That one time when I went skiing!

I recently got a new computer and can now add pictures to my blog posts! I uploaded 200 pictures to my computer and im the process of editing for viewing pleasure!
WAYYYYY back in January my brother hosted a ski weekend with him and 30 of their closest friends. I being the awesome sister that I am got to invite a few friends up with me. One friend who had never skied in her life (michelle), one friend who had been skiing a few times (Nicole) and one friend who was basically professional (Anna), and then me on a snowboard (read: BEGINNER). We were definitely the youngest by about 6 years. We arrived on Friday night by way of train bus and TBAR. Nicole and Michelle and I started up as the last ones on the TBar. I was going to go last as the most experienced of the 3 but after being yelled at in Swiss German to get on the TBar ended up first, a bad idea...., Michelle managed to get up to the top fine without any problems (Amazing for a first time on skis ever!) This left Nicole who managed to get only halfway up the mountain before falling off the TBar and having to ski back down. First lesson. Always sit on the tbar, holding it with your arms will not get you up the mountain and instead leave enormous bruises.
After arriving and a pretty good night of fun, we woke early the next morning (hangovers be damned)  and began our first attempt at Michelle learning to ski. First off, I am in no way a ski instructor. I don't even remember learning how to ski and so to teach someone else was basically disaster. After telling Michelle just to turn and just go, i gave up and let michelle take the reins of teaching herself. She was successful at walking down. I was more just impressed she got down the mountain. I, didn't quite make it. I was over confident in my snowboarding skills and on the last day after not taking the TBar on saturday or sunday (do you know how difficult it is to TBar up a mountain on a snowboard? SO HARD.) I ended up snowboarding part of the way and then sliding down on my butt the rest of the way figuring I could get down quicker on my butt than on my board. Clearly, I am cut out for the professional leagues here.
Overall, we all had a lot of fun talking to real live adults (!!!) and "skiing" we managed to laugh most of our terrible skiing and snowboarding off and really have a great time!
Now for some pictures:

Michelle's first attempt at skiing

Our House for 30+ people

view from the house

skiing makes look super attractive

another view from the house. It was pretty incredible skiing in the Alps!s

Weekend recap

This weekend was my first weekend in Zurich that I was officially on my own- apart from my brother and sister-in-law and not taking care of a cat! By Friday night I was exhausted from the week that I had had, full of lots of pretend-play (Mermaids and owls, anyone? no? just my kinder then...) Lots of park time and lots of cooking. I met some more family members (H's brother and 2 nephews) and played some rousing games of Candy Land with J and a little girl that lives next door.Saturday, I was invited with about 6 other au pairs, and a couple non-au pairs to go to a wine-tasting festival in Sierre, Switzerland- the french speaking part of Switzerland. With over 1200 wines- I was able to put my awesome (or lack of) wine-tasting skills (you know, swirl, smell, taste, and talk in depth about every flavor you taste) to the test. We tasted quite a few of the wines from different places all over Switzerland. Some were good and some were terrible but it was definitely a lot of fun! I found, I liked Gamay, and some of the Humagne were good. I only tried one or two Sauvignon Blanc which were also quite good.

There were about 50 tents set up around the town. 4 wineries in each tent makes for a lot of wine to taste!

L-r Kajsa, Kristina, Adam and Michelle Mid-wine tasting.

Kristina decided she was hungry

Cheers!

We saw a lot of stag parties around the wine festival as well. The groom was clearly having a great time.

We ended our wine tasting with some pizza and a short walk for some pretty good views.


Sunday was spent around Zurich. I spent some time down at the lake with a couple of other au pairs for awhile and then met up at a Beer Garden for a little while in the afternoon.Amie and Claire swimming in the lake. It was a little too cold for my taste!

Enjoying the river at Burkliplatz. l-r nicole, Kristina, Michelle, Nick and Adam.

I started my German classes today, and I realize they are going to be a little slow going at first. There are about 10 people in my class from all over the world (Brazil, Singapore, Cuba, Peru, and the Ukraine.) The class should be okay overall. The teacher also only speaks in German which will be a huge help in getting the basics down!

occupation: housewife!

This past Saturday and Sunday I spent the weekend with Olin and Nikki as well Nikki's father and his wife. We did a lot of walking around and floating down the river, which was a lot of fun! You get to float a long ways down the river and they have these bags to put all your stuff in as you float down so it won't get wet. They look like fish as you can see:
They are very handy to have as we walked pretty far up in order to float down back to where our bikes were. After this and some Bananagrams playing during the weekend, I was off Monday to Zurich just in time for dinner with the family.
A little about the family. The mom and dad both work outside the home, one in music the other in science. They are both very prominent in their fields, and the mom travels quite a bit for her job. here on out they will be known as H(mom) and S(dad). They have two little girls who are 4(J) and 8(M). They are the sweetest little girls and in my few days of knowing them are very well behaved. J is in kindergarten every morning until 12pm, while M is in 3rd grade full time. The schedule for school varies depending on the day and so my schedule is never the same on any given day.
The family has been so welcoming and they have been slowly helping me get into a routine. As the title says, essentially I am a housewife. I am doing a lot of the washing, I help with lunch and dinner, I do a lot of dishes and make sure the girls are doing what they need to get done, whether it be homework or practicing for M or simply playing with J. The mom, H, would like to add a few more things into the mix this year like a weekly library date and having me work a little on rhythms and notes with M. J does not play an instrument yet although desperately wants to play violin. The dad, S, has asked that if I can help J to learn some tunes on the piano that this would be great fun for J. I am not so sure about that, but I guess we will see as time goes on. My days generally are 1-2 hours of housework in the morning including making lunch and dinner prep, as well as laundry and making of the girls beds. Then either I or H pick up Julia from kindergarten and have lunch ready for her. Because H will be gone for the next week, I have had to pick up the routine fairly quickly. Luckily her mother is coming into town to help out with the girls. This is followed by some play time and waiting for M to get home from school. Then M does her homework while J and I play or help to make dinner of some sort. Once Dinner and dishes are done, I am generally off the hook for the rest of the evening.
Other than getting into a routine here I have been unable to do much else as I am living with the family until this weekend because my apartment is being repainted and new things were added. I was able to see the apartment however and it is very much like a dorm room. I will post pictures later but it's got a small kitchenette and bathroom and then the bedroom area with a desk and chair. I am moving my stuff in this weekend but will stay with the family until Monday.
I was able to go to a coffee meet up to meet some other au pairs which went okay. It'll be hard to make friends here I think with my wacky schedule but I hope to make some soon! I am meeting another au pair tomorrow and then will attend the coffee thing next week as well I hope! My German classes start a week from this Monday and I will be taking intensive German from 8:30am-12:30pm 5 days a week. I'm not sure how this will go but hopefully I will be able to pick it up fairly quickly.
The family also has a soundproof music room that I am able to use which includes a baby grand piano and lots of music! I have a found a few music stores and am hoping to find more in order to get some music to learn. I am hoping to find a voice teacher in October after my German lessons are done to start doing some Jazz but will wait a little bit before I start looking.
The family is gone this weekend so I will be sightseeing around Zurich and might head to see Olin and Nikki for the day or something like that.
Whew! Sorry for the long post. They will get shorter I promise! and updated more often!