A mini, mini, mini adventure

I have broken any record that I might ever had concerning nights spent at home and although I have managed to be fairly patient I am now starting to want to be “anywhere”, to travel, to see new things or even old ones. Not that I don’t love my own bed or the beauty that I see out of the windows every morning, simply that it’s not like me to not have gone anywhere since December 27^th when I returned from my Christmas Market Cruise and Christmas in Austria.

Today the sun finally deigned to grace us with its presence so I decided to have a mini adventure. Bus into town, train to Morges where I had intended for years to enjoy the Tulip Festival.  The tulips are still only about 30% out, but there were 80 pottery stands from all over Switzerland exhibiting their wares, the weather was accommodating and it was a glorious little adventure.

The park itself is also gorgeous

Looking across the lake towards France

Kind of hazy, but a beautiful day everywhere

 Including having a plate of antipasti in the dining car of the return train (hadn’t come across any restaurant in Morges that looked interesting – and most were chock-a-block full in any case and I didn’t want to settle for just a sausage in the park).

Very appetizing and the accompanying bread delicious.

Only a few hours, but a true change. And I'll still have the comfort of my own bed tonight.

Escapades and girns

My housemate and I have over the years enjoyed not only many a DVDs and laughs, but also instituted the idea of a quarterly adventure: they have varied from the one-day to the five-day, from near to far, from educational to totally frivolous, but ALL are enjoyed.

When I invited her up to the cabin for the weekend we hadn’t intended it to be our last adventure of the year, but somehow the fresh snow on the mountains, the brilliant fall sunlight and the catching-up conversations on the drive had us deciding to eat in a restaurant in Martigny as opposed to stopping at one or the other of the cafeterias along the way.

The first one had no seats – the rösti with chanterelles (hash browns with chanterelle mushrooms) were the attraction there – so we went to the next one in line and both had the seasonal deer with chestnuts, spätzli (a Swiss noodle), pear with cinnamon-flavored jelly and a sauce that was to die for (no worries, we are both still alive and very well!). Given the delicacy and delightfulness of the meal we both decided that this weekend would be our fourth and last for the year “adventure” (just as well as when her husband R returns they will go south and we probably won’t see each other again until end January, early February).

So the whole weekend has taken on the flavor of fun and adventure – and making sure that we continued the theme last night it was a DVD, cheddar popcorn and sparkling wine.

Do I enjoy my life? You bet and almost every minute of it.

That being said my first hellos this morning were of the girn* nature. I had awoken at 4:44 with an ache in my hip: at 5:56 it was a general achiness and at 7:00 it was from a bad dream in which I had returned to Geneva on a train and as I was getting money from an ATM machine my suitcase was stolen! (With my computer in it and all my recent photos: that was the most painful part! A reminder to back-up, back-up, back-up?).

I went back to bed to read for awhile before trying again – this time with a slightly less girn and more of a grin.

Writing about yesterday’s adventures has managed to straighten my mood so out into the fall sun and on with more fun.

*MEANING:

verb intr.: To snarl, grimace, or complain.
noun: A grimace or snarl. 

One of my favorite mountains  - my view from the kitchen.