sajawata

Sunday was my turn to cook family dinner at Fadmar’s so I cooked chicken pie. Unfortunately I didn’t realize French stoves were so different from American ones so I burned the paint right off the stove covering. Ooooops. Fadmar was really nice about it. We celebrated Austrian Eva’s last night in Switzerland, she’s moving to Nepal to teach English to Buddhist monks. Really going to miss her but admire her sense of adventure! A few weeks later we celebrated Fadmar’s 30th birthday in true Austrian style. They even had a separate room at the party for sausages. There are about 10 or so Austrain guys that are all super-genius physicists working for CERN and for some reason they are highly amsued by the au-pair girls. Its always fun.

Have found excellent trail system behind my house that takes you in any number of directions. Am determined to explore as much as possible, also to try and counteract the 15 pounds I have put on since moving to the land of cheese and chocolate.

Went back to the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne with German Sara to see the Edward Steichen exhibit. Such an amazing photographer. That night we celebrated Dutch Pete’s 30th birthday. Went to a Brazilian steak house for dinner. Started with giant salad and grilled veggies followed by a 14 course parade of meats, including the more popular beef fillets and lamb but also the chicken hearts and the horse meat. Was a very fun night and I never need to eat again.

The next day a few of us headed to Les Diablerets for some very wet skiing. Fun sunny day. Is fantastic the way so many of the pistes are linked to each other. You can ski all day and never ski the same run twice. We started at Les Diablerets and were following the snow and before long everything started looking very familiar, we were at Villars, where I skied a day at the beginning of the season.

Dan invited me to his French friend Jessica’s house for dinner one night to work on the language thing. Was fantastic evening. She cooked the most amazing French dinner: mushrooms stuffed with chorizo and courgettes, potatoes and beans with bacon, delicious pork, and strawberry tirimasu. I love to eat.

The next Saturday there was a chocolate festival in Versoix, a village just north of Geneva. Took a tour of the Fabarger factory and saw how they make all those little pieces of heavenly goodness. Free samples of every type of chocolate imaginable meant we tasted choc fondue, the greatest brownie ever, white choc, choc with every possible combimation: nuts, fruit, chili, spirits, mustard (not a fan), Earl Grey tea, you name it, it was at this festival…..

That night rode my voie 7 pass (Free trains anywhere in Switzerland after 7pm, yay for free stuff!!) to Basel and crashed in a really nice hostel. Too bad this really nice hostel turned out to have bed bugs. Not such a pleasant experience. The next morning walked around the town, saw the Tinguely sculptures in the the water park, the cathedrals, the usual sightseeing stuff. Then headed just over the German border to the Vitra Design Museum to see some architecture. Also to the Beyeler Fondation which is a very nice modern art museum. Had fun walking around the German countryside for a few hours.

Last Friday I woke up to tremendous amounts of snow YIPEEEE!!!! Caught the train to Verbier and met up with some friends, hit the slopes and skied until our legs gave out. Saturday there was so much snow and so few people not to mention blue skies, it was probably the best skiing I’ve ever experienced. Sunday morning was fantastic although the weather cut our day short in the afternoon. Really enjoyed skiing with Dani’s friends visiting from Minnesota, one in particular who I’m hoping will come back to visit this summer. Sunday we all headed back home and went to this fantastic pizza joint in Nyon then Monday I was lucky enough to get the day off work so we all went to the Red Cross Museum in Geneva and then laid around Dani’s place all day watching movies and being lazy. Good times.