (maybe our French just isn't good enough yet) - but by that point we had both gotten a bit of pink to our faces, arms, and necks (yee haw) and were past the point suncreen would help and our only choice was to get out of the sun.

Sounds interesting? Next festival in is 2011 in Interlaken!

Friday Fill-in Fun

2008-06-27T11:12:00.005+02:00

Looks like it's time for another set of Friday Fill-ins! Please entertain me and play along in the comments or in your own blog! My additions are in bold (not blood as I had originally typo-ed it...)

1. Birthdays are kind of overrated - especially as you get older - then again, it's hard to complain about an excuse to eat cake.

2. Fall is my favorite season because the heat of summer is fading while the leaves are brightening and the air outside smells so complex and rich.

3. I feel my best when I'm painting and it's going well enough that I've lost track of time.

4. There is no way I could choose one item and declare that it is my favorite food!

5. First impressions are just as important as people say but still no excuse to drive yourself crazy with worry.

6. The best piece of advice I ever received was probably from my mom or dad and is now so deeply ingrained in my psyche that I can't separate it from my actions.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to going to jui jitsu and dodging sweat, tomorrow my plans include seeing the yodelers in Lucerne unless we get lazy and Sunday, I want to get really lazy!

Wanted: A New Excuse

2008-06-26T16:14:00.006+02:00

It finally happened - the moment I've been craving since we arrived. I got a desk for my office. Hurrah! I've been doing all my writing sitting on my futon with my computer on a tray on my lap and, as you would expect, wondering from where I had acquired my sudden-onset and unending back pain. I now have a nice big desk for crafting, typing and painting... which leads me to a new problem.

I need a new excuse to do continue to accomplish none of those things. I've been telling myself for months that once I had a desk, I would be writing for a couple hours a day before moving on to the paintings for my still unfinished squid book. Now, thanks to a trip to IKEA, (thanks Olivier and Celia)I have my desk - so now what? Sadly, the desk didn't come with a stack of completed paintings and a stellar manuscript with a "insert your name here" blank on the cover.

The good news is I have felt a bit more like writing and what-not, now that it's comfortable to do so for more than 15 minutes at a time. I've been rereading several of my books for writers and another problem I keep hitting is my own lack of discipline. Without fail, each book I've seen recommends an aspiring writer to cut out a specific chunk of time in their day to write - same write time, same write place. I haven't yet figured out what times are good for me, so each day I say "I"ll work from A to B and then when A rolls around, I remember oh-so-many other things that need to be done. I'm thinking this is part of the artistic process, right? Riiight - ok, so maybe not.

You know what is another great way to procrastinate? Blogging...

Who who whoooo's a night owl?

2008-06-23T02:25:00.008+02:00

Valais by Night
Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Ok - the votes are in (though voting is still open for a couple more days if you haven't expressed a preference yet) and it looks like at least half of you enjoy reading things I write about myself - you bunch of voyeurs! In my desire to please all the people all the time here's another entry for the "stuff about me" category (lucky for you this mindset brings enough neuroses with it that you won't be suffering from a lack of reading material anytime soon).

I am a night owl's night owl. Right now as I write this, it is approaching three in the morning here and I'm not even close to being ready to go to sleep. Staying up this late on my own has gotten to be something of a luxury as of late. I go to bed most nights for companionship or because I feel like I'm supposed to - I can't remember the last time I went to bed (for the night - naps are not included in this) because I was tired and ready to sleep. At midnight, I'm just starting to get my brain and hands loosened up and the words and pictures are just starting to come out, but most days I force myself to go to bed around midnight because I get up when Mr K does at 7:30 and "everybody knows" I have to get some sleep.

What this means for me is my most productive hours are spent tossing and turning in bed, trying to talk myself into falling asleep. Some nights I hash out stories, letters, pictures, and blog posts, always intending to get them down on paper/screen the next morning but by the time I wake up (which I do poorly and very slowly) these images are usually gone. Sometimes I'll scribble down a tangle of notes to try and decipher the next morning - I usually write these in the dark and, as my handwriting is nearly impossible to read when I'm doing my best to be neat, in the morning I can't decipher a word of it. For all I know, in the past couple years I've found and lost the meaning of life, the nature of the universe and a couple hot stock tips - I'll never know.

Most of my best ideas come to me late at night, however I'm also one of those 3:00 AM crisis types. You know the type - in fact, you may be the type. Without fail, the clock hits three in the morning or so and my brain does some kind of crisis data-dump and decides to run through all possible worst-case scenarios, ranging from "what if I have no money in my bank next time I try to buy some I-tunes" to "what does it say about me as a person that my biological clock runs a bit slow - if at all" - it goes downhill from there. Existential crisis as a luge.

Ignoring that bit, in general I find staying up to all hours to be a mostly positive experience that I really enjoy. For me, sitting in the living room and feeling the breeze blowing in off the porch as it slides across my back is bliss. Listening to the fevered tapping of my sloppy hunt-and-peck typing in an otherwise unbroken silence is bliss. Being the only one awake gives me time to pay attention to all the little details I would otherwise miss due to the distractions that come with daylight and other people.

On a semi-side note, you know what else is bliss? Sitting on the floor in the kitchen, lit only by the light from the fridge, eating a bite or two of whatever leftover or other treat looks good. I'm pretty convinced food tastes best late at night, eaten in the kitchen, though I don't know why this should be. In my most recently written and wretchedly abysmal novel (woo hoo!), I noticed as I wrote that the main character was always eating in the middle of the night - I went on for pages and pages about it. It seemed whenever I got stuck for an idea, she got hungry. Well, all my writing books do say "write what you know..."

I have plenty more to say about insomnia and all the things that I've found that don't cure it, but I'll save that for another day. Sleep tight and sweet dreams - I'll be along in a few.

"Always take a big bite
It's such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night"
R. Smith