The Big 3-0...also known as hitting middle age.....

Hello all!

Today is my birthday....the big 3-0.....I'm 30! Can you believe it?! I always thought that it would feel different but it doesn't at all! Though he didn't mean it the way it came out, my former host dad said that it was nice to have a middle aged person in the house...talk about a major shot first thing in the morning!

I woke this morning early....not to go to work but instead to pretty myself for going into the city of Zurich for the day. My former host mum and dad took me out for a coffee on a hill somewhere and that hill was one overlooking the lake and the city of Zurich at a very special place...The Dolder Grand Hotel! This is a very special hotel which is over 100 years old (and, as a very cool side note, it is featured in the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die). During my stint living here in Switzerland, my host mum worked with this hotel during their extensive renovations so it was cool to finally see the place she talked about so regularly! While enjoying our coffees, one of my host mum's friends at the hotel organized a little cake so beautiful decorated for my birthday to be sent to our table. I've attached a picture and, yes, it was a yummy as it looks!

After our relaxing break I headed down the hill into the city for the day and I wandered around seeing all the places I have missed so much. I got my lunch to go and ate it by the lake as I watched the boats and the swans and the clouds float by...it was ideal!! Afterward I made my way to the Bahnhofstrasse (a rather long, mostly more expensive than I can afford, shopping street) and went into some of my favorite shops for some birthday presents to myself! I rode around on trams and trains for a bit just soaking up the atmosphere and then returned in mid afternoon to my former host family's house outside the city.

The plan for dinner was very special...fondue! A friend, Martina, came over to join my host mum, the girls and I for dinner. First there was the obligatory exercise of finding the birthday tray (which I did very successfully and quickly this time, I might add!) and on it were several presents (handmade jewelry from Girl Aged 8, two bottles of Swiss wine-one red, one white- and a really cool case for my glasses that I'd wanted for a while and kept putting off buying....

Finally the fondue...a lot of cheese. Cheese...maybe my favorite thing on this earth! I was in heaven!! After dinner I was surprised with one of my host mum's original cake display ideas. It was brownie cake in the shape of the Grosse Mythen (a mountain I hiked near here...), complete with Swiss flag on top, a teeny tiny picnic basket with small wine bottle and glasses along a pathway of cookies which lined a bowl of green jello (all mean to symbolize my love for sitting by the lake with friends drinking wine...), and finally at the end the girls had fun putting different smurfs on the display to add their special touch on some other of my favorite things (talking on the phone, blogging, and sledding down the mountain....).

It was a wonderful day and night filled with great surprises and happy times. I could not have asked for a better way to spend my birthday! I've attached a few pictures, I hope you enjoy them!

Going to bed now as I'm quite tired (must be the old age setting in.....)!

LuLu

A Very Smurfy Birthday Party...

My arrival in Zurich just happened to coincide with the birthday celebration for girl aged 8...her actual birthday was several days before I arrived and yesterday was the party.

Every year the girls have these wonderful little parties with the most gorgeous, very creative cakes! The new (old) trend in the area right now is the popularity of smurfs and as such that was the cake theme for girl aged 8 this year. My host mum put together a really cool scene using an amazing homemade lemon cake, different lollies from the sweets drawer and smurf figurines and houses borrowed from people older than me who still hade their childhood things....it was truly amazing!

For majority of the party, a treasure hunt through the forest was planned. Host mum and I did the circuit that morning putting out little prize smurfs with clues on them as to which child was the lucky recipient and then also a few snacks and drinks along the way....as a side note, I should add, sitting behind a desk from 8:30-5pm Monday-Friday has done nothing for my severely out of shape body and I can tell you with all honesty that I've done more excersize and gotten more fresh air in the last 4 days than in the entire last year of my life. After returning home I promptly sat on the outside bench, coffee in hand, exhausted for about 20 minutes!

The party was an enormous success! The 8 little girls giggled heaps, played games (like several three-legged races), did the forest treasure-hunt circuit (which had a few minor problems-all ok in the end-and surprising, even to myself, I joined in on....), and at the end of the hunt were met by possibly the biggest surprise of the day....two horses waiting for them to each have a turn riding. Horses are another big hit for the girls (and has been for as long as I've known them!) so it was an extra special surprise set up by host mum and dad...

I'm going to cut this post short now and head to bed. I've just gotten to a particularly interesting part of my book and I want to get back to it before I'm too tired to concentrate tonight....I've included a few pics from the Smurf Birthday (including a particularly entertaining one of host dad minding the horses while we all had cake)....

Tomorrow I'm headed into the city of Zurich for the first since landing. It's my birthday...I'll be celebrating the 2nd anniversary of my 29th birthday tomorrow by shopping my way across the city and stopping multiple times for coffee at all my favorite spots!

Until then.....

LuLu

Tricks of time...

I've been here all of 15 hours or so and somehow it's as if I never left! As you last knew them, the girls were aged 6 and 9 when I departed for my reacclimation to life in the US....fast forward to present day Switzerland and now they are gorgeous girls aged 8 and 11 and nearly as tall as their former Au Pair.

It only took the briefest moment for the old familiarity between us to return. As we lay in a pile talking on the trampoline girl aged 11 said "wouldn't it be great if you'd be our au pair forever" and I agree with that remark so much! It's not that my life in Georgia isn't full because it absolutely is; but life here is so much less complicated and I long for that again especially now that I'm here on vacation just soaking it all in!

I skipped the book reading and went straight for the walk this afternoon. It was gorgeous...short sleeve weather...not hot but not cool either. I found myself a bench at the top of the hill just where the forest starts and sat for a while just breathing the fresh air and watching the planes take off and land. I'm including a few pictures I took for your jealous (I hope!) viewing pleasure....

Now I'm off to find a good book to read....

LuLu

A solo trip to CH....

Hello all...it's been a while since last I wrote....

For months now I have been plotting my next trip to Zurich. Finances and life situations as they are, I only just booked the trip about 3 weeks back. This morning I arrived safe and sound and was greeted as though I'd never left. It's such a nice feeling to know there is a place I can go and it feels so much like home to me and I'm always welcome!

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about this trip...though I'm not entirely sure why! I guess it is because this time I'm here all my own and for a more significant amount of time than before. I guess I was also afraid that too much time has passed since the last visit and that things would be greatly different. I also need to make some plans for entertaining myself a bit (day trips and such...) which because of the rush of the last 3 weeks I've not even begun to think about....but now here I am and so I must. It's horrible, right, to have to think about what to do on vacation?! I'm sure you all feel the upmost sympathy for me, right?!

So on that note, I'm going to go sit out on the terrace on this lovely sunny day and read a book and figure out my next plan of action....after that I think I fancy a nice long walk!

I'll leave you with one last image....as we made our descent into Zurich...I saw the mountains and we were approaching them quite close, I thought. I've never arrived in Zurich, at least I don't remember it anyway, from that angle. As I looked out at the snow covered Alps I began to notice that I was recognizing a few peaks and flashing back to wonderful memories I had there with friends and my host family....Grosse Mythen, Rigi, and even Pilatus (the mountain I aspired to summit and to date still haven't)...and that's when it hit me that things might change but the most important things stay the same...my memories. And there are so many more to be had here....

I hope you'll hear from me a great deal on this trip. I'll be in Switzerland until April 11th with a few day in Prague with Sara!

Signing off for now....

LuLu