Cars, Interlaken and Cheese

Well, today I had my first -run into someone I know on the street- experience. I was running (ok jogging) through this huge park (Gruneberg) park and ran into a lady I know through my babysitting ad. She was there walking with her son! Thanks to my sisters superb math skills, that it was a 1 in a billion chance of that happening. The factors included in that were the following: I live in a new country, I only know maybe 8 people here well enough to stop them on the road, this is a large city. So, needless to say it was a big moment for me (and apparently her as well, because she made the same comment). 

Above is a picture of our current car, I think I talked about it before but thought I would send pictures! This beast of a car is diesel. It is amazing. The gas mileage is unbelievable for a car of this size. It is filled up roughly every 1.5 weeks! Because of this car I am looking at a "clean diesel" car when I get home. There is a VW on the roads here called a Tiguan, some of you may have seen Heidi Klum/Seal commercials for it, it is labeled as the 'little sister' of the larger Tourag. I am in love with it. So I have caught word from the good people at Howard Cooper that a diesel version will be released in the states next year. I will wait patiently until then!

Last weekend we took a quick trip to Interlaken, Switzerland. We were going to go to Nacht der Museen here in Frankfurt and then decided that we would much rather go on a trip than visit a bunch of museums in which most things are written in German! So Saturday we hopped in the previously mentioned car and headed out! It is about a 4.5 hour drive down and we had a wonderful day for seeing the Alps! It was 70 F and sunny with just a few clouds in the sky. We had a fun time taking pictures of all the Dutch families with their campers driving. There was an inordinate amount of them. So we took a lot of pictures of license plates! We arrived in Interlaken and walked around to see the sites. We didn't get there until roughly 3 (due to constant bathroom breaks by yours truly) and we were able to walk around and get some food. We did a little more walking around and decided to go out and get some dinner. We decided to get the local fare ie. Fondue! Dinner consisted of cheese and salmon fondue with bread and then chocolate fondue for dessert! It was amazing. Except for the disgusting amount of cheese and white bread. Afterwards our waiter said "I have lived here 15 years, I had the cheese fondue once and never again". Thanks, could of told us that before! He offered us some shots of a home made liquor to "settle our stomachs" and then we went home to bed! The next morning we got up to go and did a longer drive home getting some amazing views of the lakes and mountains. Really a great weekend trip. Here are some pictures.

We are getting ready for a trip to Paris tomorrow! We will be driving (ugh) and there are three other expats tagging along with us. Should be fun, although I have been there before I am looking forward to revisiting. We are also going to go to Normandy and the D-Day beaches on Saturday. I am very much looking forward to that. 

Here is an interesting thing. It has been pretty nice here lately, high 60's to mid 70's sunny and warm. Well, I have taken the opportunity to immediately pull out my flip flops and 3/4 sleeve shirts. I was so happy to go out and see everyone in good moods doing the same. Wrong. On the first day it was very warm. People were walking in winter coats with scarves and boots? I thought... ok well maybe this morning it was cool and warmed up. Not so. It has continued that way for the past few days. I have finally seen a few other people venturing out in "warm weather clothes". I have seen a few people in flip flops but I am assuming they are expats as well. I further confirmed my "the don't like flip flops theory" by going sandal shopping today. There were very slim pickings despite the fact that I went to 3-4 large shoe stores! Ah well, yet another way to stand out!

I am attaching the following picture because it is the hostel that Laura Fleming and I stayed at almost 6 years ago!

Edinburgh, Snow and not working

I was reading a Marie Claire that I get delivered and I read this quote from a woman who moved to Paris and she was asked what she missed most. I thought this pretty much summed up my feelings. 

"What I miss most about home: Wearing workout clothes in public; Aeda conditioner; corn torillas, smiling at strangers without having them think I'm insane."

I read that and thought. Wow. Someone else feels that way too! You wouldn't catch anyone here doing errands in there sweats. Not even "good sweats". It is exhausting to watch! I have not given it up and we get weird looks just walking to the gym in sweats!

Last week my Mom came for a visit! We were so excited to have our first visitor! She was brave enough to stay with us (our pull out is VERY comfortable) and we were so happy to have her. We went to Edinburgh for a few days and had a great town. Edinburgh is a great town and we were able to take a day trip to see Lock and Ben Lomond (lake and mountain Lomond) we also saw Stirling Castle which was beautiful. I would highly recommend Scotland and Edinburgh for anyone who is traveling. A special thanks to my Mom for bringing out so many of my purchases as well as a wonderful and restorative visit.

Matt's coworker is in town and wanted to go out tonight so we ended up going to a delicious steak restaurant (Dad, I am sorry. I got it well done or according to the waiter "burnt"). After that we went to a club in Frankfurt called XXL Living. It was packed. It was a rainy Wednesday and it was so busy it was shocking. Now, we aren't what you call crazy bar rats but we don't usually go out during the week. We also do go to clubs on the weekend but I was shocked at how busy it was! We only stayed for a little bit but we were able to hear a few choice songs "I will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, the polka version of "I will Survive" (not quite sure does this) and when we left we left to "La Bamba". We saw some typical German dancing (stiff bodied and head bobbing) and lots of tight jeans (men and woman). So needless to say we were happy to be home by 10:30!

I am going to talk about the next thing in a way that will not get me in trouble. I have been "watching" a little girl a few days a week. It has been a great **non-paying** (because I of course I would not take a paying job here) way to pass the time. So as I said this is not a job just a great way to pass the time while we are here!

As well, over the weekend we were talking to Matt's co-worker about how we haven't seen any snow in Frankfurt and have only had a few weeks that were really really cold. Well, all that bragging came back to bite us because we had snow on the rooftops on Monday! It continued to snow all day but luckily nothing stuck. That was the first time I have seen snow for more than 5 minutes in Frankfurt! The weird part is that the previous Sunday we had 70 degree weather with sun! It was the first day my Mom got here so we were able to show her a wonderful time around the city!