Cinque Terre, Italy

Don't get excited, I'm not returning to blogging with any regularity...but we had a fantastic trip to the Cinque Terre and I have a bit of down time at home (my Mom is sick with Shingles and the weather is drab) so I thought I'd try and post a little account of our trip.



My parents arrived in Geneva on August 19th, we spent a few days lazing around the house and visiting the nearby towns while they got over their jet-lag. I have to say they are amazing. I feel terrible from jet-lag every time I travel back and forth from the U.S., but they seemed to adjust very quickly. We wandered the local towns and I showed them the Academy were I work and took them to a lovely dinner at the Buvette de la plage. A little restaurant on Lake Geneva which is a stone's throw from work. My colleagues and I often stop by for a drink after work in the summer months when the weather is gorgeous and we're finished working by 5:30pm. It's really pretty fabulous. My friend (and colleague), Nick, had some friends in town as well so we all had dinner together. They were a laugh. Then we headed to the Tannay Chateau to enjoy a free jazz concert.

Sunday we jumped in the car and headed off to Italy. It was about a 6 hour drive which we broke up with a picnic lunch and then an hour stop in Genoa. By the time we actually arrived in Riomaggiore (the Cinque Terre town we were staying in) it was nearly 8pm. We were all happy to get out of the hot, sticky car - unfortunately we have no air conditioning and Italy is hot. We found the apartment we were staying in and enjoyed a nice dinner before exploring the town.

For those who don't know the Cinque Terre (5 Lands or often seen in Italy abbreviated as 5 Terre) is a chain of 5 towns on the Italian coast which have become a national park. The towns are starting from the North; Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. No cars are allowed into the towns and there are hiking trails along the coast which connect all 5 towns. Some trails are short and easy to hike, others are quite long with lots of ups and downs and foot wide paths with no fences forcing you to cling to the cliff side when other hikers need to pass. There is also a convenient train that connects the 5 towns and is an extremely cheap way to get around when you've spent too long at the beach and just can't make the hike in the blazing hot afternoon sun.

Our first day we hit the "beach" in Riomaggiore. I say "beach" because it wasn't a beach in the sense of lots of sand. It was a beach of boulders and large rocks. The water was so clear you could see to the bottom and with goggles you could watch the little fishies swimming by. We spread out blanket and towels and dove into the Mediterranean. I loved it while we were out swimming staring at the rocky coast and clambering onto the boulders out in the water. Unfortunately, when I wanted to stretch out and relax in the hot sun to read my book or take a little snooze I found I just couldn't find a comfortable place on the rocks. It was just too hard from my taste. I wanted to lie back with sand beneath me and molding to me. The Hubbster loved the water. He wanted to rent some snorkeling gear, but decided to wait till we found just the right beach and were sure we were going to stay for a large portion of the day. After a picnic lunch we decided to drop off our cooler at the apartment and hike our first trail - the Via dell'Amore. A short, 20 minute hike to the next town Manarola. The trail was well-paved with lights in the cliffs making it nice for a night stroll. Apparently it has become a tradition to lock a padlock to the fences with your honey to symbolize your love. The local hardware stores now sell engraved silver and gold padlocks for lovers to buy and leave on the path.

We explored Manarola following Rick Steve's self-guided tour (I bought his Snapshot guidebook of the Cinque Terre and it was quite helpful). We took the vineyard hike and enjoyed the beautiful terraced hillsides. Then found a place to take another dip in the water. Again the "beach" was rocks and this time a cement ramp. the water here was extremely deep and for some reason didn't seem quite as crystal clear as the mornings water in Riomaggiore. It was definitely a refreshing break. After our cooling swim we decided to tackle the next hike which was a bit longer and more rugged, but only about 45 minutes to the next town, Corniglia (pronounce Cornelia). After a beautiful (but warm) hike we were glad to get to Corniglia, ready to sit down and enjoy a glass of water and a cold glass of white wine. Only problem was the trail ends at the train station and the town is at the top of the cliffs. Time to trudge up more stairs in order to reward ourselves with some wine and gelato.
Corniglia is a beautiful little town with crooked, narrow streets and charming shops. We had a lovely bottle of Cinque Terre white wine at an Enoteca on the main street. A charming atmosphere and some unexpected nibbles made it the perfect little break. We even met the owner before we left to find some dinner. We followed Rick Steve's advice and made for Le Cecio restaurant with good food and a lovely view and not so charming service. He was 100% correct. We were the first people there and when I asked if they were open the woman slowly looked at the clock, ascertained that it was 7:00pm and grudgingly told us "Si" and let us choose our seats. We probably didn't endear ourselves to her by staring at all the empty tables wondering which one would be the best...when they all pretty much had exactly the same view. Seriously, our decision making skills could really use some work! The meal was very good. We had a good time laughing, eating and drinking wine. If I remember correctly DH and Mom were particularly impressed with the pesto. Apparently pesto is one of the regions specialties. I feel like I read somewhere they pretty much invented pesto in this region...but I could be mistaken on that one. After dinner we, naturally, found the gelateria and partook in what would become our ritual of sampling gelato from each of the 5 towns. Hands down, this artiginale gelato (handmade gelato) was the best I tasted. The dark chocolate and mint chocolate chip were to die for. DH preferred the limone gelato in Riomaggiore, Dad liked the gelato everywhere, and I believe Mom agreed with me - hands down the best we tried!
As evening was approaching we decided to hit the trails back to our apartment before it got too dark. Luckily it was light out as we hiked from Corniglia to Manarola and the Via dell'amore (from Manarola to Riomaggiore) had lights along the path, which was really quite beautiful. Hmmm...looks like my "short" account has once again turned into a novel. Well, that completes the arrival of my parents, enjoying our local area, getting to the Cinque Terre, and our first full day there. Considering I am soon finished with my vacation and back to work we'll see if I ever finish the telling of the rest our holiday in Italy! I'll try my best, but make no promises....so savor the ridiculous drivel I've written so far (at least the photos are pretty good). Ciao!

Fete des Vendanges Russin

Hey, hey, hey! after months of silence on the blog front I've finally found a free minute to sit down and post something. I know, I know all my fans will be ecstatic! er...wait...what fans? Anywho, here's a little bit about the Fete des Vendanges (the Harvest Festival) held in Russin, Switzerland that we attend this weekend. I'd heard of this festival before, but had never managed to get there. Then when I was looking up different wine festivals, in order to tempt my sister and brother-in-law to come visit next September I stumbled upon it again- and we actually made it there!

we went with some friends who had never been either. We took a rather long way to get there since we missed the road we were supposed to turn on (thanks mapman!) Eventually, we got to just outside the town and discovered that the road was blocked. We parked at a church and kept our fingers crossed no one would care and started walking. We heard a band and followed the music. The road started winding up the hillside and we all sighed when we realized we'd have to trek all the way to the top to get to the festival. We kept telling ourselves it was just good exercise to prepare us for all the yummy food we'd get at the festival. We passed vineyards full of lovely grapes, hanging there just beckoning for us to pick them. Not really the best photo...but what can you expect I wanted to get to the food and wine!

Russin, the town where the festival was held, was packed with people. Kids with balloons, parents with bottles of wine, or glasses of Mout.

Sadly, we missed the 22 Yodelers who had performed that morning, but we were in time to catch the tail end of a parade with floats. My favorite was the float full of full-grown Smurfs (or schtroumpfs as they are known in French) and a giant Schtroumpf house! Loved it. It made me laugh when the people covered in blue make-up saw a friend and would jump off the float and give the obligatory 3 kisses (les bises) leaving their friends faces smudged with blue! OK, so we really only saw 2 floats, but we followed the smurfs along and they led us to one of the best parts of the festival. A big flat-bed filled with crates of different varieties of grapes there for the taking. We each grabbed a bunch of grapes and chowed down.


Oh they were so yummy! It's amazing how sweet some of them are considering the wine that they produce. Here's a photo of the Doc trying to decide which type of grape he should grab a bunch of. He went down the whole line sampling every single type until he found the one he wanted to carry around with him. My choice was the Syrah. Not only do I like the wine, I also like the Syrah grapes!

Also in the same place was the famous Mout. The very first pressing of the grapes with absolutely NOTHING added to it. Just pure grape juice. No alcohol, no sugar. It was interesting. Nothing like what we would think of as grape juice and nothing like wine. It had a bit of an aftertaste and was quite sweet, but not too bad. The hubbster liked it quite a bit - then again, it was sweet so of course he liked it. hee, hee.
We around through the crowds exploring the festival. We watched some dancers all decked out in traditional garb dancing near a giant milk can.

I don't know if you can really see the dancers in the photo amongst the crowd. They had green hats trimmed in red on.

there were also your typical fair games and rides for the kiddies. One that we particularly liked and debated whether is would be allowed in the US or UK these days (such litigious societies), was this sort of swing. The kids would stand up in the center of it and bend their legs to make it swing higher and higher. It was started off by some guy pushing them, of course. It was great. I SO wanted to do it. Sadly, I was too old and too big for them. Besides, I'd rather throw my money away on food and drink rather than purchasing over priced ride tickets, know what I mean?

Anyways, it was good fun. we had some good food - Tartiflette - so we didn't really branch out there, since we know we love Tartiflette. Ah, it's getting to be good, cool autumnal weather. Perfect for warm comfort foods like Tartiflette, fondue, and all the other cheese heavy Swiss/French dishes that are so common to this area.

Well goodness, this post has taken me ages. Now I remember why I hadn't done one in some time. If I don't get a move on we won't eat dinner till 10pm! Later gators.

Nyon, Switzerland and the American Market

so, I wouldn't say it's really been a relaxing weekend, it's been quite active, but it' s been a good weekend. Today we went skiing in Crozet this morning for about3 hours and then we had a nice afternoon around the house. It was a gorgeous day and we took a monster walk with Ally. An active day, but really enjoyable.
Yesterday we went shopping at the outlets in Aubonne, Switzerland - I was trying to find a dress for the upcoming wedding and the hubbster needed a new shirt for same. Then we stopped in Nyon and wandered around the town. It's quite cute actually. We meander through the streets, stopped in a couple of shops, walked by the Chateau de Nyon (it's open other times of year for tours but not now), found the American Market (the real reason my hubby wanted to go there) and then headed back home. On the way stopping at yet another mall, hitting up two hardware stores in search of charcoal or charbon as they say in French (not charbois, as we asked one store employee who looked at us like we were crazy - oops). so, it was busy busy, but although it is always tiring going shopping it was nice because we had no time constraints we could take as much or as little time as we wanted.
Here are few photos from Nyon.


I really like the view of Lake Geneva and the alps from the Chateau de Nyon.
Now, a few words about the American Market. As you might have guessed from the name it is, indeed, a store that sells American food. I just walked around in awe. Not only were there shelves full of good ol' goodies from the US of A they cost a freaking FORTUNE. I would NEVER ever in my life in the United States consider paying such outrageous sums of money for that stuff...but when you live in Europe and you can't find it anywhere else you are tempted to pay a small fortune for those little things that remind you of home. For examply you could get a box of graham crackers (nabisco) for 14.10 swiss francs - that equals $11.85! Who on earth pays that much for a box of graham crackers? But I was tempted. I ended up walking away, but there was a part of me that was ready to fork over any sum for those precious graham crackers. They had so many things I didn't realize I missed till they were there staring me in the face. It's like when you used to have something as a kid and you haven't had it in years and suddenly it's right there in front of you. You just suddenly want it, there' s no rational reason why but you just think, "I have to get it." Actually, we were very good. Despite all the temptations we only came away with one purchase. Karo syrup. You just can't find corn syrup anywhere...or at least I haven't been able to figure out what it's French equivalent is. There are few recipes I'd like to make that call for corn syrup so I bit the bullet and shelled out 8 swiss francs for it. Crazy, but I figured it would last a while. Besides, I know you can make it from scratch (I looked it up on line ages ago) but facts are facts I'm never going to get around to making it. So, I bought it.

I wish I had taken some pictures inside the store, but I was so caught up in the joy of all those American treats! Crisco (which I wanted but just could NOT bring myself to pay $10 for a small can), poptarts, fundips, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, margarita mix, Cheerios, Jello, Ranch dressing, Newman's own dressing, shake and bake, the list goes on and on. I'm glad we found it for those times we just feel homesick and need a little shake and bake goodness! all in all a fun day.

A relaxing weekend

So, it's 9:30 am and we've already been to the vets. Ally has been limping for the past four days and yesterday it was pretty bad so I broke down and made her an appointment. Naturally, she wakes up this morning and is pretty much fine. Barely a limp to be seen. We took her in anyways just to have it checked out and, as we thought, there's not much the vet can do. She gave us some pills for the inflammation and if it starts up again we're supposed to take her in for x-rays. If it's arthritis they can locate where it is with the x-rays. The hubby and I were both rather shocked to realize that our little puppy is nearly 6 years old! This August she'll be 6. while that's not ancient by any means she's getting older so she'll probably start to have more aches and pains.

Oh well, my mind is at ease that nothing horrendous is wrong with our dogs leg, so now I'm going to change and we're going to head off to the shops to search for a wedding dress...and maybe a hat as well. I mean, it IS an English wedding. Hopefully, we'll have more success than we have had clothes shopping in the past. It's difficult determining which European size you were. And, I don't know, the styles and fit just seem different and I have trouble getting used to them. I mean let's be real, I'm no fashionista. I'm most comfortable in loose jeans and t-shirt. but it's fun to dress up every now and then or to go shopping for a nice outfit.

so, I'll let you know how we fare. gotta run.

brief update

So, I'm getting used to the new do. If I want it to look all smooth and sleek like it did after visiting the hairstylist I have spend some time with it...but so far that doesn't bother me. Give me a couple more weeks and I'll be saying, "aw, forget it. I'm not spending 20 minutes blow drying my hair!"
The kids at the theatre are really funny about my haircut. Some of them look at me and say, "you look different. What did you do?" Others shout, "You got your haircut!"

In other news I'm currently on a travel kick. I've planned a small trip to Venice in May. I'm really excited about it. I've wanted to go to Venice for ages and I just thought, "right, I'm going to do it. There's never a good time, so I'm going to choose a weekend and we're going." so that's what I did. Yay! Of course, it wasn't that simple. I looked up flights, found some awesomely cheap ones but didn't book them because I needed to make sure I could take that particular Friday off from work. then when I went to book them the flights has gone up. Not too much, so I thought screw it we're still going. Then last night I sat down to book the flights at around 7:15, but then we were late for dinner with our friends so I said, "I'll just do it when we get home. No big deal." 5 hours later when we got home and I sat down to book them the flights had doubled! Can you believe that bull? Doubled in 5 hours! What crap. I was so mad I felt like breaking something.

so, my darking hubby found a different airline, with slightly cheaper tickets and we said, "Screw it, we're going." so about an hour ago I booked our tickets. Hooray! Venice, here we come. 3 days and nights in Venice. Should be good. We're going to stay in this little apartment you can check it out here: www.cagarzotti.it It actually turns out to be cheaper than most of the hotels I looked at and we get a whole apartment all to ourselves - with a kitchen and everything. Plus it's right in Venice not off the island. It should be a good trip. i'll try and be better about sharing photos and stories immediately after we get back instead of 3 months later...but I can't promist anything.

OK gotta run.
ciao!

ahhh, I did it!

I finally cut my hair! And I love it. This will probably just be a quick post while I'm waiting for my cookies to get out of the oven. But, back to my hair. I've been thinking of cutting it for over a year. In fact, since after our wedding in September 2007. After the wedding I did cut it, but not too drastically, just shoulder length. Then I didn't get my haircut again until this morning - not even a trim! yikes, I really needed a haircut. How terrible my ends were -it's almost too embarrassing to write about...but not quite.

there's my first attempt at taking my own photo! I didn't set the timer for long enough. Here's a better one.

I'm still getting used to the not quite long bangs that often fall in my eyes. but I'm sure I'll figure out a way to make it work for me. Actually, knowing me I"ll probably just tuck that bit behind my ear or pin it back with a bobby pin. Which sort of ruins the idea of the style...but well..that's me!

I really like it and funny enough it's still just long enough that I could pull it back into a dinky little pony tail! hee, hee. it looks ridiculous, but I could do it if I wanted to. I'm sure tomorrow I'll cry about cutting all my hair off, but today I love it. Then again it looks terrific and my hair feels so smooth and soft because a professional styled it. Wait until the first day I try to style it myself. I'll probably start throwing things and screaming. Won't that be a treat for the hubby?

Here's a photo with it more off my face. This is probably how it will end up looking more often than not - like this

What do you think? Sometimes I look in the mirror and think it makes me look like high schooler again...and I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Ah well. For the moment I'm really in love with it and myself! I wanted to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe to go with my new haircut. but I'm a good girl and didn't. I already paid a decent amount for the haircut, like I'm going to fork over more money today! What a tight fisted dork I am. Gotta love it. So, hope you all like my new do. Stay posted to see if I'm still enamored with it over the next few days! hee, hee, hee seriously, every time I pass a reflective surface I stare at myself. People at the mall must have thought I was totally vain! I guess I am a bit!

life's little dilemmas

I don't know what to do. We have been invited to co-workers wedding in April in England and a part of me would really like to go and another part of me shudders at the thought of spending so much money for a two day trip to go to a wedding of people I don't know all that well. On the one hand I work with her and I have met her fiance, we've had drinks before and socialized at theatre events and stuff. On the other hand it is a bit hard for me to justify the expense when they're not really close friends. I mean I wasn't even sure we were going to be invited. I could understand if we weren't considering...well I guess I met them a year and a half ago. It doesn't seem that long.

On the plus side we'd get to go to Telford, England - somewhere we've never been and stay in a very cool looking haunted hotel. Down side it would be a very quick trip without any real option of making it into a longer trip. We'd both have to get back to work asap. hmmm...the hubbster is being really great about it all. He knows the couple somewhat and is willing to go if that's what I want, but wouldn't be fussed if we missed the event either. Great, that means it's my decision and I HATE making decisions. Especially when there is money concerned. I can't help it I can be a real cheapskate at times. It's so selfish that part of me thinks, well if we spend the money to go to the wedding then that's one less long weekend elsewhere in Europe that we'd be taking. But, then I think maybe a weekend in Telford, England would be fantastic and I'd really miss something. Just because it's not on my list of places to go in Europe doesn't mean it wouldn't be a really nice weekend trip. Plus we'd get to party down at the reception.

Oh the other thing is that it is Black Tie! Yikes! I can't figure out if that's a plus or a minus. It's a plus because it's always fun to get all dolled up. A minus/plus because I'd have to buy a new dress and while I love getting new clothes there's that whole parting with my money thing again (do you see the Scrooge trend emerging yet?). It's not just having to buy a new dress it's that clothing here is super expensive. And the hubby would have to get some new clothes too. I looked it up on-line and it does say that men can wear a dark suit with a white shirt and black tie if the Black Tie wedding is in the afternoon. The wedding is at 1pm, so I'm figuring he'd be safe enough in his suit. It's dark grey...do you think that counts? Gosh I hope so because we really can't afford to buy him a new suit. The wedding would definitely be out if that were the case. Then again, it would be pretty cool for the hubby to get a suit here. When we move back to the States he could be like, "Oh this, yeah. I bought it in Europe." Or "Oh I picked this up in Italy" wouldn't that be sweet? OK, OK it's just a dream, but it would still be pretty rockin'. Admit it, you think so to.

Well, I'm tired. I need to get to bed. think of me tossing and turning trying to figure out what to do about this wedding dilemma: to go or not to go, that is the question. I'm sure I'll figure it out, I just hope it's soon...