May 1st

It's beautiful weather outside and it's a HOLIDAY! :-)

2 + 6 = 8

I nearly forgot to commemorate another year... I turned 26 on April 4th.
Thanks for the Birthday wishes everyone!

Always interested in destiny, I wonder, what does my Personal Year hold in store for me?
4 + 4 = 8
2 + 0+ 0 + 7 = 9
8 + 9 = 17 = 1 + 7 = 8

Personal Year 8. . . . Attainment and capital gains
This is a number 8 personal year for you. This is your power year, a period when you can make important strides in you life. Coming after a very slow and introspective period (the personal year 7), you may start feeling some stirrings of ambitions. This is a year of big decisions and major achievements. Activity is your keynote now, and you will find yourself very much involved and occupied. Opportunities for advancement and recognition for past and current work is likely to come about during this year. You have things going for you so long as you take advantage and act. It is easy for you to branch out and expand in a businesslike manner. If you are at all inclined, this is the time to exude self-confidence and authority, because others will tend to be receptive to your leadership and control. Your power and status potential is at a peak of the nine years personal epicycle that concludes at the end of the next year.(Source: astrology-numerology.com)

Doesn't sound half bad, now, does it?

24 & Ishiguro

I've done it again... spent many hours with my eyes glued to my laptop, riveted by the one and only... Jack Bauer. Sad, really. Or would be if I cared. Right now all I can think about is when and where I can continue watching season five. Luckily tomorrow is a holiday.

Between 24 and sleeping I managed to sneek in some good old-fashioned reading time. Kazuo Ishiguro captured me with Never let me go and The remains of the day. Both books fascinating, the former gruesomely so.

Home & Geneva

One of the good things about being ill (flu - nothing serious), is the fact that all my weekend retreats (family, boyfriend, friends) have wireless internet access. It is such a joy to be able to read my private mail again!

After an eight weeks stint in Morges, I now finally own a key to a flat (well, room would be more accurate) in Geneva! Now summer can come and I’m ready… with the beautiful waters of the Lac Léman in walking distance and a street full of shops open 24/7… all seems quite promising!

Arosa

Had a girlie weekend last week up in Arosa... yet again.
We partied all night and well into the day. Which obviously meant that we didn't manage to sandwich much snowboarding in between the drinking and dancing..
Managed to dance the night away with some random guy... a fantastic leader, I was sooo impressed!

Over

There. As of today, I am officially no longer a sales rep.
Funnily enough, I have a strange feeling about giving up the freedom of driving around, visiting clients. It was nice being my own boss (sort of, at least.) Do I miss it already?
Or is it just my sentimental side is coming to the fore? Whatever this feeling is, it is definitely being intensified by the fact that I have to give up my car! (sniff)

New toy

I have a new toy: the ipod nano 8 GB.
It's black, cute and (most importantly) has the ability to reduce the boredom of a 3 hour train journey to an absolute minimum.

Toe

On a whim, a few friends and I decided to go up a mountain for a bit of snowy fun. So yesterday saw us zooming up the 351 corners to reach Arosa. After having rented our sledges, up we went to the Weisshorn with the gondola.

We decided to do a bit of après-ski (or avant-sledge in our case) first, for a bit of Dutch courage.
The girls became highly animated and introduced me to weird drinks such as "Gsichtli" (meaning "face"; made out of peppermint tea with peach schnapps) and "Holderio" (elderflower tea with some kind of fruit schnapps) - both AWFUL! I stuck to my mulled wine (thank you very much!) and we happily sipped and slurped, enjoying the sun. Until we suddenly realised, that the sun had practically set and we had better get our butts down the slope pronto!
Grabbing our sledges we first didn't manage to open the lock and our cries of dismay send many suspicious glances in our direction. Eventually the lock sprung open and we set off down the sledge run. Faster and faster we flew, past dark trees and straggling pedestrians (who jumped to the side in a hurry). Then, a sharp corner and a weird sensation overtook me: I was flying! Straight for a tree! I managed to twist to the side and bumped myself roughly but avoided a head on collision, which would undoubtedly have been more painful for me than for the tree.
Always a trooper (or thanks to the alcohol dulling the pain) I got back on the angel of doom (= sledge) and got down without further mishap. At home I discovered that my toe had turned a nice shade of black and yellow. Luckily that was all the damage. But I cannot walk for two days, which means that nor can I finish my moving. What a drag.

Moving

Yuck. I am moving down to Morges today. The second stop on my way to Geneva.
Just the thought of lugging all my stuff from A to B is enough to send me into hiding.

We went to a Ü25 (Ü stands for "over") Party yesterday. Really brought home the fact that age is creeping up slowly... where is my anti-aging cream?

Let it snow

Snow is transforming Northern Switzerland into a fairy wonderland at last.
Winter did not seem winter without a bit of frosting.

Next month sees me saying goodbye to Berne and hello to Geneva. Hopefully I will stay there for longer than 6 months. That is the plan, in any case!

HOT TIP
If you want to see the latest tv shows, check out all u c . It provides a collection of links, from which you can watch all the latest series online. (It is also showing the current season of 24...)

Back

Soo... I'm back. What riveting news.
(I apologise for the sarcastic edge, but I am just not THAT thrilled to be back in albeit autumn-y, not wintry, Switzerland. With the exception of seeing friends & family of course!)

Australia was fantastic.
A laidback and friendly country with beautiful scenery, intriguing animals and most importantly 35°C!
We flew to Sydney via Tokio, which was a bit of a strain. We arrived looking like wet, disheveled rags and envying all who managed to look fresh after our long flight. Having six hours in which to amuse ourselves at Tokio airport, we discovered the conveniency of their ‘Day rooms’. These rooms are very small single or double bedrooms, with a private bathroom, to be booked by the hour. After our gruelling flight a three hour kip was just what we needed!

Spending Christmas Day away from my family felt slightly strange. But as we were so jetlaged, we slept most of the day anyway. Boxing Day, I rose bright and early, all set to start the day with a good cup of coffee. The barrista was a chatty person and asked me if we were planning to hit the sales. “Sales?!” I squeeked. “Oh yes, Boxing Day Sales are THE sales of the year. Everyone looks forward to them.” Hmm. And here I was thinking that we may manage to travel without breaking the bank. Well, that apparently was not meant to be!

Sydney was lovely if windy. We took the ferry out to Manly beach and ended up having our first surf lesson there. It was fantastic, even if we did swallow half the ocean. Luckily the water there is soooo clean! A friend is / was taking an English course at a language school down on Bondi Beach. She introduced us to the Australian way of life by hosting a BBQ (or barbie) on the beach. We ate English sausages and a skippy (kangaroo), the latter unfortunately did not agree with everyone’s stomachs.

Driving down from Townsville to Airlie Beach was uneventful, even if we were driving on the “wrong” side of the road. We must have made a very half-baked impression on the Europcar guy... he even drew us a detailed map on how to get to airlie beach (ca. 3 hours drive straight down the coast). As I said, very kind and helpful people.

We saw the New Year in with a countdown and two Australian guys. Both had decided to come up to Airlie Beach by themselves for the New Year. Funny that.

As the beach was off limits on account of the stingers (jellyfish), we took a sailing boat trip out to Whitehaven beach. That was quite an experience!

On we drove down to Noosa, breaking the journey in Yeepoon, a town that could have been the setting for the film “psycho”. Needless to say, I did not sleep a wink in that motel!

Our next stop was Noosa, a lovely place, if catering solely for tourists. We discovered the many pleasures of Australian wine and bland food. (Even if everything sounds and looks so appealing, the Aussies do not know how to season their food! Such a disappointment!)

I met an English couple who had just been to Singapore and they were showing me a film of the sights. We kept chatting with me occasionally glancing down at the camera, when suddenly a lady from a nearby table stood up and approached me. "You do realise that you have been filming for quite some time with the cap still on the front of the camera!" She blurted out. I looked at her in amazement and tried to stifle a laugh. "I am not really filming, but watching a film. But thanks for your concern." All her friends fell about laughing at that. Thankfully she did too!

Instead of trying to spy Oz's wildlife in their natural habitat, we opted to spend one day at the Australia Zoo near Brisbane. (I mean, come on, flipflops - or thongs as the Aussies call them - are hardly ideal footwear for a trek through mosquito ridden rainforests, now are they?) The place was full of interesting animals. Amongst which we saw tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas (who seriously stink in the wild - not cute!), wombats, tigers, emus, kookaburras, and my new favorite animal, the echidna (looks like a hedghog with a straw for a nose).

Byron Bay was our last stop. We were told that it is such a fantastic place, we decided to stay a week. The initial pleasure at finding a cute, hippie-ish, design town was marred by not being able to find accommodation. In the end we had to opt for a bungalow a short way out of town. Still in walking distance, thankfully. This town's vibe seemed to be: surf or tan during the day, party hard late afternoon and at night. Right up our street! My fave cocktail turned out to be the Banana Beach Dream (or something like that!). Blend one banana with baileys, kaluha and a dash of cream. A few of those make a great liquid dinner!

On the whole we were very lucky with the weather. The only few rainy days we had, we spent driving. Great holidays, if slightly on the expensive side.

I'm off!

We arrive in Aussieland on Christmas Day; perfectly on time to celebrate at the beach with some turkey sandwiches. Wonder if they sell crackers down under too?

After ooh-ing and aah-ing at the Sydney Opera House, harbour and other similarly fantastic sights, we begin our trek by flying up to Townsville (as if we hadn’t flown enough!). From there we plan to drive down the East Coast until we reach Byron Bay (approx. 5 hours south of Brisbane), stopping along the way to poke and prod jellyfish and enjoy sights, surf and sun.

But all good things must end and in this case, our three week journey stops abruptly mid January, where we will be forced to fly back to wintry Europe from Brisbane.

Seven things

I came across this meme and as I am currently bored (I curse the fact that I don't have a TV), as well as too tired to think but not tired enough to go to bed, I figure this beats staring at the wall...

Seven Things I Can Do

• Play volleyball.
• Devour large quantities of chocolate and biscuits.
• Shop.
• Almost everything, if I put my mind to it. (Except of course the seven points immediately below.)
• Listen to someone spout absolute B***s*** and appear interested.
• Talk on the phone for hours. Face to face I am a relatively quiet person but pass me a phone and I can talk forever. The longest conversation I ever had was five hours, only broken because it was time to meet.
• Outfit other people. Well, that would go under "shop", too. I did say I was tired...
  

Seven Things I Can't Do

• Wait. I am a very impatient person. Although it has gotten better since I moved to Berne.
• Muster up any enthusiasm for cleaning. Hell no.
• Save.
• Do things in moderation.
• Maths in my head. 182-19= ??? Pass me my calculator!
  
• Drive slowly. Pair this with clumsiness and you can just imagine what my car looks like.
• Put my head under water whilst swimming.

Seven Things That Scare Me

• SPIDERS and any kind of creepy-crawly with more than six legs.
• Driving in heavy snow.
• Needles and nurses. A harried nurse once stabbed THROUGH my vein instead of into it. Went round with a black / blue / green / yellow elbow for a whole month. Charming. I'm sure she is a nice person underneath. Yeah right.
  
• My close family dying. It is inevitable, I know. But it will be very painful, nonetheless.
• Swimming in the open sea or in lakes. You never know what lurks beneath.
• The scary bits in films. I tend to spend a lot of the time behind a pillow or covering my eyes. Can’t stomach scary scenes at all.
• Drugs, or rather their effects.
  

Seven Things I Want To Do Before I Die

• Live abroad somewhere.
• Take a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
• Learn to speak Italian.
• Donate time and money to charity / volunteer work.
• Be able to do the splits.
• Start up my own business. Am open to any kind of ideas ;-)
• Have children. Maybe. Am still not quite sure if I want screaming brats. If one's children are always worse than oneself, I think I may reconsider this wonderful adventure.

Seven Random Facts About Me

• I hardly have any nail on my little toe.
• I can obsess about something for days.
• I adore shopping early in the morning. Well, actually I love shopping any time of the day. But it’s so much better when there’s no long queue in front of the dressing rooms.
• In the past five years, I have lived and worked in five countries and seven cities.
• I have black fingers (as opposed to green fingers). The life expectancy of every plant diminishes rapidly should I be looking after it. Wonder why?
• I love “Hello Kitty”.
• I was born April 4th (4 is unlucky in Asia) and for some reason I feel drawn to the number 13 and black cats (both unlucky in Europe).

24

After having spent the whole weekend watching the compelling "24" (yet again!), I have decided to dedicate an entry to this fantastic series.

The hero of the real-time show is Jack Bauer, a government agent of the CTU (Counter-terrorist Unit). Each season comprises 24 hours, one whole day in the life of Jack Bauer.

In the first season/day, he dealt with an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, his daughter's disappearance as well as having to uncover a mole within the CTU. In the second season/day he is tortured and reborn, whilst trying to stop a massive nuclear weapon from destroying Los Angeles. And of course his daughter went missing… again.

I’m currently on season three… completely hooked.

Wonder what that will hold for Jack?

HERE are some facts about Jack Bauer... for the die-hard & interested.

And should you be interested in the guy behind Jack Bauer... say hello to Kiefer Sutherland.

Cupcakes & more

Guess the fact that I do not have a kitchen is slowly getting to me... I've taken to browsing recipe sites and through cookery books... :-) Found a fantastic food / recipe site today:
the scent of green bananas: food from the guambat

The pics of her achievements alone are works of art and definitely worth a peek.

Oh, Champs-Élysées....

Oh, Galeries Lafayette....
We just spent a very enjoyable three days in Paris, shopping until we dropped (literally!).
Needless to say, we had a great time.

Being back (last time I was in Paris was in 2001) reopened my eyes to Paris' beauty and reawakened my dormant desire to live in a large city. Hopefully one day...

The Sandoz Room

Last Friday I came across the most beautiful ballroom I've ever seen. We were wandering around the Hotel Beau-Rivage Palace in Lausanne, when suddenly our guide led us into the Sandoz room. My knees went weak and my mouth dropped. Such beauty, such style... it was absolutly magnificent.

Failure

What does google consider to be the biggest or most important failure?
To find out, follow these four simple steps:

1. open google: www.google.com / google.de / google.ch / ...
2. type in "failure"
3. press "enter"
4. check out the first hit

I wonder how long it will take them to notice!

Ayurveda

Just had a very relaxing (or invigorating – cannot decide which) foot massage... as well as an interesting conversation.

I learnt that according to Ayurvedic philosophy, my dominant Dosha type is "Pitta" and I need to keep "cool". Unfortunately this goes hand in hand with avoiding all vegetables I like. Therefore I’m not so sure if I will fully buy into this philosophy… we’ll see. I did however book another foot massage; it really does wonders after a long session on the treadmill!

Will you... I do.

Last weekend I was awakened to the fact that time IS flying: a guy from my primary school class got married last year and a couple my age is planning to marry next summer. Yikes, it just made me feel so old! When I told M, he got this panicky look on his face, so I changed the subject quickly! Don’t want him to think that I am in any hurry to tie the knot.