back in the saddle
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| my city is still breathing back in the saddle |
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Wednesday, March 31, 2004 wow two posts in just as many days!! so I'm in Zofingen, staying at lovely Fari and Marion's pleasure palace! They have one of the coolest apartments I''ve seen and I am very very jealous. They have also been the most gracious hosts ever, doing nice things like cooking yummy food and giving up their beds and letting me soak in their bathtub for an hour and what not.. Fari's a grade 5 teacher, and I went to see her teach this morning. it was odd being on the other side of the classroom: even though I wasn't teaching I was still on the side of authority, you know! Fari only has 13 kids in her class, I'm sure any of you who teach in Canada (or have kids in the public school system in Canada) are very jealous right now. Aparently it's not like that everywhere, though, bigger centres have more students.. Went shopping in Zurich yesterday and bought shoes, a new wallet and a new bag (all 3 were justifiable purchases, trust me..).. I'd forgotten how cool the Niederdorf area of Zurich is!! on a somewhat related side note, many of you will be impressed to know that I've recently instituted a no more black shirt rule... Fari, Marion and I went to Bern today and hung out and did some shopping.. I was well behaved with the exception of a few cds on teh ol' visa.. justified as they were german and therefore can't be found in Canada... going back to lovely Brand tomorrow.. might finally go boarding on Friday if there's still snow and I am in the mood.. posted by kim | 1:48 p.m.| (0) comments Tuesday, March 30, 2004 hey all so I`m in Zurich.. and I forget how to use the swiss keyboard as I`ve finally trained myself on the austrian one.. so please excuse my typing! I left sunny Brand at 8:57 this morning, catching the lovely 81 bus to Bludenz.. After having a lovely conversation with the ever-so-friendly austiran train employee regarding something they were to have sent me a month ago in the mail, I bought a ticket to and from Zofingen (which you may or may not remember as the town I lived in in Switzerland when I was 16) to go visit my friend Fari, all for the low low price of 50 Euros. You see, I was informed Saturday that due to the fact that we only have 7 guests staying in good ol`Walliserhof for much of this week, I got from Monday at noon until Saturday at 7 am off work. So I figured I should go somewhere exciting. It was a tossup between Munich and somewhere in Switzerland. Munich cuz I`ve never been there, and Switzerland for the opposite reason, it's similar to a homecoming.. after much humming and hawing I received an email from Fari, who had no idea I was in Austria and was just emailing me to see how I was. I took it as I sign and told her I was coming to visit on Tuesday. she was shocked The train ride out was umm entertaining... due to some work they're doing on the tracks between Feldkirch (Austria) and Buchs SG (Switzerland) you get to take a bus between the two. I enjoyed it. You get on the bus in Feldkirch. Sit down. drive. after about 20 min you hit the border with Liechtenstein... but really you're going through swiss customs, as switzerland and liechtenstein have a customs union. I really don't know why switzerland doesn't just annex liechtenstein. We drove through lovely Schaans, Liechtenstein, and the only reason I knew we were in liechtenstein was the licence plates on the cars. The only reason I knew we were finally arriving in Switzerland was because we crossed a river (damn naturan borders) and there was a little sign with the swiss cross on it. whoop di do.. I was quite surprised to see that Liechtenstein had industry, I always thought of it as like a place where people live to evade taxes or something... Customs was interesting, it made me kinda happy to be a canadian. first of all, I (as ususal) got no stamp on my passport. none. the only place that seems to be paranoid enough to really bother to look at my passport is the US (and Britian).. when I flew in to Frankfurt I basically waved my passport and they waved me by. same thing here. I actually bohtered to open it to the page with my picture, the border guard looked down, I'm assuming noted the maple leaf, and continued on to the people behind me. They were carrying what looked like russian passports, and the guard inspected them for like 10 min, each. mine he coldn't even be bothered to touch. So now I'm in sunny Zurich. I'm going to hang around here for a while and then continue on to Zofingen later this afternoon.. posted by kim | 4:06 a.m.| (0) comments Saturday, March 20, 2004 the sudden improvement in weather has revelaed the dirty side of the austrian habit of not cleaning up after your dog. yummy. went to Bregenz on Lake Constance yesterday, sat on the lake for an hour drinking a beer and looking out on the water. the weather was beautiful, so it was really nice to sit in the sun and just relax. posted by kim | 6:27 a.m.| (0) comments Tuesday, March 16, 2004 I am convinced the radio here could pass canadian content regulations.. I hear at least one song from both Nelly Furtado and Shania Twain every day (and I don't listen to much radio) one night I was at Heuboda and after the band finished and the piped in music came on the first three songs played were Nelly Furtatdo's new song (can't remember the name), Nickelback's "how you remind me" and Brian Adams' "Summer of '69" early on in my trip (while in Vienna) I heard the weakerthan's "reconstruction site" twice in one day. does it even get mainstream radio play in Canada? I was shocked things are going allright over here. the snow is melting and spring is coming so life is good. it's supossed to get up to 18 degrees on Thursday. woo hoo! posted by kim | 2:21 p.m.| (0) comments Friday, March 05, 2004 as a corrolary post, as something odd I must share.. I had this odd urge to drink canadian club and water last night. I drank quite a bit of it too. The Austrailian bartender at the pub thought I was crazy, ordering rye-water (he had no idea what rye was, I had to explain) and then mixing it with tap water.. I never drink rye at home. I also pounded a beer the other night because I wanted to go home and was told I had to stay for one more drink, which was bought for me. I never chug beer. not like that at least. I think I may be turning into a 16 year old again. Thankfully I am not sitting in a field, nor is this a really common thing. PS Allie read the comments for the 25th posted by kim | 6:35 a.m.| (0) comments this place is like a soap opera, including the amazingly dramatic people.. at least I don't think I'm in a starring role, possibly merely a supporting actress or something... posted by kim | 6:28 a.m.| (0) comments |
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