Sunflowers!

I think after our first 8 months, the excitement level has died down a bit.  Here are the exciting things going on in our lives over the last few weeks:

1.  Yesterday, Andre and I spent more money at the Lindt Factory store buying chocolate for our trip home than we spent at the grocery store for food for the next two weeks.  :)

2.  I was helpful this week!  I've been stopped a few times by people asking for directions and have never been able to assist before.  It's always nice to be stopped though because at least that means I at least look sort of like I belong and not like a total tourist.  But anyway, this week, someone asked me for directions (in English) and I was actually able to help!  Wooooo!

3.  I paid off my student loans.  Wooooox2!

4.  As we were walking Sophie yesterday, we passed a field of sunflowers where you could cut your own.  Today I bought a vase and Sophie and I walked back down to cut our own flowers.  Fun fun!

That's all folks.  America watch out - we invade Sept 29 - Oct 9!

Catching Up #3 - Weltklasse and Wiener Schnitzel!

Who knew Zurich was a top spot for track & field events?!  Apparently, Zurich is one of 14 of the best invitational track and field meetings in the world and is part of the Samsung Diamond League.

As luck would have it, we had a team outing and I got to go this year!  A bunch of the big names from the Olympics were there:  Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, David Rudisha, Sonya Richards-Ross, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, etc.

The weather was crap but the Letzigrund has an overhang so we stayed nice and dry.

Pics from the event:

Tyson Gay

Usain & Kuhli
It cracks me up that the Swiss mascot is a cow.

I saw lots of US flags there!

Jesse Williams doing a little high jump. 

Usain won!

I think this is the men's 100m relay.  The US won!

They handed out little flashlights when we entered.
At the end, they cut the lights and everyone turned on the flashlights.

And of course, the best part of the week - I found a restaurant that serves gluten free food!  I had my first weiner schnitzel finally.  It was delicious!

Yum!

That's it from us this weekend.  Have a great week!

Catching Up #2 - Prague!

So a week before we were planning to go on a trip, we sat down to plan our trip.  We chose Prague as it was the cheapest option!

It turned out to be a great choice.  The city was beautiful.  And cheap!!  I was quite nervous before going as it's the first city we've been to where the language was completely foreign to us.  It turned out not to be a problem at all.  The people were very friendly and almost all of them spoke English.  Of course, it helped that we were mostly hanging out in the tourist areas.

We definitely recommend Prague as someplace to visit.  We'd be happy to take you when you come visit!  :)

Pictures:

Our ridiculous hotel room.  Suite for about 100 Euro a night.

The exchange rate was about 20:1 so this is about $200

We stumbled upon this open air market on our first morning.  

mmmm - fried potato on a stick!

The Powder Tower - built in 1475 - one of the old city gates

The Charles Bridge with the Prague Castle in the background.

Why not?

St. Vitus Cathedral

inside of the Cathedral

Old Town Square

Our dinner restaurant was a steakhouse.  Love the decor.  Cowboys & Medieval dude.

Our other dinner place - 5 course meal and a show!

View of the city from the Powder Tower.  St Vitus Cathedral waaay in the back.

One more blog tomorrow!  Who's excited?!

Catching Up #1 - Limmatschwimmen 2012

Hello world!  The last couple of weeks have been crazy here.  I've been put a special project at work that involves commuting an hour in the morning.  These crazy Swiss expect me to be in another town, an hour away, at 8am!  Yeesh.  I long for the days of leaving my house at 8:45 and being at work by 9am.  :)  Point:  US

Of course, the great thing about Switzerland is nobody lets work get in the way of fun!  So even while working a lot, we still get the weekends off and an occasional day off as well.  Point:  Switzerland

One of those fun things was the Limmatschwimmen.  The Limmat is a river that flows from the Zurich lake through Zurich city.  For the last 49 years, Zurich has held an annual event where a bunch of folks (4200 this year) jump into the river and swim (or float) down for 2km.  The weather was perfect this year.  Sunny and almost 90 degrees.

Some pictures from the event:

Andre enjoying the Swiss river & a Swiss beer!

we floated under two bridges!  and yelled appropriately!

Hi!

They handed out the yellow butterflys but some folks brought their own floats.  This one was particularly impressive.

Ignore the peeps (who were lovely) and check out the scenery!

More posts to come over the weekend.  Right now, Andre is forcing me to change out of my pajamas (it's 1pm here) and go to the grocery store.  Rude!

Zurich Street Parade 2012

Good news!  People in Zurich CAN party.  Apparently only once a year though.

They have an annual event here called the Street Parade.  They had six stages set up throughout the city and 28 "Love Mobiles" that paraded through the city throughout the day.  It was basically a massive rave.  It was really quite a sight.  I'll let the pictures do the talking:

they estimate that 950k people attended

check out the love buses

one of the stages

love bus up close

that guy must have been HOT

go vols!!!

this was an especially popular love bus

color of the day = NEON!

In other news, for the folks who are sitting around wishing for more pictures of Sophie, check these out!

Have a great week!  Come visit!!!

Barcelona - Where bras and bikini tops are optional!

That's my proposed new slogan for the Barcelona Tourism Industry.  For anyone wondering, it's true that European women don't wear tops at the beach.  At least in Barcelona...  And no, I don't have pictures.  Pervs  :)

I do, of course, have plenty of other pictures.

We really enjoyed Barcelona.  It was nice and sunny and warm.  We also enjoyed that there were people out and about well into the night.  Switzerland lacks a certain "social" atmosphere to it and I think after visiting Barcelona we realized how much we miss that.  It was great to be able to walk around, have some drinks, have dinner a bit later in the evening and talk to other people.  The waiters talk to you, the other patrons talk to you - so nice.  It was also nice to finally be in a country where one of us understood the language.  Hooray for being able to communicate!  I'm tempted to travel in only Spanish and English speaking countries from now on.

Naturally, we checked out the Sagrada de Familia.  We also checked out a park and a bunch of other buildings designed by architect Antoni Gaudi.  Gaudi be one gaudy dude.  Nerk nerk.  Admit it, you laughed.

The thing I enjoyed the best was a bike tour we did.  While out walking Sophie one morning (while I was still sleeping) Andre found a guy who offered e-bike tours of Barcelona.  We decided to do the 3 hour night tour that started at 8pm.  It was fantastic.  The tour guide was really knowledgeable about the city and was able to show us all the touristy stuff and take us through some of the more local neighborhoods.  He even had us try a drink called Orxata.  It's delicious.  Anyway, should you ever find yourselves in Barcelona, I really highly recommend that you do the e-bike tour.

And now, for the pictures!  A few highlights and the rest included in albums below.

Sophie is ready for her bike tour!

Sagrada Familia

Casa Mila (or La Pedrera)

the beach at sunset

some really old Roman columns

Chimneys on the top of Palau Guell

bwuhahahahaha!

Photos from our trip:

Barcelona - Aug 2 - 5