I made it to Paris

No pictures today, just a note to say that I did actually make it to Paris and Ashley's apartment, which is about spitting distance to the Invalides, see right. Nice, eh? Perhaps tomorrow's post will actually incude a picture of this that I took myself, we will see!

More interesting, however, is that I spent a good deal of the afternoon locked in Ashley's entryway. How, you might ask? Well, the deal was that I was to enter the code that she gave me to get into the entryway. At this point you see a bunch of mailboxes with buzzers for each of the apartments on them because in order to get any further into the apartment building, you actually need a key. If, when buzzed, she wasn't home, the plan was for me to go back outside and wait on the bench there because Ashley would be able to see me on that bench from her work across the street.

Fine. Only she forgot to tell me that you have to press a certain button to get the door to unlock to let you back outside! Oops. So in the end I sat in the (semi-dark) entryway for about an hour hoping that Ashley would come home until a nice older lady came down the stairs, saw me, and, after I communicated that I was waiting for a friend, continued out through outside door. Haha, I knew how to escape then! and off I went to the bench outside.

That's my story for today, goodnight!

Let there be light and Swiss Alps!

The weather guy was right for once, and today was as clear as a cowbell (and they have pleny of those around here!). The plan was to leave early and head for the Interlaken region where there is an outdoor museum called Ballenburg that has examples of all the different types of farms from across Switzerland. Very cool! Also cool because all of these houses and farmhouses are original, transported from their original villages, and inside every one there are exibits of traditional crafts and furniture/clothing/life in general.

Also, Interlaken is in a valley that is surrounded by the Swiss Alps:

I have about a billion pictures of a lovely little farmhouse in a field with the breathtaking Alps in the background, much like the one below, but I will spare you of the others.

What complimented the outdoor beauty of the museum was the examples of Swiss tradition inside all the buildings. There was traditional Swiss stuff:

And traditional Swiss barn stuff (check out the large cowbell hanging on the wall on the left) (cowbells, by the way, and sheepbells, are all you hear outside around here):

And for those of you who thought that the cheese factory I went to a few days ago was too modern (you know who you are!), traditional Swiss cheesemaking:

And traditional Swiss ceramics:

And then, just when I thought everything couldn't get more Swiss, there was...an Alp Horn concert, followed by...yodeling! No, really!

Afterwards, a stop at the lake before heading back home for the most traditional of Swiss dinners: cheese fondue!

Adventures where it snows in May

Today the plan was to head to Montreux, which is home of the Montreux Jazz Festival and right on a large lake that looks out onto the Alps and into France. Actually, it looks right into the part of France where the Evian water people are from. The view is supposed to look like this. Actually, today had the worst weather yet, and the view looked like rain and fog. The town was still lovely, and afterwards we headed out on an adventure: Jessica's grandmother, who was with us for the day, said there was a field of narcissus (narcissuses?) up on top of the mountain above Montreux that she had seen. See examples of narcissi on the right.

We headed out, excited for our adventure. The road wound up the mountain, past little villages and through the clouds, which thickened into a foglight-worthy muck. The road developed a steep grade, and then into one-laner with pitiful visibility, the kind on which you pray that no cars will be coming the other direction to force you to back up down the mountain until you can find a place to let the other car pass. Then we started to see things like this as the temperature droped to a chilly 3 degrees C:

Grandma, are you sure you saw narcissus up here?

Yes, she's sure.

She definitely saw them here...twenty years ago.

Oh.

Silly us, we forgot to ask when!

But by this point, we want to know what's at the top, and we're hoping that the mountain might be high enough to break through the clouds to a view of the Alps, so we continue onward and upward. It turns out that the road ends at a forest preserve that has been completely blanketed in snow and is just above the freezing point, temperature wise.Jessica's mom noted, though, that what could be more Swiss than snow in May at the top of a mountain with a chalet sitting there for coffee and snacks? So we go inside for coffe and snacks, naturally! Mmm, hot chocolate that comes with a chunk of chocolate on the side!

I don't think I've ever seen so much snow before! Especially not such clean, white snow, since the snow in Harbin always fell black.

And in any case, on the way down, there were some lovely views!

Also, I forgot to ask you yesterday to guess where most of the horse meat eaten in Switzerland comes from.

Go on, guess!

That's right, the US and Canada. So there!

Oh yeah, also delicious food today, too--veal for lunch and this very Swiss, pear-based jam-like stuff on bread for part of dinner. Also local meringues (we passed by the place that makes them yesterday, it's some guy's house) with local double-whipped cream for dessert. It was awful ;)

And yes, you guessed it...MORE CHEESE!

Today smelled like winter here, with people burning fires and looking cold. It was in the 40s (F, not C, I've not moved to London yet!) and raining, and the storm dropped snow in the mountains all around. This didn't stop us, though! We still hit Fribourg in the morning, the namesake of this canton (which is like a state) and the canton's capital.
It's an old medieval city that was originally built along cliffs cut by a river, you can see in this picture that the houses sort of travel in a straight line from left to right, this is the curve of the cliff.

For lunch, horse steak, rare, at a cafeteria type place. And it was delicious! Finally, a country in which I can eat meat reeeally rare, as it should be. I should expect this, coming from the people that eat steak tartar!

Next we drove up up up through beautiful mountains...that were mostly covered in clouds. Still lovely though. We were heading to Broc and the Nestle chocolate factory...which turned out to be closed this time of year to tourists. Drat! We had to walk a while (in the cold and rain) to figure this out, though because the sign in the parking lot said 'Visitors are actually not permitted, as usual,' leaving us confused and no closer to figuring out whether the factory was open or not. Apparently, Asia is not the only place to find amusing bad English!

However...the local Gruyères cheese factory is never closed! For those of you who have been wondering how that famous Swiss cheese is made, now's your chance to satisfy your curiosity. Also, 49% of all Gruyères cheese is made in the canton of Fribourg. Hmm.
First they take fresh milk and heat it and probably do some other stuff to it in those huge vats on the right.

Then they have these fancy pumps that take the cheese curds and whey from those vats and shoot them into these cheese molds.

Then the cheese dudes come around and take the upper parts of the cheese molds off, as they were just there to help separate the curds from the whey. The whey was all that yellow liquid that was pouring out of the molds in the last pitcture.

Finally they press the curds together until they form the cheese wheel. This wheel is then soaked in salt water for...a while. Ok, I don't remember how long. THEN...the cheese wheels get stacked in the cheese cellar for at least 5 months (5 for mild cheese and more than 10 for sharp cheese). And then you eat the free cheese samples you get at the end of the tour!

And here, for those of you that have been complaining that there aren't enough pictures of ME, is Jessica, myself, and a painted cow sculpture.

And to proove that it's COLD, this is the view from the old castle in the village above the cheese factory. They say that thos mountains are very impressive...when you can see them.

Also, they say 'viola!' all the time here! I don't know if all French do that, or just the French-speaking Swiss, but it's awesome. Someone hands you back your umbrella: 'viola!' Someone gives you your package at the bakery: 'viola!' I love it! It's like I'm in a perminant magic show.

I fixed the annonymous commenting deal.

Also--
Lars pointed out that I hadn't enabled annonymous commenting, which I now have. So if anyone wishes to comment on this blog, you should be able to now without having open a Blogspot account.

Just a PSA--not a desperate plea for more comments--

The Land of the 24-hour Cheese Machine

Hi everyone!

I'm in Switzerland now with my friend Jessica who I know from my semester in Harbin, China--she was studying there with me, but she's Swiss and is from a leeettle village in the Frech-speaking part of Switzland where she and her mom have kindly let me stay and are serving as amazing tour guides. The name of this village (of just 400 people!) is Lechelles, and basically nobody knows where it is.

Before I get into telling you about Switzerland, let me just say that just before I left London, guess who came into town to visit from Cambridge?That's right (for those that know him), it's Paul! And he's doing quite well, woking on his PhD in nanotechnology (and so will be at Cambridge for a while yet). He says hi to everyone!

Back to Switzerland. Jessica and her mom, Clair, have been wonderful, as they have driven me all over and insisted that I try about a billion different kinds of foods. And they've all been amazing! They also all involve dairy products of some kind--perfect bread and 5 different kinds of cheese for lunch (along with dried beef and horse meat)(yes, horse. They do that around here)(and it was great!), and then rachlette (rah-KLEHt, more or less), which is a type of cheese you melt in a specific rachlette melter thing and then pour over potatoes, for dinner. See the picture on the right, which is kind-of the idea with the rochlette toaster thing, but our's didn't have all the other stuff, just cheese placed on the scoops which as then placed in the toaster in the middle. Mmmm... And everything is so fresh! We bought the rachlette from the local dairy where the farmers bring the milk in twice a day for the cheese they make in the back. Below is part of the inside of the dairy we went to. Whoa.

And although everything around here closes at 5pm, and there's basically NOTHING that you can get at any time of day, you can, actually, buy cheese from automated machines outside the dairy whenever you want. And this isn't just any old cheese, nooo no no. This is fancy fondue cheese along with several other types, all fresh. This country knows where its priorities are.

So today, after a late start and lunch of horse, cheese, delicious local yogurt and bread, we headed to Bern, Switzerland's capital, which is actually in the German-speaking part of the country. This is what it looked like out the car window: Those are apple blossoms.

Once in Bern, we ran over to the parliament building to catch a tour, but it turned out that they were in session, so we had to content ourselves with, well, watching parliament in session, which was actually quite cool. Jessica had never been to the building, either, and we were both shocked at how no one pays attention to whoever is talking up front, but instead continues talking amongst themselves and carrying on with their business on the floor. The talking with important tones up front is just for show then? For the media? Dunno.

Afterwards, there was much walking around Bern (which really isn't all that big) and looking off onto views like this: and taking pictures of friends who don't want their pictures taken, like this: Hello, Jessica!

Jessica's mom also insisted that we have a very Swiss stop for coffee and a snack (chocolate) at a behind-the-chocolate-shop bar and cafe as we were walking. At which point I consumed my first (of much, I hope) Swiss chocolate: They are shaped like this bug that, apparently, shows up every two years in July-ish and is famously stupid. The real ones' (ones's? oh no, I can't remember!)(oh wait, I'm on holiday, it doesn't matter! ha!) legs are fuzzy and are smaller and rounder than these chocolate versions. The deal is that they are SO dumb that you can bat them around with a shoe (or whatever) and they, much like the locusts in Chicago, get everywhere! Jess's mom said she couldn't imagine the amount of them that would get caught in my hair (because of their stupidity and fuzzy legs)(and because of my curly hair) if I were around in July. Lovely thought, no?

So, in short, Switzerland is very green, very wet (although that's just the storm that followed me from England, which hopefully will leave soon), and has AMAZING food. Really! It makes you never want to bother to eat either bread or dairy in the US again. Well, except for Beyond Bread bread (Tucson, you know what I'm talking about!).

Woohoo, pictures!

I'm at Rachel's house now using her computer, and downloading pictures seems to be no problem, so life is good and I get to proove to you that I am, in fact, actually in London!
Regent's Park, right around the corner from my hostel, on the afternoon of the day I arrived. All the flowers are in bloom and look, you can see my shadow! (does that mean that there's going to be another 6 weeks of winter? Haha...)

Here's St. Paul's Cathedral as seen from across the Thames. Note the incredibly good weather. Apparently this doesn't happen much around here. As a result, everyone's outside in the parks and walking around to soak it in.

Big Ben. Yup.

Same view of St. Paul's as above, only from last night when I was walking with Rachel. Nice, eh?

Who recognizes Rachel? Yay! Or the double-decker bus behind her? This was this afternoon in a coffee shop in Camden Town watching all the punks and tourists walk by. If you wanted to be a 'punk' in London, it would be incredibly easy, you just walk down the street here and walk into any number of shops selling Sex Pistols-style clothing and shoelaces and skull sweatshirts and tights and etc etc etc. Way to go for the commercialization of punk...?

Also in Camden Town, this handyman van thing had a bubble machine installed underneath it (how? unclear.) and was blasting 'Blowing in the Wind.' And it was just stopped in the middle of the road. Awesome.

And to prove that I am in London, Rachel took this picture of me near Portobello Road in Notting Hill. Also, please note that the weather is no longer so nice. It is raining now and has been all afternoon. This is good, though, as it gives me a better picture of what living in London would really be like!

And for all you football fans out there, Rachel lives directly across from the Arsenal stadium's player's entrance. Whoa.

No pictures, sorry...

So I tried to upload pictures from my camera for you to see, but this computer doesn't have the proper software, apparently. If this computer were a Mac, there would be no problem. ::Sigh::

So you'll have to content yourselves with my witty explantions of what's been going on. This holiday (!) has been extremely relaxing, as I have no guidebook and pretty much no schedule. I get up when I feel like and then start walking. Central London is surprizingly small, within an hour I can pretty much get from anywhere to anywhere, which is faster than traffic allows driving half the time anyways. For all those who know her, I met Collen at the LSE for lunch the day before yesterday, and met her again with a bunch of her friends for happy hour yesterday--she's doing great, although she's in the middle of studying madly for exams at the end of the month. And then, for those of you that know her, I met Rachel at 7:00pm yesterday for dinner, and she's doing wonderfully as well, and I'm going to meet her today in Camden Town at 1:00pm because I requested to see a part of town that wasn't quite as foppish (!) as the area around LSE and Covent Garden. We almost went to Singalong Sound of Music in Leicester Square, but they sold out just before we got there, awww! We did see a bunch of people dressed up for it outside--a multitude of nuns and what we guessed were 'bright copper kettles?' Maybe? They were in yellow dresses with these shiney gold hat things.

So I've seen the usual, and I won't bore you with the details--Big Ben, Westminster, Tate Modern, etc. What's been more fun has been the following:
1. Street performers everywhere. Mostly I can't hear or understand what they're saying, but they make the street more fun.
2. People everywhere! Except for in China, I've never been in such a crowded city.
3. Primrose Hill behind Regent's Park, which you walk up to be rewarded with a view of the city that's better than the London Eye (and free!).
4. Billions of languages spoken everywhere. I'm convinced that there are very few actual English people in London.
5. A plaque calling a certain bridge across the Thames 'Nancy's Bridge,' as in Nancy from Oliver Twist, the bridge on which she was killed. Oooo.
6. The Clink, which was the original prison from which the slang for prison, clink, came from.
7. Walking home on Regent's Street and passing the swankiest Apple Computer store I've ever seen, which also happened to have a free concert going on upstairs. Nice.
8. Getting more free internet! This time I found a computer that once again had been left on accidentally, mwahaha.

What's been sad:
1. There are no musicals really worth seeing right now in the West End! It's all very pop-musical, with Mamma Mia (based on Abba songs) and Movin' Out (based on Billy Joel songs) and Sinatra (guess). Damn!
2. This is the nicest hostel I've ever stayed at, but the fire alarm keeps going off randomly! There was supposed to be a test last Friday, but then it went off Friday at 2:00am, Friday at 9:10am, this morning and just now. It will ring for a bit, then stop, then ring, then stop. Meanwhile, nobody changes what they were doing or attempts to evaculate. Hmm.

Also, this is where I'm staying.

The International Student House.

I made it everyone!

That's annoying. I just accidently deleted this blog entry, which I've already written once. So this one will probably be shorter and less witty. But I promise the last one was amazing, I swear!

Anyways.

I'm in London! Woohoo! No problems on the flight mostly except:
1. My personal TV thingy was broken, very sad. The colors were messed up so I could only see the very dark parts of 'Walk the Line', bright colors just didn't work. Fortunately, Jonny Cash wasn't called the man in black for nothing...
2. One of the bathrooms in our area was broken. This doesn't mean that there weren't plenty of other bathrooms to use, it just meant that most people couldn't figure this out and decided instead to que (haha, must speak the local language now) for the one working bathroom that was closest to them. And this que was right next to my seat. ::sigh::
3. I didn't get bumped, which would have given me $400 cash. I also was a little late boarding as I was waiting in an area that didn't get boarding announcments , apparently.

But all's well! I'm meeting Colleen tomorrow for lunch at the London School of Economics, so I get to see the school and Colleen all at once, very efficient. Now...I'm not sure! Can't go to bed for at least 5 hours because I want to get used to the time change. Maybe I should see what cheap tickets I can get at the discount ticket booth in the West End. Hmm, this seems like a plan...maybe I can see 'Jerry Springer, the Musical.' Seems like a worthwhile use of my time, don't you think?

I miss all of you at home, and I'll try to update again soon--I'm not sure how much internet is here, as I found this computer at my hostel already online so I just decided to set myself down and try it out...I think you usually have to pay for an access card or something. Whoops.

Love,
Michelle

This is will be my travel-posting blog!

Hello everyone!

Times have changed since my last jump over the pond, so we're moving up in technology--no mass email updates, oh no. A blog! ::and the crowd goes wild::

I leave May 2nd for my first stop, London, so check back soon! If at any point you want to see when I'll be where or where I am now, check my map thingy that I set up on Wayfaring.com (the link to it is on the left, the next picture down from the pink cactus flower). Also (for those of you who care about such things), Wayfaring was set up completely using Ruby on Rails! Cool, no?