Tiny Tim

Why Tiny Tim?  Check on my new videos and you'll see why (the link to the right).  It all started Wednesday.  Aiden started to complain that his leg was hurting him.  He called it his "Damn Leg".  Interesting choice of words.  Because I'm not sure what's Kosher in British English...I just kept telling him that was the wrong usage of the word "damn."  But anyway, I ignored his complaints because one minute he would limp and the next he would be fine.

The following day, Juliette (his mother) had to pick him up from school and take him to the doctor's office because he wouldn't do anything because of this "Damn Leg."  After X-Rays and a blood test, the doctor concluded nothing was wrong, but he'd like for Aiden to rest it a little bit.  So he gave hime crutches to take some weight off of it.  Aiden uses them sparingly at best, and when he does use them, he uses them incorrectly.  But it's so darn cute to see him use them!

In other news, I bought my ski pass for the season today.  By doing it early, I saved 150 euros...but it was still 300!!!  Thankfully, my family (here) is paying for half.  They are also chipping in to rent equipment.  Its expensive to ski.  I better like it and I better be good at it.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Spain!  I'll be spending 3 days in Barcelona and then 3 days in Madrid.  Originally, I wasn't all that excited to go to Spain, but now that its getting close, I'm stoked.  Yes, stoked.  Maybe I should rent a snowboard?

Juras vs. Applachians

Yesterday, I went on a little hike to see a famous set of waterfalls nearby.  Big mistake.  Well, not big...medium mistake.  You see, when looking at these waterfalls, it's best when there is actually water in the river (stream) that makes up these cascades.  Despite rain for the past 3 days, there wasn't much water.  I guess its best to see them in the spring when the snow is melting.  And on top of that, my batteries were dead on my camera!  I only managed 2 pictures.

This would be cool with more water.

While hiking, I realized that the Juras are a LOT like the Appalachians.  The Juras are smaller, and less numerous...but to the naked eye, they are quite similar.  They both have more rolling mountains than greak peaks, and they both are covered with a lot of similar foliage...or so it seems.  Now that I've hiked in the Appalachians, the Juras, and the Alps, its clear just how different the Alps were (more rocky, pastures of grass and flowers, etc.).  And despite me living in a rather well-off area, the socio-economic levels seem similar.  While driving in the mountains yesterday, this seemed apparent with the large numbers of small run-down towns along the way.

The top one is of the Juras.  The bottom is of the Appalachians.  See the similarities?  And yes, even people can be seen in the Juras.

I'm curious if this happens to anyone else while walking in nature, but I find it easy to transport myself back to different time periods.  It's hard to walk the streets of Chicago and imagine yourself in the Lewis & Clark expedition...but in nature, it's quite easy.  While walking back in America, I always imagine what it would be like to be an Indian during their times.  Here, however, I tend to imagine wars...WWII, Roman soldiers marching, etc.

This has nothing to do with either mountain range.  I just remembered that I never posted this picture.

Vive le Sex

Today, because of the rain, I figured it would be a good day to visit some museums I've been itching to see.  So off to Nyon (a small city 30 min north of Geneva on Lake Geneva) I went.  There, they are supposed to have a nice Roman Museum.  That's what I wanted to see.

And it was nice.  However, nothing was in English.  You see, typically when you go to a museum in Europe, they will have multiple languages available.  And despite recent renovations (it just re-opened last week), this one did not.  It was pretty neat to see Roman pottery and typical household items, though.  Photography wasn't allowed inside, so I can't show you what I saw.  Just imagine Roman things.

However, with admission to this museum, I got to go in the city's castle for free.  This was much cooler.  Instead of a typical castle, this was more of a museum.  The 2 best parts were the jail and the gallery of photographs of local people from the late 1800s.  The photos were disturbing to say the least.  The UGLIEST women I have ever seen.  This is what they reminded me of.

And in the jail, I could go inside old cells where there were writings on the walls.  Here are my 2 favorite quotes:

1. Vive le Sex (Long live sex)
2. La femme/ Elle a les beaux pieds (The woman/ She has beautiful feet)
   

This is the castle.  Both museums were very recently renovated and GORGEOUS.

Something of note...the colors of fall here aren't very good.  First of all, there are a lot of pine trees here, so there is still a lot of green (faded green).  And secondly, the trees that are changing colors are brown.  Nothing like the yellows and reds we see in good ol' Indiana.

Links

I have a new idea.  Because this blog won't get interesting until I go somewhere*...I'm starting a collection for a vacation for myself.  It's simple.  If you want interesting stories out of me, send me money.

*I'm actually in the midst of planning a week long vacation to Spain.  I'm going from Barcelona to Seville to Madrid.  I know a lot of people who've been there, so if you have any suggestions for me, I'd LOVE to have them.

If you look to the right, there is a new button that says "YouTube Videos."  I've realized that many times, videos do a better job at illustrating things than pictures do.  So, I'm going to be taking more videos of more things and putting them under this link.  From time to time, check this link out to see new videos.  I'll also try to remind you when I add new ones.  I just added a new one.

This is pretty interesting...
http://www.dawgnetnews.com/index.php/news/665-are-college-graduates-choosing-gap-year-programs-to-avoid-jobs

I babysit Ray Charles.

 

This is Noa.  She doesn't talk to me, but she makes me tons of presents.  All with "Noa" on them...because she thinks we spell our names the same way.  I have the biggest crush on her.

The French Know How to Parade

I apologize for the lack of interesting blogs.  My life really just hasn't been that interesting.  Regardless, I march forward.  Here's what I've been up to.

Last week, Greg was in Paris.  On top of that, Juliette's busiest time of the year are these few weeks.  And even more than that, Aiden was sick Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Adding all of that with 2 babysitting gigs, I was BUSY.  Basically nonstop childcare is exhausting.  At least I was rewarded for it...financially.

This previous weekend, Molly's parents were gone, leaving her to watch the kids.  She has 2 girls (10 & 12) who are really quite fun, and I enjoy quite much.  So I decided to hang out with Molly and the girls.  The most interesting part was the carnaval that was going on in Thoiry.  All week, at school, carnies were setting up rides and games.  There were 3 rides and 3 games.  Tiny.  However, the whole event was quite fun.

See...tiny.

On Saturday, there was a candlit parade.  There's no way this would happen in America.  Every kid got a candle with real fire.  To make it worse, the candle hung surrounded by colored paper, making a lantern.  Guess what happened when the latern swung in a wrong way?  Fire.  Then the adults and teenagers got torches...not candles, torches.

Sunday had the best feature.  A parade.  Molly's girls were very excited because they helped make a float and were going to go on it.  Great.  I thought there would be maybe 4 or 5 floats.  This is a VERY small village.  And it wasn't even a holiday.  Boy, was I wrong.  There were probably close to 15 floats with several marching bands.  And the floats were hilarious.  There was no cohesion.  Just random, weird floats.  But the BEST part was what they passed out.  No candy thrown to little children.  Instead, booze and fondue.  I got some wine and some Grand Marnier with orange juice.  How awesome is that?!  Just something else that would never happen in America.

Molly's girls on the float...Lenaig and Albane.

Me eating fondue and drinking wine.

These are the guys who gave it to me.

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

These topics are completely random and nonrelated, but didn't warrant an entire blog to themselves...

• Macsen doesn't believe in "Father Christmas."  The boys were just talking about presents and Christmas, and Macsen asked me if he should let the cat out of the bag for Aiden.  Of course, I told him no.  Macsen is only 7...this is heartbraking to me.
• I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.
  
• This may sound like a commercial, but for my birthday, my parents got my the best present.  Its called a HAVA (Slingbox is a similar product).  This little contraption erases homesickness.  Well, not all the way, but a great deal for a sports fan like me.  What is it?  Well, it hooks up to your home TV source and your home network.  It then streams that source over the internet for viewing anywhere in the world.  Thus, I'm able to watch (and control) my home's American television (for free...after the intial price).  Sure, I can download shows to watch over here, but not sports.  I ended up waking up at 2:30AM to see the Bears lose to the Packers on Monday morning.  For more info, visit myhava.com.  They gave me $20 to say that.
  
• Speaking of the Bears, I'm depressed.  People who know me, know that when the Bears lose, I'm sad that entire week.  This was an especially hard one for me.  However, I think everyone is overreacting to this loss.  Sure, we lost of team leader on defense and our team leader on offense was horrible, but despite this, we STILL should have won.  I still have optimism for the rest of the season.  Cutler will improve.
  
• Back to France.  Because we are in France, my kids learn in French even though we all speak English.  However, Macsen started going to an English school this week.  This way, he'll be able to read and write in English as well.
  
• Macsen has problems with reading, writing, and spelling (much like me!).  He's really a bright kid, but he struggles in these areas.  He constantly reverses his letters and numbers.  All the time.  We really think he's dyslexic.  The problem with France is that he has to fail 2 grade levels before they do anything about it!  By that point, he'll be too far behind.  I don't like this.
• Just finished getting up to date on Mad Men.  If you haven't seen this show, you should.  Its probably one of my favorite shows of all time.  It's fantastic.
• Molly told me that I use the word "fantastic" too much.  She says "perfect" a lot.
• Children need encouragement.  If a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess.  That way, he develops a good, lucky feeling.

Interlaken

It was overcast both days, but we think it added to the ambiance. Very serene.

See what I mean with the town being in a valley?

This is the gorge in Rosenlaui. It was really loud.

One of the many waterfalls. They should name it Interlakenmitwasserallen.

This is a new feature. I'm going to start showing maps of where I'm going. Interlaken is smack dab in the middle of Switzerland.

During my time out here, I am putting this weekend on the top of the list. Easily, it was the most beautiful place I've been (without trying to compare it to anything in Australia). But the adventures Molly and I went on are what made it really stand out.

Our main purpose for going to Interlaken was to see a traditional Swiss festival of when they bring the cows down from the mountains for the winter. During said festival, they have a cheese-sharing element where farmers sell their excess cheese. We were nearly certain of where it was going to take place, but not exactly sure.

We got to the small town where we were expecting it. Not there. So, naturally, we asked our waitress where it was. The problem was that she didn't even understand me when I said that rosti is a Swiss food. She thought I said that it has meat in it. Looking back on it, it was not the smartest thing in the world to accept her advice for where the festival would be. We ended up driving and driving until we finally found how to get to the town she said to go to. The problem: it was WAY up the mountain. 4,364 feet up the mountain to be exact. The entire time driving along the cliffs we were praying that no one was coming down because the road could fit 2 cars on it maybe 20% of the time. But for some reason, it seemed like there was always juuuust enough room to pull over when a car was coming down. It was a little scary to say the least. The town's name: Rosenlaui.

Did this town have a festival? Hell no. However, it did have a waterfall/gorge. It was gorgeous. And there was a little farming area where pigs were loose and the cows were beautiful. So, we were too upset that we didn't find it. But just then...I had a hunch were I thought the festival would be. And I was right.

Interlaken is in a valley. Rosenlaui was up the southern mountains. We needed to go up the northern mountains. We did. But we found out we needed to take a gondola up to the festival. The last ride went at about 4 something. It was 5 something at this point. No luck. Oh well.

To drown away our sorrows, we went to Interlaken, found some American tourists, got them to take us to their hostel bar, and enjoyed happy hour. I'm being facetious about drowning away our sorrows.

Instead of staying in a hostel like normal tourists, Molly and I decided it would be fun to camp. We borrowed a tent from Molly's family and were pretty excited for it. Until we set it up. I don't even think it was the size of a Queen Size bed. It was about 3 feet tall, too. It was close quarters.

The next day, we went hiking. I honestly have no idea how high we hiked. But it was probably the most hiking anyone has ever done. We spent almost 2 hours going straight up. There were no horizontal portions. And what's worse, on the way down it's still hard. It just works a different set off muscles. So I have 2 sets of muscles that are inoperable today (it’s the morning after).

Here are random things about Interlaken that didn't make my narrative:

• Drink the water. We filled up water bottles from a waterfall during our hike. I'm fine. Maybe I should check on Molly?
• I never realized how many waterfalls there are in the Alps. Tons of little-medium sized ones.
• I hiked the Alps. I guess that was in the story...just wanted to say it again.
• It is definitely colder the higher you go up a mountain. Unless you are sweating from your hike.
• Interlaken means "town between lakes." Imagine mountains to the north and south with two decent sized lakes framing it on the west and east.
• Costco sells an energy drink mixture called Zipfizz. You pour it into water and shake it up. Do NOT pour it into carbonated water. It will erupt and get pink sticky stuff all over your car.
• Molly laughs a lot.
• Meiginen (the small town where we thought the festival was) is home to Sherlock Holmes. We think. There was a museum there and several things named after him.