It’s amazing how much faster the weekends go now that I go in to the office to work.  And I have to say, Sundays are a lot more sad for me, because I know that Monday is back to work day.  For some reason, with my old job when I was working at home, I didn’t get bummed out on Sundays.  I love my job, but it gives me much more of a "back to the grind" feeling on Sunday afternoons.

So today?  Yeah… back to the grind.

I am totally impressed by my office’s apple-selecting abilities.  This week, I have been snacking on a type of apple that I have never had before – a Gravenstein.  These apples are tart but still sweet – the perfect combination that makes them very flavorful and delicious.  Plus, they really look beautiful, don’t they?

Exhibit A:  Today’s breakfast.

I actually didn’t know what kind of apples they were when I first saw them in the fridge.  But finally I got one with a sticker on it… and hence my newfound knowledge of the Gravenstein!

My fruit intake has increased tenfold since I started this job.  As my  mid-morning snack, I had some fruit that I brought from home – a white nectarine and some figs.

The good news is that I am starting to mix up my lunches a little bit.  Wednesday and Thursday of this week we have “team building days”, so our lunch will be provided for us.  For today, I went for a tuna wrap.

All wrapped up.

This afternoon, I conducted my first interview!  I was pretty nervous, because I have never conducted one before.  Also, it was for a senior-level position (way higher than me!) and I still feel like a “new employee”, so I felt a little weird about it.  But I actually really enjoyed it.  I prepared my questions ahead of time, but I actually ended up deviating from my plan because some of the interviewee’s answers led me in other directions and gave me other questions that I wanted to ask.  It was really interesting and a really great experience.  I never would have thought that I would be so nervous to be the interviewer!  It makes me look at interviews in a whole new light

Afternoon snack post-interview was a mixture of Kashi, Fiber One, and Weetos cereal:

Even though I had the afternoon snack, I was starving when I got home.  I cooked myself up:

A turkey sandwich, a Boca spicy chicken patty and a slab of goat cheese, and some apple fries on the side.

For dessert?  Some homemade pistachio ice cream made in my soft serve ice cream maker!

Now I am surfing the web to look for a bread machine.  I know… I should really make my bread from scratch.  I’m a foodie, why do I need a bread machine?!?!  I always say that I am going to bake bread, but I have only done it one time.  And since S and I eat bread almost every day, I think that the investment in the bread machine would be well worth it to save the $3 or $4 per loaf that we spend.  In addition, I think it would be fun!  We had a bread machine when I was growing up, and I loved to make different types of bread.  It makes the whole house smell heavenly as it bakes! 

Chocolate chip bread, anyone?  Cinnamon raisin?  Honey wheat?  Sour dough??  *drools…*

So what do you think?  Should I get a bread machine?  Do you use one?

That’s exactly what today was – and exactly what I needed.

A perfect Saturday starts with sleeping in, of course.  Sleeping in after a much-needed, GREAT nights sleep.  Last night, S and I watched the movie Se7en.  I have seen it before, more than once, but it is a favorite that I never mind seeing again.  And S hadn’t seen it yet.

Anyhow, back to sleeping in.  The perfect post-sleeping in breakfast?  Pancakes!! 

They taste even better when you eat them around lunchtime  

Last week, I got a surprise email telling me that I had won a Foodie Blogroll contest!  I won a Tanka prize pack! 

Tanka is a Native American natural foods company that makes delicious Buffalo and Cranberries natural products: gluten free, nitrates free, msg free and hormone free! Made from tart-sweet cranberries and prairie-raised buffalo.

I won:

• 2 Tanka Bars (1 Traditional flavor and 1 Spicy Pepper Blend).
• 2 Tanka Bites (1 Traditional flavor and 1 Spicy Pepper Blend).
• 8 Tanka Wild Sticks (4 Traditional flavor and 4 Spicy Pepper Blend). Tanka Wild Sticks combine the goodness of prairie-raised buffalo and tart-sweet cranberries with 100% Indian-grown and harvested Minnesota cultivated wild rice in a convenient, eat-as-you-go snack stick. Also free of gluten, hormones and nitrates, the wild rice lends a little bit of crunch to the smoky-sweet buffalo and fruit.

Soon after eating my pancakes, I got the package:

Yay!  S and I ripped into one of the wild sticks right away .  It was absolutely delicious!  A combination of sweet, savory and spicy.  And best of all… healthy!

Check this out:

Ingredients: Traditional Flavor
Buffalo, Cranberries (cranberries, sugar), Wild Rice, Water, Sea Salt, Lactic Acid, Celery Juice, Spices, Evaporated Cane Crystals, Natural Hickory Smoke Flavor, Garlic, Onion.

And the stats aren’t bad, either:

I will be enjoying these for sure.  Thanks, Tanka, and thanks Foodie Blogroll!! 

In the afternoon, S and I decided to ride the motorcycles.  I have to admit, I haven’t been riding much lately.  The truth is, I am just too scared.  So much of it is mental…  I am afraid that I will stall, that I will hit something, that I will drop the bike… so I hesitate.  I overthink things, and I end up stalling, or being shaky.  And I just don’t enjoy it.  I’m so busy freaking out and being scared that I just ride around the block and can’t wait for it to be over. 

Today, S said that I had to do some practicing in our housing complex parking lot before we went on a ride.  I didn’t want to – parking lots are actually what I fear the most because slow speeds and tight turns are the hardest to do.  But I said ok.  All we did was about 15 minutes worth of starting and stopping so that I could get the feel of exactly how much throttle to put on and how quickly to let out the clutch in order to avoid stalling and get a smooth start.    We also practiced turning in place.  Just holding the clutch and walking the bike back and forth to turn around in the opposite direction.

After 15 minutes, we left the complex and went on a ride.  And… it was like something just clicked.  All those months of fear and feeling like I was just not getting it, and all of a sudden I got it!  It felt like something just clicked.  I went around the block once, then again.  Then I went the other way, turned onto the main street, and just kept going!  I rode for about 15 minutes, then made some turns and made a big circle back home.  It was the longest ride I have ever taken, and I loved every second of it.  I felt comfortable, free, and totally badass!!! 

To celebrate my major motorbike victory, S and I went to Starbucks!  Can you see my bike out the window??

And that’s not all.  I was feeling so good and having so much fun riding the bike that we went on a second ride that afternoon.  And I… gasp…. RODE ON THE HIGHWAY!  I had never ridden on anything more major than an expressway before, and was really afraid of the high speeds, wind, and other vehicles on the highway.  But we got on 85 and it wasn’t as bad as I thought!  In fact, once I got on the highway, it was actually pretty fun and easy.  Now I can officially say I ride a motorcycle now, without feeling like I’m lying!  (or at least slightly exaggerating…).  And I really feel like I can use it to get where ever I need to go.  Since I can go on highways, in parking lots, the world is my biking oyster

Late afternoon, S had to work on a homework assignment, so I decided to do something special for him and make some homemade ravioli!  I have never made any sort of homemade pasta before, but when I saw this recipe on Eat, Live, Run I knew that I had to try it. 

Ok, so it wasn’t exactly as easy as Jenna made it look.  Although she went to culinary school, people!  Give me a break!!!    But I have to say, mine didn’t turn out half bad.  Not really beautiful, but they tasted good!

Pre-cooking:

And post-cooking, drizzled with some extra virgin olive oil, garlic salt, and parmesan cheese:

S loved them!  Next time I am going to roll the dough a little thinner… it was a little too thick.  But I was still proud of myself!

A few hours later, I was feeling snacky so I made some homemade whole-wheat pita chips with maple brown sugar cream cheese to dip it in.  Homemade pita chips are so easy… and I think they taste better than the bagged kind!  Just cut whole wheat pitas into triangles, spray with canola oil, sprinkle with sea salt and bake at 350 degrees until brown and crispy (about 15 min.) 

For the dip – just cream cheese with a spoonful of brown sugar and maple syrup to taste. 

I love the combination of the sea salt chips with the sweet cream cheese.

So then.  Then.  S suggested that we go for a run!  Don’t adjust your font size, you read that correctly.  S suggested.  He said a short run, which I gladly accepted.  Today was going to be a rest day (read:  an I’m-too-lazy-to-get-my-butt-to-the-gym day) but I was glad to put in a short, easy run. 

After:

Can’t you tell that S enjoyed every minute of it?  Then I sat down to dinner.  Fettucini alfredo (which went unpictured) and my new obession – veggie wedgies.  Today was of the apple variety, dipped in some maple syrup.

Still in my running clothes and all.  Class act – that’s me.

And JB did some yoga.  Downward dog cat

Want something to look at before you go to bed?  Check this out… fried beer!  I kid you not.

And check out Krista’s CSN giveaway!

Aloha!  Yes, I wish I was in Hawaii.  Hawaii rocks, every week.

I’ve got a few things that I think rock this week.  They probably rock every week too, but I particularly like them this week.

1. Healthy Living Blogs is a new resource for the health blogging community.

   HLB is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support. If you’re interested in having your site listed on HLB, simply send the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com and check the site out for yourself!

   • Email subject line: MEMBERS
   • Your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)
   • Blog Name
   • Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.)
   • Your twitter handle, if applicable
   • Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy’s sake, that is completely understandable. We’ll simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too)
   • Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.)
2. Snapple!  In particular, Diet Trop-A-Rocka tea.

   

   This is the Snapple flavor created by Bret Michaels on the Celebrity Apprentice (a show which I love!).  I am not usually an ice tea fan… in fact, I’m not a fan of tea in general – hot or cold.  But this stuff ROCKS!  No pun intended.  I wasn’t sure at first if I would like it due to the somewhat interesting flavor combination.  It is peach mango cinnamon… with other spices and flavors thrown in.  But it’s delicious!  It’s tough to find, though… I only managed to get it ONE time and there was only ONE case left on the shelf (in the very back, hidden behind another flavor!!!) and now it’s gone   So I am on the prowl!  The good news is, Snapple announced that Trop-A-Rocka is going to be produced beyond its original limited-time-only run so I have more time to find it!  Yay!

3. Peas of Mind Veggie Wedgies!  Holy delicious, Batman.
   

   I don’t care that these are supposed to be for kids – these are incredible.  French fries made of broccoli, cauliflower, apple or carrots?  Sign me up!  I have tried all of the variations except for carrot.  I found these gems in the Whole Foods freezer aisle and bough my first bag on sale for $3.49.  Since then, I have eaten a bag a day (no joke) with my dinner.  This addiction needs to stop, however, because they are no longer on sale and the $3.99 per bag very quickly adds up.  And the only place in my area that they have them is at Whole Foods… *sigh*.  But if you haven’t tried these… go get some!  My favorites are broccoli and cauliflower, but those sell out quickly so I usually end up with apple.

   

   I love these so much that I have submitted a form to the company requested the their products be made available at other grocery stores in our area.  I encourage you to try these… but only if you don’t live near me because I have a hard enough time trying to find them in stock as it is!

On Saturday, S’s uncle got married.  It was basically the main reason we went to Switzerland to begin with.  They got married in a tiny, tiny church.

It just had two rows of pews – I have never seen such a small church before.  There was a steep stone driveway leading up to the church that we had to walk up and down.  Several times.  In the rain.  And I was wearing very high heels… 

There were a few close calls, but luckily I didn’t fall at all!

S’s uncle was in a fraternity in college.  The fraternity brothers played a huge role in the entire wedding day – including the ceremony itself and the celebrations afterward.  This is the uniform that the brothers wore:

Yep… flags, swords, and everything.  And they were ALL up on the stage of the church (forgive me… I’m sure the proper name isn’t "stage", but I don’t know what it is, and it’s up in front of everybody and LOOKS like a stage…) along with another group of men dressed as medieval Swiss soldiers.  Pictures of those guys to come.  So… basically it was a CROWDED little church. 

I couldn’t understand a word of the ceremony (it was entirely in German) so I spent the whole 1.5 hours looking around at people and the church.  The bride was absolutely beautiful, and the groom could not stop beaming and crying at the same time throughout the whole thing.  In a way, not being able to understand the words that were being said made me look at it all in a different light – I had to study peoples’ reactions, their facial expressions, etc. 

After the ceremony, everybody headed to the next town over to a hotel where there were drinks, appetizers, and the professional pictures were taken.

The bride and groom traveled in this classic car for the occasion:

It was POURING rain the whole day.  I had to take a picture when I saw this:

The bride outside standing under a Mizuno umbrella!  Love it!

Inside, the gathering was on the top floor of the hotel.

It looked like a renovated old barn, with the high wood beam ceilings.  There were beautiful chandeliers, which I loved.

So elegant.

Did you see those men in blue up on the stage?  Those are the medieval Swiss soldiers.  It is a Swiss custom of some sort.

They had swords and everything!  A couple of times one of them turned around really quickly and knocked someone with their sword.   Oops. 

After the appetizers and pictures (approximately 3 hrs) we headed to another hotel and restaurant for the actual reception.

S and I were at a table with his sister, his brother and his girlfriend, and one of the fraternity brothers with his family.

The hotel was called Hotel Schiff.  It is a great hotel and restaurant that we actually ate at with S’s family last time we were in Switzerland. 

Outside, the rain was still pouring down.  But the view of the lake was beautiful nonetheless.

One thing that I really liked was that they gave everyone handmade nametags.  This was really helpful for me, as I pretty much didn’t know anyone except for S and his family. 

They also went around and introduced every single person and told a little bit of information about them.  It was time consuming, but it was really helpful and interesting (S translated it for me on the fly so that I could understand what was going on.)

These beautiful menus (which I couldn’t read…)

Sound appetizing??

The hotel had a pretty spiral staircase!

I was starving by the time they actually served the food (two hours after we arrived there!!!)  We started with some wine.

The first course was a delicious salad in a thin shell bowl, with warm crusted goat cheese on top.

My favorite part was the cheese.  It was incredible!

In between the salad and the next course was when they went around the tables and did all the introductions.  It took over an hour, so I was starving again by the time the next plate was finally delivered.

When they did the intros, they also gave out these cute decorations they made.

I loved the ladybugs!

The next course was fish with spinach in cream sauce.

The fish was flaky and tender, absolutely delicious!

There was another presentation at this point, another hour.  I couldn’t believe it.  Then the next course..  beef, scalloped potatoes and veggies.

This was just so-so.  The veggies were delicious, but the beef was a little chewy.  And I’m not really a fan of potatoes in general so I didn’t eat much of them.

Guess what?  After that course was completed…. another hour break.  *sigh*.  All I wanted was dessert!

We took some pictures.  S’s mom and I:

The usual suspects.

Then, the bride and groom did a dance for everyone.

Finally, dessert time!  I was hoping for wedding cake, but there wasn’t a cake in sight.  I thought… maybe the Swiss don’t do wedding cake? 

It was sorbet with fresh fruit.

Finally, long after the sorbet, the cake was finally taken out.  I was shocked, and disappointed because I was very full at that point.  The wedding cake is always my favorite part, and it had been such a long time that we had thought there wasn’t going to be any!  Also, by this point everyone was quite drunk and distracted so people weren’t paying much attention when the bride and groom actually cut it.  Oh well. 

I was full, but managed to eat a big piece anyways

It was delicious, and worth the wait!

We finally left the reception at almost 2am.  I was exhausted at this point and really wanted to go home.  It was still pouring rain! 

I’m really glad that I got to experience a Swiss wedding – especially now that I am thinking a lot about ours and how we should do things.  Let’s just say this helped me to make a lot of realizations about how I do (and don’t!!) want mine to be

Once again, I’m playing a little bit of catch-up with my Switzerland posts.  I believe I left off around Friday.  But first, let me show you what S’s parents gave to us as an engagement gift on Thursday evening:

This is a clock that S’s dad designed.  He thought of the idea and sketched it out in a drawing, and then he gave it to the artist who created the clock.

I absolutely love it.  And it is so special – handmade, and our first gift to really adorn our home as we start to create our life together.

S’s parents are so thoughtful, kind and generous.  I am so happy to be becoming a part of their family!

On Friday, we were outside and I saw this on the ground:

A small eggshell.  At first I was sad because I thought that whatever had been in it must have died.  But then I realized that it had actually hatched!

Beautiful.

The rest of the day was full of more natural beauty.  We headed to the Lötschental valley to do a hike. 

This was a hike that S used to do all the time when he was younger, so he was very excited to show it to me. 

It is about a 2 hour hike up to a hut in the mountains.  We started off right after lunchtime.

At the beginning of the trail there was a springwater fountain where we filled up our water bottle.  It was ice cold and tasted great.

We saw lots of streams and little waterfalls along the route.

And these beautiful purple flowers were everywhere!

This is the symbol that was used to mark the trail.  It was painted on rocks every few hundred feet or so.

It was an incredibly gorgeous day – blue sky and sunny.  It wasn’t too hot but wasn’t too cold.

There was still a lot of snow up in the alps, though.  I think that is there all year round – after all, it is still there in the middle of summer!

At last, about 1.5 hours in, we could see the hut.  See it up there?

Getting closer….

It actually wasn’t much of a hut at all, but rather a small building.  When S was younger, it actually was a hut.  However, an avalanche a few years ago destroyed the hut and it was rebuilt a big bigger, out of this cement material.  Guess they don’t want to risk it being destroyed again!

We finally got to the top, and look who we found also enjoying the hut by the Swiss flag!

We bought cokes inside the hut and drank them outside.  They were RIDICULOUSLY expensive – almost $11 for two (and mine was much smaller than S’s bottle you see below.)  And of course S proceeded to spill half of his on the table. 

There goes $3!! 

Then, we started our descent. 

On the way down, we saw a plethora of frogs!

And we took a bathroom break. 

Of course, S had to take a picture of my bathroom break. 

Next sighting?  A big, green caterpillar!

S liked that one.

We were exhausted by the time we finished.  On our drive back, we were almost home when we had to stop for a herd of cows crossing the road!  By the time I was able to stop laughing and get my camera out, they were pretty much all the way across.

You don’t see that in Silicon Valley!

That’s a Brangelina way of saying France and Germany, in case you didn’t get the memo.  Today I was in three countries in one day!  More on that in a second.

When I woke up, the first thing I did was go outside and pick blackberries!  S’s parents have all kinds of fruits and veggies growing in their garden and in the trees and bushes all around their house.  The blackberries are ripe right now and I was very excited to pick some.

They have many bushes – I was out there for over an hour and barely scratched the surface!  I picked two huge bowls worth.  Tomorrow I will pick more, there are still a gazillion out there.  They are sooo delicious!

Picking in pjs and all

In the beginning…

Filling up bowl…

After bowl.  ‘Twas glorious.  After my blackberry fest, I quickly got ready and we were off!  Headed north to Germany.

Along the way we stopped for lunch.  I got a roast beef sandwich on a baguette.

There was some white sauce on it… S and I weren’t sure what the sauce was, but it was tasty!  The bread was super yummy too, with sesame and flax seeds.

Beefy.

When we crossed into Germany, we drove on the autobahn for 20 min or so.  It was pretty crazy having no speed limit – although around the border area there are a lot of sections that they have started to put a speed limit to.  Then we arrived at Freiburg in im Breisgau.  I loved the city right away because they have these little water gutters throughout the streets.

The water is clean and sparkly – not dirty like sewer water. in the road in the US.

It is a fun place to play for little kids, and a drinking fountain and place to cool off for doggies!

I must admit, I almost tripped or fell into it a couple of times when I was walking and talking (or taking pictures???) and wasn’t paying attention.  I’ll bet there are a fair number of sprained ankles in Freiburg each year

We walked around the streets and went into shops.

One place S wanted to visit was one of his favorite bookstores there, where he bought his first computer programming book when he was a kid.  Dork.

He even bought that book… as a memento.  I bought a german grammar book, which has some humor and great explanations, and an intro to German CD/workbook combo.  I will be starting German class in the fall (after last spring’s fail) and can’t wait to learn!

I loved this little poster on the wall of the bookstore:

Do you get it??

For a snack stop, we went to Nordsee, which is a fish restaurant in Germany.  We got it to go.

I got smoked fish!  I have no idea what kind of fish it was… because I couldn’t read the sign.  But it was damn good

One nice thing about Europe this time of year is that everything is very GREEN! 

After our time in Germany, we headed to France.  We went to the city of Colmar.

It was so old and quaint.  The whole city looked like a movie set.

We went to a cafe for ice cream and coffee.

Diet coke for me, please.

There was a pretty fountain…

Which required some serious pictures.

And some not so serious ones…

We had fun

I love ice cream!

There were horse-drawn carriages going through the city, too!

Fun was had by all.

Exhausted, we headed out of France and back into Switzerland.  We drove into Basel, where we stopped at Burger King for dinner.  High class, we know

Behold… our $31 dinner.  For two.  At Burger King.

Yes, that is my 11 dollar salad you see.  Sigh.

To bed for me, before I fall asleep typing!  Going to three countries in one day is exhausting

So far it has been a whirlwind trip.  I’ll try to make this relatively short and sweet.

Tuesday morning we didn’t wake up until 11am.  Breakfast was:

After breakfast, we headed to Lausanne.  I love Lausanne.  It is a beautiful city on Lake Geneva, the Olympic capital, and the city where I ran my last marathon!

On the way, we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s!  Yeah… Swiss McDonald’s is similar to American McDonalds, with a few small differences.  I got a chicken caesar salad, like always   But the major difference in Switzerland?  The PRICES!  

Check this out:  (Note, the prices are in Swiss francs, but right now the Swiss franc is almost equivalent to the US dollar)

Yeah, see that?  A chicken caesar salad cost 11.90!!!  And S’s SMALL sized meal with a NYCrispy burger, a small fries and a small drink cost 12.30.  Unreal. 

Oh, another thing I noticed.  Think the weight and diet obsession is only an America thing?  Think again.  Look what was the first thing I saw on the back of the receipt:

Swiss slim belly?  Yes please.  On the back of the McDonald’s receipt??  Um… yeah.

So on to Lausanne.

Love Lake Geneva.  The water is just beautiful, and with the sun out it makes it so blue and sparkly.

This is along the road where the marathon took place!

Can you see the background?  The whole mountainside is all vineyards and wineries.

And I forgot how crazy the hills are there!  After just running my 12 miler on Sunday, I realize I have a LOT further to go before I am going to be able to run another marathon – especially if it is as hilly as this one was. 

The sun was setting as we left Lausanne.

We drove through Montreaux on the way home.  Montreaux is an upscale town also on Lake Geneva, and is gorgeous.

I love just driving through various parts of Switzerland.  Some people might find it boring, seeing so much by car, but I totally love it.  Just me, S and the open road… it’s relaxing and calming to me. 

Tomorrow we are going to Germany and France!  In one day!!  Super excited.

So…  believe it or not, I actually did run on Sunday evening – shortly after I finished my last post.  I decided that the best thing to do, rather than skip the run altogether, was to do six miles on Sunday evening and six miles on Monday morning.    So we mapped out a 6 miler on MapMyRun and we took off – S rode the bike along side me.  So I was all set to do my six miles…   Except we took a wrong turn and had to double back, and it ended up being 8.7 miles! I was hurting by the time we arrived back home.  I think it was a lot more mental than physical… when you expect to be done after six miles but are still running 2.5 miles later, it’s a killer!  It was tough physically, too, though.  The hills where we ran are just ridiculous.

So we arrived back at the house and I was pretty much ready to eat as much as possible and then call it a night.  I was still feeling our major plane flights from the day before.  But S pointed out that to complete my 12 miles, I now only had 3.3 left to go, so I might as well try to go slow and get it done.  That way I would be able to relax and sleep in the next day.  He even offered to run it with me!  So we did it together.  We went super slow, and the hills around here are KILLER but it was so awesome to get it done.  I was pretty proud of myself for running 12 miles the day after my international flight.  Plus then I pretty much got to eat my weight in fondue for dinner and chocolate for dessert

Overall, I finished 12.22 miles in 2:04.  Garmin info can be seen here. 

Stats:
Time:  02:04:43
Distance:  12.22 mi
Elevation Gain:  1,118 ft
Avg Moving Pace:  10:06 min/mi

Not too shabby.

And believe it or not, I still couldn’t sleep afterwards.  I was exhausted, and actually right asleep… but then I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t fall back to sleep again.  So I had some breakfast in the middle of the night:

This cereal is like a raspberry granola.  It is delicious!  And a great snacky food.  I read, poked around online, and finally fell back asleep a few hours later. 

Monday morning we woke up bright and early at 8:30am and got ready to head to Zurich.  S’s grandmother lives there, and we were going to take her out for lunch.  We left at about 10:30, and it was a 2 1/2 hour drive.  By the time we arrived, picked up his Grandma, and then took a bus and three different trains to get there, we arrived at the restaurant for lunch at almost 2pm.  I was practically gnawing my arm off I was so hungry.  Unfortunately, the restaurant did not have an English menu that I could understand.  I didn’t want to ask S to translate the whole thing while he was trying to converse with his grandma, and also to order for himself, so I just got something that I could somewhat understand – and it turned out to be a pretty good option.  A greek-ish salad with black olives, avocado and capers.

I’m not really a fan of capers.  I don’t have them and always think that maybe my tastes might have changed a bit and I will like them this time… but I never do. 

After lunch, we went to another cafe and got a coffee.  That is the Swiss way, always ending a meal with a coffee.  Or at least S’s family’s way.

I was hungry very soon after dropping off S’s grandmother back at her house.  So on the way home, we stopped at a Swiss Aldi!!  Aldi used to be one of my favorite stores where I grew up.  It is an awesome little grocery store that is very inexpensive.  It is mainly able to be so cheap because it sells mainly its own brands.  In addition, it does little cost-saving measures:  They do not bag your groceries.  You have to bring your own, or use the boxes they have there from their shipments.  And to get a cart, you have to insert a quarter (you get the quarter back when you return the cart.)  Unfortunately, they don’t have Aldi in California   But they do have it in Switzerland!  I got lots of goodies, including…

Chocolate caramel cream mice:

A variety of mini Ritter Sport bars:

And these awesome cookies – kinda similar to oreos, except hazelnut!!

I’ll bet you can guess what my dinner will be tonight  

We are back in Switzerland! 

The flights getting here were a bit of a pain!  The first one, from SF to London Heathrow, was delayed about an hour.  We made up the time in the air, though, and landed only a few minutes late in London.  During the flight they had a lot of movies to choose from.  First I started watching Invictus, but I fell asleep halfway through as soon as I finished the dinner they served.  About halfway through the flight I tried Date Night and was able to watch the whole thing.  I was a little disappointed, as I had high hopes for a Tina Fey and Steve Carell movie,  but it was not too bad.

Originally, in SF, each of us checked one bag and had one smaller rolling bag as a carry on.  However, when we went through security in London, they told S that his carryon was too big and they made him check it.  But then when they checked it, they put the wrong tag on it (the tag for the guy who went in line before him!!)  so his bag ended up going to PARIS!  Needless to say, he was not happy.  And that bag had all his stuff and all his clothes in it (the other bag had all the gifts and purchases that he had brought for everyone else…) so he has no clothes or anything.  They are supposed to call him with more information in the next day or so.

Our second flight was delayed too… we boarded the plane about 1/2 hour late, but then had to sit on the plane for an hour before we took off.  So we landed overall about an hour late in Switzerland.  S’s family picked us up from the airport.  We had a two hour drive back to where they lived, and we stopped for dinner on the way home.  We finally got back pretty late, and after a little bit of chatting we hit the sack and pretty much passed out! 

When we woke up, we made a beeline for coffee and breakfast. 

S’s family was actually visiting France last week, and they brought back a ton of wonderful fruits, cheeses, breads, etc.  Look at this beautiful spread!!

Fresh bread:

And a plate of all kinds of cheeses:

Along with fresh blackberry pastry S’s mom baked:

I had a slice of the big one, and also at this mini one:

So cute!  But my favorite is the cheese, I had 4 different kinds:  One soft goat cheese, one peppered goat cheese, one soft, stinky cow cheese and one hard, very flavorful cheese.  Yum!  I think I could live on cheese.  Well, maybe cheese and ice cream

After breakfast, we all got ready and headed into Fribourg to take a walk.  We went to a pizzeria for lunch, where we enjoyed fresh pizza, salad, and this:

A diet coke.  In a glass bottle!  I can’t remember the last time I had a pop in a glass bottle in the US!

After lunch, we got gelato.  I got caramel creme on the bottom scoop, and pistachio on the top.  YUM!

We continued walking around Fribourg until we were tuckered out.

It was a great day. 

Now I’m sitting here contemplating what to do about my long run.  My run for today was supposed to be 12 miles, but after our hellish plane rides yesterday and the jetlag, as well as our walking around Fribourg today, I don’t feel like I could even run a mile!  What to do… what to do.  Might try to run a little tomorrow morning?

That’s what made the perfect combination last night.  I invited two of my friends, Wanda and Jana, over for dinner.  I met them in 2006 when I first moved to California, through running.  We trained for, and ran, the 2006 Silicon Valley marathon together (along with our friend Cathy, who now lives in New Jersey   We miss her very much!)  These girls are awesome runners, and are AWESOME friends.  The only bad part is that they live over an hour away so I don’t get to see them as often as I would like. 

Although I have been friends with Wanda and Jana since way before I actually bought my house, they haven’t yet seen it since they live so far away,.  So I was reeeeeeeally excited to have them finally come down and see my (now OUR) place.

For the fondue, we made the usual offenders:  (excuse the recycled pic…)

Fondue is an awesome meal to have when you invite company over – assuming it is between 4-8 people that can fit at a table around the fondue pot.  It’s great because it is really social… everybody sharing and dipping into the middle of the table makes a really social, comfortable atmosphere.  Plus, everybody loves it!  I have never had anybody who was coming over say that they didn’t like fondue, and everybody eats a lot.  Plus, it’s easy!  Just cut up some bread, veggies, fruits, meats… and whatever else tickles your fancy at that moment in time, and you’re good to go!  Everything tastes better dipped in cheese

For dessert, Wanda brought these wonderful lemon tarts from Miette Patisserie – a gorgeous bakery in the San Francisco Ferry Building. 

It was simple and delicious: a pâte sucrée crust filled with 100% organic lemon curd.

Just look at this elegance.  What’s not to love?

I almost ate the sticker in the middle of it.  I never understood why people put inedible things on edible items…  like when we were little kids, sometimes it was hard to distinguish what was or was not edible on the top of a birthday cake.  Eventually, my policy just became – put it in your mouth.  If you can’t chew it or it tastes funny, spit it out – you aren’t supposed to eat it.

Anyhow… I’m not usually the biggest  lemon fan, but these were HOLY YUM!!!

S said that they were very French, and that they had similar ones that were green in Switzerland that I would like.  We have put it on the list for our trip!    Which, by the way, we are leaving for very soon…