...knock knock?

Hi. Remember me? That one girl, who used to post some things about her life in Switzerland?
I'm back :]

As some of you know, I was away in the US for an epic, month long trip, auditioning for a bunch of different college ballet programs and visiting some other colleges. It was a pretty incredible experience; I literally traveled from New York to California. I experienced everything from 0*F in Des Moines, to 65*F in Menlo Park. I went to four new states, and saw the Midwest for the first time. I had a really amazing time.

I've been back in Switzerland for two weeks now, and am dying under a Matterhorn sized pile of schoolwork, and the impending doom of exams. Spring is finally beginning to creep into the mountains, though! It snowed a couple days ago, but today it was a beautiful 10*C. I was ready to go picnicking or swimming, but I noticed there were still copious amounts of ice around the fountain across the street from our house, and decided to wait another few weeks.

We're planning to go to Paris over Easter, and I am *so* incredibly excited. My French teacher--whose French, not Swiss--has been teaching us about Parisian culture all year, and I've been dying to go (not to mention that I am completely and utterly in love with the movie Amelie, which may or may not have had some influence on my desire to see Paris). We'll only be there for about four days, but I know it's going to be amazinggggg.

Here's some photos from the past six weeks...

Sunset in the middle of Iowa

Iowa is proud to be the location of the World's Largest Truck stop.

Somewhere in Colorado/Utah (on Amtrack)

Utah/Colorado

Utah/Colorado

On the train from Des Moines to Salt Lake City (27 hours!)

The Botanical Gardens in Des Moines (it was 0*F outside, but felt like summer inside)

Salt Lake Union Pacific Depot

Amtrack station in Grand Junction, Colorado... after nearly 20 hours on a train, with 8 more to go!

More posts soon folks, I promise!

Christmas in California

The first thing we did when we got to California was go to In-n-Out. Typical. But I definitely think we deserved it... our trip back was stressful once again, thanks to AirCanada. Why they make everyone go through Canadian customs, pick up their luggage, go through American customs, re-check their luggage, and re-go through security any time you have a layover in a Canadian airport, I do not know! But you'd think they'd give at least three hours to go through all of that, right? Haha. No. On our flight over in August, we had 55min. On our flight on the 23rd, they oh-so-generously gave us 1h25min. But, of course, both times our flight was 45min late. Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in August. The only way we managed to make our flight from Calgary to San Francisco this time was because they held the plane for us and the three others who were running across the airport like mad people.
So In-n-Out was well deserved.

We spent the next few days at my grandparents' house in Petaluma, and had a really fun holiday with my extended family. I then spent a couple days visiting friends before heading off on a blissful mediation retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains.
We spent the last few days of our time in California frantically trying to see everyone before we left. While it was a really fun trip, it was also really busy, and not exactly the much needed relaxation, if you know what I mean.
Now, though, we're back in Switz (with my brother!), and have a few days before school starts to relax... and write those ten AP Euro essays that I've been procrastinating (I'm serious, though. We have to write ten).

Happy New Year, everyone! 2009 was a pretty incredible year for us, and we're hoping the same for you, as well as in 2010.

a foggy, foggy fall

I might have mentioned before: the weather here is completely spastic.

This weekend, out of nowhere, it was ridiculously foggy--to the point of driving down the highway and only seeing the car in front of you--for three days straight. While I have no problem with fog (apart from the copious amounts of frizz it adds to my hair), it wasn't the best timing.

See, on Friday, my cousin Kaelynn flew in from California to spend Thanksgiving with us--which I have been SO excited about for ages. Of course, when you hear about Switzerland, there's a few things that come to mind, and besides chocolate and cheese, mountains are definitely associated with Switzerland. I don't know about you, but pointing into the über dense fog and saying "And that slightly grayer area is the treeline by the lake. And then the slightly lighter area is the lake. And I promise there are huge mountains across the lake, but you just can't see them right now," doesn't sound very convincing.
There should be some pretty gargantuan Alps in this photo. Can't you see them?
You get the idea.

On Sunday, to escape the fog so that Kaelynn could actually see some of Switzerland, we drove into the German section, hoping that the further we were from Lake Geneva, the better the weather would be. While we were wrong about that--it pretty much rained the whole day--at least it wasn't as foggy, and we got some spectacular views, and meandered around the charming little Swiss town of Gstaad (try to pronounce it. I dare you).

Cute, touristy little Gstaad.

The River in Gstaad.

Enjoying café au lait in Gstaad.

I'm taking Thursday and Friday off from school because, after all, were I still in the US, I would have a holiday anyways (plus, the main reason, Kaelynn's only here for ten days, and I feel so bad being in school the whole time!). I'll update you on how our Swiss style Thanksgiving turns out!

chilling in the Alps

No pun intended.

OK, I lied. The pun was totally intended.

Anyways, yesterday we spent a gorgeous day hiking in the Alps. We drove about an hour and a half to a little town called Verbier--it was the perfect little Swiss Alpine town. Honestly, it looked like something off of a postcard, and it was obvious that during ski season, this town was bustling. We took a ski lift up to the top of a mountain--I may have gotten unnecessarily freaked out when it randomly stopped, with us dangling way too far above the ground for comfort--and then spent a good two hours gambling down--I also may have gotten unnecessarily excited at the snow on the first hour of the path. It was beautiful. Can I repeat that? Beautiful. Like, beautiful to the point of ridiculousness. Beautiful to the point that about every five minutes we would just kind of stop and look around us and stand there with our mouths hanging open. Beautiful like this:
(view from the top of the mountain)
(view from part way down)

And honestly, this doesn't really do it justice.

Paris, postponed.

We (sadly) decided not to go to Paris this weekend, as the five + hour drive was too long to do for such a short time. Instead, we're contemplating going when I have an October break (yeah, they don't do Thanksgiving here, so we get a week off in the end of October instead), or else at the end of the winter holidays, when my brother joins us in Europe.

However, just because we decided to postpone Paris does not mean we were content to doing nothing this weekend. So, my parents are going to Zurich early in the morning tomorrow, and then I'll meet them later in the day in Bern--so I get a chance to go to ballet, and get some homework done! So, we'll celebrate my dad's birthday in the capital.

Oh, I forgot to mention! You know how in the States, when it's someone's birthday, you'll bring them flowers or sweets or a cake or whatever? Well, here it's the opposite. Whoever is having their birthday brings something to share with everyone else. So, since tomorrow is Daddy's birthday, he brought in cinnamon rolls to share at work today. They were homemade, of course, because Europeans seem to not have discovered the wonder that is cinnamon. While they've mastered the use of chocolate, cream, and nuts, the plethora of pastries here is lacking one crucial element--cinnamon. So, us Americans have to start a new trend, haha.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

road trippin it

I will take a moment to apologize for the delay in posting. My mother has been so kind as to inform me that now so many people are reading my blog, it is imperative that I update every single day or else everyone will stop liking it.

OK, moment over.

I don't know what you guys did this weekend, but I didn't do very much. Oh, you know, just your average little road trip through three countries. No big deal or anything.

Actually, my weekend was pretty boss (in this context, boss would mean extremely cool, hella legit, or totally dope. It's a pretty important word... I suggest you start utilizing it. Unless, of course, you don't want to sound like a seventeen-year-old Californian. Your choice). My birthday was on Friday, and we'd been planning for a while to take a trip down to Lugano to visit my friend Alex who goes to Franklin College there. So, on Friday night, after a successful day of cupcakes, discount shopping, Indian food and pear and almond torte, we drove an hour to France to spend the night there. The next morning we headed out through the French Alps towards Lugano.
The drive through the mountains was spectacular. A cross between the Colorado Rockies and Yosemite, but about seven point five times more awe-inspiring, and with really cool highways suspended fifty meters in the air. We crossed into Italy and the landscape flattened, before rising once more into smaller, greener mountains.

We got to Lugano around 2pm, and while I hung out with my friend, my parents explored the town, which they found to be cute, charming, and extremely beautiful.
I spent the day with Alex and her college buddies, and we went out dancing to celebrate my birthday... such a fun day.

On Sunday, we drove back to Geneva via the Swiss Alps. We forwent the ridiculously backed-up traffic leading to the efficient--and boring--tunnel through the mountain, and instead spiraled up and around and over, watching as the Italian section of Switzerland spread out below us. It was pretty incredible. We moseyed through the German section oohing and awing and photo-taking respectively. As the gas in the tank dwindled, we wandered through darling Swiss German towns around the edge of an unknown lake, in pursuit of an illusive gas station. Once found, we bought cheese, salami for the omnivores, and fresh--as in still-warm-from-the-oven kind of fresh--bread at the little 7-11 type convenience store attached to the gas station. I've come to the conclusion that I'm eating far too much bread and cheese--and far too little whole grains and vegetables and all that nonsense--to be entirely healthy, but I think we all still feel like we're on some sort of extended vacation, which means we can eat whatever we want.
I mean, honestly, how many times in your life do you get to spend your weekend in Switzerland?

Pictures to come... my dad is extremely relaxed about uploading his photos. If you want, bug him about it. Haha.

Happy Tuesday!