Living the Life

The boys have really taken to "Pony Club." The first time we went, Aiden was sick, so he couldn't go. This was the second time when Macsen was being a good older brother showing him the way. I had to capture this moment. And everytime we finish, Aiden asks if we can come back again next week. He's cute.

End of the year school party. This was the scene with loads of little kids...and they were selling wine and beer.

Us camping during Caitlin's going-away tour. I miss her!

Notice the moustache.

World class fondue. World class bowtie. Oh, this is how I was dressed for the mosh-pit.

CERN. Look at the video at the bottom for a better view.

I love the drive from Geneva to Lyon. There are these great tunnels and huge bridges. I couldn't get a good photo of the bridges. Oh...this is while I was driving. Not very safe.

Grand Lyon...that's actually their slogan. Oh, and this is a monument built for Louis XIV.

I loved the French-feel.

The Roman Ampitheater. Check out the video below for the full effect.

My favorite vegetarians (3/4 vegans) and our 4th of July cookout. Notice the hole burned through the table.

A good 'ole American cheeseburger. Fantastic.

A good 'ole lamb roast. Notice that I'm with vegetarians (3/4 vegans). And notice the teeth and eyes on the lamb. Yummmmm!

The Lake Parade. My battery died before I got really good pictures of this event.

There are many sunflower fields around here. Its easy to just walk up to one and make yourself a bouquet. That along with the lavender are the greatest things. Oh, I'm a professional photographer now.

I finally got the internet back!!! So, due to the long hiatus since my last post, I have a lot of work to do to get everyone caught up to speed (btw, there are videos at the end of this post). Here I go…

Moving

We finally moved houses a couple weeks ago. Life has been much better in the new house. The house isn’t much bigger than the old one, it’s just much nicer. My room grants me much more privacy, which is great. However, it was made for an old, sick grandma (the pinkness and feminine touches are quite interesting). I guess I could go on describing everything, but I’ll just wait to take a video and post it on this website. Oh…the house is only a few minutes away from the old house.

Camping

Caitlin, Jane, and I decided that it would be fun to go camping. So we got supplies for s'mores, borrowed a tent and sleeping bags, dusted off the Catch Phrase, and took off looking for somewhere...anywhere. Much harder than we thought. We ended up finding a place in Switzerland that was closing in only 15 min. So we took off as fast as we could to beat the deadline. We pull up a few min early only to find that no one was working the front desk. We knocked on the door for our last ditch effort. God I wish we didn't knock on that door.

Out pops a 70 year old lady with a t-shirt on and NO PANTS (thankfully she had underwear). After some persuasion, she lets us in. We found our campsite, pitched our tent, played some games, drank some beers, got yelled at to shut up (in English), and slept the night away. The next morning I took a tour of the campground...we were the only tent there. Imagine a trailer park with permanent homes...that was closer to what this was.

Caitlin

AKA Caz, Caz-Ma-Taz, or Cazmeister, left us for home a couple weeks ago. On one hand, it was great getting to know her, but it was heart-breaking to see her go. I'm glad that I'm meeting the au pairs that are here now, but its very tough that I only get to get to know them for such a short time. I can only hope that the next group are as "cool" as Caz and the others that were already here before me.

Mosh-Pit

This was perhaps one of the most…interesting…evenings of my life. Typically, cities in Europe have an old section and then everything else. Well, in Geneva, the old section is notably quiet and reserved. Walking in the old city at night is very peaceful and charming. Well, not this night.

A few weeks ago, Jane and I decided to go out for some fondue. While walking up the hill towards the old town, we could hear some kind of music. Finally, we made our way up to the source to discover a group of teenagers playing hard-core punk rock. Mohawks, leather jackets…everything. They must have been no older than 16 and probably no more than 30 of them in number. So being the typical American I am, I jumped right in and joined the tween mosh-pit. I easily had 80 lbs. on any of them.

Thinking that was it, Jane and I continued on for our melted cheese. Only now, we could hear even more music. After seeing small folky-acts and gospel choirs, we realized that this was a music festival. We then had our fondue (good…not the best food I’ve ever had) while we waited in anticipation of more music.

We then found a bigger stage with a slightly older band and crowd with another mosh-pit (I use this term loosely…it wasn’t that impressive). While joining in again, and somewhat mocking everyone else, we noticed a group of American college students doing the same thing. We know how to have a good time.

Oh, and the icing on the cake…we realized that it was late and we needed to catch the last trams of the night to go back home. So we took off running from the other Americans. Well, this 30-something year old German (who lives in England and was working in Geneva) took off running with us! Yes, we did talk to him for about 3 minutes beforehand, but we didn’t even know him! He followed us all the way to the stop and ended getting on the same tram. His name was Lars, and he was one of those really awkward people who you feel sorry for. He came to the event by himself and just wanted some friends. He was a favorite of mine…but more on him later.

Shopping

Twice a year, stores here have Les Soldes (the sales). Basically, throughout the entire year, this is the only time they are allowed to have mass sales. And they have sales. It’s not uncommon to see H&M having 50% off or even 70% off. It’s hard not to buy things. It’s a dream.

Jane and I went to an outlet mall that also had an IKEA right next to it. Is it weird that the Swedish-born IKEA makes me feel like home? Well, it did. And if you’re wondering, IKEA here is exactly the same as the ones in Chicago. Maybe a little smaller.

CERN

Greg gave me a private tour of the world’s largest physics laboratory. Basically, the experiment is designed to shoot molecules at each other, which in turn, shatters them into fragments. By creating a huge magnetic field around these collisions, they can see the behavior of atoms, electrons, neutrons, etc. It was pretty neat to see just how massive this thing is. But after the hour with him, my head was ringing with all the information he threw at me.

Clubbing

Remember Lars (refer to the end of the mosh-pit story if you don’t)? A week later, Jane, Lauren, and I went to a club together. Guess who was by himself at the same club? Lars. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever had happen to me.

Lyon

While I’m over here, I get to enjoy the benefits of a universal health care system. To be eligible for this, they needed to give me a check-up before approving. So, I had to go see a doctor in Lyon (France’s second largest city, only about 1.5 hours away). The doctor visit was very quick and painless. Honestly, it was the worst doctor’s office I had ever been to (especially for being in a large city). It wasn’t horrible, but I could definitely notice a difference.

As far as the city goes, I was very impressed. I’m realizing that the more I go into French cities, the more I like French culture. The area that I’m living in feels more and more like it’s really lacking in the things that I’m growing to love deeper in France. Because this is such an international area, the culture feels like a true hodgepodge.

Lyon is supposed to be the gastronomical capital of the world. Because of its location, it wound up getting a lot culinary influence from other parts of Europe. So it developed a blend of food that is very French, yet, very worldly. Because of this, I had to try some of what I’ve heard so much of. There is a famous chef, Paul Bercosse, who calls Lyon home. Obviously, his restaurant would be too expensive for me. Thankfully, his protégés have 4 smaller, cheaper restaurants (called, North, East, South, and West). I ate at North. I’m trying not to be too dramatic, but that was nearly the best meal I’ve ever had. I had a thick sausage that was surrounded by brioche for my entrée (appetizer in English), and then some duck with a fantastic sauce and a type of potatoes au gratin. Just magnificent.

What impressed me the most of Lyon was the history there. Lyon was a VERY important silk-weaving city. To protect the silk, the created small passages through the buildings to get from one side of the city to the other. Now, while you are walking down the street, in between the stores, you will notice these large doors. Most of them lead to private residences or apartments, but some of them are these passages. It’s fun trying to find them…it feels like a game of some sorts. Going further back into history, Lyon was the most important city in Roman Gaul (Gaul used to be France, and Rome controlled most of Gaul). So, there are some pretty near Roman ruins there. It was amazing to be able to walk around a Roman Amphitheater.

French Class

I finally started my French class. I’m going 3 days a week for 4 hours each time. So much time! But since it’s only for a month, its tolerable. There are only 4 people in my class. One 50-something from Switzerland, one 20-something from Spain, and one 16 year old from Switzerland. While I’m not the worst, I’m not the best. So it’s a pretty good class for me. I really enjoy the people…just not the length!

As far as my French goes, I can actually feel the improvement during my time here. On a scale from 1-10 (10 being fluent), I feel like I came here being a 3. Now I’m probably a 4. If I can get to 7 by the time I leave, I will be thrilled.

4^th of July

I’ve heard many times that Geneva has the world’s largest 4^th of July party outside of America. So this was a day that I was looking forward to for a long time. I wanted to be as American as I could be. That didn’t happen.

We (me, Lauren, and Jane) started out by finding a place to have a cookout. We were referred to this park by Jane’s French dad. The park was…interesting. To say that the place was sketchy is probably an understatement. The table that we sat at had a hole burnt through the vast majority of it. But the best part of the location was the group of big sweaty, Italians who were roasting a lamb next to us. Lauren and Jane are vegetarians, trying to be vegans. I ended up getting a picture of them with the dead carcass. But nonetheless, I was able to have an old-fashioned American cheeseburger. Heaven. Oh…and earlier, Jane and I found an American market in Geneva! We were able to get brownie and chocolate chip cookie mix! So good! Too bad for one box, it was $10!!!

After the cookout, we tried to find the 4^th of July party, with no luck. So that was a bummer. However, we were able to entertain ourselves with something. This wasn’t very American, though. Geneva had a Lake Parade that day. Basically, semi-trucks carrying dancing maniacs and DJs playing techno music slowly moved down the street surrounded by more dancing people. For me being American, it was a little disturbing. So many people were dressed in garish costumes (with some women not really wearing much of anything, if you know what I mean), but it was the man in front of us who was grinding on his mother and giving his 2 year old son a lap-dance which what bothered me. And the music (sorry to any Europeans reading this) was awful. I just don’t get techno music.

The boys

In case you’ve been wondering how my job is going…it’s been quite well. They both give me little problems every once in a while, but I’m not having near the problems I had earlier. Aiden’s tantrums are becoming less frequent and less severe. Macsen is really connecting with me now. I can see that he really looks up to me and wants to impress me. It’s sweet…he’s a sweet boy.

This is one of Lyon's Taboules I was talking about.


This is Lyon's Roman Amphitheater. Evidentally, they still use it for concerts. How great would it be to be there for that?!


CERN


The "older" punk rock band. This was when I decided to take a break from pushing around 12-year olds. Notice the American when I pan to the right. Gotta love us Americans.


Phew…I’m out of breath. I think that I’ve covered everything from the last few weeks. It’s my intention to be back on the horse, updating this as much as I can now. Oh! Thursday I’m going to Paris!!!