Nothing too exciting has been happening... hence my lack of updating this blog. I continue to enjoy my time here and am learning a lot, either for the people here or from just spending a lot more time understanding current events and reading a lot more. I am also slowly learning a bit of German, although my reading of it is much better than my actual speaking skills. I have a hard time understanding what people say unless they talk very slow and simplistically.
Hm, so what has been happening. Well this week is halloween, which our little village actually celebrates (very uncommon in europe but i am thrilled about it). I am putting together a little halloween party for the kids and a couple of their friends before they go trick or treating on Wednesday. I am working on my costume today, nothing elaborate... just a jellyfish. I was going to do porcupine until I got some funky purple tights and wanted to incorporate them somehow. I talked Stephanie into going into Bern with me Wednesday night after the kids are done with their thing, so I think that will be a lot of fun...weehee.
I spent last Saturday in Bern, finding some more interesting stuff like a soap store with bar shampoo and I found some nutritional yeast. Yesterday I spent the day in Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland. It is an hour by train from Bern so not too far. It was very enjoyable. It is much more international so there was a lot of English conversations around me, and everyone at the stores speak english. There was even a whole english bookstore. There is a nice river running through the center of the old city, and in general the city was very clean. Quite cute.
In one week and one day my mother will arrive and we will soon embark on a journey to Italy. Yippiee. I think November will go by quite quickly. My mom will be here most of it, there is Thanksgiving, and MY birthday. For my birthday me and the neighbor man are having a joint party (his birthday is the 24th mine the 29th) and on my birthday I will go out with stephanie, and then the weekend after visit Alec (friend from college) in Germany.
Time to enjoy an empty house (the family went on a picnic)... one of my many pleasures. Loud music and free roaming in the kitchen :-)
Sonntag, 28. Oktober 2007
Samstag, 13. Oktober 2007
travels
The mountains were BeaUtiFul!!... The first night there I got there late but met some really nice backpakers and heard about their amazing travles. Some had been going for 7 months already and planned to go at least 3 more months before returning home. That would be exhausting... but amazing. The next day the skies were quite grey but I hiked for 5 hours in the morning and then returned the the really welcoming hostel to relax away the afternoon. At night stephanie arrived with 2 guys she met on the train ride there and we all played cards with antoher girl I had met that is an intern from michigan in geneva. The next day was clear blue skies and me and stephanie climbed to 2698 m... as high as we could get without more gear for ice/snow. It was quite amazing and exhausting. I will definatly be returning to get to the top of Slithorn (the mountain we were climbing) in the spring when the weather i nice.
Then- London. Quite the opposite of the mountains. Day one was travling from 9:15 am, until about 9:30 pm. The flight was only 1.5 hours about, but it flew out of germany, and then once in london you have a 1.5 hour bus ride to the city and a 45 min ride to where you want in the city and then we took the wrong bus so a 45 min walk to the hostel. All in all long day.
Other days... We got front row seats to see Wicked (a musical about the wicked witch from the west before being evil). We went to the National Gallery and saw Van Gogh's Sunflowers Monet's The Water-Lily Pond Renoir's The Umbrellas and Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks along with many other very awesome paintings...
The National Portrait Gallery, The London Museum (which had basically the history of london which as interesting) The Britih Museum which had the Rosetta stone, lots of the Parthenon and just a ton of cool stuff... one of the most amazing museums in the world.
We took a walking tour of the Roman ruins in London which was very interesting and saw a lot of things we wouldn't have seen just wakling around. We saw London bridge, tower bridge, the tower of london, the london eye, Westminster abbey (we even went to a church service there), Buckingham palace, the House of Parliment, Abbey Road, that 9 3/4 harry potter train stop, The british library, Stonehenge (magical) and lots of little markets that were a ton of fun.
I also went to a night club that was just.... incredibly posh and not my thing.
Overall a very good trip, saw a lot of cool stuff, but glad to get out of london. It is grey and busy and all the people look clean and pressed, where are the scruffy people? Hiding in london apparently. or maybe they just can't afford to live there (veryyy expensive city, even compared to switzerland i think)
Returning to work and switzerland has been nice and relaxing. Nothing too exciting happening here at the moment. Getting excited for Italy in November, or more so just seeing my mom :-). Also planning a halloween party for some kids in the village YAY. I think I will be a porcupine.
Then- London. Quite the opposite of the mountains. Day one was travling from 9:15 am, until about 9:30 pm. The flight was only 1.5 hours about, but it flew out of germany, and then once in london you have a 1.5 hour bus ride to the city and a 45 min ride to where you want in the city and then we took the wrong bus so a 45 min walk to the hostel. All in all long day.
Other days... We got front row seats to see Wicked (a musical about the wicked witch from the west before being evil). We went to the National Gallery and saw Van Gogh's Sunflowers Monet's The Water-Lily Pond Renoir's The Umbrellas and Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks along with many other very awesome paintings...
The National Portrait Gallery, The London Museum (which had basically the history of london which as interesting) The Britih Museum which had the Rosetta stone, lots of the Parthenon and just a ton of cool stuff... one of the most amazing museums in the world.
We took a walking tour of the Roman ruins in London which was very interesting and saw a lot of things we wouldn't have seen just wakling around. We saw London bridge, tower bridge, the tower of london, the london eye, Westminster abbey (we even went to a church service there), Buckingham palace, the House of Parliment, Abbey Road, that 9 3/4 harry potter train stop, The british library, Stonehenge (magical) and lots of little markets that were a ton of fun.
I also went to a night club that was just.... incredibly posh and not my thing.
Overall a very good trip, saw a lot of cool stuff, but glad to get out of london. It is grey and busy and all the people look clean and pressed, where are the scruffy people? Hiding in london apparently. or maybe they just can't afford to live there (veryyy expensive city, even compared to switzerland i think)
Returning to work and switzerland has been nice and relaxing. Nothing too exciting happening here at the moment. Getting excited for Italy in November, or more so just seeing my mom :-). Also planning a halloween party for some kids in the village YAY. I think I will be a porcupine.
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