Marrakesh weekend with Joe & Adrian

This was quite an experience that I'm still trying to figure out how to explain, plus I'm actually busy at work today. So, until I have time, here's the link to my flickr pictures, which are still not titled.... click me!

Joe's back and Thanksgiving feast!

What an awesome couple of days! Joe got back safely and unfortunately late and missing his bag from his 2 week trip to the States. He missed his connecting flight in Newark, so he ended up flying via Paris to get home on Thursday, but he got home safe and sound and tired. Then, while Joe stopped into lab for a bit, Adrian and I went to Aligro to buy supplies for the Thanksgiving feast on Sunday. I then made dinner for Joe and we hung out until he got tired.

Friday night, we went to dinner at Cafe des Bouchers and ended up sitting next to the reigning Swiss National Sumo champion. Turns out he's actually of British decent and talked our ears off for our entire dinner. He was an interesting character.

On Saturday, Jacqui, Adrian and I made the brine solution for the turkey and then drove to Lutry to pick up the turkey I special ordered at the butcher shop. Isn't it beautiful!


We then stopped by the caveau to pick up some wine for dinner. Pascal helped us pick a nice wine to go with dinner. We then dropped off the bird at Jacqui's and picked up stuff at my apartment (crock pot, 3 bowls of stuffing, etc). I then washed the turkey and put it in the brine to soak overnight. Joe & I stayed home that night and Joe made me dinner and then we decorated our christmas tree.

Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30am to get my stuff together to catch the first metro at 5:59am to Jacqui's apartment. There I was looking like Aunt Jemima pulling a waterlogged 8 kilo (think 18 pound) freezing cold turkey out of the brine. Jacqui and I then patted the bird dry and started on the stuffing while the bird sat at room temperature for 2 hours. I then finished making the stuffing, stuffed the bird, trussed a bird for the first time ever and stuck it in the oven! We then cleaned up the apartment, set the table for dinner, got the veggies ready and showered while basting the turkey every half hour for the next 4 hours. We started the first Lord of the Rings movie (we watched all 3 yesterday!) around 12:30 and then lunch started around 1:30 and everything everybody brought was amazing! The turkey was super moist and delicious...so much better than last year's turkey. It was the best turkey I've ever had, and I'm not just saying that because I made it... it was an amazing bird and the brining made it taste absolutely magnificent. Click here for more pictures from our Thanksgiving feast day! We then all vegged out in front of the tv until 9pm watching all 3 Lord of the Rings. Sai was supposed to make us all turkey curry for dinner, but we were all too stuffed from lunch to even consider eating another full meal. We'll be postponing it until later in the week when all of our stomachs have recovered.

-the table set for dinner

-me & the turkey...all done!

-Kristen, Stephan, Carolyn, Joe, Adrian all sporting their Christmas-cracker crowns... a british tradition for Christmas

Joe comes back tomorrow!

Joe's nearly 2 week trip to the States is almost over and he'll finally be flying back today, returning bright & early tomorrow morning. yeah! I can't wait... this is the longest we've been apart for a very long time. and he'll be back just in time to help with the final preparations for Sunday's Thanksgiving dinner!! I've been working on the schedule of events to prepare the turkey and Jacqui's apartment for the festivities. I'll be up early Saturday to prepare the brine solution before Jacqui and I pick up the bird at the butcher shop. And on Sunday, we'll be up super early to get the bird out of the brine, stuffed and into the oven. Hopefully this year I won't dry out the turkey so badly... I'll definitely be using a meat thermometer this year instead of just guessing like I did last year...pop-up timers aren't the standard over here....it'll be another adventure this weekend, like usual!

Laurent is on my Sh!tlist....

UPDATE: These Boots are Made for Walkin' was totally in Full Metal Jacket!!!

We had a nice girl's night dinner last night, but unfortunately, quite a few of the girls canceled because they were sick. BlindTest last night ended up being a bit crappy, and as I predicted, the red-headed girl kicked our ass, but we held on for 2 of the 3 movie rounds....almost winning them. For one of the first songs played, we had correctly written down Chariots of Fire, a bunch of the girls knew it, and were the first ones up, but Jacqui pulled me down because she thought it was Black Beauty! We weren't off to a very good start ;) Jacqui got a big string of movies right and I got a couple, too, most likely because I was the only american playing. We did manage to get correct Platoon, Beetlejuice, Flashdance, Footloose, Wizard of Oz, Crying Game, Young Guns, and some others that I forget... I think we had 10 or 11 points. At one point, Lolly started screaming at me 'Big Fish, Big Fish, Big Fish, Big Fish' but I didn't remember the song being from Big Fish and couldn't really understand her, so then she yelled again, louder, 'Pulp Fiction'....whoops.... my bad... in my defense it was loud in the bar ;) Then Jacqui went home early with a headache and so I lost my movie partner, who like myself, appears to have spent her childhood watching mindless movies like I did. I almost threw my board across the room at Laurent, the bartender in charge, when he didn't give me Saturday Night Fever. I was the first one up, standing on my freaking chair, but of course, he was still fussing with the stereo and didn't see who was the first one up....We got pissed off again when Lolly said Full Metal Jacket when he played 'These Boots Were Made for Walkin''....he said 'maybe?' and we got a big old zero for that, too. then for the last round titled '?' he started playing normal music again and so I turned in my board and left.... so not cool. It was a little strange playing without Joe & Sai around because 1) they're really good at playing this game and 2) I was the only crazy freak at our table jumping up and down and making not so nice gestures to Laurent. Oh well. Maybe next week when the theme is 'decades'.

And Adrian, Weekend at Bernie's wasn't the correct answer for the first song played....you are soooo disowned....

still keeping busy!

well, I survived week 1 of Joe's trip to the states. Went climbing at the indoor gym a bunch of times and had friends over for dinner on Tuesday and Saturday nights. I made my yummy lemon rosemary (from my balcony garden!) chicken for the girls on Tuesday and then I made fondue on Saturday night for Adrian, Stephan & Jacqui. Stephan brought his Mahjong set and taught Jacqui and I how to play. Adrian is already a master player. It's a lot of fun and is similar to Rummy, so it was easy to pick up. I also started taking dance again, which was fun, but tiring because my balance was totally out of whack and I kept tipping over...very frustrating. I even got Mayumi to go out for a small beer with me after class! She's so fun. Last night Adrian, Stephan and I watched Return of the Jedi at Jacqui's and she made dinner for us... yummy pizza & potato wedges.
Tonight I've organized a girl's night at the Great Escape for us to play Blindtest. It should be a lot of fun because the theme tonight is 'Classic Movies' so instead of guessing the name of the singer, we have to guess the movie. I'm feeling confident, but like usual, I'll probably get my butt kicked by the red head girl who knows every song ever played! I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures taken for me to post tomorrow ;)

keeping myself busy while Joe's at a conference

Joe left for a conference and interviews super early on Saturday morning (he woke up at 4:30am!) thanks to George Bush delaying the time change a week to 'save energy.' Riiight. So instead of catching the Geneva-Newark flight at 9:15, Joe had to catch it at 8:15! But, thanks to his upgraded silver elite status on Continental, he didn't have to wait in line like the rest of the losers (like me). He's been teasing me about separating our reservation at Christmas so that he can get upgraded and leave me all alone in coach...boohoo.

So after I got back from the airport I went straight to work at 9am and finished my experiment. Then I went straight to the gym for indoor rock climbing with the usual crew and then home to shower and off to tandem with Stéphanie. After tandem, Adrian graciously offered to make me dinner... more yummy Chinese food! And finally, around 10:30 I got to bed to rest some for my super busy Sunday.

Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30am to get ready and catch the 6:45am train from Lausanne to Zurich to meet my friend Vanessa from the german exchange I did in high school. I haven't seen her since 2000 when she met up with me and my choir on our european tour! It was really nice to see her and catch up over brunch and walking around the city. Then at 1pm I left Zurich for Lausanne and realized that since I had the day pass, I could go all the way to Geneva and go to Burger King! So I texted everybody to see if they were interested in me bringing back BK, but nobody was in the mood for a semi-cold whopper. I couldn't believe how much time I spent on the train yesterday, but it gave me a chance to put a big dent in the book I borrowed from Stephan, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini- the same guy that wrote The Kite Runner. After I got home, Jacqui and I decided to go up to the Great Escape for a drink, which was also an excuse for me to watch some American football. Unfortunately, the good game between the original Golden Boy (Tom Brady) and Peyton Manning, was the late game that started at 10pm, but I was just too exhausted and we ended up leaving before the game even started. After I got home I had a chance to talk to Joe for a bit while he was watch the big game at a sports bar....so not fair! He has one of his 2 talks tomorrow, so good luck Joe!

Adrian's Chinese Hijacked Halloween dinner party

Yeah! Everyone dressed up last night! And as usual, Adrian's chinese cooking was fantastic. I so need to learn from him how to make chinese food, again, since I forgot to write things down the last time I tried. But anyway, after I showed up, I decorated his apartment with my old Halloween decorations. Jen made punch with a frozen hand.....coooool. We had dinner and of course, I took a bunch a pictures...including the excruciating self-timed 'family picture'...thanks guys for being so patient! We even had some trick-or-treaters and they looked a bit shocked and asked if I was wearing a wig! Who knew shiny plastic hair looked that real?

-Adrian, our ninja chef for the evening

-Pumpkin Joe and hippie Carolyn (how my mom ever wore this outfit out in public is beyond me!)

-Jen the awesome punch witch, Adrian our ninja chef, Stephan the lifeguard, pumpkin Joe, Kristen- the devil with the blue dress, Jacqui our kitty, and hippie Carolyn

For more fun pictures from the night, go here and check them out!