The CanadianSwiss Blog

Dale R.I.P. - July 24, 1992 to June 4, 2010

2010-06-06T13:49:00.007+02:00

Dale passed away quietly on Friday morning. He has been part of my life for close to 18 years. No need to say that I will miss him dearly.

I remember going to pick him and his sister, Chip, out. He was the eldest of a litter of four. The first time I saw him, his eyes were not open, yet, but I immediately fell in love with this kitten. Two weeks later when we went to see the kittens again, his eyes were open and I saw two shiny green beads staring at me. He came straight to me and meowed at me with his tiny voice. I picked him up and he fell asleep in my hands. His ears were still round shaped so that he looked like a little black bear. I was hooked. I knew he was going to be my cat.

Chip left us first in 2004 at the age of 12, shortly after our move to Reinach. Dale had always been the strong, healthy one, but a couple of years ago, I noticed that his coat was getting felted and he was often quite agressive. We brought him to the vets to get him combed (Dale would NOT let us comb him) and have him checked. As a matter of fact, Dr. Buser (our vet) had to sedate him in order to groom him. That's when we found out that Dale suffered a) from spondilytis and b) of hyperthyroidism which, at that age, is often linked with kidney problems. Both conditions could however be kept under control with the help of medication.

In the past few months, his hind leg muscles started to deteriorate faster and he seemed to have more pain, so we increased his pain killers. As of last week, he could no longer jump on the sofa or on the bed, and was eating less and less, thus not taking in much of his medication. Last Wednesday when I came home from work, Dale came to greet me, meowing as ususal, but then as he walked towards me, his hind legs failed twice on a distance of about 15 feet. I knew that was it, so I called Dr. Buser on Thursday and got an appointment for the Friday morning.

I decided to spend my last night sleepingon on the couch to be closer to him. In the morning, I fed him, but he wasn't really hungry. He went outside any layed in the sun, soaking up the warm rays. When the time came, my good friend Diana picked us up and drove us to Dr. Buser. I'm so glad that she was able to come with me and stand by my side while I said my goodbyes to Dale as he fell asleep. Thank you so much, Di! I really appreciate it.

In a way, I'm glad it happened this way. Now, I can concentrate on my return to Canada and don't have to worry about Dale's condition. It was already clear that it was not an option to take him with me to Canada or for O-X to take him to Holland. He would not have survived the stress.

Now he's in kitty heaven with his sister Chip, TBFs King, Hélène's Merlin and is most likely chasing whatever cats chase up there. He was more than just a cat to me; he was my soul mate. I really, really miss him.

How do you mend a broken heart?

2010-03-07T15:04:00.011+01:00

I've been wanting to make this announcement a few weeks ago already, but I was still too confused, angry and hurt. It would have been a very ugly post.

I hope you're sitting.

*Taking a very deep breath* Orange-X and I are splitting up. Yes, you read that correctly.

Although we've never mentioned it on the blog, we have been going through a roller coaster these past few years. Me leaving my job in 2006, the burn out following that, not being totally happy in my new job, our return to Canada being postponed because of O-X's ex-wife being diagnosed with terminal cancer and his daughter still having to finish her studies, etc. However, I truly had the feeling that things had improved a lot in the past 6-9 months in 2009. But then, I was really sure that all was going to be okay when O-X went through all that trouble with the video and asked me to marry him.

I was obviously wrong. Six weeks after the proposal, he announced that he was leaving me. I was shocked. I can't understand it. Still not. It's very difficult for me to post this news and I am still shattered after four weeks of knowing that he has taken this decision, but I'm slowly picking myself up again.

I've booked myself a flight to Canada and will be spending two weeks during the Easter break with my family and friends. I'll also be looking at job opportunities there, and hopefully can go back before the end of the year and start a new life there.

In the meantime, we are still sharing the apartment until I return from Canada and know more. No use in me taking a new apartment here for a few months only. I'd have to buy a whole lot of stuff, not to mention electric appliances that would be useless in North America. It's not always easy, but O-X tries to go to Holland every second weekend, so that we are not too much in each other's way.

These past four weeks have been hell. I still don't know what hit me, but I'll get through it. I have to focus on my future and look after myself, now. Easier said than done, but I'll manage.... Right?

The most fabulous Christmas EVAH!

2009-12-25T16:00:00.007+01:00

This was the most fabulous Christmas! Not only do we have Ma here with us during the Holidays Season, but last night, short before midnight, I was speechless and THAT does not happen often.

After a late dinner, we started unwrapping the Christmas presents. At some point, Orange-X gives me what looks like a CD. I unwrapped it and found a blank looking recordable DVD with OX's hadwriting "Play this video".

I was really wondering what mysterious message this DVD would reveal, but I was about to find out. I started the said DVD and within a few seconds, Orange X appeared on our 42" screen, greeted me and told me to follow his instructions. So there I am, sitting on our sofa with Ma on my left and OX on my right (and on our TV, of course). I was to pick a red cubic parcel with golden deco from underneath the tree, pause the DVD and open it. I did as I was told. Huh?? A box of tissues?? O-oh. I was obviously being prepared to catch some happy tears, but why?

I re-started the video and my next instruction was to get a parcel of the same size and then pause the DVD again. This time I had to pick it from the cupboard to the left of our TV set, bottom left door, please. The box was the same size and shape, only it was wrapped in blue and gold. I started unwrapping the gift and pressed play again. What... Another box of tissues?? No wait. I had to look IN the box of tissues. Ahhhh!

I opened one of the of sides of the tissue box and found a small box inside. By then, my heart was pounding out of my chest. My hands were shaking, but a managed to get the wrapping off and this is what was in the small box:

Then, in a soft voice, he said: "Will you marry me?" Well, let's just say that between the excitement, the tears of joy, my reply didn't sound much like a Yes, but it definitely was!

If THAT wasn't a perfect Chrismas?? BTW, it was a good thing that I had so many tissues at hand :)

Orange-X, Dale and I wish you Happy Holidays and send you our best wishes of good health, happiness and sucess for the new decade!

Catching up - In a Nutshell

2009-12-13T15:00:00.008+01:00

I don't really remember the last time I put up a post, and can't really say why I haven't. I mean, it's not that nothing happened since July 2009.

Looking back, I must admit that the whole year was very hectic and when we did have a break/a weekend with no plans, we used the time for us. Sounds a bit selfish, but we needed it. I have however been following your blogs, eventhough the comments were sometimes sparse.

So let me pick up where we left off. We left for Canada two days after Pa's incineration, which means that the service was held on the Friday, we drove back to Basel on the Saturday and flew from Zürich on the Sunday.

We had a fantastic time there with family and friends. A few highlights in Canada there were:

a lovely evening with Christine (my ex-sister in law), Bernard and my adorable niece, Camille,
an unforgetable evening at Roxane and François',
some golf for Orange-X,
our family (mother's side) Summer Christmas Party held at Rachel's,
a day in Ottawa and meeting up with blogger Jay from "Kill the Goat"
Orange-X's short tour of the ER of our local hospital,
dinner with Christiane, Robert, Sonya and Christian
a day at lake Craig with a bunch of close friends

I'll have to do individual posts about all of the above - if I ever get to it, that is, but I'm hoping that O-X will help a bit.

Anyhow... Canada was not the only activity we had this year! We drove to Amsterdam a few times and took Ma back with us to Basel twice, we both quit smoking (yes, you read that right!), bought new bikes, we organized a grill party to thank O-X's work colleagues for good results is the first half year, Orange-X spent a weekend in hospital in following an allergy to antibiotics (this one really worth a post of its own as it all started in Canada!), had O'x's daugthter and her Mom over for a weekend in Basel, bought an elliptical trainer and spent last weekend with Pinki and Andrea in Bad Fischau/Wiener-Neustadt, Austria. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, too.

This week, I've been stuck at home with the flu and I'm finally starting to feel better. It's about time! BTW, I'm not adding any pictures to this entry, because it would simply be too much and probably confusing, too.

For my dad...

2009-07-25T19:36:00.003+02:00

I'd like to thank you all for the expression of your sympathies in every way possible in the past week. You have reached CS and me through e-mail, a short note on Facebook, personal and also via the blog and it helped us to stand strong at my father's funeral. Your energy has contributed to write and speak the eulogy at the moment of the final goodbye.

This one is for my dad. Thank you dad, for all you have done! We'll meet again some day and catch up on lost times.

Eulogy for my dad:
My father Robert, to many known as „Bob“, was born on the 21st of March 1932 in Bandung, Indonesia. He grew up in Indonesia and during World War II he spent a long time in a Japanese POW camp. When he was 16 years old he made his first long journey, travelling from Indonesia to Holland, where he lived all of his life.

Sunday, 19th of July 2009 he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. During the preparations for the funeral the question was asked, who would speak in his memory. I stand here before you and I’d like to inform you that this speech can take some time. We have reserved the auditorium for the coming three hours, so I suggest you sit back and relax. No, just kidding, it has absolutely not been easy to find the right words. What can you say about a man who never wanted to be the centre of attention? What words do you use when your father has always stayed in the background? Pa definitely hated being the in the centre so I’ll keep it short.

Whenever we had a party, Pa was the one to sit in a quiet corner where he could see everything, hardly talked to the people and enjoyed all of it in his own way. We often asked him whether he enjoyed the party and he always answered: “Oh yes, I’m having a great time”. He was the one to sit around quietly without speaking much.

Pa was a man who always worried about his family. His family was his first, and it appeared to be, his only priority. His family meant everything to him and for his family he would do everything possible within his powers. That wasn’t always easy as he also was a proud man who’d rather not accept the help of other people. He struggled he way though life, always took care of his family and supported his children in everything they did. Even though he didn’t agree with everything.

In spite of his quiet character he was a very emotional person. In the earlier days we haven’t seen that often, but the older he grew, the more his emotional character took over. An occasion where the emotional character really showed was directly after he retired. His former colleagues had organised an surprise dinner. For my dad something totally unexpected and that was one of the moments you good clearly see how emotional he really was. The silent man with the big emotions...

Other times my dad and I talked about the future. Now you may wonder: what future? Actually we then discussed the moment he wouldn’t be with us anymore. He told me he that he had arranged for ma to be left behind without worries. A talk like that always ended with tears and once more he showed how important his family was to him, and his emotions showed again.

In the last years of his life pa suffered from a chronic pulmonary disease from which we knew he wouldn’t recover. His illness often limited him in his mobility, so ma often went out alone to just go for a walk or some shopping. At a certain moment we proposed to dad to rent a wheelchair or get one organised. Then again his pride showed as he thought it was absolutely not necessary to sit in a wheelchair. We used a bit of force and emotional black mail and we then were able to persuade him. After that moment it didn’t take long for him to find out it was actually very convenient to be driven around. We have lived through funny moments with pa and his wheelchairs. There were times we had to laugh so much that we laughed tears.

From now on we will laugh when we memorise, but we’ll do that without him.We have to let dad go for his last long journey. A journey in which he will not leave his footsteps anymore. Those footsteps are in our thoughts and in our hearts. On 19th of July he deceased and slipped away from us the way he lived his life: Quietly and without words…

Farewell Pa - March 21 1932 - July 19 2009

2009-07-22T22:00:00.001+02:00

Our dearest Pa (aka "Bob"), Ox's Dad passed away last Sunday, July 19, 20:35hrs, CEST (Central European Summer Time).

Pa was a very quiet man who preferred to sit "behind the scene" and enjoy, more than to be the center of attraction. Many didn't understand it, but he truly had a good time. His family always had utmost priority. ALWAYS.

We got a call from Harry, OX's brother-in-law, at about 9.45am on Sunday telling us that he was on his way to Pa & Ma's, because Pa was not feeling well. Like two other of his late brothers, he had been suffering of emphysemea for a few years already, but all was under control and stable.

The doctor came over and shortly after, he called an ambulance and Pa was taken to the hospital and put directly in the ICU. By 11.30am, we knew it was critical, so we booked flights to A'dam and arranged for Dale to be taken care of. We made it in time to see him, and although he was heavily sedated and sleeping, we knew that he knew that we were by his side. He was released to "freedom" at 20.30 pm the same day. Best of all - if there is such a thing in this case - was that he let go while his family (Ma, Orange-X & Bren, Harry and I) were by his side. He passed away silently and without pain, just as he had lived his life. I thank the Gods for having had that chance - to really say goodbye and accompany someone you love to the other side.

It's been a rough week for both of us, and I hope you'll forgive me for posting this so late.

Finally, he can rest in peace. He will be dearly missed. We love you, Pa.

PS: I also want to thank Mr & Mrs. TBF for taking care* of Dale during these difficult times, but also for the cat sitting during our holidays in Canada.

*Knowing how much he'll be spoiled, I hope he'll want to come back to us!

Three months flying by...and one more week to go!

2009-04-24T19:33:00.004+02:00

Why exactly three months flying by? Let me tell you. I am a criminal. I have broken the law and for two years I'll have a criminal record. I confess, I plead guilty as charged! If I break the law again I'll be in serious trouble! I might even end up in jail. So what did I do to become a criminal?? In Switzerland it's easy. You take your car, drive a provincial road, miss out on the sign indicating the maximum speed and drive a bit faster than the assumed maximum speed limit. That was not a good plan. I drove that particular provincial road, assumed the maximum speed was 100 km/h as it was two lanes in both directions and added "a safe over the limit number of km/h". Wrong! Absolutely wrong.

I got my picture taking with a bright red flash and knew I was too fast. At that time, I didn't know how much too fast. That is, until the official letter of the police was handed over by the receptionist at the office with the words: "I thought I'd give it to you personally." I took the letter out of the envelope and my heart skipped a few beats. The "alledgedly" 100 km/h provincial road was an 80 km/h road and the "safe over the limit number of km/h" was way out of range. Ooops!

Okay, the damage was done, so there was no other alternative than to wait for the call of the police with the kind invitation to the companie's Director to come by the police station to identify the driver. What the police didn't know at that time was the companies Director and the person to be identified were one and the same person. Namely ME!

I got the call, went to the police station for the identification of the driver (myself!), and every scenario I played in my head was scattered into small pieces once I got the photo in which I had to identify the driver. My God, the picture was so darn clear that I could have used it for my passport. Okay Mr. Policeman, guilty as charged. I had to answer a three page questionnaire to indicate income, fixed monthly cost and variable cost. The sum of all would be the basis for the calculation of the fine. Ouch!

The kind officer at the desk informed me that the punishment for the serious violation of traffic rules in this case would lead to a minimum of three months loss of my drivers license and an unknown fine. The fine would be calculated based on the monthly income. The only thing I thought at the moment of filling out the questionnaire was: " Is there anything else I can list as fixed cost to get my income down?" I couldn't think of anthing else anymore, signed the statement of "truth and honesty", and could only hope for the best.

A few months later,the court verdict came by registered mail. I took the verdict out (five pages, 5 darn pages) and started reading. What a relief!! No mention of losing my drivers license. "Just" a fine of the price of two suits, shirts and ties of my favorite brand and a probation of two years with the possibility of going to jail for at least five days, pay another amount of money at the price of four suits, shirts and ties of my favorite brand. I was relieved. Feeling like a winner, I called my boss with the "good" news.

The feeling didn't last long. Two days later, I received the letter from the police with measures taken to punish me a bit more for this traffic violation. I was summoned to send in my drivers license for a period of three whole months. OMG! Being without my license for three months could be a threat to the continuation of my job. Luckily, my boss took it quite well. We set up a three month schedule for customer visits, defined who in the company would drive me to visit customers, and how I would get to the office and back home every day. It all worked out well and let me tell you, I could used to being driven around all the time! Now I have one more week left. Beginning of May, I get my drivers license back,and yes, I'm starting to itch. It will be quite strange to get into the car on the drivers side again... So, I planned on having two days in the home office on the 4th and the 5th of May to make sure I don't miss the postman when my drivers license comes back via registered mail.

There has been a good side to the whole thing:
- I got to the office early every morning. Pick up at 07.15 hrs by Manuel (Thank you Manuel!)
- I got home around 17.30 hrs every day I worked from the office. Driver: again Manuel (once more many thanks Manuel!)
- As I got home early anyway,I walked (yes, I walked) to the small shopping center in our village to do the groceries. About one hour of "outdoor activity"
- I enjoyed this daily "break" before continuing my work from home
- I will continue working this way as it is very relaxing
- CS took over all the driving during weekends, our holidays in Austria and our last trip to Holland, which was quite relaxing for me!

One more week to go and I'll be fully independent again. Even though this kind of independance is relative and the three months passed by in a rush, I am looking forward to driving my new car myself again. Hey, I only had it for two months beforeI had to send in my license. Can you blame me?

Cat's rule

2009-04-05T10:21:00.002+02:00

Turn up the volume and enjoy. That is all.

Love,
Dale

Heut' ist so ein schöner Tag - Flachau, Austria

2009-03-29T11:41:00.016+02:00

We're back from a wonderful week of fresh mountain air, breathtaking landscapes, snowboarding and much, much fun. Except for one day of heavy snow and cloudy skies, the weather was brilliant and the snow conditions were very good.

We stayed at Crystls Aparthotel: Appartments with the services of a hotel. We loved it there and the team of three lovely young ladies made sure we had everything we needed. The breakfast buffet offered a wide variety of local products such as homemade marmelades, local cheeses and cold cuts, 5-6 different breads, eggs - from a nearby farm, I presume -, bacon (ooohhhh, the bacon was delicious!!), yoghurts, cereals, fresh fruit, etc. The location is fantastic: it's about 200 meters from the next ski-lift, most restaurants and bars are within 5 to max. 10 minutes walk and it overlooks the centre of the adorable village of Flachau.

After fuelling up with a few portions of pretty much everything of the above, we made our way to the practise slopes. After a very bad case of the flu in February, another two hours of lessons and a few bruises, I finally picked-up where I left off, and learned to cut short curves and come down the slope in an acceptable manner, which I'm really proud of. Here's a view from the Griessen Kareck peak.

Orange-X, however, has had more practise than I have and has gotten pretty good at snowboarding. After a few runs, I would go warm myself up with a hot chocolate (with rhum) at the Dampfkessel and O-X would take a run down the real slopes. He took a couple of pretty amazing falls, but always came back in one piece.

The Dampfkessel was our absolute favourite après-ski place. The service is friendly and fun, the meals are simple, but very good, the portions large and you can be sure to find the right thing to hit the spot. After 3.30 pm, the Dampfkessel starts really filling up, the drinks flow and the fun really starts. We found it entertaining just to watch the people around us.

Then it was off to the appartment for a nice hot shower and deciding which of the many restaurants we would have dinner at. Our favourite was definitely the Hoagascht, but the Schusterhäuserl and the Per Du were both close seconds. The Schusterhäuserl (Shoemaker's little house) has served an established local Flachau family of cobblers for generations as a residence and workshop. The workshop was on the ground floor and the living quarters on the first floor. This almost 400 year old house and workshop has now been transformed into an adorable steak house. The dining rooms are tastefully decorated, the light yellow table cloths mix well with the old dark wood and give it a really warm and cozy atmosphere and many of the old original cobbler's tools are displayed. The service is friendly and warm and the steaks are delicious.

I would also definitely suggest the Per Du. Very cosy, friendly service and excellent food. Am I repeating myself, or what? To be perfectly honest, if there is one European country (that I've visited regularly) where hospitality can be written in capital letters, it's Austria. Seldom have I felt as warm a welcome in any restaurant/bar/mountain hut as in Austria, no matter whether it's in Salzburg, Vienna or any small village. Sorry, Switzerland, but you can't match that. And where you do, it's often because of the service personel you hire from the neighbouring countries, or because you're a restaurant/hotel/bar that hardly anybody can afford. (Did I just say that??). I keep getting the feeling that Austrians are just happy to be and are willing to share their good mood and love of life. I hear that the Balkan and Eastern European countries are also like that. Must go there, too.

We didn't take as many pictures as we had planned to, but we did bring back something - besides a few delicious schnaps, that is. I usually don't like this kind of music unless I hear it in the appropriate environment, but to be honest, it truly sums up the feeling we had every - single - day of our stay in Flachau. The lyrics are in Austrian dialect, but basically shows (my view of) the Austrian day to day attitude towards life:

I like to lie in the grass

And look up to the sky

(you lazy pig - not sung)

Don't the clouds have funny shapes?

(Looks more like rain clouds to me - not sung)

And an aiplane flies by

and I wave at it

Hello airplane

And if you're also with me

Then I feel great

(I'm so happy for you - not sung)

And I fly, fly fly like an airplane and

I 'm as strong, strong strong as a tiger,

and as tall, tall, tall as a giraffe, so high.

O-o-oh

And I'l jump, jump, jump,

Again and again

And I swim, swim, swim,

Over to you

and I take, take, take you by the hand

'Cause I like you

And I say:

It's such a beautiful day

La-la-la-la-la

(repeat)

It truly was one of our best winter vacations and we're planning to go back again next year.

So for you all, here it is, our happy song: Heut' ist so ein schöner Tag [in Austrian: Heid is so a schener Tag] (Engl.: Today's such a beautiful day) by "Die Jungen Zillertaler"

Turn up the volume and enjoy as this song really made me think of the snoopy happy dance :-)

Wild times

2009-01-09T17:58:00.018+01:00

We're still here! Yes, I'm still dead tired, but slowly recuperating. And you know why? Because although I actually had 2 weeks off work between Christmas and New Year, I managed not to get much sleep. However, we did have a LOT of fun. A fair compromise, I think. My cousin Rachel came for a 3 week visit from Canada. And by now, you all know that we love partying and Rachel is family, so she does too. So now, you know.

Here are a few things we did during that time in a nutshell.

Dec. 19: Rachel arrives in Zurich, but her luggage doesn't make it through her tight connection in Frankfurt. Gha! But she does get an overnight bag from Swiss with T-Shirt, sleeping goggles, G'Ma undies, a toothbrush and a couple of other necessities. She sleeps at 6pm, up again from 10pm and we chat until 2 am. Good start.

Dec. 20: Rachel's luggage arrives and later, she and I are rocking & dancing until 2 am to (too) loud music until our neighbours ring the doorbell. Ooops! But we do stay up and chat until 6am...with wine.
Dec. 24: We decorate the Chistmas tree (never did it THAT late in my WHOLE life.... EVER!), Pack the presents (never did that this later either!), have a late dinner and unpack presents. Bedtime: Decent (for a day off). 2am, or so.

Dec. 25/26: We decide to go out after dinner (midnight) for some dancing. Great time! Get home at 5am (?) and decide to stay awake for the next 2.5 hours until we bring Rachel to the train station to catch her TGV to Paris.

Dec 26: Sleep until 2pm after returning from the train station, miss call from TBFs with invitation to dinner, call back TBFs and accept invite. TBF just recovering from a flu, but doing well. Delicious food, wine & great company, but around 1am, eyes (ours) are twirling in butter and leave for home. Invited TBFs for a New Years' Eve Eve's party.

Dec. 27: Get a sore throat and hints of a flu (TBF? Rachel? Anonymous Swiss in the tram?)

Dec 29: 9:15 pm. Flu is real bad. Fever. We're at the station waiting for Rachel's train. Delayed by 30 minutes. OK. Call TBFs. Cancel New Years' Eve Eve's party with TBFs because of my stupid flu. TGV arrives, no Rachel. Did she sleep though it? Wait 30-40 minutes. Drive back home in hopes that she just missed the stop. Rachel arrives around 10:30pm. She got off 1 station early. Yep. That's family all right! Have dinner and wine, hoping the latter will kill the damn bug!
Dec. 30: Rachel goes to visit an aunt near St-Gallen. I'm desperately looking for a hotel in some kind of snowy area to learn snowboarding. No luck with the hotels. All booked out.

Dec 31: Rachel is back home for dinner and we celebrate New Years' Eve together, and got to bed early (2am). I book snow boarding lessons for OX and me for Jan 2nd in Adelboden.

Jan 2: Leave at 7am for Adelboden and encounter a massive taffic jam. Arrive 30 minutes late. While Rachel hits the slopes, Ox and I really enjoy our snow boarding lesson. Won't be the last time for sure. Addicted.

Jan 4: Rachel goes to Barcelona.

January 5: Back to work for us. Blech!

Jan. 7: Rachel returns from Bacelona. Dinner & wine. Go to bed at 2:30am (again). Remember, we still have to work. Ugh!

Jan. 8: Back at work feeling a bit woozie. Rachel goes to Lucerne for the day, also feeling woozie. Good. I'm not the only one. Go to bed at a decent time: before midnight. Really! I swear!

Jan. 9: OX takes me to work by car before droppig Rachel off at Zurich airport.
Jan. 10: We get to slep in? No way! We left bright and early (07:15!!...am!) for Amsterdam to celebrate Harry's 44th birthday.

Since then, we've been snow boarding again and I've rented myself some equipment for the season. That's how much we're enjoying it! A few bruises here and there and muscle ache from the pull-lifts, but what the hell! The turns are getting easier and we'll soon be ready to hit the real slopes after a warm up run on the "Mickey Mouse" run. Tomorrow's our next trip to Adelboden. Yup. We're getting up at 6:30 and are aiming at getting there around 9:00am.

Here are a few picts of our first attempts (with teacher) that Rachel took of us. OX is in the dark top with light pants, and I'm in the light top with the dark pants.

Can you believe it? I never in my dreams thought that I'd start snow boarding at the age of 43. But hey... Why not? You only live once, right? And we're really improving.

No, it just looks like we're going fast. We're not. Fooled ya!

We still want to go sledging with TBFs, though, but need to find a date before the snow melts ;)

Adelboden anyone?

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T09:40:00.006+01:00

Here we are again, after a long blogging break.

2008 was a very busy year and we're looking forward to 2009. We have many plans for the coming year such as learning to snowboard without breaking any bones (we're taking our first lesson tomorrow), holidays in Canada this summer, and many good times with friends all over Europe.

Orange-X and I wish you and your loved ones a Healthy and Happy New Year!

What we did last summer

2008-11-09T17:58:00.028+01:00

We still didn’t write about it yet and looking back, it looks like long ago even though the memories are still fresh in our minds. Way back in March we booked our summer holidays in Egypt and we couldn’t wait to get there. Now we’ve been back for three months and still struggle with the what and how to write about it. Egypt has made a massive impression on the both of us and one thing we know for sure: we would like to go back in two to three years. The country with its amazing culture is overwhelming. If you’re open to it, you can still feel the ancient dynasties of great kings and queens in everyday Egyptian life.

We took the flight from Zürich to Luxor and after 4,5 hours of flight we arrived in the scorching heat of 45° C in Egypt. We planned to have our holidays split up in two parts: a cultural Nile cruise to start off with and a relaxing beach holiday in Sharm El Sheikh to finish our holidays.

At the airport, we were welcomed by our tour guide who led us to a bus that would take us to our ship at the port of Luxor. After embarking and checking in, we met with 11 other travellers from Switzerland and our guide. As we hadn’t booked any pre-arranged excursions, we had a separate talk with our guide Ahmed and ended up taking the full package and some extra excursions. Ahmed warned us up front: ”the life of a tourist is unpleasant and difficult and it’s hard work”.

Meet Ahmed...

Our guide. The best one we ever had, but also the first one!

We soon found out what he meant with that quote. Our first week of holidays would consist of getting up early every day to participate to the excursions and actually this didn’t match our holiday expectation! Looking back I can only say every single trip we made was worth the short nights, the long bus rides and withstanding the scorching heat after sunrise. As a bonus, we had the chance to enjoy the company of our group sipping cocktails on the sundeck after dinner every evening.

Our first trip was on a Friday and took us to the Valley of the Kings. In this valley so far 66 graves of the former Kings of Egypt have been recovered. A visit to the grave of Tutankhamun was not included and could be booked as an extra. As we knew that King Tut wouldn’t be "home" anyway, as he was actually touring Europe and exactly that day in Zürich, we decided to skip that part. This left us with a visit to the graves of Ramses II, Ramses VI and Ramses VII. Ahmed told us the story of how the grave of Tutankhamun was discovered. Actually all a big coincidence as many people have tried to find Tut's grave while he has been right there all the time: directly under the grave of Ramses VI. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures in the graves so we can’t show you the beauty of the wall paintings, the hieroglyphs and the old treasures that have been kept there for thousands of years. The only pictures we took of the area before entering the valley you’ll find below.

After the visit to the tombs, we continued our trip to one of the many small places where craftsmen make sculptures of cats, scarabs and statues of the kings. It’s truly amazing to see what those young men produce with old tools and sandpaper. After their demonstration, we were shown around the store where we could buy our first souvenirs. After tough negotiations with the salesman, we found ourselves in the fortunate possession of two cats: a beautiful black cat made of alabaster and a more abstract cat carved out of wonderful onyx.
CS has found her new pet and please, don’t tell Dale. He might get envious even though the both of them leave each other in peace at home…

Time to hop on the bus again!! Darn, those two cats weigh about 20 kilos! How are we gonna bring those animals home?? We had some time to think about that during the ride to the temple of Hatshepsut, meaning the Foremost of Noble Ladies. Yup, that was our the next stop and that still on our first day…and enjoying the air conditioning in the bus before going out in the burning sun again…

The Hatshepsut temple is amazing. The pictures you find here say it all. The temple has been built off-site in a pretty desolated area. The Hatschepsut temple is the place that saldy was attacked by six heavily armed terrorist in 1997. During the attack 62 tourist were killed. It gave me the shivers when we entered the grounds of the temple and I thought back of the attack in 1997. Seeing the temple and being in that desolated corner, it was obvious that in case of an attack there would be no way out. Well, we survived and for that matter, I can only underline that there is a huge presence of military and police at all major tourist attractions. Also the city of Luxor is heavily guarded, which in the beginning of our journey called on some mixed feelings.

On our way back to the ship, we made a last stop at the colossi of Memnon. The impressive statues are 18 meters high and represent Amenhotep III. Of course, we had the chance to take a few shots of those impressive statues.

After we returned to the ship, we drove off to our next stop: Esna! When we arrived in Esna, our guide Ahmed, the best tour guide we have ever had in our lives (and the first!) invited us for a stroll through the town of Esna and an evening tea in a typical Egyptian café. We enjoyed sitting on the terrace in the warm evening glow and Ahmed offered me my first smoke from a water pipe. Thank you Ahmed!

We’ll be back with some more Egyptian stories and pictures. The pictures are breathtaking, the sunsets we saw were a dream and the land itself… absolutely fabulous! In the meantime we have cut down the number of pictures we took from 1500 to 1050 and edited every single one of them. That reminds me!! We still need to burn some DVDs and sent them to the our travel companions.

Like I said, there’ll more later. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures and have a good start of the week. Life is beautiful!

This morning, I woke up and found

2008-10-06T19:19:00.003+02:00

... a message in my inbox from my Dad with a link to my facebook.

This is what he sent me.

Thank you, Dad. I love you, too!

DAM, DAM, DAM: VolenDAM & AmsterDAM

2008-09-06T17:04:00.024+02:00

Ah, yes! Life has been very busy in the CS household these past weeks.

It still is. This weekend, we're off to a cousin's reunion in Amterdam... And the partners are invited, too. Lucky me :)

We had hardly came back from our Egypt holiday (OX is still working on the photos, but getting there), that we were picking Ma & Pa up from the Basel airport. They stayed with us for 3 weeks and we had us a great time (and plenty of Ma's home cooking! Yum!)

So, then. Back to our Amsterdam trip with Chris and Bob trip before we move on.

Saturday, July 12:

After having taken Chris and Bob through some Amsterdam-ish nightlife on their first day, we thought it would be a good idea to show them to a more idyllic side of Holland. Our first idea was to take them to a beach like Scheveningen or Zandvoort, but since we weren't sure what the weather would turn out to be, we decided that Volendam would be a good choice.

Volendam is a typical fisherman's village and a popular touristic attraction in The Netherlands. It's known for its fishing boats (tjalk, or Dutch barge) and the traditional clothing; the pointed bonnet probably being the most recognizable accessory.

Before entering the village, however, we saw this beautiful old windmill (this one's for Ginnie ) and we just had to stop to take a few pictures. How idyllic is that?

We parked the car and walked throught the village and along the harbor taking in the beautiful settings. The view on the lake was beautiful, and don't you just love the house fassades? No wonder it's such a touristic attraction!

Anyhow, while our poffertjes (another culinary must - fluffy tiny pancakes typically served with powdered sugar and butter. I had mine topped off with a shot of Amaretto liqueur. Mmmmmmm!) were being prepared, Chris and I went trough the shop looking basically at everything and nothing. It was jammed with hand-crafted goods and other typical not so hand-made souvenirs.

Chris found a really cute hat. But honestly, I'm not sure whether I prefer Bob wearing it - cuz she can wear just about any hat and looks great.

What do you think? I think it suits him pretty darn well, no?

Then we saw one of those old mechanical organs. They're beautifully hand painted and very well kept. Think back! - those of our generation and older, of course. I can remember filling cards with my brother to "feed" the computers to punch holes through them in order to be able to read what was on the card. Kind of the same thing, no? Punched holes through cards will hit the right note. Fascinating. I wonder how far back these prehistorical CDs go.

Anyway, after eating our way through Volendam, we decided to take a drive to Amsterdam and have an aperitif at café on Rembrandtsplein, where Harry also took a picture of "The Night Watch" figures portraying one of Rembrandt's most famous paintings.

After that we had a lovely tapas dinner at the Kelderhof, followed by the obligatory nightcap at "Harry's office", where we took this nice picture of Bob, Pierre (the owner) and Chris.

The next morning, time came where we had to say goodbye. But not without a shot of Amaretto in Chris' coffee!

After breakfast came an unexpected bottle of champagne to celebrate new friendship. And then, the time came to really say good-byes, but were still, looking forward to seeing Dale.

The highway was free of traffic, so we drove fast,

... and faster...

And we made it home safely. Home sweet home.

Next stop: Amsterdam - Day 1

2008-08-26T18:15:00.018+02:00

Friday, July 11: We were up bright and early, and off to the suburbs of Amsterdam we drove with our two Canadian friends to Harry and Brenda's. We made the trip in roughly 6 hours. Not bad.

Once there, we unpacked a few things, had a quick welcome drink and took the train to Amsterdam Central Station. And what better way to introduce our guests to Amsterdam's sights than a one hour boat tour through the canals.

Discovering a city sure can make you hungry. If you go to Holland, there are a few musts in the food sector that you should try and one of them is FEBO. Yes, it's fast food, but this place is kinda special. The only things you get directly from the counter are fries and drinks. Hamburgers, frikandel, cheese dumplings and other hot deep fried goodies are always freshly filled up in automatiek machines (vending machines). They make for a solid base if you're planning to go out and have a few beers, so make sure you have plenty of Euro coins ;) Chris and Bob tried a few typical dutch and indonesian specialties, but I think that the kroket was their favourite. Isn't this shot great? OX was trying to feed Chris, but she still hadn't finished chewing down her last bite.

Bob was fascinated by the fact that the public urinals could be planted right in the middle of Leidseplein. Honestly, Amsterdam is the only place I've ever seen them.

Before going for dinner, we spent some time on the Museumplein and took a few pictures of Bob and Chris - as well as a few unkown others - in the big letters spelling "I Amsterdam".

We then took a shortcut through a nearby park where "the big kids" began to play. When I grow up, I wanna be ... Rambo?

............................But, beware................

................The Rambettes are out there. Life in the jungle is tough.
You win some, you loose some.

We finally made it to Café Loetje (pronounced Loot-yuh), the restaurant that Brenda and Harry had picked out for us. While waiting to be seated (no reservations), we had an aperitif at the bar and soon made a new friend. He was so funny.

The food was great and the service very friendly. I strongly recommend the beef. I had the biefstuk Bali and it was excellent! They have a website, but it's only in Dutch, so I thought a link to reviews would also be welcome.

After dinner, we made a quick stop at Harry's "office". Chris originally thought that we were going to a real office and was surprised to end up at Heuvel, a typical cozy Amsterdam café/bar.

Last but not least, we took them through the red light district; a must for every tourist! On the way, we passed this magnificent building called: In de Waag, built in 1488 in which used merchants met and was later to become to be a meeting place for the different guilds. Today, it serves as a restaurant.

All that in one day!

I've got one more post about our travels with Chris and Bob, then we'll get to our vacation in Egypt. I'll be putting up all of the picts from this series up on picasa in my next post.

We're ba-aaaaack!

2008-08-24T18:29:00.003+02:00

Tomorrow is back to work day after a fabulous two weeks in Egypt. We're back home with our four-legged son, Dale, and spent the last two days vacuuming two weeks' worth of cat hair-shedding, doing a bit of wash and having a few drinks last night with TBFs and our neighbours, Andy and Diana.

I'll be putting up the last posts about Christiane and Robert's visit in the coming days and by then, we should have gone through the 1'500+ photos we took in Egypt. Yep, that's right. 1'500+ pictures!

So stay tuned and until then, have a great week!

From Summer to Winter in 24 hrs!

2008-07-31T19:09:00.020+02:00

Sooooo-de-li (That’s Swiss-German for: Soooooo).

After a hearty breakfast of fresh bread, cold-cuts, cheese, jam, butter, yoghurt and fruit (insert a couple of eggs for Orange-X here) early the next day, we made our way to the cable car station that would take us up to the Klein Matterhorn Station at 3’820 meters above sea level(12’533 feet) where we bought our tickets.

Unfortunately, the weather was doing pretty much what it wanted (not what we wanted). At Zermatt’s 1’862 meters, the sun was shining and the temperature was about at 24-26°C (high 70’s°F). However, the skies up in the heights were covering up fast. They said: “-1°C (30.2°F) at the top." … Brrrr! Since Chris had not brought any closed shoes - and in this case, even a pair of sneakers would have not been safe - we had made sure that both had adequate footwear before we left Basel.

Half way up we were told that we had to wait because the winds were too strong. We had already had rain and wet snow, and it was getting worse. So, we went for a hot chocolate and waited. After 20 minutes, the skies cleared up again (how fast it can change) and we could continue our ascent. It was breathtaking to see all the crevasses, the steep, rocky and sometimes icy slopes. You really have to know what you’re doing if you climb up here by foot, even in summer.

However, once we reached our destination, the Klein Matterhorn station, we realised two things: a) the panorama platform was closed for repair and b) we had a freeking snowstorm up there! It was like a Canadian blizzard. Look!

And we wanted to show them the Matterhorn?? HA! FOR.GET.IT! The best the weather would allow us to take was this. We saw only the lower part of the great mountain!

Anyhow, we walked to a provisional kind of “restaurant”. While we were warming up and recuperating from the thin air enjoying a coffee, we noticed that Chris was not doing well… at all. During her first visit back in 2003, the heights had been no problem for her, but in the meantime, she had her thyroid gland taken out because it was hyperactive. And then, Chris’ heart started pounding like crazy (low oxygen, probably) and she panicked – which did not help. So, we had to get her down again and fast! However, the winds had stirred up a storm in the meantime and we had to wait. Luckily, after about only 15 minutes, we could start our descent and at mid-way, she felt better again and the weather had changed to friendlier skies. Look at those views! Isn’t it beautiful up there?

By the time we were back in the village again, Chris was fine and we were back to a sunny, warm 26°C (78°F), so we took a few pictures in Zermatt and had a late lunch. We then made our way to the hotel to pick up our things, took a taxi back down, paid our parking fee in Täsch: a whole CHF 7.00 for 24 hours! Not much by Swiss standards, and drove back to Basel.

Once at home, we threw in a few washes in and were ready for the next adventure: the following day, we were off to Amsterdam.

So, folks. That’s where I leave you until the next entry. We're going on holidays to Egypt this Thursday for 2 weeks (Yippee!!!!!)and I doubt that I'll find much time to catch up, so have an excellent time!

Three Canadians (and one Dutch) invade Zermatt

2008-07-27T15:14:00.020+02:00

Let's continue our little adventures with Chris and Bob, shall we?

Our two visitors spent the next 2 days exploring Paris and really enjoyed it. On Wednesday, we took them to "The Boomerang", one of our favourite restaurants just outside Basel. Linda and Rolf, the cook and owners, served us a fantastic piece of Aussie beef which, even by Canadian standards, must be rated with a very high note.

The next day was Zermatt invasion day. Well.... OK. So, we didn't exactly invade Zermatt, but we sure did our share at one of the local bars.

We had quite a bit of traffic on the way, but Robert was fascinated by the snowy peaks as we drove closer and closer to the Alps. He was also surprised to hear that we were going to drive onto a train that would take us from Kandersteg to Goppenstein through the Lötschberg tunnel.

While waiting for the train, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, took one of my favourite shots of Robert and Christiane and watched a paraglider elegantly surfing the thermals.

The train ride took about fifteen minutes and after another 45 minutes, we parked our car in Täsch where a taxi took us the entrance of Zermatt. From there, an electro-car took us to our hotel. The weather was great, so we decided to unpack and explore the a bit since were too late to take the cable car all the way up anyway. Not to mention that we were thirsty!

As we walked through the village, we soon found a lovely outdoor lounging area where we sat down in the sun and enjoyed a few beers and bruschettas.

Does that look comfy, or what?

I think Chris also enjoyed it.

Oh, but wait. That's not all! We even saw a goat parade. Yep, right through "downtown" Zermatt. Taking them to graze in a pasture up in the Alps, perhaps? BTW, the goat leading the pack almost ran over OX while he took the pictures. So, never try to stop a goat when it wants to go feed, okay? They don't care much for cameras, or cameramen, for that matter.

Once the sun started disappearing behind the mountain and the temperatures became cooler, we decided to move on and found a small pub called the "Hexenbar" (the witches bar). A real cosy place to chill out with dim lights and decorated with witches in form of dolls or then painings all over the pub. And now, guess where it got its name from... Bingo! Anyhow, it was early and still pretty quiet when we got there.... but not for long! The Canadutch RULE!

We ordered a first round of drinks and started taking pictures of Bob and Chris. All of a sudden, the waitress, Cindy, jumped in."Wait! You can't take a picture in here without one of the witches", she said with a smirk.

She ran to a corner of the pub and grabbed a battery operated witch with flashing eyes and handed it over to Christiane for the picture.

She didn't stop at that, though. Seeing that we were having so much fun, Cindy asked us whether she should get us a few requisites from the storage room for our "photo shoot". Of course, we agreed, and within a minute, she came back with sorcerers' hats, broomsticks, and a set of pink'n white bunny ears and a bow tie. And this is what came out of it.

I admit.....

Although we both tried very hard, OX and I didn't actually soar throught the skies with this broomstick, but we sure as hell had a fun time trying. (BTW, this is probably my absolute fave picture of OX and me!)

Bob thought that biting it and adding horns to it would bring him to fly. NOT! Maybe he was just drinking the wrong "magic potion"?

Group photo time, ...but we still can't fly! Oh, well. What the heck! Maybe the bunny ears just didn't fit in?

This is our waitress, Cindy, with the boys.

A few drinks later, Cindy introduced us to Mark, a very funny, literally wee man - about 1.55 m/5' tall - that made us laugh tears. What an entertainer! He was performing right across the street, so we decided to have a simple meal consisting of chicken wings, ribs and such (not typically Swiss, I know), and just enjoy his show. It was worth it and we had a great time there.

After dinner, we decided to go for a short walk through the quiet town and then returned to the Hexenbar for a nightcap. Unfortunately, Cindy had finished her shift and left already, but Ellie, her replacement, made sure that we didn’t lack of anything and so we enjoyed a last drink before returning to our hotel for a good nights' sleep.

So. People. Hear me! If you're ever planning to visit Zermatt one day, make sure to go to the Hexenbar. Don't expect the personnel there to entertain you as soon as you set foot in the bar, but if they see that someone wants to have fun, they will go out of their way to make sure you have an unforgettable evening*. So here's a BIG thank you to Cindy and Ellie for making this evening a very memorable one.

More from Zermatt, coming up soon…

*With us will be even more fun! **Hint?? Hint???**

Unforgettable Moments

2008-07-20T20:29:00.013+02:00

“Unforgettable” is what's playing on OX’s iPod right now as I type. How fitting! Those moments were unforgettable.

I can’t believe that two weeks have passed already – not to mention the thousands of driven kilometers, hundreds of photos and short nights! My best friend, Christiane and her adorable husband Robert a.k.a. Bob are back at home with their two boys. We had an incredible time with them and I will be writing many posts about the time we spent together. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

We picked them up from Basel Airport Friday, July 4th and let them settle in. Once they had put their luggage in their room, we met on the terrace for a welcome drink and snacks. I was hoping they had been able to get a bit of shut-eye on the flight, but no such thing. Both were way too excited to sleep. They didn’t care. There would be enough time to catch up for the lack of sleep – so they thought ;) ! Only Bob went for a short nap before dinner (I’m sure the drinks helped) but Chris did manage to wake him up for a late dinner. OX prepared his chicken-strawberry salad and added a few chicken wings on the BBQ. Yummy!

We even had an extra guest: Buddy. Buddy is a hedgehog that has been visiting us regularly for the past 5-6 weeks, or so. We feed him small portions of dry cat food - we don't want him to stop hunting for his food- and plenty of water. He actually eats out of our hand and he brought friends, too, but he's the only "bold one" and lets us scratch his chin. Ain't he just the cutest little flea bag?? ;)

Once the bellies we filled, our friends were quite ready for a nap. That was a good thing, too, because we had invited Thomas and Nicole for dinner the next evening and our two travelers should be more or less fit.

On Saturday, we did a few groceries, and then we just hung around in our back yard and chatted until it was time to prepare the dinner. I marinated a nice pork filet for the grill while OX prepared his sate and Indonesian fried rice. Our guests arrived on time and Thomas was really happy to see Chris and Bob again. I think he hadn’t seen both together since 2000, or so. Thomas is my Ex, as most of you already know, and still we get along very well.

Nicole was immediately taken up into Chris and Bob's friends' circle. Later, we turned up some mood music and at some point, the iPod played salsa music to which Tom and Nicole just had to dance.

Later, between the two courses, we took a small break and Christiane sang for us. She has the voice of an angel. Now that’s what I call entertainment! First a dance show, then food, then music and then more food! It can’t get much better than that, now can it? Look at the proud husband!

It was a wonderful start to a great two weeks! More to come. I’ve already spent all afternoon editing photos and by no means all of them just yet, but I had to put something on the blog! Enjoy!

A travelling we will go...

2008-07-10T08:48:00.004+02:00

Just a short note to let you know that our visitors from Canada, Robert and Christiane, have arrived safely last weekend. Today, we are off to Zermatt and then Amsterdam.

It might take a while, but we'll be back with a few stories soon, I assure you.

........Stay tuned!

Roxane and CS take over Paris (part 2)

2008-06-28T19:23:00.003+02:00

So you're waiting for part 2?? Really? If you don't know what I'm talking about, read part 1 here. There we go. Up to date, now?

We took our purchased and uncorked bottle of wine (we were pretty sure that there wouldn't be a corkscrew in the room, so we had it opened in the store) up to our room, picked-up two glasses from the reception along the way and once at our destination, I poured us a generous amount of wine. All while chatting away, Rox downloaded the pictures she had taken onto her laptop, we both checked our e-mails and the glasses were re-filled. At some point, however, the excitement of meeting-up after such a long time, her still being half-jetlaged, a LOT of walking and the thrill of being in Paris took over, we finally decided to shut-up and hit the sack around 1.30 am.

After getting barely enough sleep, but at least a long, hot shower, we went down to the lovely breakfast room where we grabbed a coffee and a bit of fruit before we would hit the road. We wanted to see more of the city, but from a different (and more relaxing) perspective. In the lobby of our tiny hotel, I found a leaflet about cruises on the Seine. But before that, we had to move hotels. Yep. Our hotel was fully booked for the second night, so Rox had been given another address only 5 minutes walk away.

We dropped our belongings at the new hotel and went for a little bit of shopping for Roxane's kids. After the puchases completed and dropped off at the hotel, we took the Métro to "La Cité" which is none other than the island on the Seine where you will find the famous cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Palais de Justice.

From there we went on a sightseeing cruise. Yes, I know, very touristy, but we had to do it... the lazy way.

Here are a few photos of what we saw along the way.

A side view of the Louvres Museum

Rox and the Eiffel Tower

Alexander III Bridge

The Musée D'Orsay

The conciergerie (the prison where Marie-Antoinette was kept until she was beheaded)

You'd think this is Amsterdam, right. NOT!

Finaly. The Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral from the Seine in the haze.

A Zouave at the Pont de l'Alma

After the boat ride, we went to visit the Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral. It's quite impressive, but I wonder what this person had to do with the history of it all. Starbucks was involved?? Who knew?!

After our visit, we decided it was time for a drink, so we wandered through the small streets and alleys of lively St-Germain area and had us a nice aperitif. The waiter was kind enought to take our picture.

We were slowly getting hungry, but we couldn't make up our mind where to go. We looked at a few small restaurants in an alley leading to the St-Germain boulevard and they all looked so inviting. Decisions, decisions.

We found a tiny, but very inviting restaurant and ordered two glasse of champagne and a menu du jour, which turned out ok, but not the best. I must say that it was a very friendly service and easy going. What the hell. We were there to get together and have a good time... which we definitely had. Whithin such a short notice period, we both didn't have the time to look up gastronomy in Paris!... But we were happy. Isn't that what counts?

Rox: Here's a special cheers to you and thank you for having kept in touch all those years as well as for the great time in Paris. I'll never forget it. I miss you, my friend, and hope that the kids will enjoy their football (soccer) dresses. See you soon in Canada (or Europe again?)!

PS: I will upload all picts on on my picasa web site and add the link asap, but I've been working on the pictures all afternoon and I'm zonked. Not to mention that I have another post coming up (Oranje weekend) and that Christiane and Robert are coming over for two weeks this Friday from Canada. We'll be going to Zermatt (Switzerland) and Amsterdam with them. Wheeee! Aren't I lucky?

Note to the readers: With a few exceptions, all these photos were taken with Roxanes' camera, because mine ran out of battery whithin the first hour, or so. I won't go into details, here, but I'll blame it on Orange-X ;) Thanks you Dear, that you made it possible for me to have all these wonderful photographic memories and to share them on the blog. Love ya!

Roxane and CS take over Paris (part 1)

2008-06-22T13:07:00.029+02:00

I know that many of you (expecially you, Roxane!) have been waiting for this story. As you can already gather from the title, this entry will be published in 2 posts. Sorry, but we've been busy bees as of late and the European Championships have been taking up some of our time, too :)

My TGV to Paris left at 08:02 that morning and I was so excited that was afraid I would miss it. Of course, O-X drove me to the train station on time and watched and waved as the train pulled away. I was on my way and would soon be meeting Roxane in a small, but cozy hotel in in the Montparnasse area of Paris.

I reached the hotel first and the receptionist was a bit baffled when I announced to her that Rox and I would be sharing the room. The hotel was fully booked, so we had no other choice anyway. But who needs two rooms if you're going to be chatting the night away, right??? "But Madame," she said, "You will have to share a grand lit (double bed). Let me check which room we gave Madame P." I couldn't care less, I told her. We've known each other since we were kids and had many sleep-overs. After checking her computer, we found out that the room had a grand-lit and a single bed. The room wasn't ready, yet, so I left my bags at the reception, went out for a quick smoke and returned to the hotel lobby to wait for Roxane to arrive. I had barely set my butt on the sofa and opened a magazine that I heard a screech of joy coming from the entrance. I dropped everything and we ran into each others arms. It was so good to see her again!

We checked her in, and went for a short walk to discover the neighbourhood. We went in to a few boutiques (Rox wanted to get a dress for her daughter) and chatted away. Around 1pm, we started feeling hungry, so we decided to have lunch at a small café before returning to the hotel to haul our luggage to our room. I had only an overnight bag, but Rox had packed for 2 weeks, so her suitcare was huge, not to mention heavy! Plus, the hotel didn't have an elevator. Luckily, we were on the 1st floor (2nd floor for North Americans).

The room was comfortably large by European standards, but definitely too flowery for my taste, and it had a bit of a strange layout. However, Roxane had managed to wear colours matching the room. How did she know??? Anyway, at first, we couldn't find the bathroom. I had left the door open because we still had luggage standing there and we thought that we'd have to use a "public" shower room. Whaaat?!??! While Rox ran down to the reception to enquire about our "missing" bathroom, I discovered it once I closed the door to our room. You see, when you came into the room, the door opened to the inside, and right behind it, was the door to the bathroom. So as long as the main door was open, it hid the other door. Whew! The view from our room was by no means spectacular, but it was well kept and flower pots were giving the viewer a hint of nature. It made us both smile.

We settled in and unpacked whatever we thought was necesary, and then we were off to discover Paris. We grabbed a map at the reception and asked for direction to the next metro station that would take us to Paris' most popular landmark: The Eiffel Tower.

As we got off the metro and headed towards the tower, Roxane was telling me how identical the replica in Vegas (the Paris Las Vegas) was to the real thing and that it was very big. Once we arrived at the tower itself, however, she was really impressed. I must admit that even after having seen the Eiffel Tower before, it still impresses me, too. Even more so when you stand directly under it. It was already about 3.30pm and our time in Paris was limited to 2 days, so we decided not to go up (the queues were still very long) and instead, just take a few pictures and then walk towards the Arc de Triomphe and then to the Champs Élysées.

We crossed the Seine towards the Trocadéro, turned at the Avenue D'Iena, then through small streets to Avenue Kleber and to the always busy Place de l'Étoile where the Arc de Triomphe stands.

Here are a few picts that we took on the way.

We finally stopped at one of the many street cafés on the Champs Élysées for a well deserved glass of wine before returning to our hotel.

That evening, we had dinner at a lovely, small restaurant close to our hotel. After dinner, we bought a bottle of wine to bring up to our room. We still had plenty of catching up to do! The last time these two girls saw each other was 9 years ago, remember?

Yes, we do read

2008-06-07T18:54:00.000+02:00

Before I tell you about my meet-up with Roxane in Paris, here's a meme that TinaKala asked me to do. Moreover, I also wanted to prove that we do have books at home and that we do once in a while actually read them.

Here's how it goes: "Open a book you're currently reading - page 123 and write the whole sentence that starts (or continues) on FIFTH line and mention the name and author of the book."

First, I had to think of a book that all of you would understand (non-German, that is). In preperation of our upcoming trip to Egypt, we bought quite a few interesting books, but I decided to choose a book on photography instead. We bought a new camera, remember?

"It's easy - move your subject into the shade, where the light is softer, and the shadows are less prominent and much softer." from The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby.

This book is a great read for anyone who wants to improve their photography skill, no matter whether you're using a small point-to-shoot camera or a more complicated one. Scott won't give you all that theory full of confusing jargon and detailed concepts. No. This is an easy to use and humourously written "which button to push, which setting to use and when to use it" kinda book.

I won't tag anyone, but feel free to use this meme if you haven't done it yet.

Roooooox-an(n)e & Alegría!

2008-06-01T17:10:00.008+02:00

While some of you might be thining that I'm singing "Roxanne" by the "Police" at the top of my lungs?... Well, I am... Sorta. Although the feeling is more like Alegría! ("joy" or "jubilation" in Spanish).

I told you in this post that I would do my utmost to see a childhood friend of mine that I have not seen for about 10 years (+/- a few months). And it's going to happen. Yes. This coming Wednesday, I'm taking the TVG (fast train) to Paris to meet up with Roxane.

She's been doing quite a bit of travelling lately for the Cirque du Soleil, although she's - ahem - supposed to be "retired"? I guess she just likes doing gigs here and there, and if people ask for you, then go for it. I'm sure that she didn't expect it to have this much business, though. In the past 3 weeks, she's been to Dubai, Cologne, Monaco and next week, just after I meet her, she'll be in Russia.

Here's a photo that she sent me from Dubai at the souk (market). I hope she doesn't mind my putting up pictures of her. I'm just proud of her and I always believed in her. Being a singer can be a tough life, but that was all she ever wanted. And she made it. No, she's not a "rock star" per say, but I don't think she wanted that, really. I have a huge respect for that. She's damn good at what she does. Some people can sing only ballads, or rock, or soul. She can sing anything and make it sound like it should. Amazing!

And now, in her costume, ready for the show in Cologne. What a cute extra-terrestrial she makes :)

All I can say is that we'll have very little sleep in Paris, compensated with a lot of chatting and a few bottles of good red wine!

Alegría!

Update from the Master of the CS-Household (the cat)

2008-05-25T16:25:00.013+02:00

Well, there has been plenty going on around here in the past few weeks. Eversince CS & OX returned from Austria, they have been re-working the back yard, running a full work schedule and received my most, newest favorite spot in the house: A new sofa. Soooo comfy! Just look at me. Zzzzzzz!

I'll start with the latter. What do you think? Like it? I love it!! Mostly because it's not as high as the blue sofa set and eases my jumping up (I'm a mature cat, remember?). Then, it's sand coloured and lightens up the living room (and makes my shedded hair more apparent, but they knew that would happen).

For their comfort, they opted for adjustable backrests. Then they have bought this awsome extra seating that you can add and make a double-cuddle corner and just lounge around on. Nothing better than to relax with a fine human body (a fine glass of wine and a loving cat for them) and enjoy a good movie (nap for me). Just see how tiny I look on that huge thing!

We're all very happy with our choice.

Now to the garden. One things OX and CS did was to plant a few more flowers and elevated them a bit on tiles and "feet" to keep the many slugs we have here from devouring the plants.

They also elevated and refilled the corner where the box trees with anthracite grit to give a contrast to new the pots, and closed it with wooden 1x4's. This photo was taken yesterday and they trimmed the buggers only 2 weeks ago! I think they need a haircut again, no? Anyway, both oleanders are doing well, but it will take another few weeks for them to flower. Pictures will follow as soon as they do.

My humans also added three bamboo trees that were set into the old pots and placed at the end of the garden. The sound of the wind softly gushing though them makes my fur stand up. I think they like it, too!

The rhododendron are in full bloom and make me purr every time I pass them. Aren't they beautiful?

Last but not least, CS was given this magnificent bouquet of flowers for her help (see last week's post) with the organization of an international, double department company meeting. She was only deputizing a colleague a week before, so she was pretty baffled when the flowers were given to her, too. The bouquet was so big that OX had to pick her up from work because it was so heavy. What an honour!

All I can say in the name of our household is "Life is good". Let's keep it that way. Last year was more shit than one (or two) could handle. Time for a change, right? As they say in French:"Après la pluie, le beau temps" (After the rain, the sun will shine.)

We have other good new, but that will have to wait until the next post.

Loving purrs to you all,

Dale, the Master of the House

We're not dead... just a wee bit busy.

2008-05-19T19:38:00.003+02:00

The past week has been extremely busy and the coming week is going to be even busier (I think) at work - which actually thrills me. I'm just like that.

I was deputizing a colleague of mine who was on vacation last week just before a mega-meeting that's starting tomorrow. Before you ask, she had booked her holidays over 6 months ago and the meeting was planned only 2 months ago, so no, she didn't do it to be mean to me, or anything. Actually, she felt really bad about it. Why? Now, you tell me... When do people start deciding to change their travel plans and their hotel booking, or cancel all in all? Of course, at the last minute (after they get the reminder with the agenda). What else?

Anyway, this just to tell you that we'll still be quiet until the weekend, BUT I will show you our new sofa, or maybe Dale will, since you literally have to scrape him off it, we've re-potted plants and they are growing like mad, not to mention that we re-did part of the garden, too.

But that will all be in the next post. So, stay with us, or go watch a good movie. We'll be back soon.

Have a great week!

Bad, Bad Fischau and The Dining Room

2008-05-12T14:15:00.010+02:00

Yep. It's been over a week that we landed in Vienna for a 4 days visit to our friends Pinki and Andrea. How fast time flies!

Already on our way to Zurich airport, we found out that Pinki was in bed with the flu and that Andrea would pick us up. Poor Pinki. He really did not look his best. We had been looking forward to this get together and were hoping that he would recover quickly.

Once in Bad Fischau, not only Pinki, but also Embers was there to greet us. Isn't he cute?

On our first evening at the Backstage bar, we listend to a band called Lazy Diamonds, a blues-rock band. Their motto that evening was: "Rock is not dead". Believe me, if it was ever dead, it sure wasn't after that concert.

We slept in on Thursday morning and found a much fitter Pinki. He was still under medication, but definitely feeling much better, so we decided to just take it easy at home before going out for dinner.

After all, we had made a last minute reservation for dinner at The Dining Room in Vienna that evening.

Thanks to Kim from Stepping Stones, about a year and a half ago, I discovered a new blogger. Her name is Angelika, a lovely, warm woman with a passion for cooking. I won't too go much into detail, but I had the chance to read about how she fullfilled her dream, namely, opening her own restaurant. It was so exciting to follow her from the decision to "go ahead and do it", reading about her planning, the difficulties she ran into and the whole renovation work of turning part of her private home into a restaurant. The special thing about this restaurant is the fact that it has a maximum capacity of 12 guests and you really get the cozy atmosphere of being entertained by a private friend.

We were warmly greeted by our host, Angelika, and Maria, responsible for the service, and let's not forget Gino, her Golden Retriever. Actually, Gino is part of the family and is the therapy dog for Angelika's husband who suffers from Parkinson's. Angelika first made us visit her kitchen and then escorted us to our table where we took an aperitif. While Angelika was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, Maria made sure that we never ran out of anything. And we were not the only ones to enjoy the freshly baked bread. Also Gino loves "Mom's homemade bread", and if you feed him a few pieces (like we did), you can be sure that he will cleverly snatch the next piece that you have lying beside your plate.

The dinner was excellent! All of it. We were too busy eating to take pictures of the food, but you will find enough on Angelika's website to make your mouth water. There's a reason for the Dining Room's motto: "For the love of celebrating life". We had an incredible evening!

We drove home and pretty much went straight to bed with our full bellies.

The Friday was more or less dedicated again to resting and photography at home before going to the Backstage Bar for another evening of live band. Pinki was feeling much better and we had a fun time.

Then, already Saturday. We went to do a bit of shopping in a nearby mall before Pinki drove us to the airport. Another great mini vacation at Pinki and Andrea's was nearing its end. The nice thing was that we still had the whole Sunday to spend with Dale before going back to work. Aren't we leading a crap life? ;)

The plus and minus

2008-04-27T19:53:00.006+02:00

This past week was simply crazy, but also fun.

The plus

-The weather was great this weekend (I have a light sunburn to prove it), we worked in our small back yard (which is why my back is aching),
- We had a wonderful evening at TBF's Cinco de Mayo party last night and
- today, we both read, relaxed and enjoyed a sunny Sunday.
- And on Wednesday, we're leaving for Vienna to visit Pinki and Andrea, so that won't leave us much time to blog between now and Sunday. Yippeeeee!

To the minus points this week:
- our washing machine just died on us! How did we find out? We tried to wash, of course. Grrrr! No chance for a new one before Wednesday.
- Orange-X worked very late most evenings last week.

But what the hell.... The plus outweighs the minus. I guess it's not all that bad after all.

See you soon again, after Austria!

Lost (well not really) and found again

2008-04-21T19:41:00.005+02:00

Can you imagine that? I found a long (half) lost very close friend again! Let me explain: I never really lost her as a friend, but she moved, changed e-mail addresses, had 2 kids in the meantime (which takes up a lot of time and energy) and we kinda lost contact.

However, on Saturday, I received this e-mail from her, saying that she'd be travelling through Europe. She found me again. So we e-mailed back and forth, and today, I reached her by phone. After over 5 years. I think the last time I spoke to her, it was in 2003! I was so excited!

Now who is this close friend of mine? Roxane*. I met her in grade 7, I think ,(Junior High for your US folks). We then went to high school, highs and lows together, both played flute in the school band, and we've stayed in contact throught the years after my leaving Canada. She stayed over a few days when she came to sing for the Canadian army troups that were stationed throughout Europe back in 1995, I think. I also visited her twice in Las Vegas where she used to perform as main singer for none other than *insert drum roll here * the Cirque du Soleil's "O".

And you know what? I am so proud of what she has accomplished, because that business is harder than one thinks. And like all the friends I have, I am proud and grateful of having been just a little part of their lives. She never forgot who she was and where she came from. A simple, loving, and hard working family. She never forgot her friends. She might have been a bit distant for a while, but that's all part of life. You work hard, raise a family and that takes a lot of time and effort. If you can't accept that in someone's life, then forget friendship. And she never forgot who I was. If that isn't a reward, I wonder what is.

I really hope to be able to see her while she's in Europe. I'm just waiting for her itinerary. Worst case, I'll see her during my next trip to Canada (where she is again), for sure.

Rox, I've missed you and I'm glad that you found me again :)

*I hope that I'm not divulging too much about you and if so, please tell me. I'll take it off the blog. Deal?

A new look and a recipe

2008-04-14T21:07:00.010+02:00

I'm not quite satisfied with the new template, yet, but I'll be fine tuning in the coming days. I'm getting there. And don't worry; also my sidebar will be updated.
However, I am leaving you with the recipe of one of my favourite side dishes: Green bean and tomato gratin. It's one of O-X's specialties (this one's for you, ET). I love it so much because it's easy to make, very tasty and accompanies any grilled meat or fish very well.

You will need:
250-300g of fine, green beans (Fresh, or deep frozen*)
1-2 eggs (1 large or 2 small)
Approx. 2 dl half fat cream (or coffee cream, if you’re counting calories)
1-2 tomatoes (depends on the size)
Brie or Camembert
Salt & Pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 180°C (350°F)
Eventually clean (the fresh) and cut the green beans into bite sized (2.5 cm /1 inch) pieces
Cook in boiling salted water until “al dente” (They should have a bit more bite than if you would serve them right away. They still have to cook a bit)

Drain and put in ICE COLD water immediately to stop the cooking and keep the bright green colour, drain again and put in an oven dish.

Slice the tomatoes and cover the green beans with a layer of tomato slices. Salt & pepper.

Cut the cheese in slices and cover the layer of tomatoes. Slightly salt & pepper.

Whisk the egg(s), the cream 1 large egg (or 2 small), approx. 2 dl of half-cream, salt & pepper to taste, and pour the creamy mixture over the vegetable.

Place dish in oven for approx. 20 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Serve with grilled chicken, pork chop, steak or fish. No extra sauce needed.

Bon appetit!

*I’ve had very bad experiences with frozen veggies in Canada, so if you can, go for the fresh instead.

PS: Vegetarians can use this recipe as a main dish. Just adapt the ingredients and enjoy with fresh bread.

Vacation planning and new toys

2008-04-06T19:50:00.013+02:00

Last Saturday, OX and I drove to Basel to book our summer holidays. Because OX can't take any long vacation between September and end of Novemeber, we thought that August would be an good time to go. And just to make sure we have some warm weather - last August was cold and rainy in Europe - we booked 2 weeks in Egypt. The first week will be a Nile cruise on the MS Regina and we will be travelling the following route: Luxor - Esna - Aswan - Abu-Simbel/Kitchener's Island then back to Luxor. From there, we leave the ship and fly to Sharm El Sheik for a relaxing beach week of non far niente (well, maybe we will do a few things). Neither of us have ever been to Egypt, so we're both very excited.

Once that was done, we went by the InterDiscount XXL shop in Basel to drop off our written conscent to have our coffee machine repaired and decided to have a look at the new DSLR cameras on the third floor. One that had caught our eye a while back was the Sony Alpha series and now that we were going to Egypt, we decided it was time to invest in a bit of a better camera. The price of the Sony A350K was set at CHF 1500 (!) including the standard 18-70mm lens kit. We looked at a few other shops that carried this model, but could find nothing below that price. As soon as we got home, OX started a web search for better offers. And so we found it and ordered online. For basically the same price, we got said camera incl. lens kit, plus an extra battery, an 8GB compact flash card and a very nice Sony camera bag.

On Monday morning, OX already had an e-mail in his inbox saying that his order had been processed and sent out. When I got home on Tuesday evening, I found a notice from the post office to pick-up a parcel. Talk about fast! Of course, the post office was already closed, so the next morning at 8.00am, OX was standing at the post office counter picking up the parcel. He even drove back home to charge the battery so that I could start playing around with our new toy (I'm ususally at home before he is). Isn't that sweet of him?

In order to celebrate (read: waste as little time as possible cooking), I ordered some Indian take-away, left the office early and picked-up the food on the way home. I was standing in front of the terrace door searching for my key, when I realized that I had left them on my office desk! Stupid woman, I thought. So there I was, standing on the terrace with my Indian take-away food in a shady 12-13°C. Dale was looking at me through the glass doors, scratching and begging to go out while I was looking at the Sony box patiently sitting on the table, just waiting for me to try it out. I tried to get a hold of OX, but no luck. After 10 minutes, I tried again, and he immediately picked up. Twenty minutes later, he came to the rescue and opened up. We were both like little kids at Christmas opening boxes and unpacking the accessories. We did a few test shots at home, but that's about all we could do in the evenings. BTW, the Indian take-away food was excellent!

Since OX was in Lucerne yesterday at a 1 day exhibition, I finally had my first real opportunity to take the camera out for a stroll through our neighbourhood and just play with the basic settings to get used to it. The weather was pretty good, so that really made my day. Here are a few of my favourite shots.

I still have a lot to learn; not only about the functions, but I seem to look at my surroundings much more consciously.

The rest of the picts can be found here. Let me know what you think. Really.

Note: Let me know if you can enlarge the picts when clicking on them. Blogger seems to give me totally different HTML codes, depending on the size and position. I just know that if I use small/left, or right, it usually works, if I user med. or large, they usually won't enlarge, and I wonder whether it has to do with using Explorer or Firefox.

Addendum: I just tried to upload this post with Firefox, and now I can't enlarge ANY of the picts.

Holland - Easter weekend!

2008-03-30T19:01:00.010+02:00

After meeting Ginnie on the Thursday ,we drove back to Harry and Brenda’s for a nice table grill dinner and a chocolate fondue for dessert. Since we had been up since 4:30 am and our coffee machine had broken down the evening before we left, I was dead tired and went to bed around 11pm. I know! Me? On holidays with friends and family and not partying until the wee hours? Unbelievable, right? Maybe we’re just getting older…, or smarter.

After some coffee and breakfast, we decided to go shopping and since the weather was really crap (again wet snow, rain and lots of cold wind), we opted for covered shopping areas. So off we went to Hoofddorp. The stores were not that exciting there, so we took another drive to Amstelveen, where OX bought himself a pair of really nice brown Van Bommel shoes. Shortly after that, I found a pair of dark brown boots just begging to be purchased. A perfect fit. How could I resist?

After our shopping spree, we had a few drinks at Café Hoevel, one of Amsterdam’s brown bars (usually bars with a lot of dark wood that serve simple dishes and of course, beer) along the Prinsengracht. An hour or so later, Brenda went to pick up Pa, Ma and two very good friends of theirs, Frits and Ria for dinner. We had reserved a table at the *Kelderhof, situated about 3 minutes walk from where we were, to celebrate Pa’s 76th birthday. How convenient… (and well planned for the digestive). Once Bren had parked the car, she gave us a call to go over to the restaurant and met them all. We had an excellent Tapas dinner and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I had not gotten the part about not returning home before dinner, so I didn’t have my camera with me. We tried to take a few shots with our cell phones, but with the dim lighting, the quality of the picts turned out too bad to put up. You’ll just have to take our word for it.

Of course, the evening for us younger folk was not over just yet. Ma, Pa, Fritz and Ria took a taxi home and we walked straight over to the Café Heuvel again. Harry and other regulars there lovingly call it “the office” because many of them are into construction and much of the business is conducted there. It’s really interesting place and fun. The owner, Pierre, is an incredible host and makes anyone that visits feel at home. All of a sudden, he’ll take out a huge sausage and a kilo or so of cheese, cut it all in bite-sized pieces, put it on a plate and walk through the café offering some to all his guests. Anyhow, we met a few more people there, had a few more drinks, and came back home around 1:30am. (Don’t worry, Bren was the designated driver that evening, so we got home safely)

The next day (Saturday), we packed our things to drive southwards to Veenendaal to meet up with Jaap and Patricia. But first, we had to drive by Makro, a whole sale service chain, where Brenda and Harry are registered members. Now THAT, my friends, is a shopping experience non-plus-ultra! We bought too much stuff (mostly things that we can’t find here, or just so freaking cheap) that we had to take our luggage on the back seat in order to stack everything in the back of OX’s Volvo V70! I’m still amazed that we weren’t stopped at the Swiss border the next day. Our front wheels must have barely touched the ground from all that weight in the back. LOL!

We arrived at Jaap’s apartment around lunch time and after taking in our luggage, we drove to downtown Veenendaal to meet up with Patricia who was shopping with Jaap’s older sister. Did anybody mention shopping?? Oh, yes. Jaap and OX did some serious spending (it was all 25% off!) in a very nice local shop: Suits and casuals (only in Dutch). By that time, I was getting kinda edgy and went in to the next Esprit store to buy a few things for moi, too.

That evening, we had a really, really great dinner. Jaap had been talking about the **Royal Mandarin for a few years already, and we knew we wanted to go there. OMG! I cannot begin to tell you a) how good it was, and b) how much we laughed. And in this case, the laughter was NOT caused by an excess of alcohol. You’ll see why… soon.

Once at the restaurant, we were lead to an open fireplace, where we took an aperitif and were given the menu card (also in English) to study. We decided to go for the surprise menu. You then tell your Maître d’H if there is anything that you do not eat or are allergic to, and they arrange the menu accordingly. All are pretty fluent in English and so I wonder why their website isn’t. Anyway, the nicest thing is that once you have enough, you simply say: “Stop the food service here, please.” You can eat from 3 to 6 services, not to mention the 2 offered amuse-bouche. They just go on until you say stop.

After 20 minutes or so were taken to our table, chose a nice bottle of wine and the beautifully presented plates started arriving. Just a few courses to let your mouth water… now.

At the end of the meal (the men had a serving more than we did), Jaap started playing around with our camera and was just taking pictures of me without really looking. Unexpectedly, the Maître was standing behind him making “bunny ears” behind his head. You’ll see my reaction to that in the following film.

Otherwise, we laughed so much because of these two clowns.

And what did Patricia think?

Sorry guys, that’s just the way my Jaapie is (I love this shot).

More laughs followed that evening because, in a nutshell:

- Jaap and Patricia ate the four chocolates that were served with the coffee. They brought more chocolates and OX shoved them all in (except for one that I got) one after the other in intervals of about 3 seconds.
- When the fortune cookies came, and after all of the first load of chocolates were eaten, OX’s read his as last: “Don’t worry, Jaap’s taking the bill.” Of course he made that one up, but it came across so naturally that it baffled us all. It became the running gag of the evening. Oh… and guess who took the bill.

The drive back to Basel the next day went very well and got home in 5 hours. No trucks, very little traffic, good weather. What else could we ask for?

*I can really recommend this restaurant. It is fair priced, the quality of the food is excellent, the service friendly and guaranteed that you will sweat garlic for at least another 24 hours.

**Excellent restaurant/service, quite expensive for Holland, but worth every penny. For Switzerland, quite expensive, but not really over the top.

Meeting Expats

2008-03-30T10:19:00.007+02:00

I first thought of combining the whole Easter weekend in one post, but then I thought a) it will be too long, and b) it might get confusing. So get ready to read a few posts in the coming days.

We left around 6:30am for Amsterdam on Thursday morning. The weather was a bit grimy, but the drive was pretty good after all. We arrived at Brenda & Harry’s at 12:30, dropped off a few deep frozen goods that we had carefully packed into a cool box for them. Since we were to meet Ginnie downtown Amsterdam and still had a bit of time, we unloaded the rest of the car and enjoyed a cup of coffee with Bren. Then, OX’s mobile phone rang and all he could see was “unknown number”, so he didn’t pick up. He thought it might be work related and he decided he was on holidays. “If it’s important, they’ll leave a message.” And right he was, but it was Ginnie, announcing that she was leaving the apartment and giving us her mobile number. I called back and told her that we were on our way.

I was so excited, an in all the excitement, I forgot the camera. Of course, Ginnie had hers, so she gets the credit for the pict. We’ve been waiting for this meet-up for almost 3 years, and now, it was about to happen. We met in front of the Heineken Hoek on the Leidseplein and, after a huge hug, we went in the café because the weather was really cold and windy. We started talking and ordered some lunch, and chatted some more. After an hour and a half, Ginnie invited us to her apartment for a beer, which we gladly accepted. It’s only about a 5 minutes walk from there, but by then, it was raining/snowing, windy and cold. We had some really interesting conversations and I just wish we had had more time. She’s has such a bubbly personality, her interests seem to have no boundaries and she’s very soulful: An incredible woman. And you know what? We even got to meet her niece, Lesley and her boyfriend, Chris, who were over for a one week vacation. Now we only have to meet Donica, too, and I have a feeling it won’t take as long as the first meet-up with Ginnie. It was truly a fabulous experience. Thank you so much, Ginnie! You are absolutely AWSOME.

Let's fast-forward a bit to Monday morning, shall we? (you can read about the weekend in A'dam in the next post). We had travelled back to Basel the day before to avoid the Easter Holiday traffic and to prepare for Expatraveler’s (a.k.a. ET) arrival the next day. Since I still had gotten no news from her by 10am on the Monday, I got a bit worried, but she finally called short before 11 to tell us that she had just missed a train, but would take the next one and arrive around 1pm in Basel. Perfect. Enough time to shop at the train station for breakfast the next day. We had just returned from Holland the day before and our fridge needed some basic filling-up.

We were just in time. Just as ET was boarding the escalator to go down, we were getting to the top in the opposite direction. Again a big “greeting Hug” and we made our way to the car. We drove home and we had to keep her there for a while. Why?... Because we had a little surprise for her. TBFs were coming over to say hello, but we didn’t really have a time set, so we had to keep her busy until they popped up. Finally, I thought they might be held up and decided to open a bottle of champagne for the occasion before their arrival. And you know what? I was just filling up glass number 3, when the doorbell rang. Hmm. I’m getting the feeling that TBF’s can smell champagne a mile away. Anyway, since Mrs. TBF had to work for most of the weekend and Mr. TBF has a “man cold”, they stayed only for an hour, or so.

After TBFs left, we decided to go for a Tex-Mex dinner with ET at Papa Joe's and relaxed a bit, chatting until about 11:30 pm. I still had to work the next day, so I did need the sleep. The next morning, OX drove me to the dentist and brought our coffee machine to get fixed (that’s another story). Then he drove home to meet ET for breakfast. Unfortunately, we had locked her (and Dale) in, so the poor girl couldn't even get out. I guess we expected her to sleep-in a bit longer. OX and ET had breakfast and chatted a bit before meeting me for lunch at the Market place in Basel. I had to return to the office after lunch, so I said my goodbyes and left them both to discover Basel a bit. It was great to meet with you again, ET, but this time, we knew who we were meeting.

It was really great to meet two Expats in one weekend, albeit a bit stressful, mixed together with visiting family/friends in Amsterdam. But what the hell… It was worth every second.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T20:02:00.004+01:00

We just returned from 4 days in Holland and we had a fabulous time!

We met blogger Ginnie in real life, celebrated Pa's (O-X's Dad) 76th birthday with family and friends, and spent a day with Jaap and Patricia.

Tomorrow, we get to meet another blogger face to face! And... we have a surprise for her :)

More about all of the latest happenings in my next post, but for now, Happy Easter!

OMG! I'm a murderer!

2008-03-15T18:48:00.004+01:00

We got up in time this morning for a haircut appointment. The sun was shining and it looked like it would be a glorious day..... *But no... not quite.

We left the house around 9.45am and, as I said, the sun was shining in all it's glory (and in my eyes). I started walking down the steps of the back yard and as I looked down... Yikes!!!... I saw it in the corner of my eye. Something small and dark. A leaf,... a branch??? No. But it was too late. I had already shifted my weight to the next step down and all I all of a sudden felt was a "scrunch" under my foot that made my stomach turn.

The first words I blurted out to Orange-X were: "Shit! I'm a murderer! I just stepped on a baby salamander!!"

I felt so bad for the poor thing - believe it or not, I think they're cute. Really! I don't even kill spiders (at least the big ones... to messy). I throw them out... in a tupperware.

And you know what Orange-X's reply was?...: **"Is it dead?"

* After my first shock (the murder) and the haircuts, we went 'next door' to Germany and bought a new sofa! The day is saved! Yayyyy! And only the equivalent to 1 trip for two incl. expenses (compared to 3-see post below) to Canada.

** 55kg (120 lbs) is enough to kill a 1 1/2 inch long salamander. Duh!

You'll never ask again...

2008-03-09T18:30:00.011+01:00

You must be wondering what we've been up to lately since my blogging has been more than slow. Well, actually, not that much. Secondly, I didn't feel like writing. About what???

Here's a litte summary of the past few weeks' activities, but don't get all excited, now.

- Orange-X has been very busy at work this past month (many internal changes, etc.)
- Jaap and Patricia (our Dutch friends) dropped in for an overnight stay on their way to and from their skiing trip in Switzerland.
- We had 2 1/2 weeks of beautiful weather (now replaced by rainy weather)
- I removed most of the moss from our back yard and there's still quite a bit to do there
- Did a lot of shopping. New pants, new raincoat, etc.
- Went out for a couple of nice long walks since the weather has been so good to us
- We're thinking of changing our sofa, but the one we saw and really like would cost about 3 trips to Canada. *sigh* So, we'll wait.
- I went for a massage from Paolo yesterday... HEAVEN! I must do this more regularly
- I cleaned out my closet... Two big garbage bags! The charity organisations will be happy.
- I filled out my income tax declaration form today. YAY me!

That's about all the excitement we had as of late. So, next time I don't blog for a while, don't ask or wonder. It's just not been that much going on.

BUT.... We do have fun up-coming events. Easter Holidays are nearing quickly and we'll be driving up to Holland to meet friends & family (it's Pa's birthday on Good Friday). AND... I will meet not only one, but two Bloggers personally. One in Holland and one when we come back.

Stay tuned....

Do you think you know me?

2008-02-22T20:21:00.009+01:00

You must be totally bored with my blog, no? I admit, I've not realy been up to posting lately. Plus, last weekend I had a horrible head/sinus cold. You know, when your head feels like it weighs a ton and, if you turn it too quickly, everything inside your head follows in slow motion and ends up banging on the inside of your skull. When blow your nose and it sounds (and feels)like you're blowing out your brain! I won't go into more details. But I seem to be cured now.

Anyway, to keep my few readers busy until I'm back into shape, I'm offering you.... ME! I saw it on Swenglishexpat's blog and then on Christina's. I must say, this test is pretty accurate. Try it out. However, it will take about 30 minutes to complete, so don't let your boss catch you doing this at work ;) Here's the link: http://www.personaldna.com/tests.php

Just go over the squares with your mouse to see the split. What are your views?

And here are the details:

You are an Inventor

Your imagination, self-reliance, openness to new things, and appreciation for utility combine to make you an INVENTOR.

You have the confidence to make your visions into reality, and you are willing to consider many alternatives to get that done.

The full spectrum of possibilities in the world intrigues you—you're not limited by pre-conceived notions of how things should be.

Problem-solving is a specialty of yours, owing to your persistence, curiosity, and understanding of how things work.

Your vision allows you to identify what's missing from a given situation, and your creativity allows you to fill in the gaps.

Your awareness of how things function gives you the ability to come up with new uses for common objects.

It is more interesting for you to pursue excitement than it is to get caught up in a routine.

Although understanding details is not difficult for you, you specialize in seeing the bigger picture and don't get caught up in specifics.

You tend to more proactive than reactive—you don't just wait for things to come to you.

You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well.

Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.

If you want to be different:

Try applying your creativity to more artistic arenas, and letting your imagination take less practical forms.

how you relate to others
You are Benevolent

You are a great person to interact with—understanding, giving, and trusting—in a word, BENEVOLENT

You don't mind being in social situations, as you feel comfortable enough with people to be yourself.

Your caring nature goes beyond a basic concern: you take the time to understand the nuances of people's situations before passing any sort of judgment.

You're a good listener, and even better at offering advice.

You're concerned with others at both an individual and societal level—you sympathize with the plights of troubled groups, and you can care about people you've never met.

Considering many different perspectives is something at which you excel, and you appreciate that quality in others.

Other people's feelings are important to you, and you're good at mediating disputes.

Because of your understanding and patience, you tend to bring out the best in people.

If you want to be different:

You spend a lot of time taking care of others, but don't forget to take care of yourself!

Sometimes you can get overcommitted, and when you sacrifice spending time with those close to you, it can make them feel unimportant.

About Cars and Ducks

2008-01-28T19:28:00.000+01:00

No, no. I didn’t buy myself a Citroen 2CV, also known in many European countries as “The Duck”.

Actually, I sold my car last week. Yes, I finally did it – not that I liked to do so, but I had to. She was a 1994 years old red Mazda 323i (sorry, could only find a white one) and has been my 4-wheel companion for the past 8 years. It might not me much to you, but she has never let me down - with the exception of these past few months, and only because she was stuck in the garage, unused for weeks on end. You see, I don’t live far enough from work to get a parking space there, so I’ve been forced to use the tram. *sigh* I’ll miss her. But the costs, I won't miss (garage rent, road tax, insurances, maintenance, etc.) Luckily, the public transport systems here are really efficient, but not very practical when you have tons of stuff to carry. However, I think I’ll join the Mobility car sharing. I hear it works quite well. You know, just for the times where I need a car and OX is travelling.

Last Saturday was absolutely gorgeous: Sunny, no wind and about 7°C (45°F). So right after the groceries, we decided to take a walk. Since we live pretty much at the end of town, we walked towards the village, then took a right, then a left, crossed the main road, and zigzagged our way trough unknown territory of a town we’ve been living in for 3 ½ years!! We even crossed the highway without really realizing it (we crossed it over a tunnel so that we couldn’t hear the traffic). Then we passed what looked like a mini-petting zoo with deer, goats, a few exotic birds, ducks and geese. Not very thrilling all in all, but this one duck and goose sure got our attention.

This one duck really went crazy in his little pond. He literally kicked the others out. Unfortunately, our camera is not fast enough to catch all these moments, but it was really entertaining to watch. Then he really went wacko: Swimming after his tail, diving, swimming under water real fast, then jumping out of the pond as if the devil were after him, then spreading his wings as if threatening an invisible something.

He even managed to scare the whole bunch away! What did they feed this duck?!?! Speed?

Mr. (I think) Goose was quite the opposite: Fat (or should he look like that??), lazy and loved being the centre of attention. See how he posed for us.

Believe it or not, we walked/were out for two and a half hours. I think we’ll be repeating this walk whenever the weather allows. We ended the evening chilling out on the couch with homemade lasagne.

Ain’t life sometimes a bitch? ;)

Meme Sunday: Two Things

2008-01-27T13:02:00.000+01:00

Tina tagged me with this "Two Things"meme a couple of weeks ago. I still have another meme pending, but I'm having trouble finding wierd stuff to say about myself that you don't already know about. LOL. So I guess ET and Xmichra will have to be patient :)

I'll be putting up another post a bit later, but until then, here's the meme.

Two Names You Go By:
1. Poppy (that’s what OX calls me)
2. CS (my blogsphere nickname)

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. My warm, pink polar trainer pants
2. A white T-Shirt

Two Things You Would Want (or have) in a Relationship:
1. Respect (the rest usually follows on it’s own)
2. Humour

Two of Your Favorite Things to do:
1. Spending time with OX
2. Cooking and trying out new recipes

Two Things You Want Very badly At the Moment:
1. A cleaning lady
2. A couple of weeks in the sun

Two Things you did Last Night:
1. Made a lasagna
2. Chilled-out on the couch with OX and a bottle of bubbly, watching TV. I know, life is sometimes a bummer, but someone’s gotta do it ;)

Two things you ate today:
1. Coffee (does that count??)
2. I’ll be making myself a ham sandwich after I’ve posted this.

Last two people you talked to:
1. OX
2. Ma (OX’s mom)

Two Things You're doing tomorrow:
1. Work.
2. Do the groceries after work. (Also my plans for the rest of the week. Isn’t my life exciting?)

Two longest car rides:
1. Basel to Vienna
2. Basel to Amsterdam

Two Favorite Beverages:
1. Coffee
2. Bubbly/Champagne (as long as it’s not sweet)

Two Things About Me you may not have known:
1. I HATE V.P.L. (visible panty lines).
2. I only wear G-strings (see above)

Two jobs I have had in my life:
1. Hairdresser
2. Marketing Services Coordinator

Two Movies I would watch over and over:
1. Little Shop of Horrors
2. Bad Boys (the list could go on, and on here)

Places I have lived:
1. Canada
2. Switzerland

Two of my Favorite Foods:
1. Anything spicy (Thai, Indian, Mexican, etc.)
2. Rice (goes well with the above)

Two places I'd rather be right now
1. Canada (yes, I know it’s cold there)
2. The Maldives with OX

Two people I think will respond:

I’m not tagging anyone, but feel free to do it.

Your loss if you don't watch this!

2008-01-20T12:53:00.000+01:00

Charice is 14 (turning 15 in May). Some of you might have already seen her on TV, YouTube, or vis my Facebbok, but I just had to share her video again on my blog.

I've never heard anything like it. Enough said.

Click and hear for yourselves and be amazed.

And finally....

2008-01-06T21:48:00.000+01:00

The day before New Year’s Eve, O-X drove to the Basel airport to pick up a second guest for our party. Hans is Ma’s cousin and also a very good friend of the family. Although we have often invited him to come spend a few days with us, he finally decided to do so a few weeks after Ma and Pa returned from their last visit in September.

He arrived at our house in the early afternoon and he was amazed to see Ma and especially Pa looking so healthy and relaxed. We opened a bottle of Champagne for the occasion and while I was preparing the goulash soup, I could hear them laughing and chatting away. Hans is such a great entertainer.

Orange-X walked Hans back to his hotel - only 500 meters away - to freshen up (he says that at his age, he needs a his privacy) and came back about 2 hours later. We went out for dinner at Pa’s favourite restaurant. No, it’s not a 5 star, but a simple Tex-Mex restaurant. They have excellent crispy wings there and that’s HIS dinner. You guys would not believe how he literally attacks those poor wings. Forget even trying to get his attention! There is NO WAY his eyes or hands are going to leave that plate! So what makes him happy makes us happy. After dinner we drove home for a last Irish coffee and then all went to bed.

We had many preparations for the New Year’s Eve Party, so the next day we did a few last minute groceries with Hans, dropped them off at home and took him for a mini shopping tour through Basel. We came back around 4.30pm which just left us enough time for the last minute preps. Thanks goodness it was cold enough outside to keep the drinks cold. Our fridges were busting at the seams already, and we knew that our guest would be bringing even more food, so whatever could go out on the patio, did.

At 7.45 pm, Hans was the first guest to arrive and all the others arrived within 5 minutes after that. O-X cracked open a few bottles of Champagne while we women were warming up food and setting up the buffet table. In the cold food department, we had a lovely cheese-crab ball with crackers, an incredible rocket salad with grilled vegetable, foie gras on fresh baguette and a huzaren (Hussar) salad made of red beet, carrots, potatoes, green beans, peas, beef, apple, pineapple and hard boiled egg in a mayo dressing. In the warm food department, we had the pasteitjes, cocktail wieners, Asian style meatballs, ham croissants and pangsit.

Not to mention the goulash soup and the deserts that never made their appearance that evening (I think we all ate too much). Believe it or not, with all that was going on, I completely forgot to take a picture of the buffet table. Now that I think of it, TBF could have done that instead of taking self-portaits. Or maybe Andy? Nahhh. He was busy enjoying his beer! ;)

It was a fun evening and a very active one, too. TBFeven did a bit of Rammy weight-lifting. And look... even Dale stuck around the whole evening. And I thought he'd go up and hide in the bedroom with so many guests in the house.

Orange had lit the torches in the garden and also made a nice fire in our caminero. Short before midnight, TBF, OX and I started opening the champagne for the New Year’s toast, but some of the corks were really stuck, and I felt a bit of panic. Three minutes to go to fill up 11 glasses? We were all sweating and hoping we’d get all filled and handed out before the stroke of midnight. And we made it.

At midnight, the fireworks went off and the New Year’s wishes were spread about in our little community of family and friends. Diana went to get the kids (only a few houses away) to join the fun. A few minutes later, we were all were standing outside warming up around the caminero to watch the fireworks.

After that, we all went back in for a nightcap. In the bar, I even found a leftover of a very special drink called Sortilege. It’s a whiskey mixed with maple syrup and can only be purchased in Quebec. We wanted to share it with all our friends and poured the last ounce or so into a glass and passed it on to all to have a sip. TBF of course, thought he could have more, but the bottle was empty. Sorry, buddy. Maybe next year?

Christmas 2007 flashback

2008-01-06T13:32:00.000+01:00

Ma & Pa arrived on December 21st and while I was preparing dinner, Orange-X drove to the Basel Airport to pick them up. Their flight was delayed by 40 minutes, but they made it safely. I was quite shocked when I saw Pa. He was out of breath and his face and feet were swollen from the medication he has to take. Frankly, it looks pretty scary on a fragile man like he is. Amazingly enough, the swelling disappeared after only 2 days. Ma swears it’s the fresh air here and the exercise he gets from all the stairs in our house.

Orange-X had organized a demo wheelchair from his work so that we could take Pa with us wherever we went. At first, he looked at it reluctantly, but soon discovered that it was a great way to travel and keep up with our fast pace. We had added a lamb skin to keep him warm and taken a blanket to cover his legs, and in the end, he really appreciated the wheelchair. We wheeled Pa through Christmas shopping, the groceries, the Christmas market and much more.

But the shopping was only part of the fun. Now it was time for some serious wrapping. Heat the glue gun, out with the bows, the ribbons and colourful shiny paper, hand me the sticky tape and that ornament, too. Creativity at its best. First the girls wrapped the men's presents, then the men wrapped our presents and the parcels were cafully put under the tree.

And this was the result:

There was one "present" however, that was not wrapped. Our new dishwasher! The old one had broken down just a few days before and I didn’t think that we would get a replacement in time for our upcoming New Year’s Eve party. Ma and I had a lot of cooking ahead of us and I was horrified at the thought of having to wash everything by hand. Believe it or not, the new toy was delivered and installed by noon on Christmas Eve.

We spent a quiet Christmas Eve, just the four of us, had a nice dinner and waited until midnight to open the presents.

Between Chrismas and New Year's Eve, Ma, O-X and I spent much of our time in the kitchen preparing for the party. Ma taught me to make these wonderful pasteitjes. She did the first batch as I watched, taking notes in my head, and a few days later, I did the second batch with Ma looking over my shoulder to make sure that they would come out right. And they did! I even learned how to make the nice rim. It's not as easy as it looks, but once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty fast. All in all, we made 58 of these beauties. Serve hot with sweet chilli sauce! YUM!

But we didn't stop there. We also made about 60 Schinkengipfeli (croissants filled with finely chopped ham), a hearty goulash soup, and I even baked chocolate chunck cookies.

Orange made his pangsit (fried wontons) with his home-made sweet-sour ginger sauce.

We really had a good time preparing these dishes. We chatted, enjoyed a glass of wine and laughed a lot, too. I don't know if you see it the same way I do, but I find this kind of activity relaxing and very social.

BTW, I'm glad that I cleaned out the freezers before Ma and Pa came over, because by New Year's Eve, they were both cracking full with goodies for the party. And that, my friends, will be the next post.

It's never too late...

2008-01-03T20:04:00.000+01:00

... to send you and your loved ones our best wishes of good health, happiness, and success in your private and professional lives for the New Year!

We've been pretty busy here at the CS/O-X residence, so we are a bit nackered. However, I promise you a post in the coming days with a review of the past weeks.

Orange-X, Dale and I hope that you spent a lovely Holiday with your families and friends.

An Orange Christmas poem

2007-12-24T14:46:00.000+01:00

On the 24th December in Christmas Eve’s glow,
Santa pushes his boots, through two feet of snow.
The reindeers are striking, they’re letting him down,
He’s carrying his bags all over town.
He’s feeling depressed, the man dressed in red.
No smile on his face, he’s feeling real sad.
His muscles are aching, his back starts to hurt.
He has no one to talk to, this is really absurd.

What has happened, where is the cheer?
What happened to Rudolph, his loyal reindeer?
The elves worked real hard, all year round
But also they left, without a sound.
“Have I been rude, have I pushed them too hard?”
I got cramps in my stomach, I think I must fart
“I think this is awful, I think it’s a shame
Letting an old man walk, this is really lame”

“I’ll check and go find them, to make my excuse,
I must have them with me, or else it’s no use.”
“To celebrate Christmas the way it is right now
I could go throw darts or start milking a cow.”
“I need my dear friends, loyal by my side,
Only then I can show up, with dignity and pride”
“We all need our family and all of our friends
Partying and singing, holding each others hands”

“What do I see, do I see alright?
Eight sets of hoofs leading on in the night”
“I think I can find them if I follow the trail
I must be real close, I see a waggling tail”
“Oh yes, I can see them, all eight in a row,
They’re moving ahead, but they’re moving real slow”
All of the reindeer have their heads hanging down,
On each back sits an elf with a devilish frown.

They’re forcing the reindeer to walk down south,
Away from the North Pole, to fish for some trout.
What has gotten into them, are they out of their mind?
I need my crew with me, a replacement I can’t find.
I’ll teach them a lesson, those wicked elves,
Transform them into reindeer, so can walk themselves!
The magic spell is spoken, Santa speaks it out loud
The elves are surprised by a big silver cloud.

Santa is laughing, and while his magic is spread,
The reindeer start relaxing and lift up their head.
Donner starts smiling, Dancer lifts up a hoof,
“Hey there dear Santa, let’s go hit the roof!”
Rudolph breaths heavy, he’s ready to roll,
Blitzen gets impatient, “let’s go on patrol”
Then comes the sleigh as if it all was planned,
To ride out for Christmas with all good intend.

There the team goes, with their captain in red,
High through the sky, while we sleep in bed.
Nobody noticed which dangers we face,
If only the elves would have won their race.
So enjoy the Holidays with all that are dear,
Bring positive thoughts all through next year.
Be happy, be healthy, let the candles burn,
May all your positive thoughts be your reward in return.

Have an Orange X-Mas everyone and all the best wishes for the New Year to come from CS and me.

Straight, no chaser

2007-12-19T19:54:00.000+01:00

These guys are just amazing! Enjoy and thank you Xmichra!

Who said you needed sport to stay fit?

2007-12-09T17:06:00.000+01:00

This weekend, Orange-X drove to Holland to see his daughter before Christmas and that left me alone at home and busy as a bee. Of course, I could have gone with him, but since we only have the weekends to really prepare for Ma and Pa's visit over Christmas, I decided to stay here and take care of a few things. Plus, the older he gets, the more it stresses Dale when we both leave.

On Saturday, O-X woke me up at 6:20 am so that I could at least enjoy a coffee and a short chat (as far as my brain works at that time of day!) with him before he left for a 6 hour drive. I was thinking of going back top bed, but decided otherwise. I went through a few blogs, had 2 more coffees and by 9 am, I was already washing our drapes and looking through our Christmas decorations. While the one set of drapes was in the machine, and armed with a bucket of vinegar water, a cloth and the wiper, I started cleaning the windows and the sills (heck, why didn't I do the walls, while I was at it!). In between washes, I vaccumed and hung up a few Christmas decorations and cleaned some more. My Mom gave me a call while I was doing the dining room windows. While my whole upper body was hanging out the window to clean the outside with the cloth in one hand and my Mom (the phone) in the other, people walking along the woods nearby stared at me, shaking their heads, probably thinking I was insane. I wish someone had taken pictures. It must have been a funny sight.

This past week, we've had quite a few stormy days and regular rain showers, so that whatever leaves were still left in the bushes left and right from our (15 m2) backyard, they were all scattered in our backyard. As a matter of fact, quite a few had found their way to the stairs that we use daily, leading to the courtyard and were dangerously wet and slippery. So today, I spent a good part of the afternoon in the garden picking up about 150 litres of wet(!) leaves that I carried out to the green recycling bin. To relieve my aching muscles from the unusual body movements (don't tell me you hang out the window once a week to clean, do you?), I decided to throw in a few washes.

I think I've done my share of exercise for the weekend and am now enjoying a nice glass of prosecco while listening to Christmas music. Uhm! What were weekends meant for again? Please, someone remind me?

What will your true love send you?

2007-12-09T16:38:00.000+01:00

A quizzie that I borrowed from Xmichra.

I'm just wondering whether the glam rockers and the yodeling ladies will get along, or not.

For the twelve days of Christmas, your true love will send you:

Twelve glam rockers drumming

Eleven christmas trees a-twinkling

Ten gymnasts a-leaping

Nine ladies yodeling

Eight sheep a-milking

Seven hot chocolates a-steaming

Six Santas a-hohohoing

Five golden toe rings

Four calling secret admirers

Three French chefs bearing escargot

Two bottles of whiskey

And a fairy in a olive tree

What Will You Get for the 12 Days of Christmas?

How do you greet an expat for the first time?

2007-12-04T20:10:00.000+01:00

Yes! Finally, and thanks to the TBFs, we got to meet Sal from the “Fat Sal's Smoking Lounge” blog (formerly known as “Sal’s virtual tapas bar”) in flesh and blood. We had arranged for this meeting a few weeks ago already, and we were both really excited. We decided to meet at the Brauner Mutz, one of the oldest and most traditional restaurants in Basel.

Sal and TBFs had lunch there, but we had agreed we’d meet them later. Around 2.00 pm, we walked in and saw that “perfect bald head” and knew immediately where we had to go. We sneaked up behind their table (that was thankfully covered by a half wall and lots of green plants). O-X, armed with only a camera, took this first shot. Just for the record… I think this guy smells that there is a camera 100 yards away! Really! How can a guy pose like that in the blink of an eye/flash??

So how do you greet an expat that you know from blogging and see for the first time? Well, Sal stood up and said “Hi. I’m Sal”, to which I kinda responded: “Hi. I’m CS”. And there we stood… not knowing what to do. How embarrassing! As good Swiss citizen, I extended my hand, inviting him to take it and then wanting to pull him towards me (naughty girl!) for the mandatory 3 Swiss kisses. And then, he catches me off guard by just opening his arms to hug me. Although my plan was ruined, it was a very warm welcome greeting indeed!

We had a beer, chatted a bit and decided to leave the restaurant to walk a few steps through Basel, lost Mrs TBF (she had informed us that she still needed to get a few things and prepare the rest of the dinner and would “jump-off”), took the ferry across the Rhine, had another beer and chatted some more. Thank goodness we had the chance to chat a bit with him before “the party”! You’ll understand as you read. :)

Since TBF also still had a quick vacuuming in mind before the other guests arrived, Orange-X and I decided to stroll through the Christmas market and join them later.

We arrived (like any good Swiss) five minutes before the expected time. Sal was helping set up the table and we had nothing to do. We tried not to stand in the way. Soon enough, the doorbell rang and the other guests arrived. Full house! Seven adults and 3 kids: The TBFs, Sal, Rammy, John and their son Oliver, Andy, Di and their two off springs, Ali and Sam, and us. Chit-chat, chit-chat: My head was already spinning and at some point, I asked Sal: “Is this what you had expected?” Sal’s answer went something like: “Uhm, yeah. It’s pretty much what I expected.” I wonder if he meant the cross chatting, or the champagne. Sal?

Mrs. TBF had cooked an excellent meal again, but much too much (to our luck… we were hoping for leftovers!), and it was De-Li-Cious! First a chick pea soup, then meatballs, filled conghilie (large pasta shells) with light tomato sauce, fennel and a beautiful assortment mushrooms. Of course, I just had to fill my plate (that I couldn’t finish!), but I did have a bit of Tiramisù that Rammy had brought later on. Yummy!

During dinner – even for us – it was difficult to follow all the different conversations that were going on, but let me tell you, it was very lively, fun, entertaining and interesting. We had many laughs … Andy even tried to get TBF to work again. Now THAT is a conversation you would have enjoyed! Of course it was full of jokes! What did you expect? Just look at the pictures!

We had a last few drinks … (yes, we were again the last to leave *sigh*. Will we ever better ourselves?) and left short before 2am. But you know what? We never got the “green fairy”. My fault…. I forgot to ask. Sorry, Sal.

We had a great time again, and Sal? Next time we meet, it will be in Chicago, or in Nova Scotia (this is a joke between Sal ‘n me, okay?) ;) What do you say, Sal?

I got an award... I got an award!!!!

2007-11-25T17:28:00.000+01:00

First off, thank you to SwenglishExpat for the "Roar" award. I really don’t understand why he chose me, because I haven’t been very active in blogging lately (both posting and visiting other blogs), and I think there are much better blogs than mine out there. Nevertheless, I’m very honoured to receive it and should encourage me to post more often/regularly.

Here are the details: Those people I've given this award to are encouraged to post it on their own blogs; list three things they believe are necessary for good, powerful writing; and then pass the award on to the five blogs they want to honour, who in turn pass it on to five others, etc., etc. Let's send a roar through the blogsphere! The image at the top right can be copied and pasted onto other blogs. Also, a small size of the award for sidebars can be found over at the writing circle site.

I think that’s pretty cool, don’t you? Okay. So let’s start.

Originally, I put it up so that my family and friends, who are pretty much strewn all over Europe and Canada, could follow the daily ongoing of our lives. My blog is about our life in Switzerland, friends, travel and a little bit of bitching every now and then. I do it for fun. That’s all. Like many other blogger buddies, there are no literary ambitions behind this blog. My original thought is still there, but I'm happy to say that I have made many friends through blogging.

However, I do believe that:

A catchy title is always a good start to attract the reader.

I tend to do posts that are much too long (I think I do), and when I’m in a bit of a rush, I really value short and concise posts. Less is sometimes more. (note to self: remember that line).

The contents should – if possible – not be too offensive. Being critical about things happening around us is all right and sometimes a must, but at times, I just think it gets too close to the edge of offensiveness and rudeness. This doesn’t only happen in the posts themselves, but also in the comments, which often results in comments being blocked until approval of the blog owner.

Now to my awards (this is not going to be easy):

The Big Finn (alias TBF)
TBF got me started with blogging, so he gets special thanks for that, too. Yes, it's all HIS fault! ;)

He - and once in a while, Mrs. TBF - write about the daily life as an expat in Switzerland, friends, family and travel. He’s “da” (Did I mention that he grew up in Chicago?) houseman and never gets bored. You'll love it!

ExpatTraveler
ET loves travelling, Switzerland and swimming. Not only that, she’s an excellent photographer. Originally from California, she lived in Switzerland and France for a few years and is now in Canada with her husband.

Shelli’s sentiments
That says it all, doesn’t it? Shelli is a loving mother of three children and grandmother of little Belle, and a wonderful person with a great personality. She’s a talented, witty writer and an avid blogger AND she's my friend :) I *heart* her. Go pay a visit.

Ginnie
Ginnie is pure soul and pure gold. She is a loving Mom and Grand Ma, retiree and a very close friend of mine. Not to mention that she's a fantastic photographer. Ginnie travels regularly between Atlanta and Amsterdam with Donica. She loves nothing more than to capture the moments on camera. Curious? Go see! She's incredible.

Kill the goat
Jay is a not only a fabulous writer, she’s also a lovely person AND she’s Canadian. She will make you look for tissues just as much as she can get you to roll on the floor laughing.

So there. It was a difficult choice to choose only five, but you can find my blogroll on my sidebar. It’s there for a reason, you know. ;)

It can only get better...

2007-11-10T09:20:00.000+01:00

This morning,

Dale woke me up by licking my nose, then biting my thumb and not gently, mind you!

The weather's sad and grey

We ran out of coffee after one cup

The milk was sour

No creamer either

.... and all that before 9.00am o a Saturday morning!! Uhg!

Please tell me it can only get better!!!

Wake up!

2007-10-28T18:15:00.000+01:00

We just loved this and those of you who have (had) cats will understand :)

I hope it works (I've never uploaded videos directly from my hard disc)!

Enjoy and have a great week!

Happy Purrr-day!

2007-10-24T06:27:00.000+02:00

It’s me again: Dale. You know… The feline. This will just be a short post. So listen up…

Today’s CS’s birthday and Friday, the 26th, is Orange-X’s birthday! They’re both turning 6 ½ year old (cat age, that is). For you humans, that’s 42 years old! Man, I could be their father – if I were human, of course! I’m 15 ½, which makes me 78 in human age. Heck! I’m older than all of you bloggers!

So there you go. Happy Purrrr-day CS and Orange-X!

Pssst... It's me... Dale, the cat!

2007-10-22T20:24:00.001+02:00

Hey! Pssst! Over here…

scroll down….

Keep scrolling…

Lower…

Almost there....

Yeah, here.

It’s me… Capt’n Dale, in disguise. Well, not really. Just call me Dale. I’ve hung up my Captain’s hat. I guess I’m just getting too old for this dress-up stuff. Not too mention that the parrot got on my nerves!

Do you know what’s coming up in the next few days?? Birthdays AND my favourite holiday, but I’ll get back to that in a post later this week.

First of all, I’m sorry I haven’t posted lately, but CS keeps closing the lid on her laptop, and I just can’t open the darn thing. I’ve broken too many nails already. Note to self: find tool to crack open CS’s laptop. Thank goodness, she forgot to close it this morning. It was about time! Today’s Sunday, by the way and I set up the time for posting.

So first, a bit about moi. I’ve been having slight health problems lately. Nothing really serious, but it started shortly after CS and OX came back from Austria :a slight bladder infection.

One evening, I felt feverish and when I came to bed, CS stroked my head and said: “OX, we have to keep an eye on Dale. His ears are really hot, he didn't eat that well - now THAT is a sign - and he seems to look for affection a lot more that usual. Something's wrong.” Well of course, I didn't feel well. I can’t talk! I have to show it in some way!

So, the next morning, I was really in pain and walked all the way up to their bedroom where CS was getting dressed and ready for work. I came up the stairs, step by step, meowed as loud as I could, and made it sound like a cry (actually, I was a crying! My belly hurt so much, and it burned like fire!) CS looked at me in shock and asked me what was wrong. All I could do was to look for a safe place (a yellow bag that had fallen to the floor), crouch and press out 3-4 drops of bloody urine.

CS and OX immediately called the Doc and drove there directly. I didn’t even fight against being put in my carry box! Can you believe it? I was afraid, but I managed. Once there, the Doc stuck the thermometer right up there (you know where!). I was in pain, darnit! Hisssss! Why didn’t he just feel my ears, like CS did?!!?! Anyway, I got away with a few shots (which I HATE!), but all went well. At least, I wasn’t alone when I got home. Ma and Pa were there for me – even though I slept all day. They’re so sweet! Must have been the meds, that made me so sleepy.

Once that problem was solved – as well as 3 more visits to the Vets AND 3 more series of shots - my bowel started acting up (darned Meds!!). I’m not going into details here, but it took me over 3 weeks of “on and off tout de suite” and a couple of “Ooops. I missed the litter box only by an inch or two”, to finally get over it with (more) meds and a bit of fasting. However, I must say that diarrhea can be quite creative. Look at what I did!

Well, yes. I know it’s kinda gross for you humans, but for me, it’s just nature. Bet you can’t do that! I hope I’m not offending anyone with my creative “crap”, but it was the best I could do, considering the circumstances. And I think it's pretty good. Even CS and OX were impressed! Otherwise, just call it Cat-Art. I like to call it: "The natural spoon".

Anyway, I'm back to my gluttony and no more "pudding" in the litter box, so all is well. Will you be back on Wednesday? I've prepared a post for my loved ones. Purrr....prrrrr.

Keyword searches

2007-10-21T17:07:00.000+02:00

I love reading through keyword searches and here a few I recently found in my stats counter:

the value of salt and gold in 2007 - This one obviously lead the person to one of our Salzburg trips
musik orangex - Looking for a Dutch band, maybe?
counting sneezes - You have to look up the web for that?
had a white dental filling and its too high can this be fixed - Can a filling be too high??
fridge makes a buzzing sound and click - In that case, I'd suggest getting a new one.
sound guys tell me my guitar is buzzing blue light - What did these sound guys smoke?!
blue light bouncing sightings - Must be the sound guys from above
buzzing sound in my ovation guitar - Is there a blue light, too? I'm starting to wonder if this and the previous two searches were written by the same person
101 things to do to annoy people at a theme park - Pull the plug out of one of the rides?
zurich airport christmas gifts - Much too expensive!
cat muscle spasms while purring - Maybe Dale can answer that one.
nicest montreal girls massage - Hey! This is a clean blog, buddy!

Did you have any interesting keyword searches lately?

And now, for something completely different... Austria

2007-10-09T19:17:00.000+02:00

With all the visitors we've been having since we came back from Austria (Ma & Pa for 3 weeks and Jaap for 3 days), Markus and Paolo's post wedding party, a weekend in Holland, working on a translating a website, and normal work and house chores, I have been neglecting my blog a bit. I sometimes wonder what the real jet-setters do (or don't do... like eat and sleep)!

Anyway, I've been preparing this for a while, and I know that Pinki, Andrea and Chris are keeping a close eye on my blog to see when “their” post is up.

Well, (drum roll, please) here it is!

We arrived in Bad Fischau on Wednesday and after a warm welcome and a drink, we drove to Wiener Neustadt to meet up with Harry and Michaela for some dinner. We went to this really great Greek restaurant. The weather was lovely, the food was fabulous and the portions were huge! We had much too much fun to even think of taking pictures (except for Pinki playing around with our little camera and snapping this shot of OX, Michaela and Harry). After dinner, we went to an ice cream parlour for some desert: a big iced coffee! I thought I would burst after that, so we decided a walk would help the overly eager stomachs to digest the many calories we had just indulged in. Later on, we found a lovely wine bar where we enjoyed a nice glass of wine on a hot summer evening. After a drink or two, we retreated home and sat on the terrace.

The important thing to mention here is that we were there for a very special event. No, no. It wasn’t for Wiener Neustadt’s open air cinema; we wanted to see Chris play live at Pinki's backstage bar on Thursday! We even brought our video camera. We had a quick dinner, got there early to sit in the front row and set up our little video cam up in one of the alcoves in the wall opposite of where we sat. It was a very hot evening, and even hotter in the bar. The rain was pouring outside. Good thing, because the people who had been looking forward to an open air cinema, suddenly needed shelter. The doors opened and the people came rushing in. We also had our lettle camera with us, but darn... If that kid could only stop moving!! ;) Low lights, movement = blurr...rrrrrr!

The concert was absolutely fantastic. Both OX and I were totally absorbed in the music and Chris’ guitar playing skills. And let me mention another thing. I’ve heard this guy sing before, and he does have a good voice, but this time…. I was amazed! No, flabbergasted at the power he had that evening. Everybody was cheering him on and his humour kept entertaining us all evening.

Alas, the film did not turn out too well. We were too wrapped up in what was happening on stage to focus in/out, the little screen was just too small to see what we were filming from that distance, and the battery gave up after 30 minutes. Maybe I can try and put a short cut up for you. Would you like that? - Of course, only if Chris agrees. At least we took a few decent picts!

After the concert, we sat together with Michaela and Harry who were also present, Chris and his girlfriend, and a few other new faces for a nice chat, some finger food, good laughs and … well… quite a few drinks until the wee hours.

This stay was definitely too short. But aren't they always like that when you have such great friends around you? I always hate leaving them.

On Friday, we drove back to our idyllic Mondsee for an overnight stay before moving on to a small town in Bavaria to visit Andreas and Suse.

More to come... uhm... as soon as I'm ready :)

PS: Pinki - To answer the questions to your comment in the preious post:

a) Yes, we will definitely be back, but not before Jan/Feb '08 (Pa and Ma are coming over for X'mas/New Year).....

b)Too long ago??? We were just there 8 weeks back! ;) ....

c) *Sigh* You always have good concerts!

and....

d) Just for the record: We miss you guys, too!

So now you all wanna know the outcome, right?

2007-09-23T16:17:00.000+02:00

Before you read this, read this – if you haven’t, yet.

There. All informed now? Good.

Around noon yesterday, both Orange and I were scheduled for a haircut and wanted to get rid of some glass before our monthly appointment. On the way to the recycling containers, we saw the white Volvo coming our way. AHA!

When we came home from our haircut and groceries, O-X saw that the car was still there, so he decided to pay them a visit (they live a few houses away). O-X introduced himself and explained that there was a “little problem” with his car. The gentleman – I’ll call him Mr. AP - immediately followed Orange to the garage because he though WE had damaged HIS car. Once OX showed him the white scratches on my car, Mr. AP immediately went into defence, saying: “But, anyone could have done this!” and got a bit louder.

OX kept his calm and said: “Uhm. I don't think so. That car (meaning mine) has not moved in 3 weeks. My girfriend takes the tram to work. Could you open your rear door please? See, same height as the marks. And your door has been opened on many occasions, so it wasn’t a one time thing. Plus, I don’t see any other white cars here."

Mr. AP tried to get out of it again by saying that he never uses that rear door.

OX: “No, but your kids do. And tell me, why is there red paint on your door? ” (my car’s red, remember?)

Mr. AP: “But, I always let the kids out before I park the car.”

OX: “Funny. I just saw you today coming home and you let your wife and daughter out, but you still had your son in the back seat … right behind you.”

That was pretty much the end of the discussion and AP apologized. He was like a small kid that got caught doing something naughty. Anyway, OX told him that he had just wanted to inform him about this occurrence before taking any "drastic measures" and if we could get the marks out with polishing, it would be OK. If not, we would contact him again to discuss a suitable solution. Guess what? AP even offered to help polish my car, but OX told him that it wasn’t necessary.

I’m just happy that it didn’t end in a bad dispute. These things can become pretty nasty. You don’t have to be best friends with your neighbours – in this case, a direct parking neighbour -, but one should be decent towards each other and respectful, right? Obviously, he had noticed the marks before, but I'm still puzzled. What's so bad about coming over and apologizing before a situation like this breaks out?!

Hohensalzburg Fortress

2007-09-22T17:30:00.000+02:00

Tuesday was another beautiful, sunny and HOT day. We decided to visit the Hohensalzburg Festung, so “the bitch” – no, it’s not me. That’s what we call OX’s navigation system. – took us up a winding road up the Mönchsberg overlooking Salzburg. The road got smaller and smaller, and we ecountered quite a few hikers, some giving us dirty looks. Hmmm. We did see a few parking spots along that road, but how far could we go until we got into trouble. We had gotten used to walking the day before, so we turned around and parked the car in front of a big, classy hotel.

We followed the signs through the woods until we reached the Museum der Moderne, where we made a short halt. However, seeing the fortress just about 1 kilometre away, we decided to continue. We were both enjoying the walk through the cool woods.

It’s amazing how many residences and old, but restored houses you’ll see on the way.
It was also interesting to see the different walls surrounding the fortress and we weren’t even there, yet!

Finally, we reached the bottom of the fortress. Woah! That’s still very high up!

If you thought we had a steep climb up the Kapuzinerberg, let me tell you that the walk from the gate (where you pay the entrance fee) to the (Fortress Hohensalzburg) itself is much more work! We couldn’t believe that some people were going up there (and coming down) in their flip-flops. Now, THAT my friends, was a funny sight! Seeing them slipping and sliding out of their shoes and trying to reach the chicken ladder on the other side, or then holding on to the railing along the fortress wall. The road leading up there is not only very steep – OX suspected over 20% climb - , but it’s like a sandy, crushed stone. And let me remind you that it was again about 32° C (90°F)!

Once we made it to the top (the actual fortress), we looked at different buildings: the small chapel, the salt storage (salt was worth more than gold at that time), the blacksmith’s and stalls, the grain storage, etc. We walked across the main market place and then decided we needed some food. What a blessing! We found a lovely spot in one of the outdoor restaurants and ordered a light lunch, and an ice cold beer to wash it down.

Once we were done, we decided to take the guided tour where one is handed a phone and can listen to the explanations in different languages. In front of the entrance, there was a bull made out of steel, I think, and it caught O-X’s attention. After this photo, I had to remind him that the expression was to “take the bull by the horns” and not “by the ears”. Oh well, that looks pretty easy. Anyway, the tour was very interesting and we learned a lot about the many developments the fortress had undergone since it’s been built in 1077. Quite an achievement, I tell you.

Our favourite part of the tour was the walk all the way up to a big platform which offered a breathtaking view of Salzburg and the surrounding area in all of its glory. Absolutely stunning!

The Kapuzinerberg (where we were the day before)

The Mirabell Palace

The cathedral

The salt storage

After the tour, we decided to walk back to the car and drive back to our hotel in Mondsee. Later, we were to meet with Peter and Sonja for a relaxing dinner by the lake, followed by a visit to very nice local bar.

Many laughs and a lot of fun. Can you tell?

I am soooo pissed off!

2007-09-20T19:09:00.000+02:00

I came home today after work, and because I was home early, I decided to take my car - which has been in the garage UNUSED since 3 weeks!!! – to get a few heavier things at the grocery store, since Orange-X was on his way back from the south of Switzerland and didn’t know if he’s make it before closing time.

So, I dropped a few things off at home and walked straight to the garage and hopped in the car, drove to the store, picked up what we needed, and walked by the passenger side of the car to get to the trunk to unload the heavy burden. As I passed the rear passenger door, I noticed small dents, scratches and white paint marks ranging from just before the door handle to the mid rear wheel. And not just 1, but about 7-8 of these scratches/dents!!! It is obvious that it was the rear door of a car that was opened and banged against my door. Damn! And it didn’t happen in the grocery store parking because I was parked beside the carts so there was no car beside me.

I immediately understood where it came from. For the past few months, O-X and I have noticed a white Volvo parking randomly in free spaces (I'm sure many others have, too), sometimes in the visitors’ parking, sometimes on free, but rented parking spots (like ours). Remember that I said “white paint marks”? That Volvo is the only white car in the lot and it’s often parked on the right of my car. What is it with people nowadays?!! Don’t they have any respect for other’s property or any sense of decency?? No note, no sorry, no nothin’! I’m fuming!!! I mean, you have insurance coverage for these type of things. I don’t know who the owner of that white Volvo is, but I’ll sure find out.

Look. My car is 13 years old (turning 14 next year) and I lived in the center of Basel for 3 years with nothing but public parkings on the street (we’re talking parallel parking here), close to bars and the red light district, so my car did suffer from a few scratches on front and rear bumpers from unknown, probably a bit drunk drivers, but come on! This is - I thought - a civilized neighbourhood and it’s a housing scheme where you'd expect people to be honest! It’s obvious that he’s/she’s from here, otherwise you don’t even get a key to the parking garage. So a) he’s damaged my (okay, old) car and b) he’s eventually not paying rent for his parking. I'll check on that.

OX and I will go back to the garage later this evening to see if the car is there again. Then, we’ll just leave a note asking to either call us or then come by. Tomorrow, we’ll call the agents to find out whether the license plate owners have a contract for a specific parking space or not. I’ll let Orange do the talking, because it’s safer that way. I just hope that the owner of that Volvo isn't a rude type of person. I don't want this to turn into a messy situation.

I’ll keep you in the loop. Next entry: the Salzburg Fortress (this weekend).

Update: OX found the Volvo parked next to my car again this morning. He checked his rear door and found red paint. We also found out who the owner of the Volvo is and will go by either this evening or tomorrow morning. BTW, the guy is paying rent for the parking, so that's one problem less.

Climbing Salzburg - Part 1

2007-09-08T17:40:00.000+02:00

What? You thought Salzburg was flat?? Well, part of it is, but to see some of the sights, you can go the easy way, or not. And with all the calories we had eaten up since we got there, we though it wise to, well, you know, burn a few of those extra calories.

Here's a picture of a beautifully manicured alley leading to a restaurant (I think it's the Kongresshaus, but I'm not sure) in Bad Ischl, a small town where we made a stop before continuing our route towards Salzburg on the Monday morning. I just love this picture. Well done, OX!

On our firstvisit to Salzburg, we decided to just walk through the old town. The fun thing was that we were there during the Salzburger Festspiele (Salzburger Festival). No, we are NOT the kind to run after prominent people, but prefer to leave them their peace and quiet. Let me tell you, though, there were plenty of camera teams and paparazzi everywhere, so they had their share of attention.

Anyhow, once there, we bought a city map and made our way to the most famous and probably oldest streets in Salzburg, namely the Getreidegasse. It’s great for all you (and us) shoppers out there. Every shop has its own emblem made of cast iron and, as you walk along, you’ll find that the side streets, or what often looks like an arcade, will lead you to lovely courtyards with cafés and restaurants.

We picked a side street that led us straight to a cute restaurant where we enjoyed a nice, light lunch while sitting outdoors. At some point, I was telling Orange-X that this was the street where we could find Mozart’s birth house. He looked at me, smiled and said: “Uhm. Yes, I know, sweetheart. We’re sitting right opposite it.” Huh?? Since I had my back to the house, I had missed it completely! Duh! There it is! How could I have mised that?

As we were almost done with lunch and contemplating on visiting this small museum, about 3-4 tourist busses arrived hauling not only your day to day tourist, such as French, British, American, etc., but also a bus full of apprentice Chinese monks. At least, I think they were Chinese. Tibetan, maybe?? Anyway, they all had shaven heads and were wearing orange robes, and everyone – including the other nationalities - was headed straight for Mozart’s birth house. The line was stacking back far into the courtyard where we were sitting, so we decided to skip the museum. We fought our way to get through the “Mozart” fans and finally made it to a bit less crowded areas of the city.

At some point, we got to the Linzergasse and saw a sign directing to a Franciscan monastery up on the Kapuzinerberg, which apparently offered a magnificent view of Salzburg AND, most importantly, had a restaurant where we could enjoy a nice, cold beer! The weather was gorgeous (and very HOT! - about 32°C, or low 90°F), so we started our steep climb up the road and many stairs, then into the woods. There were two routes to choose from. One was 2.2km (road) and the other 1.6km (walking path). We opted for the shorter version, because we were getting thirsty and... Did I mention it was HOT?? We soon discovered that the so called walking path was mostly stairs… Very old stairs that are not fit for legs of a 6’2” O-X! I was fine, but poor Orange really suffered during the first 500 meters climb. How steep was it, you ask? Just have a look... And this was the easy part!

After 45 minutes of zigzagging the steep hills and stairs through the woods (I swear that had to be much more than 1.6km!!), we finally made it to our goal and were totally dehydrated! My first thought was: “It looks so… uhm...empty up here”. I turned around to find an O-X looking at a sign in total disbelief. It read: “Wirtschaft Montag und Dienstag geschlossen” (Restaurant closed Mondays and Tuesdays). You have two guesses… Right! That day was a Monday - those who though Tuesday, were wrong. LOL! So, we were the only idiots (Austrians hardly ever do a climb like that without a liquid rewrd awaiting them!) up there? Almost. The only other humans in sight were a) an art student sitting on a foldable seat - and obviously laughing at us stupid tourists -, drawing the small monastery and b) what we think was the caretaker of the monastery coming back from a walk with his dogs, opening the door to the monastery and closing it right behind him. Frustrated (and still very thirsty), we walked back down again, taking the longer, but much easier road back to the Linzengasse. By that time, our throats felt like sawdust and we went straight for a street café where we first gulped down half a litre of water, then an ice cold “radler” beer (also known as a shandy).

We were getting hungry, so we walked back through small streets and alleys to the old town and started to look out for a nice restaurant. We sat down at the Café Mozart, at the Residenzenplatz, with a direct vew of the fountain. Now this reminds me of one of Ginnie’s posts (sorry, I couldn't find it). Why? Well, she mentioned something about having desert before dinner, and during our stay in Austria, Orange-X totally fell for the classic Eis Kaffee (Ice coffee). No, it’s not a coffee flavoured ice cream, but a strong, hot coffee with 2-3 good scoops of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream to top it off. Well, she mentioned something about having desert before dinner and O-X had not one, but two of these delicious ice coffees before dinner. So what’s wrong with that?! Want a spoonfull??

We had a very nice dinner there, and made our way back through the beautiful old town to our car, then to the hotel.

Do you think that’s it? No way! We had much more climbing to do. Wait until you hear about the climb up the Salzburger fortress, Hohensalzburg!

BTW, if you look at OX's photo as "captain of the ship" closely (click to enlarge) you'll see part of me in his sunglasses. Next weekend, we're in Holland! :D

PS: I'll be adding a link with all the picts of this trip (except the X-rated ones, of course;)) in my last entry.

The moment you've been waiting for... Mondsee, Austria

2007-09-02T16:42:00.000+02:00

A promise is a promise – And I thought it would be a simple task to keep up with the blogging after our return from Austria… Well, at least keeping up with my blogroll, and not even that went as I had expected. Anyway, I’ll catch up, but you know how it is. Not even 24 hours after coming home from Austria, Orange –X picked up his parents from the Basel airport and spent a great deal of time talking the evenings away, enjoyed watching DVDs together, and a whole lot of delicious cooking… More about that in a later post.

So now, I have the pleasure of going back 4 weeks in time to tell you about our holiday in Austria. Let me rewind the clock and let's go back to August 8th, shall we?

We drove off around 9:30 on the Saturday morning when the skies were covered with grey clouds and a soft rain was coming down, and made our way towards Mondsee (Moon Lake), a small idyllic town about 25 km outside Salzburg.

We finally arrived at our lovely Gasthof short before 5pm and found out that there was the “Seefest” (festival of the Lake) that weekend. The weather was so beautiful that we decided to have a drink on the “main strip” of the village (200 feet long), relax from the drive and do some people watching before going down to the lake where the festivities would take place that evening and the next day. The village buildings are so colourful and well kept that you’d think you’re in a movie. By the way, the church from Mondsee was the setting for the wedding scene in "The Sound of Music". Who'd have thunk?!

Anyway, on our way through the parking arranged for the festivities at the lake, we walked by this car. Was that the band that was to play that evening? I have no clue. So we went our way, watching the small stands with all sorts of goodies being prepared, people testing the lights and making sound-checks for the live bands that would appear on stage that evening, etc. They had also put up a 120 meter (almost 400 feet) crane for bungee jumping and were testing the ropes with different weights. We were both quite impressed by the all organisation efforts of such a small community (approx. 3’000 inhabitants), but we were told later on that in July and August, there was some kind of event almost every weekend and most were very well frequented both by tourists and locals. After our first quick sightseeing tour, we met with Peter and Sonja (business partners of OX) for a quick drink before dinner and they gave us a fantastic restaurant tip for the next evening where we could watch the fireworks from a beautiful terrace overlooking the lake.

We walked back to the village to have dinner and decided to go back to the party afterwards. We got to the lake just in time for the band to start playing. I must say they were quite good and played a good range of styles. There were stands with food and drinks everywhere, the weather was getting a bit cool, but totally acceptable and the atmosphere was fantastic. The age group ranged from small kids, to teens to 85 plus, which we found was an excellent sign. You know what? So many of them were wearing the traditional clothing and not only the older generations, but also the younger were proud to show off their “Lederhosen” and “Dirndls”. At some point, the humidity of the cold grass was getting to my back and we walked back to our little Gasthof for a good night of rest.

The next day at breakfast, we discussed whether we should go for a boat tour on the lake, or then maybe just lazily lie on the beach and suck up some sun, or have a look at the range of events offered at the lake fair. Decisions, decisions! Once at the lake, we saw that the beach was already pretty crowded, but they also had a choice of boat tours – along with gazillions of other passengers - and small electric boats to rent. We opted for the latter. A perfect combination of romantic, peace and being on the water! Helga - that was the name of our boat – took us for a one and a half hour tour of the lake. Captains were Orange-X and yours truly. The surroundings are really beautiful and are worth seeing from another perspective (the lake), even more so considering the gorgeous, hot weather we had. But, hot sun makes one thirsty, so as soon as we docked back on shore, we headed straight to the festivities for a nice, cold beer. Aaah! Burp.... Ooops…. S’cuse us! :-)

Of course, nothing would be really Austrian without an Austrian band, right? Well, we had us some of that, too.

Later that evening, we had a taxi pick us up from the hotel to take us here. The food was excellent, the service very friendly and the view over the lake was breathtaking. Believe it or not, after entrees and main course, OX decided to have the cheese plate as desert. Does he look happy, or what? After the fireworks, we had a digestif and went to our hotel to get some rest.

Have you had enough? Just asking, because we still have 2 days of Salzburg, 2 days at Pinky's (incl. Chris alias "Kevin" live at Backstage) and another day in Bavaria with Andreas and Suze.

We'll be back... Maybe I can get OX to do the next post. We'll see.

Tick....Tick... Tick

2007-08-18T19:07:00.000+02:00

Time goes by so fast. I'm trying to work on a new blog entry. Last night, I finally uploaded the pictures we took. Not as many as usual, but a few good ones.

Ma and Pa arrived last Monday evening - just after we returned from our Austria/Bavaria trip on Sunday evening - so we haven't had much time to blog.But I will... promise. It's great to have them here and we're really enjoying prime time (not to mention Ma's cooking!!) with them.

Today, we spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the garden, cutting (the overgrown!!) hedges, mowing the lawn. Soon, we'll be relaxing in front of Ox's Pita with shwarma marinated lamb meat and lots of freshly cut veggies AND his unbeatable garlic sauce!

So, stay tuned. Maybe tomorow evening (there's still the house to clean up), you'll find a new entry... I hope. ;)

Take care, y'all!!

Feels like time travel... without the real time

2007-08-03T17:38:00.000+02:00

I’m about to rename my blog to CS and O-X’s travels! It seems that we’re not sitting still much lately.

Two weeks ago, we left early on a rainy and cool Saturday morning and drove a-a-a-a-a-a-all the way up past Hanover to a little town called Varrelbusch where our good friends, Nicole, Heiko - and napping little Jennifer – (and gorgeous weather!), were expecting us. The drive went pretty well, except for a few Staus (traffic jams) and I thought the last 20km Autobahn would never end! But we finally made it in six and a half hours.

After a lot of basic chatting, Heiko realized that he’d better hurry to the Metzgerei (butcher shop) before it closed. After all, we had two BIG meat eaters there and we were all expecting a barbecue. About 20 minutes later, Nicole’s mobile phone rang and Heiko was in consternation. His favourite butcher shop was already closed! In a slight panicky voice, he asked where else he could go “hunting”. Nicole remained calm and reassured him that there must be some meat left somewhere and named two other shops. Ask Mausi. This part of Germany will never go out of meat, take what it takes!

After she hung up, she decided to go wake up the little sleeping beauty and bring her down to greet the guests. At the first sight of us, she hid behind mommy Nicole. When she did take a peek, she frowned as if asking: “Who are these intruders?” Jennifer was distant for the first hour or so, but as soon as Daddy came home (with about 5 kg of raw meat to grill!!), I think she didn’t feel as outnumbered by new faces anymore. Balance had been re-established.

While Nicole and I were getting into some serious girls’ talk, our men started building the newly acquired grill. You’ll notice that little Jennifer is going to be one heck of a handywoman when she grows up! Men (and 16 month old) at work! Ok, she did bring screws to Daddy Heiko, but more often wanted to get the whatever he was holding right then out of his hands.

Then, little Jennifer then was fed and put to bed, and it was time for the big people (we’re not grown up, yet) to have a feast! The grill master made his way to the glowing charcoal, the let’s just say: “The heat (& meat) is on!” Yeah!! Is that a cook, or what? You can tell he loves meat! I somehow get the feeling that Heiko would jet along just great with some of the grill-masters we know! (You know who you are!

After an excellent broccoli salad accompanying an immense portion of grilled chicken, sausages and pork (I was told that there was still almost as much still in the fridge!) and many laughs, we just enjoyed a relaxing time sitting around, chatting and taking in the warm summer evening.

We then retired into our own little guest house. What? I never mentioned that? Yes! It’s like a small apartment with coffee machine, bedroom, bathroom with shower, and a cosy little living with TV. The bed was freshly made and a few chocolates were strewn over the pillow as a welcome gift. Oh. And one should NOT forget the guestbook. All guests have to write at least a little something in it before one leaves. You’ll be reminded ;) Isn't it the cutest house ever? After an excellent night of sleep, we went to the house where a huge breakfast was already waiting for us. Jennifer was running after the cats, Amanda and Antonia, but then joined us for (more) breakfast.

After cleaning up a bit (ok, I'll admit, the pict was taken the evening before, but it does fit in, doens't it?), we sat outside knowing that we would have to leave soon again. I hate those moments, don’t you? Time goes by much to fast! Can you believe that two years had already passed since we had been there last?? Anyway, we promised to be back as soon as possible. We had a really fun time with them and are looking forward to our next meet in Switzerland for Jennifer’s Christening.

Here's one of the last pists we took (kindly taken by Heiko).

Tomorrow, we’re heading for Austria again. The first 4 days will be spent in a small, romantic (I hope) Inn in Mondsee (about 20km from Salzburg) just the two of us, then 2 days at Pinki and Andreas’ and to see Christoph (alias our adoptive son, Kevin) play live at the Backstage bar, then the last two days with Andreas and Suse a bit south of Munich.

Holidays? Really?? Well the first few days for sure, but the last?? I’ll let you know ;) Just don't expect any posts until the weekend after that. We return on Sunday late afternoon and on Monday, Ma & Pa will be spending 3 weeks with us! But don't worry. You'll hear from us.

Have a great week!

101 things... Do you really want to know?

2007-07-29T15:58:00.000+02:00

After a weekend in Germany with our friends Nicole and Heiko (I’m working on that blog entry), I thought I’d take a break and put up a meme that has been on a few blogs I visit regularly.

I’m not tagging anyone, but feel free to use it.

1. How many keys are on your keychain?
Four.

2. What curse word do you use the most?
Probably the "F" word, but it always depends on the mood I’m in and where I am. I change languages.

3. Do you own an iPod?
Yes, but sometime I just find it too heavy to carry around.4. What time is your alarm clock set for? 6:30 a.m.

5. How many suitcases do you own?
OMG! I think between the two of us, we must have like 6 or 7.

6. Do you wear flip–flops even when it’s cold outside?
No. The thingy between the toes drives me nuts.

7. Where do you buy your groceries from?
Generally, from one of our two local supermarkets (Coop and Migros), or then a specialty grocery store.

8. Would you rather take the picture or be in the picture?
Both. It doesn’t really matter to me.

9. What was the last movie you watched?
Hmmm. I think it was Basic Instincts II

10. Do any of your friends have children?
I’d say it’s about 50/50.

11. If you won the lottery, what’s the first thing you would buy?
Two plane tickets back home and a house.

12. Has anyone ever called you lazy?
Except for myself, I don’t think so.

13. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep faster?
Nope. I don’t like pills in general. I’ve seen what addiction can do to a close friend of the family. It terrifies me.

14. What CD is currently in your CD player?
None.

15. Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk?
Chocolate milk and only one kind: Chocomel! To my knowledge, you can only get it in Holland (and Belgium, maybe), so we always stock up when we’re there. It’s the creamiest, most delicious chocolate milk I know.

16. Has anyone told you a secret this week?
Nope.

17. When was the last time someone hit on you?
Oye!!! Does O-X count?? If so, then this week ;)

18. What did you have for dinner?
Let’s see… We had Paolo and Markus over for dinner. We had bread with an olive pesto, we grilled a filet of pork, 2 lamb racks and shrimps, and then a nice desert (layers of berries and vodka-mascarpone cream)

19. Do you wear hoodies often?
Sometimes.

20. Can you whistle?
Yes, and I do it very regularly. I often catch myself whistling a tune in the tram or during work. Believe it or not, I can even whistle and smile at the same time.

21. Have you ever participated in a protest?
Not to my knowledge.

22. Who was the last person to call you?
My Mom.

23. What is your favorite ride at an amusement park?
Rollaaaaa-coastaaaaaa! And the wilder, the better. But believe it or not, a carrousel will make me throw-up.

24. Do you think people talk about you behind your back?
Of course.

25. What area code are you in right now?
4153

26. Did you watch cartoons as a child?
You bet. I was up at 6am (!!) every Saturday to watch the cartoons. Funny. Today, I’m more of a night person.

27. How big is your local mall?
Mall? You gotta be kiddin’. This is Switzerland, remember?

28. How many siblings do you have?
An older brother.

29. Are you shy around the opposite sex?
Nope. Actually, I generally feel more at ease with men.

30. What is your biggest regret?
I don’t think I have many regrets, if at all. Everything happens for a reason, right?

31. When was the last time you laughed so hard your sides hurt?
Last weekend while visiting friends in Germany.

32. What movie do you know every line to?
Don’t laugh. Disney’s “The Jungle Book”.

33. Do you own any band t–shirts?
No.

34. When was your last plane ride?
June 22, 2007 to Amsterdam.

35. How many chairs are at your dining room table?
Six.

36. Do you read for fun?
Not as much as I’d like to.

37. Can you speak any languages other than English?
German and French, and a little bit of Italian.

38. Do you do your own dishes?
Mostly pots and pans, and large plates that don’t fit in the dishwasher.

39. What color is your bedroom painted?
White.

40. Have you ever cried in public?
Not very often.

41. Do you have a desktop computer or a laptop?
Both. The laptops are what we both use most, though.

42. Which do you make: wishes or plans?
Both wishes and plans. You need one to make the other, right?

43. Are you always trying to learn new things?
Every chance I get.

44. Do you shower on a daily basis?
Not always, sometimes I take a bath instead ;)

45. Are you currently wanting any piercing or tattoos?
I’ve been thinking of a belly button piercing, but I AM getting older.

46. Do you believe that the guy should pay on the first date?
Not necessarily. It depends who invites.

47. Can you skip rocks?
You bet I can.

48. Have you ever been to Jamaica?
No.

49. What to snack on at the movie theaters?
Popcorn, of course, and a coke.

50. Who was your favorite teacher?
My French teacher in high-school, Mr LaPalme

51. Have you ever dated someone out of your race?
If OX counts having Indonesian roots, I guess so. And if not, I would never have a problem with it.

52. What is the weather like?
Cloudy, with sunny breaks.

53. Would you ever date someone covered in tattoos?
No, thank you.

54. Do you have an online journal?
You're on it!

55. What was your favorite class in high school?
Languages (French and English) and Gym.

56. Do you enjoy traveling via airplanes?
Yes.

57. What personality trait is a must–have in your preferred gender?
Respect and compassion.

58. Have you ever been attracted to someone physically unattractive?
Sure. Love is blind, they say.

59. When was the last time you slept on the floor?
December 30th, 2006 in a cottage in Canada

60. What is your favorite alcoholic drink?
Champagne/bubbly and red wine.

61. Does your closest Starbucks have a drive–thru?
We have Starbucks, but no drive-thru… unless you want to get into trouble.

62. Do you like your living arrangement?
Yes, but I’d like a stand-alone house.

63. What is your mother’s hometown?
She was born in Thurso, Quebec, but was raised in Montebello, Que.

64. How many hours of sleep do you need to function?
I can function on very little, but I do way better with 8.

65. Do you eat breakfast daily?
Never. I need about 2-3 hours before I can “really” eat. But isn’t coffee breakfast?

66. What was the last thing to scare you?
I can’t think of anything right now.

67. Are your days full and fast–paced?
No, but our weekends usually are.

68. Did you ever get in trouble for talking in class?
Not often.

69. What is your favorite fruit?
Berries of all kinds and cherries.

70. Do you pay attention to calories on the back of packages?
Never.

71. How old will you be turning on your next birthday?
42

72. Are you picky about spelling and grammar?
Yes, although I tend to make typos.

73. Do you believe in life on other planets?
Sure, why should we be the only ones?

74. Have you ever been to Six Flags?
No, but I’d like to.

75. Who was the last person to piss you off?
Paolo in a discussion we had yesterday. But it’s okay now.

76. Do you believe that God has a gender?
I’ll skip this one if you don’t mind.

77. What was the last thing you ate?
Toast

78. Do you get along better with the same or opposite sex?
Generally, I get along better with men.

79. What did you dress up as for your first Halloween?
I think I was dressed as a rabbit.

80. How did your parents pick your name?
I know that they chose names (both for my brother and me) that would be easy to pronounce in different languages. Plus, I just learned that my middle name was picked after the Canadian alpine skier, Nancy Greene.

81. Do you like mustard?
Sure, but only to certain things.

82. What do you tell yourself when times get hard?
You can’t escape it. If you try, it will most likely backfire on you. Go through it.

83. Would you ever sky dive?
I'm not sure, but if I had to choose between bungee jumping and sky diving, I’d go for the latter.

84. Do you sleep on your side, tummy, or back?
Mostly on my side.

85. What character from a movie most reminds you of yourself?
I wouldn’t know. Any suggestions??

86. Have you ever bid for something on ebay?
No.

87. Do you enjoy giving hugs?
Very much.

88. Would you consider yourself to be fashionable?
Yes, but only if it fits my style and personality.

89. Do you own a digital camera?
Two.

90. If someone you had no interest in dating expressed interest in dating you, how would you feel?
Very awkward.

91. What celebrities have you been compared to?
I don’t think I ever have been compared to any celebrities.

92. Who is your favorite Star Wars character?
R2D2.

93. Does it annoy you when someone says they’ll call but never do?
Yes, but it's no big deal.

94. What books, if any, have made you cry?
Can't think of one specific one right now.

95. Do you think you’re attractive?
Sometimes, yes.

96. What are you allergic to?
I only know of nickel.

97. Are you a jealous person?
Not really.

98. What’s your opinion on sex without emotional commitment?
If both parties agree and can really carry it out that way, why not?

99. Do you ever feel guilty after eating meat?
Never. And now, I'm hungry for Canadian beef.

100. If you were born the opposite sex, what would your name have been?
According to my Mom, she was so sure that I'd be a girl, that she never even gave a boy's name a though.

101. Is it lunch time yet?
Past lunch and going towards dinner time.

Has it been that long? or Writer's block?

2007-07-15T16:48:00.000+02:00

I sure haven't been a very active blogger lately, huh? I know, and I’m sorry. It’s not that we don’t have anything to report, but things have generally just not been that rosy lately and I just didn't know where to start (writer's block??).

Anyway, since I have not divulged where I work, I can say that I am absolutely B.O.R.E.D. at my present position. The team itself is great, but my work is just NOT fulfilling. Plus, my boss is on travel right now, so I’ve been leaving the office between 3.00-3.30pm because I had nothing left to do. Furthermore, our move to Canada is stagnating (insert the “F” word repetitively right here).

Brenda and Harry were here and although Bren is still on crutches after a knee operation, she managed pretty well walking through Basel. There was somewhat of a tickle fight...

And later "The boys" prepared us dinner while we chatted away. Aren't we two lucky gals?

I’m also happy to report that Selina (O-X’s daughter) has graduated from high school and has been appointed as “exceptional graduate” (her Mum being ill with cancer). She missed out on many hours of lessons because she wanted to be there when her Mom had treatments. No extra help! She will start her RN (Registered Nurse) school in September and wants to specialize in paediatric nursing. Daddy OX is mighty proud of his little girl. Can you blame him? Just look at them; the first official photo of Daddy and Daughter after their reunion:

Selina signing her diploma:

Signed, sealed, delivered. Is that a happy girl, or what?

Then we finally celebrated Pa’s birthday - since he wasn’t feeling well back in March – and I saw Selina for the first time. In case you want to know, she avoided me, but I can’t expect anything else on a first time meet, can I? Still, we had many laughs. Here's OX trying to "feed" (or was it sharing??) one of the ribs I was having with Pa.

Next weekend, we’ll be visiting Heiko and Nicole close to Hannover. That ought to be fun. The weekend after that, we have invited Paolo and Markus (who have just gotten married, by the way) for a BBQ. Let’s hope the weather is good! Then it’s off to Austria for two days with OX alone, then a few days at Pinki and Andreas’, followed by a weekend at Andreas and Suze’s. Did I ever mention that being a social butterfly is VERY tiring??

Nevertheless, we love it. It’s just that our friends and families are all over Europe, so that we’ll need a few weekends after that to just relax and recover. On August 13th, Ma and Pa are coming over for 3 weeks. Yay!

After that, O-X and I are planning a week just the two of us in the first or second week of September. But where?? Turkey, Spain, Portugal?? We’ll see, but we know we both need to spend time away with each other alone.

Right line of work, wrong Major

2007-07-06T19:46:00.000+02:00

This morning, while reading through some blogs, I saw this quiz on Mausi's blog. Out of curiousity I decided to follow the link and go through the quiz. I must say it's pretty accurate as I have given up the line of work I majored in and found the right job through experience.

You scored as Accounting/Finance/Marketing, You should strongly
consider majoring (or minoring) in Accounting, Finance,
Economics, Marketing, or related majors (e.g., Computer/
Management Information Systems (CIS or MIS), Entrepreneurship,
International Business, Operations Management, Public
Administration, Real Estate, Risk Management, Sports Management).

It is possible that the best major for you is your 1st, 3rd,
or even 5th listed category, so be sure to consider ALL majors
in your OTHER high scoring categories (below). You may score
high in a category you didnt think you would--it is possible
that a great major for you is something you once dismissed as
not for you. The right major for you will be something 1) you
love and enjoy and 2) are really great at it.

Accounting/Finance/Marketing

100%

Mathematics/Statistics

94%

French/Spanish/OtherLanguage

88%

Education/Counseling

88%

HR/BusinessManagement

81%

Nursing/AthleticTraining/Health

69%

English/Journalism/Comm

56%

PoliticalScience/Philosophy

56%

Psychology/Sociology

50%

Visual&PerformingArts

50%

Physics/Engineering/Computer

44%

History/Anthropology/LiberalArts

38%

Biology/Chemistry/Geology

38%

Religion/Theology

WHAT MAJOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
created with QuizFarm.com

It also clearly confirms my least interest by far. It's quite amazing!

The Zzzzzzz... meme

2007-06-24T17:21:00.000+02:00

Two memes in one day?? Gosh. I'm giving up all my private secrets ;) Scroll down to see the first meme.

My good friend Shelli tagged me with a meme that I’ve never heard of before, basically, because she got the idea. I think it's fun and decided to do it.

6 Weird things I do while getting ready to sleep or while sleeping:

I always fall asleep on my left side. ALWAYS! I may change my position after that, but to fall asleep, it’s only the left side.
Orange-X and I each have our own duvet (eiderdown). I like to wrap myself in it, so I would keep stealing the covers if we had only one. The other reason why, is that O-X emits incredible body heat so that sharing one duvet would not be bearable.
I sleep in undies and usually a T-Shirt or then a sleeveless top in summer. Because I usually sleep on my side, I can’t stand it when my thighs are skin on skin. During the warm season, I always swing one leg over my duvet and in winter, I kind of wrap my legs in the down blanket, so that they don’t touch directly. My lower back also has to be covered at all times; otherwise, I get up with backaches.
Our bedroom window is always tipped open; winter or summer. We both CANNOT sleep with closed windows.
I always have to leave enough space to the left of my head for Dale to come join me in bed. If I don’t, he will let me know by either lying on my face, or licking my arm or nose until I make space for him. He stays until I fall asleep.
If I go to bed before O-X – let’s say he wants to finish watching a movie – he will find me in the middle of the bed and spread eagle. He somehow manages to move me over without me waking up.

I’ll add a few more for your entertainment:

I can snore like you wouldn’t believe, especially after a few drinks or after very garlicky meals. Me loves garlic, but I get this pasty feel on my tongue.
I turn and fluff my pillow often during the night; I hate warm pillows and duvets.
I love to hear rain and thunderstorms during the night. It relaxes me.
If I get up during the night to go to the bathroom, I open just one eye (a mere slit) and will not turn on the light, nor will I ever look at the alarm clock. I don’t want to know that I still have X minutes/hours left.

How much wierder can you get? Well, you tell me.

I don’t usually tag people, but because this is a new meme and because I am spreading the meme love, I will tag Mrs. TBF (just do it when you find the time. I know you travel a lot), Colon Blow (I’m curious to see if something runs in the family), Sal (make sure to do your draft in Word ;)), Christina, Michael, ExpaTraveler, Jay and Tina.

Just let me know when it’s up, okay?

Tagged - Eight Things About Me

2007-06-24T15:12:00.000+02:00

I was tagged twice this past week. Greenhaddock was the first to tag me, so I’ll start with this meme.

Here it goes:

Rules: Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people; then visits those people’s sites and comments, letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.

Men always envied my legs. Not what you think. When I was 13 years old, I could push more weight with my legs than my 16-17 year old male gymnast teammates.
Because of no. 1, it was almost impossible for me to find boots where my calves would fit in. I still have trouble with that.
I can watch almost any operation on TV, but when the eye is involved, I have to turn away. As a matter of fact, I was thinking at some point of getting my eyesight corrected with a laser operation. My Dad gave me a website where he had a cataract removed, so I went there. Just reading about it (no picts) made my stomach churn and feel faint.
I often trip over things or slip (yes, I’m clumsy) because I don’t always watch where I’m going and then I can stumble for meters on end (think comedy), but I’ll hardly ever fall. It must be quite a show to watch, I tell you.
I’ve had my share of torn ligaments and muscles through sports, bruises, scorches and stitches as a kid (a true tomboy, I was), but I never broke a bone in my body.
I can’t kill big spiders. It grosses me out. Instead, I catch them with a tupperware and throw them out.
I’ve been married twice.
It drives me crazy when I decide to sit down and relax, and O-X starts cleaning up the place in frenzy.

There.

I know many of you have done this one already, so I won’t tag anyone in particular. If you haven’t done it, yet, or just feel like doing it, then consider yourself tagged.

Game, Set, Match... or I'll feel it tomorrow

2007-06-17T18:49:00.000+02:00

Yes. Orange-X and I went to play some tennis today. Not together though. I mean, we didn't play on the same court.

Last week, our lovely neighbour Di was playing a game of ping-pong (right outside our backyard) with her daughter, Alie, and we started chatting. She was hoping to find someone who played tennis, but was not competitive and would not count points. I'm not really into tennins, but I love running after a ball, whether it's out or not. Just for the fun of it, you know? I like to be competitive with myself, but when I do a sport for fun, I hate it when others expect me to be perfect.

We decided to book a few courts last weekend, but because it had rained so hard, the indoor court were booked-out, so we moved it to this Sunday, 3pm. Today was THE day. After taking Harry and Brenda back to the airport (more about our weekend later this week), we met Andy, Di, Rammy and John for a game of tennis. Andy, Rammy, John and O-X played a double and Di and I made our way to a court far away and isolated from all others. The Kids, Oliver, Alie and Sam, had a court of their own court to play on.

We had a great time. Di and I just had plain fun not counting points and I sweat so much, but it felt so good. O-X enjoyed playing a more "spicy" game with Andy winning the first set 6:4 against John and Rammy, and loosing the second 6:3.

Guess what? We're going back next weekend for another game and I have now acquired my first tennis racket! I'm proud of myself and I'm so happy to have found a tennis partner with whom I can just play for the fun of it. I still have to work on my controll over the ball and the strength I use (I love to really whack it and then it's gone, never to be found again), but all in all, I might even have a hidden talent. Who knows?

I can tell you one thing though. I'll be suffering for the next few days, but that's ok. Maybe next time, OX can take pictures, showing me off as the clown of the courts (not in a negative way - I just like to fool around).

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Watch out... Dead End!

2007-06-11T19:37:00.000+02:00

When I got to work this morning, I saw this:

It was taken with my phone camera, so the resolution isn't the best, but good enough. It was a walking and cycling path that is now (temporarily?) closed down and during my lunch time, I still often notice cyclists coming up at full speed until they notice it's a dead end.

Enjoying life with friends

2007-05-31T19:40:00.000+02:00

For those of you who haven't been here in a while, you can read about our Austria trip here and here.

We have been pretty busy socialising lately and it won’t stop throughout summer. Life is tough, you know. Last week, we took a few days off and drove to Austria to visit some friends, and this past weekend, we were home and close to home. We had a great time.

Suse and Andreas, our friends form the Bavarian region came over to visit us. After their arrival, early Saturday afternoon, we started with a nice welcome drink: a pink Moët. After the welcome drink, we took the tram to Basel and walked around to show Suze and Andreas a bit of Basel. We shortly discussed whether we should bring umbrellas or not, as the forecast for the afternoon was thunder showers. We decided to challenge faith and leave the umbrellas at home. A good decision as we were so lucky with the weather; we didn’t get a drop of rain all day! We got off at the tram stop “Bankverein” and walked down the Freiestrasse. Neither Suse nor Andreas had visited Basel before, so this was their first view of this nice town. The first acquaintance with Basel centre was a small shock. The first looks in the shop windows made a sound of disbelief escape from Suse’s mouth. Yes, she was shocked by the prices of articles displayed in the shop windows.

We continued our way down Freiestrasse towards the Marktplatz (Market place). Of course we had to show them “Globus”, a beautiful department store, with an excellent food department offering exclusive foods, spirits and wines. All their merchandise is displayed in such a nice way that it's amost impossible to just walk straight through. We continued our stroll up to the Münster cathedral to enjoy the view over the Rhine. Then we walked down the (many, many stairs to the quai to take one of the idyllic ferries across the Rhine to the other side of Basel. Note that this one (out of four) runs on the power of the current only. When we got off the ferry, a crossing of just a few minutes, we looked at the beautiful old houses nestled along the Rhine and decided to stop for a drink on the terrace of one of the many restaurant.

A bit later we continued our walk through the backstreets to arrive to the “Caveau”, a nice wine bar where we sat down for an afternoon aperitif. We enjoyed an excellent Merlot from Chile and had plate of different cold cuts and “Hobelkäse” (a very tasty, thinly cut cheese called Sbrinz). Andreas enjoyed the wine and the plate as he loves the “Bündnerfleisch” (a thinly cut dried salted beef). After the tasty aperitif, we walked over to the restaurant where we reserved for the evening dinner, the Atlantis. The restaurant is known for its cozy ambiance and superb kitchen. We all enjoyed our dinner accompanied by a nice bottle of Cabernet Syrah Penfolds BIN 389, one of my favourite Australian wines. Even Suse, who said “I’ll sick with water for now” couldn’t resist its lovely full taste. She even wrote down the name. I guess she’ll be on a specific wine hunt next time she’s shopping…

After dinner we took the tram back home and sat down in the garden to enjoy the nice evening weather. After a short while, Suse made herself immortal by feeding Dale his vitamin paste from the tube. Yup, she's been added to Dale’s “Tube Of Fame” guest list. I think Suse fell in love with our black feline. The ladies went to bed one after the other and Andreas and I enjoyed a last (2 or 3) drinks while chatting in the garden. Around 3 am we decided to get some sleep, too.

The next morning, Dale amazed Andreas and Suse again with his almost human behaviour. The famous words “gutti-gutti” (“feeding time”) made him run in from the garden and up to the kitchen. After he was “served” his breakfast, we had ours. Suse wanted to feed Dale some of the yoghurt, but without success. I immediately knew what was wrong. You must know that Dale is brought up in a very good way and knows how to eat correctly. I took a spoon - don’t laugh - and scraped through the yoghurt cup to fill the spoon with the rests of yoghurt and presented it to Dale on the spoon. And, you might have guessed already, Dale calmly licked the yoghurt from the spoon until he was done. Another surprise for Suse. Yes, Dale is quite an amazing animal.

Around noon, Andreas and Suse decided to drive off as they had plans for the evening at home. Before they left, we planned our next visit to them to make sure it wouldn’t take that long until seeing each other again. So, we’ll be back in the Bavarian region at the beginning of August. We’re all looking forward to it. Their just such adorable, fun people. After we fixed the next date, we said our goodbyes and off they went.

That evening, we were invited at TBF’s. The special reason was that a fellow bloger Colon Blow (Mrs. TBF's brother) and Mrs. CB were visiting. We arrived at the TBF residence around 5 pm and as always, we were warmly welcomed by both TBF’s. For the first time we met Colon Blow and Mrs. CB in person, after we had only known each other via cyber space.

By the way CB, this reminds me, you should put up a few posts again. It’s been quite some time now :-) I know we’ve bugged you all evening with this, but a blog needs to be maintained, kept alive!

We went up to the roof in the “Fishbowl” for the a glass of wine. Mrs. TBF had again arranged for a nice appetizer consisting of king prawns, olives and bell peppers stuffed with olive and/or blue cheese. Delicious! I could feed on snacks like that all night. We chatted away while TBF showed his expertise on BBQ-ing once more. He made sure that the prepared meal was slowly cooked to the right point. He is a master of grilling. Once the meat was ready, we were kindly requested to come downstairs for dinner. We enjoyed an excellent dinner of stuffed turkey breast with Cranberry sauce and a mix of oven roasted veggies such as bell pepper, mini potatoes and mushrooms. A very tasty meal! After dinner, we sat outside on the balcony and at a certain moment heard the rain pouring down. Dessert was served on the balcony; Vanilla ice with strawberries macerated in grand marnier. Yummie!

All evening, as we were chatting away, Colon Blow at a certain moment was the involuntary victim of our harassment. He was “criticised” (again) for not posting on his blog for so long (last post: March 17th, 2007!!!); struggling at times with his new camera missing the fun shots because of being late with the right settings and switching off the flash which led to dark pictures. Poor guy! But he was a good sport and laughed along with us. Wanna take a look at his blog and read about his adventures in Switzerland? Just click here and read about his past few weeks with his sis and bro-in-law. But, give him a bit of time, though. They've only flown back on Wednesday.

At a certain moment, the wind got pretty strong and the rain was swept on the balcony so we decided to go inside. At that moment, TBF told CB and me that he had to show us a funny passage of the movie “Borat”. We actually ended up watching about half the movie before CS and I decided to go home. We had a fun evening, enjoyed meeting a fellow blogger and his lovely wife, and had a great time with all. After we arrived back home, we both were so tired that we just crashed into bed.

Monday, we took it easy. Just enjoying a quiet day with the two of us, reading blogs, listening to music and enjoying a glass of champagne. We had a fun filled weekend again, but tomorrow, a work week starts. When I think that I had to get up 4 am the next day to appear on time for a meeting in Germany that started at 8.30 am, pfewww. It was a toughy…

PS: As so as we get the pictures from Andreas, we'll update. Blogger won't let me upload more for the moment, so I'll try again later this evening or tomorrow.

Austria 2007 - Part 2

2007-05-30T20:19:00.000+02:00

Okay, guys. If you want to understand this trip, you'll have to read this one first (if you haven't, yet). Plus, Pinky has sent me new pictures that he too, that I have added to the link at the bottom of the previous post.

Where was I?? Oh, yeah. So, the next day (Friday), we slept in and had a late breakfast. O-X and I decided to go for a bit of shopping in Wiener-Neustadt while the others preferred to stay home and watch a DVD before going out for dinner and another evening at the Backstage Bar. The weather was much better and except for some wind, it was quite sunny, but cool. We found a few very nice stores and came back with two full bags of new acquisitions that we tried to squeeze into our already overfilled suitcases (we were prepared for both hot and cool & rainy weather).

Shortly after we returned, the five of us drove to a really nice restaurant in close to the bar (I forget the name, but I’m sure Pinki can help me). As we were reading the card, the running gag started again and we checked if there were any kid’s menus available, usually known as Mickey Mouse/Pumukl and/or Donald Duck plates in Europe. We also kept calling Chris “Kevin” and as the waitress came to take our order, Chris said he wanted one of the aforementioned “kids’ dinners”. She laughed and then he gave her his “real” order. When they were pouring the wine, Chris asked if they needed to see his ID. Anyway, we laughed through the whole meal. The best scene, however, was when the waitress came to us carrying five small oval plates and said “a small (appetite) teaser with greetings from the kitchen” with a bit of cucumber salad decorated with a shrimp that looked like this.

Teaser, indeed! We were laughing tears! We soon found out that the cook was a woman, which kind of explained everything. Obviously, something was missing in her life. The rest of the dinner was excellent, but we just couldn’t get over the free phallus-like appetizer.

Around 10pm, we headed back to the Backstage Bar. Since it was a long weekend and many had gone out of town, Pinki and Andrea weren’t expecting too much activity. I was still surprised at the number of people appearing and all in all, it was pretty well frequented, despite the long weekend. The music wasn’t too loud and the atmosphere was great. I can say with certainty that 90% of my readers would love it there. I ordered myself a sekt (bubbly) that was okay, but a too acid for my taste. When Jackie, one of the wonderful barmaids that we lovingly call Esmeralda (from the Hunchback of Notre-Dame: see self-explanatory pict) came back to take our next order, I was not sure whether I should have another one of these sekts, so she proposed I try the prosecco in a can (yes, the one that Paris Hilton advertises).

I hesitated, but she assured me that it was better than the one I just had. Y'know what? She was right. I was really surprised. It was no match to the real thing, but pretty good. Around 1am, Orange got a little hungry and ordered a “Backstage Teller” (Backstage plate) that consists of Serrano Ham, sour pickles, olives, peppers filled with cream cheese, parmesan chunks and bread sticks. Mmmm.

At some point, we saw this guy at the bar drinking just a wee bit too much over his initial thirst and was taking a "bar snooze". All of a sudden, he got up and walked straight towards us. Since we had been watching him for some time, we were a bit afraid that he might have felt offended. Or did he just want to have some conversation? So, he staggered towards us, took a seat right between Chris and Pinki, and fell back in a deep sleep within seconds.

Orange-X tried to see whether he was still ok, but decided to try and blow some fresh air on his neck, but the sleep persisted. At some point, he was slowly but surely slipping to the side, and "Kevin" caught him just in time and put him back in a (more or less) vertaical posistion. Poor guy (the drunk, I mean). I have nothing agains going a bit over the limit once in a while when you're really having fun with friends, but I'm not sure the guy even had fun, and if he did (at some point), he's forgotten all about it. So sad.

At 3.30 am, while "Kevin" and I were still chatting away as had we known each other for years (maybe we should share the adoption costs with Pinki and Andrea), OX started helping Pinki and Andrea clean up while a buddy of our sleeping beauty was trying to wake him up. Both of them finally stumbled out of the bar as they waved goodbyes to the staff - I think. Or were they just trying to catch their balance?? I guess we'll never know.

By the time we got out of the Backstage, it was somwhere around 4.30 am and when we got home, we had all passed our "tired phase", so we opted for a last nightcap that Pinki had brought from the bar. The weather was cool, but very nice and we all watched the sun rise cuddled up in a huge blanket. When we went to bed, it must have been something like 6.15 am. What a night!(...and we all remember it all very clearly)!

We were woken up by a call on OX's mobile phone the next (same!) day at 11.30. OX had set the alarm, but kept putting it on "snooze". It was Ernst, our next stop in Austria. We got up and showered, and OX went out to get coffee and fresh bread while I was getting ready. The weather was beautiful, but we knew that we had a bit of a drive before we reached our friends Ernst and Helga in Mattighofen, a small village about 40 km north of Salzburg.

Saying goodbye to Pinki, Andrea and Chris was harder than the last time we were there, but we're going back in August 9th to see Chris play live at the Backstage Bar. You can be sure that he will get our full attention, just as if he were playing only for us.

It took us londer than we had anticipated to get to Ernst's place, but the beauty of the scenery was well worth it. The weather was fabulous and contrast of the snow topped mountains while driving through thick green forests was breathtaking. We were warmly greeted by Helga and Ernst, and their dog, Jessie.We then spent a wonderful evening with Ernst and Helga with excellent home made regional dish and wines. After dinner, we went for a walk at a nearby creek where Jessie found a new friend. When we got back, Ernst decided to make a nice fire, so we all cuddled up in warm fleeces holding a delicious glass of red wine and talked until short ater midnight. It was really an idyllic and relaxing evening. We crashed into bed, tired but very happy, and woke up to a beatutiful, sun shiny day where breakfast and coffee were already waiting for us in the warm sun. Unfortunately, Ernst had to leave early to join in a town band where he was playing himself, and we said our goodbyes to him, but enjoyed a few more hours talking to Helga.

After a hearty breakfast, while I was relaxing getting myself a dose of light and scent therapy from Helga, Orange decided to take a refreshing dip in the pool and just enjoy the warmth of the sun rays penetrate his pores.

We had to get back home to our furry little friend, so we said our goodbyes to Helga and promised to come by again (August, maybe??). We definitely want to go back. They are such sweethearts.

You'll all "Part II" pictures here.

Was that a perfect little vacation, or what? Tomorrow, I'll be putting up Orange-X's post about last weekend.

PS: Our little camera is getting a bit too old, we think. Sorry for the few pitcs we took at Ernst and Helga's, but it just wouldn't work - most of the time, anyway. Even new batteries seem to get empty in the shortest of time. :(

Austria 2007- Part 1 - Trip to Bad, Bad Fischau

2007-05-28T17:40:00.000+02:00

These last few weeks, our schedules have been so full that I’m having trouble focusing on what I’m going to write. Luckily, Orange-X has agreed to post about this weekend and I will take over our trip to Austria. I’ll try to keep it short, but you know me. I will most probably write two or three separate posts because of all we have experienced during our little vacation (not to mention keeping your interest). So this is part one of more to come.

As you may have read here, we had decided to drive off a day earlier and had booked a room at the Crowne Plaza Pitter in Salzburg. The roads were pretty busy, we had rain almost all along, and there was a lot of road construction on the way. It took us over 6 hours (instead of the usual 4 ½ to 5) to get to Salzburg. We found our hotel without too much trouble and checked-in. We had planned to do a bit of sight seeing and maybe find a cosy restaurant, but it was pouring rain and we finally decided to stay at the hotel. We opted to have dinner in the Hotel’s Pitter-Keller for some authentic Austrian comfort food. The portions were huge, and the food and service were great. After dinner, we went for a drink at the bar and then up to our room. Salzburg sight-seeing will have to wait until August, I guess.

Our next stop was Bad-Fischau – I love that name… Bad, bad Fischau!! - just outside Wiener-Neustadt. I was still raining cats and dogs, but nothing could stop us from seeing our good friends, Pinki and Andrea.

After a warm welcome and settling in, we drove off to open up Pinki’s “Backstage Bar" and prepared for the evening. We went to a local restaurant for a quick dinner and then rushed back to the Backstage. The live band, “Laura and the Comrats”, was stuck in the Ascension Day traffic and was running late.

They finally arrived half an hour before the opening and still had to set up and do a sound check. At 8pm, the band was ready, the doors to the Backstage Bar opened and the guests were let in. The first part of the show was a bit slow, if you ask us, but Laura picked-up in the second half and the overall ambiance improved (or was it just us??).

It was a fun evening and we had a great time chatting and laughing with some acquaintances we had made during our previous visits to Bad-Fischau.

The second day was a bit more relaxed, especially since Pinki and Andrea were off, so we decided to go out for dinner at a lovely restaurant called the Triad. Ever hear the expression the more the merrier? We all agreed that it would be fun to ask Birgit and Gerhard (Pinki’s sister and bro-in-law) to join us.

Then Pinki arranged for a lovely surprise: Christoph Schellhorn (remember, the musical wonder from this post?) was to come over and spend the next two days with us since he was in the area and had no gigs planned. Yay! Both Orange and I really liked him the first time we met so it was a thrill for us to see him again. I must add that since last summer, a deep friendship has developed between Chris, Pinki and Andrea. They call him “their adoptive son”. We have now also given him a new nickname (Kevin), but I’ll tell you all about that later.

We drove off for the restaurant and met Gerhard and Birgit on the way so that they could follow us in their car. The Triad is a beautiful old farmhouse, nestled in a striking Austrian countryside landscape and offers fine dining, a driving range and holidays on the farm. We had a wonderful dinner there in an almost perfect atmosphere… The table next to us had brought a hoard of young children (approx. 3-5 years old) with them. Don’t get me wrong here, we like kids, but when they are well behaved, and this kind of restaurant is definitely not a playground. Actually, it’s the parents that we were pissed off about. They did not say a word as the five kids were racing through the dining room, sometimes hitting each other, screeching, crying, and bumping into tables and chairs, aaargh! This is just not the “big golden M” type of restaurant. Ok, I don’t want to get carried away here, so I’ll leave it a that and I think you get my point that it is not only annoying, but can also be dangerous for the kids, guests and the service personnel.
After they left, however, we started making jokes and thinking up silly situation with kids and restaurants, and that’s where “Kevin” came into the picture. Chris being the youngest among us at age 24 and the fact that Pinki had made a few remarks about adopting his “protégé”, we started talking of the movie “Kevin: Home Alone”. That’s how it all got started and became a running gag throughout our stay.

We left the restaurant and got home around 11.30pm. While Pinki opened a bottle of wine, I returned from the bathroom with… guess what… Yes, Chris’ guitar. I swear that on my way out of the bathroom, the case magically opened and the guitar just flew right to me. Really! All right then, it wasn’t quite like that, but I could have sworn that it was moaning and begging for Chris to play it. So, seconds after I had handed Chris (alias Kevin) his guitar, his fingers started tickling the strings and a wide smile spread all over his face. He is not only an awesome guitar player, but as I have mentioned in earlier posts, it’s as if he and the instrument melt into one entity, one soul. It’s pure serenity and well being: it’s written all over his face and you can hear it through every song he plays, which makes it not only a delight to hear him, but also to watch him. He played for us (and himself) until the wee morning hours and we got our own concert once again. Maybe this picture will give you an idea of what I mean.

We'll update soon, guys, but for now, you'll find more picts of part 1 here and hopefully, Pinki will send me his photos soon.

Returned from Austria

2007-05-21T20:31:00.000+02:00

Just a short note to let you know that I'll be doing my best to catch up on my blogroll again. The 5-6 days we spent in Austria were just awsome! After 7 hours of driving back including all the traffic jams and road constructions on the way - which we knew we'd have - we got home at 9 pm last night. Then we enjoyed a last dring in our garden.

This coming weekend, Andreas and Suze, friends of ours from the Unterallgäu (south of Munich) will be coming over for the weekend and on Sunday evening, we'll be meeting Mr. and Mrs. TBF for dinner where we also will have the chance to meet fellow bloggers from the USA!! Another fun-filled weekend.

Stay tuned. I'll try to post as soon as possible, but for now, it's back to work.

First things first

2007-05-14T17:41:00.000+02:00

I've been lazy and busy lately. When it wasn't the one, it was the other. Orange-X hasn't had a full weekend in weeks, so we've kept the Sundays for ourselves. Selfish, eh? ;) I didn't post on Mother's day, but I have had a lot of contact with my Mom this week - yes, of course I also called her on Mother's Day ;)

I am happy to report that CS Mom is doing very well again. Last Monday, she had her corset and head stabilization removed - after 3 months!! - and has no more pain. She is free!!! How important is freedom, you ask? You stay put for three months in a "bullet proof vest" (that's what she called it) and head harness, having to ask friends and neighbours to take you to the doctor's, bring you some coffee, etc.

She's as happy and excited as a four year old at Christmas! She called me 3 times this week just to tell me how relieved she was and explaining step by step that she had now driven to the corner store all by herself, had no dizzy spells, she slept through a whole night, showered for the first time, washed her hair on her own, cooked herself a meal and was hungry again. The list goes on.

She's been such a good sport about it and was always in a good mood. I'm just happy to have her well again and I am so proud of her! She's one helluva woman.We too often take things for granted. Our life and that of our loved ones hangs on a silk thread. ALWAYS. We never know what can happen and we should never forget that. Life is a gift. Live it.

I love you, Mom! Thank you for giving me life. I hope you had a fun time with *Carl and the kids on Mother's Day.

*my brother