Simple Pleasures in Life (M)

I was 6 years old. My older brother was my idol, my hero, perfect in everyway. I could only hope to someday be as great as him. I followed him through sports, racing pencils down the gutters on the hill in the pouring rain, and out of bed at 4am on Christmas Eve to tear through our Christmas stockings mischievously putting everything back in order prior to waking our parents as if nothing had happened. We were standing at a river as I watched in awe as he masterfully, at the old age of 8, threw the smooth rock into the water with a sideways flick of the wrist. It skipped gracefully several times across the surface before plunking into the depths of the water. My brother patiently showed me his “secret trick” as all brothers have one, and we spent hours scavenging the shores for the “perfect skipping rocks”, shouting with excitement everytime we had a great skip or the perfect jump.

Almost 20 years later, my Neomi II Croatian sailing crew, consisting of me, 2 American colleagues, four other Swiss randoms, and our German skipper, anchored up in a small bay near one of the tiny Croatian islands. Excited to get to land, Alissa, Kevin, and I took the dingy to shore and decided to scavenge a path around the point of the island and suddenly found ourselves standing on the rocky cliffs of a secluded beautiful bay. Out of shape after spending the last few days sleeping, drinking, and eating on the boat, we needed a rest from the walk and plopped down on the rocks to simply take in the spectacular view. Suddenly I heard a familiar “plop, plop, plop, splash.” sound which took me immediately back to childhood.

We were in luck. Kevin had found some great skipping rocks among us and was expertly chucking them across the Aegean Sea. Instinctively, as if I were still that 6 year old girl, I jumped up to scour for another rock. Picking up a smooth, flat rock, I chucked it into the sea only to watch it drop discouragingly into the water. After several failed attempts I sat to watch Kevin for another half hour, with a permanent childhood smile on my face. It was one of the most surreal and peaceful moments to take so much pleasure from something as simple as skipping a rock.

“Question of the day: What do old, fat German men, speedos, and sailboats have in common?” (F)

Answer: Sailing in Croatia. Every boat we passed by as we came into each harbor or bay was filled with large German and Austrian fat men, proudly showing off their stuff in tight speedos, sprawled lazily out on their sailboats like a bunch of beached sea lions. The only movement one could see from their overweight lifeless bodies would be the slight turn of their head as we glided by, excited to see some young females (i.e. 30 years younger than anyone else in the area) on the boat. It was the strangest phenomenon, which made you ponder the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? I mean, did the fat speedo strutting men come first and scare off all of the women, or did women relaxing in the sun get frightened off and immediately set sail for Greece? Hmmm..makes you wonder, doesn’t it? And this also brings up the burning question that is relevant to all cultures in all countries..why is it always the unattractive people who lie out in the nude???

"I am special not slow" (F)

I know this may be a surprise, but I do actually work between all of my travels. Trying to live a jet-setter lifestyle without the millions or a rich husband means I have to earn it. I pretty much spent my time from October through March in a hotel in Basel, a town about an hour train ride outside of Zürich, working long hours, which not only cut into my social life, but also my German classes. And while I have now since mastered the just “smile and nod” approach and how to endure a long lunch or dinner with co-workers or social events in silence (I think sometimes people just make the assumption that you are that weird socially awkward girl), it is extremely frustrating to not be able to understand or communicate.

As such, in May, I took 2 weeks off of work to attend an intensive German language course in Münich, Germany. I was put in a class with 2 other students, a guy from Sweden and another from Poland, whose ADD was even worse than mine, and we were immediately pegged as the “trouble-makers” in class, cracking jokes and fighting all the time. Considering the fact that my German is about at the level of a five-year old, I found it amusing how you actually start to act like it (but we are all kids at heart anyway).

Given the fact that the students were from all over the world and we were there to learn German, our common language was therefore German. We spent the whole day together, and most of our meals. Looking back I have to laugh, as the image of all of us hanging out at restaurants and the Biergartens was probably similar to that of a bunch of retarded kids shouting a strange special language to each other complete with flailing hand gestures, guttural noises, and a mad shaking of the head. But hey, we seemed to make it work. And I have lived through enough embarrassing and humbling moments living in foreign countries, which I prefer to blame on my not understanding the language or customs as opposed to my lack of common sense, to not really mind being “special” all that much.

Don't Ever Go to IKEA By Yourself (SS)

This is a really depressing moment for single people, well anyone to be honest.

After selling everything I own in SF and finally finding an apartment (4 months later), which contained absolutely nothing, not even lights, I had to make the dreaded trek to IKEA alone.

The Swiss only move generally 4 times a year, and I came in on one of the busiest weekends. Home decoration is not my forte, and only 8 hours later, I was at least able to find the necessities; couch, bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers etc. I had no car and asked for these things to be delivered. The guy looked at me and laughed, “You realize this will take over a month to deliver.”

“What? But I have nothing. I need this as soon as possible.”

“Hmm..well, I have this friend….” He picks up the phone, makes a few phone calls, speaking rapidly in Swiss German, turns to me and says, “OK, my friend will take you.” At this point, I am desperate and hey, this is Switzerland.

Heading to the warehouse area, I am armed with a stack of notes, leaflets, and order forms, and begin loading stuff onto the trolley. Struggling with the heavy pieces, I watch enviously as the myriad of young couples cruise by holding hands. It took 2 hours to load a trolley, pay, leave it at customer service and head in for more two more times.

I was very thankful for the friend of the clerk guy as upon my last trip, I found him already loading everything up into the truck. I hopped into the front and off we went to my apartment. He spoke no English, and me at the time (although I am not going to lie, it is still not so great), very little German and so we chatted/mimed a lovely hour long conversation trying to navigate through Zurich rush hour traffic.

I somehow ended up accidentally buying 2 beds, and one too many doors for the wardrobe (still boxed up and leaning up against my bedroom wall), which ended up taking months to put up. This was finally only accomplished with the help of some very patient friends. After numerous more trips to IKEA, a year and a half later, my place is finally “furnished.” Now I need to sell it all and start again. Anyone know someone in London who likes moving stuff looking for a girlfriend?

Bikini Boot Camp (R)

Yes it does truly exist, and Yes, it is a bunch of girls working out in bikinis all day long on the beach. Girls, I highly recommend it, and guys, just in case you might want to check out photos of the beautiful landscape, the website is http://www.amansala.com/. I spent my first week of the new year working out, lying out, and bonding with the other 25 guests (2 hot personal trainers included). I even met another American girl there living in London, who puts my travels to shame, and was able to visit her in London in February. So this now means I officially have 2 friends in London, the other being Loren, who was kind enough to put up with me for a few days while I was doing my interviews and ensure I found my way through the City to the various offices without getting lost. For those of you who know me well, it may be no surprise that I can be a bit of a space cadet at times..shocking, I know. So, just to get the word out and start the networking process, I am looking for an apartment share starting October 1 (or one week beforehand). So any recommendations on areas, websites, or friends living in London who may know of something..let me know!!

Swiss Dieting

In Switzerland, lunch is the big meal of the day and is more similar to an American dinner (well, except we don’t eat meat soaked in sauce, french fries (except those people living in the middle America somewhere), and boiled vegetables everyday. But regardless, I simply cannot stomach something like that in the middle of the day and would resolve more often than not to the salad bar, which was a relentless joke amongst my colleagues throughout my time here.

It was a bit uncomfortable when at one project I was the only female of a group of about 10 guys and we resorted to eating as a team everyday, not because we all loved each other after being locked in one big room at the client for 11 hours a day, but mainly due to the fact that we were working in a building with access to the runway at the Zürich airport and so we weren’t allowed to cruise in and out much.

This meant daily trips to the canteen (cafeteria) where all the men ordered their heavy meals, wolfed it down, and topped it off by a shot of sugary concentrated orange juice (seriously, this was their Vitamin C for the day..they actually paid an extra franc for this!).

Of course, 2 bites later, they were done, impatient, and ready to get back to work. Of course, eating a salad is a bit trickier..first, getting it on the fork can be quite difficult, you know those little pieces of lettuce that always slide off or when you just cannot quite stab something and everytime you press down, it slides off to the other side of the plate?

Well, this resulted in about 2 minutes from being seated, every guy staring at me watching me poke at my salad trying to be polite and wait for me to finish. More often than not, I would push it aside and then work in hunger the remainder of the day. I think I would have wasted away if some more girls had not finally later joined the team; our lunch time was suddenly extended.

Doing Paris in Under 24 Hours

While there are a fair amount of Ex-Pats here, it is difficult to find that person that you connect with (although I know this will take time). For New Years Eve I had absolutely no plans and was going to be alone in Zürich as everyone I knew (meaning Kevin and Dave) were on Holiday.

Kevin finally emailed an American girl at the firm whom he had met in his German class and asked what her plans were and if they would not mind another American joining.

Next thing I knew, I had plans to take a 6 hour train ride at 7am from Zürich to Paris New Years Eve Day. I literally met Alex and her friend for the first time as we were boarding the train. We spent our day walking through the Louvre, sitting at cafes, partying all night with no hotel at a private local Parisian club, and then catching the 7am train from Paris to Zürich on New Years Day.

Paris was beautiful and I will definitely have to go back, but next time, perhaps I will spend a bit more time there