lawrence gets plucked

I had a very exciting thanksgiving - an old fashioned american thanksgiving in england, complete with long weekend. first, wednesday, to london to see an old friend who took me out for a traditional pre-thanksgiving curry. then a train ride to oxford on thurdsay morning where I got to help out with putting the finishing touches on thanksgiving dinner, including the time-honored tradition of plucking the turkey with tweezers (in honor of karrie, we named him....lawrence):



dinner went 4 pm until midnight, and while you may think it was all partying, the reality was that we were so full we couldn't move (pictures here).

the best part of the weekend was that it didn't end there....we went (back) to london friday where we slid down an enormous slide at the Tate Modern Art Museum, went to a bar frequented by members of parliament, ate korean food, saw the seven dials and ended the night at an art gallery opening that featured a painting of a giant pink donut covered in jimmies. saturday found us shopping at the outlet mall...most of the shops we couldn't afford, like versace and jimmy choo (think Sex and the City), but we did all splurge on some nice camper shoes



thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!

things that never happen

in Switzerland you can count on two things: the trains are on time and the shops aren't open on Sunday. Until today, when the tram system came to a standstill for about 2 hours because this one blocked both tracks and intersection after its wheel broke during a collision with a car....

rome and fondue

I've had a busy week here, working, going to rome, then working some more. yup, that's right, I went to rome this past weekend with friends. actually, friends that are complete hams - lots of good pictures of them standing in front of things, like Doug in front of the 2nd scariest window display:


one of the best aspects of the trip (for me) was that I got to take a train to rome: nice sleeping compartment, waking up to croissants and fresh espresso, and (!!) no flying! as some of you know, I don't like to fly which has resulted in my looking up things like Ask the pilot, and that nice tag on the side of this blog which is a turbulence tracker. anyway, another excellent bonus was that I got to return to the best deli in Rome, right next to the Vatican Museum Metro Station, it is called

La Tradizione, the address is Via Cipro #8

they let you try all of their prosciuttos, salamis and cheeses, even the ones that sell for 200Eu per kilo. unfortunately they keep italian hours (10-12 and 4:30-8:30) so you have to put them into an itinerary.

but, there's more! last night I had my first made by a swiss person for at home eating fondue. it was excellent, and because it was at home with experienced fondue-ers, I got to learn the "secrets", like you have to make a wish on your first bite, that its bad luck to drop your bread into the pot, and that the swiss-german fondue has three cheeses while the swiss-french only use two.

speaking german and swiss politics

I have now had 2 german classes (1/week). The class is called "survival german" so I'm supposed to be learning how to communicate well enough to live here like a native. In the first week we learned how to ask someone's name, where they live, and for phone numbers. In the second week (yesterday), we learned to ask if people are sad, happy, married, single and/or drunk. So, as far as I can tell, we've learned how to pick people up at a bar....

which didn't help me this week when we got about 10 email messages in german from the president of the university. As it turns out there has been a big political controversy here, resulting in the president refusing to resign, then resigning. It hurts my information-addicted (gossipy) soul that I can't understand much of the background, but my friends tell me its a little bit like the harvard president controversy except in this case it didn't take over a year for the resignation to take place.

in other news, knitting has grown to 10 people, and they have taken to calling it the "knitting club" which makes my head hurt. last week I forgot to bring extra needles for teaching and ended up having to teach someone to caston on chopsticks.

oh, and my homesickness abated when I saw my mom last weekend - she brought me chocolate chips and brown sugar so I can make proper cookies. and dvds of american television. she totally rocks.