The Big 3-0 in the Big Apple

Before moving to Europe, I always said I wanted to spend my 30th in New York. After our move, it seemed ridiculous to go all that way for a birthday, especially since we have lots of desirable destinations within reach. I started to think of other big cities, like... birthday in Berlin! Nothing had the same ring to it. So, when Ryan surprised me with this trip, I was ecstatic. He got lucky, really. He needs to be in New York for work the week before my birthday, so including me and extending his stay was a no-brainer.

We are now in the planning phase. We tend to have a "make every meal count" attitude while on vacation, so restaurant choices are first on our list. Second, we're headed to Broadway (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying). And third, shopping! My friend, Kim, introduced me to the wonderful world of sample sales, and for this, I am eternally grateful. We're travelling with Ryan's Swiss colleague, so these are certainly not our only plans (they're just the one's I'm most excited about). While Ryan and Rene are at work, I'll be hitting the streets... walking for hours, by myself, in a big city, might be my favorite thing ever (except for when I get lost).

Amazing food, a 1960's musical (I'm thinking Mad Men in concert), and new clothes - it's a birthday trifecta! Seriously, it doesn't get better.  Ryan has set the bar high... planning his 30th is going to be impossible (Berlin?).

P.S. - Here are a couple pictures from our last trip to NYC. It does not disappoint.

No Broken Nose

Apparently, even if your nose is broken, there's not much they can do. So, all they cared about was checking the front/top part of my mouth (think moustache area). I'm having trouble chewing... when my front teeth come together, it REALLY hurts. And sometimes, I can hear clicking noises in that front gum area. So, they checked it with their hands, made my eyes water a bunch of times, and then decided to x-ray it. The verdit - "no major fractures." I think that really means "no fractures," but even if I had little ones, the doctor said it wasn't something they'd be concerned about. The nose didn't seem to bother them... there's a bruise at the bridge (it wraps around, like a nose strip), and it's a little bit more swollen on one side, so I'm hoping that just goes back to normal (although, if you weren't analyzing the sides of my nose, you would think it was back to normal).

Every morning it feels better. As of this morning, I can touch my nose without pain (just not move it or press it - that still hurts), and my teeth feel less sensitive. I still have those high-pitched clicking noises, which are kind of weird, but overall it's WAY better than it was on Saturday night.

The hospital experience was interesting. I was hoping to just see my doctor, and have her tell me whether there was cause for concern. However, her office told me to go to the ER (here it's called SP - pronto soccorso). I shouldn't have gone. There was LOTS of sitting and waiting (I thought that might be different here, but it wasn't). It took me five hours in total. And they didn't take our insurance, so the x-ray had to be paid for upfront. Kind of a waste.

PS - Ryan has imposed a new rule. No more football tackles. He's been feeling horrible about the whole thing, and after the hospital visit, was very happy to learn he didn't "break my face" (his words). That makes two of us.

Float Trip on Ice!

ATTENTION AMERICANS: If you live near mountains, read on for how to have an amazing, fun night...

This last weekend, we were invited to a dinner on a mountain in a resort town just outside of Torino, Italy. One of my Italian friends told me the plan for the night which was: to meet a group of about 15 friends at the base of the mountain, rent sleds, ride snowmobiles to the top of the mountain, have dinner (and not a small amount of wine...), then ride the sleds down. This sounded like genius to me. Obviously, we were in.

Apparently, this type of dinner isn't uncommon here. My friend who told me about it has probably done it once a year for the past 8 years. So, as a veteran, he was a wealth of knowledge for us. It seems that the police allow this activity at the beginning of each ski season, but it is usually banned by January after someone is seriously injured or KILLED. Malinda was not interested in being injured or killed, so we decided to take it easy on the wine so we could have our senses keen while maneuvering the sled down the steep red run (red ski run in Europe = blue ski run in the US).

I don't really know what we were thinking when we dressed for this, but it is clear that we weren't thinking very hard. I knew we needed our ski jackets and pants. I just wore what I would wear to a dinner in Lugano: jeans and a button down dress shirt over a t-shirt. Malinda wore jeans and a pretty thin long sleeve shirt with a scarf. We put our ski pants over our jeans and wore our jackets. I decided to wear some waterproof shoes I have for walking around in snow and Malinda wore some leather boots with a super-slippery flat bottom. We did not wear hats, gloves, goggles, ski socks, or enough warm layers. This came back to bite us later...

We met up with everyone at the base of the mountain and noticed everyone basically looked like they were ready to actually go skiing. We were in our jeans and decided now was the time to put our ski pants on over the jeans. When we asked if we really needed gloves, the answer was ABSOLUTELY. We then ran to the nearby store that was still open and bought some gloves and Malinda borrowed an extra hat someone had. She also almost fell a dozen times in the 100 yard walk from where we parked to the store.

When we arrived to meet the snowmobiles there was already another large group going up. In fact, our group was so big that riding on the back of the 2 or 3 snowmobiles they had available was going to take too long, so instead we rode in a custom designed plywood room that was built on the back of one of the grooming tractors.

We made it to the restaurant, and were seated at a large table with some baskets of bread and several carafes of wine.

This fine looking group of people enjoyed a few glasses of wine and good company. Eventually, the songs began which involved finishing your glass of wine in one go.

Not long after this I was pelted in the head with a piece of bread rolled up in a ball from my neighbors on the far end of the table. This assault did not go unanswered. Wine continues to flow, chest bumps ensued, more bread throwing, more wine drinking...

By the time we left our 3 hour dinner (at around 1:00am I guess??), our table was in bad shape.

But we were feeling great and quite confident in our sled control abilities. Half of our group took off down the mountain and to this day, I don't think anyone knows what happened to them. We were with the remaining half (the ones that we really knew well anyway), and we started getting ready to go down when the owner of the restaurant came out to tell us not to use the flashlights we brought because the drivers of the grooming tractors have been told to call the police on people coming down on sleds (side note: skis and snowboards are fine, sleds-no). That made it a little more interesting since the only light we would have would be the moon.

Luckily liquid courage surged to the rescue. So we began. Sledding down was amazing. Malinda and I had a two person which is a piece of plastic about 1 millimeter thick. Ours also came with holes in the bottom which was nice. Malinda rode in the front and tied the rope that you are supposed to hold onto around her leg to keep the sled from shooting off the mountain if we fell. I rode in the back and manned the "brakes." The "brakes" are metal rods on either side of you that you pull up like a lever to grab the snow to "slow you down." I'm not too sure about the physics in the front of the sled, but somehow the faster we went the more snowy powder shot all over Malinda which was hilarious to me. Believe it or not, a piece of plastic with two adults on it can go pretty fast down a mountain covered in snow and ice. Also, super-slippery leather boots do not provide much "braking power."

The plan was to stop when possible to recoup and sample the local liqueur, Genepy. We arrived second at the first stop and decided we should honor the winners with an olympic style ceremony and allow our friends to sing their national anthem.

Then the Genepy...

Then the wrestling...

And that's where our story takes a sad turn. The exact thought process of my next move escapes me now, but for some reason I decided that our Italian friends should see what an American football tackle looks like. I decided that since Malinda was American, it only made sense for her to be on the receiving end of this tackle. She was game and stood clear of everyone. I playfully jogged up to her and lowered my shoulder preparing to wrap her up around the waist and fall with her gently into the snow. She zigged and I zagged, and next thing you know I feel my knee hit her in what feels like her nose.

Sure enough, she felt it too.

There was no blood, but she asked me at least 5 times to feel her teeth and make sure they weren't loose which I am happy to report they were not. However, I wouldn't be surprised if her nose is broken and we will probably find out tomorrow if that is the case. It's still pretty sore for her today and very sensitive to the touch.

So after my husband-of-the-year move we still had a blast making our way down the rest of the mountain. We really were in control, but our friends were not. Every once in a while I could peak through the snow storm Malinda was making in front of us, and I would just see bodies tumbling and clouds of snow shooting up. I was really laughing 90% of the time we were sledding.

We had a blast (despite the potentially broken nose). Thanks to all our Italian friends for the invitation!

We're Kinecting!

We bought an Xbox Kinect over Christmas. Let me back up... when Ryan talked about wanting one months ago, I didn't see the point. While this may offend our friend Jeremiah, I thought the idea of reigniting a childhood video game habit, at 29, was ridiculous. Even though, I have to say that I FULLY enjoyed my role as lead singer of Ryan and his roommates' Rock Band band. So Ryan would bring that up, something like, "but you loved Rock Band!" We have two friends that come over on a semi-regular basis. With other company, we're still on our best behavior, so pulling out the fake drumset would probably be crazy. There's no point to Rock Band in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, over Christmas, we decided we would join a gym once we got back to Lugano. Even though I had doubts about whether I'd feel like going, when I didn't even have the motivation to run around one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, that just so happens to be right outside our front door.

Cut to us hanging out with Ryan's Mom's family over Christmas. His cousin brings her new Wii dancing game, we all have a great time, and I LOVE it (and I'm not even a dancing girl). Ryan thinks this is a great reason to go shopping immediately. Justification? They have workout games, and that means we can forget about the gym membership.

It worked. We went shopping for game consoles the VERY next day. At that point, I was all for it. Mostly because it's what Ryan wanted anyway, and I figured the gym membership would be a waste of money. What I didn't expect was, after the Best Buy employee showed me demos of Kinect games, I would be the most excited of the two of us. I was telling Ryan all about the better graphics, and how the variety of games would catch up, and blah blah blah - I WANTED A KINECT! Total role reversal.

Now, to the actual point of the story , we are actually using this thing as a workout tool. It's amazing. I've done home exercise DVD's in the past, and this is 100x better. It requires no controllers. There's a camera (or something) that actually sees your whole body, and can tell you when you're doing something wrong. So, this is not like home workout DVD's, this is like actually having a personal trainer. It tells you to take wider steps, keep your arms steady, etc. After making the corrections, you actually feel the difference, so you can tell that the move is working - that you're doing it right.

Although sometimes, it really freaks me out. The first time I did it by myself, I left halfway through an exercise to go get water. I'm in the kitchen, and I hear, "where did you go?" And tonight's comment was the worst. I'm logged in as me (it keeps track of your goals, has exercises geared towards men or women specifically, gives you harder games once you've completed easier ones, etc - so it pays off to stay within your profile), and at one point, in the middle of an exercise, the thing says, "don't over analyze it." DON'T OVER ANALYZE IT?!? First of all, I am the queen of over analyzing it, and second of all, how is this camera reading my mind??? I can guarantee that line NEVER gets activated if you're logged in as a man.

Here's a screenshot of Ryan doing his exercises. The "trainer" is the guy on the left, and Ryan's silhouette is on the right, so he can actually see the mirror image of what he's doing. SO helpful. The information in the top right corner tells you what exercise you're on, how many reps to do, and if you're fulfilling that exercise's main goals. You can see that Ryan is taking the required narrow stance (because the green circle is filled in), but is not properly moving his back. The box near his feet shows that he's in rhythm. This status changes if you're not keeping up. There's a time clock in the top left corner.

This thing is THE COOLEST. Hopefully, in a few weeks, we'll see some results. It's become our evening ritual. Ryan watches me and makes me laugh (which sometimes I don't appreciate - it messes with my score). Then when it's his turn, I take pictures of the screen... I think we're even.

Ski Weekend in San Bernardino

I was going to do a post about our Christmas break, but it's kind of ridiculous... we're halfway through February. It was an amazing trip, though. We were stateside for a little over two weeks, which is a luxury, and allowed us to spend time in New Orleans, Memphis, and Poplar Bluff (with Ryan's grandparents). The trip was especially nice for Ryan, since it had been a whole year since he'd been home. One year is WAY too long.

Moving on... we got to spend a ski weekend in San Bernardino with our friends Sarah and Tom, and it was AMAZING! The major differences I see in the Swiss resorts, as compared to the ones in the US, are as follows:
- T-bars. I don't like them but Switzerland does.
- Wide (we're talking football field wide) runs, all above the tree line, like nothing I've ever seen in the States.
- No real green runs. They have a bunny slope, and then it's straight to blues (which they say are like our greens, but they're more like blues to me).
- Runs are not as clearly marked. Also, no big, orange "slow" zones... you just have to use common sense.
- No employee assisted line management for lifts - every man for himself.

Ryan surprised us on the train with champagne, complete with plastic glasses, to celebrate the end of my exams (how sweet is that?). It was a perfect start to the weekend.


Here we are on the slopes.



The lift picture... a ski trip staple.


Here are some pictures FROM the lift.














Here's an example of those WIDE runs I was talking about.


The weather was PERFECT. Full sun. Blue skies. And yet the snow was powder - no slush, no ice. You couldn't ask for better conditions. And look at this view! This was at the start of a red run. We were blown away - it was beyond beautiful.


The town was really tiny, but very cute.



















We had a little apres-ski, and then went out for fondue, before we all crawled to our rooms, completely exhausted.















All in all we got in two full days of skiing, and headed back after the slopes closed on Sunday. With only two hours of travel time, this was the perfect weekend vacation. I hope we get to go back!

Pollution Problem

We've had a pollution problem lately. There have been warnings about spending time outside. The speed limit on the highway has been dropped down to 80 kph in hopes that the pollution levels will go down (but it hasn't worked). Today is the first day we've had rain since we got back from Christmas... hence the pollution post. The lack of rain has added to the problem, so wet weather is something people around here have wanted for a while. Hopefully, it washes away some of the gunk.

The haze has gotten so bad that you can't see the lake, much less the mountains across the lake. It just looks like one giant, grey void.

Here's what the weather was like when we got back from Christmas.













This was about a week ago.












And this is today.














It's weird to me that I've never heard of these issues living in the US. Obviously I was aware of pollution concerns, but we were never required to take steps to reduce it, meaning restricting the hours you can drive (Milan does that) or lower speed limits. People here tell me it's just the way the land is, the pollution gets trapped, and not a lot of rain intensifies that problem. But it's still confusing to me. This is the most beautiful place I've ever lived - mountains, lots of green space, lakes... seems healthy. Plus, not everybody drives in Europe. Public transportation is huge here, and lots of people just walk or ride bikes. I don't get it.

Either way, after today's rain, hopefully we'll see a different picture.

Valentine's Day

We're not really doing anything to celebrate. I found that when our lives were busier, I took any excuse (Valentine's included) to grab some alone time. But now, it's almost always alone time. We do stuff with other people, but our lives are so much slower than they were 2 years ago - which has been AMAZING. So, this year we don't need it. We made gumbo last night, we're going to polish that off, and open a bottle of wine. I just confirmed that neither of us bought presents or cards (it was a negative on both sides), so no one's showing anybody up. Perfect.

I realize I've missed a lot lately... our trip to Zurich, Christmas, our ski trip last weekend. This might catch you up.

Zurich is by far, hands down, my favorite city. Here are a few pictures from our quick trip before Christmas. There were lots of long walks in the snow, weighed down by shopping bags, and I loved every minute of it.




There was Christmas music on every other street corner. Each block brought a new surprise, and at one point, Ryan screamed, "now there are kids in a tree!" There were. Kids singing in a Christmas tree. Magic.














They had Christmas market stalls, both outside and inside the train station, alongside a gigantic, crystal tree.












When we got cold, we stopped for Gluehwein.



We went to a FANTASTIC restaurant - really REALLY good. It was an old glass warehouse.













We had champagne with flowers in it. I love champagne and flowers, so that was great.



Ryan tried a "picture in the hotel mirror." He thinks he's cool (he is, actually).



On our last day, we had my favorite zurich meal...bratwurst, spicy mustard, and a crusty roll from the stand on Bellevue.



And we got to ride in an old-time trolly. I guess they brought them out for Christmas. They were wooden, manned by a uniformed driver, who actually got out and announced each stop.


















It was just a perfect way to spend a Christmas weekend... lots of snow, cobblestone streets strung with thousands of hanging lights, bags in each hand, with carols in the background. I'm going to miss this.


I'll write about Christmas and our ski weekend later. While we aren't going all (Valentine's) out this year, I'm pretty sure staying on the computer isn't part of the plans.

I Love My Mom

For no specific reason. Certainly not because it's her birthday. It's just a regular day, and I think she's great.

Sweet Relief

There is no possible way that I can verbalize the weight that has been lifted... I - AM FINISHED - WITH EXAMS. Only someone who has been confined to a couch, force feeding herself obscene amounts of information, could really know how good freedom tastes at this moment. It's pretty darn sweet.

Now, I'm going to take a nap.

IT'S WAR!!! No wait, it's just a test.

About an hour ago, MAJOR sirens went off in my neighborhood. I could tell it was city wide... I went out on the balcony, and could hear echos from other areas. I was "alarmed" at first, but no one seemed to be panicking. I checked the all-knowing Google, and apparently Switzerland tests their war sirens every year. War sirens - in case there's a war! It went so far as to say that they do this on the first wednesday in February, around 1:30. That's exactly when I heard them, so it looks like Google's right.

Did you know that it's compulsory for all Swiss men to serve in the military? And, each man, upon completion of this service, is outfitted with a loaded weapon. And, according to Ryan's Swiss boss, there are bombs laid under certain roads, to be detonated in case of an attack (so as to block entrants). And, each apartment building has a basement level bomb shelter.

So, think twice about attacking us, okay? We're pretty ready.