Black Friday

I realize it has been a while since I have written on this blog, but I figure what better day to start blogging again than the day after Thanksgiving. Let's start at 3:15am:

I woke up well before my alarm went off after having a dream that I couldn't make it inside Kohl's due to the lines coming out of the doors after I got there late. So, I was up. I showered, did not wash my hair to save time (apparently I am high maintenance now, and straightening my hair from wet to done that morning did not seem like a good use of shopping time. I got dressed (jeans and a easy shirt for trying things on) double checked my coupon pile, ate my high protein breakfast for energy (turkey and a string cheese), grabbed my bottle of water, and explained to my less than bright eyed cats why I had woken them up in the middle of the night. they didn't seem to care, gave me a yawn, and made themselves comfortable in my bed. Lovely. I got in the car at 4:04am. I hit the parking lot at Kohls at 4:14 (yup, I live pretty close) and circled a couple of times to find parking. I called Jessica, who was supposed to be meeting me there. She was still at home, supposedly awake and on her way. Likely story. i headed inside, and right to the sheets, my 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for $40, marked down from $160. I then headed over to the clothes to check out the clearance. Pretty much crap. Moved on to the baby clothes for certain friends with babies, found some pretty cute stuff. Then Jessica calls to tell me she is over at the jewelry counter, with a number which is about to be called. I met her over there to make some jewelry purchases, and then we continued on with our shopping in the toys and the household goods. I eventually got in line to save our place while Jessica went to buy pots and pans. I am proud to say we made it out of Kohl's by 5:30am and $50 in Kohl's cash between the two of us. At this point, jessica decided she had had enough (it was her first year, she has to start off slow), and was going home. I continued on, this time to Old Navy, in the scary mall area. Old Navy was less than exciting, with very little interesting sales or even interesting clothes. I will rethink this store during next year's planning. By now I was slowing down, and I needed some coffee, so I drove over the Starbucks, passing Michaels in the process. People were lined up outside Michaels, waiting for it to open. Well, my curiousity was piqued, so I grabbed my coffee (in the red holiday cup!) and headed over to Michaels. Once inside, I ran right into my friend Alissa, and she filled me in on the Michaels deals. Apparently they were selling prelit garland and wreaths for 10 bucks. Well it wasn't in the plan, but I figured, i probably need that for something in the house. So, a box of garland went into my cart. As did a picture frame, and a predecorated wreath (sorry mom) for my front door, and some candy canes (I had a coupon, I figured this was as good of a place as any). $50 later, I left Michaels with a bunch of stuff I didn't even know I needed. Movingon, I then decided to head down to Macy's. Well, part way down the freeway i got distracted by WalMart, and decided to make a stop. Holy moly was that a mistake. I first had to circle for parking. Then once I got to the front, there were 2 carts outside. Now, actually, in Moorpark there were generally no carts. But, once inside, I realized this was way more than Moorpark. The lines were out of control. Crisscrossed across the whole store. Cops everywhere, people pissed, carts with boxes piled sky high (apparently there was a good deal on Bissell vacuum cleaners?). I gave up the cart about half way back and took it on foot. I made it to the CD area, took one look, turned around, and walked out. it was chaos, and so not worth the five bucks I was about to save. I moved on to JCPenneys, dropping another chunk of money on some gifts and clothes. it was now 8:30 and time to call it a morning. I was home before 9, and passed out on my couch by noon.

I did make a return trip to Michaels, that evening to work on a picture project I have been thinking about starting, but otherwise, am happy to report my shopping is basically done and I had another successful Black Friday shopping experience. The only stores I will be visiting before 2009 are the ones that are closing (CIrcuit city and Linens N Things) to check out their price drops.

=)

Chaos

Last night there a small amount of chaos here at the lake house. Just a little bit.

At about 10pm, there was a strange smell outside on the deck. We ignored it after Jessica made a face and closed the door. It was until an hour later that is became apparent that there was a problem. Jessica ran into the bathroom making some sort of loud shrieking noise and shoved her face into the shower curtain. I thought it was weird that she was going a little crazy, but her being crazy is a little normal, so I was willing to accept the behavior as relatively normal and move on. However, then she made a comment about the smell again, and I knew something was up. It seems Simba had made friends with a skunk during his evening hangout time outside. Real nice. So, after a phone call to Veronica to determine the exact recipe of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and soap needed to remove the stink, Jessica trapped the cat in the bathroom and the chaos began. The first problem arose when there was no baking soda. Dusty ventured in to the night to find out no stores were open. So, we were down to hydrogen peroxide and soap. Jessica threw in some dog shampoo for good measure, and between the two of us, we coated Simba in our concoction. It was a pretty funny site, especially as clumps of fur were just pouring off of the cat. We washed him twice and then held in the towel to wash his head, which he was not a big fan of. I am pretty sure the amount of meowing coming from that bathroom scared my cats into being good for the rest of the night. Anyway, so we held stinky for a while, and then let him go. His body smells ok, but his head is another story. Jessica says her nose is broken from the situation, and poor Simba won't come too close to her, even as she keeps dishing out the wet food as a bribe. He eats and leaves.

Finally god into bed about 12:30am. All very exciting. I would have taken pictures, but it just didn't seem appropriate at the time.

Evacuated.

I am currently on vacation.

Ok, not really, but basically. I arrived back from Palm Springs on Sunday night into San Antonio, and have been at Jessica and Dusty's lake house ever since. Yesterday we spent the day at the outlet mall. I made my necessary visit to the Old Navy Outlet, and we also spent some serious time in the Bass outlet and the Kitchen store. We almost got caught up in the Fudge store excitement, but at the last minute, Dawn talked some sense in to us. We bulked up on some BBQ, and then made it home in time to turn up the hot tub and grab a glass of wine. Yea, my life is hard. Today we spent most of the day on the couch and deck, minus some time for a nap on the bed, and some time at the store to buy brownie mix and cat litter. Speaking of the little monsters, we gave them free range of most of the house today for the first time. It became necessary after realizing that the room we are all sharing smells like poop. Now, my laundry can smell like poop at home, the garage can smell like poop (and it does), but the bedroom...I prefer vanilla, or lilac, or even socks. So, the cats, they tore around the house for a while, climbed up everything in site, tried to get in the fire place (and failed, thankfully), and then proceeded to try and harass Jessica's cat. They then passed on in the bedroom with me. Best sleep I have gotten since my new roommates moved in with me.

Ok, so my vacation status has been discussed. Now the house. Chad went over yesterday to check on everything, there was power and the trees were still standing. I have a new swimming pool now, since the fence between my yard and my neighbor's yard is no longer there. Pool party next weekend anyone? A few roof shingles are down, but otherwise, things are good. Water was being boiled until this afternoon, and now seems safe to drink. The grocery stores are low on food and the gas lines are long, so we are staying put for a couple more days. There is also pretty much no perishable food in the city, so when we do return, it will be with a lot of chicken and milk. If only there was a way to bring back ice cream...

Tomorrow we head off to the grocery store to refill our refrigerators at home...it is a little weird having to buy all new stuff, sort of like moving homes. We are off work until Monday, so once we get back, we have big BBQ and baking plans, and I am sure there will be more updates. For now, Jessica, Dawn and I are enjoying out weekly 90210 viewing party, and baking brownies. Yup, evacuation is hard.

It happened.

I am writing this on a plane from San Antonio to Ontario, via Phoenix Front row, no one next to me, legs on the little leather wall that separates the seats from the kitchen. Just want to make sure you all have a proper picture of the current situation. 48 hours ago I was sitting in my living room watching 90210 and eating ice cream. 36 hours ago I was in the midst of a chaotic lunch decision between BBQ and some sort of sketchy buffet (the BBQ won). 24 hours ago I was boarding up Jessica’s house. Funny how things can change so quickly. So, let me go back to yesterday afternoon. 4pm. Veronica asks me to pick up her son from school after she gets sucked into a meeting. Not a problem. I pick up Mason, drive through Jack in the Box to get him a snack (yea, I am going to be a great mom), and then head over to his sister’s school to meet Veronica for the child handoff. We listed to the XM radio station talking about Ike. They are not saying much, but they are saying that it is taking a more northerly route, instead of going through Corpus Christi, it is turning up the coast. Ok, so, probably we won’t have work on Friday. Cool, I don’t really remember the last time I have worked a full week anyway, so why start now. I head home, and then it hits me that I won’t be able to fly of Houston on Friday morning for Kiyomi’s bachelorette weekend. Jessica and I discuss it and I decide to try and fly out of San Antonio. This means I have to get to San Antonio first. This is about the time the community finally decides to take notice that a large storm could very possibly make landfall a lot closer than we want it to. Voluntary evacuations of Galveston County. Right, my county. This is quite different than the California version of a natural disaster. I have warning. And voluntary? Seriously. Yea, I am volunteering. So, Jessica and I have a little planning session, and decide to board up tonight and then reevaluate. We start with her house. Jessica is the size of my left calf, so I am pretty sure this is going to be interesting. Her husband is out of town (apparently mine is too) so we are on our own. We recruit Jessi from down the street and start her backyard. Note to self, always label your boards. After re-measuring her windows to determine which board goes where, we get most of them up and good to go. Jessi gets his butt kicked on the top story, so now we are just leaving it up to luck that nothing flies at those windows. At this point, we have all stepped in ant hills, been bitten by multiple mosquitoes, and are hungry. 9pm. Lovely. Jessi goes back to do his boards, we go to eat (inhale) some food, and then onto my house. While eating, we see the storm has now turned again, and is basically coming right at us. Perfect. We get to my house and pull out my newly cut boards. The boards that are EXACTLY the size of my window cutouts. This makes adding the clips extremely difficult. Out comes the hand saw. Thanks dad, I NEVER thought I would use that thing. Jessica has her doubts but I made it work. I, of course, can barely move my arms today, but we got most of the boards up, and only broke one window. Eventually Dawn called and volunteered her husband, the fire marshall (yup, look at my high up connections) to finish my boards in the morning if we will leave with her tonight. Done.

11:30pm. Jessica goes home, I shower and “pack” (throw all clean laundry into a bag and hope for the best), pack the cats up (they are like toddlers with the amount of crap they require), and send an email to the boss telling her I am leaving. Jessica comes back at 12:30am, and the chaos begins. I pile all my important papers, my bag, the 2 cat carriers (minus the cats, who are we kidding, those 2 are so spoiled, they won’t actually go in the carriers), their litter box, today, food, and blanket into the back seat. Then I pile them in with me. Yea, right, I forgot to mention that Simba, Jessica’s car, is on her lap. And he HATES other cats. So begins the hissing and meowing. We make it as far as the gas station before Tony throws up. Perfect. We stop so I can plunge my now dirty hand (yup, i caught it) into the car wash solution at the local Shell station (note to self, do not wash windscreen at that station), and then I realize my cell phone is still on my couch. Perfect. We back track with more meowing, and I move to the back seat with the cats, put a pillow barrier up to block the cat vision, and sit back to relax. And Tony throws up again. This time, there is no gas station. 3 hour drive. I just accept a dirty hand. Eventually we get onto the highway. Then Simba decides he is going to poop. Not in the little box, but in the seat. I probably shouldn’t put this in writing, but I can now say I have thrown poop out of a moving vehicle on the 45. Didn’t realize it would actually hit Dawn’ car, but it in fact did. =). So, eventually we got going, the cats settled down (after each pooped, in the litter box this time), and we got out of Houston. Jessica and I made the trip mostly in silence, to avoid waking up the animals. This is when i announced I was never having children (sorry Mom). There is just no way. This situation is stressful enough with cats, kids must be 10 times worse. And actually, my 2 were very well behaved once we got going, Molly slept in the litter box for part of the trip, and they both slept in the basket for a while, taking turns on my lap, purring and generally enjoying the attention.

So, 4:15am, we made it to the lake house in Canyon Lake, just outside of San Antonio. (ok, let me just update you on my location. Still on the plane. Guy next to me on third G&T. I need to fly more, he has free coupons and I am pretty sure is getting drunk on this flight). So, we arrive, Simba stops meowing as he is released. I carry my two into the house, up the stairs and into their room. They seem none too bothered and explore quickly. Little box arrives, food and water are put down, and they are happy. May as well be at home, apparently, as Molly quickly shoves litter over the sides of the box. Pretty typical. I throw out some toys, but they are more excited about the cords on the blinds. Also typical. We are wound up, but come down quickly and climb into bed. I think I fell asleep to the news at 5:30am, as they report mandatory evacuation of Galveston. Perfect. Slept until 10, when Molly knocked off the remote from the window sill in an attempt to climb the cable cord to the TV. Tony attacked my feet 20 minutes later, and after once final attempt, I woke up to a cat paw in my hair at about 11am. I knew there was a reason they don’t sleep with me normally. Checked out the news. They had mandatory evacuations of all the neighborhoods east of mine to the water. NASA was closing at noon, although the zip code it sits in was put under mandatory evacuations at 7am that morning. I am pretty sure no one cared if I came to work or not. Today was sort of a twilight zone, we just watched the news and Family Feud, ate, and checked the news. Took a short nap and then showered before heading out to the airport. My cats are now in the hands of Jessica, Dawn and Caroline (who took four hours to get to the house earlier today). Jessica’s sister was on the road when I left them, going on hour 5, and still a couple of hours away. Apparently we just missed the traffic chaos. I am fighting the guilt of leaving the little cats, but I think it is better for them without me away from Houston than left in my house during the storm. They have each other and 6 year old Jack to play with, so I think they will be fine. I hope they don’t pee on anything. Jessica will never forgive me....

Anyway, so now I am on my way to celebrate one of Kiyomi’s last weekends as a single woman. It seems like each time I fly to California something happens, so I was asked to quit traveling today. I might actually stop, I am tired of the anxiety. Hopefully I can let it go and actually realize there is nothing I can do about it, and just enjoy some sun and friends. We will see....pictures to follow of the Palm Spring pool we will be at all day Saturday.

Thanks for all the phone calls and emails, now you can feel like you went through it with me. =)

The big update with lots of pictures! (And a HURRICANE!!!)

Summer is officially over, at least as far as work goes. Three weeks of teacher workshops over and onde with. Cindy and Andy are married. I made it to the lake for a few days of downtime on the way over to the wedding. Picture highlights are below:











Note especially my date Cara, who is looking lovely during the ride on the school bus that Cindy and Andy arranged. Brilliant idea!
And now for the necessary kitten update. These cats are hilarious. Yesterday Tony spent 20 minutes looking for a June bug that had flown in and dies behind the couch. He missed the death part, so he just kept meowing and looking for the bug...it was hilarious! He took a road trip with me today, all the way to the vet by himself, for his last round of shots. Pictures of his first solo ride in the new car:



He just enjoyed sitting on the back seat, chilling, and does not climb everywhere, unlike his sister. Speaking of Mollie, here are some other pictures of these kittens, in all their glory:







Those last ones they totally got caught in the toilet. They think they are so sneaky, but not so much, especially when one of them falls in. The other cute thing that happens is, Tony likes to sit at the window by the front door when I leave, and waits for me when I return. It is so freakin' adorable!




For those of you who have visited me or knew me in Saccramento, you will remember Alice, my 1996 Silver Volvo. Well, she is no more. I have replaced her with a much faster, much cleaner, much more mechanically sound vehicle, the 2005 Acura TL:



And finally, the biggest news: we are in the midst of a very active hurricane season. I have just become the owner of $300 of plywood board to board up my house. They are cut to the window size, which theoretically is helpful, but would be more helpful if they didn't weigh a ton. Now, I can totally think of a better way to spend that much money, but apparently I would rather have windows without cracks after the storm. Hurricane Ike is three days away, but people are already boarding up and leaving. We are on level 4 security at work, which basically means if you leave, cover your computer with plastic and get it off the ground. My living room is currently housing my patio furniture, so that the chairs do not become bullets traveling 100 MPH into my windows. This, I hear, my neighbors will especially appreciate. I hope they are doing the same with the crap in their yards. However, if some sort of expensive grill comes through one of my windows, I am keeping it. Just so you know. Check out the newest cat jungle gym (or so they think):




At this point, I feel it is only fair to have a day off of work for all this effort. I am hoping for evacuation orders to become mandatory sometime tomorrow (preferably while I am in still in bed and before I get up to actually go to work). However, if you happen to be reading this and get suddenly worried, do not worry about me. I am a strong swimmer, and I have a ton of canned chili and beans in my pantry. I am good to go for at least 2 weeks, and theoretically, I will be in Palm Springs this weekend during landfall. Ike isn't going to screw my plans over...

I recently had a week off of a work. Well, sort of. So, my summer programs began June 15. 24 middle school teacher rolled in on a Sunday afternoon and wanted to learn stuff for a week. Now, Sunday afternoon was never meant to be part of a work week. Never. But, somehow NASA has missed this. So, in roll the teachers, and out goes my sanity. Five days later, they left, and I passed out. And that is pretty much how it will be until the end of July, every other week. One of the weeks between chaos was the fourth of July week. After working 70 hours a week, I decided a week off was in order, or rather, a week out of Houston. So, Jessica and I packed up our laptops, out tanktops and our bathing suits, attached our work phones to our hips, and went to her lake house. We had grand plans of sitting on her boat working, but then we decided if we checked email at the house, we coudl actually just enjoy the boat, minus the work. And there I sat, first for 4 days, and then for 3 more (with a 2 days break to actually go back to the office and to a conference). Beer was consumed, there was Mailbu and Coke, Lemonade and Rum, and some sort of fruit soaked in liquor. In retrospect, it was better that we worked at home. I am now very tan and there was a time when I was actually more relaxed. Actually, RIGHT now I am on a plane to Tahoe for the annual girls weekend. But, the past week was another program, so the relaxation is just a distant memory really. This week the teachers were a little more dry, and my assistant had to leave mid week, so there was some stress, but we did get three astronauts out of it, and the teachers spent a very drunk night with the current Chief of Flight Directors at JSC. He showed up slightly bleary eyed to the luncheon today, looking like the night ended a little later than it should have last night.

Let’s see, other interesting things that are going on...Joy, Lucy and Jeannette came to visit and we had plenty of fun shopping all over the place, eating ice cream and enjoying the sites of Galveston (in the 90 degree heat). They checked out my hot tub, we had a ton of BBQs, and walked the neighborhood. And Lucy totally explored my new house, and her very own room. It was pretty exciting.

I will be making the big trip back to California in August to see everyone, so prepare yourself. I will be in all parts, and probably won’t be back again until Christmas, so I expect to see lots of smiling faces.

In September we are going on a girls cruise. 32 women. One cruise ship. They won’t know what hit them.

Lots of big plans and fun trips coming up, and some much needed down time as well. To spend with my cats, which I now I have 2 of. Tony and Mollie. Mollie is the black and white one from my previous post, and Tony is her new brother, who is just a ball of energy, but loves to be held and will sit very contently under my neck and watch me type, as long as I keep petting him. He can’t quite jump up on the couch yet, but he gives it a nice try. I think it is his belly. I call him pudge because he is just a brick, and has such a round midsection it is not even funny. He has already come home with ear mites and an upper respiratory infection, so I have a medicine cabinet full of kitty meds at home. And he does not like the ear drops, but alas, he and his sister and so cute when their ears go flat after the drops, it is almost funny. And necessary, I do not want ear mites in my house. My three interns are enough to deal with.

And speaking of the interns, they are all moved in, and have taken over my BBQ. They keep saying they are going to clean, and I see some effort every once in a while, but it is interesting how much cleaner things become right after their mothers have visited. I am never home so as long as they wash their dishes eventually, I am not bothered. I do have one intern who is a little over the top, but I simply pay Susie to keep him busy at work when I need a break. It works out well for all involved.

Anyway, perhaps in the next blog I will tell you all about the girls weekend. For now. I leave you with some of the cutest fur around.

The little princess has arrived...

Well, her she is. The newest addition to life in Texas. the new kitten, all 1.5 lbs of her:

She is a total princess, and a little drama queen, she wanders around meowing and loves to chase toes. She also really likes the balls with bells in them, and the catnip sock (she fell asleep playing with it here:


And of course, she eats with her paw in the bowl, which means the bowl has to be held down to keep it from hitting her in the head when she steps in it.


Notice her size compared to the little bowl of water next to her. SHE IS TINY! I am loving her to pieces, and cannot stop playing with her. I set her up in the laundry room with a basket and a blanket and a box. Jessica and I set up the box for her to sleep in, and tried to get her in, and then left her alone to figure it out. I come back to check on her and she is sitting on top of the box. So much for kittens liking small spaces...

My new roommates

So I have taken the big step of becoming a landlord for the summer. That's right, I am renting out rooms. 2 rooms to be exact. 2 rooms to 3 boys, all 17-18. Yup, I have been in constant email contact with 3 high school boys and their over protective mothers. It is like talking to parents as a tourguide all over again. All they want to tell me about is how great their boys are. Apparently I have a 5 star chef and an amazing horn player staying with me. And he has to practice the horn everyday. Cool. Luckily I will work long hours this summer, so I won't be around for the practicing. 2 boys sharing one room and the third in my current guest room. Cara, I have moved you to the front room on my new futon. Yea, you took a step down, but I think it will be well worth it, as these boys will be paying my mortgage this summer.

In other news, the hot tub is no longer foggy and the BBQ is working great. We test it out often, and I have found that the BBQ is too close to my back door, thus setting off my fire alarm on a daily basis. This makes for great comments from others about my cooking. I am sure you can all imagine. I finally bought a new hot tub cover to protect my clean water from all the pollen and rain. Of course, it is not here yet, so the rain today did not help the water chemicals, I am sure. Oh well, such is life, the thing heats up, it bubbles, and it has working jets. What more could you want?

The Volvo is about to be retired, in exchange for a new car. Well, maybe not totally new, but new as in different, and not as in 15 years old on its last leg. Something maybe 2 or 3 years old, with not six figures on the mileage and something that will not make weird noises when I make right turns. Or left turns. Or when I am idle at stop signs. You know, the norm.

Well, I am off to bed, I just finished fast forwarding through American Idol to find out who got kicked off (1 hour show in 5 minutes) and can now relax knowing that show really as predictable as I thought it was. Damn good TV though, especially the look on Simon's face when he doesn't know he is being filmed. I even hit rewind to see that again. the Bachelorette starts next Monday, we are planning a large viewing party. You are all welcome, but you will have to fly here. Trust me, it is worth it. =)

I am pretty random these days

Isn't the house lovely? I have just figured out how to put pictures up, and while I have this sneaking suspicion that the picture already exists on this site, now it is front and center.

I have returned home from a co-op party that I inadvertently ended up at tonight. A co-op is a college intern who works at NASA. When I was invited to attend this birthday party, none of us realized how many 21 year olds would be in attendance. Sort of felt like I was hosting a party for the underage drinkers. Fun, but weird. I am old.

Caitlin was here last weekend, we did some serious wedding planning for her wedding next April, including picking colors and songs to dance to. Yea, can you picture us? On the couch, both with laptops, playing songs on youtube over each other. Lovely.

I am also buying a car, so if you know anyone who will give me a good deal, or some direction on what to buy, let me know =)

My programs are over for the spring and we are heading into 80 hour work weeks for the summer. Should be interesting, and I am already looking forward to the week off in August for Cindy and Andy's wedding. And some time at the lake. And some time in Sacramento and at home. Prepare yourselves, here I come!

Success!

Two weeks ago, I hit the one year mark here in Houston. Who would have thought? I have been in the house for a month now, although this week, I think all I did at the house was sleep. My neighbors probably think I don't live here anymore. I ran my first Aerospace Scholars Conference this week, it was chaos. We made it through though, and Katherine and I worked 40 hours in 3 days, but we took on 100 college kids and 30 college faculty, and ca e out successful. I slept for almost 13 hours last night, and am beginning the recovery process.

Also, yesterday, I worked at a college fair talking about Cal. It was just like sinking back into the old college tourguiding days! I think I might have possbily be throwing out old college statistics from 2003...oh well, they got the idea. However, these kids were all private schools kids. Now, I have nothing against private school kids, but man, these kids were so stuck up,. And the moms! Just all about prestige. I think I got asked about pre-med more than anything else, and of course, how hard is it to get in. People want easy access and high prestige. It just doesn't exist. Morons.

It is my birthday this week. Consider yourselves warned.

I am off to go and sit in my hot tub and relax all my sore muscles.

Switzerland

So, in the last post, I said I would never actually "live" in Texas. Hmm, how four months can change things. I have done the unthinkable...I have bought a house in Texas:

House picture

Yup, my very own, four bedroom, huge walk in closet, kitchen you can do cartwheels in, backyard with palm trees and a hot tub, house. I close on Monday, but basically we are all done, and I am about to write a very large check. And I am SO excited!

In other news, I have just recently returned from the best international trip yet, all the way to Switzerland to visit Cara, and then on to London to see the fam. It was a great trip, and I will try my best to illustrate some of the highlights below:

I arrived on a Saturday night and Cara immediately whisked me off to the local family bar, where we proceeded to drink a large amount of wine and eat some delicious french bread and fresh sliced meat. I met the cousins and the cutest french 3 year old ever, who could not figure out why I couldn't speak French to her. She said I talked like Dora.

Sunday we spent the day in Geneva, seeing the UN and the Red Cross museum (a must see for all those girl scout moms out there!). We walked around by Lake Geneva and read the bible (ie, the tour book on Switzerland), and then hung out in Cara's house with a bottle of red wine and some chicken for dinner. Life was good. Geneva picture highlights:


Monday morning we picked up the rental car (stick shift driving for the first time in a LONG time for me) and took off for Gruyeres. Luckily, they drive on the correct side of the road in Switzerland, so other than some curvy mountain roads, some sketchy roundabouts and some questionable road signs, we did pretty well. We made to Gruyeres in about 90 minutes, and stopped on our way in to the Cheese factory. First touristy thing of the trip: we took the tour. We learned all about making and age-ing cheese, and how what a cow eats can affect your cheese. It was lovely. We had cheese samples, which were really just appetizers for lunch: Cheese fondue. Just little baby potatoes, bread, and cheese. We were carb loading to a max. We spent the afternoon exploring the Gruyeres Chalet and taking in the amazing views. We drove up to another town, Chalet de Oux, which a) neither of could pronounce, and b) did not have a chalet. We were disappointed, but only momentarily as we soon found a cafe to have out MAPB (mid afternoon pastry break, pictures at the end). Refueled, we drove back through Gruyeres, through Bulle, and out to Friesburg (Freedbird I called it). We drove into Friesburg, decided we were not even getting out of the car in this city, and drvoe back. Sort of like driving into the shopping area of Oakland. Slightly sketchy, lots of people, and nothing to see. We spent the evening eating in Bulle, and then back to Gruyeres for the night.

Day 3 we drove up to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. This is where Switzerland became more like Germany, less like France. Bern is German speaking. Neither of us speak German, and let's face it, I am barely holding on with the English language at this point. We checked into our hotel around 10am after a short ride in the Sixt car rental car back into the city center with out German speaking car representative, who taught us how to say Thank you. We checked out the local outdoor market (my favorite thing to do in any city) and saw all the local cheese and vegetable. We wandered down to the bear pits in Bern (no pictures, since the bears were too cold to come out). The city has the bear as its mascot, and they keep live ones in this pit all year round. We met this random American woman from Arizona who now lives in Bern who invited us along on her tour. So, Cara, me, three British people and Henriette our tourguide, headed of to learn all about the history of the beautiful city. Henriette was pretty good, although she didn't walk backwards as all good tourguides should. We learned all about the old buildings and the churches and the city history, and then took off on our own when they stopped for lunch. We then decided to eat on our own, and had to find the picture menus in order to know what each thing was. Stupid Americans. We spent the afternoon checking out Einstein's old house, where he lived when he began the theory of relativity (still can't explain it, after 4 years of studying it). We then did what every good tourist does on day three of a trip. We napped. Actually, I napped, cara watched BBC or something on TV for a while. We headed out later in the evening to get some dinner and see the night life. As the German boy at the front desk told us, it was Tuesday and it was Bern, so there was nothing going on. He was right. We ate, and returned the hotel to warm up and relax for the evening. Yup, and I fell asleep early again. Jet lag is not pretty. Bern pictures are below:


Day 4 we took the train to Lucerne, which was the typical beautiful European city. It was right on the lake, and had an old town portion with cobblestones and street vendors and cute shops and such. We ate on the water for lunch, and then took a boat ride on the lake, which went across to several other Swiss towns. The boat ride was beautiful and it allowed us to see several sights and mountain views not otherwise accessible. We eventually had to go inside because the outdoors was just too cold, but we enjoyed the views through the windows just as much as from the cold outdoors. That evening Cara set us the goal of not going to bed before 10pm. We decided to have a fancy dinner with steak an accidental order of half a bottle of wine instead of just a glass. You might notice a slight progression in the pictures below. After our fancy dinner we had fancy dessert at the fondue restaurant. That's right folks, despite chocolate fondue not being as big of a thing as we might think it is in Switzerland, we sought it out, found it, and enjoyed it. And it was well worth it. We sort of rolled our way back to the hotel after failing to find the jazz cafe we were looking for (we didn't look too hard after we found the fondue). We were staying at this old jail house, which was hilarious. I think I have a picture of our door which I will include below.

Day 5 we took the 3 hour train back to Geneva and spent the afternoon shopping. We had our very special Valentine's dinner with one of Cara's teacher friends, and then packed for our impending trip to London. We were up late and up again early the next morning to get to the airport for our flight to Lutton airport just outside of London. London, of course, was its own adventure, which will have to wait for a second blog, since this one has become such a pain in the butt with loading pictures. My advice, go to my picassa page and check out all my pictures (did you notice I didn't load any? Yea, that is because they kept freezing my blog up). So, my pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/debhutchings/DebInSwitzerland

Enjoy!