1st Month already done!

I am now making a renewed effort on keeping this blog after being asked to do so twice in two days by two seperate people. That means my readership is infinitely higher than I thought it was so I figure it's the least I can do.

As of two days ago I've been here for a month and its been stellar! Work has taken off a little slower than I'd like but I'm relatively interested in what i'm (supposed to be) doing so I'm optimistic. Fortunately, work is hardly the highlight of life over here as we've been doing loads of stuff pretty much non-stop.

Going back a couple of weeks ago, we rode a train to Kandersteg and did about 70km by bike through the swiss countryside. There were about 10 of us and inevitably we lost a few along the way but it was a great experience. Loads of awesome scenery and a little bit of taking crappy rental bikes off road and off jumps! We also went to Bern, the capital, on the way home, explored a little and played some giant chess. I think we won?

The following weekend we went to Interlaken and did some Canyoning! That was fun. Basically consisted of getting suited up in the most ridiculous wetsuit I've ever seen, a tiny life jacket, a bright yellow helmet and, to top it all off, a bright yellow plastic diaper like harness in order to hike down a river, jump off waterfalls and maneuver around boulders. Cannonballing off 30 foot cliffs is a blast!

Last weekend we went to Italy! We spent a night and a day in Milan and then 3 nights and 3 days in Torino. The whole trip was stupid hot (prompting me to shave my head upon returning home) but was really cool. Milan wasn't my favorite city of all time but we did see the massive and beautiful Cathedral and some other cool buildings. The girls got to shop though I think it was pretty expensive.

Torino was waay better. Not touristy at all, less expensive. We saw a bunch of sites including the shroud of turin (well, a replica cause the real one only comes out once every 10 years or something silly), a museum about some old churches in turin, the Egyptian Museum (which is purportedly the biggest dedicated egyptian museum in the world) and probably other stuff i've already forgotten. Surprisingly, we found no evidence that the olympics were ever held there... Other than that, the girls did some shopping, bruce and I explored, we drank some wine, ate some (amazing) pizza and some (amazing) doner, had a backpackers lunch in a piazza (buying the supplies for which was hillarious. I attempted to communicate with the woman in the deli in english, italian and eventually spanish which seemed to work. By the end of it, a crowd of italians had amassed to watch me struggle... oh well, the food was delicious!), did some dancing and ended up with our pictures on some italian party website.. All in all a grand old time!

This weekend was (another) long weekend and I elected to stay home because i'm going to paris next weekend. Bruce and Rachel Wong (who's staying with us for a few days) went to Strasburg so I had the house to myself. I decided to explore Zurich as I hadn't done that yet and ended up meeting up with Rachel S and Olivia with whom I spent the rest of the day at the Schwimmbad. The waterslide is fun. Riley (their roommate) came too. He lost his toenail playing soccer.

Sunday, those guys invited me to come with them for a hike around Lake Luzern. I felt kinda crappy in the morning but i got better. It was a really cool hike. To get to the start of it we had to take a train to Luzern, a steamboat from there to Burgenstock and then a funicular to the top of the mountain! We eventually hiked down to a town called Buochs where we chilled out for a bit, had an ice-cream etc. We then took another boat (not steam this time unfortunately) to Brunnen where we went into a mexican restaurant and had nachos. Yum. We then took a train to Arth-Goldau cause there weren't any to Zurich and then we waited there for an hour before our train came to Zurich. Highlight of Arth-Goldau? Sausage themed childrens playground ride. Licking its lips creepily. Anyway, made it home by about 10:30 something and had a good nights sleep!

Today i'll probably clean up a little bit and then go to the Schwimmbad again.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to. Did you like it? Good.

1st Day of Work

Today was the first day of work. And by that I mean 1st half day because the afternoon was mostly spent registering with the local authorities and setting up a Swiss bank account (which is every bit as serious as you'd expect). Found some milk that doesn't suck.

Here's to better posts in the future.

First weekend

Arrived yesterday, did some food shopping and was tired. That pretty much sums up the first day haha!

Today, met up with Bianca, Steve, Caitlin and Shannon and explored Baden a little, figured out where I have to go to work tomorrow and went to Schwimbadd. It was really hot all day until that last one so didn't end up swimming but did go down the waterslide! yay!