North of the Tuscan Sun (Switzerland): Castles and crazies

Grüsse aus der schweiz! Or in other words (well, tongues); greetings from Switzerland. I think that I am finally emerging from culture shock and I now have the wrinkles to prove it. Where are you French creme that will make me look young again??

So anyway, many of you may be wondering what my life is actually like as an au pair; aka, the daily grind. WELL! I wake up before my wonderful host mother, Regula, leaves for work (7:30 or 8 ish), eat breakfast (usually bread with this awesome cherry jam!, fruit, yogurt, granola...) and see the boys off. Roundabouts 11:50 I start preparing lunch and the boys arrive around 12:15. Depending on the day they either go back to school by 1:15 or stay home but then Regula will usually be home anywhere from 1 to 3. Of course I do light housework after the meals and if there is any washed laundry I'll hang it to dry. That is one thing that I find interesting here; everyone hang drys their clothes! It's to save energy. Also each family will usually only have 1 car as well. It's not because they're poor by ANY means. Switzerland in fact is one of the most expensive countries to live in the world! But just very green conscious. The fact that each garbage bag costs 3 franks might be an incentive to recycle as well...

Snow white....?

That's about it though for my Au Pair duties! Besides my cleaning days on Thursdays and my mandatory German classes at Migros Klub Schule on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 8 pm. In my free time I attempt to get a grasp on German and I go on walks or jogs. About a mile down a very steep descent (and a grueling ascent) there is the Schwarzwasser river so I spend a lot of time by it. A little ways down there is this extremely interesting house (well, hut) which I thought was empty but NO! A woman named Theresa lives there. I quite enjoy saying "guten morgen" or "guten abend" to her for some reason. Except I didn't say anything to her the time she decided to sunbathe outside of her hut... naked...

Theresa's rock garden and hut

These past couple of weekends I have made excursions to 2 different Swiss towns. Thun, southeast of Bern, is such a cute little perfect example of a European stadt. There's a castle right above the plaza and a beautiful lake surround by the Alps here. I ate a kebab there which is the european version of a burrito. (Mexican food is to the US as middle eastern food is to Europe.) It was nast. There I also explored/enjoyed it with my Polish au pair friend, Magda. She has AWESOME red/orangey hair. She has one of the kindest hearts I've ever seen. This random guy came up to us and asked if we spoke english and if we could spare some money so he could buy a hamburger. I was ashamed to hear myself already start in on the "I'm sorry I don't" when Magda smiled and gave him 5 franks saying "here, now you can buy yourself two." We secretly followed that man and he did indeed actually go into the Burger King. I asked her why she would just do that and she replied that she would never say no to anyone who was hungry.

The other town was Basel, which is right on the border of France and Germany. There I went dancing with my Colombian au pair friend, Ana! (Being an au pair is like being in a sorority. They got your back.) Only problem was though was that we had so much fun dancing, we forgot to get the last train back. AHHHH. So, dear boy who was smirking/smiling at me on the 7 am train home, no I did not party hard. I had herbal tea with some british guy at 3:30 am and freezed my arse off in a train station til it came at 5:30.