Bird hunting

That's so cool! I just saw a hawk go hunting right outside my window. I looked out and saw two birds fighting. Then one flew off and the other circled over the lawn, swooping down every so often. Then I saw him dive and when he flew by our lab windows you could see some little animal with a long tail caught in his talons.

Other bird hunts I've seen are the time a hawk in Waterloo brought down a pigeon 20 feet in front of me. Also in Waterloo I heard a squeak above me and saw a hawk with a baby squirrel in his talons. He landed on the building next to me and when I ran up to the roof I could see him sitting with his prey. And then this summer in Luzern while I was walking by the lake I saw a hawk fly above me with an animal it had caught. It lifted the prey up and took a bite while still flying and I saw blood drop and wondered if it landed on any tourists walking around the lake as I was. In Vancouver I only ever saw the bald eagles fishing, but they didn't catch anything.

The Ballet

First, I slept in! Until 7:30!! Then I realized I was still getting up at 6:30am, there was just a time change here in Switzerland. Two weeks later than North America, interesting.

Anyway, I went to see the Sleeping Beauty ballet in Lausanne. The theatre was ok but I was surprised to find there was no orchestra. I enjoyed the performance but man the cameras were annoying. Someone took four flash photographs before finally an usher came and asked them to stop. And another person in the front/centre had their hands up taking photos the entire time! In Vancouver those ushers are scary and you'd probably be escorted off the premises! So in the land of the rule abiding Swiss I was surprised.

Dinner times

So looks like posts to my blog have started to slow down as I get settled. I mean, I could talk about my day in Bern on Saturday, but really at this point it's the same as my other day's in Bern. Weather here is getting warmer but still grey skies. I haven't gone skiing in a while and I hope conditions are still good so I can go again. I can be pretty lazy taking pictures with my camera and therefore I don't have photos to show. However, one of my lab mates likes to take photos and here are some from a recent dinner, not at my place but at a lab mates.

It took me a while to figure out that was me behind the wine glass. My glasses are the big give away. I realize they must be awesome because it was the only time one of the snotty teenagers at my riding club complemented my attire.

Then there are a lot of portraits that were taken.

I don't know why I'm holding the wine bottle like this. I've been so tired lately and first I was getting up at 6am, and now I'm getting up at 5am. I read on a forum somewhere that the third month is when reality hits and you realize you're far away from home and trying to make a new one. Ok, so it's my fourth month.

Tonight is the ballet, at least I don't need to know french to get it so I'm looking forward to the cultural evening.

Awesome mis-translation

When I'm lucky enough to buy goods that have english instructions I'm very happy, however, sometimes the mistakes can be pretty amusing. Like for the new bicycle helmet that I purchased.

1. The belts must not cover your hears;
2. The buckle must be away from the shin bone

I think someone was dictating, and yet the ears to hears still works. I'm pretty sure I can keep the helmet away from my shins.

And dammit I'm pretty lonely here. I miss being able to call people up for dim sum, dinners, movie nights, walking by the ocean, bicycle rides to Steveston (mmm, and fish and chips), motorcycle trips, sushi/BBQ on the beach, stitch and bitch, dinner club, swing nights, pub nights, games nights, day hikes, brunch (mmm, those disgusting little breakfast sausages) and all the different people I could call who would want to do those things. I knew I had a fairly full life but I didn't realize just how rich it was until here I am with nothing. People who live here already have their own things going and it is hard to carve a niche. And yes I realize it is going to be this way no matter where I moved.

Well, enough moping. Tonight is more fondue, see, I'm taking what I can from Switzerland. Don't worry Swiss guy, I'm not cooking it so no milk/cheesy foam this time.

Who Knew

In Switzerland, they have Canadian Buffet, which means potluck.

They also don't have Swiss cheese, I think here it's called Emmental but it looks a bit different. Can't describe the taste, never liked Swiss cheese anyway.

Backyard food

Excerpts from a globe and mail article with back and forth conversation between a local-vore and someone with a more pragmatic approach. Yes, I side with pragmatic and avoid organic in the grocery store.

Sarah (local-vore)

Have you ever eaten a freshly picked tomato, still hot from the sun? Food that is grown locally, using sustainable agriculture practices, is not only better for the planet and for the future but it tastes delicious. Oh, and it's healthier too – the fresher the food, the more nutrients it contains.

Pierre (pragmatic)

I grew up in the countryside. My parents (who had full-time jobs) owned a sugar shack and a small apple orchard. We also had a huge garden and in our backyard we kept rabbits for years. My first paying job was working for a neighbour who produced raspberries. I've had plenty of “backyard” food in my life, but I remember more the work that went into producing it than its taste. This is probably why I cannot relate to people who discovered small-scale food production later in life and have an almost religious devotion to it.

...There are nearly a billion people who don't have access to a proper diet and there will be at least another two billion of us in the near future. I'm sorry, but “local” and “organic” low-productivity agriculture cannot deliver on that scale. There simply isn't enough manure and cropland available in the world.

If I buy organic, I always wonder who will be starving later because of my choice.

Little Women

I'm reading Little Women for the first time (actually, I'm going through many classics for the first time right now, horray iPod and project Gutenverg!). Anyway, Lausanne makes an appearance in this book.

They had been floating about all the morning, from gloomy St. Gingolf to sunny Montreux, with the Alps of Savoy on one side, Mont St. Bernard and the Dent du Midi on the other, pretty Vevay in the valley, and Lausanne upon the hill beyond, a cloudless blue sky overhead, and the bluer lake below, dotted with the picturesque boats that look like white-winged gulls.

Even back in the day, rich children went to Switzerland to be schooled. Now Vevey is the Nestle town.

Portes de Soleil again

Ikea Ikea Ikea. Too much of my furniture comes from Ikea, so I decided to pick up some chairs from somewhere else - TipTop to be precise. Anyway, it was a mistake because it took me three trips out there to finally come back with all the pieces. At least with Ikea everything is in the box.

I've started to look for a place to go riding, but given that I don't speak the language and don't have a car it looks a bit grim. Well, I've got to try.

On Sunday it was an easy ski day with people from an english message board. One of the girls I have gone snowshoeing with before and this time there were three cars loads going to Portes des Soleil.

Conditions are definitely spring like at the bottom of the mountain but the snow at the top was still decent. On the french side of the resort was a special village Avoriaz, built in the 60's full of wooden highrises. It was revolutionary for the time and you can ski in all the streets. We skied down to the village but made a mistake...

And we ended up crawling under the net.

We had great sunny weather and this time I joined the group for lunch. We sat out in the sunshine and had a very lovely lunch. There are advantages to spring skiing conditions.

It was a good group to go skiing with and very laid back.

At the end of the day I realized I had left my bank card at the cashier. Luckily, my group members had seen it being handed in that morning but didn't realize it was mine. I asked a guy in our group to help me get it back and he said of course. I walked up to the cashier and looked behind me and he was right there following me. He asked for my card, I gave my name and got it back right away. I was stressed and he just did it for me and it was so. damn. nice.

Then drinks again, traffic jam back into Lausanne and another week at work.

Visiting and the non-cow fights

On Friday Frank came down for a visit, we watched Big Bang Theory and made cheese fondue (second time this week!). Well, there was a slight problem... I ran out of white wine and the fondue was still a little thick. This being Switzerland, and after 7pm, meant there was no place I could think of to pick up some more. So I suggested we add some water to the fondue. I strongly maintain that it was Frank's suggestion to add the milk, though I will confess I didn't nix the idea....

Anyway, the fondue was certainly tasty but by the end of the meal the cheese was getting very ... foamy. You would dip your bread in it and desperately search for some cheese to load on but sadly the foam would overwhelm. Anyway, high five over the fondue pot, horray for having low standards and not being food snobs and we will never ever speak of it again. Until now. Don't tell the Swiss guy in my lab.

On Saturday we caught a train and post-bus to Flaschen, a small village in Valais. They were supposed to be hosting cow fights which are supposedly a traditional Swiss thing but the Swiss guy in my lab says they are just for the tourists. Pshaw, I know he wouldn't eat foamy fondue either. Anyway, the weather was quite bad when we showed up so they had just canceled the fights. Good thing we had brought our skis because the conditions were fantastic. It started dark and stormy and quite windy at the top. However, as the day progressed the clouds cleared.

The ski conditions were pretty good. Icy underneath but lots of un-skied powder the entire day because the mountain was empty.

Ugly blue hat aside, these photos of me skiing lately have been much improved without the ugly glasses from high school. I wear them because I broke my last decent pair of glasses skiing at Whistler. I had such a wipe-out they snapped in half and we had to do emergency repairs with tape and a plastic fork tine liberated from the cafeteria. Yeah, that would look awesome in the lab.

With friends like these..

There's a youtube video making the viral rounds:

If you can't see it, search
3 Year old crying over Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber is this pop tart prince from my hometown.

"I wonder if that's what Carly was like when she was three."

"Pshaw!  That's what Carly was like last week!"

Hmmm , maybe that's him on the phone right now! Gotta go!

Ski lessons

After the big day of skiing on Saturday, Sunday was supposed to be a more laid back but could have used some more planning.

We went skiing at Les Paccots, I had read on forums it was accessible by public transit, reasonably close to Lausanne and good for beginners. Here's an internet challenge, see if you can figure out where Les Paccots actually is, and where to catch the bus. We kinda had an idea from the few webpages but really there was no information.

Anyway, of our intrepid group we had the guy who could actually speak french (life works so much better when you've got one of those):

 

The girl who taught the lessons:

And the renter:

The ski renter was a critical component of this little troupe. Without which we would have never actually made it to the mountain. When the bus let us off there was not a ski run in sight. We wandered around and made it to a ski rental shop (horray french speaking guy!) There we found out that you can't really get to the ski lift with public transportation but they would give us a ride. They said they often had people coming in by bus trying to make it to the hill and it was a problem. They even gave us their phone number and told us to call them when it was time to come back! How lucky! Horray ski rental girl!

 

The van was actually kinda scary. It jerked up the hill and just could not get into gear. Better than walking for sure but rather odd for Switzerland! We made it to the top and had a decent day skiing. The weather was nice but there was a snowmobile race going on at the hill and the engines were roaring all day long.

Conditions were ok on the bunny hill but the rest of the hill was muddy and you had to ski between the ice and dirt patches. Makes me long for the bunny hills of Verbier... Ok, not really.

We caught our van ride back (works better going downhill) and I had even take a photo of the bus schedule so we could plan our return ride home.

Hmmm, this 1-5 thing turned out to be important. We eventually figured out it meant Mon-Fri which meant we were going to have to wait for two hours at Paccots for a bus to the Gare. Well, it wasn't raining, we wanted to get back so we hiked down the mountain road carrying our skis. We tried to hitch but not bloody likely. It was sad to be passed by so many empty SUVs... It was a narrow mountain road so it wasn't much fun to walk down. Eventually we found our way onto the bike trail into town and then into an industrial area. After getting into town we got some more directions (horray again french speaking guy!) and made it to the train station. I was treated to some ice cream (horray ski teacher!) Then another wait and then finally home.

Yet more skiing

It's getting to the end of the season, I don't know what I will do when the skiing ends because I enjoy it so much. Except when I'm dumped on the bunny slope, but more on that later.

On Saturday I went with my lab mates to Verbier. The resort still had fantastic snow but man was this place crowded! The most crowded place that I've skied at since I've moved to Switzerland, but unlike many mountains here it was easier to get around to all the different pistes (like Whistler). I skied all day with men, men who spoke Italian and were all better skiers than me.

Anyway, we started together and they wanted to go to the top of the mountain where there was a black run. I often ski with better skiers and of course we always split up so everyone can ski something fun. But they made all the plans in Italian and then ran off and I was stuck waiting on this stupid bunny slope. A brief glance at the map after they left showed they had two gondola lifts to the top and it was going to take a lot longer than the 20 minutes they asked me to wait. I skied the bunny hill a few times, then left them to ski something better, felt guilty that they might be waiting, rushed back and they *still* hadn't come down.

More bunny hill runs.

Finally they call me, I see them on the lift going up and they tell me to wait near the bottom of the piste. I wait, I eat my cheese. Wait. Eat my apple, taking the time to eat every little bit of flesh on the damn thing. Wait. Ok, now some chocolate, at this point I'm running out of food. Damn bunny hill lift that stops every 10 minutes because some kid has fallen off. No, I've not worked myself up into a decent snark by this point, not at all.

Finally we meet up. So far my day at this famous ski resort has been bunny hills and waiting. I'm grumpy, it's already 1pm. We leave the bunny hill behind. Later Alex calls me names, I call him names back, let it always be said that I maintain a good relationship with my co-workers filled with warmth and mutual respect.

However, after all the waiting we did go some places interesting and this time I had some say in the Italian mafia about where to ski next. A nice steep slope filled with snow and not moguled out and some other fun pistes. At the end of the day we decide to ski out and to try and do it without walking (no feets!) I'm not a big fan of the ski out, it's often icy, crowded and I'm usually pretty tired. However, we didn't actually go down any piste, rather I had a lot of fun following Alex and Marco through roads and into the forest.

So, Italian mafia bunny hill crap aside, I was completely exhausted after the fun ski day. Which was a good thing because the next day was more skiing, but this time more laid back and with less name calling too.