Link me up!

This evening for the first time since I have been here I went to a 'Link - The Au Pair Connection' evening.  It's about time right?!  Your probably wondering what that even is!  Haha!  So to explain in brief an American couple who live in the Geneva area have saw years ago that there was a large community of Au Pair's in the area with no support system.  Young girls (and the odd boy) are in a foreign country with no family and not many ways to make new friends, it can be hard.

This couple created 'Link - The Au Pair Connection'.  It's basically a freely run organization that provides support for Au Paris in the area.  It's great actually.  the couple are always available to talk and answer questions.  The man, Paul, is a Councillor so offers free sessions and the women, Becky will happily meet up with you for a drink to help you with anything.  They run a Sunday school type group every week and and an activity every two weeks, along with weekend activities too.  The Thursday activities vary from different culture nights run by fellow Au Pairs to a night celebrating a holiday (this evening one being on a Valentines theme).  The weekend activities can be an overnight visit to a city, ski trip or (like the one I just singed up for in March) a film festival weekend.  Everything is organized for you, lodging, food and travel, you just pay a small fee.

Tonight's activity being about valentines was all gooey at times!  Haha!  We ate chocolate, talked about what we would like in a guy and what we need to be like...love and all that!  We even had to get into groups and write a little poem including certain words.  I am rather proud to day that I did contrute the thrid and forth line on the very well applauded poem below.

Boy..girl..love..chocolate..valentine..banana........

Labels and all................

Bon nuit!!!

Up the mountain I go!

Last weekend I finally got myself up to a snowy mountainside to experience 'the real Switzerland' and it was freezing!!!!  Actually scratch that!  Its was below freezing, about -19 most of the time!  It was so cold that as soon as you walked outside you felt your snot freeze!  Gross but true!

Welcome to Villars............

Just off the balcony...............

It's Chelsea's birthday next week so her friend Valentine proposed a trip to her family's apartment in Villars for the weekend to celebrate!  Chelsea, Valentine,  her boyfriend (Beff, real name Ismael...or something like that) and I drove up to Villars Friday night to the snowy wonderland!  Random note on Beff......he has a full-on English accent when he speaks in English.  If I didn't know he was french I would totally have thought he was from back home.  Kinda of wierded me out every time he spoke.

I was just a bit excited to say the least at going!  It's something that's been on my list of things to do while I am here, and apparently it may well happen again!  Whoop whoop!

Spending this last weekend in Villars has probably been the best weekend I have had since I got here in August!  I love snow, going somewhere new, getting to know some new people and having a laugh just chilling out together was pretty great!  Plus the EPIC sledging was beyond hilarious!

Chelsea and I walking back to the apartment after some breakfast.......

A little afternoon film feast (just the girls)......

The fuzzy Beff, Valintine and moi on a train to the sledge run.........

Mummy and Daddy suits..................

Valentine had to persuaded us to go sledging.  It was cold outside and we were all cozy by the fire inside.  V had said a few times that we would just go down the run once or twice, so I that added to the 'we can't be bothered to go' for Chelsea and I.  I am sooooo glad that we went though, the sledge run was amazing!  It wound itself through the woods for over a mile, and wide enough to drive a car down it.  Steep enough with edges that just dropped off down the mountain it had you on a edge a little.

So much snow in my face that my eyelashes iced over.....

The downfall of the day was loosing my camera on the sledge run!  Gutted to have lost it more for the funny photos then the camera itself (so most of these photos are courtesy of Chelsea).  In my endeavor to find my camera Chelsea and I walked back up most of the MEGA sledge run, but we only came across loads of pine cones!  With camera lost to snow we got on a sledge together to ride back down the run to meet up with the waiting V and Beff.  This however was a huge mistake, yet the most hilarious thing to have happened in a long long long time!

My face say's it all....................

The two of us on the sledge together was just one big disastrous crash waiting to happen........again........again.......and AGAIN!!!  We plummeted down the slop going way to fast for us to control the sledge, snow spraying in our faces to the point where we couldn't see for the wave of snow engulfing us.  After about 30 seconds on the sledge the inevitable crash and tumble into nothing or a two meter high wall of solid snow occur.  We were both in stitches just lying in the middle of the run overtime!  Still not sure what was snow, tears, saliva or snot on face after a while.  I also now discover a ton of massive bruises all over me, presumably from the crashes, but I must have been too cold at the time too notice the pain!

Moi.........................................

Chelsea......................................

Getting back to a nice warm fire was bliss.......

Chill out some games and music in the evening......

Walking to breakfast.........

A glorious Sunday morning......

Breakfast....looks more like dessert......

These two constantly turn away from the camera......

The process of a Cheff and Beff disagreement......

Left a drink out over night I did.....

The gaff.........................

Silhouettes................................

 Chelsea...V...Beff.............

Au revoir Villars.........

J'ai eu un très bon moment!

It was so horrible that it was wonderful

I haven't been up to that much lately.  I've just been hanging out with Lucy.  Last weekend it was raining the whole time so what do girls do when there is nothing much to actually do.  We bake, wear P.J.'s and watch films.  It was gooood!

This week Lucy and I even ventured out to the cinema.  We both wanted to get out of the house, so got some Mexican and watched Sherlock Holmes 2.  I have to say that it was a slightly odd experience watching a film in English with both French and German subtitles.  Not that odd you may be thinking...it was odd because the film had spoken German and English parts in it too, so every now and then the subtitles would languages as the speaker would change languages.  I kept on missing what was actually being said, always one step behind.

What I really want to tell you about is last night though!

Yesterday my friends Shelly (who I met through Elisabeth before she left for home) and Chelsea (who got here two weeks ago from California, she's in my French class) and I were meant to meet up for the day.  We didn't end up getting together for various reasons, and it doesn't look likely that I can get hold of either to do something in the evening.  I have succumbed to another rather dull night in with myself.  But when the evening comes around I am delighted to get a call from Shelly, rescuing me from my period drama filled Saturday night in.  She wanted to go out and just DO something.  I get out of my P.J.'s, put on some make-up and I'm ready to drive to Nyon to meet up with Shelly.  I then get a message from Chelsea seeing if I still wanna do something tonight too.  Aren't I popular all of a sudden!  The night is set, Chelsea will come to me, then we will go to Shelly and have a good night out.

Disaster strikes before I even leave the house though!  I am about to get in the car when Manu (my host Dad) say's that he's made a mistake with the car by filling it up with petrol rather then diesel...OOPS!!!  Glad it wasn't me!  He is outside sucking the petrol out of the tank with a tube when Chelsea shows up (who got just a bit lost trying to find me).  She is happy for us to go to Nyon in her car luckily, but we need to put get some petrol first.  It took about 20 minutes to do this!  Chelsea had to try each pump till she found one that would work with the card machine (which took forever to process her request).  On top of all that it swallowed a 20!  We eventually get on the road to Nyon, with no mishaps (apart from a few stalling the car moments....it's my presence that causes this to happen apparently..haha!)

Nyon!!!  We have arrived!  We get Shelly from the station, find a place to park and start walking to the cosey crepe restaurant.  We walk out of the freezing cold night air into the little restaurant and see a perfect table set out for three people surrounded by dim lights and a chilled out atmosphere.  Our three bums around that table would complete the picture!  We ask to get seated and can you believe it?!  We get rejected by a rather rude waitress!

Eventually, after looking into several over priced restaurant's and thinking the same crepe place was another one we find a decent priced pizzeria.  Score!!!  We eat, we chat, we eat and drink and chat some more.  It's getting a little late and there's not much else to do in Nyon, so after walking back towards the car we decided to take Shelly home (so she doesn't have to wait for a train) and then Chelsea will take me home too.  Getting out of the car park proves to be a challenge though!

We can't find a ticket machine so we just get in the car and Chelsea drives towards the barrier to leave the car park where we find a ticket machine!  I get out to pay the ticket, don't have the right change, Chelsea has to move the car so she's not blocking the exit whilst Shelly finds me come change.  The ticket get's paid and Chelsea reverses to then drive back to the exit.  There is no way for anyone to fully understand what actually happened next without you being there yourself.  Were all laughing because there is no way that we are going to be able to drive around the entrance to the exit...there's a column in the middle and a concrete wall on the other side...not much room for maneuver's.  But Chelsea goes for it anyway and can't take it wide enough, so gets suck!!!  haha!!  Just remembering how it all happened makes me laugh!!

She is practically horizontal to the exit barrier with the fount of the car touching the wall and the back side of the car touching the column.  She is completely stuck and doesn't want to scratch up the side of the car anymore than it probably already has been (turned it was just a bit!).  I know it's bad to laugh in these situations but what else can you do...what's done is done!  We are blocking the exit, there are car's of people all around just watching us fail to move, plus a whole crowd of people from outside too.  Chelsea just get's out of the car and say's, 'Somebody help me then!'.  Lucky they do!  A guy comes over and get's in the car while a couple of others check out the fount and then lift the back of the car up (with me and Shelly in it still!!) and we are set free!!!  The walk (or drive) of shame is done as we all say, 'merci, merci' and then drive off.


You would think that was enough of an adventure for one night, right?  Nope, not for us!  About 5 minutes later as Shelly is directing us to her house, and we are talk about the rather good looking guys that just helped us, we get pulled over by some Swiss cops in an unmarked car!  You DO NOT want this to ever happen to you!  The window is rolled down whilst one cop goes to the car behind (yes they didn't just pull us over) and the other (I have to say younger!) cop came over to us.  He starts integrating Chelsea strait away, she had to talk over him to tell him that she spoke English not French!  The integration continues, he didn't even tell us why we had been pulled over.  Eventually we discover that we ran a red light.  We all thought it was green, we had just stopped at traffic lights about 40 meters before the next set of traffic lights, it's not like we were speeding through them.  Plus the car behind us did the same, so we are all a bit skeptical about that.  Either way they were very unprofessional about it all.  They were asking random questions and how much money Chelsea had on her (which she said was 5 Swiss francs, and err maybe another 2, haha!).  In the end the car behind us was set free and the older guy came over (picture your typical cranky 'oh young kids today!' Police officer).  He continued the integration and got Chelsea out of the car.  She had to go with the younger cop in the police car to get more money out of a cash point (the whole time she is thinking that she may well be taken up into the mountains and killed).  The older cop continues to abuse his right to quiz Shelly and I while we wait for Chelsea.  After 10 minutes the cop car pulls up behind us and thankfully Chelsea is all on one piece as she pays the fine (they couldn't just give her a ticket because she was leaving the country to drive 10 minutes over the border into France).  The fine for running a red light is....wait for it.....seriously ridiculous.....250 Swiss Francs!



Sooooo, a rather enjoyable evening out!  It wasn't as somber as it sounds, the laughter continued throughout to a point where I had to keep apologizing for seeming uncaring about the whole situation.  We did get Shelly home though, driving through snow and into he middle of nowhere didn't stop us after the night we had!  Chelsea also got me home safely and herself too.


Next time I drive!  Hahaha!

Brian Cox would be so proud!

I have finally visited CERN the rather famous base for scientific experiments (on an extremely large scale) in Switzerland.  I wanted to learn more about what goes on in the massive tunnels that run underneath the land I live on.  I pass 'The Globe' often, see the CERN sign's and buildings all over the place and wounder what is actually going on under the earth at night.  Since Saturday's visit I am now much wiser on the topic.

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is the big tunnel that runs 100 meters underground, beneath France and Switzerland is 27km long!

You can see how big that is here.....

CERN is famous for it's experiment's of the last few years where scientists have been re-creating the moment just seconds after the 'Big Bang'.  Not sure exactly how I feel about that.  My initial thoughts on that was what were they expecting to happen when this moment is re-created?  For planets and stars to appear out of nowhere with Adam and Eve walking by.  It's defiantly an intriguing idea though, and I am interested to see what the conclusion of their experiments will be when they are finished.  They can't seem to re-create the moment before the 'Big Bang' for some reason though.  I'm sure someone out there knows why, hahaha!

It's true that there are a lot of science geeks out there who rave about this CERN (they have legitimate reasons to) but I only heard about it for the first time a few months ago.  However I have wanted to go for a while now, so on Friday when a fellow Au Pair (Lucy) said that she had a spare a ticket to go on a guided tour I jumped (or more likely leaped) at the chance to go.

This is the inside tube of the tunnels where all the magic happens......

 
With the guided tour you watch a video about CERN and then take a tour with your guide to one of the three research base's (in this case ATLAS).  There's another short video and plenty of time to ask questions and look around the small visitor center there.  Your then set free to go inside 'The Globe' museum and back to the reception center where there's another big exhibition.  All in all a pretty fun and interesting day out.  I was a little disappointed that you couldn't take a ride around the tunnels, you may unfortunately die is you were to do that though.

Lucy and I watching one of the video's in the gorgeous head gear.....

Quite a few things did go over my head as explanations of neutrons and atoms involved in the experiments were being explained.  I understood that lots of big explosions happen right?  Na, I'm kidding, I understand more than that, just perhaps not the specifics.  Basically (and beware I may well have some of this wrong) two atoms get set off in different directions around the circuit of tunnels, getting faster and faster until they collide in the collision chamber.   This produces about a billion collisions which creates a LOT of data!  Scientist's at the three different bases around the circuit analysis all of the data.

A building depiction of the collision chamber......

Collision chamber compared in size to the small people.....

ATLAS research center (still empty after the Christmas break)........

What one of the collisions looks like.......

The mysterious inside of 'The Globe' revealed.....

Me in my new pod seat.........

I have to say that the best bit of the whole day was the light show!!!  Every half an hour in 'The Globe' exhibition does a presentation about the work of the 'Big Bang' experiment.  Your in this huge open dark space with lights glancing of all the walls, making you feel like your floating in space.  It's amazing!  I would go back again just to see the presentation.

Here's some photo's to give you an idea of what it's like.....

All the answers will be discovered in this room apparently....

The other exhibition's marvel's....

Just 7 minutes worth of data collected on CD's from 1 collision.....

CERN isn't just all about this experiment though.  This is the place that invented the internet!!!  So much has been accomplished by the people working here.  Each of the 'member country's' (including Britain) pay a portion of their country's tax's to CERN so that they can continue their research and experiments.  Now you know that some of your hard earned cash is being put to some good use after all.

So don't forget to pay your tax's!

Touch Down

I am flying in the air!  Literally!  I’ll be landing in Geneva in an hour.  It’s a little sad to be leaving my beloved England with its patchwork of fields and endless cover of clouds.  I have had a great time being home!  Seeing family, friends and my bed of course!  I’ve stocked up on various home comforts, which led to plenty of overweight luggage.  My new hand luggage case was so stuffed, that it had to be checked at security.  I already got body searched when going through Geneva security on my way back home.

The patchwork...........

It will be good to be getting back into the swing of things in Switzerland again.  No more mega lie-ins or overloading on chocolate and fatty English food, not that I was ever complaining!  I do need to make sure that I keep myself busy so I don’t get the post Christmas blues though.  Already planning my next trip home, haha!  I do still want to more of Europe, travel to various places that I have yet to see, especially whilst I have the time and money to do so.

Here is a photo from my flight……

 I am going to be told off for having my laptop out still in a minute, so I best be off.

Farewell my fellow Englishmen!