Transition

Well the packers are here and we should be all moved to Lausanne by tomorrow. I have mixed feelings.....
I don't want to leave Geneva not because of the town itself but because of the friends that i have made here. I am finally getting settled only to pick up and leave again. Moving is so stressful.
On the other hand L is only 45 minutes away from G and people can come visit (and vice versa). AND maybe I will like L better than G.
I guess we will see.

I don't understand people.....

I had a rough week today. We are getting ready for a move to Lausanne (hence the title change on the blog) and I am a bit stressed out.

On Tuesday I went to Manor to get my pictures printed out for a photography class that I am taking. There is an older woman in front of me that has no idea how to work the machine. She simply hands her camera to one of the people working there and starts to get belligerent about how bad the service is, etc, etc. It instantly became obvious to me that this woman was a whack job. She starts ranting and raving, looks at me and says"I am going to be awhile, go get a cup of coffee". I simply said Non - and she cursed me with her eyes. When it is my turn to use the machine her photos begin to print and she literally shoves me aside and starts ranting at me in French. I do my best to ignore her as she continues to shove and push. Even after I move over to the side she is still shoving and pushing. Still, I continue to ignore her. As I am paying for my photos she begins to curse me out loud. Although, I didn't quite understand what she said. SOOooo if I don't understand the curse, it really isn't effective, right?? At this point I am flustered b/c this woman is screaming at me in the store.  As I am leaving I manage to drop my jacket. As a result some Tylenol fall out of the pocket. 

She begins yelling - DRUGS....DRUGS....

Yesterday I go to Aligro. My first time and boy was it stressful. Almost like being in the States with so many choices! I get home with a trunk full of goodies for our party this Saturday. I pick up the case of 6 bottles of wine and of course the handle breaks and the box falls shattering two of the bottles. UGH. Whatever. Flustered (again) I start loading up our elevator with the purchases and proceed to head to our apartment. Instead of the elevator going up it heads down to the basement. A woman gets in (or at least attempts to) and looks at all of my stuff. I made no apologies for all of the items. She looks at me and says in French something to the effect of - Don't you like to be organized??? I said Non. She said - really??? You don't like to be organized. And I repeated again in French - Nope, I don't like it one bit and that is just the way it is.

What I really wanted to say is "don't fu** with me you lazy a** piece of sh** taking the elevator up one flight of stairs. You should of walked. And you have no business questioning my organizational skills just because I have a lot of stuff to take up to my apartment. That is what elevators are for so go to he**".

Unfortunately (or Fortunately for her) my French language skills are not that good.

My little one!

Being back.....

in Geneva has been nice. The weather is too hot and muggy but it better than it being cold. Yesterday I took Callie with me to lunch with the girls and we made the mistake of sitting out in the sun. I thought that we were all going to melt right then and there. It is good to be back and back into the groove of things. Already we have plans for birthday outings, girls' night out, etc. August is going to be a busy month.
I am torn about moving to Lausanne. I want to go and explore another city as I find Geneva a bit dull BUT I have a life here and have made friends. Lausanne is only about an hour away from Geneva and I can always come back to go out, etc but it will be different and will still have to create a life for myself again. Oh well, I love a good challenge. We'll be busy once we move anyways. My parents have booked a trip to come visit us after we move, and I have a friend coming to visit for a week in November.
That's it for now! Off to the pool!!

Is it August already??

Ugh! Where does the time go?? I am getting older by the second! Anyway, just to catch you up - I made a two week trip back to the states to visit my family in PA. My little sister just had her first baby and I needed to bond and of course go to the baptism. He is absolutely beautiful and evoked such emotion in me. It was a weird feeling - everytime I looked at him I felt like crying. He is just so precious.

Life in the states for two weeks was different. Before I used to be so happy with all of the choices, products, quanity of things, etc, etc but when I went back this time I just felt so overwhelmed by it all. I mean really, do you need to have a whole isle in the supermarket devoted to bread???? How much bread can one eat? I had to buy buns for my grandmother to take to her house for lunch and I just stood there for a few minutes staring at the different types of bread. It took me almost an hour to get 1 bag of groceries. Of course, I did enjoy paying for the groceries. Compared to Geneva everything was DIRT CHEAP. That part I do love!
I also noticed how frozen and processed everything was, not to mention that no one in my family recycles. Hmmmm....I think that I might of changed a bit in the year and 1/2 that I have lived in Geneva!!

Oh well, I did have a great time and I did get to spend two nights in NYC visiting friends, so all and all it was a good trip.

I cannot believe that the summer is almost over.

Sex and the City

Did I tell you?? I saw this movie (with 12 other girls (okay, I guess we should be calling ourselves women) this past Wed. The movie theatre in downtown Geneva was packed. Every seat was sold out. I have never seen so many English speaking women in one place. It was a fun movie. It definitely won't be nominated for any type of Academy Award but it was fun, it was lively, and everyone in the audience was riled up. There was screaming, laughing, booing, and cheering. One of the most interactive movies that I have ever been to. I must say though, it made me really (REALLY) miss the States and my girls. I had to come home and have a drink - a cheers if you will, to my friends back 'home'. I miss you dearly.

The month of May.........

passed by so quickly. L had the whole month off and we had a fantastic time traveling. The trip to South Africa was incredible, we spent 9 days on Safari -what fun! The Safari was amazing and we saw all of the big 5 several times. We had so fun experiences such as seeing 400 water buffalo come to a water hole and a bit of a scary experience with being almost completely surrounded by a herd of 80 elephants! I think out of all the animals, the elephants made me the most nervous. You are constantly on the go - even though you are sitting on your a** for 70% of the time and eating oh, about 30% of the time. We met a lot of great people and were exposed to a lot of not so great people as well. All in all it was once of the best trips I have ever taken and would love to go again.


Then we were back at home for 2 1/2 days before we were off to Italy for a week. We flew into Naples and stayed the night. Now the good thing about Naples is that there are not that many tourists. It has a great city feel to it, loud, busy, cars honking, good food. BUT one night there was enough. They do still have the garbage problem but not as bad as I thought that it would be. I wanted to take a picture of it but I was afraid that I would get mugged and someone would run off with my camera! ;)

After our night in Naples we took the ferry to Capri. What a beautiful place. Although I must say, isn't everyone in the States bitching about the dollar and how low it is compared to the Euro? You would of thought that all of the Americans would stay home and travel in the U.S. NOPE - they were ALL in Capri. Now I am American and I love my country but when you see a group of 20 tourists all dressed in shorts and flowered shirts talking VERY loudly - you cringe. All you heard in the restaurants were - I want this, I want that, I don't want this, can't i get butter with my bread, don't add salt...what kind of dressings can I choose from, blah, blah, blah. Then after a large dinner they order a decaf cappuccino. NO ONE in Italy drinks cappuccinos after 11am and do you really think Italians have decaf coffee??? One of the great things about Europe is that you get what you get. If you order a sandwich - you get a sandwich. You don't have 50 million choices of what kind of bread, cheese, etc that you want. You just get a sandwich. Plain and simple.

Okay enough of that. Soooooo we spent two nights in Capri at a really great hotel. Then we took the ferry to Positano and spent three nights there. Positano was really nice but I envisioned it to be much prettier. It seemed a bit worn down to me. The views from the top though are amazing and cannot be beat. L and I rented a scooter and we took a ride to Ravello which was really beautiful. We also visited Almafi which I didn't care for at all. WAY too touristy.

After we arrived home from Italy we had two days to rest and then we were off to Chartres, France to get our puppy. I have to say that I love Chartres. It is a really cute small town about an hour outside of Paris. Def. worth the visit if you are ever in the area................

Will post about the puppy on a separate post. Your eyes have got to be blurry from reading my ramblings.