Who needs a 5 year plan when I've got 3.

So everything is great here! Switzerland is amazing. I am a little obsessed with Geneve/Jussy where I live.
Living here has kind of opened up my eyes to all the traveling I would like to do very soon. So I am planning it.
Over the next year I am here I will be traveling to various places. I am going to Italy for at least 4 days in May, via couchsurfers.com so I don't have to pay for a hostel/hotel. Paris for Easter, the UK with my new friend Emma in March, Holland, Belgium and other places I have written down. Greet is helping set dates for all these places. I am doing it way in advance because if I book through Easyjet.com for flights in advance they are wayyyy more inexpensive. Along with next summer traveling for month in Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
My plan after I come home is to study at SPSCC for the fall and winter quarter and then spend my spring quarter in Florence, Italy.
Rachel asked if I would like to go with her to Greece and study abroad in the summer of 2010 through WSU which sounds amazing, but Tiana and I are looking into volunteer programs in Tanzania which I think would be a better experience. Hopefully I will save up enough money for both and the dates will not be overlapping.
Then the following year I will study abroad in Cape Town. That is the plan at least. This program is again through SPSCC so I will have to speak with the University that I will be in to make sure that is ok. I am 1/3 complete with my first year of college..woo. 1 2/3 years left, then off to some established University. Thanks Grandma Louise for all your help. I love you! (I know Koz will tell you.)
I have been sooooo busy, with my French courses, school back home, these kids, and my new social life that things have been crazy. I will soon send postcards and what not to you all back home, slacker... you know.
I have made so many new friends, my age and much older. We have been going out on the weekends and having a great time and meeting so many new people.
Today was the last day of my French class. I feel that I know some useful French and I am going to wait till after the next course option so I can learn a bit more. I don't feel that if I go to the next course yet I will be well enough prepared.
I will have pictures soon. Slacking big time.
Life is good. I am content...major.

New friends

So Shoshana went home about 3 weeks ago because her family pretty much sucked and the day after she gave them her two weeks, they kicked her out. So she came to Geneve, stayed with me for about three days and then flew home to Washington to be with her family and boyfriend. So here I was friendless and no plans on the weekends. So I grew a pair and asked the girl in my French class, Clare, if she wanted to make plans for the weekend. She had to babysit but she said she would pass my number along to some of her friends. I didn't actually expect her too, but when friday night rolled around, I got a next from a gal named Nikki and I ended up meeting her in town with another gal named Elanore. Nikki and Elanore are both English, Nikki is from Liverpool and Elanore... not sure actually. They are a bit older than me, but still a lot of fun to be with. We had a great night and then went to lunch the next day, and then sunday I had coffee with Elanore at Starbucks.
The following weekend us girls went out again, and along came Emma who is also an English gal. Again we had a great night hanging out together and I was so glad that I ended up going out with them, because I was afraid I was going to be friendless forever. We found a few great clubs and bars, and one pub that was all about rugby. I loved it, and met a ton of people who played rugby, and one said he would contact the women's team for me so maybe I could go practice with them for a while.
Oh and the tennis coach of my older boy Louis asked me out. His name is Will, he is Australian and super nice. The only issue I have with him is that he is 28... a bit old for me, but we can still be friends.
This past weekend I went out with another group of girls. I had met one, Fardau, in the past because we had gone out to dinner. She is from Holland, and is a extremely nice gal. Also Johanna came out, she lives in my little town, she is from Finland. We met up at Johanna's house, and took the bus into town where we met up with Suzie, who is from Manchester, and Evette from Australia. We got on to the tram and headed to a club called Bypass, I had been there once before with Shoshana but it was very expensive before and this night we went it was ladies night and so there was no cover charge, it was 5 francs for coat check, and then they gave you a champagne flute and a bracelet and then for the rest of the evening it was unlimited champagne. Last time I had went, it was a 10 franc entrance, plus 5 franc coat check and 20 francs per drink. So this time, this was great. I ended up meeting to more Chekoslavakian (I don't know how to spell that) named Inca, and Ivanna. We had a great time, drank way too much champagne and Fardau and I left about 4am which was crazy. She stayed at my place that night and we slept like ALL day.
Everything is going really well here for me. The mom invited me to stay longer during the summer and we are going to be traveling for a month. Two weeks in Spain, one week in Sweden, and one week Portugal, I am sooo excited. I want to go home in the summer to see my friends, but when in my life am I going to have this opportunity, with free hotel stays and free flights.... never. So I am taking up her offer. I plan on being back first week in August, unless plans change again. I just really think they don't want me to leave, which makes me sad to even think about. We are also going to Belgium for Christmas and I think Paris from Easter, so that will be really fun.
It snowed yesterday for the first time and of course I have a cold now, so I am drinking a TON of tea and eating a lot of soup. Got to stay healthy when taking care of four kids.

Zurich/Egypt

So I went to Zurich two weekends ago with Shoshana(we were going to go to Munich but its a 7 hour train ride....yea right). We took a taxi to our hotel which was called The Zic Zac Rock Hotel, every room was themed with a famous American band or singer; We were in Status Quo. We got settled in, walked around town for a while. It was a beautiful day and there were a lot of people about. Zurich was is such a nice place, we loved it. That night we went to the co-op and bought some drinks. We got some wine in juice boxes, a bottle of wine, some smirnoff and snacks. Later we noticed that the club downstairs in our hotel was filling up with people so we decided to check it out. The place was packed and there was a cheezy red rope outside and a big bald bodyguard. We got in for free because we were staying at the hotel. We got in and met some guys and just started dancing. Shosh went back up and I kept dancing, about 1 I decided to go back up and this guy that I had been dancing with decided he wanted to come. Shoshana came down and rescued me. We spent the next day walking around down again, a lot of things were closed because it was Sunday so we went and saw Mamma Mia in a really small theater with an intermission. We left later that evening after 7 because we both have the Track 7 pass that you can ride on the train free after 7 o'clock. We went our separate ways at the train stops and back home again.
That following week I was getting ready to leave for Egypt on Saturday. When saturday came we loaded up a taxi van with 7 people and got on our flight at 7am. We flew through Egypt Air which was an awful idea because the planes actually resembled the ones in movies that end up crashing, old, dirty, and scary. We made it to Egypt Safely, the second we got off the plane we were sweating, it was about 100 degrees roughly. We got to the hotel in Sharm El Sheikh and went to our amazing hotel, The Sofitel Hotel. It was gorgeous, huge pool, huge site, right on the red sea. We spent 6 nights there, laying by the pool during the day, doing aqua gym in the pool, snorkling and scuba diving in the sea and just relaxing. This trip to Egypt was a vacation, it was not a site seeing one, so no ruins or pyramids... but I will some day. We went into town at night and got cheezy souviniers and ate dinner. My nickname at the hotel with all the staff was America and Snow White, it was ridiculous. All week we just relaxed, I actually got a little bit tan believe it or not. I got over 50 bug bites on my legs toward the end of the week, it was terrible, since I am mildly allergic. So all my bites swelled up half dollar size, were very bumpy and itchy. So I went to the pharmacy with Greet and they gave me a shot or as they called it "an injection" which sounded so much more scarier. The guy came around the counter while I was standing there and popped it in my arm, gave me some itch medicine and sent me on my way. I wish I would have taken a picture of the pharmacy... so sketch. At the end of the week, I was really sad to go, the resort was gorgeous and everyone was so nice. I want to go back someday for sure.
Everything else is great, the kids are picking up English so well, the four year old tries so hard and she is good. Tonight is Halloween so I helped Louis and his bestfriend Bazil dress up for their school's Halloween party as female vampires... actually hilarious. I was supposed to be going to Paris this weekend with Shosh but thats not happening so we shall see. I think I am going to a Halloween party in Geneve at same Irish pub with Fardau and Johanna.
Shoshana has gone home to America now, which totally sucks, but whatever. I plan to travel around Switzerland alone via couchsurfers.com which is a site full of profiles of people that travel and need places to stay, so that I don't have to pay for hostels and hotels. Well I'm off to see what plans I will make for tonight.

Neuchatel wine festival

So last weekend I hopped on the train to Neuchatel where Shoshana lives because of the wine festival taking place that weekend. She met up with me at the train stop and we walked back to her place, got ready, and left for the evening. We got there and there were thousands of people just standing in the streets. There was vendor after vendor, selling scarves, trinkets, and there were tons of food vendors. Shosh and I each got a drink and walked around for a bit. We then came across a little Mexican stand with all types of drinks. The crazy guy working there saw us and summoned us over, he gave us a free drink in exchange for a picture, which was fine with us because then we did not have to pay. We walked a lot and began seeing people with coconuts, we found a stand that was selling coconuts with alcohol in them. Shoshana and I think he mistakenly put all the alcohol that was supposed to go in hers, in mine. Here we met some crazy Europeans who just wanted to take pictures with us, and then began doing there best American accent. They wanted to 'hang out' but we quickly moved on.
As we walked further down we saw this huge lit up stage/bar stand and there were a ton of people dancing. They played all American songs, so there were just a ton of drunk Swiss people around us slurring their own version of Summer Lovin' from Grease. We had a few drinks afterwards and even went back to the Mexican stand. We had been there for like four hours so we decided to leave. As we were trying to make our way through the mobs of people, we met some friendly guys drinking wine and who spoke English. We hung out with them for a bit and exchanged numbers. We each had a glass of wine, which was our first that night, which was suprising because it was a Wine Festival. I do not remember much of the walk or the tram home, but Shoshana said a goup of French people were laughing at me. Hmm great.
We slept in the next morning, went back to the wine festival for some lunch, came back, napped, went out again to the wine festival late that night. It was not as much fun because we were not really in the mood, but it was fun to walk around for a bit. We went home, watched The Office and went to sleep. I left later the next day. Shoshana's family was a bit weird, they were not very friendly so Shoshana and I just kept to ourselves.

One Jewish weekend

Friday night I took the train to Bazel which is a little over two and a half hours which was fine because half way we stopped in Nuechatel and Shoshana got on. We got to to Basel (pernounced Bazel) and took the taxi to our weekend home. The people we were staying with know Shoshana's parents because they used to also live in Seattle. The know them from the Jewish community, so Shoshana and I were not quite sure how religious they really were.
Well as the door opened we knew, there were menorahs everywhere and hebrew books and pictures with hebrew written all over. The people we stayed with were extremely nice and told us to come back anytime. Saturaday was Shabbat, so we had to go to the Synagogue which was very long and I did not understand what was going on at all. We were also supposed to dress up so Shoshana and I, (who mind you, we both packed in five minutes) pulled something suitable together. After the Synagogue we went to a bat mitzvah and then back to the house for lunch. After lunch Ilana, the girl who was 20, took us into town where she showed us the city of Basel and some really nice buildings, the town is really very nice. Afterwards there was not much to do so Shoshana and I took a nap because on Shabbat you are not aloud to use anything electronic or buy anything which was quite interesting, so sleeping was the only thing to do. We took a good nap, woke up and got ready. We went into town alone where we had some great pasta at a small place and Ilana met us in town. The city was alive, people were everywhere and having a great time. We decided to go to a lounge/bar and had a few drinks, we were all getting a bit tired of the place we were in so we headed and got ice cream and walked around for a bit. Ilana had a going away party to go to so we went, it was a bunch of Jewish people about or age drinking and dancing around and having a good time, it was really fun, especially when we were taught a Jewish dance. Afterwards we realized that it was 2am and we had to be up early so we headed home and went to bed.
The next day we met up with a bunch of kids our age from the Jewish youth group and we drove to Germany for Europa-park, it is basically a mini Disneyland expect that the place is themed, and everywhere you go is a themed of a different country in Europe. We went on a ton of rides which was good for me because usually I hate big rides. I wore sandles to the park, because I always wear sandles, which nobody here seems to understand, and I actually think I was the only one in the park with them on. My feet actually got like glared at because of it....so weird. By this time we had been persuaded to go with a group of the boys from the trip to go on more and more rides. I went on one of the biggest rollercoasters and even the one that spalshed into water at the bottom. Be proud, I have a fear of heights and that was definitely a challenge. They were all very nice, and extremely funny. They asked us a ton of questions which was fine because we were used to it. Sadly the day came to an end and we all got on the bus and headed back to Basel. Shoshana and I both took a nap on the bus to catch up on sleep the night before.
When we arrived back in Basel we said our farewells to both the youth group and the family that we stayed with and got on the train.
After about a half hour a girl got our attention and asked if we were from the States, her name is Lindsey and she is from Oregon. The three of us talked forever it seemed like, she too lives in Neuchatel with Shoshana so they both got off before me. Lindsey is a very nice girl and she is going to be at the wine fesitval this weekend in Neuchatel, where I'll be going so we will get to hang out with us. Who said threes a crowd?
I have started working on my online classes this week, and am stressfully hitting myself in the head for not ordering my books sooner. I still have no laptop of my own so I will continue to use greets. AHhhhhhh I still love it here.

Oh quick funny story:
On our flight from Chicago to Dublin the guy in front of me kept looking at my feet and Shoshana and I were like ok what is he doing? Right? And then he goes 'nice color' I had no idea what he was talking about until he pointed at my feet and he was talking about my bright pink toes. It was extremely awkward.

More food

Today we had pancakes, the family ate them with sugar and squeezed a lime over them.... where as all the maple syrup gone?

Conticap

So last night Shoshana and I went to this club called Bypass, we were a little hesitant because we could not get in contact with any of the other AuPairs to come with us. So we got there and it was a two story club, the second story looked over the dance floor of the first story, and it was huge. There was a great DJ, dancers, sparklers on top of Grey Goose bottles, it was definitely a rowdy place, and there were a ton of people. We bought a drink which was 20 franks so we decided to not buy anymore. We were being approached by several guys, non of them interesting enough to talk to at all, so we walked around a bit. Two older guys approached us wanted to know if we wanted a drink, we said yes because they seemed nice and we didnt want to spend any of our own money. They took us with them up to the second floor where it was a VIP only and an open bar.
Ok now just think about this, these people throwing this party rented out the second floor and had an open bar. This is the hottest club in Gevéve and so obviously it had to be very expensive. They introduced us to all there friends and it was actually really nice having normal conversations with these people. The heard we were from America and they wanted to know if we were for Obama or McCain and if we like Starbucks since we were from Seattle. We had a great time and did some dancing downstairs, and left the club about 4:30....yes I know, very late, but in Switzerland (like most places in Europe) the clubs dont really start till 1:00 anyway.
They said their company was called Conticap, so today Shoshana and I googled it and found out.... it is basically like a multibillion dollar company, so basically we were clubbing in style and it was one of the best nights I have had in a long time. Im really glad Shoshana came this weekend to see me and hang out, and hopefully I will go to where she is next weekend.