home again

i'm home. in the usa. where i belong. FINALLY!! YEA!!! these will be three glorious weeks.

on the way home, i realized that i may not be able to stay in switzerland for just one year. because by the time i boarded my plane in zurich yesterday, i was already missing switzerland. deba will not be happy to hear that.

i also miss my italian *boyfriend, ivan. but that's neither here nor there.





*i use the word boyfriend very loosely here.

maybe i'm not a big fan of expedia anymore.

they sent me this urgent email saying "call us immediately! your flight has changed!! you might explode!!! bring us some figgy pudding!!" so i called and sat on hold for an hour while howard (who i really thought was a computer, or maybe a robot, for the first 5 minutes of our conversation) tried to find a solution to my problem. (my problem being that one of the legs of my flight had changed, messing up the entire trip.) howard the computer couldn't find a solution that didn't involve a 6 hour layover in san francisco, so he told me he'd call me in 10 minutes. good thing i didn't wait up: he never called.

i tried again a few days later with philip, who sounded like an actual person, but had the same problem. on hold forever (i literally watched the dollar amount in my skype account shrink to practically nothing) and then they never called me back. finally i sent an email to expedia saying something like "please help me via email because your robots never call me back and international calls are not my favorite thing to go into debt for." to which they replied, "we can't help you over email and actually we can't help you at all, why are you emailing us? you should be emailing the jerks at united. we have nothing to do with it. plus also, we hate you. and what was your name again?"

after all these fruitless attempts at resolving the situation, i got another email from expedia saying "we tried to reach you, you chump, but you didn't do anything to fix this problem, so you're stuck with a 6 hour layover. sucks to be you."

so now i hate expedia and i'll be spending january 7 in alcatraz. wanna come?

why i'm a bad friend.

two weeks ago, i brought miss j a nice package of stroopwafels from amsterdam. it's been sitting on my shelf, patiently waiting for me to take home to light up miss j's life with that chewy caramel-y goodness.
until two nights ago...


i ate it. the whole thing. i just couldn't help myself.

merry christmas, miss j! (please don't be mad.)

my productivity has gone way down.

thanks to these guys and all the free episodes i found online.

sure have missed you, dr. reid.

four things about here.

the high school kids might be bratty. but they call me "miss." or rather "meess." other teachers hate it. i love it. it makes me think there's still a bit of youthful respect left in these kids. hearing "thank you, meess." warms my heart.

every time i log into my bank account i have to use my password generator. it is a tiny computer into which i enter my pin, it then gives me an 8 digit password which can be used to log in to my account online...BUT ONLY FOR 60 SECONDS. if, after 60 seconds, i haven't logged in, the password self-destructs. isn't that cool? i feel so good knowing that my swiss bank is keeping my pittance safe and secure, even though i'm sure my mini computer cost more than what i actually have in my account.

i have grown to appreciate sunshine more than i ever have. i come from a desert. it rains thrice a year. what a novelty. not here! it has stopped raining now, but only because it's turned into snow!! i really feel for these poor palm trees. i think we all got a little more than we bargained for.

and after spending the three hottest summers of my life here and being such an active participant of the sweating community, it's a little disorienting seeing this:


sunday was the high school christmas concert, held at that nice church. i was part of the exclusive faculty/staff choir that wasn't actually exclusive at all. i suggested we sing "o, holy night" because i've always had ridiculous fantasies of singing a solo of this song. (if you heard me sing, you'd know just how ridiculous) so i was very excited when the choir director chose the song. i was finally going to perform it! then, some chump said how he ALWAYS sings this song every christmas and he ALWAYS sings a solo. so the rest of us were allowed only to sing the chorus. i was so sad because i wanted all of us to sing the whole song. but when performance time came, i was grinning up there on stage because i was able to tune out the chump and imagine myself singing that solo and mesmerizing the audience with my clear and sweet voice. and then we came to the chorus and i belted it out with all i had. apparently, not only was i the only one smiling, but i'm fairly sure you could hear me over all the other singers. oops. my student, sara, who was there to hear her sister sing, ran up to me after the show. i expected her to say how enchanting my solo was, but instead she said, "it was so funny to hear you sing!" welcome back to reality, sweetpagene.

austria is really nice, despite having produced that heinous führer

anna lives in alpbach. so do 20 other people. i went to visit.i took a late train and shared a compartment with 2 czech lesbians (who actually turned out to be 2 slovak sisters, but what would you think if you saw identical mullets?) we had a very halting conversation using pieces of 6 different languages because they spoke little english and i spoke no slovak. finally i had to fake narcolepsy to put an end to the painful conversation. (normally i'd love that sort of thing, but it was 1 am, give me a break!)newsflash: the austrian alps are just as beautiful as the swiss alps. i just love me some alps.
i also learned that "wien" is vienna. and that if something is from vienna it is "wiener." and, in austria, there are lots of signs advertising things from vienna. i spend way too much time with fourth graders because i could not stop giggling. everything is wiener!

a nice jog, a nice hike, some nice knödel and palatschinken (i swear i'm not making those words up) in a restaurant where all the seats were covered in hairy animal skin. (dog, i think) anna said it's very austrian. (she's practically austrian.)

a jaunt around innsbruck city center the next morning. one of the most charming little cities i've ever seen.


and a tasty topfenstrüdel ....

that i shared with my friend.

my train got in too late to catch a bus, so i walked home. but this view made it totally worth it.

tonight's blizzard marks the end of this.

the leaves are falling all around...well, except for the palm fronds. they're still as green as ever:



i wonder how they like the snow.

give thanks and praises

my cup runneth over:

rare sunny days
music to dance to
dreams that come true
children
hope
parents that support and love me. always.
i am a child of a loving god.

(from the fourth grade assembly on gratitude. my class is the "itude")

words i will never, ever use because they make my skin crawl.

moist
prego
preggers
hubby
panties
lol

la vita è bella.

i feel the same way, little bird. (ps. wanna share that french fry with me?)

"i'm so excited to take the history test today!"

what a bunch of little nerds.



i love them.

i really do know the difference between a sea and a lake.

but that knowledge apparently lay dormant last weekend when cecilia, a swiss colleague, invited me to "go to the sea and have pesto" i must have gotten stuck on the "pesto" part (because i love that stuff) and didn't process the "sea" part. or blamed it on her imperfect english. i imagined a nice lunch downtown on the lake, sharing our cultures and broadening our minds.

at the italian border, i realized cecilia did, in fact, mean the "sea"...the mediterranean sea. and i went into panic mode. I HAVE NO PASSPORT! (or any euro for that matter...why would i need either for a lovely afternoon at the lake?)

now, i've crossed that border many times and never once had to show my passport and only occasionally even had to stop (and that was only because it was absolutely necessary to flirt with italian border control) but i just knew that THIS would be the time they would do a thorough passport check and i would not only not be allowed to go to the sea, but i would be deported.

my heart was a poundin' as we crept up to the window. there was nobody there. i was so relieved and had forgotten, in my panic, that the italian side of the station is rarely manned. they don't care who comes into their country. but then i thought of the trip home and cecilia voiced my fear, "the swiss side will be a different story."

we had a grand time in torino. (which is actually nowhere near any water at all, but 2 hours into the trip to genova, cecilia changed her mind) the second we got out of the car cecilia flirted with some guy by asking him for a cigarette. we explored torino and saw its winter light display and military parade and outdoor photo exhibit and ate ligurian focaccia, which, although it is only pizza without sauce was the best thing i had eaten in...days. (i will never be a food critic, i don't know the words that will convey the beauty of that cheesy, greasy goodness. how about this? i wanted to lick my paper wrapping.) it was super duper awesome to be in a city that had nothing to offer us tourism wise, and had to rely on its simple charms. and charming it was. a beautiful piazza or stunning architecture carefully hidden around nondescript corners. a weekend market bustling with local shoppers getting started on the holidays. there we bought italian hot chocolate, which is so thick you need a spoon to eat it.

on the way home, my anxiety returned. what if cecilia had to leave me at the border? it was dark and a long walk home and plus, i didn't know the way. we pulled up to the stop and cecilia took charge, "don't talk," she said. i sat like a mute while she nervously talked to the old man, who must have been italian, he was so indifferent about what we were doing there. we made it through and back home by 10 pm.

it was a nice lunch on the lake.

reasons why today is a good day.

i'm wearing my favorite shirt.
it's friday.
my mom sent me mail.
i like my class.
miss j sent me a cake mix.
the sun is finally shining.
i just ate a banana.
i'm going to austria tonight on the train.
the italian class is singing cute italian songs right now to entertain me while i "work".

it's a good day.

i made a vision board.

keepin' it simple.

note to self

driving in italy is so not worth it. take a train. or learn to enjoy the sound of aggressive italian drivers' incessant honking at you.

better luck next time,
sweetpagene

ps. remember to take extra change for all the tolls you have to pay when you get lost and have to turn around.

pps. don't forget that left hand turns are illegal on every single road in milan.

ppps. google directions suck.

pppps. so does your italian.

ppppps. the hyundai doesn't take diesel fuel.

i left my heart in ireland.

i went back there last weekend to try to coax it to join me in switzerland. but when i arrived, i immediately discovered that my heart was still firmly rooted in the streets of dublin and the hills of the irish countryside.

after the passport checker in dublin airport (who is the only unfriendly person in the whole of ireland) cleared me to enter, i gleefully threw my arms up in the air (and sent my passport flying) and exclaimed, "hurray!" the weird thing is, i did it completely involuntarily; i think it was all that pent up excitement finally escaping.

and when sandra picked me up a few minutes later, the first thing she said was, "welcome home, sweetpagene!" which is exactly what it felt like.

thursday i convinced sandra to ride the bus with me into town. (she, like most normal people, hates public transportation, but sandra is a true friend...she's also a bleeding heart: she made change for a 10 euro bill so she would have coins to drop in the beggars' cups) probably, though, you would also be very entertained by riding on the top floor of the two-story bus. and it is still as entertaining as it always was! but really, what is not to like? i sit on the top and enjoy the view of my favorite city ever, get where i need to go, AND i don't have to worry about traffic! (plus, the obnoxious teenagers are a nice bonus. really! i never tire of that brogue!) we spent the day visiting all the old places. we took a few pictures, but i felt weird taking tourist pictures. now, clearly, i have no problem being a tourist, but i don't feel like a tourist in ireland. foreigner, yes. tourist, no. so this is what we ended up with:





and all those cheesy smiles? 100% sincere. i was giddy for 72 hours straight.

that night we went to eddie rocket's, a 50s diner, and met up with some other friends, farris and daniel (so many of the old gang has moved on). we shared a booth with a group of men and women in their 60s who "come every thursday to talk about all the people we know." one old man struck up a conversation with me after hearing that i was a "yank" and we had a jolly good time bantering. put together the wit of an old irish man and the sass of a young american girl and you get some high quality banter.

friday i spent on my own, shopping (not really, i hate that) and enjoying dublin. i went by my old home and stopped at the chipper where i used to eat every day. i ordered the usual: chips with vinegar. oh, mama, they're good.

musical interlude (feel free to tap your toe):







that afternoon, i took the wrong bus into the next county (turns out the bus routes have changed a wee bit since 2004). so i asked the driver of the next bus if his bus was going back to dublin. he said, no, it was heading to the garage, but if i wanted, i could hop in and he'd take me into town. are you kidding me? this guy, who was now off-duty, was offering to take some dodgy foreigner (not tourist) who was too thick to get a bus schedule, back into town on the bus. people ask me why i love ireland. and that is why. because it is full of those kind and generous and cheerful and friendly and witty irish. because when sandra tripped on the curb, three people came rushing to help her. because when i stopped into o'brien's deli and it was closed (why don't you lock the door, yo?) they said, "we're closed, but we'll make you a sandwich anyway, come in." and because i never ever tire of hearing the phrase, "ah, no, yer grand!"

i met up that night with kathy, my former roommate, and spent the night catching up with her. the next day we went to a nice little market in south dublin and enjoyed the fall leaves of the dublin mountains. (they're hills, really, but don't tell the irish i said that.) that afternoon i went to visit the family that i nannied for. those twin baby girls, emily and isabelle, who couldn't even walk are now tall seven-year-old girls who can walk (and talk and feed themselves and use the toilet, they informed me). they didn't remember me, but they loved me immediately (and i them) and they showed me every medal or certificate they had ever received and told me the name of every student in their class pictures. marian, their mother, thinks that on some subconscious level they really do remember me. i like that. so i'm going with it. then i spent the rest of the evening with sandra and some friends and family, watching a rugby match and eating at a weird restaurant that served me bloody chicken. (free meal, baby!)

sunday morning i got up bright and early and headed back to the airport and back to real life. and just like the other times i left ireland, my eyes were a tiny bit moist as i climbed up those stairs and onto that airplane that would take me away from my favorite place on earth. yes, it really is that magical. now, i realize that i may be prone to hyperbole, but trust me when i say it is the most beautiful country filled with the most wonderful people. you should go visit. and when you do, can i come with you? i need to visit my heart, which seems to have taken up permanent residence in the emerald isle.

curly haired nightmare

yesterday i did an internet search for "curly haired child" and this is what i got:








i'm kind of embarrassed that joker guy and i have the same haircut.

ps. this is also creepy.

this sure isn't the planetarium.

"hey, guys, guess what? we're going on a field trip!"

"YEA!!!...do we need to bring our passports?"
(have you ever been on a field trip where you needed your passport? me neither. but around here, that is a totally valid question.)

i taught these kids all i know about the middle ages (which is surprisingly little) and then we took them to see real medieval castles. (welcome to europe!)


anna sitting on the pot. we took lots of pictures here. (of course, we did. they're fourth graders.)

dea and ada took notes. they were not required to. i did not even suggest it. but they brought their journals and copied every word the guide said. they are such cute little nerds.
adiya is totally unimpressed with everything i do.matteo was sure the 500-year-old poo was still stinky.
etienne and maria luiza humored me.
kristina is heading to the dungeon. sometimes i'd like to keep her there.
sara is almost always sweet.
sometimes alessia is, too.see that goof in the corner? he simultaneously makes my day and drives me crazy.
the guide is saying, "you can see italy just over there." ah, yes.
towers.
bridges.

they're not dead. they're rolling down the hill.
the entire fourth grade. aren't they cute?
and i had three of those magical sandwiches, so it was a pretty good day.

eeep!! eeep!!

that is the high-pitched sound i make every time i think about this:



dear CAKE,

a few months ago you filled my heart with joy and then subsequently broke it, by having a concert in my hometown... the EXACT SAME DAY I was moving to switzerland for the year. i pleaded with you to come a day early and you replied very cordially (and promptly) and said, "maybe we'll play in zurich." CAKE, you have no idea how I clung to that little glimmer of hope. And well, you aren't coming to zurich (but that's ok, because zurich is kind of borrrring). however, you made all my dreams come true AND gave me a great excuse to visit paris (which i actually probably never would have done because i'm one of about twelve americans who is really not that interested in paris). so, CAKE, thank you for making my year in europe complete. i can't wait to see you on march 19th. i'll be the one in the front with stars in my eyes.

see you soon,

sweetpagene

(and, aimee, i really sent this email, too. so please don't forward it to them, like last time. they are probably already crafting a very thoughtful response.)

the day i was almost robbed or how i got my new crush.

i got home from oktoberfest at 1:30 am. walking up to my apartment, i could see through the window that the light was on in the bathroom and thought to myself, "duh. i can't believe you left the bathroom light on all weekend." when i put my key in the lock, the lock wouldn't turn. it was already unlocked! i thought to myself, "duh. i can't believe you left the door unlocked all weekend. you're lucky you're in switzerland where no crime has been committed EVER." i walked in the apartment and all the lights were on. "what a waste of electricity!" i thought to myself.

do you want to know how i finally knew that something was wrong? because i saw the vacuum standing in the corner. "well, sweetpagene, that doesn't seem so out of the ordinary," you might be thinking. but you see, that is out of the ordinary when you understand that before that precise moment, i was not aware that i owned a vacuum.

that's when i started to panic. and i saw the balcony doors were open and i live on the ground floor. instead of arming myself (with what, i don't know, my caustic wit, maybe?) i rushed to my computer bag to see if the one thing i owned of any value had indeed been stolen. (it hadn't)

after i settled down a bit and my heart slid back down my throat to my chest and i made sure that the murderer wasn't waiting in my bathtub, i put 2 and 2 together and realized that the cleaning guy must have left hastily in the middle of cleaning and forgot to lock up (and also finish cleaning). what a relief. OH MY GOSH!!! I JUST REALIZED what if he was here when the murderer came in?!?! and the murderer murdered him (like murderers do)?!?!?! and then the murderer hauled off his body??!?! and then came back to vacuum up the blood!?!?! and clean my bathroom!?!?!? and wash my dishes?!?!?!

that probably didn't happen.

so what about that new crush?

well, i have a neighbor upstairs. we'll call him batt stalker*. i got home from school on monday and batt was sitting on the steps waiting for me. he told me that he had spent all weekend worrying about me and wondering if i was dead on the road somewhere. he had noticed that my balcony doors were open and did what every tough guy would do: scaled my wall and came in the apartment unarmed (except for his disarming good looks, of course) ready to rescue me, but really expecting to see me in a puddle of blood. when he saw that my computer wasn't stolen he, too, realized that it probably wasn't a break-in and maybe i was just a little crazy for leaving all the windows open in freezing weather. he still worried, though, and spent the large majority of the weekend watching out his window for me and checking my apartment. isn't that sweet? (and borderline creepy?)

i thought it was precious. especially when his voice cracked a bit in telling the story. i told him that i had figured the cleaning guy had been careless (or murdered) and that all was well. batt said, "yeah, if i hadn't been scared that you'd been attacked in your bedroom, i probably would have come to the same conclusion."

that's what love does, folks. it makes you so scared for the safety of your true love in the hands of imaginary murderers/robbers, that all reason and logic fly right out the window...the bathroom window, because it was left open...by the murderer/cleaning person.

and that is how i got my new crush.


*not his real name...but close.

it takes courage

last week i heard about a running group benefitting breast cancer research. the members of the group would train together and race in a half marathon together in the spring. i have a friend, ramona, who has battled breast cancer twice. TWICE. when i signed up for the club i had her in mind: i would do this for ramona.

i had my first run and knew i had an uphill battle ahead of me.

and the very next day, i learned that ramona had passed away.

ramona had an uphill battle and she fought every step of the way. when the cancer came back, she didn't resign herself to it. the doctors told her that eventually it would take her life. she did everything she could to fight it anyway and went through the nightmare all over again because she would not let it beat her. she came to work, she mothered her children, and she went on a cruise with her husband. the last few times i saw ramona she was smiling. and she was at peace. she had won.

ramona, this one's for you.

okt-sober-fest

one time i had alcohol. and it was on accident. (i thought anna's juice was sparkling apple juice, which i love, but i learned the hard way that it had been spiked with urine, which i love slightly less.) so why would i go to oktoberfest? WHY NOT!?!?

four of my colleagues and i smashed into a hyundai and left clean, orderly, anal retentive switzerland and crossed into wild and crazy germany, via stupid austria (stupid because we had to pay to drive our car there for 3 1/2 minutes) and intriguing liechtenstein (intriguing because "that's a real place?!?!?"). i volunteered to be navigator, because i love to tell people where to go and where to get off, but also because i was sitting in the middle of the backseat and if i didn't have a distraction from the sensation produced by having my knees shoved up into my chin then somebody (probably the person who insisted on reading aloud every single sign we passed) would not survive the car ride. thanks to my excellent navigating skills, we arrived in munich without a hitch. bright and early the next morning (6:45), christine the drill sargeant was calling "up and at 'em!" (i knew this would be an interesting trip when she sent us an informative email with helpful advice, like "don't forget to bring money!" and "hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!"). by the time we made it to oktoberfest, we were already missing 3 people. oh, boy.

now: on to the pictures!

translation: buy your lederhosen here!
and they did! the place was crawling with lederhosen and dirndls. my favorites were the asians wearing lederhosen. picture it.

we waited for an hour to get in this tent. thanks to my days as a concert goer i am adept at elbowing my way to the front of a crowd. when we got to the front, we found out: this isn't an entrance.these friendly chaps are ready for some action.
action accomplished.
there was a lot of this, accompanied by cheering.
and after the inhibitions were really low, a lot of this.and way too much of this. (this=kaiserschmarrn, which is a german word for "eggy pancakes cut up and dipped in delicious applesauce. it will knock your socks off. trust me" those germans and their efficient language)celeste and i had slightly smaller steins of sprite and coke mixed (completely flat) and alex totally missed the point of the picture: "let's get a picture of the non-drinkers!"
i met up with my friend, anna, who lives in austria (i am not sure why i have assumed a mr. t stance here) and her dutch boyfriend michiel (the nerd on the right) and his dutch friends. to this day, i have never met a dutch person that i didn't like. but, boy, do those dutch hate the germans. and the belgians.
then we went here, looking for some friends (they were already our friends, we weren't looking to make some.) and then i realized this was THE FAMOUS HOFBRAUHAUS so i took some pictures. it was hot and sweaty in there and i think that really shows in this picture. then we went to hard rock cafe for an authentic german experience, where some people forgot we were in an actual restaurant and not still at oktoberfest.
sunday morning we went to dachau. this gate says "work brings freedom" and leads to places where unspeakable things were inflicted on human beings by their fellow human beings. i stood in rooms that existed for unimaginable purposes.
on the way back to switzerland, we "stopped by" sleeping beauty's castle. it looked like a "stop by" on the map (which had clearly been drawn by a blindfolded retarded monkey), but it ended up being four hours out of our way. totally worth it:
and just across the valley was prince charming's castle, where a ball was being held for the prince to choose his bride.
and the whole gang looking much chipper than we would 5 hours later when we were hopelessly lost in bavaria, without a word of german in our repertoire, exhausted, and ready to punch in the face all the residents of lindau, the town that we were aiming for, but were convinced didn't actually exist. i still have my doubts.

note to self: if you are going to take photos to post on the internet, please wear a shirt that isn't 2 sizes too big and also is not bright yellow. you look like a giant lemon.

we got home at 1:30 am, where i found that my apartment had been broken into*!!!

*actually, don't panic. it wasn't broken into. i just thought it was.