awww man!

So Thursday was a holiday here in die Schweiz.  Of course, I took Friday off as well because who wants to go work on a Friday after having Thursday off?  On my wild day off, I went to the grocery twice (yes, twice - not having a car and having to carry groceries limits my purchasing abilities), did tons of laundry and made dinner.  It's a wild and crazy life over here!

For those who aren't aware, when it comes to snacks, I prefer the salty type.  After 4 months of snacking on paprika potato chips (the only flavor available), I was gifted with a glorious bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos (thanks Megan & Ellen!) which I slowly devoured over a few day period.  Once those ran out, I returned to the paprika chips with much less enthusiasm.  During one of my grocery adventures yesterday, I passed by the microwave popcorn aisle (or rather, tiny 1/4 shelf area) and thought, ooooo, popcorn would be an excellent alternative to chips.  So I bought this:

Tonight, after a long day of saving money in Konstanz, Germany, (*see below) I thought some popcorn would be a delicious accompaniment to my beer.  I pulled out the popcorn and only then did I realize:  we don't have a microwave

Seriously, sometimes I think it's a wonder I'm able to dress myself in the mornings.

At any rate, thanks to Google & Yahoo Answers, I was able to recreate the mircowave effect (aka: heat the popcorn) over the stove and this was the result:

Woo hoo!  And to be totally honest, I think it was better this way.  Score one for "old fashioned style".


*Konstanz is a German town just over the Swiss border.
To summarize:
Zurich = World's Most Expensive City
Konstanz = 1.5 hour train ride from Zurich & not on the list  

Hooray for Visitors!

Our first visitors finally arrived this past Friday.  Our friends from Charlotte, Megan and Ellen, arrived at the airport on Friday morning around 9:15am.  They were about 45 minutes late.  Normally this wouldn't bother me but since I live my life without common sense, I didn't think to check the flight before leaving my apartment and therefore spent my extra 45 minutes hanging out at the airport instead of doing some last minute cleaning or whatnot around the house.  Sigh.

Anyway, I can't even tell you how glad I was to see them.  I've had a few bouts of homesickness recently and so it was fantastic timing for their arrival!

I took them home and let them shower and then we headed to Zurich to meet up with Russ, another American friend visiting Zurich.  We spent the day exploring the city.  Lucky for the visitors, our friend April is a much better tour guide than myself.  I took notes though so I can look knowledgeable for future visitors.  :)

Group Shot!

On Saturday, I got up and participated in the SOLA with my work group.  The SOLA is a relay race throughout Zurich and surrounding areas.  It covers 117km.  My portion was 5.9km.  It started out on a nice downhill slope and then about 4km in, it switched to uphill.  It also rained the entire time I ran.  I almost died.  Here's proof that I survived:

The worst part of the race was actually after I finished.  To get off the mountain where my portion ended, I had to ride down in an enclosed furnicular car crammed with sweaty smelly runners.  Ew.

Anyway, after all that, I showered, packed and we hit the road to Lucerne.  We found ourselves a map with a suggested walking tour and we hit the road. 

Chapel Bridge - Europe's oldest covered wooden bridge

The Dying Lion of Lucerne

It was carved out of natural rock in memory of the heroic deaths of the Swiss mercenaries at the Tuileries in 1792. Mark Twain described the Lion of Lucerne as the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world.

Lucerne is gorgeous.  I highly recommend everyone visit.  Feel free to visit us too if you are in the area!  Other pictures:

Lucerne - May 2012

While at dinner in Lucerne, we realized that we wouldn't make it to our hotel until after 10pm so Ellen gave the hotel a call to let them know.  They said, no problem, we'll leave the door unlocked and the key to your room on the counter.  And that's exactly what they did.  Apparently, there is no reason to worry about crime in Lauterbrunnen.

On Sunday, we explored Lauterbrunnen, checked out the Trümmelbach Falls, the James Bond restaurant at Schilthorn, walked through Mürren, took the cable car back down to our hotel, saw a phenomenal rainbow and finally had dinner at Hotel Oberland with our own individual chocolate fondues for dessert!  Lauterbrunnen is a trough valley in the Alps with 72 waterfalls.  It's absolutely stunning.

Waterfall #1

Trümmelbach Falls - Glacier Water Falls inside Black Monk Mountain

A view of the valley

We did a LOT of walking on Sunday

At the top of Schilthorn

This pictures shows you our view along with what we were supposed to see....

Mother Nature was forgiven as we headed back down the mountain and got to see this:

Other Pictures:

Lauterbrunnen - May 2012

Monday, we got up and headed up to Jungfrau.  After the previous three days of walking (and running), I was personally quite glad to sit on the train for two hours as we made our way up the mountain.  This time, we went so high, we actually passed through the clouds covering Schilthorn and it was nice and clear when we arrived to Jungfraujoch.

Other Pictures:

Jungfrau - May 2012

Now it's time for everybody else to come visit!  Let us know when you are coming!!!!

Totally Random Update

Happy May 1st to me!  I get the day off for Swiss Labor Day.  Andre on the other hand started his new job today!  Yay!  Yay!  Yay!

A few updates:

Random Update #1:
I took Sophie on a walk around the neighborhood today.  We saw cows, chickens, mountains, fields of yellow flowers - you know, a typical afternoon in Switzerland.  A few shots:



A few escapee chickens:





Random Update #2:
Last weekend, we went to our first movie here.  They have intermission!  And it's EXACTLY in the middle of the movie.  Doesn't matter at all what's going on...  It was very strange but awesome.  During intermission, one can utilize the restroom facilities, one can refill on popcorn and if one wanted, one could refill on adult beverages.  :)  Here's a picture of the Swiss megaplex:

We're in the next to last row.  To be fair, this building was probably built 8 bajillion years ago.


Random Update #3:
Swiss advertising is awesome.

Anyone else suddenly feel like going to work out?


Random Update #4:
We had a street fair outside of our house last weekend.  During the hail storm, Andre and I sat inside our nice warm house and took pictures.  :)

We had lunch at the street fair.

And finally:
Look who made it to Switzerland!

And yes, our pictures are still on the floor.  And probably will be for two years.  Deal with it.

30 Hours in Amsterdam

and I'm scarred for life! Not really but my innocence is definitely lost. :)


I also confirmed (for the millionth time) my longstanding suspicion that I should not be allowed out of my house without some sort of common sense checklist.

So anyway, I found out last week that I would be going to Amsterdam for a work event.  And here's what I learned:

Lesson #1:  The red light district is quite literally the red light district.  And there are scantily clad women dancing under these red lights all along the street.  And it's possible to watch clients go in and come back out (in 10 minutes or less).

Lesson #2:  Clubs in Amsterdam stay open until "late".  I got back to the hotel at 3am.  I am waaaaay too old for that!  Thursday morning was paaaainful.

Lesson #3:  When traveling in Europe, passports are not necessary.  So even when you are already running to the train station in the rain, there's no need to return to your apartment, grab your passport and then literally run to the train station.

Lesson #4:  However, when traveling in Europe, credit cards are highly recommended.  Without a credit card, it is difficult to pay for your hotel.  So when you check out, and your hotel bill is 150 € and you only have 100 € in cash, you will have to borrow 50 € from your boss.  Sigh.

I also experienced two firsts on my trip!

First #1:  The European cheek kissing deal - I've been dreading the European cheek kissing since I arrived.  I'm honestly horrified that I'll end up smacking a co-worker or client on the lips.  Thankfully, my first experience was completely awkward but no lips were involved!  That's success in my book.

First #2:  The electronic boarding pass - I didn't have access to a printer so I braved it, checked in online and sent my boarding pass to my blackberry.  And it worked!  Hello 21st century!

Sechseläuten

Sechseläuten = Best excuse ever for taking half a day off, dressing crazy, drinking and exploding fireworks.

So yea, I totally got a half day holiday today to celebrate burning the Böögg (aka a snowman) until his head exploded! Apparently, the longer it takes for the head to explode, the colder and rainier the summer will be. Explode Böögg Explode!!!

Afterwards, I commented on how strange an event that was and Andre reminded me that we predict our weather with a groundhog....

Pictures from Sechseläuten:

The Böögg!



Historical Dress



Burn Böögg Burn!

If you'd like to read more:
Swiss News in English
Wikipedia Article on Sechseläuten

Extreme Tourism - Paris Version

One super fabulous thing about working in Switzerland is a long Easter weekend (Friday & Monday off). Of course, the flip side of that is that everything in Switzerland is closed. Soooo, we decided it was our duty to escape the country and head to Paris for the weekend. Tragic I know :)

We took the train over on Thursday evening. Being the Americans that we are, we booked our train at 15:30 instead of 5:30 as we intended..... Damn military time.
So anyway, after convincing my boss we didn't do it on purposes, we took the train over to Paris. The train motored on through Switzerland but once we hit France, the train went all out. Sometimes traveling in excess of 200 miles per hour. It was awesome.
Four hours after boarding the train, it spit us out in Paris at Gare de Lyon. We figured we would take the metro from the Gare de Lyon to our hotel and were feeling quite confident that we could handle this. You know, having lived in Europe for three whole months and all and having done our research in advance. Too bad, the only money we had was 50 Euro bills from the ATM and all the ticket machines only take cards with chips (which we do not have) or Euro coins. It took us a good 30 minutes to find the one human being behind a tiny ticket counter that could take our money!!!
We finally made it to our hotel and they gave us this super awesome key that I'm pretty sure is older than America.



We then went out in search of food and decided on a place close by. It may have been the worst meal we have ever had. Andre got the worst of it. He thought he was ordering Andouille sausage when in fact, he was ordering Andouillette. It was revolting and smelled worse. But from there, things only got better.

Without further adieu, our Paris activities with our new Taosuwan rating system: Golden Turtles (play on our last name in Thai)


Sidenote: If you revere history and/or dead people, you might want to skip the pictures.



Photos from Day 1:

Paris! Day 1 - April 6, 2012

Paris! Day 2 - April 7, 2012

Paris! Day 3 - April 8, 2012

Zug

Since I'm over here preventing tax evasion and all, we thought we'd take a day trip down to Zug to check out where all the US companies are "headquartered". It's actually a very nice city. There is a very modern section with tons of office buildings, shopping, etc. and then there is the old city with a castle (!) and all kinds of totally old stuff. :)



Also, you can buy FRESH pasta, olives and meat right off a cart!

Initially, we had a really hard time with the food here. Of course, I have issues anyway but then we are soooo used to being able to go out and eat whenever we want and that is just not possible here.
First of all, it's too damn expensive. We can't even go to McDonalds for less than 25CHF.
And then of course, nothing is ever open! Seriously. I have no idea how the restaurants here stay in business.
Not long after arriving, we realized it's much easier and cheaper to cook at home. And the food here is so fresh. Super fresh. See pictures.





A few pictures of our outing (the rest are in an album below):

We found a castle!!!! with a moat!!!!


and it's like totally tall and stuff!


We're insanely jealous of these people. We will figure out how to do this.(you may have to zoom in)

The rest of the pics (with informational captions for those who might be interested in such information):

Zug - March 31 2012