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!

Happy Halloween!

Yeah, it's my favorite holiday, when I get to dress up and look silly! For work today, I decided not to come in full regalia, and leave that for tonight. Instead, I've come as a black cat...unfortunately I'm missing my tail. So I guess I'm a tail-less cat with leopard ears...hmm....

But tonight will be fun. Adrian invited a bunch of us over for his homemade chinese food, which I love! and I've psuedo hijacked his dinner party and turned it into a costume dinner party... I will also be unloading my halloween decorations from my party 3 ago all over his apartment...bwahaha!! And I'll leave you all with Halloween memories from the past:

-Dimitrius & bucket-girl at our halloween party '04

-Joe & me at our halloween party
-the dead pigeon on my balcony last year...what a wonderful surprise that morning
-Me & Stéphanie out after our tandem last year

good food, friends & fun!

Saturday morning Joe, Jacqui, Adrian and myself went to Aligro (the equivalent of a Sam's Club) for almost 2 hours! It was a lot of fun. Jacqui stocked up on beer and junkfood to feed us when we all congregate at her apartment. And then Saturday I had tandem with Stéphanie and then went to the caveau in Lutry and then to dinner at the Moroccan restaurant nearby with a bunch of people. The food was great, but of course, quite slow...we were there for almost 3 hours! Then on Sunday, after the time change and a marathon phone conversation with Jacqui (also almost 3 hours) I went climbing with Stephan and Kris at St. Triphon. It was weird to be climbing outside again after spending a week at the climbing wall at the UNIL gym, but the weather was surprisingly warm, around 60 degrees. We only got to do a couple routes each, but the end of the last one was a doozy. Kris & Stephan have the ability to pull themselves up with their arms, but since my arms are still not stong enough, I figured out a way to use my legs to alleviate some of my weight as I pulled myself up and over the top...forearms are amazing muscles! There was a cute a little husky (i think) puppy there with some people climbing next to us...of course I had to take pictures of him!

What a crazy week!

I finally am feeling all better in the tummy region! yeah for that! I was busy this week preparing for a collaborator's visit to the lab. She's a funny lady and it's a good thing that I like her because I will be staying with her the first week of December to collaborate with her on a project. It'll be a lot of work, but this way I can go Christmas shopping in Paris, which is where her lab is located... poor me ;) I had to meet with her and my advisor on Saturday morning to prepare samples for her to take back to Paris and confirm what I will be doing while I'm in her lab. Of course, a simple one hour meeting turned into almost 3 hours because this woman loves to talk more than I do.... who knew that was possible!

In more fun news... on Saturday night Sai hosted a wine and cheese party at his apartment. When we walked in we weren't sure if the smell was from dirty laundry or cheese... we're hoping it was just the cheese. Since there were 7 of us there, we had a lot of food and wine... it was a lot of fun. No pictures, sorry. I figure everyone's pictured out from the cruise anyway. No big plans as of yet for this week, but we'll see what it brings us!

Cruise stuff's all posted!

I finally finished blogging about our cruise and titling (is that even a word?) all of my pictures from the trip. Enjoy! (and let me know if there are any typos)

Happy Birthday Great Escape!

I'm sure you've all noticed that we've had a lot of birthdays at the Great Escape, but last night was it's 4th birthday party. This year's theme was 'Superheros' and unfortunately (or fortunately) I we didn't have time to get costumes. But the bar staff, like usual, were all dressed up for the occasion.

-Me & Batman (Alex the bar manager)-Me, Superman (Laurant, the other manager) & Joe

If you want to check out the rest of the pictures, click on me.

I am a gas bag....

I unfortunately contracted some horrible virus while on the cruise, either on the boat or when I had mint tea in Tunis. Regardless, I've had horrible gastrointestinal issues since last Thursday. I'm sure you all really wanted to know that tidbit of information! The doctor confirmed this morning that I don't have a fever and so I probably don't have appendicitis, just a nasty virus in my tummy.....great!

In more exciting new, tonight is the Great Escape's 4th brithday party with a Superhero theme this year. Sadly, I don't have a costume to wear, but considering nobody dressed up last year, it probably doesn't matter. It should be fun and hopefully less crowded than last year since they passed out bracelets this year to get in to the private party instead of cards that could get passed back out the door.

We're back!

and nobody fell overboard! It was an exciting, tiring, fun, italian-overload of a week. After a week I'm finally finished writing the brief overviews of what we did each day. Pictures are up and titled. I have them grouped in one big set if you want to see all of the pictures at once. If you'd rather look at each individual city/day, just click on 'sets' and you'll see that each day/city is organized into it's own set as well.

Genoa/Savona

On Saturday, Joe and I took the train down to Genoa and did some sight-seeing. We found this awesome little restaurant milling around some back street. The food was great... too bad the food on the cruise wasn't anywhere near this good. Then on Sunday, we took the train to Savona to board the cruise ship. Once on board, we didn't really know what to do, so we unpacked and then went and explored the ship. We were signed up for the late dinner seating at 9:30pm and ended up sitting at a table with really nice people from the states who were all around our age and thankfully not a table of retirees.

-main deck and pool on our boat, the Costa Fortuna

Naples

I got to see Mt. Vesuvius and go to Pompeii! Pompeii was really cool. Our tour guide was this leathered retired Italian high school teacher. He was so funny, in a not-on-purpose way, when he talked to the group, especially to the Chinese in our group, and knew where every piece of shade was on the tour route. Check out the pictures... they're really cool! Unfortunately, because we went on the excursion to Pompeii, we didn't have time to see Naples. So, maybe, if we have time (and money) we can go back down to check out the city and spend more time at Pompeii and go to Herculaneum, which is another excavated city that was buried under mud when Vesuvius blew in 79 AD.

-me & Vesuvius

-finally! the video of our crazy tourguide at Pompei, Romano.

Palermo

What the F$%#!!! That about sums up the craziness in Palermo. For the first hour, it was quirky, even cute how haphazard things were in the city...such as how crazy the people drive and try to almost kill each other. Joe and I went wandering through backstreets and sidestreets and saw some crazy crap. Like a guy carrying a chandelier, unwrapped, in one hand while he drove his scooter with the other. We had to stand flush against a wall while a truck went through a narrow side street. Thankfully we still have our toes. And when we were on our way to the Catacombs we had quite a bus adventure. Unlike normal civilized cities, the bus stops aren't marked clearly, you have no idea what bus stop is coming up next and of course, not that I was expecting them to, nobody spoke english on the bus. So, Joe & I are on the bus, we pull up to a stop, Joe and I get off the bus because we're blocking the door and it was easier than pushing around others. As I'm getting back on the bus, the doors slam into me, so I push them open. I turn around, the bus starts pulling away with the doors wide open and Joe standing on the road. I look at him as we start to drive away, he looks shocked... runs along side the bus and jumps in! Then some italian lady starts yelling at the driver that the door's open, he slams on the brakes, shuts the door and then I'm sure the bus full of Italians is cursing out the stupid american tourists. A cute little old man said 'Cappuccini?' Which is the name of the catacomb we were taking the bus to see, and motioned for the next stop. We got off at the next stop and found the Capuchin Catacomb (Catacombe dei Cappuccini) and saw some crazy stuff. We weren't allowed to take any pictures, but here's a link to somebody's website. After that strangeness, just check out the pictures, we were ready to head back to the boat.

-crazy market street in Palermo

In a side note/eulogy, my watch officially died this day, the second of October, in the year two thousand and seven. It served me well over the past 10 years and served as a reminder that it's been 10 years since I graduated high school, since that's when I got the watch. Anyway, I'm going nuts without a watch!

Tunis

We decided to take an excursion while we were in Tunis because we were only in port from 7am until 1pm and thought it would be a bit dangerous if we tried to do anything on our own. So we took the excursion to see Carthage and then to the little town of Sidi Bou Said for some shopping. After being in Pompeii, the Carthage ruins were a bit boring.

-Joe and cousin It with Tunis in the background

But the weather was amazing and warm. The Carthage ruins are spread out all over the place, so we were hopping off and on our bus and spent most of our time in a museum with our guide. After that, we went to Sidi Bou Said and walked through the streets of vendors through houses and then to a beautiful lookout point.

-view from Sidi Bou Said

The vendors weren't that bad unless you showed interest in their things, which we didn't since most of it looked like junk from China. Some of our 'friends' from the trip had fun bargaining with the vendors. Like I always do, I just observe... maybe I'll see something I like in Marrakesh and 'marchander' there. While the others were shopping, Joe and I went to a cafe and got some mint tea even though we were warned not to eat or drink anything while we were in Africa. Of course we didn't listen. The tea was really good and was served with floating pine nuts and so I ate them while drinking the tea (a very stupid mistake). We then went back to the boat and hung out on deck reading for the afternoon trying to get tan.

Palma de Mallorca

It was a beautiful day when we pulled into port and we didn't believe the forecast when it said there would be scattered thunderstorms (Boy were we wrong!).

-Me & Palma's cathedral

There was a storm in my belly, however. No idea what exactly I ate (maybe the pine nuts in the tea in Sidi Bou Said or something on the ship), but this unfortunately turned out to not be a transient problem, but the first of many bad belly days, but I hung in there, even though I was mopey and exhausted. After we docked and some confusion trying to get into town, we finally got in a taxi and gave the driver the address of the restaurant in the guide book. She said okay, and then as we pulled away, she said, "it's Thursday? It's closed." So, we got dropped off by the big cathedral and searched for some place to eat, finally finding a tapas restaurant that was luckily still open considering it was 3pm. After lunch, we walked around town to the train station to see if we could take the scenic train around the island. Unforunately, the times didn't work out for us, so we meandered to the cathedral. From the cathedral, we could see this massive black cloud behind our ship and thought that it would blow around the island since the clouds were blowing that way. So we went into the cathedral and checked out the museum and then sat in the church reading about it in the pamphlet. I then walked around trying to get a good picture of Gaudi's bizarre altar piece, when I realized that it was pouring outside and that the rain was hitting the side of the building. Then, all of a sudden, rain started pouring through the roof of the church! I took some video in the church that you can watch.

It was pretty nuts how much water got into this church. But I figured we were safe considering it was finished being built in the 1600s and is still standing. After we got kicked out of the church, we wandered through all of the downed trees and debris (I have a bunch of pictures) back through the city and to the neighborhood where we found a restaurant we wanted to eat at for dinner. Except when we got there, it looked as if a restaurant didn't even exist. The menu was gone, the blinky lights were unplugged and all the curtains were drawn, as if the place ceased to exist. So after a coffee/tea break, we walked back to the touristy part of town and finally found a restaurant that advertised paella on one of their boards, but when we got inside there was only tapas on the menu. But I asked and they agreed to make us paella (and it turned out not to be too expensive either!). And even though I'd been having abdominal issues, I made sure that I ate as much as I could. It was delicious!! I wish that I'd actually had a proper 'Carolyn appetite' and not the 'crappy appetite'.

Barcelona

We decided to sleep in this day since we'd already been to Barcelona (plus I still felt crappy) and the only thing we planned on was going to our most favoritist restaurant for roasted suckling pig and lamb... El Yantar de la Ribera. Of course I wasn't in the best of moods since I wasn't in prime condition for devouring the best meat I've ever tasted, but I did my best. In the end, Joe had a great time gorging himself while I sat there jealous and pissed that I couldn't eat like a pig while eating suckling pig. But we did get a basket of liquors again at the end of the meal, which always soothes an upset tummy!

-preparing the meat with Joe's face blurred into the picture

-our basket of liquors- from bottom left, clockwise: anise, grappa, peach, apple

Then on our way back to the shuttle bus, we stopped for some gelato and realized that we basically had to run to get on the bus... we were on the last one leaving downtown for the ship... this is why I need a new watch ASAP (and why looking at it all the time isn't necessarily a bad thing, Joe)!

Marseille

holy crap... the town was overrun by English and Australian rugby fans and after 2pm, the old port area was shut down to all traffic so people could watch the match on big screen tvs followed by a concert. This proved to be nearly disastrous for us... I will explain. We slept in again, because again, I was feeling a bit ill. We didn't know what to do in Marseille outside of visiting the cathedral on the hill.

-this cathedral, Church of Notre Dame de la Garde

So I got a map at the tourist office and asked how to get up there. We luckily saw the bus 2 seconds later with a massive queue of Brits and Aussies so we ran to join them. What a windy, crazy ride up the hill in this bus! When we arrived, everyone cheered for our driver's successful maneuvering. It was definitely an experience. They were actually giving mass, so I couldn't get any pictures inside the church, but the views from the top are spectacular. Definitely check these out in my flickr collection. We then waited for the bus for half an hour, and of course it never showed up... so we finally walked down the hill and looked for a restaurant with Bouillabaisse, the traditional fish soup originating in Marseille. We picked a good one and had a fun waiter. It helped so much that I could speak french and talk to him. It was really eerie when all of the Brits and Aussies disappeared to go watch the match and there were just us and 2 tables of french people left on the terrace. In the end, Joe consumed a massive amount of seafood and about 2 liters of broth, including a refill from our waiter, that turned his mouth and hands orange. turmeric maybe? Due to me speaking to our waiter in french (or maybe because he saw we left him a massive tip) he offered Joe a free coffee to help settle his full belly.

-Joe and his Bouillabaisse

We then went to a patisserie so that I could get some decent desserts (they absolutely sucked on the ship) and then went to look for a taxi. Couldn't really find any, so we decided to walk to the train station. We somehow managed to walk through an Arabic part of town... I've never felt so white in my life. Once at/near the train station, we couldn't find the taxi stand, so Joe suggested we take the metro to the end and get a taxi there. So we did, only to find that there are no taxis at the stand there. I thought to call for one (it's 4:30 at this point... 'All aboard' is at 5:30), got put on hold, and then was politely told 'There are no taxis currently in your area, please call back later' to which I yelled an obscenity into the phone. So, back on the metro and back into town. We ran around like crazy people for about 15 minutes looking for a taxi stand with minimal help from the police stationed all over the city-they kept directly us to nowhere, and finally Joe saw a taxi dropping people off and ran it down... we got into the taxi at 5pm (I was staring at Joe's watch) and got back to port, sweaty and gross, at 5:20...so close. I immensely enjoyed gorging myself on the pastries I bought as soon as we got back to our room.

After missing dinner the previous 2 nights, we went to socialize and say bye to our dinner companions. We swapped a few emails to send pictures, etc. We'll see if we hear from anybody. It was a fun trip, ending badly for my tummy, but in all, it was a lot of fun and great to spend time alone with Joe.

-here we are dressed up for dinner our last night...my mom's worst fear: drinking on deck and falling overboard...I totally should have staged a photo of that and emailed it to her while I was gone....

We're on vacation!

Yeah! Finally, our summer vacation is here. Yes, I know it's technically fall, especially with the horribly cold weather here in Lausanne. Last night while we were in Lutry for the wine festival we all were wearing winter coats, etc. But this morning, we're heading to Genoa, Italy where it will be sunny and warm and then Sunday we head to our cruiseship for a week of Mediterranean sailing. We're going to Naples, Sicily, Tunisia, Mallorca, Barcelona and Marseille. I've packed a massive suitcase and I'm almost ready to get on the boat with 3500 other people, most of whom are italian. I'll be posting lots of pictures when I get back.... as long as I don't fall overboard!

My watch is dead...or is it?

My watched stopped Sunday while we were climbing. I finally went to the store this morning and spent 9 francs on a new battery to realize that the watch is just dead. and then while writing this entry, I looked at my watch, and now it's ticking.... what the hell! So I fix the time, and it stops ticking again.... agh!

Dragana's 30th suprise birthday party!

Yesterday was Dragana's 30th birthday and her boyfriend, Nenad decided to throw her a surprise birthday party. She was totally surprised! It was also a harrowing exercise in french for me. I realized last night that I never really learned how to chit-chat in french, which made socializing with others at the party a bit wierd, especially since I'm so talkative and normally have no problem talking to strangers. In the end I survived!
Here's a video of when Dragana arrived with everybody singing 'Happy Birthday' to her in french.

Joe goes climbing!

Sunday Joe went climbing for the first time with me, Stephan and Cara (a girl in Jan's old lab). Even though it was cloudy, the weather was nice up at Pierre du Moëllé. Cara had her GPS with her, so now we know that where we were climbing is exactly 1833m, which is over a mile high! If you want to see all of the pictures, follow this link.

-Stephan teaching Joe how to tie his knot.

-Me belaying Joe.

-Joe looks so hard core near the top of the wall.

crazy busy fun long weekend!

(Note: the hyperlinks (except one for the map of the hike) take you to my picture sets on flickr.)

Last Friday and Saturday was the annual Lemanic Neuroscience meeting in les Diablerets. This year I was a student organizer and got to go up a night early to help set up for the meeting. It was a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun to do. I even got to hang out with the two women guest speakers and talk to them about their careers and how they balance science and a normal life. Even though they're both very successful, it's nice to see that you don't have to be a superwoman (like my & Joe's advisors) to be a good scientist.

-organizing committee & the 2 guest speakers Thursday night at dinner

As a student organizer, I organized a trip up to the newly opened Alpine Coaster at the top of Glacier 3000. It was really fun! I took five guys from EPFL and the University of Geneva up to the top and we had an absolutely beautiful day. After riding the coaster, we then took a chairlift down to the glacier and walked around for about half an hour. It sucks that it's so expensive to get up to the glacier or I'd like to go again with Joe before it closes for the season.

-Johannes & Christian in their sleds

-the coaster and station from the bottom

-Ullrich, Johannes, Ruthger, Christian, me, Gijs on the glacier

-Here's a movie of the coaster. It's a bit bumpy because I was sitting in the sled waiting to go down the coaster myself.

Living in Switzerland we don't get to celebrate Labor Day, but we do get a random Monday off in September for the Jeûne Fédéral holiday. It's some holiday that has to do with fasting for a religious reason and most people eat prune tarts. To take advantage of this holiday, we went for a 6 hour hike in Ovronnaz, which is in the Valais. Jan suggested the hike to Adrian as a 'nice hike', which it was, but it was more agressive than we expected, especially since this was the first hike for Stephan in his new hiking boots. Once we saw the 500m assent, we remembered that Jan is Swiss-german and of course, he considers that 'nice'. Even with all of the climbing, we managed to finish the hike in 5 hours instead of 6. A lot of the signposts didn't have times listed, so we weren't sure if we were on time or not, and since the chairlift stopped running at 5pm, we hurried to get back in time. It also started raining quite hard about half hour before the end, so we were all soaking wet... nothing like hair product leaching out and running down your neck.... ewwww.... If you want to see where we hiked on a map, we started at Jorasse, walked up to Fenestral, around the mountain past the lakes to l'Erié, to Lui D'Août and back to Jorasse.

-Joe, Adrian, Stephan & me about 2 hours into the hike (I learned how to use the self timer on the new camera!)

-back at the chairlift, soaking wet, and surprisingly smiley

Jacqui's hen night & Sai's birthday

What fun we had last night! We started at the caveau in Lutry for some wine, cheese, sausage and 'manly cake'. The managers of the caveau thought the penis bottle cork and balloons were funny...but it was still a good thing we were hidden in the back room. Once we got kicked out of the caveau, we headed into town, sans Melody, to meet the boys at Kerrigan's for a few drinks for Sai's birthday. I think the guys enjoyed playing with the penis balloons more than we did....hmmm. No comment. We also covered them in 'male rating' stickers, some of them weren't happy with the ones they got, but tough.

-Melody, Rikki, me, Jacqui, Kristen & Mayumi at the caveau
-Jacqui & her penis balloons-Sai, enough said.

The rest of the pictures are posted on flikr here. Check them out, they're really funny.