Oh, it was worth it. I can’t imagine being in Switzerland now. Surely there are things I miss: trains, the lake, my friends. Everything I said I would miss. But I’ve been at my new job for a week now, and I love what I’m doing. If you stand on your tippy-toes and peer through a window into my life, from the outside it may appear boring. I carpool with three other girls my age every morning to Ocala, sit at a desk, edit books, e-mail authors, submit invoices and perform other various tasks. At the end of the day I carpool back and drive to my boyfriend’s apartment.

But I have a steady job in the field I studied in school, the girls I carpool with are fun and my boyfriend is incredible.

I get to see Kim Homrich and my other Gville friends whenever possible, and in the fall I get to live with Brittany Davis.

Oh and … in Gville, no one calls me stupid cow every day, no one talks about me in Swiss German, no one slams doors in my face and no one wails for hours for no reason.

My life? Love it.

Paris was wonderful. I met up with Miriam and her two friends, Edward and Sarah. We did all the touristy things, such as: Notre Dame, the Sacre-Coeur church, eating crepes, the Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, the Louvre and drinking coffee at a cafe. My favorite was the Eiffel Tower. We had a picnic on the Eiffel lawn and lounged around until we took the elevator ride to the very top. The view was amazing, especially as the sun was setting. Drawback? Seeing couples making out.

Our hostel was good (maybe a bit expensive, the equivalent of about $34 a night). I was so, so ready to get on the plane for HOME on Tuesday. Now it’s 4:26 a.m. Thursday and I’m battling  jetlag. I fell asleep at about 2 p.m. yesterday (Wednesday) and now, 14 hours later, I still haven’t got the time difference right. I get to see Kevin in about 19.5 hours – not that I’m counting or anything.

In the future, I’ll try to keep these posts short and maybe even try to learn to put some wit in here. I’m so nervous about my job starting Monday… pray for me, cross your fingers, etc. My next adventure starts in four days!

this is what i’m leaving behind in switzerland.

Lindsey and I made a list of things I must do before I leave:

-Go to Italy

-Go to Paris

-paddleboat on the Zurichsee

-the list will continue

I told Susi just a few minutes ago. It didn’t seem real until I officially told her. Let me just say that Susi is one of the most amazing people you will ever meet. She said this sounds like a great opportunity and I should take it. She said she will miss me, and so will the girls. I have become very attached to the five of them: Susi, Nadine, Patricia, Fabienne and even Rene. Susi told me to let APC know if they’re mean, I have a job in Meilen waiting for me.

Oh… everything is working out so well.

I will miss Switzerland very, very much. But I have had five of the best months anyone could ask for. And I’m still taking some adventures before I leave. If anyone wants to go to Paris or Budapest with me, this is your last chance to travel with me for a long time!

My last day in Switzerland is tentatively June 1. I’ll miss you all…

And it was fantastic!

I must have devoured my food (instant coffee, two pieces of bread with strawberry jam, and a Spanish cake-thing) like a caveman. I couldn’t shove it in my mouth fast enough (please don’t comment on that. Yes, it is ‘what she said.’)

I left Barcelona this morning with a pretty great feeling. The only slight downside was getting lost on the trains to the airport with Noel, whom I had entrusted to get us there safely. Everyone knows I don’t do directions and trains. Turns out he’s not great at them either. I was ravenous by the time I got to the airport and started shaking until I bought chips and a sandwich. mmmm. I thought about the last week or so.

But let me start where I left off, in Vienna…

On the last day in Vienna, Merissa, Miriam and I had scheduled the Fine Arts Museum and the Imperial Palace. It cost 7.5 euro to get in the museum, another 3 euro for audio headsets and .5 euro to hang my bag up. Additionally, I spent 4 euro on lunch and 2.5 euro on a notebook from the gift shop. Determined to get our money’s worth, Miriam and I wandered through the museum for FOUR HOURS. Merissa was finished in half that time and I felt bad as she waited for us at the end. But now I can proudly tell you about ancient Egyptian artifacts as well as Roman and Greek artifacts. Also, I saw the Canadian currency mint. Uhh… great?

The Imperial Palace was awesome and beautiful. The best part of the day was when Miriam and I hiked up a steep hill to the summit, where a pool house (?) was located. I could see for miles in all directions of Austria, and I felt truly lucky to be able to travel and see what I have seen. We also climbed into a huge, elaborate, empty fountain and took pictures of us atop a horse, kissing mythological creatures and smackin’ that ass of marble kings. I thought about how the Habsburgs had looked at this very fountain so many years ago. It was a warm day with just enough of a cool breeze. Austria is gorgeous…

We left on the night train, and we were acting completely silly. I couldn’t stop laughing at everything and anything. It was good to feel like that again. The night train departed at 9:30 and arrived in Zurich at 6:30 a.m. Miriam and I didn’t sleep a wink. Ugh. I feel bad for Miriam, who had to deal with children all day. I was just a cranky camper as Merissa and I took the S6 to Meilen… except we found out the hard way it stops in Herrliberg-Feldmeilen, one stop shy of Meilen. Ugh! I hung out with Merissa all Thursday.

I left for Barcelona Friday afternoon, thinking about how all I wanted to do was go see my amazing boyfriend. Maybe meet up in New York City for a weekend. Unfortch (oh yeah, abbreves are so cool), I could not afford that for one weekend. One of the reasons I booked a flight to Barcelona was to refrain from buying a last-minute ticket to the U.S. in order to fall asleep in Kevin’s arms.

I walked into my hostel around 11 p.m. and was greeted with a mobbed reception desk and screeching sounds reverberating throughout this apparently ultra-social hostel. Well, it was located on Passeig de Gracia, an extremely central street, so what could I expect. I finished reading “The Kite Runner” in my bed (nothing like reading about guilt, male rape, cultural downfall and parental death to keep things light). I was woken up by some senoritas at about 4 a.m. Oh. My. God. Sleeping in a 12-bed hostel dorm can be really fucking annoying. The next morning I left the light on when I left. I had to switch rooms anyway (the hostel needed me to). bwahahaha.

On Saturday I took a Gaudi architecture tour with two others: Jessica is from Canada and Gil is from Israel. Our tour guide, Linda, was German! We spoke a little bit of German. Let me digress here to explain that, weirdly enough, I was extremely comforted when I heard anyone speaking German and I held some convos in German during my time in Barcelona. Strange that in the beginning of my time in Switzerland, I hated German. Now I’m really loving it. Jessica, Gil, Linda and I walked for miles around Barcelona to look at the Sagrada Familia and other famous Gaudi work. It was fabulous. We finished at a park that overlooked Barcelona. I took photos of the landscape, which held the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. Beautiful. Bonita.

Jessica and I walked around even more after that, visiting the pier and a mall. We collapsed onto chairs in a restaurant. Dinner, which seemed slightly expensive at first, turned out to include bread, salad (mussels for Jes), two glasses of wine, a huge portion of paella and chocolate mousse for dessert. All for 15 euro, which translates to about $23. I think it was definitely worth it. We even saved half the paella and ate it for dinner the next night.

I was supposed to meet up with Sarah Recio on Saturday night, but I was dead tired from nine hours of walking through Barcelona. And smelly. I called it a night after a few drinks with Jes.

Jes and I visited bcn’s museum of contemporary art on Sunday, which really didn’t impress me too much. Much of the collection wasn’t… contemporary. It was from the ’60s. On top of this, I couldn’t force my mind to stop thinking about Kevin. Ughhh. Why, brain, why. Then we walked to the Picasso museum, which was definitely worth standing in line for 40 minutes. Admission is free after 3 p.m. on Sundays! There was a lot of info – in English! – and much of Picasso’s work. It was really interesting to see how his work developed from what my untrained eye would call “normal” to his famous cubism.

Sunday night… I was supposed to go out with Sarah but she cancelled So I settled on being bored.

Monday was quite a relaxing day. I bought two shirts and searched in vain for the perfect sandals. I’m positive I would have found them if I had searched further. Instead I began a search for Stephanie Meyers’ new book, The Host. I just wanted some light fiction to get me through the day. Instead I purchased “The Devil Wears Prada,” knowing it wouldn’t disappoint. It didn’t. I sat in a lounge chair atop the hostel’s top-floor terrace. Sun shining, blood-red sangria with fruit floating in it, and a book. In Barcelona. It… was… fab.

I finally got the chance to go out with Sarah last night, along with several people from my dorm: Mary, Rob, Alex and Fernando. It turned out to be a truly fun night. Sarah took us to a pizza/bar she likes – a hole in the wall, the best kind – and then to a club. Admission- 10 freakin euro. Ugh. At least our wonderful boys provided the drinks the whole night.

After a few minutes in the club, I noticed I kept walking on something strange. That’s when I realized the floor was covered with broken glass. Mary casually sipped her Budweiser, poured some on the floor (it probably got on someone) and chucked the bottle at the ground, adding to the collection of dangerous flooring. I couldn’t help but laugh at this insanely dangerous thing.

I was sweaty as hell, soaked with beer from the waist down (I had been the victim of a drunk asshole’s dropped beer), smelled like smoke, and was dancing on broken glass. Best night ever.

Come to think of it, best back-to-back vacations ever.

I stared straight ahead until I realized Katy and Lindsey were giggling about something.

Hmmm. I kept staring. Then I started talking until Lindsey said ….You’ve been talking for two hours, Kim. Oh. They had been giggling all day. I guess it hit us differently.

Anne Frank house. A very tragic event in world history… but they were giggling. And I had to sit down. So … weak.

There was a flight of so-steep-they-were-vertical stairs… were we rock climbing in Anne Frank’s house? Oh. This was the flight of stairs eight hidden people had to use to hide from the Nazis. And this was the room in which Anne Frank wrote her diary while she sat, terrified of what was to come (two years in a Nazi camp until death came two weeks before the liberation).

Videos of people who knew Anne Frank. Dutch sounded like German. I understood some words. Speaking of words, I wasn’t using them. Kept staring…

Why the hell were they giggling so much.

Hmmm. I still had a piece of space cake left. Would anyone notice me eating a piece of rainbow-colored cake?

Then we were in a porn shop. They didn’t remember the hour between Anne Frank’s house and the gay porn shop. I did. They giggled the whole time and I watched them giggle. So many phalli. So many dirty things. So many hott men plastered on posters that read  ‘I won’t tell your girlfriend…’

Very nice people helped us find the Red Light district. 6 p.m. and already the booths in the alleyways were filled with prostitutes. Some danced, some jiggled their breasts at us (I wonder if they swung both ways? Ew.), some stared at the ground, ashamed. Some just stood there. How many men had each been with? Was sex even an enjoyable experience for  them anymore? My guess is no.

Sat by a canal for a bit. So many canals and bridges.

So tired from walking around Amsterdam all day. Went back to the Marriott. Katy’s friend had hooked us up with a room at the Marriott for 35 euros a night. Sweet. We rode that shuttle four times and never paid the 5 euro fee for it. Never paid for the bottles of water or the taxi either.

Slept. Best sleep of my life possibly.

The next day we left Amsterdam. I’m pretty sure I got a good taste of it… or at least a good whiff.

I met up with Miriam and Merissa Monday morning at the Meininger hostel. It’s in kind of a sketchy area, but it’s a nice hostel. We walked around the main part of the city (Museum Quartier) and visited the Kust Haille museum, which was boasting ‘The Porn Identity’ display.

The Kunst Haille treated us to videos of heterosexual porn, gay porn, violent porn, a naked teenage guy talking into a webcam while taking about 15 minutes to get his penis hard (we abruptly walked away when his thumb starting inching near his  anus) and a hilarious video of a man and woman sitting at opposite ends of a table while speaking pornographic lines with straight faces. We were also treated to some pretty disturbing images. So many phalli.

There was also an artistic display of Lolita, one of my favorite books. The whole thing cost about 5 euros.

We walked around the imperial palace. A violinist, guitarist and cellist were playing Mozart pieces right outside the palace Mozart’s music was performed about 200 years ago (?). The acoustics were amazing and it really helped place the palace in the 18th century. I purchased my standard postcards and Starbucks city mug (now I have ones from Tianjin, England, Amsterdam, Vienna, Zurich and Germany),

My 30 minutes of Internet time is almost up, so I will update this more later. I just snuck into the breakfast hall (not hard to do – I walked in and sat down) and ate a spectacular breakfast of roll, meat, cheese and coffee. I’m waiting for Merissa and Miriam to wake uppp.

(Kevin – Ich liebe dich, Schatzle.)

Tschuss!

-Sprinting to make the train

-Missing the train

-Stealing beer steins from restaurants or bars

-Making random friends

-Someone peeing on a sidewalk or an inappropriate place (not me though)

-Cheeseburgers or some other fattening food

-Someone in the group getting to flirt or make out with someone

Katy and I took advantage of Meilen’s cute little pubs Friday night and visited the Restaurant Bahnhof. The walk there is hilarious, because there’s a creepy display of clowns that move and flip around and smile eternally in the window of a small shop. We ordered zwei bieren and proceeded to take a seat at the bar area. A really old woman sat near us and then started to talk to us in German. The man behind me started translating and then started speaking Italian to us. We kept up tipsy conversation until I realized that I had told this old woman about three times that I live in Meilen and I’m an au pair. Our server came by to check on us and she translated for the lady.

“Where do you live?”

“Oh. We kind of told her like five times….?”

“She forgets after about five seconds. She lives in this building on the top floor.” Wink.

So I tried to get Katy to have light fun and to tell the lady different things every time, but she told her the same thing. After two beers each Katy and I decided to buy another to go and to get on home. We dubbed our new friend Magda and said we’d be back some time soon. At home, we chatted with meine liebling for a bit and then went to sleep.

Saturday was a big day… LAUSANNE! We began the journey right: Migros coffee and groceries. Realizing we only had about three minutes before the train arrived after picking up coffee, apples and chocolate rice cakes, we took the natural course of action and went to buy a purse. Sprinting to the train, I was depressed by how fast Katy could run and how I almost made us miss the train by being a slowpoke. No time to buy a ticket to the HB… we would wing it. I have only been audited four times on the train since I arrived in Switzerland, and thankfully I had a ticket each time. We were not audited on the way to the HB… I would survive another day.

We took the 9:30 a.m. train to Lausanne, planning to at least visit the Olympic Museum. Upon arrival, we went to the train station’s bathroom and paid two francs each for the privilege of peeing in their toilets. There are many, many public restrooms in Europe that you must pay for… it’s annoying but at least you know they’ll be clean. My toilet didn’t flush so I walked to the sink,  where Katy told me to stock up on toilet paper, since we paid two freaking francs and we’d better get our money’s worth. While stuffing my bag with toilet paper, the bathroom monitor tapped me on the shoulder and spoke to me in French (Lausanne is a French-speaking city).

And this is what Katy saw: Cleaning lady leads me into a stall and Katy hears “No! I don’t want to do that! You can’t make me! Katy let’s leave now!” Later, Katy would tell me she was glad I wasn’t molested.

Apparently there are certain things you don’t put into a toilet in Switzerland and you don’t flush them, and cleaning ladies will try to give you gloves and order you to put that thing in a trash bag and into the trash can. And apparently, I will refuse. Fuck that, I paid two francs, and you can take it out of the toilet and put it in a trash bag if you’re so keen on it.

I would like to point out we were still stone-cold sober that morning.

On to the Olympic Museum, but not until we stopped at a pirate-themed restaurant… ahoy, mateys. Two beers each and a salad for me… and frog legs for Katy. Yes, frog legs. Ugh! I have a freakish aversion to frogs, but I had to have a bite. Ugh. I sum up that restaurant as a waste of money… but at least I got to try frog legs.

The Olympic Museum was really cool! Katy and I sat through two videos: one of the history of the revival of the games (by Pierre de Coubertin in the 1800′s) and one purely of footage of the games. It was cool to see the history behind the games and to feel the message behind the Olympics. It really is an amazing thing to unite dozens of nations in peaceful competition. I love the way  the art and culture of the location has recently been emphasized. I was in China when they were getting ready for the games, and it was so exciting. Many, many people became more aware of Chinese culture and innovation when the Olympics took place in Beijing. (People also gave a lot of notice to the corruption going on there too.)

After the museum, Katy and I moseyed along the lakeshore and took photos of the beautiful city. The Zurichsee is beautiful in such a different way than Lausanne’s lake. I will try to add pics to this entry. Lausanne also has a castle, Oichy, but we couldn’t go inside it. We sat at a restaurant and had another beer while watching the beautiful lake and mountains. Always the best course of action.

It was about 5 p.m. and Katy and I were getting restless. We needed to catch a train after 7 in order to travel for free using the Gleis Sieben… so we went to McDonald’s and ate. Also always the best course of action.

On the train ride from Zurich to Meilen, Katy decided to make a friend of a frumpy, middle-aged woman named Delores… But might I add that we were no longer stone-cold sober.

We got home and talked to meine liebling on video chat (Kevin I miss you).

On Sunday, we awoke for pancakes and coffee. Nadine and Patricia had their last theater performance of the season, so Katy and I would attend. We took a brisk walk through Meilen first, then got ready for the play. Took the train to the HB to buy flowers for the girls and to eat kebaps. Scored major brownie points by showing up at the play, having flowers, and dressing nicely. YES!

Today Susi, Nadine, Patricia, Fabienne and I went to the Rapperswil Kinder Zoo and had a great time. There’s a playground where you climb several monkey bar contraptions to get to the entrance of a slide. It was such a great slide! The first time I tried it, I erupted in laughter at the end… oh, to be a kid again.

On the way home, Susi told me she would love for me to stay the rest of the year here. I was elated. I had hoped she would say that.

Now I sit here. I should be studying German but I never, ever do. I have some decisions to make. But I’m having fun here and I never want to grow up.

One week I decided to impress the hell out of Renata. I practiced my Kreutzer etude endlessly, the way Renata taught me, phrase by phrase and at a slow pace until I could speed up. When I played it for her, I effortlessly glided through each measure, topped it off with vibrato and finished (almost) perfectly. “Brava,” she said, eyebrows raised. Yes, I had done it- impressed Renata.

I want to do that with Christine in our German classes. I’ve fallen behind on my lessons, and I know she doesn’t get why I’m such an idiot when it comes to German grammar. But it’s really hard for me! However, this weekend I plan to study like a nerd until I’m as fluent as Susi says I am.

On the same note, I want to impress my host family. And… I want to prove to myself I can be amazing!

Tonight we’re all going out for Miriam’s birthday. She’s officially legal in her home country, Canada! I look forward to a fun weekend with amazing weather. Patricia and Nadine have theater performances Saturday and Sunday, so wish them “break a leg.” Fabienne’s birthday is Sunday, and P&N and I have been working on painting a mobile for her.

Lindsey, Marina, Katy and I are all booked for AMSTERDAM April 3-5! Rome is somewhere around April 16-20. LUGANO is March 28, since they have a chocolate carnival! Lugano also has cable lifts over the mountains. Paris is yet to be determined. And I’m waiting for my man to get to Europe before I go to Dublin.

Speaking of my man, it’s been three months with Kevin today and I couldn’t be happier!