christine's baby shower

Elvira, Aline and I threw a baby shower for Christine who is due with her first baby in February. We had about ten girls from work that came and everyone had such a good time. Baby showers are not common at all in Switzerland/Germany, so most people had never been to one or heard of one. Christine got a lot of adorable little baby girl clothes and we had a good time playing some funny games.

deloitte christmas market

 

freiburg germany

For a nice Saturday trip, I went with my friend Christine and her husband Thomas to Freiburg, Germany. These two Germans and I enjoyed the day walking around the city, eating some great german food, shopping at the lovely german prices, and enjoying gluwein at the Christmas Market.

ice skating at dolder

Last Thursday night the girls from work (and Piotr) went ice skating at the skating rink at Dolder. The last time I had on ice skates was in college, so its been awhile. We had so much fun. We even got fondue and gluwein to complete the whole winter wonderland experience.

edinburgh

My "Thanksgiving Trip" this year was to Edinburgh. This was my first time in Scotland. I was a little worried about the weather in Scotland in late November, but it turned out to be better than Zurich which was freezing and rainy.

Super cute hotel:

 

Lunch at 4pm, I was so hungry!

 

Super cute Christmas market

 

Edinburgh Castle at night

 

The Scotch Whisky Experience

 

Edinburgh Castle by day

 

Royal Mile

 

Heard some bagpipes played throughout the weekend

 

Driving on the wrong side of the road - kind of scary!

 

Beautiful countryside drive

 

Traditional Scottish food - Haggis

 

Ferris Wheel Ride

 

View of the city/castle/Christmas market from the Ferris Wheel

1.5 years

I can't say it enough, time is FLYING!!! Hard to believe its ben over a year and a half that I've lived in Switzerland. In the third six months of my stay, I travelled a bunch (summertime allows for that). Here is an update on my "countries I've visited" tally:

First 6 months:
1. Switzerland
2. U.S. (2 trips home and Minneapolis for work)
3. Germany (Konstanz and 2 trips to Munich)
4. Liechtenstein
5. Holland (Amsterdam)
6. Ireland
7. UK (Belfast)
8. Czech Republic (Prague)
9. Spain (Barcelona)

Second 6 months:
10. Jersey
11. France (St. Malo and Rennes)
12. U.S. (Home, NY, NJ, PA, OH, CO, TX)
13. Austria (Vienna)
14. Italy (Milan)
15. Germany (Berlin)

Third 6 months:
16. Belgium
17. Germany (Munich two times)
18. Austria (Salzburg & Innsbruck)
19. Liechtenstein
20. Sweden
21. France (Cote D'Azur and Reims)
22. Spain (Madrid)
23. Portugal
24. Poland
25. Turkey

thanksgiving

This year for the first time in my life I cooked a full Thanksgiving feast for some of my closest friends in Switzerland. As it was their first Thanksgiving, it was a lot of fun. And the food was delicious (finding the same ingredients as in the US was difficult, so there were some minor substitutions)! My biggest accomplishment though was ordering a turkey from a butcher who didn't speak English! And when I told my friends the story they especially liked my "Swiss German accent"!!

 

 

The menu was:

Turkey

Dressing

Mashed Potatoes & Gravy

Sweet Potato Casserole

Green Bean Casserole, and

Pumpkin Pie

 

 

 

Adrian, Piotr, Daniela, Jelena, & Claudia

 

We had our Thanksgiving feast on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. On the actual day of Thanksgiving, I met some friends after work and we went to the movies. My dinner on Thanksgiving day was a raclette pretzel on the train home from work - doesn't get more Swiss than that!

 

swiss exploration day

My friend Matt and I went for a random Sunday exploring. We are maximizing our "GA's", our annual Swiss train passes that allow us to travel on any Swiss public transportation. On this exploration day we visited Fribourg, Neuchatel, and Canton Jura for a random festival. It's a lot of fun for me to be in the French speaking part of Switzerland. My French is only slightly better than my German since I've forgotten so much since college, but its like visiting a different country and it's only a couple hours away!

Fribourg

 

Neuchatel

 

We had crepes and cider for lunch!

 

Small town in the canton of Jura

 

Random festival we went to celebrating the pig slaughter apparently