Is it already the end of September?

Wow that means I have officially been here for a year. Actually tomorrow will be my anniversary.
Before I came here, a year seemed like so long and I was so scared to commit myself to this for so long but the year actually passed by quickly. At the beginning of course I counted the days and then the days became months but now it is actually 365 days and I have another 12 months to go seeing as I have renewed my contract.
Now that date seems far away but I guess every day at a time and before you know it the time is up.

I didnt do anything special for my year of being here but let me fill you in on the past few weeks....

I was invited to attend a different 'au pair coffee' on Sunday 2nd September and went with Lacey. Most of the girls that go are French speaking Canadians but I had the chance to meet another Australian girl named Vicki and really got along with her.



Here are the girls from the coffee

It was a shame though because Vicki left a fortnight later. On a good note though I got to go to her farwell party and met all of her friends who are super nice. Here are some photos of our night out!




Huw, Vicki and I - the aussies!!

Vicki is now working her way through Europe so hopefully I will meet up with her sometime soon if it works into my schedule. She just finished a contiki tour of Turkey so now she is just seeing where the wind blows her.

The following night I went to another girls farwell party (everyones leaving!!!) and she had organised a cocktail party where we all wore dresses and headed into the city to one of the more famous bars in Zurich the Kaufleuten (sp??)



Seeing as I had actually had 3 hours sleep the previous night I didnt want to go out but I was committed so I went but left early. It was good to see some of the girls and say goodbye to Patricia but it was an early Saturday night for me... the group shot...


So with that weekend over it was time for me to start looking forward to the following Thursday. Lacey, whose boss is a pilot had secured us first class seats to Antalya Turkey for the cost of taxes only which was only like 82 francs (about 82 aussie dollars!!!) So after trekking out to Laceys house late Wednesday night we then woke up at 4am Thursday morning to be on out 6.45am flight. The surprise of the day was then the opportunity to go and sit up in the cock pit with the two pilots. We got to see the takeoff and enjoyed watching the sun come up and then also to see Kai land the plane which was perfect!


The 5am shot

Beautiful sunset

Reto - the other pilot

Not many people get the chance now to go in the cock pit of a huge plane so I was so grateful to be able to experience that. After 3 hours and a time change we landed in Turkey with 30 degree plus weather and the issue of getting to our hostel.

After some wandering, sweating and more wandering we finally agreed on a cab to the suburb of Kaeici in the oldtown. We luckily had found the best hostel which was run by a super cool aussie guy and we got upgraded to a twin room for only a little extra. We talked to Mike for hours on what to do and see and then set about the city.


With Mike, better than Lonely planet.

The whole time there we had perfect weather, met some of the nicest travellers ever and really explored every corner of this booming city.
We went on 3 different boat rides where we went to the famous Dudan waterfalls on one and also on our day trip ride we went to an island in the middle of the Antalyan Gulf and jumped off the boat into the ocean! It was so warm and clear and we got to float around on those huge orange jackets. We had a lovely lunch and got to spend quality time with our new friend Lisa.
We ate great turkish food at the same restaurant 4 times, drank apple tea, went shopping like crazy at all the different bizzarres selling everything from tea cups to prada bags and also just relaxed!


Great food,

Warm water,

and the fleeting chance to cool down for a moment.

We did alot of drinking (!!!) while away and also got to see a live Turkish cover band which was cool. Whilst away I bought a mini hubbly bubbly and some really nice tea cups. The Turkish lira was so similar to the swiss franc so we didnt spend alot of time converting things in our head, we just new that Turkey was alot cheaper than Switzerland.

It was such a nice holiday that it wad a shame to go home. This holiday was different from alot of our other trips in the sense that we did alot more leisurely things like shopping and going out in stead of having early nights and spending the days packing a tonne of sight seeing in. It was a nice change and Lacey and I had the best time.

We got to fly home again sitting in the cockpit for some of the time but the best bit was being able to walk out and inspect the plane with the pilot himself. We got to have photos and see what makes a plane fly!

Here are some of the photos of the scenery that I got to enjoy in my 4 days in Antalya...














Thank you Kai and Lacey for giving me the chance to fall in love with Turkey!!

So then the past week was busy as always so it was nice to go out again Friday night and have a picnic by the lake Saturday.

Had a quiet night in on Saturday night and got pizza and a few movies with Lacey.




Nicolas and I invented a new game.
We have fun sometimes ;-) Also now just on the lookout for a new camera as I dropped mine in Turkey (!!!!) Kind of annoyed but it is really important to me, what makes it worse is that my ipod died only a few weeks ago so I had to buy that also! Its red though so I am happy!!!

Have a good week and see you all in 10 weeks, I am so excited xox

Die Langest Nacht...of my life!

Well Lacey is still sleep (and its 10.30am) from our previous night out so I thought this morning would be a good opportunity to blog and get you up to date on whats been happening.

School holidays have now been over for 2 weeks so my family and I have been getting back into routine. Noel is now in his second year of kindergarten, the twins now go to a billingual forest group twice a week and I am will start my french class 6th Sept.

Unfortunately last week though I became really sick. I am not sure what I had but I stayed in bed for a few days and couldnt eat and had a fever. It was horrible. I am never sick and then nowadays I always catch the smallest bug! It was a quick recovery though because on Friday 24th of August it was my bosses 40th birthday and I was well enough to go out for lunch with the family and start to prepare for her party.



Lacey and I both attended which was really good. Held in Tieffenbrunnen the theme was "be the popstar you always wanted to be". So being the younglings Lacey and I dreassed up as Shakira and Beyonce respectively, but some people went all out and dressed as Abba, Madonna, Elvis, etc. The night was great and everyone looked fantastic. The location was awesome with an outdoor area to cool down after dancing on the huge dancefloor and there was also a standing room where you could get drinks and food (which was really yum!!)



Lacey and I enjoyed ourselves to the max and were talking to some really nice people throuhout the night. We drank ourselves silly and had had to call it a night after one little person decided she had had enough! A really fun night though, we then spent Sunday by the lake with our friends and David, Laceys new boyfriend joined us. It was also the last time we got to hang out with our friend Svetlana as she was leaving the country to go back home to Canada on the 31st of August.




This past week though I got back into my swimming routine after my full recovery and have also started listening to my french classes. I think I will enjoy french more since I hopefully will pick it up faster than I did german, but it is also really hard. Maybe I dont have a good nack for languages...

Wednesday I was at my au pair coffee metting and had the chance to meet some more people that have started to attend. At one point there was only like 5 girls coming which wasnt as good, but now there seems to be more people going which I think is good, and we got to meet some nice girls who are nannys also here.

It was also decided at the meeting that we would all plan to go to the "Lange Nacht Museum" a night that was put on where all the 40 museums in Zurich are open all night and they each have different events happening within them.

We gave one of the girls our money and she got our tickets for us.

Friday then rolled around and I got to go to the Zurich zoo with Maxine. Nicolas went to his Oma and Opa's house and Noel was at school so we drove into the city and met Laura with her two kids Cami and Jeremy and Krystal with her little girl Patricia. There was also another Canadian girl who was there and she was really nice too, looking after two little american kids.




And as you can see Maxine really likes to look at the camera when having her photo taken!!

Maxine was so well behaved the whole day and we had so much fun together. We saw heaps of animals, got to go in the rainforest and had lunch with all the other kids. After a big day and an icecream we headed home where she fell asleeep in the car. I then had to babysit on Friday night.




Saturday we all decided to go to the flea markets to see if we could find any bargains but it was seriously all just junk - and it grossed me out!!! We sat in the park though and had a nice lunch and then Lacey and I went home to get ready for our long night in the museums experience....

We were told you had to dress nicely so we beautified ourselves and then met everyone in the city at 7pm.
So many of the girls showed up without tickets, and then found out that they werent able to gain entrance. So in the end, it ended up being Lacey and I with Candace and Patricia who were the planners of the night and then the two nannies that we met Amy (from England) and another Patricia (from Scotland - and I swear I cant understand this girl). Oh and a new Brazillian au pair in Lauras german class!

So the night really wasn't what we had expected. You paid for our ticket and we assumed that that included the nibblies and drinks at each place we went to including entrance but unfortunately it didnt. So we just got in then everything else was extra which was sad to me, but it was good to hang out with some different girls I guess. The only major problem of the night really was the fact that I think we probably walked at least 10km around Zurich through out the night and also spent at least 5 hours on various forms of transport.

The night was meant to go until about 5am after visiting such places as the Rietberg Museum, the North America Museum, the Chinese Gardens, a cabaret show, the Zoo and the Kunsthaus Museum but we actually only made it to like the first two before we got bored of wandering throughout the city.



I think if I was maybe wearing like hiking shoes and more prepared for a night of fitness and not a night of fun and drinks then I would have enjoyed myself more.

So Lacey and I headed home to Meilen on the 11.51pm train and came home and watched a movie.

She is now awake and we are looking for yet more travel deals and at 4pm we will leave to go to yet another au pair coffee with a different group of people to hopefully extend our network of friends.

Sorry my blogs have been so few and far between, hopefully I will be more diligent and pop on here more often in the future!

Hugs and kisses,
Megz


I keep telling Maxine its bad luck to put umbrellas up inside....