Wineducation

 

Rocking the Hofbrauhaus, 21.03.09

more than our fair share of "prost"ing

It is one of the most bittersweet feelings the first few days after visitors leave. Our lives are so incredibly rich & full, simply by the phenomenal people that are a part of it.

So here goes; the slightly edited version of the past weeks shenanigans.
Last Tuesday I met Kate, Jared & their friends in Grindelwald/the Jungfrau region of Switzerland for the day. Hence, the amazing photos below. What an immaculate day. Days like that are rare here in Switzerland, so rather than sledge with the rest of the crew (and because I am nervous about sledging), I spent the afternoon on the top of the slope, enjoying the view, hiking around, eating a delicious brat, etc. I honestly felt like a legitimate Swiss person for one of the first times ever because I simply sat. I spent the time to soak everything in. Some of the ridiculous things that were seen & heard include (I had to make notes of these while on the mountain for fear of forgetting any of them):
~I heard the song "gasolina", yes amy, on an amazing Swiss slope, your 'favorite' Mexican tune was played
~The parachuters prepping & taking off, gorgeous
~A couple getting married, their family in their ski gear around them with the spectacular view all around
~Another couple dancing together while in ski boots (ask joe, i can barely walk in ski boots, let alone dance)
~Last, but of course not least, the shirtless old man with ski pants

The next day Kate, Jared & I went on a Zurich tour, then spent the afternoon in Luzern, where we were also able to take a boat cruise. We opted for having a beer on the boat, then like all good Swiss, a beer for the train ride home ;) Nothing quite like a train beer, I don't know why. Once back in Zurich, Joe met up with us & we had brats from our favorite stand. Nothing like taking guests out for stand food, huh?! Seriously though, they make a mean brat. Then, we went out for a bit & played a new favorite card game, 500. It was spouses (Jared & I) vs. Ducheks (the originals, Kate & Joe), the second time Jared & I beat them, true Duchek character was starting to flow from both our delightful red heads ;)

Thursday was spent on a 23 km hike around the bottom of the Zurisee (Zurich lake). It was nice for me to get out of the city & enjoy a part of Zurich I haven't seen yet. Thursday night was hypothetically going to be a low-key night, but we should have known better when adding the Aussies, Erin & Lachie, to our evening equation. After enjoying steak on a stone, we stopped into the Aelpi bar. This is about as legitimate Swiss you are going to get in a bar in Zurich. We wandered in there soon after moving here while out with Erin & Lachie, and it's honestly the greatest place. Some sort of improptu instrument is bound to be played as some point throughout the night; sometimes it's the spoons, but this time -- the classic coin & bowl was the new instrument of choice. Not exactly music, but fun to attempt none the less.

Friday Kate & Jared took off super early for Neuschwanstein Castle which sounded like a good time. Kate clearly began to take to the European lifestyle as she recklessly ignored multiple signs forbidding them to get closer to the famous bridge that overlooks the castle. We were all so proud! We had a late dinner that evening in Munich of wurst, pretzels, wurst & more wurst. Nothing says Munich like sausages & pretzels. Did someone say diet of champions? I thought so....

Next morning Kate & Jared visited Dachau, the concentration camp a bit outside of Munich, while Joe & I strolled around town, enjoying of our favorite towns. Gina arrived around lunch perfectly on time. Then we all spend the afternoon at the Munich residence & cruising around the city. Saturday night was spent camping out at the Hofbrauhaus. We all enjoyed our fair share of liters, which is really the best way to enjoy Munich! Some silly great things that happened include;
~Jared trying to bribe the waiter with 20 Euro to get them a halb hanchen (1/2 chicken), despite the fact that the kitchen had run out of them hours ago
~Gina sharing her beer with table behind us, seriously the entire table
~Kate chugging a good potrtion of her liter beer to beat Jared at their bet (go lady!)
~Pretzels bigger than our heads!
~quote of the evening, Kate to Joe, "I don't think I have ever really seen you drunk, I feel so much closer to you now." (ps We feel closer to you guys now too!)

We wrapped up our trip in Munich on Sunday with a refreshing train station breakfast, a town stroll & a visit to the Deutsches Museum. Deutsches Museum is not recommended for the day after the beer halls, but we were all resilient. Kate & Jared left early on Monday morning, back to reality, while Gina stayed on through today. We spent Monday cruising Zurich, and attending a huge wine tasting. Gina happens to know things about wine, I happen to know nothing. At one of the stands, the woman didn't speak English so I told her, when attempting to smell the wine, "Mein Nase ist kaputt", my nose is broken, basically this smells like wine, just like all the other ones. But, it was fun & Gina encouraged me to purchase some wine I really liked, which I typically would have have done. I believe the words were something along the lines of, 'you would be an idiot not to buy this wine for this price.' Enough said, 1/2 a case will be getting delivered to the house. And since this is Switzerland, they don't need you to give them a credit card number, or, really anything for that matter, to order this wine. They will send me an invoice AFTER we recieve the wine. Sounds about right. Then we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe, yum!

To all of you, prost! I think here in Switzerland, we'll be prosting with water, over a dinner of salad for a while to recover from all the fun!

Living it up with the Caplinger's in Switzerland

"Your house is really small"

Our weekend has been pretty action packed. Friday evening we went over to our friends' house for dinner. It was raining as we left the house, by the time we got off the train it was snow, and after we departed the bus it was really coming down. Lucky for us we walked the wrong way down their street for a while, so by the time we arrived we were pretty excited to get inside. It was just one of those nights that curling up inside the house seems like the best possible idea in the world, and yet we were out searching for our friends' house. Well, it was all well worth it once we arrived. David is Italian and Elena is Russian and they are just hysterical. We enjoyed fresh Italain cheeses (just smuggled over the border from their last trip to David's home), homemade Italian sausages, and wine from his parents' hometown. We were pretty sure we had died and gone to heaven, and then they began to discuss the second course (mushroom risotto)...and then whispers of a third (the most delicious stuffed tomato that has ever passed through these lips, even Joe ate 3....that's 3 tomatoes people). And, I had made cheesecake brownies for dessert. How another morsel could even fit in the warm, happily expanded bellies, I'll never know...

After such a gluttonous evening, we decided Saturday would have to be spent burning off a few of those delcious calories. So, we woke up early and headed out to a new skiing location, Brunni. The morning started out a bit rough, our first train connection was running behind schedule (this is Switzerland, so everyone, including Joe, was pretty outraged by this turn of events -- I believe this is the first time our train has been so late that we missed our connection). So, this one train put us an hour behind schedule. Then we arrived to Brunni & it looked a bit too intense for Liz after last weeks skiing adventure. At this point, crankiness was beginning to set in...but with the help of the one man who was selling tickets & working the snack booth, he told us about another more low-key area. We found the gondola and headed up there. As it was snowing on Friday night, the powder was fresh and thick & oh so much easier to stop on than the ice from the previous weekend. So, we skied around up there for a bit until we got bored of the run. Joe then decided he would ski down to the area where we began, clearly, it seemed to make sense for me to just take the gondola back down. But my confidence was back after some successful runs, so I thought, why not give it a try?! What a gorgeous, uncrowded, wooded run. A few areas made my heart skip a beat, but I had already decided if I got scared or moving too fast I could always take myself out in the soft powdery embankement (which is quite fun to be honest). So, finally we could see the ground opening up below us...I think Joe was as shocked as I was that I'd made it down. Of course, we did the run again, which was even more fun the second time when the twists and turns aren't quite as scary. This was the first time it was so clear to me why people love skiing, it can be fun, challenging & beautiful all at once. Maybe I will be able to get into this after all...

Then our friends Ryan, Stacey & their son, Chance came over for dinner to our house (the meal was nothing like Friday night, just shrimp fajitas;). So, if you want in true 5-year old honesty, an assessment of our house, "it's really small." Okay, fine. We are aware of this fact, we live here. However, he really found this fact fascinating as he repeated this over and over again, at various points throughout the evening. His parents were clearly embarrassed but one can't argue the truth, right?!

Getting closer to legit...

I am just a few steps away from officially being employed in the land of cheese & chocolates! My new position can be called a recess supervisor, a nanny or a tutor (all of which seem to fit moderately well), although of course, my personal favorite is recess supervisor (complete resume booster, no?!) Basically, I am going to be working with a young boy with cystic fibrosis (which is an interesting disease, that I was totally clueless about...) So, he can't really go outside when it's wet/damp, so basically 95.8% of the time here. Therefore, my job is to supervise him during his 2 recesses as he stays in the building most of the time (WTF?, who gets 2 freaking recesses?), lunch/snacktime to make sure he takes his meds, etc. etc. I am pretty excited about it, the school has amazing facilities, basically making every school (including University) I've ever been to look like it's the school from Lean on Me in comparison. The principle (I was, admittedly, nervous to meet with, hello, it's the Principle people), teachers & staff that I met were all amazing & I am confident it will be a great community to be a part of! It's only part-time, which is great; still allows for massage, German classes, the gym, or practicum...you all know this girl can't handle a FT job doing the same thing everyday. So, as long as there are no Swiss government permitting issues, I will be all good to go and will start working after the school's two-week Easter break..it's not going to be hard to get used to all the breaks either, right, teacher friends?!

apparently I "do not fall gracefully"

After our two+ hour commute to our mountain of choice yesterday, we arrived in Engelberg just in time for shit-show5000. The 10.30 arrival time must be when 90% of Switzerland & Germany showed up to ski yesterday, and the queue was about as miserable as the crowd in St. Moritz last weekend. We must have waited in line for close to any hour, just to get on the freaking gondola. Engelberg's motto is "welcome to heaven," however, this more closely represented our own personal hell; endless crowds, people standing virtually on-top of us, constant European-style pushing and all sorts of foreign languages being spoken all around us.

Unfortunately, the day did not get much better for me. And, in case any of you were worried, my falling style has been officially categorized as ungainly. I definitely have the sore muscles to prove it. Somehow, in the 2 weeks that I was vacationing in Mexico & Chicago (oh, woe is me), Joe became a super-star skier. So, we got to the top of our slope area & I looked down & said, in so many words, this is too high & too steep for me. Of course, there was no other way down but to ski, so Joe convinced me I would be fine & we commenced downwards. Unfortunately for me, much of my downwards progression came in the form of tumbling, skis flying off, head smacking the ground...after the second fall & only about 1/6 of the slope done, I decided to walk down along the side in the ungroomed thick snow, dragging my skis behind me, tears rolling down my cheeks. It was a pathetic sight, if I have ever been a part of one (which of course, as you all know, this was not my first showing of self-pity). Joe was so nice & supportive of my pouting it almost made me want to throw a ski at him ;). The only reassuring part of the whole experience was this was our first time skiing with our brand new helmets, which were, quite frankly, crucial for me on the outing. At one point, Joe tried to instruct me on my stopping technique (I take well to these sorts of things, of course), and I said but wait, you aren't stopping with pizza wedge anymore, you have advanced to the parallel ski stop, and he was like what?, and in typical Duchek fashion, said "so just do that". Oh okay, I'll get right on that...