Allergies suck....

The past two springs in Lausanne brought typical mild allergy discomfort, but this spring is horrible. Apparently, the Hornbeam tree is causing problems for a lot of people in the Lake Geneva region, including me. It also hasn't rained recently, which keeps the pollen floating around. Even though the weather's been beautiful the past week I'm really praying for some allergy relief soon because the zyrtec can only help so much.

In other news, Joe and I had a boring week and weekend after his insane birthday. Saturday included shopping at the market and then Adrian invited us over for chinese that he cooked himself! It was delicious. Sunday Joe and I walked from EPFL to our apartment. It took a solid hour and I got quite a workout... we'll have to do this on a regular basis so I can get into shape faster :) Then we christened our grill with the thick cut pork chops we got at the market. It's so much better than the POS we had the past two year. And last night, Adrian and Stephan came over and we cooked out again. I love having summer weather so that we can grill! Next time... smores! All the while, there's a horrific winter storm on the east coast of the states...hopefully the spring weather will come for Jenny's wedding in a few weeks!

Happy Birthday Joe!

Holy crap! about sums up Joe's birthday extravaganza. The mini-burgers were a hit! I negotiated with Alex and George, the Great Escape owners, for mini-burgers, but the bakery made the buns super small so we ended up with lots of micro-mini burgers... how cute!
Joe drank lots of Guinness and people bought him a lot of shots... including the infamous blow-job shot that Jacqui and I were also required to do on our birthdays. Alex and the bar staff also gave Joe a great big mixed drink with lots of straws to share... but why use straws when you can just pick up the massive cup and drink right out of it. I made brownies again, swirl brownies this time, for everyone at the party to enjoy. I also offered them to Alex, George and the rest of the bar staff. A few minutes later Alex came up to the table with 2 more blow-job shots in exchange for 2 more brownies.... so Kristen and I enjoyed those!
As usual, by the end of the night there were only a few of us left standing and Joe managed to even take a picture of us at his level of intoxication. After we left the bar, Joe and Dan decided to jump into the fountain at Riponne and then some random girls joined them! Dan and Mac then walked Joe and I home... it was nice to have a massive german shepherd escort back to Malley, and Dan, too :)
Thank you all for a great party!

Happy Easter!

Hello everybody! I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Here in Switzerland it's a nice long 4-day weekend, which was much needed after all the traveling Joe and I have done over the past 6 weeks. Saturday night we went down to Lutry and drank a bottle of wine by Lake Geneva with Adrian and then we went to the caveau for some more of my favorite wine. We are going to be such wine snobs when we move home! For easter, Joe made an excellent ham in the crockpot... delicious! While it was cooking, we finally put together our new grill! Last night, we headed over to Mark's (one of Joe's colleagues) for a wine and cheese party. Before we went over to Mark's, we finally watched 'Nothing but Trouble,' a movie Joe's mom had bought for us a while back that Joe was hesitant to watch again. Let me just say that it ranks in the top 2 worst movies I've ever seen and I don't think that I can look at Dan Aykroyd the same way ever again... don't ever watch this movie!

In other news, I was accepted to go to a conference in July in Maine about GABA, which is the major part of my thesis project. I just only hope that this conference is as good as the auditory conference I went to last fall where I learned so much. I also hope that I'll be able to network and maybe find myself some job opportunities for when Joe and I finish our PhDs next spring. I'm going to go enjoy the beautiful spring weather that we're currently having... have a great week!

Cully Jazz festival

Saturday night we went down to the Cully Jazz Festival for the 3rd year in a row. This year, we ate again by the lake and then picked a venue. We decided to go to the 'Hundred Blue Bottle Cafe' and watch Carte Blanche à Master Margherita. They were.....different. Lots of percussion and rhythm with a bass guitar and a bag of musical toys including cow bell! I've got a fever, and the only perscription is more cow bell.... and I digress.... anyway, here we are sitting on the stairs to nowhere in the little caveau.

My Birthday!!

What a great night! Lots of people came out for dinner to celebrate with me at the Great Escape. It was also the night that Joe and Sai were in charge of rounds during BlindTest- Joe was playing 90s rock and Sai was playing 80s shit rock..... which means that I had a chance to win some rounds! And I nearly did... if it hadn't been for the fact that I was on a team by myself competing against Dan, Sai (who by the way wasn't legally allowed to play during Joe's round), and the rest of the American/British team. Of course I made a complete ass out of myself, but hey, it's only your birthday once a year :)

-My swiss friends:

-me with Joe, oh wait, no, that's Luca doing his impersonation of Joe ;)

-me trying to remember the artist of the song being played:

-thank you again for the flowers, they're beautiful!

So after a fun night with my friends, and getting home at 2am, I had to finish preparing for my mid-thesis presentation, which was thankfully at 4pm the day after and not in the morning. It went very well and even though the committee asked a lot of questions about my project I managed not to panic. Now, if only my thesis defense can go that well next spring!

Munich's mini Octoberfest in March.....

So over the weekend we (Joe, Sai, Stephan, Adrian, me) took a car trip to Munich for the doublebach beer festival. Normally the beer is only available in bottles, but during the festival, which occurs during lent, the special beers are sold on tap. Of course, since they are a bit higher in alcohol content, there were a lot of drunk germans in the beer halls. Oh yes, and they only serve the beer in 1L steins!! It was a really cool experience because the festival isn't inundated with tourists like at Oktoberfest and so we got to see real germans in real lederhosen dancing and singing on tables. It was a great weekend eating german food and hanging out with the boys. And yes, I managed to survive alone with 4 boys all weekend!

Barcelona is awesome!

This weekend, Joe, Sai, Adrian and I spent 4 beautiful days in Barcelona eating like kings. Besides the amazing sun, the food we ate was spectacular. Check out my seafood paella:


Barcelona is also known for famous architect/designer Gaudi and we saw a lot of his cool buildings, including the Sagrada Familia, an unfinished cathedral, and a park he designed, Park Güell. This is Joe and I in the park with the cathedral (and the Mediteranean!!) in the background:

I'll post the rest of the pictures on flickr eventually. Adrian already posted his, so if you'd like to check them out go here. I'm swamped working on my mid-thesis presentation that is on the 27th.... which means not too much partying on my birthday. Luckily my presentation is in the afternoon- just in case.

BlindTest #2

oh la la.... after a month+ of not playing BlindTest, we somehow meandered to the Great Escape last week and didn't do too badly. There's this red-headed girl that knows too many songs from the first measure of drumbeats... a bit creepy. But in the end, Joe and Sai were invited by Laurant, the french dude/bartender that runs BlindTest, to each prepare a round, but in two weeks due to our trip to Barcelona. The next morning I realized that this is my birthday, so now I'll be spending my birthday at the Great Escape next Monday.... maybe I'll win Sai or Joe's rounds. We'll see!

busy weekend!

Well, fortunately for some I am pictureless for this post about my busy weekend. I spent Friday and Saturday in Bern at the Swiss Society for Neuroscience meeting where I presented a poster on my most recent data concerning damaged brains. I won't bore you with the details, but I did make the short list of 33/~400 posters for the poster prize, but ended up not winning in the end. That truly blows because the prize comes with a hefty check that could be well spent in Barcelona this weekend. After I got back from the conferences Saturday night, Joe, Sai, Adrian, Kristen and I went over to Stephan's for a wine and cheese dinner. I think I consumed around 3000 calories of cheese while playing BOMB, the ever crazy game of movie/actor knowledge. I name a movie, you name a person in the movie, next person names another movie that actor was in, and so on.... until somebody gets stumped and takes a letter. So if you mess up four times you end up spelling the word BOMB. Kristen and Stephan were pathetic novices and were out early and then sat on the computer and played judges for the rest of the game. I had a great game for once, usually I'm the first one out, but I got Sai with Lion King and he couldn't name any of the voices in the movie.... I was very proud of myself. After Joe won, I think, I honestly can't remember who one....we all walked home to burn off some of those cheese calories.
Sunday, Joe and I took a nice hour long walk from EPFL, his school, along Lake Geneva and then back up the hill to our apartment. It was a beautiful day with an amazing view of the snow-capped mountains. Again, camera-less, so you'll just have to use your imagination for the time being until I remember to take some pictures of the mountains.

Happy Birthday Jacqui!

Yesterday was Jacqui's birthday and so we went to the Great Escape to celebrate and eat.
The night started off with a bang when we ordered about 30 beers during Happy half-hour for 8 people and then got crazy when Joe started buying shots for Jacqui- some nice, some completely nasty.
Joe opted not to eat dinner due to his mass consumption of high caloric Guinni (Guinness in plural form?). As he said last night, "Why do I need to eat an extra 1000-calorie burger?" hmmm.... maybe so that you do wake up with a hangover?

Anyway, after we finished eating we headed down to Jacqui and Dan's apartment so that Dan could give Stephan a mohawk. Not usually the best idea to have a clipper-wielding drunk, but who's going to argue with drunken logic on Jacqui's birthday?

The evening did end with a few surprises when Dan took out their guitars. Turns out that Stephan's not too bad and Jacqui's actually a trained classical guitarist. who knew!

Bored....

So, Joe's up in Norway for the week doing experiments and I'm stuck here pulling my hair out trying to finish my poster for my next scientific meeting. Nothing too exciting is going on over here at the moment. Over the weekend we had Adrian and Stephan over for raclette and then we headed to Teodora's going away party. I somehow managed to get Joe out of there around midnight and then I broke out in hives on the way home... that was creepy considering I hadn't done that since I was 8 years old. No idea what set it off, but thank goodness for Benadryl & Zyrtec. Other than work, I've been keeping myself occupied with TV shows on DVD. After 2 full discs of Family Guy I now understand why my brother loves the show, and well, now I can't wait to finish season 3. And then I'll move on to the Sopranos... everybody at work loves that show, so now I have to get caught up in the insanity of Tony Soprano. Couch potato here I come.

Since nothing else exciting is going on I thought that I'd post some pictures from a couple weeks ago when I went out with Joe, his advisor & her son, Sai and Stephan.

When in Rome, eat!

Last weekend Joe and I spent an amazing weekend in Rome eating and seeing the sites. I can't describe how yummy all the food was and there was a wonderful selection of food without tomatoes, thank goodness. We ate lots of pasta and pizza and even ate dinner twice on Sunday just because we could.

When we left on Friday it was a beautifully clear day that left us with breathtaking views of the Alps as we flew south from Geneva to Rome. The pictures didn't turn out as clear at it really was, but they're close. In this picture you can see lake Geneva on the left hand side with the French and Swiss Alps on the right.

Saturday morning we got up early and went straight to the Vatican to see St. Peter's Basilica (below) and to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel.
Saturday afternoon we spent walking around the Roman ruins of the Forum and the Colosseum. It was really cool to be around such old structures.


On Sunday it rained a lot, so we spent a lot of time inside eating, saw the Pantheon and visited the Spanish Steps again. For more pictures visit my flickr account.

Valentine's Day

Since Joe and I are going to Rome this weekend, he let me pick out flowers at the market on Saturday morning so that I could enjoy them. It's not a typically Valentine's Day arrangement, but since when am I typical! And for tonight, I'm making fondue.... our favorite Swiss food! Yes, I know, it is just melted cheese, but it's not as easy as you'd think to make it properly.

what a busy week

Last week was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. There were lots of things at work to keep me busy with my thesis project plus Wednesday was Stephan's birthday and Friday was Arnie's birthday and due to Joe's mini project of trying new restaurants around the city we ate out a lot last week. And so I decided to have a lazy cleaning-filled weekend at home while Joe worked his butt off in lab.
Last night we had a fun night out. Randomly, a friend of Stephan's from UT appeared in KingSize pub. Turns out she's on vacation and they happened to run into each other. Then we headed up to the Great Escape for dinner, where much craziness occured, like usual. Boys will be boys!

Superbowl XLI Switzerland style

What a long night..... in Switzerland the game airs from midnight to 4am on an Austrian channel and had sub-par commentators who were obsessed with talking about cliffs, or something. Sai, our resident Chicago native, hosted his second superbowl party and even decorated his living room in Bears colors.
I did watch some of the live CBS feed over the internet and got to see a bunch of the commercials. I highly enjoyed the Bud 'rock, paper, scissors' one and the nut one with Robert Goulet lurking around the office. After the first quarter we thought that we'd never hear the end of it from Sai about the Bears, but that didn't stop anybody from digging into Joe's famous halftime-made Nachos Supreme.but in the end, the Colts dominated, Sai was sad, and the Swartz lab will be free of Grossman photos plastered above Sai's desk.

Girl's Night -Lutry

After 4 months, I finally got around to organizing another Girl's Night. Since my apartment was crowded last time, I decided to organize it at my favorite wine cellar, the Caveau in Lutry. They serve great locally produced wines, with the grapes grown on the hills along Lake Geneva. Of course I took pictures. We're such a cute group!

-Sitting: Delphine, Carine, Me, Stéphanie, Alexandra; Leaning: Kristen & Jacqui

-Kristen, Delphine, Carine, Me, Stéphanie, Jacqui & Alexis - My artsy photo of wine stuff.

-Me and Jacqui... we're hot!
for more pictures, check out my flickr account. Email me and I'll activate you as a contact for my flickr account.

Our first time playing BlindTest

So our favorite bar in Lausanne, the Great Escape, plays a game called BlindTest on Monday nights. Even though we've been frequenting for over 2 years, we somehow managed never to go on a Monday until last week, when Joe found his calling- BlindTest. It's a game of musical knowledge. They play the song and each team guesses who the artist is. As many of you know, Joe is a whiz at music trivia, and so we created a dream team of members. Joe and Sai are our American music experts, Jacqui and Dan are our British music experts, Stéphanie is our french music expert, and the rest of us (I'm the teen pop expert) just sit there and cheer everyone on. It was an absolutely hysterical evening, as I've never seen Joe get so fired up about a game.... writing artists' names faster than the speed of light, waving his board like a pro, and arguing for credit when credit was due. We ended up winning round 1, 'Dead Rock', but in the end, round 2 killed us- it was full of Spanish, French & Italian songs that we had no hope at guessing. Overal we finished 2nd and are looking forward to next week.

- Joe & Sai waiting for the next song-Sai, Stephan & Jacqui concentrating hard- Joe frantically getting points-Dan thinking hard about the song being played

My new years resolution

Hello everyone!

We'll see how long I can keep this up. I'm hoping that I can update with photos more often than not so that everyone at home can see what we're up to.

Miss you all!