After a surprisingly relaxed flight, thanks to a dose of prescription drugs, I'm slowly recovering from jetlag with ample Swiss cheese, wine and chocolat. We landed in Zurich yesterday morning, and after a coffee and a shower at N's mom's flat, went into town to hit the H&M sale and buy some maps for our hiking trip. She and her husband live in a gorgeous old building that handily houses the school he teaches at. From their place it's a short hop on one of Zurich's many regular trams into the town center, and it was comforting to see how familiar the places looked. Bittersweet, too, for we learned that his mom's looking to leave Switzerland to be closer to family, so our regular trips to visit her may not come as regularly. Quelle tristesse.
While I'll upload photos of the trip to the Jura, namely the town of Nods (pronounced 'NO') and the ridgetop of Chasseral which overlooks Lake Neuchatel, I'm now getting booted off so N can attend to some actual work, the reason why we're in this nice hotel in Fribourg.
More later.
And my feet hate me. I'm trying to break in my new beefy Scarpa hiking boots for our upcoming trip to Switzerland, as we're planning on doing a 3 day hut-to-hut hike in the Valais region. While I ordered the boots well over a month ago, a stupid foot injury has prevented me from doing much walking the past two weeks. With our departure date looming I decided to get out there today, and hiked to Lake Aloha with the dog, starting from the Lily Lake trailhead.
The good news is that the boots supported the part of my foot that had been tender. The bad news is that after 12 miles my toes were not all that happy. They're still not talking to me 2 hours later. However, I've got a back up pair of shoes I'm going to bring, and I'm hoping that planning-for-contingency results in no foot discomfort whatsoever.
Trail conditions are much snowier this year than last, and I got to test out the boots on a number of snowbanks between Susie Lake and Lake Aloha. The dog was, as usual, thrilled, and seems to have recovered from any disappointment over failing Friday's audition.
Right now I'm feeling my age - and feet. Twelve miles didn't used to exhaust me like this. Dunno how I'm going to cope with 42 kilometers next month, but the promise of hiking in the land of chocolate will no doubt provide incentive.
Soleil lost out to a schnauzer at yesterday's audition. A dog less than half her size, and, I might add, with half her personality. That said, she was so overstimulated by the surroundings (a schoolyard replete with lots of green grass) and the various people that she only half-listened to the commands she was given. She sat ok, but the heeling was tough, as she reeeeally wanted to sniff the grass instead.
Truth be told, the schnauzer had been trained as a therapy dog and was fairly non-plussed by the chaos. He'll do well in front of a large audience. My dog - probably not so much.
Despite rapidly rising gas prices, IT band issues that now prevent me from riding my bike and some family concerns that have had me on the edge this week, my life is so much better now that La Baguette has opened near my office. The owner, who used to run a fabulous brewery/restaurant up the road, is from Grenoble, so I knew that he'd know how to make a proper pain au raisin. The first bite brought back memories of summer in Chamonix, and immediately put a smile on my face.
He's got a pretty decent assortment of patisserie, including the traditional croissants, turnovers and such, but also brioche, the typical 'pizza' (read: focaccia) I remember picking up at my local boulangerie, and a number of quiche and tartlets.
I'm already planning my next trip - this afternoon.
It's been a long week, and it's only Wednesday, and after an all day meeting that left me with a headache, and a dog who decided to blithely ignore my commands, I'm ready for the vacation I'm not taking for another 2 weeks.
Luckily, I've got LOLcats to make me smile, and in some cases, laugh. Silly, yes, but oh so therapeutic. This and a glass of wine and I can (almost) forget all my fatigue.
The local farmer's market began last week and I finally made it there this morning. While the bounty of heirloom tomatoes (a big 'feh' to salmonella fears) hasn't yet arrived, I did score some gorgeous cherries. This market has always had a decidedly keeping it real flavor, with primarily local fruit and vegetable vendors, though the odd cheese seller and baker has made an appearance. This year it seems the market's taking it up a notch. There's a fishmonger, the crepe stand, a hot dog vendor (at 8 am?), soap, Indian food and pottery. Something for everyone?
Early in my relationship with N he sent me a link to this hilarious Bollywood spoof. While produced by Absolut Vodka that doesn't detract from the sheer awesomeness of the music and choreography. Reminded about it today, we did a search and voila - it still lives on YouTube.
The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival is one of those great cultural festivals that blends the words of the Bard with the beauty of Lake Tahoe. It's something we try to attend once a year, if only to picnic on the shore of the Lake. This year's comedy production is A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in an effort to add realism to the performance, the production announced it was seeking a dog to play the role of Starveling the Tailor's dog. On a whim I sent off a few choice pics of Soleil. Earlier this week I learned that the photos made an impression, and our not-too-bright (and certainly not literate) dog had been selected to audition next week.
While the notion of Soleil on stage getting her 15 minutes of fame (and love) is amusing, I'm not sure I'm going to go ahead with the audition. It's a lot of schlepping - 3 performances a week for 5 weeks - and I'd be required to drive her to Sand Harbor (about 60 miles round trip) and stay until 10 pm each night. I know that parents drive that distance and more for their blood children, but this is a dog of questionable pedigree we're talking about here.
However, the great story that this would make almost negates the gas and time. And since no other grandchild in my family has made it that far as an actor, I'm really tempted to go ahead with the audition. It's a week away, so I have ample time to reflect on this until then.
So after my inadvertent tumble off my bike last week I thought I was done with stupid accidents, seeing as how my brother managed to take over with a slow-speed dirt bike wipe-out that resulted in a broken shoulder. That's the family grace gene illustrated perfectly right there.
How wrong I was. I'm still not sure how a benign trail run ended up spraining my foot, but what I do know is that I limped my way through my conference because the outside of my right foot really hurt to stand on. Ironically the only thing that doesn't cause it pain is riding a bicycle. So guess what we've been doing this weekend?
I'm hoping that regular icing plus copious amounts of red wine (apparently I'm not allowed Advil with my various stitches as its blood thinning properties impede healing) help speed the healing process, as I'd hate to have this limp for our Swiss vacation at the end of June.
Yesterday was the annual tourism conference I put on, and despite unseasonal weather (forcing lunch inside and making the lakeside venue a smidge less attractive) it brought out over 120 people. This year's event ended with a Suisun Valley wine tasting, courtesy of a friend of my boss who grows grapes down there. He convinced thirteen labels to provide their best wines, including Forlorn Hope, Vezer (who let us taste a La Salette Zinfandel which sold for $30,000 in a recent auction) and many others. As one of the pourers, I was told I got to take home the open bottles, and didn't quite realize the volume of what that meant. So last night we enjoyed a really fine Petite Verdot and a Suisun Zinfandel. I have another 7 bottles to drink, including a couple of nice whites.
Anyone wanna join me?
