sigh

Christmas is gone, my family jumped on a plane yesterday for home and now we are left with an empty (very messy) apartment. It was great having my family here- admittedly a little stressful for everyone at times, but wonderful. I can't wait to look through all the photos we've taken.

Now that the family is gone we're trying to catch up on our sleep and get the house back in shape. Unfortunately, I'm sick. I'd been fighting with a stuffy nose and clogged sinuses most of my families visits and now that I've let myself relax a little it's really hitting me. On top of that my face is all broken out in cold sores. it's disgusting and painful. I've never had a cold sore in my life and now it seems every time I look in the bathroom mirror another one is forming. I think I have about 8 at present. What really sucks is I don't know how to get rid of them. I tried calling the doctor because I was feeling pretty miserable and he's on vacation until January 5, did I want to make an appointment for then? Of course not, by then I'll hopefully be feeling better. Geeze, you'd think a doctors office would have more sense than that. Do people normally call up wanting to make appointments for a week later? Anyways I found another doctor who can get me in on Wednesday. I figured I could handle another couple of days without going over the deep end.

So, it was wonderful to have my family, I miss them already. But I am relieved to be able to sleep in my own bed. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to look through pictures from the last week and post some good ones. right now I think I'll try and take a little nap.

Escalade 2008

Once again as Christmas approaches the big event in Geneva is the Escalade, held on the weekend closest to December 12. This is a huge event for the Genevoise. It is a celebration of their defeat of the invading Savoyards in 1602. People are roaming the streets in 17th Century clothing, vin chaud and hot soup is sold at stalls throughout the old town. There are demonstartions of the battling with the pike or the musket. Cannons firing. And it's all finished up with a huge parade, a proclamation and a gigantic bonfire. We didn't stick around for the bonfire, but we watched the pompiers (the firemen) set it up.

All in all a good day.

well, for some reason blogger doesn't want to load my pictures so I'll see if I can do it tomorrow.
no promises because I have a ton of stuff that has to get done tomorrow in preparation for the family inondation, but I'll try my best!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Yesterday we got our Christmas tree! Yay! Now it really feels like christmas is just around the corner. the house smells of pine and in the evening there's the lovely glow from the Christmas tree lights. I love it. I think I'm just super excited this year for Christmas because my whole family will be here and I can't wait to share with them what it's like to live here.

So, to get ourselves headed in the right direction for a big family Christmas inFrance we went out to Botanic (the local garden store) and bought a lovely little Christmas tree and some ornamnents.

I don't know if you can really see in the photo but instead of a metal stand that you can put water in here they have a section of stump that they drill a hole in and put the tree down in! It's pretty cool Granted you can't really water the tree...but we didn't water ours last year and it lasted for quite a long time. Keep your fingrs crossed that this one holds up just as well. I'd hate for it to be brown and dropping needles before Christmas!

It was fun to decorate and the hubbster was fabulous in making hooks for the new bulbs we'd bought. I didn't get a really great picture of the tree, but here it is in all it's decorated glory.

And in it's lit splendor.

Joyeux Noel !!!

Jingle all the Way

so, even after living in Europe for a year and a half I still have moments of culture shock. On my way home from work today I was listening to WRS (World Radio Switzerland) an English language radio station - I know, I know it's no wonder my French still sucks I listen to the radio in English, watch TV and movies in English, work with people who speak English....but, that's not the point. There was a story on the news about how in Ticino (part of Switzerland down near Italy) there had been huge protest rallies because the Cantonal government (think of State government in the U.S.) decided to allow stores to have extended hours in December. This would mean that for 3 Sundays in December shops could be open AND they could stay open till 9:00 pm on December 23 and December 30. There was a huge uproar over this and massive protests. "What about the people who work in those shops?" people queried, "They have families too. They deserve to have time off as well." All I could think of was, "What the HELL are you people carrying on about?"

It's totally the American in me coming out. I just have the mind set that these people are working in a service industry, that means they have to work when people want that particular service. Hell, I used to have to work on Christmas Eve, Christmas day, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, New Year's day and that was at such worthwhile jobs as a gas station and busing tables at a restaurant. I remember my first experience working Thanksgiving day. I was busing tables at a restaurant in my home town. I'd just finished my first semester of college and I couldn't believe I had to work on Thanksgiving, it didn't really make me very thankful. I was sure that it would be a joke, that no one would turn up for this elaborate Thanksgiving buffet we'd set out. Surely, everyone would be home celebrating with their families. They had grandmothers, Aunts, and mothers who cooked huge holiday meals for them...didn't they? Alas, I was so off base. The place was packed. I spent the day clearing off table, filling drinks, lugging more food out and empty warmers back into the kitchen. anyways, that was just the beginning of years filled with working on the holidays. Gas station cashier, yuck, but everyone needs gas 24 hours a day 7 days a week no exceptions. When I got into theatre that meant there was no getting around working weekends and most holidays. I mean, that's when everyone else wasn't working and they could pay for you to entertain them.

So, I'm used to people working on holidays. The funny thing is the government wasn't allowing shops to be open any holidays at all, just Sundays (a big no no in Switzerland - the only thing open is a pharmacy for emergencies) and some extended hours. Jeez, can you imagine anyone even blinking if a store decided to extend their hours? Or open up on a *gasp* Sunday or holiday? Not in the culture that created and embraced Walmart and 24 hour shopping.

Turns out last month there was a similar debate in Geneva. There was such an outcry that the government couldn't pass bill...or whatever it was granting shops the right to be open for 3 Sundays in December. What they did allow was for shops to be open HOUR later. But they had to pay their employees double for that extra time! Can you believe that? I'm still reeling from the thought of it. I've adapted to much of life in Europe, but some days, some things just still hit me as completely absurd.

Who know, maybe they've got it right and the culture of consumerism in the United States should take a step back and look at how we run things. Then again, I can't see how having your shop open during the busiest buying season of the year for a couple of extra days - even if they are Sundays - is really such a huge deal.
What do you think?

Christmas is in the air!

Driving home from work tonight I had a flood of Christmas cheer as I drove through all the little French towns now adorned in lights. It just makes me so ready for Christmas to be here. I'm going to drag the hubby down to Divonnes-les-Bains one of these evenings to stroll through the town and revel in the lovely Christmas decor - and to take photos, of course.

I came home and threw on some Christmas tunes and jammed out to A Very Special Christmas while I did the dishes.

oh crap, just when I finally sit down to blog, the hubby is yelling at me that it's dinner time, someone is chatting with me on gmail so I keep hearing this boop, boop noise, aahhhh gotta go

How is it that EVERY time our landlord drops in the place is a complete disaster? I mean, Saturday the house was clean but between home repairs, the dog, and trying to get pies made for our friends Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday the place is once again in utter chaos. I had plans to pick up today...I just haven't quite gotten there yet. Then the doorbell rings and it's our landlord. She need to get to the cave in the back and forgot her key, can she come through our apartment? Of course she can. Only as I glance around I think, "Great, once again she sees the total chaos in which we live." The dishes aren't done, there's a pile of blankets on the couch making it look like I spend my days lazing about curled up in blankets (it may be true, but I don't want my landlord to know it), the living room is strewn with dismembered stuffed animals parts and their innards (stuffing, that is). Papers are piled up everywhere spilling over onto the floor, there's mud on the couch where Ally jumped up after coming in from her walk this morning, laundry is hanging from every available surface in the hopes it will be dry soon...the list just goes on and on. It's so embarrassing. Now I have the motivation to clean but my landlord is gone. Who will see my sparkling clean apartment? No one but me, the hubbster, and Ally. And you know that half an hour after he gets home the place will be in shambles again - the dog will have pulled the stuffing out of her toys, the dishes from dinner will be piled on the counter...oh what's the point. I should just curl up in those blankets on the couch with a good book and leave the place in the disastrous state it is currently in. why not? Unfortunately... or perhaps fortunately, I have too much of my mother in me to let it remain in such a state. So, I'm off to do battle once again with the cobwebs, dust bunnies, dirty dishes and all the rest.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Can't write much at the moment we're just waiting for our apple pie to come out of the oven then we're off to our Thanksgiving dinner (just 3 days late) at a friends house. We've made a pumpkin and an apple pie to help bring back warm memories of gorging ourselves with family and friends back in the States. It'll be fun to have a big Thanksgivingesque dinner with a bunch of friends, but the hermit in me really just wants to stay home. The thought of building up a nice fire and snuggling up on the couch with the hubbster and our doggy sounds like much more fun that hauling pies down the road and meeting new people. Yes, we'll know some of the people there and once we're there we'll have a wonderful evening...but what's that saying...something about an object in motion -well in this case a stationary object stays stationary unless forced to move by some external force. You get what I'm saying here? I just want to keep my lazy butt on the couch. oh well, better go check the pie and be off.

winter is here!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Yay!!! the first snowfall of the year is upon us. I have to revel in it as much as possible since there's a very good chance we won't get tons more. Then again, who knows, maybe this year the snow will keep on coming.

In preparation for the coming winter months we actually got off our butts and rented our ski equipment for the season. In retrospect we probably should have just bought everything last year instead of continually renting it...but we weren't sure we'd want to continue. And this year...well...it just seemed easier to rent. Someone else makes sure your equipment is in good condition, that your skis are waxed...I guess we're just too lazy. But, we're excited that ski season is close at hand.

I'm super excited that my family will be here in 4 short weeks. Time is flying by. Christmas is just around the corner and it will be so nice to see my whole family (even if we are a bit cramped in our 2 bedroom apartment).

In other news our favorite upstairs neighbors are moving out. We helped them move most of their stuff on Thursday. What a bummer. We so enjoyed having them as neighbors. They let us use their back yard for Ally, we were constantly borrowing things from them, we'd barbecue together, and have drinks, just all very neighborly stuff. we're hopeful that our new neighbors will be nice, but it just seems like no one will be quite as good. Well, we won't know till January, unless they find someone who wants to move in asap. Keep your fingers crossed that we have nice, dog loving neighbors. Well, it's late and I'm tired.

ciao!

Hippos in Houses

Another happy hippo. I WANT ONE!!!!

Behind again

Once again I'm way behind in updating. It's mid November and I haven't even finished posting about our trip to Italy at the end of August/beginning of September. To be fair, I have been working full time the past few weeks. A colleague's father passed away and I've been filling in for her, on top of that I got severely ill in the wee hours of last Friday morning and spent a good many hours retching and curling up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor. It was not a pretty sight and I'm not going to go into details here. Suffice it to say I wasn't in any condition to do anything but sleep. Then I was just wiped out for the next few days. Then DH got sick. He's been fighting something all week and came home early from work today with a fever, pounding headache and a feeling of nausea. Welcome to the sick house!

So, sorry I'm not really going to write too much now I'm trying to get the house back into order after all this sickness and I really need to take the dog for a walk since she was home bound yesterday due to an all-day downpour. I'll try and catch up more later.

A bientot

Election Day!!!

What are you doing reading this blog? You should be out there voting! I don't care who you vote for or what your main issues for a choosing a candidate are I just think everyone should get their rear ends out there and vote. We sometimes forget how lucky we are that we actually have a say in who runs our country.

So, stop reading and go cast your ballot!

to the top!

Saturday we decided we weren't going to be lazy, we were going to take advantage of the nice day, the sun shining to hike up the mountain. We've been meaning to climb our way to the top of the Jura ever since we got here and we haven't done it. So Saturday morning we said, "today is the day." We packed a little backpack with some snacks, a canteen of water and some dog biscuits and we were off!We headed straight from our door up the hill to a path through the reserve national, to a barbed wire fence, which we climbed over in order to stay on the trail. Why is there a barbed wire fence (or even multiple barbed-wire fences) in the national reserve is beyond me. Also beyond my realm of understanding is why dogs are allowed in cafes, boulangeries, grocery stores and any number of other places the rest of the world might think it unnecessary to allow dogs, but you aren't supposed to take them hiking in the National Reserve?!?! What's that all about? Obviously we just ignored the sign and took Ally on our hike with us. What else are you going to do?
So, admittedly after we clambered over our first barbed-wire fence we lost the trail for a bit...but then we noticed that the trees were trying to do math - there were large red numbers, minus, plus, and multiply signs all over the place! We thought, "hey, maybe their trying to tell us something." So we followed the signs and low and behold they took us higher and higher into the mountains.

After scaling some rocks...OK, OK we just climbed up a few moss covered rocks...we came to a road. Hum...I didn't know there was a road in this part of the Jura's. Are you telling me we could have driven all this way! man. Just kidding, at this point I was enjoying the hike immensely. We all were. Ally was absolutely loving it. Although I'm sure she would have preferred it even more if we had let her off her leash. But she's been naughty lately and running off so we had to keep her close.
Walking on the road was a nice little break. We didn't have to walk on stones and wet slippery leaves and we weren't walking straight up hill for a bit. I felt sure we were getting ever closer to the top. An hour later and a straight climb up my legs were burning, my chest was aching and it didn't feel like we were any closer to reaching the summit. I had to take constant breaks to sip some water and rest my throbbing legs. Between Ally and I we drained the canteen of water. good thing DH is in good shape or we'd have been in trouble. Next time we'll definitely take more water. I kept telling myself, " just put one foot in front of the other. You're the one that wanted to do this."

Lucky for me there were some pretty cool views from up there. that way I got to enjoy the scenery as I sat huffing and puffing trying to make my heart stop racing from the latest short burst of uphill climbing.




Sadly we didn't quite make it to the top. We made it to where the trees stopped and we could see the summit beckoning us. But it was going to be at least another half an hours walk straight up hill and we'd already been at it for 2 hours and 40 minutes. I just couldn't do it. We decided that it was close enough for us and we packed it in and headed back down the hill. All three of us were exhausted by the time we made it home. Naturally, going down hill was much easier. Although, you still had to be careful and your thighs still burned from the exertion of trying not to fall face first down the mountain. The fact that all the trails here seem to be covered in rocks that like to slide loose under your feet and you have to be extra careful on the way down. I made DH take the dog the whole way down because my legs felt like jelly and I was sure I'd loose my balance the first time she tugged and I'd end up being dragged face first down the mountainside. That would have been a pretty picture!
All in all it was a good, yet exhausting day. And I hope we have the energy to do it again some time.

Flashback: Day 5 Italy trip - Hiking and Cold, cold water

Our last day at the Italy Farmstay we went on a three hour hike (1 1/2 hours there and 1 1/2 hours back) in the Abruzzi National Forest. It was a really beautiful day, we walked down in a nice shady gorge along the river to a waterfall.
Not all the pictures are the best because the sun was so bright it's hard to photograph the vividness of colors and the definition in the rock face and all. I'm sure someone who knew a bit about photography could have taken some amazing shots, but I'm not that person.







I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves.

When we got to the waterfall DH and I, being crazy Americans, decided we should definitely take a swim in it. It was posted on their website that there was a hike that finished with a swim in a waterfall - we wanted the full experience. Antonello, our ever present host, warned us that it was very cold and no Italian would ever dream of going in. Well, OK he'd done it before, but not today he wouldn't. Despite that we flung our clothes into a pile and plunged into the icy waters.
Whoa doggy was it cold!
You'd think after a good hike in warm weather it would feel refreshing - you'd be wrong. It felt as though you were getting hypothermia just by sticking your big toe in the water. I think the pictures a bit too small but if you could zoom in on my face you'd see my reaction to the cold. It didn't help that we were barefoot and slipping and sliding over stones trying to avoid having our feet stabbed by the jagged ones lying in wait beneath that frigid pool.

this was the point where I decided I just couldn't take it. I was either going to just have to submerge myself in the ice bath or get out. I opted to get out. I never made it to the waterfall. I chickened out. My daring hubby was hot on my tail out of there.

I have to give credit where credit is due. After taking a small breather and staring at the waterfall, my brave hubby plunged back in determined to stick his head under the falls. And he did it. What a trooper! or maniac, however you might view such an act. He said the waterfall was painful, not only because it was cold but at how fast and hard it pelted down upon you.

We did learn one useful phrase that day. "Viramente, preferisco piu fredda" (Really I prefer it colder) I'm not sure if all my Italian is spelled correctly, I did my best to double check, but one can never be one hundred percent sure with another language.

After our bodies recovered from the shock of being put into freezing cold water we made our back. On our way home we stopped to pillage a Mulberry tree on the side of the road. I don't know if we were all just really hungry or what, but the general consensus was that Mulberries are the best fruit on earth! And just about the messiest as well. After we were done picking the Mulberries from the tree and stuffing them into our greedy little mouths we all looked like extras from a slasher film! The fruits red juice ran down our hands and arms, and covered our faces. mm mm...they were so good though.

On our drive back to the farm we stopped to take some pictures of a breathtaking view of the valley below us and to take another dip in some refreshing water. It was the second coldest water I'd been in that day. We were chattering and giggling after our dip in the freezing waters of the Italian mountains.







We made one more stop before heading for the farm and that was to do a mission impossible style raid on a corn field. We parked the car, ran through someones corn field ripping off ears of corn and hauling them back to the car. dumped them in the trunk and sped away. Once these ears were roasted up for dinner we took a big bite ready to savor the sweetness of our thieving. Only to discover that they were terrible. Antonello liked them but everyone else thought they were horrible. I'm convinced that it was cow corn - corn grown as feed for cattle. The cobs were red! I'm pretty sure sweet corn doesn't have a red cob. Antonello was disappointed that no one liked the corn, but I still had a good time picking! So, that was our final evening in Sora, Italy. The next morning we were up before the sun and taken to the bus station to catch a bus back to Naples then on to Atrani on the Amalfi coast. Stay tuned for the next flashback to hear about our adventures in the Amalfi coast!

Flashback: Day 4 Italy Trip - Horseback Riding!

That's right, we went to Italy to ride horses at the OK Corral! What a hoot.
Look at the hubbster sitting that horse! You never would have guessed it was his first time on a horse. Well, OK. I think he sat on a horse once and someone led it around an outdoor arena. He go SO frustrated with our host (who was also our riding instructor) because the first horse DH got on did not want to listen to him - or anyone. And, poor guy, the person there with the least experience was forced to jump up on the horse first and get a lesson. He was none to pleased with me for saying, "Yeah, get up there" when he tried to get someone else to go first. He did great even if he got a bit frustrated. Our host really wasn't the best at explaining to a beginner how to ride and horse and what to do exactly to make the horse go where you wanted it to go. In the end DH ended up with a great horse. A huge horse, but a gentle giant. He kept saying they had an agreement - DH wouldn't tell the horse what to do and the horse wouldn't try and throw DH off! A good agreement and since his horse (whose name I've forgotten) just wanted to follow along with the crowd there were no problems.
Here's a short video of Antonello, our host, showing us how to get on a horse.
Naturally, I admitted that I had quite a bit of experience riding (though not recently) and was put on the "crazy" horse. Just my luck! In fairness my horse wasn't so bad, but I did have to concentrate on showing him who was boss. Plus, on top of that, a couple of the other horses didn't like my horse - one tried to kick him in the face while we were on a narrow trail - but it was still fun.Here's a photo of us at the ruins of an old church. It was really cool. Since it was in ruins we could ride the horse right inside it. For me the best part was riding through the river. I thought is was just unbelievably cool, I don't think everyone was as enthusiastic as I was! Our legs got soaked. The water came up to about our knees! Yeah, it was that deep. We weren't supposed to take any photos while we were riding, but I asked Antonello if I could just snap a couple of quick shots and he agreed. I got one good one of everyone fording the stream. All in all I enjoyed the day and surprisingly my old riding lessons came back to me quite quickly. At first I was a little bit nervous around all the horses, like kids they can sense fear, so you just show them whose boss and move on. It was a beautiful day for a trail ride and it's just awesome to say, "Yeah, we went horse back riding in the Abruzzi National Forest in Italy. How many people can say that?














After our morning of riding we relaxed around the farm...probably took a nap. That evening we went into town and had an excellent dinner with another couple staying at the Farm. They were newlyweds on their honeymoon. We had a great time hanging out with them and jokingly told them we were stalking them since we had, at the last minute, decided to leave the farmstay a couple days early and head to the Amalfi Coast. Their next stop was the Amalfi Coast and we were now going to be leaving on the same day as them. It turned out we all took the same bus back to Naples then split up as their hotel was picking them up and we had to grab a train...but that's a story for another day.
Our meal in town was fantastic. A small little restaurant on a back street that served one thing. A seven-course meal of the chef's choosing. Everyone got exactly the same thing and it was divine. I still have the printed menu they gave us I can't translate it, but maybe it will end up in a scrapbook if I ever get around to putting one together of our travels through Europe!

Our plan for the evening was to take a taxi home.
We were told by our host that a local pizzeria had an under the table taxi service that would take us back to the farmstay. Sadly, this friendly taxi driver had picked up and moved to Scotland to open a fish and chips shop! go figure. So when we finished our meal at about 11:00 pm on a Saturday night we wandered all over town trying to find a taxi. We asked some police officers and they just laughed at us. Taxis!?!? In Sora!?? No way, it's too small of a town. Our only choice was to hike the 45 minutes back to the farm through the dark. It wasn't exactly easy going following the path through the woods and we almost missed a turn and would have ended up in at the farm with the volunteers if it wasn't for an observant Scotsman. At least we had good company, silly conversation, enough wine in us to keep us happy, and a beautiful fireworks display from the village on the top of the next hill. Funny enough, it was the rumor that there was a festival in Sora that Saturday which drew us there in the first place. Only to find out there wasn't any sort of festival in Sora, but a different town which was WAY too far to go no foot.


All in all it was a lovely day and a perfectly delicious evening with good conversation and excellent food. Salute!

Wine Tasting Party

First off, I just have to give props where they are due. I am married to most giving man ever. I can't believe how willingly he goes along with my craziness. Just one example. Last Tuesday night as we sat around eating dinner and talking about my upcoming birthday I suddenly decided I wanted to have a party. Not just any party, a wine tasting party. My head was teaming with ideas, all of which would cause tons of work for me (and the hubbster) during the week. Instead of telling me I was crazy for planning an elaborate last minute birthday celebration he went along with it and helped me make it work. Now, this might not be all that impressive to you, but on top of being supportive of my last minute birthday wishes, which meant extra work for him, he also had a killer week at work. He leaves tomorrow for Florence where he will be giving a talk at a conference so he has been working like a madman to get himself prepared. And I unkindly dump my plans to have a party straight into his lap. What a good guy!

So, anyways the party was a great success. Naturally, I forgot to take any pictures at all. I'll have to photograph the massive amount of empty wine bottles and an example of how the blind tasting went. I made little bags for the wine bottles labeled A, B, & C so we had multiple rounds of tasting. Each person brought a bottle of wine - actually, many people even brought 2 so there was plenty of wine to be had. I had made up slips of paper so you could mark down your impressions of each wine. We did the Sight, Sniff, Swig tasting method. You looked at the color of the wine ( I usually wrote something very insightful like, It's red or It's white) then we swirled it around stuck our schnoz down in the glass and took a big sniff. I could never describe the aroma. Mostly it just smelled like wine to me. Then we took a swig and this is where the descriptions got interesting. One wine was described as tasting like cow pee. How one might know what that tastes like is better left unasked. The funniest part was the person who wrote that it tasted of cow pee was the person who brought that very wine! ha, ha, the joke was on him!

Not only were my guests expected to faithfully fill out their wine cards, I also forced them to play games. During different rounds of tasting you had to figure out what region the wine came from, or the varietal. It was good fun. Being experts at tasting wine (snort, giggle) we all took wild guesses. I did make it easier by saying, "OK, there are 3 wines here. One is a local French wine, one is a Californian wine, and one is a Bulgarian wine. Guess which is which." It was fun. If you guessed the most correctly you won a prize. I had a grab bag full of wrapped prizes. I had a laugh picking out the cheapest, cheesiest things I could. There was a plastic soccer whistle, alien shaped erasers, a giggle stick, a cow in a can (when you turned it over it mooed like a cow - one of my favorites), 6 tiny, pink, Cinderella yoyos...tons of junk like that. You can imagine how excited people were when they won!

I also made everyone take a wine quiz and write their own wine notes - which were then read aloud. some of them were hysterical. I'll have to look around and see if I have any left. one said, this wine pairs perfectly with stale Christmas candy and post-Christmas orgasms. What more could one ask for in a wine?

By the end of the evening I had drank a wee too much wine and fell asleep on the couch. Thankfully everyone except our upstairs neighbor was gone so they didn't witness this embarrassing display of my lack of restraint when it comes to drinking wine. I think a wine tasting party is definitely something we should do again...only next time I won't be the server, which resulted in me pouring myself a glass of wine approximately every 5-10 minutes. Yeah, that might have been the problem.

anyhoo, I think everyone had a good time, I know I did and I'm the birthday girl so in the end that's all that matters -right?

Just a quicky!

This really isn't much of a post I just wanted to say if the lovely gentleman who phoned me weeks ago, just before we left for our Italy trip, reads this please give me a call. I've lost your name and phone number.
For everyone else a very nice gentleman who just moved to Sergy with his family phoned me saying he'd seen my blog and he and his wife were looking for other English speakers in the area to make their move here a bit easier. He works for Proctor and Gamble and sounded very nice. We were going to make a play date for our dogs but, alas, between vacationing, having guests, and weekend trips I've lost the scrap of paper I wrote his info on.

So, if you're out there I'm not ignoring you I just don't know how to contact you and life has been particularly busy lately. Sorry! Drop me a line sometime.

Flashback::Day 3 Italy Trip -Cheese making

We were up before the sun in order to pile into a car with our fellow guests - in fact one of the guests got roped into driving one of the cars (our car) to our destination- by 5 0'clock am. I'm glad I wasn't the one who got stuck driving up those windy roads in the pitch darkness. Where were we headed at such an early hour, you might? To visit the shepherd who was going to show us how he makes Pecorino cheese, of course.
We drove quite a ways up the mountain then parked. We looked about we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. To our left was a path rising steeply up the mountain. We were informed we had to hike the rest of the way to the shepherd's hut. Now, the shepherd doesn't live in this hut, although there was a small bed in the chaotic one room shelter at the top of the mountain. the Shepherd, in fact, was late arriving as there had been a festival in his town the night before and he had been out late indulging in wine and celebration. Needless to say we were not the happiest of campers to have been woken up before the sun came up to hike up a mountain only to sit outside in the cold dawn waiting for the shepherd, then waiting while he milked every sheep and goat in his heard. And all this without even a drop of coffee or a morsel of food. I did my best not to be crabby and my DH is the champ at remaining calm and going with the flow. Hippos do not find it easy to keep their tempers and a positive frame of mind in the wee hours of the early morning with an empty belly and not even a hint of coffee in site. can you make out the pen full of sheep and goats in the light that gradually illuminated our surroundings?
To be fair it was kinda cool to watch the shepherd grabbing the sheep and goats and going to town milking by hand. He seemed to just know which ones he'd already milked and which ones still needing to be milked. But I didn't need to sit in the cold dawn for 45 minutes watching him milk. I would have been quite happy to see him milk a couple of sheep and a goat and then get on with it. Oh well, that was not to be and I really shouldn't complain...I mean how many people ever get such an experience? Not many and I never thought I'd be trekking up a mountainside to watch an actual shepherd milking his flock and making cheese from the mornings takings.
Here's the shepherd breaking up rennet (sheep's stomach-actually I think it's from the lambs stomach) which is used in the heated milk to make curd. It makes the milk curdle or coagulate and form the cheese curds. Pretty cool. He used a stick with branches sticking out at all angles to str the milk as it coagulated. Then he pulled out the clumps of curd to form into cheese. He asked if anyone wanted to help. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to help. At the very least I'd get warm up my hands playing with the hot cheese curd! I was told I needed strong arms and after pushing that mass of warm curd into small circular containers and squeezing out the liquid I knew why. My forearms were aching by the time we were finished even though he let me do the easy part. I was complemented for my performance and told I could apprentice to become a shepherd and cheesemaker! hmmm....if I run out of career options I guess I can always fall back on becoming a shepherdess, eh?
While the jovial shepherd and I were hard at work pressing the liquid out of the cheese curd that would become Pecorino cheese with some aging my fellow observers were busy helping themselves to the fresh cheese curd and bread with some delicious olive oil pressed on the farm by the shepherd and his wife. Luckily my husband took pity on me and shoved some of these delicous treats in my mouth as I busily pushed the cheese curds into their forms. I don't know if it was because I was starving or what, but I thought it was heavenly. Once all the curd was squeezed into their required forms the shepherd released me from my task as helper and proceded to cover each wheel in salt. this salt rind would encase the cheese while it aged to perfection.


After this the milk was placed back over the fire till it was boiling. They were now going to make ricotta cheese. Looks yummy doesn't it? blah. there was this sort of milky smell mixed with that of the woodfire the permeated the air. they scooped out the globs that formed and this was the ricotta. What was left was whey. we were informed that drinking whey was very healthy for you. IT balanced your stomach along with a list of other benefits. Our host stated he thought that whey would become a phenomenal hit across the world...or at least it should . He even had a slogan, "It's whey good!" ha, ha, ha what a card. The adventurous amongst us excepted a hot glass of whey and tentatively brought the little plastic cups to our lips.
Check out my hubbster partaking in his steaming hot whey! Looks like he loves it doesn't it? Actually, it was more that it was just scalding hot. Not that the heat wasn't appreciated that cold dewy morning, but it was still quite shockingly hot when your hands are stiff with cold. I don't know how the shepherd and his life could wear short sleeves! They must be crazy.

the whey wasn't too bad. To me it basically just tasted like really hot watered down milk. Not bad, but not something I'd take up drinking everyday or ever again really. But I"m glad that I tried it. On our trek back down the mountain we could finally see the beautiful scenery surrounding us at last. Despite the early hours and the cold wait I was really glad we had made the effort to visit the shepherd and participated in making some fresh cheese. We stopped by the shepherds home and bought some Pecorino cheese. Iit was only 2 weeks old so was soft and tasted very much like the fresh stuff we had tasted that morning. Many of our fellow guests were disappointed because they wanted aged Pecorino. I've never had it but as it ages it gets much harder and eventually it is so hard it's like a Parmesian cheese and is supposedly quite good grated over pasta. Oh well, maybe next time we'll get some aged Pecorino. We also bought a bottle of olive oil which is absolutely delicious. That afternoon DH and I took our cheese, olive oil, some bread and Prosciutto we'd bought at the store and took a little hike to the other farm owned by our host for a private little picnic. It was great.

We spread out our blannket in the shade of a tree over looking our hosts olive orchards (he presses his own olive oil as well) with the mountains looming behind us. It was a perfectly romantic picnic. It was the perfect afternoon for lazing about eating grapes we picked from our hosts vineyards, indulging in fresh cheese and olive oil and just basking in the warmth and each others company. A good book and a round of UNO set things off perfectly. Beautiful surroundings, good company, and fabulous food, what more can you ask for?








I'll leave you with a video my husband took of me hard at work with the shepherd! The tall, thin man with the glasses who shows everyone the proper way to eat cheese curds, bread and olive oil is our host, Antonello. I thought he was really funny, but I think it takes a particular kind of temperment and humor to appreciate him! *well I attempted to put up the video but it doesn't seem to want to work. I tried until about midnight last nigth and again this morning. If I can figure it out I'll try again later*