a party, yoga, the fog, and a David Hasselhoff update

not blogging regularly put me into a bad position - I end up having so much to write about that I don't want to, because it will take too long! so I'll try to get up-to-date here. first, as riverocker said, we met up in oxford (england) for a couple of days - I saw one of the 10 strangest statues in the world, got to see some shrunken heads, and bought tortilla chips for my housewarming party. It may seem silly to go to england and bring back tortilla chips, but I had grand plans for this party: fresh salsa and guacamole. the only thing I miss more than being able to read in my native language is mexican food. in particular, cancun burritoes. anyway, tortilla chips are $7 a bag here, and that's if you can find them. meanwhile, oxford had "plain" doritos for less than a dollar, so I bought 8 bags and carried them on the plane in a giant Sainsbury's bag. Are you paying attention? because this part is hilarious:

I put them in the overhead compartment, failing to take into account the change in pressure. when we landed, the nice swiss man that sat next to me pretended not to notice when I opened the compartment and rained broken tortilla chips upon myself. Fortunately, most of the bags in the bottom of the shopping bag remained full even if the seals broke.

The housewarming party was super, and my landlords put my name on the door, buzzer and mailbox just in the nick if time - only 3 hours before people arrived.


Some more pictures of my house and neighborhood on my flickr page...

Okay, so another story. I love yoga, or at least I loved yoga at Ironworks - they had good instructors who didn't make you ohm or chant incessently. So, now that my home is settled, I thought it would be a good time to put away the videos and go get some in-person direction. You know, guidance for my chakra. And ETH (my employer) has a sportscenter with classes. Unfortunately, it was in swiss-german, so I was down-dogging when I should have been shi-vasyin-ing, facing the wrong way. I couldn't even tell my right from my left. ARGH. not relaxing. And before you think I'm dense for not thinking it would be in german - all of the university classes are in english, because its an international institution.....

and finally, the fog. not the semi-blustery coolness of SF-Bay fog, but the stepped into a freezer fog, kind of like this


except not polar. yup, the winter is upon us, the trees have lost most of their leaves and I am learning to remember a hat, gloves and scarf when I leave in the morning. scary, considering its not even the middle of october. In the midst of all of these adventures, in keeping with my semi-swiss citizenship, I have listened to the new David Hasselhoff single (albeit indirectly from my office-mates radio). It is catchy and the last time I checked, was number 3 on the UK charts.