MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Hello everyone! This blog post will have to be very short. Its late here in Switzerland and I have to catch an early flight to Dublin, Ireland, in the morning. I will spend 3 nights in Ireland and then head over to London and spend 4 nights there, including Christmas. I will be traveling with my teammate Emily and we are so excited for our adventures yet to come. I will not have my computer with me to keep you all updated, so I just wanted to wish you all happy holidays and I hope you have a very Merry Christmas! Miss you all, and I'll be thinking of you during my travels :)

For a good laugh :D

Watch this video...click on the link below!

Family Guy - A Peter Griffin Christmas

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Good times on the cul-de-sac...Happy birthday Tanman :)

Hello everyone! For those of you that don't know...today, December 15th, is my brother's 26th birthday! HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TANNER! (Who knows if he even takes the time to read my blog, haha). Its amazing how time has started to fly by the past couple of years. I have so many fond childhood memories of playing outside on our cul-de-sac...playing over the line, pickle, grass volleyball (making sure the ball didn't fly over the wall and into the riverbed haha), hide and seek, or having water balloon fights. Then there were all of those great weekends spent at our cabin in Big Bear...Even though us kids made it our job to complain about the (not so) long drive and the cold weather, I'm sure we all look back on those days and wish we could do them over again. And of course there was always "Game night," which the kids weren't allowed to partake in, but our parents always had wayyyyy too much fun playing cards and Pictionary. I never knew it then, but looking back on it all, our parents sure knew how to have a good time...you families know who you are :) Ok back to reality, sorry for getting all nostalgic on everyone. Being so far away from home and family during the holiday season has really made me recall some of those great childhood memories.

The infamous halloween photo of our parents in their prime haha...gotta love it!

Anyway, as I'm typing this, I am enjoying a nice cup of Dunkin' Donuts mocha mint coffee. It was sent in a Christmas package from my Mom which I received yesterday :) Since we live in such a small town, there certainly isn't a Starbucks nearby, so I haven't had the opportunity to enjoy a massive Christmas flavored coffee (which would normally cost around 10 francs for a venti size). Speaking of Christmas, this past week I went to 2 different Christmas markets here in Switzerland. Emily and I went to Bienne (about 40 minutes away) and walked around and did some shopping for our secret santas. There were decorations all over downtown, with lights, garland, and a big Christmas tree. We also went to the Christmas market in Montreux, which is a very pretty city on Lake Geneva. The market in Montreux was neat because it was set up along the lake. We walked around, looked at all of the booths, and enjoyed some vin chaud (hot wine), which I think is a traditional Swiss/European holiday treat.

Christmas market in Bienne

Tree in Bienne

Me, Kristin, and Tara in Montreux

Christmas market on the lake

Well, we won our match against Geneva pretty easily. We beat them in 3 straight games and then went out and stayed in Geneva for the night. There was another American that played on Geneva, so all 7 of us Americans stayed at her house. My teammate, Kristin and I, have a friend that plays on the men's team in Geneva. He played volleyball at UC Irvine also, so it was neat to see a friend from home...as I'm sure he was happy to see so many Americans too. Another exciting thing is that my friend and old teammate, Lauren, is officially a Swissy now!!! After helping her send out a mass email to all the teams in Switzerland, she got picked up by a team in the Italian region of Switzerland. She is playing for a team in Lugano, so we are hoping to meet up with her quite frequently...Especially since I have never had the chance to actually visit the Italian part of Switzerland ;)

The whole gang ready to go out in Geneva

Bri, Taylor, and me

Rip 'Em eaters! Kristin and I with our fellow UC Irvine volleyball player, Taylor.

What else...I am proud to say that I will be getting my hair done this Friday, woo-hoo! Right now, I am incredibly pale and have dark roots, not a great combination. But after Friday, I will just be incredibly pale haha. Well, my team is currently in 3rd place! We have 2 more matches this weekend, both against teams we have swept in previous matches. Then after this weekend, it will be Christmas break, YAY! Each day I get more and more excited for our travels to the United Kingdom. I just wish that I could spend the holidays with family and loved ones, but I'm quite lucky to have the opportunity to travel around Europe. I have been thinking of you all during this special time of year and wish that you all have a very happy holiday :)

December Update

Well, its now December 11th, and I am sad to say that my Dad was not able to make his trip out to visit me. Both of us were very much looking forward to spending some time together. Hopefully he will be able to make it out at a later time in the season. Anyway, remember how I was saying that we had SO much snow!? Well, it started raining a few days ago and melted ALL of it haha. Before all the snow melted, I had taken a nice walk around town and took some pictures. After it had melted a few days later, it all came back again overnight, just not as much. Well, since my last blog, our team has been quite successful. We are now 8-4 and sitting comfortably in 4th place in league play. We had a good sweep win over Schaffhausen, a team that swept us 0-3 the first time we played. We also had another good sweep win over Aesch Pfeffingen, who we beat the first time in 4 games. Today we are looking for our 9th win, where we will play away against Geneva. Then, next weekend we play at home against Cheseaux (for league play) and then away on Sunday against Dudingen for a special Swiss Cup playoff match. After those matches, it will be vacation time!!!!! Also, a close friend and former college teammate/roommate of mine, Lauren, is currently in Switzerland! She was playing for a team in Italy and was having a tough experience with her club and is looking for a new team here in Switzerland. This past Monday, my roommates and I went to visit her in Zurich, and it was so nice to see her and catch up. We are hoping that she can find a team and stay here in Switzerland, that way we can all meet up on weekends and hang out or travel together. Anyway, I hope all of you are enjoying your December and making the most of this holiday season! Sending Christmas cheer all the way from Switzerland :)

Snowy sunset from my bedroom window

Christmas decorations on the light posts

Christmas tree in the center of our town

Thanksgiving and its finally December!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We were not able to have our Thanksgiving dinner on the actual day because of our training schedule. So we had it this past Monday. We invited our whole team, plus a few others. We cooked for about 14 people, and ended up having way too much food! I think we were fooled by thinking our Swiss teammates would dish themselves as us Americans do haha! They took such small portions so we had lots of leftovers. Our house made sweet potato casserole, home made stuffing (yes, I said home made!), pumpkin pie, and we even got a turkey from the butcher in town. The other Americans made mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. All of the food was very good and was nice for us to all get together and celebrate this special tradition here in Switzerland. We have so much to be thankful for in life...family, friends, health and happiness. Also, playing pro volleyball in Switzerland!

Our dishes for Thanksgiving

Some of our guests for Thanksgiving dinner

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas! We have SOOO much snow right now, we didn't really have any at this time last year. I can't believe its officially Christmas time, I couldn't be happier, the holiday season is my absolute favorite time of year! I have been listening to Christmas music for quite sometime already. I have to admit, it is hard to be away from home during Christmas. It really makes me appreciate things like Christmas decorations, music, lights, and being around loved ones. My Dad will be visiting me very soon, next week! I am very excited for his visit, it will be so nice to see a familiar face. He will be staying for about a week and will be able to see my match against Geneva. Shortly after he leaves, I will be going to the UK for our Christmas vacation with 2 of my teammates. We will travel throughout Ireland and then take the ferry over to London. I am very excited. I'm sure it will be freezing, but I think Christmas in London will be very charming. I hope you all are doing well and getting that Christmas shopping done early :)

Strasbourg, France

This past weekend, we had Monday and Tuesday off so Emily, Bri, and I decided to drive to Strasbourg, France. We didn't really know what to expect from Strasbourg, we just wanted to go outside of Switzerland within reasonable driving distance. It took us about 3 hours to get to Strasbourg. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great for this trip, but that didn't keep us from having a good time. It was pretty cold and rained the whole first day we were there. We walked all over Strasbourg and saw so many neat things. In the center of town, there was a huge Notre Dame cathedral that was really impressive. One of the main attractions of Strasbourg is the area known as Petite France. I absolutely loved this part of town. All of the buildings had such charm with the wooden accents, shutters, and flower boxes. Petite France reminded me of some of the scenes from Beauty and the Beast. We also had some really good food while in Strasbourg. We had lunch at a cute little restaurant called Le Gruber. We enjoyed a great meal in such a neat environment, the inside of the restaurant was decorated in a very warm, yet rustic style. After walking around town all afternoon, we decided to eat at a restaurant on the river in Petite France. The restaurant was called La Corde A Linge, which means the clothes line. The inside of the restaurant had a much more modern decor than where we ate for lunch. It was simply decorated with clothes lines and clothes pins with white laundry hanging from the ceilings. The service was great and my salmon was probably the best meal I've had since I've been here. We couldn't resist ordering dessert either haha. After dinner we walked around and found a neat little bar where we had some drinks before heading to bed. The next morning, we woke up and made sure to find a little cafe where I had a cafe au lait and a croissant. We walked around the town some more and made sure to buy some souvenirs for ourselves and family. Then we made the 3 hour drive back home to Saignelegier. We all loved Strasbourg and it's charm so much that we are thinking about going back sometime before Christmas. One of the other main attractions of Strasbourg that we did not get to experience is it's Christmas market, which begins at the end of November. The entire town was setting everything up while we were there and it made us really want to go back. So, hopefully we will have the opportunity to go back to enjoy some holiday spirit. For those of you that don't know, I absolutely love Christmas time. My roommate, Emily, and I have been listening to Christmas music on our computers since the beginning of November haha. Being away from home and family during Christmas really makes you appreciate all the simple things about the holiday season...decorating the house and Christmas tree, watching Christmas movies, and seeing all the houses lit up at night with Christmas lights. But, don't worry...we will try our best here to make ourselves feel at home. We are planning on buying a Christmas tree, decorations, and lights. Listen to me going on and on about Christmas! Its not even Thanksgiving yet haha! Ok, this entry is long enough...next I'll fill you in on our trip to Barcelona (we're going this coming weekend) and Thanksgiving :)

The cathedral with some shops

Em and I getting into the French spirit haha

A neat little courtyard

There was a Super Mario mushroom randomly placed on the wall haha

Lunch at Le Gruber

Taken walking around Petite France

This one already had Christmas decorations :)

Em and I with our desserts at La Corde A Linge

Loved Strasbourg!

Volley update

Since I've last blogged, so much has happened with volleyball. Our team, VFM, has been playing quite well in our matches. After completing the first round of our matches in the league, we sport a record of 6-3. We are tied for 3rd place in matches won, but we are technically in 5th place due to individual games won/lost. So, we are hoping to keep up the same high level of play and move up in the rankings during the second round of league play. We also have to hope some upsets take place which would help us move ahead in the standings. Since I last blogged, we have gone 5-1. We lost a very close 5 game match to a good team from Bern, called Koniz. The 5th game score was 15-13. Another big match was our win against Neuchatel, which also went 5 games and we won 15-10. Neuchatel and Koniz are both tied with VFM for 3rd place, but they are ahead of us in games won/lost. We also had wins over Geneva, Cheseaux, Dudingen, and Bienne. We are all very excited about our performance so far this season and I think we are looking forward to playing these teams again. I almost forgot...I got a new uniform! My uniform is actually a very light shade of pink. Everyone comes up to me and asks me if I washed my white jersey with red stuff haha. Regardless, its a nice change from the lime green or red haha!

After our win against Neuchatel

After the win against Neuchatel holding our region's flag

Wine Tasting in Zurich

Last year, we discovered a great event held in Zurich called Expovina. Expovina costs 20 francs to enter and is an all you can drink wine tasting event. It consists of 12 boats docked on Lake Zurich and each boat has multiple levels with over 20 different booths for wine tasting. So, the 7 Americans from my team went and we enjoyed wine from all over the world. We tried all different kinds; white, red, dessert wine, and even champagne. The key is to act like a wine connoisseur so the people actually think you're interested in buying the wine. We tried to act like experienced wine drinkers, although I don't think we were too successful. Nonetheless, we had a blast.

Zurich at night

One of the many boats at Expovina

Tara, Emily, Jill and me tasting wine at Silvino's, from northern Italy

Bri, Jill, Emily, Taylor, and me

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I know Halloween has already passed...but I really just wanted to show off our attempt to bring some Halloween traditions to Switzerland. People in Switzerland don't really celebrate Halloween, although people say it has gotten more popular in recent years (only with children). Luckily, on our way to Basel, we stumbled upon a roadside "pumpkin patch," I guess one would call it. It was more like 20 pumpkins or so sitting at this roadside stand. You could imagine our excitement to pick out some pumpkins for carving. We picked the 2 biggest pumpkins we could find. There was no one there to collect your money, just a sign that said 10 francs each and a box to deposit your money. We thought it was interesting, because you would never see this in the U.S. Anyway, we put our money in the box and then drove off to Basel. The next week we decided to carve the pumpkins, Tara and I carved one pumpkin, while Emily and Kristin carved the other. I hadn't carved a pumpkin since in such a long time so I felt like a little kid again. We even kept all the pumpkins seeds and then roasted them. After carving, we put candles in them and took them downstairs and displayed them along the road for everyone to see. We were a little nervous that people would smash them or something, but they ended up being okay. That weekend we had a game on Halloween night. So, we decided to take them to the gym and put them on display at the entrance. After our game, my roommates and I dressed up as cows. I thought it was pretty funny since there are cows everywhere here. We didn't have an elaborate costume, all we did was take a white t-shirt and color a bunch of black spots all over and we cut part of the shirt to make a tail too. We were the only ones dressed up that night, of course!

October birthdays

In the month of October, we celebrated 2 of my roommates' birthdays. They had to be celebrated on Mondays because that's our off day. Its also convenient because all of our other American friends playing in Switzerland usually have Mondays off as well. First, we celebrated Kristin's birthday at a mini Oktoberfest in Zurich. Last year, we had the luxury of going to the real Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. This year, we weren't so lucky so we had to settle for the next best thing! We spent all day in a huge beer tent alongside the Limmat River in downtown Zurich.

Just one of our tables, we had about 15 American volleyball players altogether. We definitely stood out at Oktoberfest, almost everyone in our group was over 6 feet tall.

This band played traditional German Oktoberfest songs all day long

Steph, Kristin, Emily, and me (all VFM members from last season)

The next birthday was Tara's, just 1 week later. We went to Basel for the day. Basel is at the very top of Switzerland, bordering France and Germany. Basel is also a very big city, much like Zurich or Geneva. We walked around, enjoyed some wine at a wine tasting convention and hung around an Irish bar. All of the other Americans playing in Switzerland came too, so it was a lot of fun.

Tara, me, Kristin, and Emily walking around Basel

Cool tram decor in Basel

Off-day fun around Switzerland

Ok, sorry for falling off the face of the blogging world. I have been saving groups of photos on my desktop to put in my blog for a very long time...I just simply haven't gotten around to writing any new entries. So, I have a lot of catching up to do :) Lately, most of my adventures have been around Switzerland on our days off, so I will fill you in on a few things we've done over the past month.

BERN

Emily, Kristin, Tara, and I went walking around Bern (Switzerland's capital), for the day just to get out of our little town. In Bern, we saw the Einstein Haus, where Einstein used to study. Also, Bern is known for its bears, so we visited the park and ate lunch alongside the Aare River.

While walking across the bridge to visit the bears, we stopped to have someone take a picture of the 4 of us. Meanwhile, a flock of Malaysian tourists spotted us and little did we know we'd be sitting there 15 minutes later still taking pictures. And when I say a flock, I'm talking about somewhere around 65 people or so. I don't know if they thought we were famous, or if they thought we were Swiss natives...either way, they were excited to take pictures with us. It was like little kids waiting in line at Disneyland to take a picture with Mickey, just 1 group after the other approached us wanting a picture together. It became hard for us to contain our laughter after about 10 pictures or so. They were all so nice and friendly and it certainly made for a good story. After taking countless pictures with them, we asked for one of them to take a picture with our camera so we could document this funny moment.

GRINDELWALD

On another off day, we all decided to drive into a small town at the base of the Swiss Alps called Grindelwald. Grindelwald is known for it's ski resort during the winter. My Dad and I went tabogganing at the resort last February. The resort has a special taboggan course where you fly down the mountain, we had a blast. Anyway, Grindelwald is even prettier before its covered in snow. We all took the gondola up the mountain and went ziplining. It was a short ride, but now I can say I've gone ziplining in the Alps...not many people can say that! The views were amazing and we all had a great time.

A typical chalet in Grindelwald

Taken on the gondola ride up the mountain

A lodge at the top where we enjoyed some coffee and the view

Self timer group shot...fun bunch of girls

We decided to walk back down the mountain rather than take the gondola, Kristin and Tara decided to hang out with the cows.