What's been going on...

The Longhorn Slug

from my hike on the Saleve

The girls out out for Sharron's birthday

Me and Sharron

The Party

I know I haven’t written in a while—keeping up seems to fall by the wayside in the rush of all the other things that go on in a day. Here’s a rundown of the things that have been going on lately:

--We’ve started potty training Henry. He needs to be out of diapers by the time we go to Hong Kong, so we have to get it done. I didn’t realize how much and how often a child can pee—this morning, Henry peed twice on the toilet and twice on the floor, all in about 2.5 hours. I was amazed.

--Alessio has learned to say my name, but it comes out as Bitsy instead of Betsy, which is really cute. He learns new words every day, and he’s always trying to imitate Henry.

--Last week, Henry said he loves me 'this much' and held his arms open as wide as he could.

--Two weekends ago I went to the Lake Parade, which is basically a parade in the afternoon of floats with DJs playing techno and mobile bars. In the evening, the stages and bars all stopped and set up next to the lake, where all of the revelers (me included) could dance and drink all night and into morning. It rained all night, which made things feel very elemental and a little wild, not to mention cold on the bus ride home. A short video of one of the stages is below...

--My food experiences have been interesting lately. On Thursday night, my friend Pamela, who is Chilean, cooked Polish food for Sharron and me. On Friday night, I went out to a Chilean restaurant with Pamala, Sharron, 2 French girls and an Italian guy. On Saturday night I had Lebanese tapas, before going to a festival which had a booth trying to serve authentic Mexican margaritas. Oh this international city.

--The festival referenced above is the pre-festival leading up to the big Fete de Geneve. This pre-Fete involved a stage for live music and outdoor bars erected all around. The actual Fete begins August 1^st and lasts 2 weeks—there will apparently be even more bars and 5 stages of live music, playing every night of the week. I’m really hoping for fantastic weather and some fantastic bands. I’m going to use this to cope with my sadness over not being able to go to ACL Fest this year in Austin.

--I’ve met some interesting, fun people lately, but I’m still making an effort to expand my friend group. It was suggested to me that I find someone to do a language exchange with—we would get together every so often and spend some time speaking French, so that I could practice, and spend some time speaking English, so that the other person can practice. This is obviously good for developing my French, but also is a good way to meet some local people. It’s something I’m going to look into.

--European men are very often creepy and overly aggressive. I don’t know why this is, but it’s by turns appalling, funny and/or gross.

--I miss home sometimes—the familiarity, the ease of always knowing where I’m going and what there is to do, and knowing that my family and friends are close. But, I’m really starting to feel settled here; to feel like this is my life now, not some blip that will soon be over. It’s nice. I wish my family and friends could be here for me to share it with them.

That’s about it for the last little while. I’ll do my best to do better at posting, but life is rarely predictable with toddlers running about J

I'm Moving to Hong Kong!!

So, the decision has finally arrived. I am moving to Hong Kong with the DeMallman's in late September. They found a little house that they like very much, just about 20 minutes from the city center. Victoria's impression of the city was that it is much smaller than one would think--you can go from one end of the city to the other in under 30 minutes on the tram--and that it is very very safe. She said it's pretty commercial, with tons of designer shops (so I guess I won't be shopping much), and not a whole lot of traditional culture left. But, it's a quick train ride to the mainland if one wants to soak up some Chinese culture. If all goes according to plan, I will be there until mid-December, and then I'll go home to Texas for Christmas, and return to Geneva or somewhere else in France to work for a new family in January. 

It seems kind of unreal that I'm going to do this. Who could have predicted that I would end up spending 3 months in Hong Kong?! I'm really excited, though, to get this opportunity because I probably would have otherwise never travelled to Asia. I really hope that I get a chance to see some things in the region and some of the surrounding countries. And hey, Australia is that much closer (I think it's still about a 10 hour flight), so maybe I'll take a big trip :)

Home again, Home again

Me (just to prove I was really there) on the deck in St. Maxime. 

Check out my cool new Panama hat...

I thought this was really odd and funny. This is the pizza box from the delivery place in the south...quite an incentive to re-order...

The crowd for the Euro2008 match at the Fanzone in Plainpalais.

Super excited (and probably drunk) Spain fans at the match.

The crowds leaving the match after Spain won.

We're back in Geneva! It's really nice, I think, to return to a routine after the vacation. My final test of that event was driving back in the van with just Victoria's parents. Victoria and Ben left Friday evening so that the kids would sleep most of the way home, and I and the grandparents left Saturday morning. Really, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I drove the entire way--650 kilometers, about 7 hours total--which helped me keep my sanity because I had something to focus on. We were mostly silent, which was fine with me, other than when both Hermano and Sylvia felt the need to read out the signs to me for the exits we needed to take, as though I don't understand that Geneva and Geneve are the same thing, just in different languages. That was kind of really annoying, but other than that it was fine. We made it, I survived.

 

That night I went out with Sharron to Plainpalais, a section of Geneva with a lot of good bars, and the place where they were showing all of the Euro2008 games on a big screen set up in the square. We watched the final between Germany and Spain. The place was filled with screaming Spain supporters (apparently there's a large Spanish expat community here), shirts off, faces painted, beer in hand. The energy was fantastic. Even before the game started people were walking the streets blowing bullhorns, waving flags and stopping traffic to express their excitement to the general population. Sharron and I bet on the game. I really thought that Germany would take it because they had a more experienced team and had played really well in their preceding matches, but in the end Spain won 1-0. I now have to cook Sharron dinner; not the end of the world. The place went absolutely nuts as soon as the game ended. It took us twice the amount of time it should have to get out of downtown because of all the people in the streets. I wish I could have stayed out and celebrated with them, but it was a Sunday night and duty called the next day. 

 

Both of the boys have been in good moods this week, other than the occasional tantrums associated with readjusting to routine. Alessio is just about over his chicken pox, which is really great. Victoria finally had to get his hair cut this morning--they cut off all of his adorable curls!! He's still really cute, but he looks so much more grown up without those blond ringlets at the base of his neck. Ben, of course, being a man's man, has been saying for weeks that he needed a haircut because he was starting to look like a girl :) He almost said my name yesterday, which is a big step, so it's something we're working on. Henry has amazed me lately with his progress in speaking. It was like all of a sudden last week he started using much more complex sentence structures and phrases. It amazes me that the changes happen so quickly, and it's so noticeable. It's really fun to watch them develop.

 

Victoria and Ben are leaving tomorrow for Hong Kong. I think things will actually go really well with her parents around. It's good that we had the time together in the south so we're used to each other, and I think as long as I clearly ask when she needs me to work and what she needs me to do, things will be fine. Victoria is coming back Thursday morning, so it won't even be that long. And that also means that by Thursday morning I will (hopefully) know whether or not I am moving to Hong Kong. I'm really anxious to find out one way or the other so that I can get excited about whatever the future is going to be and start planning. 

 

That's about all that has gone on this week. This weekend I'm planning to go to the huge 4th of July barbeque that is held every year at a park here in Geneva--apparently it's a massive event, given the number of American expats here. Should be fun.