Three Saturdays ago (Nov 3rd-4th) we went to the Zurich Wine Expo down at Lake Zurich harbor with our friends, John and Helen. It was a very cool set up. There were a total of 12 large boats docked, and each boat was connected to the next (which made walking from boat to boat really easy). On each boat they had a number of mini bars/stands for different wine regions of the world. For CHF 20 per person, you could taste all the wine you wanted until the end of the night. We tried many types and ended up buying a few bottles!
After the tasting, we grabbed a late dinner at a Thai restaurant in the old town area of the city. Then we went to a bar nearby (Casa Bar) that was playing live jazz music. The atmosphere was great and we ended up having a few beers there before calling it a night.
Back to the normal work week we went, and then came along the weekend of Nov 10-11. Actually, let me back track...at work that week, one of my co-workers (actually, my "office mate") was talking about how she was going to take care of her horse this weekend. Long story short, she invited us (well, after I asked!) out to the stables to help her and have a look around.
We left early on Saturday morning and drove about 1.5 hrs out to Bern, Switzerland. It was chilly out and actually was snowing. Side note: it's been FREEZING here and has been snowing a few days here and there. No snow is really sticking to the ground in the city area, but the mountains are recording record snow fall. Christmas come early....horray for ski season!!
Any-who, back to the horses....So we drove through Bern and ended up about 10 minutes outside of it in the Bernese countryside. We pulled down a side lane and, voila - we were there! The lane led us to a large home (Hof Äbnet) with several horse stables surrounding the area and the mountains in the background. It was really beautiful!
We helped Anke (my co-worker) move the horses from the stables to the pastures and then we started cleaning the stables...and by cleaning, I mean getting shovels, pitchforks, wheelbarrels, shoveling manuere and laying down fresh hay. We took a break from the cold and Aggie whipped up some omlettes and potatoes. We enjoyed some coffee and tea, bread, etc and then went back to work.
We left around 1 or so and ended up stopping at an electronics store on the way home. Yeah, we bought a new TV! It's a big, flat screen do-hickey with HD and the whole works. We are very excited about it and Aggie is super excited because now when she watches E!News, it seems that Ryan Seacrest is in our apartment. Perfect right?! (Whatever)
This past week has been really brutal with work. I have been clocking in some ridiculous hours but what can you do...Aggie has been busy with the preschool and babysitting. Oh, I forgot to say last blog that I got to meet the family with the 4 girls she sits for. They all were very interested in showing me their toys, rooms, etc. The best part is they always ask Ag about me and give her things to give me. For instance, I got a lovely red pen with a feather on top from Levia (the second oldest - see the pic below) and then a pack of raisins and a picture with hearts and flowers from Thalia (the oldest). Ceela (the second youngest) told me that she loved me. Smart girl!
Yesterday we went to a huge Thanksgiving Day party at our friends' Kevin and Dave's apartment (the Toga party host). It was a great time and we will be sure to blog about it next time along with our London/Paris trip. We leave this Wednesday night to go and visit with Darren and Nicole Ludwig in London (Thursday and Friday) and on the way home we are going to stop in Paris (Saturday and Sunday). Should be fun!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We wish we could be there to run a certain 10k and feast with you.
