Becoming Swiss.... and loving it!

This past weekend I didnt even have to cross any borders to enjoy my time off! The only bad thing about my whole weekend was that on Friday night on my way to German class a woman commited suicide at one of the stations I have to pass through to get to class. Unfortuanately I therefore didnt make it to class because of delays etc but other than that it was a perfect two days.

Friday night I met up with Manda and Lacey and we headed to the Irish Pub - Olivers Twist! Not exactly high society but we got to have a few drinks then we all headed back to my place for the night. It was to be my last weekend in Mannedorf so I made a special breakfast Saturday morning for my friends and then we headed into the city for some summer clothes shopping! I had to buy sunglasses and a new wallet so it was good to join the other trillion of people strolling the banhofstrasse and compete with the crowds!!

Saturday night I then spent at Laceys after trying my fitness in Mandas local pool! Hahahaha I struggled to swim maybe 10 laps!! Oh well. I might compete in July in a 1.2km swim across Zurichsee (the lake that runs through Zurich) so I better start practising! Sunday afternoon my girlies (Lacey and Manda) and I headed to Dielsdorf and went to climb the Regensberg! A hill (or what I would define as a mountain) near Manda's neck of the woods! It was a great little walk minus the sweltering heat!! At the top we had a fantastic view which would enable us to see mountains across the whole of Switzerland on a clearer day. We had icecream and then decided to take an alternate route down and go to Manda's town called Schofflisdorf.

Hot and tired Sunday night I had an early night after starting to pack for my Belgium trip.

We leave Friday which should be good. Thankfully I thought the ride there was 12 hours for some reason but Catherine just informed me that it is only 7 hours.... thank god!!!


Monday was a special day as The Zürich guilds and the city's people celebrated their traditional spring festival with great enthusiasm: Sechseläuten. The highpoint on Monday is the procession of the guilds (Zug der Zünfte): Over 7,000 participants in historic costumes, 500 horses, 28 music corps, as well as 50 floats and carriages form a procession - one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. The procession terminates on Sechseläuten Platz in front of the Opernhaus. In the middle of the square the effigy of the "Böögg" sits atop a bonfire. At 6 p.m. sharp, the pyre is set alight and the mounted guildsmen gallop around the leaping flames to the tune of the Sechseläuten March. Made of wadding and filled to the brink with firecrackers, the "Böögg" effigy is the symbol of winter: the faster his head catches fire and explodes, the better the summer is supposed to be.
I went with Catherine and the kids and it was great the kids loved it. The snowman took about 14 minutes to explode which was slower than last year and therefore means that the summer shall be less intense in heat!

Later on I met up with my friends and enjoyed the sunshine till about 8pm and then headed home.

This week is very busy as we prepare to move to our new house in Meilen - hahaha it is making me realise how I am never going to get all my junk home or have to pay a trillion dollars to hire a ship!

All in all though a good few days. Hiking, festivals, it really is the swiss way of life and I am really starting to enjoy it here. There is so much to see and do. Next place I want to go is a cheese town like Appenzell, Gruyere or Emmantel - the cheeses here are amazing and to go to a town that invented them would be cool for me!!

Ok well I am also suffering from some weird heat rash thing at the moment all over my arms and neck so I am going to rub the 10th litre of cream and hope it disappears by the morning, night night!!!

Exploring Vienna whilst suffering from sleep deprivation.....

When people tell me a certain city is their favourite in the world, my ears prick up! To make such an exclamation must mean that this city is one worth seeing!

My boss Catherine said this to me and I seem to have a fair few things in common with her so I convinced all my friends that this is where we shall spend our Easter holiday. Not that we had many more options. Prices for flights were insane, everything seemed booked and when it looked like I would be spending my four day weekend in Mannedorf , Sara found a sweet deal to Vienna by night train. Hhahahahaha I lied - it was not sweet, we were sitting in a little room for 6 people for 9 hours. I have never tried sleeping sitting up and I even said to Lacey in the middle of the night on the way to Vienna "I'm catching a plane home" IT WAS HORRIBLE!
The picture attached is me smiling and excited - trust me, about 3 minutes into that train ride I was frowning and moaning!

But enough about that!! Once in Vienna we had to decide where to go! Thankfully our accomodation was nice and we were in a reasonable location. Vienna has an excellent metro system and was well signed! As it was our first day we started out by just wandering. Vienna is a huge city!! Stephens Basilica was breathtaking and is where we ventured into for the day. We saw went on a tour of the caticombs and got to see where the bones of hundreds of people were kept, it also really thrilled me when I got to see an urn filled with intestines leaking... not sure about any of you back home but body parts dont impress me (Lacey!!!)

By mid afternoon I dont know about the other girls but I was fading and the three coffees I had downed were not doing anything so we spent the rest of the day strolling and sitting, doing a loop on the tram, wandering to Parliament and we met up with a guy who was friends with Svetlana and we went out with his friends for dinner at a restaurant called Einstein!!

Now Lacey and Manda are all for trying the local cuisene where as I am like "give me the stuff I know 'cause I am on a budget", but we had a great dinner that night of dumplings and bacon and onion and a sauce which was really nice! Kind of like massive spatzli.. oh you dont know what that is either, mmm well it was really good anyway!

After a great nights sleep we decided to spend Saturday at the Schonbrunn Palace. It was a sunny day and there was lots to do at the Palace such a explore the rooms of the Palace where the Austrian Emporers lived, get lost in a labrinyth and hahaha make Sara think we were helping her get to the end when really hahaha we were trying to make her get lost!!! Umm we climbed a gazillion stairs to the Gloriette for a fantastic view of the city and sadly we paid to see an Apple Strudel show but we missed it - thankfully though we still got the samples and it was fiiiiiine (delicious in german).




One of the events that happened in Schonbrunn that wasnt part of the program was the appearance of all these little squirrels that I swear looked like mini kangaroos. Some lady had nuts which she was feeding them and she gave us a bunch so Lacey and I spent a good ten hours sitting at a table tapping nuts (ummmm might explain why we missed the strudel show... whatever) so that the little squirrels would run up to us and take the food. It was great and it was so fun watching them!!!

Saturday night "Lacey the great" found us a wine tavern! Hahaha did I say found, sorry she got us to a wine tavern after we walked a whole metro stop in the WRONG direction! Hhahaha but it was cool - wine in beer mugs for a tiny 1.60 euro!! We had fun laughing at our squirrel videos for half the night while Sara had a sip of wine and Svetlana struggled to keep her eyes open!!

Easter Sunday I went with Lacey and Sara to the United Methodist Church of Vienna with a friend of Mandas from Zurich. He now lives in Vienna so he met us and took us with him which turned out to be great! He was such a cool guy and he had us in stiches for the whole day.

Church was nice and I really liked the service. Considering I am not a regular church go-er I found the service easy to follow and it was good to remember why we celbrate Easter in the first place.



The rest of the day was spent scarfing down food at TGI Fridays an American restaurant with the best food ever and then lazily strolling stadt park!! The whole day I spent dredding the night train home which left from Vienna 9pm Sunday night. Thankfully though the train was less crowded on the way home and we did manage to get more sleep than the first time round.

Unfortunately though I lost my wallet in Zurich when I arrived on Monday morning. I am not sure if I was pickpocketed or if I simply put it down somewhere but by mid-Tuesday VISA informed me that someone had racked up a whooping $600 on my credit card so I am led to assume that maybe my wallet was stolen.

It has been such a drag organising all new cards, buying new train passes, sitting for photos for a new licnence, etc - it is so difficult especially since I am on the other side of the globe but VISA exceeded my expectations by sending out a courier 2 days later with a temporary visa card and increasing my card limit by 200o dollars!!

Hopefully I will not have to pay the money that this loser spent but I wont know for another 6 weeks.... aghhh the things that happen to me.

So basically I would recommend Vienna if you catch a plane there. I will go back I think because it was a beautiful city and I feel like I didnt get to see as much as I would have liked. The Austrians too speak German so it was nice to hear a language I am familiar with. There is so much I still have to see though so maybe next time I am in Europe I will go there again.... For now I am focused on summer holiday destination....

But thats all for now, probably blog again about my past weekend tomorrow night! Ciao xoxox

Going East...... to Budapest!

Last Saturday Sara, Lacey, Manda and I all went to Budapest! Hungary wasn’t a country high on my “to do” list when I came here but I am so glad we decided to fly east and explore this city because it was definitely worthwhile!

Upon arriving we didn’t have any expectations of the city. The bus and metro ride to our hostel was average and once we found the hostel they informed us they didn’t have a bed for us… turns out that was good news! We got put in an apartment for the same price so we had 5 beds, couches, a bathroom and a kitchen for 10 euros each, bargain!

Seeing as time had gotten away from us we decided to take a walk and explore. We ended up on the Buda side of the Danube River and decided to take a venicular (?) ride to the top of the hill and have a look at Buda Castle. Wow! It was amazing, we were really lucky in the fact that it was dusk when we got there so we got to see the city transform as all the lights came on – it was beautiful. That night we also got to go to a great restaurant a few blocks from our place and were impressed with Hungarian cuisine.


An early start on Sunday as Sara had to go home we decided to head to Parliament, Hungarys crown jewels are kept here and we wanted to have a look! Sadly though the guards weren’t letting anyone in unless they had a reservation. It made us believe that the peaceful riots that occurred here last week were having a lasting effect and the staff were being cautious – not to worry though the building for parliament was enough as it was so grand that we got the general idea. After then walking across the city we ended up at the House of Terror. A museum that sits in the Nazi headquarters building which later became the Communist Partys office. Inside there was videos on the horror that occurred during both these periods and even real cells and torture chambers in the basement – it was informative and moving to see all that was here as it was so recent, the Iron Curtain didn’t come down until 1989 and just now Hungary is slowly starting to rebuild itself even becoming part of the EU in 2004 which is promising.

Luckily we then opted for a more happy site and visited the Budapest spring festival which was markets with traditional food and lots of novelty things.

Since Sara went home later that night we then got new room mates who we made friends with. One guy named Richard wanted to hang out with us so we decided to go to a bar across town. It was an experience. Manda and Lacey liked it but that is only because they didn’t have to witness the bathrooms (I had to wash my hands with a hose… need I say more?) But it was fun and its always nice to have a drink with friends and meet new people. We then had dinner at about midnight and crashed!

Our days were so jam-packed! Amandas last day was Monday and we had plenty to do before she left, so another early start and we walked up Gaelic Hill. Right besides Buda Castle it offered another amazing view and the day was clear so we took lots of photos. There was also more markets on the top so I got some Hungarian secret boxes for Kim, Kate and I and also a pashmina… you can never have too many scarves!!

After lunch at the markets we then headed over to City Park and went to the thermal spas! A must-do in Hungary as they are everywhere! We went to the recommened one as there was supposedly not as many old people at this particular one but I have to say it must have been ‘jerry’s day out’ because we were by far among the minority! A range of indoor and outdoor pools to chose from we spent most of the time in the warm out door pool, had fun in the spas with the jets and even went in a mineral pool. Manda and I braved the ice pool for all of five seconds and then went sprinting back to sane Lacey who was in the warm pool!

After taking Amanda home we then went to a labrinyth on the Buda-side with Richard the pommie guy from our room! These mazes we originally made from thermal springs and the idea is to find your way through and test your courage! You can even find a red wine fountain. Sadly it tasted like gluhwine but it was free! We went after 6pm so all the lights were turned off and we had to find our way through with only lanterns which added to the fun! We had a great time in there!

Then Lacey and my last day in the city we decided to have a lazy one…. The money had surely become dry and even though we hadn’t seen everything we wanted to, we were exhausted! We walked to St Stephens Basilica to see his mummified hand and also look at the church. It had to be one of the nicest I have ever been in and trust me in Europe you see alotttttt of churches! We climbed (ok I lie, we caught an elevator) to the top of the church and could see all of Budapest from every angle! It was great! You can tell that Hungary was once a wealthy country as the architecture in the city is simply superb!

Ok so we then went shopping!!!! Sadly things weren’t as cheap as we would have liked but we had the trusty credit cards so I bought some shorts to wear for summer as it is starting to get warm!!

Our flight was delayed on the way home, then our train was delayed blah blah blah but we eventually made it home back to nice Zurich! It was such a great trip, probably my favourite so far. A great city, excellent accommodation and beautiful friends to spend it with. I would suggest you include this city in your travels if you ever come to Europe as it was truly a really cool place!

Then two days later (29/03/07) Lacey celebrated her 26th birthday! Her boss rang me a day earlier and secretly invited me to her birthday dinner so it was fun to surprise her! We all then slept at Laceys house on Friday night and had a lazy day Saturday. Just good to take it easy oh and we watched Lacey husband on tv (Casino Royal!!!)

Today was great weather so after having brunch at the movie bar in town with my family and Catherines brothers family. I then met the girls at HB and we caught a train to the Uetliberg, Zurichs tallest point! We went for a nice walk across the mountain and took in the view. Sadly it was a bit foggy at the top but we did get to see all these people paragliding and Lacey and I decided that we are going to do that while we’re here!! There was even a man who strapped his dog in – hahaha I could hear it barking from the sky!


Thursday night we then head off for a new adventure to spend Easter in Vienna which should be nice. I am looking forward to more exploring a photo taking!!

Happy Easter everyone and you’ll hear from me soon xoxox