Wanna Creep Kyle Out?

There are 2 things that I can do that totally freak Kyle out. Like, screech like a little girl, cover his eyes freak out.

1. Dye my hair (you know, to it's natural color) including eyebrows...
2. Put on my cleansing green Mary Kay Face mask

Although I've never down both at the same time I think I need to sometime.

15 Months

I was scrolling through my blog entries this morning and I realized something. I've had this blog for 15 months. I started keeping this September 17th (ok, maybe not EXACTLY), that was the day that Kyle told me we were probably going to move here.

I remember the night vividly, It was Monday, September 17th and I was at John's Upper Deck. (September 15th is a big tax deadline but when that falls on a weekend the due date moves to the next Monday.) September 15th is really bigger then April 15th for people in Big Four Accounting Firms. So we were having a big ol' party. I'd been drinking since about noon and Kyle showed up to the party about the time all the spouses did.

We were upstairs on the deck (the upper deck to be exact); it was dark outside and we were all being obnoxious (we'd ALL been drinking). Kyle was like 'Hey, I have something to tell you. Do you want to move to Switzerland?'

About that time one of Kyle's college flings that worked at another accounting firm in the area walked by and said something snarky...I remember thinking 'Sucker, I got the guy and am moving to Switzerland - take that!' Of course, I said nothing, laughed at her stupid comment, and let her walk off thinking she was awesome...the rest is history and here we are - 15 months later.

We also have 15 months left of our stay here...the last 9 months living here have just flown by looking back.

Here's to another great and quick 15 months!

As of Tomorrow We Will Have Christmas Plans

Kyle and I have been doing a lot of talking lately...what are we going to do for Christmas? Even though we said we weren't going to be coming back to the states until our rotation here was over it was kinda unspoken that we would probably end up coming home for Christmas.

But going home went against or travel budget philosophy: The more money we spend on going places we've already been the less money we can spend on going places we haven't been yet.

Then, we had to consider the 'home sickness factor'. I equate going home to visit now like sawing off my arm then putting a band-aid on it. It might make things a little better now but in the long run it's not going to help anything and probably will just make things worse.

I'm definitely homesick right now, and I think Kyle is a little bit too. When we came home in September we had a great time and really enjoyed it but coming back to CH was the pits! It was like 'Ha, ha! Look at where you could be!'

And the money. I can guarantee you that no matter what we spend on a vacation in Europe we will spend more then that on a vacation in the US. Why? I mean we wouldn't necessarily have to pay for room and board in the US. It's because I can afford things in the US, and they have Mexican food, and the Gap, and literature in English...

Then there's the memories... What sounds better? "Remember that time we lived in Switzerland and went home to Kansas for Christmas?" or "Remember the time we lived in Switzerland and went on a Mediterranean cruise for the holidays?" - yeah, definitely the last one.

So, after a lot of 'I want to go home but I know we shouldn't' we finally made a decision and we will be booking our trip tomorrow. We're going to take a cruise.

We leave for Barcelona in a week where we'll spend 4.5 days before we board the boat for a 15 night cruise! The best part? It's maybe $100 more then the 7 night cruise and we will be on the water December 21-Jan 5 - that means we'll be traveling for both Christmas and New Year's!

We will definitely miss everyone over the holidays (we already do, more then you know) but think that this is probably a better arrangement then coming home right now (plus, we just saw you all in September, right?).

Luzern, Switzerland (Nov 15, 2008)

We decided to take another day trip (wow, I'm soo far behind....) like almost a month ago! It originally was going to be with several people from Kyle's office but since it was the weekend before Thanksgiving all but one other person dropped out

***American holidays are weird here - obviously no one celebrates Thanksgiving here (can I just tell you how creepy that is? How the hell are you supposed to know it's time to start playing Christmas music and shopping?) but us Americans are all excited about it. There were originally supposed to be about 7 people from Swiss Re that were going to Luzern with us. Two of the IAs ended on Thanksgiving so they were trying to get home for the holiday. One guy's family is still in the US so he was working extra hard that weekend so he could go home and be with his family, and everyone else just seemed to have other Thanksgiving plans that they were trying to get ready for.

So we took the train to Luzern, it took about an hour. The trains here are like the coolest things ever. I really wish that the US had decent trains that actualy went somewhere other then St. Louis and Chicago. You just get on, there are bathrooms and food, and you sit and have a conversation until it's time to get off. You don't have to worry about driving or potty breaks or I'm hungery or anything!

Once we got there we really didn't know what we were going to do. We took our Rick Steve's book so we did the walking tour that was in there first. Here are some pictures from our adventure...

Here's Flat Stanley in front of the train station. How cool!

And Flat Stanley and Kyle in front of an extra long Mini Cooper - I'd never seen one of these before. We got some free all-nateral energy drink from the company that owns this car. We decided to save it until later since we'd gotten up at like 5 and were going to be walking all day...it tasted like crap.
Please notice all the guys in red coats. That's really what we were taking a picture of.
Why would we take a picture of some guys in red matching coats? Click here.

...ok, NOW we're starting our walking tour....

This bridge what was protected the city from water invations but in the 1800's (I think) it caught on fire and the whole middle part was distroyed. This picture is a little hard to tell but in person you could see where they rebuilt it. The tower in the middle is both a lookout and a church.
As we walked across the bridge we found this...yeah, that's a bike.
I found my souvenir magnet and Joe's souveniers.
This is the outside...
...and inside of the big church in the city.
This alter and pillars look like they should be super expensive because they're made of marble right? (not to mention super heavy). When they were building the church they didn't have the money (must not be a catholic church ;) ) so this is actually a stucco finish where they just mixed in some marble powder and buffed it up to make it look like marble...maybe I need something like this for my castle in Kansas...
We stood around the water most of the morning, just looking at it and all that was going on; mostly because it was so clean and we could actually see through it. We watched the ducks dive to the bottom and I thought it was pretty funny. The flower market was right next to us so when they would through their flower water into the lake the ducks would go crazy for the food. If you look really closely you can see a duck diving on the left side of this picture.
Here's a view of the town from where we were standing by the lake.
Luzern regulates the water that leaves the lake. The lake is filled with snow melt from the mountains They use these wooden stakes to keep the lake full and to keep the river from flooding the towns below them. In the summer there are fewer of these wooden stakes and as the year goes on they add more. Kyle stood and looked at this for like 45 minutes trying to figure out just how it worked...I still don't think he knows.
After our morning at the lake we walked around all the cool old buildings.
This building actually spells our 'wine market' if you look at the blue shutter between the windows: w.e.i.n.m.a.r.k.t.

Luzern has a facination with death. They want to constantly remind everyone that they will die some time. This building was the jewerly store. It's hard to see but if you look at the far left diamond it's actually a skull. You could find skulls all over the city.
This pictures for the mixed fruits. It reminds me of Sutib - and it's an actual clothing store.
This building is really cool! It tells the story of the Swiss Marti Gras. The rooster wakes up up at 5 am and then they have a parade where they throw oranges at you and they everybody parties down.
Here's just a cute little street where they are getting ready for Christmas.
After our walking tour we decided to go up Mt Pilatus. This was the last weekend that the cogwheel train was open so we couldn't have timed that much better. We thought we would take the gondola up and the train down. The gondola was very cool!
Here are some views from the gondola:

Kyle was very happy after he saw the next picture!
That's Pilatus...he's the mascot of the mountain.
At one point we went through the fog - we could barely see the gondolas behind us.
Then we got above the fog and clouds. How freaking cool is this!!??!!
About half way up the mountain you have to switch to a larger gondola. So we got off and walked around. Here is an original gondola from the 50's.
This is a slide that you can do in the summers (it's closed in the winters). It reminds me of the waterslide in Branson that the Castrop's do every year. It looks like a whole lotta fun - until you do it. By the bottom every limb of your body has been banged up and bruised and you started going down on your butt feet first and you end up going headfirst on your back and your 'goods' are just about completely exposed to jesus and everyone - including your grandma who's sitting at the end watching everyone go down the waterslide going 'WEEEEE, that was fun!'.

...the more I think about this I not taking Kyle to do this on his birthday...
On the second gondola we found this cute little church on the mountian. Notice the cross up at the top! You can't see it in this picture but there were actually people hiking up to it, crazies...
We finally got there! 7000ft up.
We went into the giftshop and I did a bad thing...I bought something. I t-shirt that says this. Kyle saw it and laughed out loud - that's when I knew it was mine.
After our little shopping trip we went out to climb up to the very peak. On our way this guy was playing his horn. All I could think about was RIIIIICOOOOOOLAAAA
Here are some views from the top:

***Side Note***This was an absolutely stunning view! Bob got some new software that he said I could play with so click on the icon below to see the 360 pictures Kyle took...



After we were went up to the peak we took a lunch break and had some pasta in the cafeteria. I was so excited that they had Coke Lite from the fountain! But, of course, it was broken - so I had water. After a few more pictures we decided to head back down the other side of the mountain.

This is the cogwheel train we took back down.

And some more BEAUTIFUL views from the train:






After we got down the mountain we decided it was getting dark, and late, and we were tired. We just decided to take the trains back to Zurich and call it a night but it was a great day of really pretty things!

Amsterdam, Netherlands (November 25-30)

You all know that I am a fine, upstanding citizen and don't do things that some might consider of poor judgment. As I would prefer everyone to continue thinking of me in that light my blog post will be short:

We had fun.