Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I killed my Orchid (but I'm blaming it on the snow)

I killed my Orchid...yet I'm fully responsible for raising a two year old. Go figure.

The next part of my post was going to compare and contrast caring for an orchid versus caring for a two year old, but something far more interesting happend that I must report. When I started my google search, I got as far as "How to..." and automatically "How to calm a two year old" popped up in the search suggestions. As I continued typing I got as far as "How to care for..." and automatically "How to care for an orchid" popped up. I know I'm a little bit of a Google fanatic with iGoogle, Gmail, Blogger, and Picasa, so Google basically tracks every detail of my life, but I'll give props them for reading my mind. While impressive, I'm not going to lie...I'm a little disturbed.

Enough about two year olds and dead orchids (not to be mixed up with orchids and dead two year olds).

I am thoroughly enjoying Christmas season here in Zurich. While lonely and freezing, there is something magical about it. The old architecture, the scenic lake and the abundance of Christmas lights all lightly dusted with snow is something you would picture out of a story book. Most cities in the USA decorate trees here and there along the main city streets or scenic walking areas. In Zurich, leave it to the most expensive street in all German speaking counrties to bling it out like you've never seen before. Named "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", there are 12,000 circular LED lights suspended from cables down the entire street that cost a mere 2.5 million Swiss Francs.

"Lucy"


On the side streets, branching off from Bahnhofstrasse there are even more lights to see, each with their own unique design!



So of course to celebrate the feeling of Christmas in the air, a group of us Au Pairs got together and went ice skating. While the other girls could probably compete with Tara Lapinski, I've only been to an ice skating birthday party. Once. In Elementary school. But after a couple slow and scary loops around the rink I found my center of gravity and didn't fall once! (Enter applause below) Alles gut in die Schweiz!



Rachel, Zoe, Me, Zuzana, and Michelle
(from left to right)

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving comes once a year...but only in the USA

Dear Americans,
Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Europeans,
Get back to work, it's Thursday.

It's amazing to me how many Americans have asked me if Switzerland celebrates Thanksgiving. I guess they slept through that day sophomore year of high school in American History because...REALLY?

History Lesson 101:
The first "Thanksgiving" was in 1621 in Plymoth Rock when the surviving pilgrims from the Mayflower gathered with Native Americans to have a giant feast because the harvest that year had been bountiful. In 1789, George Washington declared a national day of Thanks. Finally, in 1941, Thanksgiving was sanctioned by Congress as a national holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. (Yes, I googled that.)

Now this is the part in my blog where I could call you out, put you in your place, and say something totally witty to emphasize the point that asking if Switzerland celebrates Thanksgiving is totally ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure that it's unnecessary (because you should already feel pretty bad about yourself).

So to answer your question of how I spent my Thanksgiving - It's the same thing I did last Thursday: Work. German lessons. Work...

...But I did listen to an abundance of Christmas music. Specifically Christina Aguilera's My Kind of Christmas album and N'Sync's Home for Christmas album.

It's officially Christmas season here as you can see below - the Swarovski Christmas tree in the Zurich Hauptbahnhof! The pictures don't do justice...





Thursday, November 18, 2010

Sisterhood of the [I just ripped my] Pants

From Ripped Pants

Yesterday I sat down on my bed and ripped my uber expensive Rock and Republic jeans...right in the croch. My favorite jeans. Today, out of default, I settled for second best and wore my second favorite pair of jeans. And when I sat down on the tram I ripped my uber expensive People's Liberation jeans...right in the croch.

Have you ever formed a bond with a pair of pants before? Well maybe it's just me (and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), but I form relationships with my jeans (especially when they cost more than a plane ticket). Clearly my extremely expensive, high-quality denim jeanswear have decided to rebel against me. That's why I think that my freighed pants are trying to tell me something.

I know what you're thinking because my first thought also was that I'm getting fat, but after hours of deliberation (and pouting) I think it's much deeper than that. It's like the Bible says in Job 1:21 "The Lord givith and the Lord taketh away." Well God just "takethed away" my two favorite pairs of pants so He's got my undivided attention.

Unfortunately, my judgement is clouded by my anger and sadness over the loss of my dear friends Rock and Republic and People's Liberation, so I am leaving it to you, trustworthy friends and blog followers (and possibly complete strangers), to tell me what I am supposed to learn out of these horrific deaths. Enlighten me below:

Monday, November 15, 2010

Behind Enemy Lines

Last night I went to my first professional football game. And I'm not talking American Football (although the Broncos did a fantastic job spanking the Kansas City Chiefs last night - woot!). I'm talking about real football - the kind you actually play with your feet.

It was gorgeous weather and FC Zurich was playing against the Bern Young Boys so my cousin Estella and her husband Matt decided to take me to the game. Clearly I was rooting for FC Zurich since I live in Zurich and "Young Boys" is a lame team name. How masculine can you sound chanting for young boys? You just end up sounding like a pedophile. When we got to the game we realized that we weren't the only ones that had the briliant idea of taking advantage of the unusually nice weather to enjoy some good ol' sports because the entire Zurich fan section was completely sold out. We had two options: Pay 60 CHF for each ticket or try to sit in the opposing team fan section for half the price. We took off all of our fan gear, shoved it in my over-sized purse, and opted for the half price tickets.

Why do you ask did we hide our true team alliance like cowards? Because in Europe every fan team is like the Oakland Raiders. Violent. There's a reason the stadium was constructed to prevent the opposing fans on each other's side - because you will get shanked. (And Bern probably has something to prove because their team name is "Young Boys".)

So besides hiding our true colors and just keeping our opinions to ourselves when either team scored, we blended right in (with the exception that we spoke English the whole time so my cousin and her husband's dialect wouldn't give them away). Ok, so we didn't exactly blend right in. We spoke in English, we weren't wearing black and yellow like a bumble bee (and the Young Boys), and we didn't have a GIANT homemade flag or fireworks and flares. Yes, these people brought fire. To a sports game. And since the police are too scared to see what happens when the handful of officers take on a couple hundred angry, armed with fire, flag waving, drunk, very opinionated fans, the most they do is make an announcement to remind everyone that bringing such items to the sports arena is illegal (subtext "not inforced"). The best part of the idea to bring fire to the game is that they wave their gigantic flags (probably made with highly flammable paint) right over the flares. Way to show your smartness Bern!

[Not like CU games are much better when such items like alcohol, marshmallows, tortillas, and batteries are banned items from the stadium - but that's a whole other blog topic in itself.]

Well it was a blast watching professional soccer (aka soccer not played by my sister and all of her friends [no offense Liz!]) as well as people watching and in the end the game was tied so there were no disgruntled fans on either side. And the food was all dropped to half price after the game: BONUS!

Here's a video of the fan madness that is the Bern Young Boys:

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Bittersweet Symphony

Some of you blog readers may know this game (and the rest of you will probably think the next section is quite bizaar):

Yay, Boo, Yay, Boo, it's lots of fun to do! I say YAY! And you say BOO!

Gas from Conoco - YAY!
Gas from Taco Bell - BOO!

Going to London to watch the Broncos play at Wembley Stadium - YAY!
Watching the Broncos lose to one of the worst teams in the NFL - BOO!


So my trip to London was bittersweet. It was WONDERFUL to visit a city in a country I have never been to, see the amazing architecture and watch my favorite American football team play at Wembley Stadium...however, it was rainy most of the time, so crowded you could barely walk down the streets, and the Broncos lost the football game.

Now before you think I'm Debby Downer, let me tell you that I had s ton of fun and if I had to do it all over again I would still buy tickets to the game and book the trip. It is only a one hour flight to London so basically you reach altitude and are already on your decent.

When Estella (my cousin) and I finally arrived at St. Pancras Station in Kings Cross we had to find our Hostel - and I admit I got us a little lost. You know me, I think I have it all figured out but then I am quickly humbled by my lack of street smarts (literally, I couldn't figure out where our street was). So we eventually got to our Hostel - Clink to be exact - and we checked in to our all girls 10 bed room. So I know that the stereotype is usually that girls are cleaner than boys and that may be true in some instances, but a hostel is not one of those exceptions. Luckily our room didn't smell bad (until the morning but I won't admit it).

After we checked in we hit the town - and let me tell you, Halloween was in full force! The main difference between Halloween in the USA and Halloween in London is that Londoners actually make Halloween scary as opposed to picking an occupation and trying to make it sexy. I've never seem more fake blood in my life. So after walking around for a while we went back to the hostel to discover that our own hostel had a bar and was throwing a Halloween party...so of course we went to people watch. I won't go into detail of what we saw, but the highlight of the night was seeing a girl walk into the party with about 2 feet of toilet paper stuck to her high heel. And she had no idea. I almost spit up my beer when I saw her [side note - she's on Stella's team}.

So on Sunday (Halloween renamed "Game Day") morning, Stella and I went to Hillsong London. What an amazing church! I loved the music, the sermon was amazing, and I was pumpped for God and football.

After the service we wandered around London a little more and found an office supply store so I could make the best football sign EVER (refer to pictures).


London

Now about the football game:

WEMBLEY STADIUM IS HUGE! It can hold 90,000 people and it was about 95% packed that night. I was the only fan that made a sign so you'd think that I would make it on TV or the Jumbotran or something, but no. They only showed 49ers fans! It was totally teamist and for that I am a little angry. One of the best parts about sitting where we did was that in the row behind us there were about 10 Australian guys that were all dressed in cheerleading drag for Halloween. And they came complete with cheers. It didn't take long to convert them from 49ers fans into Broncos fans so we could help each other out to get on the big screen, but alas, it never happened. I'm sure most of you watched the game so I don't have to recap what happened but it didn't end in favor of the Broncos. After the game was over there was a mad rush of about 80,000 people trying to get on the same subway as Stella and I, so instead of wating 3 hours and dealing with very angry police wearing hats we couldn't take seriously, we decided to take a bus 30 minutes in the wrong direction to connect to a bus that took us over an hour back home. We then hit a pub and went to bed.

On Monday our tourist side came out in full force. We hopped on the double decker red tour bus and saw everything there is to see in the city of London. I won't go into details because it's all on the picasa photo album (click on the picture above). So ENJOY! I know there are about a million pictures in the album (most of which are architecture - hello, I'm an interior designer), but if you've never been to London it gives you a really good image of what the city looks like. And for people like me, it's architecture heaven :)

Well, that's all for my trip to London.

P.S. It's 11.11.2010 today. Next year will be 11.11.11. How fun would it be to be born on that day? I guess it's too late for you though, huh.