A trip to the land of cheese

These photos are from a few weeks back. The day after we picked up our car we got drunk with the freedom to go anywhere we wanted without having to wait for a train or a bus. I've lived without a car for four years, Anthony for over six, so acquiring personal mobility is a pretty big deal. I am using the royal "we" here, as the car is a manual transmission so I am going to need some lessons before I can tackle the giant hill that is Lausanne. So far I can put the car into first gear, reverse and pull into a parking space. In the parking garage. When it's empty. I consider this outstanding progress.

We decided to head out to Gruyere. On the way we discovered the awesomeness of driving through mountains. Literally. If Anthony has gotten tired of me shouting "the miiiiinneeeesss of Moooorrriaaaa" every time we pass through a tunnel, he has not shown it. And that, internet, is why I'm marrying him.

Gruyere is pretty incredible from a distance. It sits atop a hill flanked by mountains on all sides. 

The town was lovely. Lots of little stores selling cheese. Lots of little restaurants serving cheese. The whole place smelled faintly of fondue, aka melted pots of cheese. Do you see where I am going with this?

The Search for Delicious Cheese.

(Note to self, file this away for future biography title)

We wandered up to the castle and spent some time enjoying the view. Along the way we passed really traditional Swiss things like the Tibet museum and the H.R. Giger museum. Just to make sure you are up to speed on the setting, let me break it down for you. We've got a quaint old town with waitresses dressed like Heidi serving fondue to customers in the shadow of a building resembling a real, live cuckoo clock. Mere steps away we have a museum run by Tibetan monks complete with robes and prayer flags. RIGHT next door to that we've got a museum filled with stuff like this and paintings titled things like Birth Machine Baby.

All in the shadow of a castle. Switzer-land-of-enigmas. 

Opposite the Giger museum is a bar where all the furniture and decor are modeled after spinal cords and whale pelvises and whatnot (do whales have pelvises? I dropped out of pre-med prior to any sort of useful biology course so I'm operating under the Ignoramus Clause right now, allowing me to make sweeping generalizations on the internet after doing zero research.)

 Having been too big a wuss to ever see Alien, I was freaked out at the time but now I'm desperately curious and want nothing more than to go back and sip a cappuccino in the shadow of a futuristic shark jaw.

Back to pastoral scenery and the requisite "we were here" photo.

The whole time we were exploring, there was a glider drifting around the sky. It was a perfect day for it and the view from up there must be phenomenal.

After we had seen what there was to see, we headed back to the car determined to continue exploring the area.

But that's another post entirely.

Yverdon

After a busy week at work, we decided that Saturday needed to be a day of relaxation. So we hopped in the car and began driving into the countryside. 

We've been having days on end of rain so it was nice to see everything beginning to bloom. And mountains. Mountains have nothing to do with the rain, but there they were as far as the eye could see in either direction. I did my duty and took some panoramic shots that will join all my other well-intentioned panoramic shots in a folder on my desktop that is definitely NOT called 'unprocessed crap'. Because I am a professional and never use rude words to identify desktop folders that I am too lazy to sort through.

Cool cuckoo-type church steeple.

I want a donkey. Badly. LOOK AT THAT FACE. And the ears.....

And they come in Fun Size!

Someone can't keep his hoofs to himself and was taking a time-out in the far corner of the field. When my back was turned he trotted back to the momma donkey and started rehearsing for xXxrealdonkeysgonewildcollegepartypaloozaxXx.com. That girl donkey though, was so not into it and gave him a swift kick in the-

oh, right, my grandparents read this. Back to lovely old buildings!

This was in the center square of Yverdon, a cute little town in the middle of the farmland. We had a bit of lunch and walked around until we (I) began to get cold (about 5 minutes).

Terra-cotta has got to be the best roof material ever. And I am absolutely saying that because it makes my pictures look better. 

Guard cow. Came over to see what was up.

I want pet cows. I will name them Burger, T-Bone, Kobe, Fillet and Sparkle.

Rolling hill porn.

And we'll end this brief tour of the Swiss countryside with a castle. We wanted to go inside, but it was all like "I'm closed to the public" so we were all like "BYE." And then went home and ate pizza and watched The Last Waltz and marveled yet again at Van Morrison's bedazzled track suit. Here's hoping that your weekend was equally relaxing!

Facts of Life

Friends of The Internet. Please take a moment to consider the following urgent question:

Will smuggling one of these adorable creatures into my home cause me to lose my security deposit?

P.S. Currently only acknowledging answers that rhyme with 'snow' and are followed by the phrase 'do it! name it Fred!' or variations thereof.

P.P.S. Moments after this photo was taken, I became witness to some donkey on donkey shenanigans initiated by that grinning fool in the upper left. Hilariously bothersome.

A Smattering of Little Things (predominantly food)

Outliers is one of those books that I picked up, expecting to get a third of the way through and lose all interest, but I was so fascinated that I tore through it and then my brain began spinning and doing back flips. A totally worthwhile read. At this moment I am impulsively downloading all three of Gladwell's other books to my kindle.

Tangent: I am having one of those weeks, nay, months it seems, where time is just getting away from me. On one hand it's frustrating because I just wish I could slow everything down and savor it more. On the other hand, reminding myself that we have only been here 2.75 months eases my inner perfectionist when I am wondering why I am not yet fluent in French.

(Sitting with a group of Italians at work is not helping this matter as learning to swear in Italian is WAY more fun than say, learning French verbs and their conjugations).

This past weekend we just hung out. Anthony was on a business trip until Saturday mid-morning and he was exhausted when he got home so we decided to lay low and make lots of great food. I don't know if there is something in the water here or what, but lately I have been wanting (I can't even believe I am typing this) to cook. Like full on simmer and saute crap and chop and blend and whatnot. This is probably a harbinger of the apocalypse, so when it happens, just remember that you read it here first (because there obviously won't be other things on your mind).

Pizza dough - the easiest thing that I never everever thought to make from scratch. Five ingredients and a few hours later put that blinker on because you are merging onto Gluttony Highway. Plus you get to punch the dough...does it get more fun than beating up your food? I think that it does not. Also, it's a law in Europeland that pizza must be eaten in its entirety on the day it is made. And we are nothing if not compliant.

Pinterest recipes finally got the better of me so I decided to make this incredible soup. Roasting a tray full of mushrooms, onions and herbs smelled so incredible that I kept cracking open the oven door to take a whiff. I can now say with conviction that a mushroom and onion steam is forever onward my preferred method of facial

(especially because it does not come with a Ukrainian lady looking at my face with a giant magnifier and clucking disapprovingly). Even though the recipe only called for one pound of mushrooms, I decided that two pounds would be more appropriate and was thrilled with the result...until I learned that cooked mushrooms give Anthony the heebie-jeebies. He may have actually tried to tell me that while my face was in the oven and I was huffing the steam. Whoops. Listening ears, Kim. We pureed a batch and the smoother consistency made all parties happy.

During our Saturday round of errands, we accidentally stumbled into Globus, the single greatest grocery store on planet earth. While it's pricey, we decided to indulge ourselves a leeetle bit and bought these incredible cherry tomatoes.

(And some incredible Parmesan and some incredible cheese straws and some incredible bread...and there may have been an incident where Anthony had to pry a tiny 20 franc sausage from my hands as I cried and mumbled something insane about Fresno peppers and cured meats being the only thing in the world that would ever make me happy...hilarious times you guys.)

While we brought a lot of storage containers with us, we have been fighting an ongoing battle between our American sized tupperware and our tiny Swiss fridge. Luckily Anthony found this company that makes all sizes and manners of canning jars so he ordered us a variety. They fit perfectly and are incredibly fun to fill with food...and squeal about how cute they look whenever I  open the fridge. Above, a caprese salad in progress. Aaaand finally,

The sunsets from our bedroom are unreal. I only opened up the exposure on this a bit - the rest is all nature. Every night it's different with the color gamut ranging from Malibu Barbie to Early Sixties Living Room. It's awesome. Beyond awesome. I'll try and not bog down too many posts with sunset photos, but I cannot make any guarantees. Because...I mean...look at it!

Happy Friday!

Vevey Pt 3: Enough About the Swans Already

I know, I know, please stop it with the swans, but just humor me a little longer, okay? Living in Chicago, the only birds I really ever saw were the inbred, disease infested pigeon community. The amount of times I had encountered swans in my life until moving here resides somewhere slightly above zero. And now? They are all OVER the damn place. So I have been going overboard a bit, but I'll calm down eventually.

Swans are such bizarre creatures. Part beauty, part battleship and 1000%* narcissistic, they just command attention. And also? They appear to be kind of...well...assholes. Take a look at the action going on in the lower left hand corner of the above photo. Belligerence!

At some point during my photographing, they became aware that they were In the Public Eye and began some synchronized floating. Not unlike when the girls on America's Next Top Model holding hands on elimination day even though they are kind of hating each other.

Aaaand, then the short-lived civility wore off and we were back to swan-on-swan abuse. There are at least 2.5 example of nastiness going on in the above photograph.

So that is pretty much my current mindset towards swans at the moment. I think I've gotten it out of my system (for now) so I'll try and aim my camera lens at something else for awhile (maybe).

Happy Monday!

*Principles of mathematics disregarded for dramatic effect.