Blog Nerdery, part 2

It's that time of year again, when I pinch someone's idea about putting together the first sentence (or sometimes two, if the first sentence was useless) from the first post of each month and see what my year was like.

Last night at the NYE party that I went to we were all thinking of what our highlight of 2007 was.

Well, I'm back.

Well, depending on whose opinion you listen to, it's either not summer any more (yay! That's my opinion), or it's still winter (also yay! That's Reto).

Congratulations to Reto, who is rejoining the world of employed people today!

All my best intentions of sleeping in were thwarted this morning, not only by my mock-insomnia, but also by the band (as in group of people with uniforms and instruments) of morons (as in people who go wandering the streets at 7am making a racket) wandering down our street and making a racket!

The potatoes have had their day, look who coffee is celebrating now!

Sigh. Reto's been off killing people (or whatever it is they do in the army) for a good day and a half now, and I am apparently incapable of coping without him.

Note that I chose that cat for its William-Tell style enthusiasm for apples.

I'm orf on my honeymoon.

Happy temporary unemployment to Deonie!

Well. Recent(ish) reasons for not doing any blogging: nothing much has been happening except me being full of french-rage, and that's not very interesting.

Just when you thought you were getting a coffee set for 6 people for your birthday, it turns out there's actually a possibly drunken cat in the box instead!

Hmm. I think I preferred last year's verision. Although it's nice that 2008's list started and ended with nice things.

More Of The Same

Well, it's been more of the usual lately. A quick trip to France with my parents and sister to find the grave of my great grandfather who died near there during the first world war,a bit of enjoying people's insane christmas lights (these ones were opposite the hotel we stayed at in Rouen, and involved Santa in a hot air balloon, santa in his toy factory and santa with his reindeer, as well as an inexplicable dancing pelican), looking at space cabbages (I don't know what they actually are. They look sort of like cabbage-related items, but they're CRAZY, and everyone knows that CRAZY things probably come from space) and various other charming sights in Paris.

In other news, I read American Psycho while I was away, and it was the most horrible and disturbing thing I've ever read. Normally violence in books doesn't bother me so much, but this was so grisly and so graphic and so lacking in humanity ... aagh, don't read it.

Age-Defying

I was just out buying a bottle of wine and a bottle of kirsch for a fondue tonight (part of the ongoing process of Swissifying my parents, and now also my sister who is too jetlagged to object. Interestingly, yesterday when I suggested to Reto that we have a cervelat salad for lunch he made a comment about how swissish I've become. Which was odd) and the woman in the shop asked me for ID. Hee hee. That hasn't happened for ages.

In Recent News

1. I just got my results from my DELF exam, and happily I passed. Quite badly in the oral bit, quite well in the other bits (which reflects the reality of my french knowledge/usage). The results weren't due until the end of Jan, so that was a surprise. Unfortunately passing that test doesn't really mean anything useful for me (like that I'm a proficient french-speaker), but I do have a piece of paper. Or I will have (when they post it to me).

2. It's been snowing here non-stop for almost 2 days. Not very heavily or anything, but constantly, so it's really accumulated and every trip outdoors involves inadvertently standing in a puddle of slush that you thought wasn't there. Don't forget your waterproof shoes, Steph.

Tourist Frenzy

Oh how I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow. Since mum and dad arrived (a week ago) I have given them the grand tour of Fribourg (which comes in several parts and as it turns out can take days to complete. Jet-lagged, luggage-free days, but still), I've taken them to Grindelwald and the (invisible due to cloud/fog/snow) Eiger*, to Zermatt and the (pleasantly visible) Matterhorn, we've done the "here's our former home" tour of Aarau, and we've spent a few days seeing christmas markets and raclette and Stein am Rhein with R's parents (only half of whom share a language with my parents, which makes things tricky. Although I have to say, Reto's parents cope extremely well with the fact that two of their three children have married native english-speakers who are both a bit other-language challenged (since french is definitely my dominant non-native language now and not a very useful one in the in-laws setting) and whose parents are all uselessly monolingual. Fortunately the remaining unmarried sibling looks likely to stick with his Swiss girlfriend and thus save his parents from too much more intercultural incomprehension and expensive plane fares). Tomorrow it's officially been decided that no one's doing anything, which means I will be staying home, doing laundry, trying to read my stupid french road rules book and maybe going to Ikea to buy some curtains for the spare room before my sister arrives and has to sleep there for a month.

Not so relaxing after all, then. Grr.




* Sorry Steph. We heard that you wanted us to wait so we could go there with you in the evening after we'd got back. I'm sure we can go again, though, since we saw NOTHING the first time round. And maybe mum n dad will be such experts by then that I won't even have to go with you!

Happy Birthday Léo!

Just when you thought you were getting a coffee set for 6 people for your birthday, it turns out there's actually a possibly drunken cat in the box instead!

Hurrah! Just what every 1 year old needs!