Day 4 - Reality Check

This is from the banks of Lac Leman (again, Lake Geneva for all you non-Swiss). So peaceful and so calm, the Alps in the distance shrouded in haze. Today was a beautiful warm day and we went to a small local park in Bournens (the village where I live) this morning and then to the lake shore in the afternoon in Lausanne.  My eyes could not get enough of this sight.

It was nice to sit and stare into the water.  I haven't been here long but in this short time, I'm reevaluating the year set before me.  I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.  This is not bad, I am simply coming to terms with the situation.  I've been telling people for months that this was my plan but somewhere along the line, I stopped thinking about the implications.

I guess I forgot how new everything would be.

For all of my 22 years, I have never been without familiarity. Even when I went away to college, that wasn't very far from home and I was surrounded by things similar.  Here, it is all different. The food, the landscape, the people, the language (big, big difference), everything.  I packed three suitcases full of America but it is not the same.  Even my familiar clothes look different hanging in my new closet. Also, I feel very oddly dressed and out of place, but that's another story entirely. One that potentially ends in me rushing out to the stores for a new wardrobe....

Of course it could be worse. It's not like I'm in the African bush country, drinking goats milk out of an elephant tusk and fighting off lions. But let's get real. I'm a college grad from the Midwest who goes to Chicago for a weekend calls that a grand adventure. I'm totally out of my element here.

But then I sit by the lake and remember that I am not here to feel comfortable, to fit in.  I'm here to try things like ham and sage pork fillet and I might even like it. Which I totally do...pretty much changed the way I view meat. And gâteau a la creme... Ok that is also another story, one that definitely ends in me rushing out for new clothes...
Note to future Swiss travelers: the food = très très BIEN. Also très très rich. I've had a stomach ache for 3 days now....


Anyway, I'm glad for the quiet moments, glad to remember why I'm here. So even though this jet lag seems to never end and even though I will continue to wake up in a cold sweat because I've had a nightmare that I've forgotten all my French AND English and EVEN THOUGH I miss my family like crazy, I will keep on.  There are many more beautiful moments ahead like the one today and I can't wait to experience that.

So bring on the awkward, poorly worded, and uncomfortable situations. It will make for some entertaining stories anyway.

On the plus side, I'm signed up for a French course at the local university. Did you hear that? Yeah, that was the collective sound of Bournen's 250 residents breathing a sigh of relief.

Day 3 - Morning

This is what I woke up to:

(well, many hours ago, but it is morning for all you back at home)

A rooster crow, children's laughter, and somewhere there's a bell that clangs out the hour. Oh, and this view. That break in the horizon beyond the houses, yeah that's where Lac Leman is (Lake Geneva, as it is incorrectly called by us Americans).

Pain au chocolat: Nutella on bread. This better not become a habit or I will have to buy two seats for the plane ride home.

A pleasing array of thé (tea)

Aside from the continuing jet lag, yes Mom, I'm doing just fine. :)

Day 2 - In...somnia

Sunrise over Amsterdam

My seatmate raised the window shade an hour prior to touchdown this morning in Amsterdam and this is what we saw:

As we sunk into the clouds, the sun was beginning to illuminate the northern coast of Holland.

And then we got below the clouds.  The city looked so young and fresh bathed in morning gold.

What a beautiful end to a sleepless night. 

I have arrived safe in Switzerland. I adore it and I haven't even been here for 24 hours. The family, the house, the surroundings, all lovely. I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew with the language barrier but I have a patient and understanding translator. 

And jet lag is hitting me like a ton of bricks. Thanks for all the well wishes/thoughts/prayers. More later...

Day 1 - In Transit

I've decided to try and post something small multiple times a week (in addition to my larger posts), whether it be a picture or just a small paragraph in an attempt to let you have a little picture of life abroad.   So here we are. 

And so the adventure begins.

Day 1 of my life as a 20 something vagabond. I've packed my bags, said goodbye to my family, and am in the airport waiting for my flight to Detroit.  I'll be in and out of the air for the next 20 hours or so.  Switzerland, here I come!

Adventures in Baking

I really really should be packing/cleaning/exercising/doing anything but this, but as usual, the creative muse has struck at the least opportune moment. And I must share. I can't help it, it's a force I simply cannot control.

I love to bake. Love it.  If I could do it for a job, I would. But let me be the first to tell you, I am NOT Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, or the Pioneer Woman, by any means.  Some of my best baking efforts began with a Duncan Hines brownie mix. That said, I haven't had too many complaints on the finished product.

As usually happens when I am at home near my mother's fully stocked, well-lit kitchen, I got the urge to make something today. Fortunately, I have a brand new cupcake recipe book I've just been dying to try. The recipe? White Mountain Cupcakes. Have a look:

Chocolate Sour Cream cupcakes with meringue-like white frosting. mmmm.

Everything started out well.  Assembling the ingredients and mixing things together, substituting things like bittersweet chocolate for unsweetened chocolate because I'm far too lazy to go to the store. And stopping every ten minutes to take pictures because I like to pretend I'm a food photographer. Like so:

Every good food photographer takes pictures of partially chopped chocolate bars.

The delicious batter in Mom's trusty KitchenAid.

Hard at work! Bet you weren't expecting an action shot. Well, I aim to surprise.

As taking pictures every step of the way is rather time-consuming, it was a good hour before anything got in the oven. Ever the conscientious kitchen worker, I did the dishes while the lovelies baked. It was when the oven door opened again that I got a sneaking suspicion that this would not turn out like the picture.

Hmm. Are those delicate, fluffy cupcakes or giant exploding mushroom-like brownies?
Turns out you aren't supposed to fill the muffin tin to the tip top with batter.

Then I turned to the icing instructions.  I saw the words "separated egg whites" and "stiff peaks" and balked.  As all mature adults do in time of crisis, I promptly put down the recipe book and went and played Tetris until my mother came home.

Upon her return, I bravely faced the Food Network challenge again under her calm instruction.  After wasting half of a carton of eggs, I finally learned how to separate yolks and whites.  We poured the ingredients into the top half of a double boiler (yet another new age contraption I learned about!) and plugged in the electric mixer.  After a few seconds of whipping things into "stiff peaks", I glanced over at the other half of the double boiler simmering on the stove. This is what I saw:

Ok, I'm exaggerating.  It was more like a few plumes of smoke, gently curling up from the cord of the electric mixer.  Turns out I plugged it in and without thinking, stretched it across the open flame of the stove to the bowl on the other side. As generally happens when it comes in contact with fire, the plastic cord began melting through to the wire beneath. Fortunately I screamed, turned it off and Mom switched off the stove before we had a real electrical fire on our hands.  Some may say it was cutting off the source of the flame that stopped the fire but I know it was the force of my scream that halted nature at work.

Having ruined Mom's hand held mixer and every conceivable way of making meringue frosting, I gave up entirely and went with powdered sugar. Thus the finished product looks nothing like the picture in the book. Compare:

Guess which one is mine.














And so, household fires notwithstanding, I managed to make cupcakes that were passably delicious, though not at all what I had in mind. Plus, I still managed to take many sub-par food shots of the finished product.

All in a day's work!