Joyeux Noël

I can't believe that Christmas is less than a week away. Its a little different not being home to celebrate the holiday with family and friends, but Travers and I are making the most of it here in Geneva.

We started celebrating last week at the Hotwire/Expedia Holiday Party held at the wonderful Swissotel. There was a contest as to who brought and wore the best snowflake. Travers gave me the rules a few days before the party and asked if I could make him a snowflake. I said no at first, thinking it was a silly idea, but the day before the party, I was a little bored at home, so I decided to see what I could come up with. Who knew that I would discover a hidden talent in snowflake-making!  I somehow made this HUGE snowflake and tied a string at the top so that Travers could wear it around his neck. I only wish I had glue and sparkles to make it shiny. But, we got to the party, and campaigned for our snowflake, and ended up WINNING!  Granted there were about 6 other winners, but we still won, and got lots of good compliments on it.

We then got more into the Christmas spirit on Saturday by taking the train up to Montreux to see the Christmas Market that they have every year. It lasts about a month and is full of pop-up shops where people sell all sorts of holiday decorations and gifts. We went with our friends Shelley, Mike, Emil & Todd.










We started off with a little vin chaud (hot wine for all the non-french speakers). Its a traditional wintery drink here in Switzerland that at first I didn't quite like, but I've tried a few different kinds, and the one at the market was delicious. I'm not sure how you make it, but its essentially hot mulled wine.


We then walked the rows of shops and found a pretty hand-blown glass ornament that is hand-painted red with a snowy village picture on it. Its now hanging on our tree and will always remind us of our first Geneva Christmas.  We also found a covered area that had still more shops and things, and we found Christmas stockings. They are extra long and have a couple tiny bells at the top that jingle when you move them.  I'm so excited that Travers and I now have coordinating stockings. Now we just need to get a few stocking stuffers to put in them!

Outside the market, there was a garden that had all these figures made out of hedges. They are from a cartoon called Barbapapa. My friend Katy grew up with these characters and she introduced them to me when she came to visit. These hedges were amazingly done with all the right shapes and accessories. Not sure why they are part of the market, but they looked really cool.









We stayed at the market, shopping around, eating some snacks, and drinking some vin chaud to keep us warm until it got dark. The lights then came on around the village and it definitely put us in the festive spirit.  Here are some photos of what the market looked like at night.

Inside the covered market area

Fun festive lights!

View of the carousel

On our way back to the train

This is something I want to do next year as well. Its such a fun event that really gets you in the Christmas spririt.  I've heard that Vienna also has a Christmas Market that is supposed to be one of the best and largest in Europe. We might have to check that one out next year as well.

Jardin Anglais

Now all I need to do is finish getting the accessories for our fireplace so we can sit by the fire and watch the snow fall outside our window. That's right. I said snow. Its been snowing here in Geneva!  It started Sunday night and when we woke up Monday morning, there was a blanket of snow throughout the city.

Its so exciting and just puts a smile on my face. It was the one thing I was hesitant about when we moved here because I have never lived anywhere that snowed before. But it is such a beautiful site to see it covering everything!

Travers in the snow!

Bord du Lac

 









Happy Holidays!

The Holidays in Geneva

So you've probably been wondering what we've been up to the past few weeks since I haven't posted a blog in awhile. But basically we have been staying in Geneva and getting back into the swing of things.

I came down with a cold the week we got back into town so I really didn't do a lot except rest and go through several boxes of tissues.  It was also Thanksgiving week, and we had originally talked about hosting a thanksgiving dinner for a few of our ex-pat friends here, but in the end, it was too much work for me to do while sick, so Travers and I made our own special Thanksgiving dinner, fondue and roast chicken. yummm.  Thankfully, we were able to celebrate with real Thanksgiving food when we were visiting Suzy and her family in SLO before we came back to Geneva, so we weren't deprived of any of our Thanksgiving favorites.

Once I felt better, I started to get back into running and doing yoga at home. Its now mid to high 30's in the mornings, so I've been bundling up with several layers of clothes, gloves, and a headband that covers my ears. Its harder to breath when its this cold out, but I've been keeping at it. I also get to enjoy the views of the surrounding snow-capped mountains now on my runs, so it makes it worthwhile.

We also got our fireplace checked out in our apartment, and it has passed the test so we are all approved to start having little fires this winter. Now all we need is wood, a gate and a fire poker. You'd think this would be something you could easily find, but no such luck in Geneva. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure where'd you find a fireplace gate and poker and wood in the states, but at least you had duraflames or could easily google things.

Place de la Fusterie

So as of December 1st, Geneva is now looking much prettier.  They decorated the entire city with white christmas lights. Being in the center of town, we can see a lot of the displays easily just a few blocks from our house at most. This photo is of a church just around the corner from our apartment building.  In this square, every day they have a market with fruits, veggies, cheeses etc..some days, and other days, locally made arts and crafts. They also put up a tent behind this church that has a lot of local traditional Christmas goods.


A block or two away is the Place du Molard, which they decorated with lots of lights and at one end put up this huge Christmas Tree as well. Its not as big as the one in Union Square in SF, but its definitely up there.  And if you walk down Rue de Marché which is just outside our apartment building, the streetlights are all decorated in lights and you can see lights strung across the road as well. All these lights make the city feel so alive and festive.

Christmas Tree in Place du Molard

Looking down Rue de Marché

Because of all the festivities going on around the city, I could hardly wait to get our Christmas tree.  Apparently the Swiss don't usually get their trees at the beginning of December. They typically wait until mid-December at the earliest, and I've read that some people wait to get it on Christmas Eve and decorate it as part of their holiday tradition. Well, I'm not Swiss.  I'm American. And I need my tree now!  So I went out and got one. There weren't too many places last week that were actually selling them, but I found one that was a 15 min tram ride away in Carouge. After 15-20 minutes of debating and sending photos of potential trees to Travers while he was at work, I chose our tree. Its about 4 feet tall, and what you would call stout. Its very bottom heavy and thin on top, but with some lights and ornaments, and a nice gold skirt at the bottom, it looks beautiful!  Speaking of which, this just reminded me to go turn the lights on as its getting dark out now!

So the only thing missing so far this winter is snow. Last winter, Geneva had already gotten some snow by this time of year, but we were told that it was a strange year for weather, so we're hoping we'll get some later in December or January. In the meantime, to quench our desires for snow, we took a day trip to a town called Avoriaz. Its in France, just an hour or hour and a half drive from Geneva. We rented a car with three of our friends and drove on Saturday morning. There was an event going on that day where you could demo any board or skis you wanted. There were so many different brands and one of our friends ended up demo'ing 3 different types of skis that day.

I'm ready to ski!

We made it down the slope!

Avoriaz

The snow wasn't perfect, but it was plentiful enough. We got on the mountain by about 11am and didn't stop until 2:30p for a quick bite to eat, then went right back out to get another couple hours in before it got too dark. We were all a bit rusty, but after the first few runs, we were all having a great time! Unfortunately, both me and my friend Michelle brought cameras with dead batteries, so we didn't really get any pictures.  But we all had a great time and it was the perfect trip to get our first runs of the season in.

Our next ski trip is going to be to Chamonix, France on the 22nd of December. We're going with our friends Mike and Shelley and will ski for a couple days, hang out in Chamonix, and enjoy any pre-Christmas festivities there. We'll get back on Christmas Day so we can skype our families and open any Christmas presents we have here.

In the meantime, we head to Montreux on Saturday for their Christmas Market to buy some fun holiday decorations, drink some vin chaud, and watch all the holiday festivities. Hopefully my camera will be charged by then!

Maui in November

I love hawaii.  Maybe its the 'island time', or maybe its the warm weather, but every time I go, I get a sense of peace and relaxation.  This was true for our recent trip to Maui for our friend Adam's wedding to his bride, Kris.  Adam and Travers were fraternity brothers in college. And Adam was one of our groomsmen in our wedding.  And Travers was now a groomsman in Adam's wedding.

Manmade waterfall at Hotel Wailea

I was a little hesitant about the trip only because I didn't really know anyone that was going to be there. We had met some of Adam and Kris' friends a few times, but hadn't seen any of them in a year or more.  But immediately upon getting off the plane, we ran into a couple of Adam's friends at the airport and immediately felt welcome.  The entire wedding party and their significant others were extremely friendly and inviting, and included us from the beginning in everything they did. I knew right away that it was going to be a good trip.

View from our Hotel Room

We got to Maui Wednesday afternoon and settled into the Hotel Wailea. This is one of the only hotels up on the hill above Wailea, and we had spectacular views of the ocean from the balcony off our room.  Our room, by the way, was more of a suite, with a separate living room and kitchen included.  We were nervous that it wasn't at the wedding site, the Grand Wailea, but the hotel was fabulous and the hotel staff drove a shuttle that took us back and forth from the Grand whenever we wanted.

At Capiche? Bar watching the sunset

After getting settled in, we stopped in at Capiche?, the restaurant on site at the hotel, for some happy hour drinks and appetizers.  We watched our first hawaiian sunset and fully took in the surrounding atmosphere.  We knew this was going to be one of the last times we would get warm weather for a long time (as we speak, it is mid 40's outside today in Geneva. Yikes).

That night we met up with one of Travers' other fraternity brothers, as well as some others from the wedding party. We had dinner at Longhi's, a restaurant at the Shops at Wailea, and followed up with drinks at the Grand Wailea.  It was fun to get to know the rest of the wedding party better, as we were going to be with them most of the time for the next few days.

Beautiful view at the luau

Thursday we had an early start with the wedding rehearsal at 8:30am.  I dropped Travers at the church at the Grand Wailea, and met up with one of the other wives of the wedding party and we walked the beach and checked out the neighboring hotels.  After an hour or so, they finished the rehearsal and we all proceeded to a rehearsal brunch at The Five Palms Restaurant in Kihei. After a delicious meal and a few speeches, the group headed back to the Grand Wailea to get a little sun and sand at the beach.

Some of the guys at the luau

It didn't last long though, because that afternoon, we went to a luau at The Marriott. It was so much fun to meet even more guests of the wedding and to see Travers re-connect with more of his fraternity brothers from college. The luau was one of the better ones I've been to, with delicious food (I couldn't get close enough to get a picture of them taking the pig out of the pit), and fun entertainment (the fire spinner at the end was amazing. I don't know how they don't burn themselves).

Another beautiful Sunset at the luau!

T & me beneath the Banyan Trees

Friday we were able to sleep in and relax by the pool at our hotel. We made our way to the Shops at Wailea and had lunch at Cheeseburger Island Style (delicious burgers!), then hopped in a taxi to Kihei, to join in some beach 'olympics' games that friends of the bride and groom had set up for everyone.  We were split up into teams, and played about 5 or 6 games, which lasted the entire afternoon.  These were not your average beach games either. Some required putting on snorkle fins and a mask, then racing across the beach with a beach ball between your knees (not easy to do).  Another included a giant slingshot where team members launched sponges across the beach for their teammates to catch in buckets. And another had some eating whipcream pies, hula hooping (after getting dressed up in a grass skirt and coconut bra), shooting a sponge off a can with a water gun, solving a word puzzle, and then burying a team member in the sand.  It was so much fun, and the two friends who organized it all, did a fantastic job. I've never been to a wedding before with such organized activities.  The day ended with dinner on the beach, made by one of the bridesmaids fathers, who owns and runs his own restaurant. Delish! (Sorry I have no pictures...too busy playing games).

T & Me with the happy couple!

Finally the day of the wedding arrived!  We spent Saturday morning laying by the pool at our hotel again, relaxing, resting, and saving our energy for that night.  The ceremony was at the church at the Grand Wailea, a beautiful church surrounded by a koi pond.  The ceremony was beautiful. Travers did a great job standing behind Adam.  And the bride looked amazing in her dress.  We then walked to a ballroom on the property for the reception.  The speeches were great, the food was delicious, and we danced and danced to most anything the band was playing.

All the Gators at the wedding!

Travers with groomsmen John &Aaron

We ended the night with an impromptu after-party in one of the groomsmen's hotel rooms, where we danced as long as we could until hotel security came to break it up. I was actually surprised it took them so long :-)

Jon, Travers, and John - Shirtless

The after-party group

Sunday was spent with a group brunch, then lots of rest and relaxation at the hotel and on the beach.  Travers and I had dinner that night at Duo, a restaurant at The Four Season's Hotel.  We called it an early night though as we were exhausted from the past few days festivities.  By Monday, we were ready to head back to the Bay Area. We spent the morning on the beach, grabbed a sandwich at Whaler's General Store, and said our goodbyes to Adam and Kris and all our new found friends.

We were sad to leave Maui, but excited to head back to California, where we would unpack, and re-pack before driving back down to San Luis Obispo to visit our new niece again and celebrate Thanksgiving early.

Aloha!

3 Cities, 2 Timezones, and a Cold

After a long and wonderful vacation back to the states, I sit here with a cold and sore throat.  Apparently too much travelling and good times will lead to getting sick.  But, it was well worth it.  We spent the past few weeks of November in the states visiting family and attending a friend's wedding in Maui.  We had to pack for 3 different climates, and took several plane and car trips, but we had a great time.

Our trip started with a few days in Los Altos, visiting my parents. We got to eat delicious Chinese food at Chef Chu's, one of our family's favorite places to go. Then I got to spend all day Thursday with my mom, running errands and catching up with each other, while Travers went to a conference in Santa Clara. Friday was spent shopping and having lunch with my bf Katy at the Stanford Shopping Center. We celebrated her birthday (two weeks early) and caught up on things as this was going to be one of our only times to see each other during this trip.

By Friday afternoon, Travers and I were already leaving Los Altos, and heading for San Luis Obispo to see our brand new baby niece, Kelsea.  This is my sister-in-law, Suzy's, and her husband, Tim's, first baby, and she is the cutest baby I have ever seen.

We got down to SLO Friday night (thanks Bryn for loaning us your car!). We went straight over to Suzy and Tim's as we couldn't wait to meet our niece.  Immediately, Suzy put Travers to work, by teaching him how to change a diaper. And we spent the next few hours passing her around so each of us could have a turn at holding her. She is so tiny, and so cute. Of course, Suzy has her in the most adorable outfits.

Saturday was spent at their house just playing with the baby and catching up with Suzy and Tim. We had a delicious brunch, then headed out downtown to take a stroll with the baby.  We then got some ingredients from the grocery store, and made our yummy chili at the house for dinner.  It was such a relaxing weekend and so good to spend some quality time with them.

Sunday, we spent watching fooball and saying our goodbyes, but thankfully we were going to see them again a week later so we weren't too sad just yet.

We drove back up to Los Altos and cooked dinner for my parents, spaghetti and homemade meatballs. Yumm! Apparently I made enough meatballs for my parents to have leftovers for lunch and dinner again!

Monday, Travers had to go into work in SF, so I went to work at Bryna's.  It was great to spend some one on one time with my sister and to catch up on what was going on with her business.  We then had a delicious lunch with our mom at Pacific Catch, then that afternoon, met my friend's Jen and Katy for a few glasses of wine at Pe Yale, a wine bar in cow hollow.  It was great to see them, but also sad to say goodbye because I'm not sure when the next time I'll see them is. But you can always tell when someone is a good friend when no matter after how much time has passed, you can pick up right where you left off. I know that Jen and Katy are great friends and time and distance won't affect our friendships.

Tuesday was our last day in SF, and I spent it at Bryna's again, to get in our quality sister time. Then Travers and I returned back to my parents house that evening for dinner, and to re-pack our bags for our trip to Maui the next day!

Aloha!

Halloween!!

Just a quick post about Halloween in Geneva.

Usually I don't like Halloween because most parties are too crowded, most people are obnoxious, and most costumes aren't that creative. But in Geneva, it was all different. We had heard of a Glocals party that is held every year. Its one of the best Glocals parties to go to, and our friend Michelle insisted we go with her, so we decided to wear the costumes we got for Oktoberfest and invited everyone over for a pre-party at our place!

All our friends dressed up too! We had Elle Woods from Legally Blond, a Celebrity in hiding at a Dodger game, Little Red Riding Hood, The Big Bad Wolf, a Gorilla, and Cat Woman!

I think we had the best group of costumes ever but when we got to the Glocals party, I realized we had stiff competition.  There were about 1500 other people at the party which was held at a club called Palladium!  Here are some of the best costumes I saw, but I'm sure there were hundreds of other really creative ones.

Needless to say, it was a fun night and one of the best Halloween's I've had in a long time. We leave for a trip back to the states tomorrow so to quote my husband:
"Ghool-Bye"
hahahaha.

There are Zombies in Paris!

Oh Paris (pronounced with a french accent Par-ee)! It has been too long and yet we didn't get to stay long enough. Two and a half days in Paris no matter how many times you've been there just isn't enough. It is such a large city, with so much to see and do that you'd drive yourself crazy trying to get it all done. So knowing our visit was going to be short, we decided not to stress ourselves out by going to lots of museums and things, but to relax and stroll through the streets of Paris, and just take in the buildings, the people, the scenery, and stumble upon whatever monuments we might happen to stumble upon.

Travers and I took the train Friday night from Geneva to Paris (3.5 hours) and headed to the 4th arrondissement where Bryna, Ben, Corey and Marie had rented an apartment for their visit, and which they invited us to stay in for the weekend. Bryna had found it on Airbnb. The place was amazing! and in an amazing the location. Just outside the door were tons of restaurants and shops!

We were welcomed with a cheese and wine cocktail party while we caught up with them on their trip to Bologna. They had gone there between Geneva and Paris. We then headed out to dinner, and found a cute place just across the street called Les Philosophes. They amazingly got us a table for 6 right away, and we had a delicious french dinner. I got some tasty french onion soup and a ham panini, and Travers got the beef bourguignon. Both were delicious.

After dinner, we said goodnight to Marie and Corey, and the four of us headed to the latin quarter (5th arrondissement) to grab a drink and see the Parisian nightlife.  We found a little bar on the main drag that served decent glasses of wine, although the boys had to teach the bartender how to make their drinks (but they then got those drinks for free).  The crowd, however, quickly got younger and younger, and reminded us of a bar in San Francisco called Bar None, where all the recent college graduates go to play beer pong. Needless to say, we had one more round of drinks, then decided to call it a night. It was already pretty late, and we had a big day of seeing Paris the next day.

We woke up later than expected on Saturday and made a huge breakfast at the apartment.  Bryna and I went and got fresh pastries for everyone at a bakery around the corner, then we all figured out what we wanted to do for the day.  Marie and Corey went on a walk together on the right bank, while Bryna, Travers and I took a walk down the left bank. And Ben, who likes to walk on his own and not have a set destination, took off on his own to discover hidden treasures of Paris.


Bryna Travers and I started towards the Notre Dame Cathedral first. We walked along the Seine, and made our way across Pont D'arcole to the Ile de la Cite where the Notre Dame Cathedral is. We took the classic photos standing in front of the cathedral, and unfortunately, did not go in because the lines were outrageously long. Apparently, all the french tourists come to Paris in October. We thought tourism would die down a bit into fall, but, apparently the rest of the French wait for the other summer tourists to leave before they come to Paris in the fall.  So we moved on and kept walking.  We crossed another bridge to the left bank and winded through some tiny streets in the 6th arrondissement on our way to Boulevard Saint-Germain des Pres.

Then we headed down Blvd. St-Germain des Pres, looking at all the designer stores, and came across this jazz band that was playing on the corner and a big crowd had gathered to listen. It was fun to hear live music just in the middle of the day!

After a bit more walking, we rounded a corner and Voila! We could see the top of the Eiffel Tower!  Even from far away, and even though we have all seen it before, it was magnificent.  We continued our walk in that direction, always trying to keep the tower in view!  We walked and walked, winding our way through the streets. It started to feel like it wasn't getting any closer, but then we rounded a corner and knew. We  had made it!

Bryna at the Eiffel Tower!

Travers & Me at the Eiffel Tower

One of my favorite pics...the sun shining through the base of the Eiffel Tower

After seeing the Eiffel Tower, we hopped on the metro back to the apartment to meet up with everyone else. We were going to cook dinner that night at the apartment so Ben, Bryna and I then headed to the grocery store. We bought 2 roasted chickens from a butcher shop that specialized in roast chicken, then bought ingredients to make pasta with fresh tomato, basil and parmesan topping, and a huge salad. We sat down to a delicious feast and all told stories from our day of what we saw and where we all went.

And like the night before, after dinner, Ben, Bryna, Travers and I went out to take in the Parisian nightlife. This time, we headed down the street to a place called Yono's Bar. But a few weeks earlier we had heard of a club called Silencio that was new in Paris that just opened. We wanted to check it out as it was designed by David Lynch, the writer/producer/director, most known for Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks, who was married to a friend of our good friend Jen Larsen.  So, we took an assessment of our outfits and decided we were all dressed well enough to go. So we left Yono and hopped in a cab to Silencio!

We immediately got let in without a wait and headed down the 3 flights of stairs to the club.  There were several separate rooms, almost cave-like, and all with different decor that was very odd, but very typical of David Lynch.  We headed to the bar, and were amazed at watching the bartenders, who were very meticulous with each drink they prepared.  Based on this, we felt comfortable to order martinis with confidence that they would get them right. (Ben had ordered a vodka martini here in geneva and had gotten a glass of vodka mixed with martini....not a vodka martini).  We were right, and the bartenders made great martinis, which we took to the dance floor and spent the next hour or two dancing!

The next day, Sunday, we were sad it was our last day, but determined to make the most of it. Travers and I got up and out the door by 10:30a and headed to Place de l'Hotel de Ville where a huge screen had been set up for everyone to watch the World Cup Rugby match between France and New Zealand.  The crowd that had gathered was huge but we had no problem seeing the screen.  After a nail-biting second half, France unfortunately ended up losing, but the crowd took it well and quietly dispersed.  We headed back to the apartment to meet up with everyone.

Once everyone was ready, we decided to walk towards the 18th arrondissement in search of a flea market that Marie and Corey had been to before.  It was a part of Paris that I hadn't been though before so it was neat to see the different streets and neighborhoods.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered the flea market wasn't open on Sundays!  But we made the best of it, and ended up going to see The Sacre Coeur instead!





We climbed up several flights of stairs, and out of breath, we got to the Sacre Coeur terrace.  After taking in the basilica, we turned our attention to the views below.  We could see all of Paris from up here. It was magnificent. You could see so much of the city. It was such a great surprise to be able to see the city from up there and see where we had been the past two days.



Our last few hours in Paris were spent at a cafe in the 4th arrondissement, having a late lunch.  All of a sudden we saw a parade coming down the street that we were sitting on. But this was not your normal parade. This was a parade of zombies called the Zombie Walk.  Apparently it happens each year and its thousands of people all dressed up looking like zombies and acting like it too!  They all had tons of make up on, with fake blood, and wounds and things, and all playing their part as zombies really well. They came up to our table a few times, growling and trying to reach for us. We played along a bit, but after the first couple hundred, we really just wanted to watch them, so ignored them when they came up to our table. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos as I didn't want to draw attention to our table. But it was such a strange thing to see in Paris. Not something you would expect, but I guess Halloween is right around the corner, so zombies on the streets of Paris in the middle of the day I suppose is normal! Ha!

After the zombies left, we headed back to the apartment to say our goodbyes and grab our bags and head for the train station.  It was sad to leave Paris, and sadder to say goodbye to Bryna, Ben, Marie and Corey. But I take comfort knowing that I will see them all next week when we go back to San Francisco!  As for Paris, we will definitely be back, sooner than later.

A bientot Paris!
xoxo