Picturesque, Peaceful Switzerland: Third stop Verbier

Our third and last stop in Switzerland was with Sonya and Mike in Le Chable, which is situated just below a well known ski resort called Verbier.  Sonya is a surf lifesaving friend (much to Mike's delight) who I worked with for a season in Meribel, where we had very many good and crazy times.  It was great to spin a whole lot of stories about old Meribel times with Sonya again.

We had a lovely time in Verbier.  Yet again the place was stunningly beautiful, and yet again our hosts exceeded any expectations of hostliness we would have dreamed having!  Sonya rents out the top half of her house, and it is incredible - wooden and very cosy.  Luckily we came at the right time of year and it was empty, yahoo a house to ourselves for a few days (complete with it's original stone wall, see bedroom shot) - thank you Sonya!

We had two days to enjoy this place (we tried to change our train for more but to no avail).  The first day Snowdon had an inside 'cave day' whilst I enjoyed a refreshing walk, and wondered around the pretty village with Sonya and helped her in her community garden (I tied up the neighbours beans and planted some flowers along the fence) - fun!

On the way I fell in love with the wild-flowers.

Again we also had lots of time to relax and Snowdon and I had some good laughs watching 'Flight of the Conchords', one morning with a romantic brekki..

The second day Sonya took us on a walk up to Verbier.  I felt like Heidi...  And then a gorgeous bike ride down.  See Snowdon's blog for the video (http://snowpuravida.blogspot.com/)!

One of the last places left with fresh natural springs?

During our time we had several nice dinners with friends of Sonya and Mike's, and then one flash lunch up the mountain (Snowdon pictured with his yummy dish of snails).

All Sonya's friends seem to have skill in renovating houses.  We we're impressed and gathered up a few ideas for the future.

It was lovely to see you again Sonya, and to meet you Mike.  Thank you for your incredible hospitality. We hope to see you again soon!

Picturesque, Peaceful Switzerland: First stop Thalwil

Our first stop in Switzerland was Thalwil, which is not far from Zurich.  Well before we left NZ Natascha (an AFS student from our Opotiki College days) and I had got in touch randomly via a facebook chat and she had very generously invited us to come and stay.  Snowdon and I hadn't planned to go to Switzerland, but after my chat with Natascha, then finding out my friend Sonya is currently living in southern Switzerland AND then finally Snowdon finding a very intriguing Mystic Tantra course being run there - all the signs were directing us to Switzerland!  So we added it as one of our five Eurail pass countries and dropped off Greece.

Boy are we glad that we included Switzerland.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  We loved our time there, and we're pampered silly by our wonderful hosts, Natascha and Gabriel in Thalwil, and Sonya and Mike in Le Chable, Verbier.  It was lovely to spend some time with Natascha and Sonya again, and meet their men!

Natascha welcomed us into our lovely room, in her home in Thalwil, complete with slippers and delicious L'occitane bathing products (that Gabriel brings home from the plane).  Our first taste of the lovely pampering we were to experience in Switzerland.  We felt jazzy in our new slippers.  And they were very fitting as we spent some nice time chilling on the couch and in our mini home theatre bedroom, in Thalwil...

I was delighted when Natascha suggested we start our first day with a sightseeing run by the nearby lake (I was due for some exercise).

Snowdon was delighted to meet Natascha's adopted cat Luna, who was great company (Natascha is a vet).

We had some lovely breakfasts.  I loved trying all the new food.  We thought the colour of these pre-boiled eggs was a bit bizarre though!

On our last night in Thalwil, Natascha made us a traditional Swiss cheese fondue (which I've always wanted to try). Yum! Very rich!

Snowdon and I spent a rainy afternoon in Zurich, enjoying the peaceful feel as we wondered around the city.  Natascha, her sister and Gabriel had thoughtfully had a clothing clean out (it was uncharacteristically cold and they knew that we'd be feeling it).  I scored a cool Espirit jacket and another nice cosy black hoody. Very happy about that.  I'd been freezing in London and Paris.  It was nice to be warm!

We had to check out Luzern, where my pocket nice was made.  Natascha took us over in the car.  We saw the hugest block of Toblerone.  I had to pick it up and marvel at it.  Yes it was very heavy, and very expensive...  We went for the free taste test option (see second pic - yum).

Luzern is a lovely peaceful little town to wonder around.

Luzern has a several gorgeous and very old bridges.  We spent a bit of time on them with our local tour guide filling us in along the way (a lot of it, unfortunately had been burnt in recent years).

Cars are discouraged from entering the city..

We had a wonderful time in Thalwil - thank you Natascha and Gabriel.  They also sent us off with their two man tent, for our next adventure!

Grey and rainy in Bordeaux, Southern France

We're in Bordeaux for one day and two nights.  We tried to extend our stay with Sonya by a day in lovely Verbier and bypass the city, to no avail (no seats left on the train).  Tomorrow we're on our way to Ted Braam's organic farm, near a place called Condom, which is a few hours from here.  Ted and his wife are a Dutch couple who have a farm that we're going to 'wwoof' on for 10 days.  They have a lot of projects but that one that I'm most excited about it their 35 goats and cheese making!  I'd love to have that skill to utilize once I get home and set up my garden/farm.

Meanwhile it's grey and rainy in Bordeaux, which I consider just perfect.  After so much going on, I'm happy to sit in our hotel room and utilize the wifi to catch up on some very belated blogging.  Snowdon is having a snooze beside me - I wore him out this morning because I was upset, hence the marriage email that I just posted - not always an easy option for either of us! But fortunately we have once again ironed out the bumps that arose.

We did have a nice wonder around Bordeaux in the drizzle, and because it's Sunday we wondered upon a lovely market.  Then we found a cosy little affordable bakery/cafe.  I LOVE CHOCOLATE CROISSANTS AND THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT DELICIOUS KINDS HERE! Mmmmmm mmmmmm.

Marriage and a long term travel honeymoon/spiritual adventure

Well it's wonderful ..... and it's a challenge.  We've been newly married and living out of each others pockets, for over four months now.  During this time I feel like I've experienced every emotion that there is: intense love, hate, aversion, confusion, frustration, happiness, contentment, discontentment, sadness, joy, fortune, dishevelment, kind, accepting, righteous, flexible, delighted, thankful, playful, courageous, patient, calm, peaceful, comfortable, reassured, considerate, affectionate, touched, nosy, curious, anxious, inspired, gloomy, bold, daring, optimistic, secure, insecure, tenacious, rebellious, wild, hostile, hurt, upset, creative, resentful, incensed, discouraged, generous, lousy, perplexed, stupefied, serious, vulnerable, pathetic, clever, offended, cold, tender, caring, loving, heartbroken, dismayed, supported, encouraged, special, cherished, appreciated.

And all these ups and downs in less than five months of marriage.  I have a new view of what is accomplished in years and years of working together this closely with another human being.  It is a very special thing, and at the same time a rocky roller coaster challenge, that at times feels ecstatically wonderful and at other times way too massive and very uncomfortable.

I feel lucky that Snowdon and I so thoughtfully and actively chose to marry each other (I thank Landmark Education for that).  The result of this is that even in our low points we are always responsible for our choices.  I feel that actively choosing each other powerfully has created a very secure foundation for our marriage.  Even so, at times I think he's lucky to have me, and other times I think I'm lucky to have him!  At times I think he's unfortunate to have me, other times that I'm unfortunate to have him (shame on me I think afterwards for these ones, they're never the truth).

Spiritual adventure is what we signed up for, and spiritual adventure is what we're getting, viewing and picking apart each aspect of our beliefs, personalities and ego's in the process.  Flowing along, a both tranquil yet very turbulent, river of discovery together.

We are a couple well matched to learn and grow from each other (our differences can be both intensely grating and pleasantly complementary).  As a result this is certainly a learning and growing relationship and we are not the same people who left NZ four months ago!  May the future hold much further courage, transformation, and happiness for us in our incredibly loving partnership.  I love you honey!

Mahatma Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world".

Well, man are we working on it!

Reading Log 2010 - May

The Game of Life and How to Play it by Florence Scovel Shinn

Not usually my style of book, but it was nice to read a book I wouldn’t normally (this is one of Snowdon’s Amazon picks).  I did enjoy reading it and it has some interesting ideas.  In particular it helped me understand the meaning/relevance behind some messages from the Bible, which from my experience trying to read it when I was about 8yrs old, I thought that other than it being about sin and guilt was all gobbledygook.  Thus I have a more informed view of the usefulness of the Bible now!

• ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord’ (the super-conscious mind, or Christ within)’  The book explained that man violates the law of gravity if he carries a burden (burden: adverse thought or condition), and that a rock taken high above the planet has no weight (no law of gravity).  So cast that weight up high (to your higher self)!  Well I tried this out, and it worked very nicely.  My two ‘burdens’ were 1. Feeling like a burden on our wonderful hosts.  2.  Feeling a burden of worrying about financial security whilst travelling.  Well I cast these two burdens upon ‘the Christ within’ 1 – and I go free to travel, spend, have fun, love and prosper, 2 – and I go free to share, contribute, love, laugh and be appreciated.   The results 1.  We arrived back to beautiful crayon messages all over the bathroom about what we’d like on our pizza the following night (obviously not a burden), and 2.  I let go of the money worries and have been having a great time travelling!  So I certainly recommend casting the burden (whilst still being responsible of course!).

• ‘The darkness before the dawn’.  I’m picking that this refers to faith.  I’ve previously thought of faith, as ‘blind faith’ and being very silly and ignorant.  However I see the point of this statement now.   In Landmark we see it as creating a possibility and everything that is not that possibility will certainly show up, and all there is to do is to keep being that possibility until it becomes real!  The book describes it as the doubts rising up TO BE PUT OUT!  How long must you stay in the dark – until you can see in the dark (and casting the burden helps with this)!  Also something that I read/heard somewhere before we left NZ, which keeps coming up and is very true for me is that ‘God gives you the opportunity to develop the skill, not the skill’ (in my words). 

• How can I get rid of fear, by walking up to the thing that you are afraid of.  The Lion takes his fierceness from your fear.  I’ve been working on this (and looking where I can walk up to the lion courageously)!

• ‘God loveth a cheerful giver (as well as a cheerful receiver)’.  Giving opens the way for receiving….all money should be set forth cheerfully and with a blessing.  No man can attract money if he despises it, be in harmony with a thing in order to attract it.  In letting it go out fearlessly and cheerfully, he opens the way for more to come in.’  When I remember to do this it makes spending money much more fun!

• 'JC said condemn not, lest you also be condemned, judge not unless you also be judged.’ An old saying, ‘man only dares use his words for three purposes; to heal, bless or prosper’.  There is an angel in the marble and out of it he carved a work of art (in reference to being harmonious with people in place of resentful).  People can neutralize remorse from years ago by doing someone a kindness in the present.  Hear! hear! 

Teach with your Heart by Erin Gruwell

Snowdon and I watched the movie of this book last year and I was very inspired by the story.  In Costa Rica I’d been thinking about beginning a tutoring business and even began a website, but got stuck when considering the theories, content, philosophies behind it.  I realized that I have some teaching theories in who I am, but when it comes to putting them in words, I can’t, and I also feel that I want to know more, to broaden my own teaching views and values.  So I’m out to do just that.  On looking for books on teaching in The Strand Bookshop in New York I found this book (and another), remembered how inspired I was from the movie, and decided to get it.

Oh my gosh this story, Erin Gruwell and her students are just incredible!  Tears came to my eyes many times during this book, it was captivating, and after feeling like having a break from classroom teaching for a while, it inspired me to at least reconsider this option!

The book has also inspired us to read The diary of Anne Frank’, which we’ve since purchased in Rome and I’m nearly finished, to visit The Secret Annexe in Amsterdam, and also to track down the book, ‘Zlata’s Diary’, which we have yet to find (it may be easier for us to find a copy in English when we’re back in an English speaking country!).  I also have another Erin Gruwell book in my pack, still to read called 'Teaching Hope' (pic in big pile above) and there is another, ‘The Freedom Writers Diaries’, that is on our list.

(Note this blog was posted in July)

I love Paris in the Spring Time!

I have been to Paris once before but most of what I think of when I think of Paris is from my rellies who lived here for 4 years.  Whenever we hang out with them they share their love of French culture and cuisine.. wine, coffee, cheese, baguettes and Vichy Pastilles Mints (I ate my last citron one just several weeks ago) - mmmmmm!  We've heard many a story of the wonders of Paris.  It's lovely to be here, on our first night here we wondered through Montmartre, a lovely little place with lots of bakeries and restaurants.  There's also a thriving African community here (very posh).  We had a delicious meal at the lovely local Cafe Francoeur - mine was DELICIOUS salmon!! Whilst we we're waiting for our meals I had to take this shot as I saw the splitting image of Einstein outside.


We then found:


Sacre Couer (The Basilica of the sacred heart of Jesus) 

The famous Moulin Rouge (that we initially planned to view).


We we're pretty stuffed from all the recent travel so we utilized Caroline's lovely room that Snowdon booked us into, to catch up on some much needed rest!  We also  sorted our Eurail pass, and our Monday train trip to Switzerland to stay with Natascha (a past AFS student at Opotiki College!) in Thalwil, near Zurich.  


Early on, after mentioning we were in Paris, we received an email from Rach :


'Have you been singing “I LOVE PARIS IN THE SPRING TIME!” at the tops of your voices at every opportunity??!' 


Well we hadn't!  I hadn't even remembered the song - but it's great - here it is for everyones listening pleasure....


I love Paris as sung by Frank Sinatra, I love Paris as sung by Ella Fitzgerald


What I already had in mind was..


Let Me Sing You a Waltz, Judy Delpy from the movie 'Before Sunset'.


And then every time I see a baguette I think of the song by the Flight of the Conchords:


Foux Da Fa Fa


We've extended our stay in Paris by a few days, mainly because we we're moving a bit slower than usual in getting ourselves organised and couldn't keep up the hectic pace!  We'll still have plenty of time in Switzerland.


As usual we have a pethora of photos to choose from.  We've walked and walked and walked on this trip, which is great as it's our only form of exercise at the moment.  We've walked along the Seine and Avenue des Champs Elysees (I'm quite captivated by the little takeaway espresso they drink here!).  It was freezing our first days here -  Uncharacteristically icily cold!  I was very glad to find H & M and buy some wooly tights.

We've observed a lot of glitz and glamour all around us.

Notre Dame




Had to check out the Louvre (although we didn't go in - I've already identified my favourites previously and Snowdon didn't want to wait in the gigantic line), and of course the legendary Eiffel Tower.  

  

I've noticed the difference from USA to everything being huge to France many things being cute and little!


I'm excited about tomorrow - we're off to Versailles (recommended by Reg and Harold) and then we're booked in to see the caberat Crazy Horse (in place of Moulin Rouge) at 8.15pm!  


Gotta get to bed!

Melissa in Hampton, Virginia, then back to New York

Next stop was Hampton to finally meet Snowdon’s ex-girlfriend (from Snowdon’s Singapore army days - now a decade ago!) and good friend, Melissa.  We arrived to find out that she currently lives in an apartment building that's in the middle of a mall!

We met Melissa's cats Nutty and Needy (her husband Gene is still back in California), and then went out to dine on some great Thai (on the way Melissa pointed out the location of a space shuttle launching pad).  I had a nice time getting to know Melissa. Melissa works for NASA as an atmospheric scientist.  I had a lot of questions for her! She measures and monitors the levels of pollution in the air in various locations around the world, including Antarctica recently. She can even gauge which location the pollution is coming from.  She confirmed that NZ is doing well with low levels of pollution production, but getting all the impact from other places, and that currently China and India are creating the most pollution.  She also said that on a recent visit to Antarctica that she found pollution in the 4^th level of the atmosphere (Thermosphere - I think she said 4th), which has not been seen before and is a scary sign of how bad our impact is getting.  Seems to be the message at the moment…(I hope I've quoted you correctly Melissa?). Watch this space for the next update when we visit Roz in Germany (also studying ozone, as an atmospheric chemist).

Later that night (while Snowdon was busily writing up his blog) I sat up to watch the USA news again, and just when it was time for bed this great 'energy' programme came on.  I found it very educational.  This is what I’d been wanting to know and had began drilling Melissa about that day to find out.  My question had been – so yes we’ve got this problem with oil (which, in addition to the obvious problem of various wars raged over it, is currently lapping up on the shores of Louisiana, killing wildlife for miles and miles, ruining businesses etc).  So what is the solution?  My perspective was eeeek nuclear power, please no way that just can’t happen.  Anyway this program covered many of the possible alternatives to oil; wind, water, natural gas, nuclear, solar?  It showed the benefits and problems with each, including visual year 2015 disaster/terrorist scenarios of natural gas and nuclear power being transported through heavily populated areas, and dams failing and causing carnage (which Snowdon noted was designed to instill more fear..).  I now have a much clearer understanding of why someone hasn’t just magic’d up a replacement for oil.  There are issues to be managed!

The next morning I tried out the apartment gym (so great to get some exercise).  That day we watched the movie Oceans.  It is wonderful.  It creates a beautiful picture of what the ocean is under the surface (that the majority of us never really realize).  Watching this movie reminded me of my wonderful year of studying Marine Science.  I sat just as enthralled in my lectures that year as I did in that Hampton cinema.  The movie was very well done.  It gave a picture of how wonderful and beautiful and special and important the ocean and it’s inhabitants are, with the very subtle but very clear inference of:  THE OCEAN IS WORTH PROTECTING/CONSERVING. ACTUALLY WE MUST LOOK AFTER IT, AS WE HUMANS NEED WATER TO LIVE AND TO HAVE WATER WE NEED OUR OCEANS IN GOOD WORKING ORDER.   They did this with only a very small section of the movie focusing on the many detrimental impacts that we’re having on the ocean by trawling and polluting it.  So I thought that it was wonderful and will make a difference (although maybe not the amount of difference that the ocean needs – I guess that needs to happen from a lot of different angles).

Melissa had brought back boxes of Singaporean Hainanese Chicken mixture from Singapore.  So that night Snowdon and I cooked up a feast.  Man it was good!  Apparently it tastes just like the real thing (I have yet to sample the real thing).  Melissa very thoughtfully gave us a box to take with us, so we  cooked it up for Paul, Steve and Gina on our first night back in New York.

That night was a curious night!  We managed to fit in a puzzle of things. A trip downstairs and around the corner in Melissa’s mall to a huge bookshop called Barnes and Noble (two shelves of books on education), me having some nice girl talk with Melissa without Snowdon around, Melissa and Snowdon having several conversations to recreate their friendship after a decade (without me around!), Melissa fitting in making us some choc chip cookies for our road trip back, and for me some time spent hanging in the local town square people watching then with my new mate Nathan from the military who entertained me with some very interesting accounts of being photographed with an emperor scorpion, after taking a bite from an elephants medicated apple, being tackled by a lion and narrowly missing the kiss of death of a cobra.  Snowdon and I retired relatively early to rest up for our big drive back to New York.  But alas were woken up by screeching alarms that shooed us all outside for an hour only to find out after several fire trucks and the police that some pipes had overflowed.


The next morning we left Melissa and the happy little town of Hampton.  Melissa was very hospitable (spending all weekend and Friday night with us even though her job is incredibly demanding), and very generous (she insisted paying for our meals and the movie as a Wedding gift).  And then sending us off with freshly baked cookies and Singaporean cuisine!  Thanks Melissa see you again (and hopefully Gene) soon (in Singapore or NZ)!

The next day we drove back to New York.  We stopped at ‘Bob Evans’ a typical American diner, for lunch.  This place was packed!  And the menu was pretty fabulous.  Snowdon loves it, I miss my veggies (althought that’s usually the case for me with food on the road).  I keep looking for the clues behind the obesity problem.  Snowdon's view - the food is so good, so tasty!  My view of the 'big company' American food is that I’m sure it’s not so nourishing and I wonder what else has been added to it that I don’t know that I’m eating (one brand of peanut advertises that it’s 80% peanuts – what the heck? What else do you need to put in peanut butter, 100% peanuts would be something worth advertising I would have thought).  Some of our observations are: American food is tasty, there’s a huge amount of options, it’s got all kinds of extra things in it, most of it is packed with sugar (very sweet), it is everywhere you go, and the serving sizes are very generous/actually gigantic.  The amount of choice here has blown me away.  The book ‘The Paradox of Choice’, now that I’ve spent a few days in the US of A, has new meaning.  There are sooooo many options of anything/anywhere.  So whilst it’s wonderful and quite captivating to visit, and gaze at all the different products, as the book suggests, I think I’d find it hard to live with all these options all of the time.  Sensory overload!

As Barbara Kingsolver said in her book 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' that there are a lot of problems with big company government funded agriculture, but that there's some really great successful small farms, farm coop's, and local restaurants that support the small local farms.  She spoke of farmers markets popping up all over the place, and we saw a huge one in Philadelphia - good, nourishing local food, and so much of it!  Then the label of the Murray's chicken (free roaming, drug free) that we brought from a pretty average (I mean an everyday one not a special one) local supermarket here in Brooklyn to make the Singaporean Hainanese Chicken said that we could track the farm where it was raised (which I got quite excited about but unfortunately the number had fallen off).  So things are on the move towards health by the looks - come on small local business farmers and small local business consumers!!!