Fine dining with friends

Last week, our friends Joe and Leslie visited us from New York. Though I had school, babysitting and ballet to keep me too busy to accompany my parents and our guests on most of their excursions, I did get to spend Saturday evening with them eating what was probably the best meal of my life. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Auberge de l'Onde that was in a small town near Vevey and had a Michelin star.

First off, I met everyone at the restaurant a little late because I was in Geneva watching my ballet school perform the little mermaid (I was supposed to be in the show too, but unfortunately I fell down the stairs a couple weeks before and sprained my ankle pretty badly. Don't worry, it's just about better now!). Anyways, I took the train to the tiny town the restaurant was in. As you go past Lausanne along Lake Geneva, the mountains get steeper and run right into the lake. So, the towns along the lake there are built practically vertically, reminiscent of the Amalfi Coast (we vacationed there in summer 2007, and it seemed like there were more stairs than sidewalks). The train station at St-Saphorin is practically built on the lake. When I got off the train, it was just past sunset; even though it was hazy, I was still pretty amazing. I'm continually awed by the beauty of this place, despite having lived here for ten months.





The restaurant was elegant and old and amazing. The meal was the best I've ever tasted in my life. Not kidding. And after having tasted food from a restaurant with only one Michelin star, I'm itching to experience a three Michelin star meal.

Gruyeres

A couple weekends ago, we took a day trip to Gruyeres... it's the place where they make cheese. Yeah, gruyere cheese. It's in a really beautiful valley about an hour drive from where we live. Down below is a factory that you can tour, with SO MUCH CHEESE.



I have never seen that much cheese in my life.

Then, up on a hill is the medieval town of Gruyeres. It's definitely a tourist town, but that doesn't stop it from being impressive.




It's a very well preserved and very cute medieval town centered around a castle that used to be the home of the counts of Gruyeres (that is, until they went broke in the 1500s).

While the weather was not the best (May weather in Switzerland is cold, wet, and gray), it was still a really interesting look into Swiss history and cheese making.
By the way, the French claim that they are the producers of gruyere cheese. Don't believe them; they don't have a town called Gruyeres.



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death by exams

It's that time of year.

No matter what country I live in, I can't escape the imminent doom of the AP exams. And while last year I had it easy with just one exam, I'm not quite so lucky this year.

I may have brought it upon myself when I signed up for four AP classes, but pure bad luck has all four of my exams scheduled in a row. Tuesday = Spanish, Wednesday = Calculus, Thursday = Literature, Friday = European History. The nice thing is that I'll be finished with my exams by Friday afternoon. It also doesn't give me very much time to panic. But the not so nice thing is that I have much less time to hunker down and study. Though looking at my current amount of excessive procrastination (ahem... I probably shouldn't be blogging right now... it has nothing to do with Spanish verb conjugations), more time to study might not actually result in more studying.

So, I'm getting ready to dive right in and do my best. After this week, I'll only have to go into school for Philosophy and French 1, so life will be a breeze. Many hours spent at the beach and pool is anticipated, as well as more time in the ballet studio. I just have to get through the next four days...

Good luck to everyone suffering through exams right now... I'll see you on the other side!

Playdough is a universal language

While I have been vaguely considering job hunting since we moved here, I never really put any effort into it until school and college apps calmed down. Now that that's happened (I only really have two more weeks of school before I don't have to go to any of my AP classes!!), I decided making some money might actually be a good idea.

However, the process for a non-citizen to get a job permit in Switzerland is apparently pretty nasty (think a combination of drivers' ed and wisdom teeth removal... or something equally unpleasant), not to mention lengthy. So I decided to turn to my fall back of babysitting, which doesn't require a permit.

Now, I kinda just assumed that babysitting in Switzerland wouldn't be different then babysitting in Menlo Park... kids are kids no matter where you go, right? What I didn't anticipate was that I might find myself babysitting a four year old who is fluent in French and Italian... and not English.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely made sure the mom knew that my French language skills are still minimal, but she didn't seem to care. And to tell the truth, it didn't actually make that much of a difference. The first ten minutes of having a hyperactive toddler yelling in Italian was a little disconcerting, but once he realized that I understood him much better in French, he calmed down and promptly gave me a tour of his house with in depth descriptions of everything.

I managed to get through the night surprisingly easily. He spoke mostly in French, and I used a combination of French, English and random gesturing (which he found pretty amusing). I'm actually really pleased to have this job, because I think it will be really helpful with improving my French!

And luckily for me, when my poor French just doesn't cut it, Playdough is a universal language.

♪♫ leaving on a jet plane ♪♫

Thanks to Iceland, about negative three percent of the planes that usually fly in and out of European airports are currently allowed to fly. I like Iceland, so no hard feelings, but this whole volcano thing is a tad irritating, not to mention devastating to the aviation industry (which has lost almost $1 billion).

Luckily, I haven't been directly impacted by the flight deadlock, but a lot of people around me are. My history teacher couldn't attend a conference in Britain over the weekend (a short, 2 hour flight), and my friend had to take a taxi back from Lugano (Seven hours!). And I know there are people all over the globe who are stranded.

Hopefully this mess of ash will clear up soon. I know some of the airspace above Europe is being opened again, despite the fact that the darn volcano is still erupting. And last time it erupted, it continued for around fifteen months... :/

Paris, je t'aime

While I did feel like an incredibly blatant third wheel, I still had a great time in Paris with my parents. I do believe, however, that one should never be allowed to be single in Paris. My parents were returning almost exactly 22 years after their honeymoon trip--talk about romantic--with one of the products of their marriage unromantically in tow. Being in the third wheel in the city of love was not ideal.

In the grand scheme of things, however, our Paris trip was amazing.


It did rain at least 60% of the time, but if you ask me, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I will take any excuse to spend another hour sitting in a Parisian patisserie, drinking café au lait and eating pain au chocolate. Plus, the rain gave us a chance to spend large chunks of time in the Musée d'Orsay (which I LOVED), the Louvre (which I didn't love quite as much. Sorry, but why is la Joconde such a big deal again?), and l'Opera Paris (in which I could hardly bring myself to take my classic arabesque picture because I felt so humbled by the idea of all the legendary ballet dancers who have danced there).


And when it wasn't raining, we managed to visit all those cliché tourist-y places--la Tour Eiffel, l'Arc de Triomphe, la Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame, and so on.


Now, however, there is the slight problem that I am utterly in love with that city. Fortunately, I live close enough that it's not too hard to get there. I've already got another trip planned for June :]

À bientôt!

...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!