3 weeks all rolled into one! (one blog, that is.)

Ok, so I have internet at home now, and no excuse to continue to neglect my blog. It's been a busy 3 weeks, so get comfortable.

I got here on April 22nd. It was a long flight, but Mark was able to meet me, get me to the apt. and then take me on a mini-tour to show me how the tram system works, etc. Then he went back to work and I headed to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner! It's a daily trip to the store for fresh bread and veggies. But I can walk pretty much anywhere, and there are so many stores to choose from. It's really a lot of fun, and I will miss the ease of walking everywhere when we get back to the states.

I spend most days exploring Basel while Mark works. I read, paint, and browse all of the little shops. Switzerland uses Francs, while Germany and France use Euros - so I'm still converting everything in my head while I shop. The money is pretty straight forward, but the language is another story! The official language is German, but as we are also on the French border, there is a lot of French as well. Not to mention the local slang. It all combines to equal "Swiss German" - and Rosetta Stone does not make a course for this... So we're learning a few words at a time and getting by just fine. (A lot of people speak English here, and help me when I have questions.)

We've done several trips already. We went to Luzern a couple of weekends ago, and then I went a couple of days ago with the girls.

In Luzern, Mark and I went to the top of Mt. Pilatus on the cable cars:

Here's the view from the top! You've got to REALLY want to go to chuch to go here. (look very closely at the center of the photo.)

Just a shot of some of the stairs/snow/views:And here's how we got down part of the mountain!It's called a sledge. Here's a good explanatory shot. It was a blast!This is me being pulled back up - backwards. Seemed wierd at first, but made for great views at a slower speed. I was facing the valley/lake (below).

Dawn, Ashley and I went back on Monday. We hung out and explored the city. We also took a two hour boat tour that took us to Weggis where we had an excellent meal!

Ok, I think that's enough for now. I'll hit the other trips in separate blogs. See you soon!

Plugged-in in Switzerland

I've been in Switzerland for about 3 weeks already. It's completely flown by. I finally have internet, but don't want to spend the next 10 hours updating everything. So here's a quick hello to everyone and a few pics to tide you over until later in the week when I can completely bombard you all with everything I've been doing while computerless!

This is a photo of MP in front of one of many fabulous buildings in Basel:

This is me in front of Lake Titisee in Germany. The gang bought a ridiculous number of cuckoo clocks (me not included...)

Must go to sleep. Promise to write more soon!

Less than 24 hours to go...

So I've packed, unpacked, repacked. Unpacked, repacked. Finally got everything into the luggage today! Then I weighed it all. The big one was 9 pounds over. So a little more unpacking, repacking... After taking out one item at a time and reweighing over and over, I finally got it under the limit! I guess I did not really need all 7 pair of shoes, multiple hardback books, and 5 pair of jeans, but it would've been nice... (notice I did not remove any painting/art paraphernalia - priorities!)
The puppies are gone. I took them to the kids yesterday. It's very quiet around here. Just sitting on my cozy couch listening to the rain. Need to pick up a few things around the house, then I'm off to bed!
Tomorrow one of my lovely friends will be picking me up and driving me to the airport - after we grab some lunch and have a good, last gab-fest.
Guess I'm off. The sooner I get to sleep, the sooner it'll be time to fly! Now, I just hope I'll actually be able to fall asleep.

Counting down!

Two days of work to go. Correction: two VERY BUSY days of work to go! I'm trying to get everything ready to turn over to whoever will be taking over my position when I leave my "day job" to head to Switzerland. So, today flew by. (I love that.) Too bad it promptly took a nosedive...
I was walking a potential replacement back to HR when I heard the first tornado siren. Then the rain kicked in. And the wind kicked up...
I finished up around the office and decided to make a break for it. Mark's flight was today and I had to meet a friend at the house - he was taking me to the airport to pick up Mark's car. I had my handy little umbrella, but it was no match at all for the torential downpour. I was soaked up to my knees before I got 1/4 of the way to my car (did I mention I was not sure exactly where my car was?) Thank goodness a good samaritan co-worked gave me a lift the rest of the way to my car. I hopped in and headed home! Unfortunately, something jumped out of the rain and attacked my tire. (OK, maybe I just ran over something in the middle of the road, whatever.) I drove a bit further and decided that yeah, I definitely had a flat tire. But hey, I'm a big girl. How hard can it be to change my own flat tire? I pulled over into some random person's driveway (for some reason they wouldn't answer the door when I knocked- am I really that scary when I'm completely drenched and angry?) and proceeded to dig out the spare. In the pouring rain. Under a giant tree. In the middle of lightening and a tornado siren.
Apparently spare tires are screwed down inside the trunk - and you just need to use your tire iron to undo the little nut. But sometimes your tiny little tire iron slips down UNDER the tire. That would be the same tire that is screwed into the trunk on top of the tool... You can see where this is going. So I called our friend that was meeting me at the house. He grabbed some tools and came to rescue me. He was able to get the tire out. Too bad it was flat, too. I'm guessing he was boyscout in a previous life, because he had actually thought to grab a pump before he headed out into the monsoon. He manually inflated my flat spare, slapped it onto the car and then we were off! At a whopping 45 miles per hour. But we made it. No tornadoes, no more flats, no problems getting Mark's car home. Now I'm home - all warm and cozy with my crazy puppies.
Wish I could say the same for Mark. He's stuck in a hotel in Atlanta. He missed his connecting flight and won't actually be off to Switzerland until tomorrow.

The Artistic Traveler - at it again

Here I go again - another attempt at starting a blog. What is this, number 3? Number 4? Anyway - this should be the last one. Really. I mean it.

So here's the reason I'm starting again. TIME TO TRAVEL! Yes, we are off to Switzerland. We are scheduled to be there for about 90 days. My husband heads out tomorrow - I leave about a week later. I need to finish up the last few days of my job, and then take care of a few more things around the house (dogs, packing, studying German! etc.) We are very excited! Who knew you could pick up and move to another country with 2 weeks' notice? Apparently you can.

What will we be doing in Switzerland? What has caused me to leave a stable job in a very unstable economy? Well - I will be painting! Painting, visiting museums and galleries, and basically being the Den Mother for a group of guys that are going over with my husband for a work assignment. So expect to see lots of photos of potential paintngs, as well as my random photos of things that just entertain me. Now I just need to figure out if we'll have internet in our apartment, or if I'll be hanging out at the local internet cafes. That will obviously determine my blogging frequency.

ART UPDATE!
As I mentioned, I will be focusing on painting over the next few months. But I'm also working on some Bicycle Art. I have a few rough paintings on my Etsy site - but those are just the beginning. I'm actually currently working on a very cool metal embossing technique that I hope to have perfected and listed by the time we get back this summer. First attempts were fun and impressive. I'm also playing around with copper tubing again, and have some high hopes for large format pieces. I even have some relief carvings in clay that are patiently waiting to be fired in the studio. Can't wait to really get started!