CN tower

I know it's been going on for awhile now, but why is it that the CN tower has crazy lights? Is it for the community? Is it for the tourists?
Do y'all at home like it?
I'm all for things that light up the night sky, so it doesn't really bother me - I'm pretty excited to see it for myself. The pictures and videos that I've seen of it are neat.
I think it sparkles too? I like things that sparkle.

Oh dear

Young Canadian women really need better influences. I read that a Forever 21 store has moved into Toronto. C'mon people, you can do much better than that. I guess it's not completely horrible. Cough, cough. Did I hear Massimo Dutti? =) Sigh. Thank goodness I'm going to Paris on Tuesday. Love les soldes!

Shocking

Last night, on the last bus, I witnessed something shocking. Shocking and disappointing. There was a teenager smoking on the bus. It's obviously illegal to smoke on the bus, but he did it anyway. I couldn't believe it. We wasn't trying to blow the smoke out the window, but I did notice that he tried to tap his ashes outside. How considerate. He was far enough back on the bus that the driver couldn't see what was going on. There weren't too many people on the bus that were older than he was...maybe 3 and they didn't say anything. I wonder why? I can't judge, I didn't say anything either. I think I might of had I been in Canada, but I couldn't come up with an appropriate intro line (in French) in my head. After he was done his cigarette, he went to sit with his other pals at the front of the bus (there was a posse at the back as well). I wonder why he felt that he needed to move.

The market

I still remember my first Saturday here in Neuch. It was only a couple days after I arrived, and I was told that it was the place to be on Saturday morning. I loved every moment of it. I was in awe. I couldn't believe that I was in Switzerland. I couldn't believe what lie ahead for me. I couldn't believe that it was happening to me. My dream had come true. All that, just from going to the local market.
This morning, I went to that market again. I haven't been for a long time, because I tend to sleep in too late, or be in a different city. I can't believe it's almost over. Yet, I still had those same feelings as the very first time. I'm so incredibly lucky. I'm so incredibly happy. The market was full with people. Hustle. Bustle. Happy faces. Smiling faces. My memory is unreliable, but I hope I'll always remember the feelings I get at these "everyday life" times. It's nothing special in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like the biggest thing in the world.

I bought a bunch of fruit. I got an overly ripe fig. I need some honey to go with it. I got some white cherries. Apricots. And those flat white peaches. For some reason I want to call them Saturn peaches. Anyway, these peaches were the tastiest and juiciest things that I can remember ever eating. I still have a couple more. I think I'll go eat one now. Oh, I also think that little kids would love them. It's a perfect shape for little fingers to grab onto and so juicy and sweet. That's what I think.

Allez Alinghi!

I'm pretty sure it's only because I live in Switzerland that I even know that this regatta is going on. I followed the LV Cup a little because a colleague is getting pumped about the America's Cup. Hop Suisse!

I want my own garden

Because of my Thursday night influence, I've decided that I would like a garden. I want to grow fruits that I can eat. Veggies don't matter as much. Dad does tomatoes, so I'll let him go on with that. I want fruit trees and berry shrubs.
I used to be a city girl who had no clue what the plants that different fruits come from look like, but now I feel like to have seen and tasted a variety of things.

Did you know:
- Blueberries aren't called bleuets like they are in Canada. They call them myrtilles. Bleuets are flowers here.
- Adding the suffix ier to a fruit name creates the name of the tree it grows on. For example: pommier, cerisier, figuier.
- Red currants are called raisinettes. Black currants are called cassis. Totally different.

New neighbours

Two days ago, four little goats moved into town. They're hanging out on a nearby plot of land and they're super cute. I stop to say hello to them every time I pass.

Longest day of the year

Yesterday, on the longest day of the year, I hung out at the same place I go to every Thursday evening. It was fabulous. I picked raspberries from their garden before it got too dark (I think it was around 10pm) and walked home, snacking as I went. It was such a nice feeling. I got home and added vanilla ice cream to the extra berries that I still hadn't eaten yet. I felt fab.

La Maison du Prussien

This past weekend, I was out for dinner at La Maison du Prussien. A little hotel/restuarant combo just outside the centre of Neuch. A place that I never even knew existed.
I've been lucky to experience a couple really chi-chi places in the past little while, and this one tries really hard to be of that calibre. Sorbets, foams, jelly balls, the whole works. I actually think it was overkill.

The quality of the photos is horrible (sorry - as the night went on, my point and shoot digital just couldn't handle it), but I have to include them, just becuase they tried (too?!?) hard on the presentation.

Everyone at the table got the 9 course tester menu. At the end of the meal, I would say that I was happy with the meal that I got, but tired with and not OVERLY impressed with the variety of dishes (ie. it wasn't one of the top meals that I've had). One other person wished they'd just ordered a big steak off the carte (problem being that I don't think that was possible - it's a "small portion" kind of place). Another, a chef himself...I don't know. Hard to read. Got some ideas, but kept talking about how all this Spanish el buko (spelling?) thing was too mainstream now. The last...maybe not too impressed? And left a little hungry? It's hard to say.

Anyway, here are the photos and a brief description:

I actually thought that this was the amuse bouche. I figured with the type of place that it seemed to be trying to be, they would definitely have an amuse bouche, but no. This was our first course.
In the big spoon, a veal pate. In the little dish, mushroom, a spinach jello thing and a hazelnut. In the shotglass, a melon drink. It was pretty good.
They kept coming around with bread. We had 5 varieties to choose from.
The second course. Bring on the foams. Lavender theme. A mass of foie gras. Bring on the sorbets. Snow pea flavour. That lavender chunk on the bottom is merangue in texture. And the little "caviar" balls were lavender flavoured. Lavender's nice for baths and pot pourri, but I'm not into eating it.
Course three. Linear. I guess he was going for linear. Starting from the left, there's a frog's leg (must have been a tiny frog). So now I can say I've eaten frog's legs. It tasted like fish. The consistency was fishesque. Underneath, a firm mousse of, I forget. A green vegetable. Underneath, more unrecognizable veggies. Moving along the line, a crunchy thing covered with a veal thing (I think). Then, a sorbet (I was tired of eating cold things for dinner already. If I was eating in the baking sun, maybe it would be refreshing, but the AC was on, so it wasn't necessary to have all this sorbet.) and finally, two globs. Now quite caviar textured, more juice filled. Kind of neat.
Course four. Something a little bit more interesting, at least so, I thought because of the big tail sticking up. Real rosemary on top of a rosemary sorbet, on top of a something that I completely forget, on top of foam with a shrimp on the side. I guess they're gearing up for the hot dishes.
On the left, an artichoke (I don't like them), and underneath, apparently it's another similar vegetable, chopped up into little pieces. In the spoon, something that I remember no liking at all. On the right, fish, in the shape of a slice of tart. It was really really tasty.
The final hot course. The top left, well, foam. I forget what was underneath. A piece of lamb (which I'm getting used to eating...I'm getting used to eating rabbit as well) and a rice paper type thing covering an Asian-ish chopped veggie (chop suey-esque) bite.
The first dessert course. I was hoping that a huge dessert cart would follw the end of the meal, but unfortunately there was none. Oh, I should mention that before this, there was a chesse barrel and we all shared bits of every type of cheese. I still don't like the stinky cheese, but I realised that if I start off with a Guyere or something not so foreign, my mouth gets used to the cheese and then I can handle trying other things a little bit easier. There was a cheese that was wrapped in grape leaves, and you could actually taste the grapes in it!
Anyway, the desert. The top left were crispy things, placed in a holder of sorts. Flavours were. I don't remember...strawberry, and the other one, I don't quite remember. It was a vegetable. There was a sorbet (of course) - lime maybe? And strawberry compote. In the shotglass was a souffle. They'd syringed in strawberry juice into it. Seriously. A straight up, stick a needle in your arm syringe. It was pretty wild. That was a first for me.
The second dessert. The grand finale. Look. It's a needle. A needle that squirted out stuff that was lit on fire!
So here's the dessert itself, after the fire went out. Mango slices, with a cookie crumble thing in the middle. Of course sorbet on top. The mango and brumble was good. Everything else was disappointing, and although I'm not really a food connoseur, but I would like to say that I know good dessert. The dinner this night wasn't too good.
The petit fours at the end of a nice meal. Again, not the BEST meal, but an experience all the same. It was neat to see what the chef tried to do.
As you might be able to make out, the plate is etched with the naem of the chef, Jean-Louis Drevet.

It's over

I just finished my last staff meeting. It was a doosey. 2.5hours long. Once when I was tuning out, I wondered if I was as attentive at my first meeting as I was at this one. Was I equally as selective in my hearing as I am now? Have I become more jaded?
It's been a steady stream of "lasts" this past couple of months. Sad, to say the least. I guess I could be optimistic and look at all the "firsts" to come, but I'm still in mopey mode. Don't worry about me though, it's all part of the grieving process. I'll come around soon, I'm sure.
I was supposed to look forward to my real "last meeting" this afternoon, but the principal decided to cram in everything into this earlier meeting (my attention span couldn't take it by the end of the morning). And well, it's over. No more meetings.

Canvasco

You can't blame a girl for wanting the spread the word about fantastic merchandise. Canvasco is just as fab as Freitag. Being a bag fiend, of course I own one of each. The bag count is getting ridiculous, but I still want to add more to the collection of course.
I know I'm going to go back to the Zurich flagship store soon and make some kind of purchase. This after I had justified not needing another one because I forsee extravagant purchases in the near future.

- picture courtesy of canvasco.de

I'm going to miss

...grown men riding razor scooters
...the number 7 bus route
...walking everywhere
...waking up, looking outside and dressing for what seems to be a super chilly day only to bake in 20+ degrees a couple hours later
...the lake
...taking off to Paris or Milan just because I need to go shopping

Zermatt (April 13th-16th, 2007)

I think this is it. Last photos from Zermatt. Sigh.



I've never been to Zermatt when there's been so little snow. Sure it was April, so obviously there wouldn't be any in the town, but for some reason I just couldn't make that connection in my head. Ski town = snow doesn't it?




The matterhorn in all its glory. I love that the background is all snowy and the foreground is lush green. I'm sorry I don't have a picture from 3000m this time around, but only that view shows just how high up you really are. You don't realise it, until you're up at the top looking down.
I'll miss these little buys. Zermatt is completely isolated. There is a train station in the town, but you cannot drive into the place. You have to park your car in a town a little while away and then take the train in. The only "cars" that exist in Zermatt are these little taxis. Electric taxis that motor around and try to run people over. They're so fun.


The town of Zermatt is at 1605.2m above sea level, and the skiing at this time of year was at 2500m at least. Above that, lots of snow. A little sunny and therefore slushy, but the conditions were still really nice.


The church in town. Zermatt's a completely contained, fully functional town. There's a school, church, fire/police department - everything a town needs. There is a really cute cemetery beside this church where climbers have been buried. It's very well done.




The Gornegrat train. What a beautiful view. The matterhorn in the background. It's the most incredible place. Does Whistler, BC rank?

Festi'neuch

This past weekend was Festi'neuch, a big open-air festival that for some reason I'd never really heard of until this year.
Saturday night, we happened to stumble upon it and caught the closing act of the night. De la Soul. I've heard of them, but can't tell you much more than that. Sorry. They were good I guess. I was shocked at how many people were there. The place was packed and the crowd was so much more, errr, eclectic than I've seen in three years of living in Switzerland. It was weird. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most of the people were here from out of town. I'm SURE these people don't all live in Neuch. Anyway, the band was okay. It was weird to hear English. It was weird to hear so many obscenities being yelled at you. You'd think that I'd be used to it because they don't censor as much here as in Canada, but it was still shocking for some reason. I guess I'm used to French swear words now, and hip hop/rap does have more swearing than your average conversation.



My favorite song of the night had lyrics as follows:
Hey how ya doin'
Sorry ya can't get through
Why don't you leave your name
And your number
And I'll get back to you

Oh, they're so creative. I was amused.

Here's another picture from the night. I know the pics aren't very good, but whatever. I like this picture, because it's got a random foot sticking up in the air. Ha ha ha.



- picture courtesy of www.festineuch.ch

luminaTO

I'm jealous of those who can go to luminaTO. If you can go - you should. It looks amazing.

Honestly, I vow to make the most out of Toronto. It's a wonderful place.

- picture courtesy of luminato.com