Dinner at the Most Expensive Restaurant in the World (or so it seems)

My last post mentioned the perks of working at my current school. Well one of the perks I haven't mentioned is the wonderful and thoughtful gifts I receive. At the end of the last school year, I was given a gift card to a very special restaurant, Restaurant de l'Hotel de Ville in Crissier (near Lausanne). I was warned to make a reservation early, and that everything I could possibly want would be taken care of.

We (finally) got around to making a reservation for Saturday, January 25th (last night). We wore our best outfits, called a taxi, and started our night. I was nervous and excited all at once! We got there and presented our gift card, which was for the menu degustation. It looked something like this:

We didn't have everything on this menu and some of the items were prepared differently than listed, or we had somethings not on the menu, but we basically had: the oysters with cavier, duck foie gras, silver cardoons, whitefish, blue lobster, suckling lamb, cheese plates, and all three deserts. If you were counting, that's 9 courses, plus a snack at the beginning with champaign. We also ended up drinking a whole bottle of wine (good wine goes down easliy!), as well as tea to aide in digestion. It was SO much food. 

As for the service, we got two tours of the kitchen and met the chef. Our waiter, a man from Cuba, was chatty, friendly, and very helpful. If you got up to use the loo, your napkin was folded while you were away. If you left the room, people were waiting behind your chair to push it in as you sat down. Every new plate came with new cutlery brought on a silver trey. They even had a silver scraper to scrape all the crumbs off the table cloth after I made a mess with my bread. Oh, did I mention the freshly baked, variety of bread offered with each course? It took us 4 hours to eat everything and we nearly floated out of the restaurant at the end. 

I've taken a few pictures here. I missed the first few courses because I was embarrased to use my camera. Then a lady at the table next to us whipped out her gigantic camera. So I thought, what the heck? I know it's tacky to take food pictures, but this is probably the nicest, most expensive meal I will ever have. EVER. So really, I had to document it somehow!

My very handsome husband :)

Third course - duck paté with a surprise inside

Silver cardoons from Crissier in spiral with black truffle sauce (yum!)

Some type of delicious fish dish with more delicious things around it

Blue Lobster

Lamb? Duck? I honestly can't remember, but it came with wildberries on the side (yum!)

The cheese plate, it was really overwhelming!

My small selection of cheese, by now I was stuffed and we hadn't even started dessert.

Not the best picture, but here we are together <3

Chocolatey/coffee/nutty dessert #1

Fruity, ice cream sugary something dessert #2

A selection of even more sweet things dessert #3!

And there you have it! Should you want to spend an outrageous amount of money for an incredible meal, this is your place. The service is impeccable, the food an explosion of flavors, and the experience like none you've ever had before.

Ski Camp

There are many wonderful things about working at my school: small class sizes, sweet children, wonderful colleagues, good vacation time, and SKI CAMP! For the last 2 years I have stayed on campus at Champittet during ski camp because I taught a lot of younger children. This year, however, my older and younger children classes were about even. With a shortage of teachers willing to go (due to small children at home, work situations, etc.), I was given the opportunity! I was over the moon excited, and I had the right to be.

On Monday, I met the children and the busses in a parking lot right near my apartment. We checked all the kids in and hopped on for the 2ish hour journey to Fiesch resort, near the Aletsch glacier in the German speaking part of Switzerland.

We were on a comfy bus with TVs and the kids got to watch a movie (while I regaled the children near me about how when I was a kid we sat on uncomfortable bus benches squishing 3 into a seat made for 2, with no seat belts and certainly no TVs!).

We arrived, dropped our bags and headed straight up to the slopes! I had a wonderful group of girls with me - intermediate skiiers who were all much better that I was. The first day was certainly not the easiest. There was thick fog and we couldn't see anything. I fell off the piste once (caught myself before falling to the bottom which I could not see!), and face planted once as I hit a mound of snow while turning (again, could barely even see my board). We called it early for lunch, then braved the fog again in the afternoon. Somehow I managed not to lose a single child (hurrah!) and I escorted my kids back for showers, dinner, and ping pong.



Day 2 we had a later start (due to more fog!). By the time we got on the slopes, the fog was clearing. It was a beautiful day and me and my little team ventured to a different part of the mountain. We found some lovely little blue runs and had a great time. Then came the dreaded 48 piste. I had been warned there was one run that should be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, the person giving me advice couldn't remember which run it was. Well, we found out the hard way. The fog had crept back in, and my poor girls on skis had to walk their way up a rather long and uncomfortable hill, before ending on a very narrow, icy, only slightly downhill path. Then, a very steep (even icier!) path, and another long uphill. Then a fast, miserable drag lift. By the end the girls were begging to never do that run again. You sure don't have to tell me twice! I told them it would be a fun story to tell later, even thought it wasn't the most fun then. And we all survived another day. Hurray!


Day 3 passed without any events - it was a gorgeous, blue sky day and the girls were excited and ready to ski. We ventured to a few new pistes and revisited a few we had done before. It was a fantastic day, but by the end I was dying with exhaustion. I could barely move my arms, legs, back, or neck. Somehow I kept managing to snowboard. I need to get in better shape for our ski week in February! 

Our last day we got the kids packed in the morning, and headed out for our last half day on the piste. Some of the girls weren't feeling great, so they did a run with us then headed to the cafeteria like place where teachers supervised hurt/tired/punished students. I continued on with just 4 enthusiastic girls. We did a bunch of runs and got back just in time for lunch. We shoveled down the food in order to catch the gondola to the very top of one of the mountains. From there, you can see all of Aletsch glacier, and I'd heard the view was beautiful. I was not disappointed! A gorgeous view, nice hot chocolate, and sweet girls. What more could a teacher ask for?

The glacier from the restaurant at the top

I'm not the only one tired by Day 4! The kiddos take a nap in the snow at the top of the mountain.

We grabbed the gondola down, picked up our ski gear, and headed to the bus. 2 hours and another 1.5 movies later we arrived back in Lausanne. I had no school on Friday (another perk!) and I was ready for a long bath and an even longer sleep. I feel so lucky to have had such a great experience!

New Year's Resolutions 2014

Are you one of those people that tries to make a New Year's Resolution every year too? Do most of your resolutions fail too? I found a great article Against New Year's Resolutions, and I am trying to follow that guidance this year. If you're too lazy to read the article, it basically says to put in place methods that are achievable each week, not big, scary goals.

Most years, I make resolutions half-heartedly, knowing that I have the ability to change at any time and I need not wait for January 1st to do so. With that in mind, the beginning of 2014 is a big one for us. This is going to be our year! So I made some resolutions put in place some methods in hopes of contributing to the making of that year. Here are just a few:

1) Run consistently throughout the week, in order to be able to complete in another distance race (marathon? triathlon? zombie run?)

Another half-ironman maybe?

2) Choose activities nightly that fulfill me and relax me, not just allow me to zone out - I am being realistic here, as I know that Tuesday/Thursday I work until about 11pm, and Monday until 8:30 and after that I really have no energy. Otherwise, I've tried to set out a realistic schedule that allows me to do things I love - guitar, drawing, writing, speaking to friends back home etc. to help me relax instead of Pinterest wasting time on useless things.

Summer 2009 before I left Switzerland - My friend Kai here is acting as my capo :)

3) Focus on the positive, especially at work. This is something I need to employ everyday. Instead of focusing on how overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid I am, I will look to all the positive points. My wonderful colleagues, my sweet children, the (meager) amount of money, the great experience I am getting. I enjoy the company of the people around me, and that is rare, I know. I have some of the most intelligent, funny, interesting students who give me their best everyday. The money I make will be paying for our trip, our house, our future.

Paul and I in front of our new house together!

Our current itinerary - subject to change based on prices!

4) Make healthy choices when eating. This is an everyday, every hour choice, which I didn't realize was so hard until I started actually trying. My mentality has always been that I am an athlete, I'm not really overweight, so I can eat whatever I want in moderation. Unfortunately, this philosophy has meant I have gained a staggering 10 kilos since being married (3.5 years). I know some of it is muscle from my tri - I have never had a muscular back or arms, which I got from the tri. But I can't explain all of it away, and there's no time like the present to start to eat healthier. This doesn't mean starving or killing myself, just seeing how I can choose better food that gives me good, natural energy.

Working in a school, we are offered sugary sweets, muffins, cupcakes on a near daily basis. It's someone's birthday, or thank you, or welcome back, or enjoy your vacation present. Since returning to school. I've had to decline something everyday. It gets easier every time, especially with my strategies in place. I have decided to use an app to help me (also a website) called MyFitnessPal. I love it because you can track the amount of water you drink, and if you input the foods correctly, you can see your nutritional intake everyday. It's easy, because it allows you to scan barcodes, filling everything in for you. I have already realized many things wrong with my daily eating - not enough vitamins, not enough fiber, not enough iron, not enough calcium. There are also many good things - I am under my daily max of sugar, sodium and fat. I'm using this information to make better choices each day. Hopefully by the summer, I'll be back to my healthy, pre-married state.

5) Make the most of my last 6 months in Switzerland. Go racketing, see the cows go up the mountain, take one last train journey, visit the Italian section, snowboard often, go to the Caves Ouverts, see my friends, and anything else any of my Swiss based friends can think of. Live a little outside of all the stressful fulfilling work (being positive!).

 

I think those goals are ambitious enough to keep me busy for the rest of year. I might have to reevaluate before we leave for our trip, as some of these won't apply. Now it's time to get off my bottom and start cleaning and cooking something healthy. What are your resolutions? How can you make them into methods? Is 2014 going to be your BEST YEAR EVER too?

Christmas in LA 2013

The italic bits below were written before my trip to the US, and slightly covered in the previous posts. But I like my humor and recounting, so I'm keeping it!

 Oh dear, it has been a very long time since my last post. Although I would like to blame it on my extremely busy life, I'm sure I could have found the time. But (and here come the excuses) the fall term ended, reports were due, a million things needed grading, I took on even more private lessons than I had had previously, and I all my online students seemed to be trying to finish their courses in under a week. I found myself just struggling to get to bed at a decent hour and be up on time in order to be at work. 

Let's not throw a pity party for me just yet. My weekends were also busy, but with wonderful things. The first weekend of December my friend had a thanksgiving party, then the next day I had a Chanukah party. The following weekend my lovely friend Camellia came to visit and it was Paul's birthday. Next it was Christmas parties, and girl's weekends and Christmas markets... Where was the time to just breathe? 

The workdays creat by slower than ever as the weekends leaped away. 

... Luckily, through all the stress of the last weeks, I survived work (and having a social life!) and I have started my journey home. It began last night with a flight delayed well over an hour. We were only flying to London, Heathrow, so it's 1 hour 20 minutes. Unfortunately for me, I have a knack of getting ill on planes. 20 minutes before landing, a migraine hit. Being on a loud, rocking, jerking, bright airplane is not what you need with a migraine. I was given some lovely drugs by the flight attends dogs and chuckled through the never ending halls at Heathrow to passport control. Let me tell you, this was The. Worst. Passport. Control. Ever. I was in the non-EU passport line, with about 100 other people (well, I was the back of the line...) and do you know how many desks there were? One. ONE. The EU and UK passport control is much quicker, by they had about 6 desks open. Do as we crawled forward at an imperceptible pace, Paul zipped right through. It wasn't until every last EU and UK citizen was checked in that they moved over to start with us. 30 minutes later, head pounding, teeth aching, nausea bubbling (migraine still fully in force) I made it through it's no more than a 20 second conversation and was passed through and on. 

We had planned to catch the free shuttles from our arrivals gate to where our hotel was, situated in a terminal in Heathrow. Due to the delayed flight and pathetic border control, all the shuttles/trains/busses had stopped for the night. So instead we paid a ridiculous amount of money (£30? £40?) to go from one terminal to the next. Finally, we made it to our cute little Yotel, showered and bucked down for the night. The next day was another travel day!

We got up in plenty of time to fly on what might be the busiest travel day of the year. It took us no time at all to check in, but the security line was long and seemingly never-ending. So we were advised to sit down, have a cup of tea, and wait until it was 60 minutes before our flight and we could join the express line. We did just that, and had a lovely breakfast. Once rejoining the security line, it didn't take too long to get through. Unfortunately, by the time we got out of security our flight status was "flight closing". I had a near panic attack, and started sprinting for our gate. This is Heathrow after all, and about 10-15 minutes of all out sprinting, I got to our gate (which didn't seem to be closing after all!) We were sweaty, out of breath, and I was wheezing. It took us a while to stop coughing, but we eventually settled into our nice, business class comfy seats. The rest of the flight was enjoyable and (thankfully) uneventful. Here is a photo tour of our 2 week stay :)

On the way there... the Virgin Atlantic terminal and my inhaler (with champagne before the flight!)

Beaches and sunshine! The trip was worth it! My first day down by the beach. Note the kids are "sledding" on the sand hill here.

Then I met my cousin Jamie with her lovely husband and adorable kids for a little aquarium time. 

 Finally I got to see sweet little Zoe with her amazing parents. She is crawling and babbling and too cute for words. I have about a million pictures of her on my camera.

Then another run by the beach. I grew up in such a beautiful place. Why did I leave again?

Christmas eve had already arrived, and little Zoe was playing the part of Jesus!

 And finally.... Christmas day! The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

 Daddy and I drank some mimosas while mommy cooked us a delicious breakfast

 Opening champagne and Skyping with Paul's parents to wish them a Merry Christmas, then presents and napping, and a yummy dinner and more napping zzzz

December 26th - DISNEYLAND!!!!

Look at those lines! California Adventure wasn't bad, but Disneyland was a nightmare! We waited an hour to get on Pirates and it closed just as we were about to bored. After a bit of complaining, we got taken through the back exit and to the front of the line again.

 This is our serious face... serious about Star Tours!!!

We met up with my friend Erin to go to the observatory on a clear day. We could see LA and all its surroundings!

 Then home again for a belated Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.

Sunday morning, Zoe's baptism! The light was low, but it was such a privilege to be there. She is great in front of crowds and knows how to make everyone smile. 

The next day, I got to take my two favorite kiddos to Mulligans for Go-Karting, Lazer-Tag, wall climbing, mini-golf and more! Loved it!

New Years Eve with family! We played board games and card games all night. I am one lucky girl. 

The next day, I had a little more time with little Zoe, Andrea and family :) Zoe is all about climbing on her own now!

 Zoe went on a swing for the first time and LOVED it!

Sadly, the time to go arrived much too soon, and we caught our plane home. It was a long travel day, but nothing exciting to report. It was pretty awesome having a bed on a red-eye flight!

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to post more often - like twice a month or so. I guess we shall see how often that happens... :) Happy New Years everyone!