Holiday, Switzerland

Swiss National Day

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Swiss National Day was the start to our week of holiday and it was a great start at that. Kay’s brother came home and we celebrated the holiday with my FIL as our new slightly smaller family.Even though we are all still pretty sad at times without my MIL, we found time to laugh and appreciate the time we have with each other. There is definitely a lot of love in this family.I’m feeling a little more outnumbered these days, but I guess with six brothers, I should be used to that anyway, right? 🙂 Whatever the case, I am happy to be here!The day went by all too fast and before we knew it, several hours had passed and it was time for my FIL and BIL to go home so that Kay and I could pack for Montenegro.

I am not sure when is the next time we can all be together, but I look forward to it.

PS, isn’t Kay’s Hawaiian shirt just great?! 🙂 He bought them on our honeymoon and I love when he wears them for BBQs!

Switzerland

Doing it on our own

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After our last climbing course, Kay wanted to buy a set of quick draws and some more carabiners so that we could go climbing on our own, but we still had the problem of how to get there. Most climbing spots in Switzerland are only accessible by car and Kay just has his motorbike.

Kay was worried that if we would leave our bike gear by the bike, it would get stolen, yet it would really be a lot to hike up with to the climbing areas.That’s when I came up with the brilliant idea of buying a Pacsafe bag to attach to the bike. I’ve known about Pacsafe for years since reading about them in my subscription to Outdoor Photographer years ago, and it was the perfect solution for us to take all the gear off and safely lock it up while we hiked and climbed.The weather was so beautiful this weekend. Sunny, warm, but not hot, and with a cool breeze running along the hills sometimes.After a short hike, we reached the climbing area around Mythen where there are several routes from 3a-7ish climbing grades. We stuck to the 3-4 levels to get used to doing it on our own.Kay at the top of the second route above. Below was the view when I climbed up myself.Some succulents growing near our last route.The last route was actually pretty tough for us. Kay started first and got stuck at one point, and when I went up a little while later, I almost didn’t make it past the same tough point. But I kept thinking, “Kay can do it, so can I!” 🙂

Here he is at the top. The view was definitely worth it, even with the weather closing in.Selfie at the top too!Kay preparing the rope to abseil down.View from up there looking down on Vierwaldstättersee. It was pretty breathtaking.I went down first and Kay followed. I am getting the hang of this abseiling by yourself thing.In fact, abseiling might be one of my favorite parts of climbing. It sure is the laziest part. 😉

Back down again, Kay was pretty smiley. And handsome. Don’t forget that!One last selfie and it was time to head back on the bike. The ride back down the curvy hill was certainly easier than the way up. On the way up, I felt like I was in danger of falling off because of the heavy backpack, but on the way down I just needed to make sure that I did not dive into Kay.We are hoping that we’ll be able to get some more climbing done this summer, but things are starting to get tight. Only a couple more weeks until Kay is off for the army and weekends are filling up left and right.

Food, Switzerland

Summer Sales

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While Switzerland might not rock at sales, I have come to accept that the “sales rack” simply does not exist in Switzerland. Instead, you have “summer sales”, which is the one time of year when you can find massive discounts on almost everything. This was how we scored our gourmet coffee maker with a 500CHF reduction.

This year I received a gift card for my birthday to the fairly expensive, “luxury” department store Globus, where in search of taller cake caddys, I noticed Le Creuset pans on significant discount.

The gourmet version of this 6.2L/30cm pot normally runs around 339CHF and was on sale for 199. Apparently it even runs for $600 in the States, which just seems nuts.

I ended up dragging Kay back with me on a Saturday to buy one… plus a crepe pan, which was definitely not on sale.

But with the gift card and the reduction on the other pan, my total still came to way less than what I would pay for these pans in the States, on sale from Amazon. Yeah!

I also told Kay that these are “forever” pans and wherever we ever move, they are coming with us, non-negotiable. Kay’s response was just that I had better stop making salads like below and start making yummy food in my new toys. I forgot to mention to him that I planned for him to make the crepes in the crepe pan since he’s better at it than me… 😉I also did manage to find what seems to be a nice, tall cake caddy online from Pro Idee, which seems very similar to something you can get on Amazon. And I bought a ton of gluten free food online, including beer, which I plan to try with Kay soon. 🙂Have you made any home purchases this summer?

 

Home

Inheriting Plants

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Going to my FIL’s house to go through my MIL’s things has not been the highlight of the summer, but my FIL would rather purge everything now. It’s helping him heal and we need to organize her things some time anyway, but that doesn’t make it easier.

My MIL was always the gardener and my FIL let us know he planned to get  rid of everything because he is not interested in plants, cannot keep up with the watering, and is pretty sure he would kill everything. We tried to organize a transport van in June to pick everything up, but the reservation was messed up, so we planned to do it after Luxembourg in what had to be the hottest week of the summer.

While the boys loaded the van, I stayed in the hot house and finished going through clothing, makeup, and jewelry. Below you see my sweaty face… just imagine trying on clothing in a house without AC in the high 90s. Melting!! While clothes are easy for the boys to let go, it made me sad to go through them. They all still smell like her. I can see why my FIL doesn’t want them around anymore. I saved a bunch of her scarves and now I have a lot of clothes to go through at home.

Also pinned up in the office on her wardrobe was a photo of my family from Christmas 2012. With family being so important to my MIL, she made it a priority to write down all of their names so she could learn all the names of my siblings and their spouses. It was just another sign of how much this woman truly loved and valued her family, whether it was in Switzerland, Brazil, or the US.

Back outside, the transport van didn’t have AC either and the fans were kind of broken. I was really just dreaming about jumping in lake Zurich, but we managed to transport this huge lot of plants home.The hard part was then moving them from the van to the flat, up the lift, and out onto the balcony. Kay was sweating bucket loads by the time we finished.Almost this whole line of plants were my MIL’s. She had so many! And they are gorgeous.It feels great to fill up the balcony with some pots finally, but I’m sad about the way in which we came about all the plants.

I can’t help wanting to show my MIL how the plants look here. She loved looking through my garden and seeing what I did differently. I hope I can keep her plants for awhile without doing them harm. They are so different than what I plant myself!

Food, Travel

Gluten Free Luxembourg

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I was a little bit fed up with searching for “authentic local also gluten free” food, so in my planning for Luxembourg, I just went with whatever works… and that ended up being Indian!

First night we ate at Everest because it was just down the street from our hotel, which was having difficulty finding keycards for guests and couldn’t check anyone in for awhile.The food was fine and the waiter made some recommendations that would be OK for me to eat.We enjoyed stuffing ourselves silly before heading back to the hotel to check in.The crispy bread was apparently made from lentil flour, so it was also OK. Kay also ordered a garlic naan at my insistance, with mint, but it wasn’t the best naan ever. He said it was a bit dry.Breakfast at the Radisson Park Inn was pretty good. I had my fill of mushrooms because Kay hates them, as well as a mix of bacon, sausages, tomatoes, a bit of scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and freshly squeeze orange juice. They had a funny juicer that looked like it took a ton of work to clean, but the juice was great!

On Saturday we also stopped at Adriano for some ice cream. Ice cream was very necessary for coping with the heat.We stopped for a cider at a pub. We never do things like this in Zurich because of how much it costs, so midday drinking or even just drinking outside the house seems like a luxury on trips like this. On Saturday night we didn’t feel like going far walking. We didn’t have a car in Luxembourg, so we just went to Taj Mahal for some more Indian.I wasn’t really wowed by the food, but it was fine. It filled me up.

Walking to and from the restaurant was a little scary though. There were several guys who looked like they could be dealers making  coded gestures to each other and I didn’t want to be around that. I didn’t want to find out if they were planning on mugging us or if they were just into drug dealing. We kept our heads down and got back to the hotel as fast as possible.The next day breakfast was more of the same. I am still eating like twice as much as Kay and don’t know where I am putting it. I am skinnier than ever!After visiting the the casemates, we wandered around quite a lot to find a place open for early dinner. We would up at Restaurant Brasserie G L’Beguin Sàrl, which had some divine scallops and risotto. Risotto is my old gluten free go-to and it went perfectly with some rose and ice cream for dessert.

Once again, I’m getting a little hungry thinking about all this food again. I cannot seem to get food off my mind lately.