A Year Already?!?!

It's been a while. It has almost been a year since I first landed in Zurich, Switzerland. At that time I had no idea what to expect, whether or not I would like it, if I would make friends. Throughout the year, I met a lot of people, became friends with a few of them, had good and bad experiences, and did more travelling than I had in all the previous years of my life. Unfortunately I was unable to keep up with all my trips in this blog, but perhaps I will share them in person with you when I return. I certainly have a lot of photos ;)

Two weekends ago, I went on my what could be my last ski-trip in Switzerland. I can finally say I have been in a real Swiss chalet! 14 Canadians spent a night between two apartments in Nendaz and it was incredibly fun! I have to thank D so much for this, she organized everything and booked the apartments way back in December.

View from the apartment I stayed in, Les Genets

 The weather that weekend was beautiful, 18°C on Saturday and 25°C on Sunday! I went snowboarding on Saturday with everyone else. The snow was surprisingly good, down to about 1500 m (Verbier) before it started to become very slushy. The problem with slushy snow is that it is very slippery, when I try to turn, my snowboard tends to turn more than I intend it to. Then when I try to turn back, my board is too horizontal to the mountain, resulting in a painful somersault. I am glad I picked up snowboarding, I managed to go five times this year! I have definitely improved since the first time at LAAX, although I am still not very good at it. I'm pretty sure I still fall too much, hopefully I will still remember how to snowboard when I go in Canada next year ^^ I won't be bringing my board back with me though, it is a pretty bad board and not worth hauling back to Canada. That evening we had burritos thanks to A and her German boyfriend...there was guacamole, hearty salsa, lettuce, sour cream, and of course, cheese. Later in the evening we went out to the 'Canadian' pub which was not a pub but was actually a club. And the only thing Canadian about it was the decor (a giant, laser-shooting moosehead, a statue of a grizzly with a fur backpack, I didn't notice any beavers), there weren't even any Canadian beers. I didn't enjoy the music very much either, I left earlier than the others with one other person who also wasn't very psyched to be at the club.
The following day, we just hung around Nandez because it was way too warm to be skiing, there was still snow...but being sun-deprived for several months, we just wanted to sunbathe. Which is exactly what I did with M and another friend. And eat artisan ice cream. It was AMAZING, it was the cafe's own homemade ice cream and the flavours were oustanding. Between the three of us, we had apricot, pistachio, and mocha, my favorite was the apricot.

I have to start packing at some point. Thinking back, I brought so much useless stuff with me here. WHY did I bring a pencil case and not just one or two, but a whole pencil case full of writing utensils?! I definitely learned how to pack smarter in this past year. Maybe I'll write again soon. Or maybe I'll write in a year. Later!

Carving the Bunny Hill

I went snowboarding for the first time this past Saturday! I attended a 4 h snowboarding lesson at LAAX in Switzerland with seven other people. I can't believe I didn't do this earlier when I was in Canada. I was a little hesitant to buy all my snowboarding gear at first, because even though it was almost all 2nd hand, it was still quite a large sum of money. But it was worth every cent. The thrill of gliding down the snow-covered hillside with the magnificent Swiss alps as your backdrop is incomparable. And this is just on the bunny hill haha, I didn't go on the big slopes yet.

One of the incredible views from where I was snowboarding

My instructor was a Czech guy who grew up skiing/snowboarding in the mountains. He was cool, he helped me with my stance, pointed out what I was doing wrong and when I was doing something right.
There were three other ladies that were learning as well. Sarah was a German whose bf is an avid snowboarder, so she's trying it out. Jordynn is working for the American army and just happens to be stationed in either Germany or Switzerland (I can't remember). Her husband snowboards, therefore she's learning so she can join him on the slopes. I feel like there's a trend here. Priscilla (? not sure...) is a Brazilian who has always dreamed of snowboarding ^^
There was a Swiss-Canadian (born in Canada but moved to Switzerland) who was the Brazilian's partner? friend? Not sure, but he was a skier before attempting snowboarding. There was also a father and his son, and another young boy who was in my class. I didn't talk to them much, mainly because they spoke German and not much English.
I am so excited to go snowboarding again this weekend, I will be going every weekend up until Feb 9! I'll keep you updated on my progress in becoming a pro snowboarder =P

My class! (-2 people) From left to right: Peter, me, Jordynn, Andreas, Sarah, Swiss-Canadian guy, Priscilla?

Autumn

What I saw when I walked out of my apartment! This photo doesn't do the colours justice. This was back in October.

24/7 Prayer Eurogathering: Aufstehen (Frankfurt, Germany)

After the weekend with monkeys, I spent 4 days (Oct 18 - 21) in Frankfurt. Not for sightseeing though. Honestly, I wouldn't have gone to Frankfurt otherwise, there really isn't much to see there. There was Apfelwein...but that didn't taste very good. I went to Frankfurt for a big 24/7 Prayer gathering, the theme was Aufstehen, which means 'Stand up' in German. I met some incredible people that were just in love with Jesus, the Messiah; they had incredible stories and amazing ministries. God blessed me immensely during these four days, despite me going not knowing a single person there, haha. I also gained a vision for the youth in YAC, and for myself. If you're interested in what that is, see my other blog. Once you see it you'll know why I put it in a separate post. I also gained some interesting insight into prayer, perhaps I'll share that with you...if you ask :P I don't really want to explain it through writing. The following pictures are just some of the people I met and got to know over the long weekend.

The incredibly friendly people from Ireland :D None of them are actually Irish by blood though haha.

Almost all the people who were from Switzerland at Aufstehen! They liked to stick together ^^

Monkeys :O

Hey, so I have decided I should try to post at least once a week. And now I must catch up from where fb left off for pictures. The events of this post will be after...Oktoberfest. Maybe I will post about it, but honestly, for me, it wasn't that exciting. Because I didn't get into a beer tent. And I didn't attend Oktoberfest for half the time I was there haha. The most exciting thing that happened was that I drank 1L of beer in one sitting, that's it.
The following posts will be brief, and will mainly showcase pictures I want to show. Facebook is not pleasant to work with when it comes to uploading photos, especially when it decides to cut out the comments that took you several hours to write >:[

The weekend after Oktoberfest, D, some of the Canadian interns from Kehl (a nickname for one of the five apartments that Canadian interns inhabit around Baden) and I decided to take it easy and go to France for a day...to Montagne des Singes near Selestat, France. It literally means 'Mountain of the Monkeys'. It's a closed sanctuary for Barbary macaques. To be honest, I'm not sure why I went because I don't like monkeys. I find them freaky, especially chimpanzees. But to my surprise, this is what I saw:

He looks like a grumpy old man XD

   

Fluffy monkeys! I wanted to hug one, but you weren't allowed to touch them. And I didn't want my face ripped off by a surprised monkey. They gave us popcorn to feed them. It was cute, but a little strange because it felt like I was feeding a well-behaved, young toddler. They reached out like a human and gently took the popcorn.

In Selestat, we stopped at a cafe for a snack. Take a look at what we saw:

Sarah, this makes our gift to A look like a little lump. O.o

Some lucky boy gets this as his birthday cake, you don't even need a fork and knife to eat it. Just pick out a puff and pop it in your mouth! I can't imagine how long this must've taken.

That's it for this weekend, since I don't remember much else that must mean nothing else was exciting or interesting. More to come soon!

In the Rain

Continuing where I left off...On Sunday V, J, and I met up in the morning and we ate breakfast at some patisserie (cake shop). I tried the Strasbourg specialty: Kouglof. It had raisins in it..but there was icing sugar on top! :D

Croissants on the left, Kouglof on the right.

I would've bought some other sweets...but I didn't really want to carry them around with me all day in the rain. And V said that next time she goes to France for groceries, she'll invite me as well! So I can buy all the French bread/cakes I want!

Afterwards, we went to the biggest cathedral in Strasbourg:

I think they call it Notre Dame as well.
In this picture it looks very normal. But when you look at it from the front, you'll notice that it is assymetric! It looks like it should have two towers: one on the left and one on the right. However, after they finished building the one tower, they realized that if they built the other tower the cathedral would sink. So they left it with just one tower. V took us up ~300 stairs to the upper floor, where the tower starts. The view was incredible..

There happened to be some sort of medieval festival at the base of the cathedral as well! There was a dance performance, someone was herding geese, and there was a sword fight! (It looked very amateurish, but they were swinging swords at each other! With all the armor! Sadly no one wore plated armor...)
Sorry about the lack of photos >< This is why I'm blogging about it, so I won't forget.

Back at the top of the cathedral, I felt like I was in some sort of game that took place in the dark ages. Because from the top, the old part of Strasbourg looked so much like a medieval town; it looked like it would contain a pub, an armory, a weaponry, and an item shop! And couple that with the music that was playing for the dance...it reminded me so much of those old RPGs I would spend hours playing.

Anyways, back to reality; we went to a French restaurant afterwards! It's called 'Le Tire Bouchon'. Apparently it's on some list of the best restaurants in France, for rich people. It wasn't too expensive though, considering how much I was expecting it to cost.
Now onto the important part, the food.

The best red wine I've ever tasted, and it wasn't even a sweet wine!

Foie gras!! We split this between the 4 of us.

Potatoes, veal cordon-bleu + ratatouille + something with lentils

It was so delicious! The foie gras was particularly surprising because I didn't expect it to taste as good as it did. Usually I'm very skeptical of 'delicacies' because generally I have to pay a lot, but it doesn't even taste good. This might be due to my exposure to shark fin soup and abalone. Yes, I don't like abalone that much, at least not from what I've eaten so far. I do like conch though.

The foie gras was really creamy, it was like eating cream cheese, but creamier. Even though it was really fatty, it didn't taste oily. The veal cordon-bleu probably tasted better than it actually was because it was the first time I've eaten beef since I arrived in Europe :P But it was breaded on the outside and it was stuffed with strips of veal and creme. I was surprised that it wasn't just a piece of veal stuffed with creme. They actually restuffed it with the meat and creme; by creme I mean some sort of mild cheese.
I was so full after the meal, the foie gras was surprisingly filling, even though I only had half of one of those pieces in the photos above. I didn't have any room for dessert.
It was only after the lunch that I realized I didn't take a group photo of us in the restaurant >< I can't believe I forgot, I was so busy taking pictures of the food. I hope V didn't notice.

V is so generous! Earlier during the day, she paid for our metro tickets when we went to pick up another friend from the station. and after lunch, she also paid for our boat tour of Strasbourg! I couldn't believe it. For all 4 of us (including herself). Because of that, I tried really hard to stay awake during the boat tour, but I caught myself dozing off so many times...I was sitting right beside V too :S

The boat tour marked the end of my trip in Strasbourg. V drove us back to Baden afterwards, and she also refused my offer to pay for part of the gas. She was so awesome, that it even made me want to be less stingy! I hope we will get to travel together again. 

In the Sun

It has been a while. I mean to blog, but I've done so many things in the past month I really don't want to spend all my weekday evenings blogging about the excursions I've missed. However, I am going to blog about this trip..mostly because I didn't take very many pictures, which I greatly regret.

On Saturday, I went to Europa Park with J, a friend I met at work. It was so much fun going with her, she was just so excited to go on all the rides! It was the first time I've been to a big theme park with a friend (Calaway does NOT count)! Europa Park is one of the biggest theme parks in Europe, it's location is south-west Germany. In addition to the rides, we also saw a flamenco performance and a play about the 3 musketeers. Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand it because it was in a mix of German and French...I wish they just stuck with one language, the mix just made it more confusing @_@

The guy in the middle was amazing, at one point he danced using a whip and he also used a lasso!

The 3 musketeers + some other guy surrounded by soldiers? Police? 

Before I continue, I have to point out that it was supposed to storm and rain all day. To be honest, I was very surprised that God answered my prayer; we got sun and 30 degree weather the entire time I was in Europa Park. It was such a selfish request... >.<

After Europa Park, we headed to Strasbourg, France to meet up with another friend, V. She was originally going to come to Europa Park with us, but due to unforeseen circumstances she couldn't. I was very glad she could show us around Strasbourg, because she had lived there for 3 years while doing her bachelors! We ate dinner with her and two of her friends. Their suggestion was to try a specialty of Strasbourg, 'La Tarte Flambée'.

It's kind of like a pizza, but on SUPER thin crust. There was cheese, ham, and onions on top. The traditional way of eating it is to cut it into strips and roll it up, like a fajita. We also had this sweet white
wine with it, which was really good.

I secretly really wanted to try speaking French, I feel so bad making them speak to me in English when I could have been making an effort to speak French. 

We were supposed to go to an outdoor classical music concert afterwards, but as we were heading to V's car, a lightning storm rolled in. But that's ok...because we took refuge in a cafe, that sold desserts! It's called 'Jeanette et les Cycleux'. I wanted a creme brulee...but they weren't selling it at the time D: So I ordered a lemon meringue tart (it's like the pie, but smaller). It was so lemony, but sweet at the same time, and the meringue wasn't sugary, unlike when I make it from the box back in Canada. I was surprised by how liquidy the meringue was though, it's not as solid as I thought it would've been.

All of us - me + dessert!

The others had chocolate fondant with some sort of cream/icing, which looked delicious. I felt like such a tourist taking pictures in this cafe. Although if I wasn't Asian I could've passed as just someone taking photos with friends because some people at another table were also taking photos. I wish I could've spent more time with V's friends, we only got to spend one evening together. They seemed like such interesting people!

The French accent is SO cute! I cannot imagine why V would ever want to get rid of her accent. She claims that her English is bad because she can hear her accent...when she said that I kinda bursted out saying how her accent is cute. There was a bit of silence before she continued talking, I hope that didn't come across the wrong way ><

And that's it for Saturday. Hopefully I won't be lazy and there should be another post in 24 hours regarding Sunday!