Ich bin träge

OK, here is a new post, at last. I'm only here 6 more months, and at this rate, this entire blog will only have about 10 posts, but oh well. I haven't been doing much lately, other than working, working out, cooking, and going grocery shopping. Here are some of the other highlights from the last month:

-Megan O'Grady came to visit for a week back in January. Thats right, the Megans went international. We ate a lot of bread and cheese and jam and, of course, chocolate. We spent one day in Zürich, where the highlight was a contest in the train station that rivaled the Super Bowl. People cut off the tops of their Christmas trees and competed with each other to see who could throw it the farthest. Bizarre, I know, but also entertaining. And it was sponsored by IKEA, the furniture company from that other Sw- country. We also spent one day cross-country skiing in Kandersteg, a little town in the Alps about one hour away. The weather was awesome so we saw mountains galore. It was a good time, although not as exciting or scary as downhill skiing. And pretty darn exhausting. We went with some other ex-pats living in Bern, half from N. America and half from Europe. Later in the week, Andre (my boss) took us out for some tasty fondue in Bern. That stuff is tasty. And fatty. Mmm. The tradition is to drink a glass of cherry brandy with the fondue - both Megans wisely passed.

-You might have seen recently on cnn.com (my only soure of news, I am embarassed to admit) that there was a big global conference in Davos, Switzerland a few weeks ago, attended by Al Gore and Bono (swoon). For the geographically impaired, Bern is the capitol of Switzerland and therefore houses all the government buildings for the country. So, some nutty people decided to protest something or another related to the conference, and there was a mini-riot in Bern. Which means there were 100+ riot police wandering around the train station and town while I was doing my Saturday shopping. I was at home doing laundry during the actual protest, but I saw some footage online that consisted of police outnumbering protesters about 15:1 while everyone else in town stood around and took pictures with their camera phones.

-I patched my first cell pair. Yay! If you don't know what this means, then it means I haven't bored you with my research yet.

-I'm still taking German lessons, but I still see having a full conversation in German as some unattainable goal well off in the future. Maybe I'll be good enough once I leave, but what good will it do me then?

Thats about it for the last couple weeks. As for now, Adam, a post-doc from my Harvard lab, is visiting this week, so I have someone to hang out with. We went to dinner last night in Bern, I had some tasty Rösti, a delicious cheesy potato Swiss dish. Tonight Andre is having us over to his house for dinner, we are having Raclette, another cheesy potato Swiss dish that I have yet to try. Tomorrow Fasnacht starts in Bern, which is a carnival that lasts until Saturday. I think it is similar to Mardi Gras, everybody dresses up in this crazy costumes and theres lots of street music and partying. Me, Adam, and Andre and his wife are going on Friday night, apparently from 10pm-1am. Should be interesting. Saturday me and Adam are probably going to attempt to ski the Alps, but downhill this time. Wish me luck.

As for the future, I am going to become Aunt Megan sometime next week! Unfortunately I won't see my niece/nephew until she/he is 6 months old or so, but such is life. I also bought train tickets to Paris the other day, ooh lala. Mallorie is coming in March and we are going to head to France, because we like it when people are rude to us.

OK, thats all for now. Tschüss!