All Things Birthday…

Hello all!!

As promised I’m updating about my Swiss birthday experience. It was a great day. I work up early and the girls helped me find my birthday table (a very special tradition in our house…). I had several presents and even some cards from home. I received a new pic of my niece which I’ve been really wanting for a while!

We dropped the girls off at school and then headed to Sihl City which is a new shopping center (much like a US mall) in Zurich. We spent some time there and then headed back home for lunch and bringing the girls home. It was a very leisurely day.

In the evening I had invited a friend over, from down the street, for a Raclette Dinner (very Swiss). In the end I was surprised to find that my friend Megz was also invited. We all had such a great time chatting over dinner, wine, and my oh so awesome tasting home-made devil’s food cake birthday cake. The girls and my host mom made the cake themselves and (as you can tell from the photo) it was perfect for me.

All in all it was such a wonderful day and it wasn’t weird at all (especially considering I’ve been so paranoid lately about how old I’m getting and how I’m older than all my friend here!!). I’m making this one short because I’ve got to write my Budapest post tonight as well. I’ve included photos in this post from my birthday and the pics of the girls birthday cakes which I promised in earlier posts. I’ll speak to you all again soon…


Much Love!!!

LuLu

The Very Best Birthday Present…IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!

Hello All!!!

I’m back from Budapest and better than ever. I will definitely have plenty to say about that later but I can’t be bothered with it right now. I’m off to bed (a little bit early for me I must admit) because I’ve been informed that the girls will wake me early in the morning…it seems that’s a birthday tradition in to family to begin the special day. I’m very excited to see how tomorrow will be…my first Swiss birthday!!

The point of this post is to tell all of you about the very best birthday present…an unexpected one that just happened to occur tonight. My sister, Jen, called me for the usual catch-up on gossip from the community and family happenings and I could hear my niece, Whit, in the car as well jabbering away. She got on the phone with me and for the first time we had a sort of conversation…she said hello and bye bye and an assortment of other things that I couldn’t really make out…and then…near the end…SHE SAID MY NAME!!! Apparently she talks some to other family members about me but I’ve never heard her say my name. I left to move to Switzerland just a bit after her first birthday and I feel like I’ve missed so much of her growing up already. She’s probably the one thing I miss most from home so to hear her and know that she knows (sort of) who I am means A LOT to me!!

Ok…I’m off to bed but I just had to share this special moment with everyone. I’ll update really soon about my Budapest trip and also I’m going to work on getting my pics online from Budapest (and also Triberg…yes I know…I’ve been lazy!!).

Have a great evening everyone!!

LuLu

Randomness…

Hello all!!

So sorry I haven’t written in a while. To be completely honest I’ve not been motivated to blog at all. Sure I’ve done a lot of things lately worth posting about, but I have been a bit out of sorts and just didn’t feel like sharing much with anyone. Truthfully I’m still not in a place where I feel like being the chatty blogger but I feel that if I didn’t force myself to start again it could be quite a while before I’m “in the mood…”

Ok…where to start…ok…the normal awkward conversation topic is of course weather. I could write heaps about this lately. The weather has been soooo weird. I mean…what’s today…the second day of spring?!?! I can say that it has snowed every day of spring this year here in Zurich. I moved to Switzerland and expected tons and TONS of snow…none really…until now. It has snowed more in the last 4 days than it has since I moved here. Hum…and the really strange thing is that I can wake up to really clear weather, an hour later it’s snowing like mad and the whole place is completely covered and then 10 min later the sun is out again melting everything away and then the process begins again. I’m told this is typical weather for this time of year…but…hum…weird!!!

Moving on…did you know that March is the month for all great birthdays?! It’s true. Of course there’s mine but also the two little girls I live with…girl aged 6 is now 7 and girl aged 3 is now...you guessed it…4. The really strange thing is that first is one birthday then eight days later another and then eight days later mine. We are all basically a week apart. So, to correspond with this phenomenon we have had two family birthday parties in less than a week. By the by…that’s a lot of screaming kids running around!!! I should know…I was here…also it means ALOT of cakes and cupcakes to bake. Hum…I think I might throw up if I see any more chocolate…at least that’s what I said several times before I shoved a chocolate cupcake in my mouth at the kindergarten! Seriously though…the cakes for the actual parties were quite a work of art (of course that’s because I didn’t make them at all!!). I will be following up with posts of the cake pictures. They really are so beautiful.

Well, a little over a day and I’m headed to Budapest for my birthday trip. I am so excited about seeing this city. I’ve been told by a good friend that it was her favorite city in Europe and I hold that opinion quite high. We’ll see…I’ll post when I get home and let you know how it went.

Lastly but not least by far I have a request for all my readers. My mother called today and informed me that my great grandfather is in the hospital in very bad shape. Please keep my family in your thoughts as his condition is not looking very hopeful. He’s been sick for quite some time but this is never a good situation to endure as a family. Hopefully whatever the outcome we will be able to make peace with it all.

I love you all and please be patient with me as I attempt to get over this whatever that’s making me not want to post to the blog or be social.

Talk to you all again soon…

LuLu

Triberg im Schwarzwald…

This is translated to be Triberg (Germany) in the Black Forest. This is where I spent my time last weekend. A tiny village (or willage as people here pronounce it…) is in the heart of the Black Forest and home to the cuckoo clock. Here lives the world’s largest cuckoo clock (and I’m actually told the second largest as well!). I departed from Zurich on Saturday AM, with four friends, for our two hour train ride to this very clichéd German town. We didn’t expect this to be a weekend of rushing around. If anything this trip was booked more for relaxation and that is exactly what I found there.

Our hotel was very quaint and nice…small town and when we arrived we found that it was actually in a neighboring village to Triberg’s main city area. The walk into town was 45 min and unfortunately for us the buses ran very, VERY irregularly on the weekend for this area of town. I think each of us had the same thought when we first found out we were going to have to walk each time we wanted to go into the city center…arg!! However, the walks turned out to be quite nice. There were two options, walk through the forest or along the main road. We ended up doing both and both were lovely. Since there were quite a few of us we were able to have nice conversations and a lot of fun, making the time pass very quickly.



There’s not much to say about Triberg other than…lovely. Germany’s highest waterfall is there and also the aforementioned world’s largest cuckoo clock…and before anyone asks…yes, I did try the famous black forest cake (and I didn’t like it…but then again it’s made with kirsch…a type of liquor…and I don’t like that stuff at all!!). I’ve attached a few pictures (anyone else think this place looks alot like Helen, GA...storefronts, waterfalls, and all?!?!) and as usual I will be adding the others to an album on my photo site. I haven’t gotten around to this yet but…wait for it (CandyCane)…they will be there eventually!!

For now I’m working on finalizing plans on what to see in Budapest for the ol’ b-day. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to post on in the next few weeks. Hope you guys don’t get tired of hearing from me!!

Going to bed…

LuLu

Wal-Mart, a New Friend, and a Spectacular Lunar Eclipse…

Yes…I went to Wal-Mart this weekend!!! I was so excited about this road trip. I headed out very early on Saturday AM with my host family (minus dad) and two of my good girlfriends from Down Under. All in all we were 6 women on a mission and I was the American badly outnumbered by the Aussies! Singen, where the closest store is located, is about an hour from here by car just over the German border…in truth we crossed the border then back into Switzerland briefly and then into Germany again… weird huh?!?! Wal-Mart was everything I wanted and more, except the craft department…I do miss the fabrics and stuff from back home!! We were in the store for two and a half hours of pure joy and chaos. I’m glad we went early because we missed most of the people that way. I bought a new movie (The Whole Nine Yards, which has an option for German and English and subtitles…still on my quest for learning by watching), some hair products (much cheaper there), and a new pair of pants (light material to cut off and make capris for summer…I have the feeling I might just roast alive when the warm weather starts…). All in all I didn’t go crazy but instead just picked up the stuff I needed. It might have been a different story if they’d had more of the brands and prices I’m used to at home! It’s funny to me that I was so excited to go this weekend because when I’m at home a trip to Wal-Mart is dreaded due to the crowds and lines…ick

Ok…moving on…I’ve made a new friend…we’ll call him Toadee…He lives just outside my bathroom window. Ok…must start from the beginning…I had friends over for the weekend (as you already knew) and on Saturday AM Megz came running from the bathroom, where she’d been showering, in a frenzy! It seems she had opened the window to let out some steam and a frog jumped in! That’s right folks…a big, slimy, brownish-green frog was staring at the both of us as we made our way into the bathroom to check out the situation! Somehow we scared him into going back outside…you see…I live on the bottom level of the house and because of that the window is lower than the level of the ground at the back of the house…there is a moderate sized drain/hole/not sure what you call it where my window in the bathroom opens up and apparently Toadee had jumped down there and couldn’t get out. He has been the object of our affection, the little girls and the big ones, for the last 48 hours. For the little girls to see the frog I have to stand on the sides of the tub and lift up girl age 3 and girl age 6 to see…for those few moments, staring at this slimy looking thing, I’m the hero with little girls’ arms around my neck and flashlights in hand…I love it…too bad he probably won’t last too long in the hole. He’ll either be rescued (and not by me…I’m not touching that thing!) or face his demise rather quickly down there. Anyway…one thing’s for sure…I won’t be opening that window again anytime soon, I don’t want him hopping in on me while I’m in the shower!!

One last story for the weekend. I’m sure that most of you have heard about the lunar eclipse on Saturday night. It was the first full lunar eclipse in over 3 years I’m told and was visible on all continents at some stage or another. All in all I’m told that the show lasted for over 6 hours. We were lucky enough to know about this and be able to watch it for small amount of time, just before the moon was completely covered with the earth’s shadow. It was spectacular!! The moon changed colors in front of our very eyes and the shadow almost seemed like an illusion. I truly hope some of you caught a glimpse of this with your own eyes!

A small update before I go…I am definitely going somewhere next weekend…we’ve booked our tickets to travel deep into the Black Forest in Germany for an overnight trip to Triberg (home of the world’s largest cuckoo clock!). Should be interesting! For now I’m off to watch an episode of Friends in German and then hit the sack (that’s such a weird phrase to me…)

Gute Nacht!! (Just learned in Deutsch class how to put the appropriate ending on adjectives…hence the gute…)

LuLu