30 October

My birthday has been lovely, and just gone on and on and on!

Yum cha on the day was followed in the evening by dinner with friends, making fresh spring rolls. So good. I forget between times just how yummy fresh spring rolls are... must make them more often.

I got all sorts of lovely treats for my birthday... chocolates, home-made pumpkin & citrus jam, books, dvd's, ceramic pie weights, cupcake trays, jelly snakes, berocca, Australian music, funky bowls and best of all, wonderful messages of love from friends and family. Including a real letter, on onion-skin paper no less! Now that makes for a very happy birthday girl.

Tomorrow afternoon I head off to Florence for a week, catching up with the lovely Michelle. I looove Florence and am delighted to be going back. Even more delighted when it is 18 degrees warmer there than here in Geneva!

15 October

What a wonderful surprise I had last week... news that Katrina and David were going to be in Brussells. I promptly booked flights to go there. Hotels were a bit more of a challenge; I managed to get a hotel for the first two nights, but then had to move to a hostel for the second and third... a bit of a lowering of standards from the 5 star luxury of the first two!

It was like a breath of fresh air to see faces from Australia. I felt like home had come to me... comfortable, comforting... superb!

On Sunday morning we met up with a mate of David's and took a train to Lille. Katrina and I walked our feet off exploring the beauty of the fine arts museum. It was fun being in a museum with someone who was as enthusiastic as I am about "shiny things" and between us we managed to spot a few very interesting things. I am particularly smug to have spotted these two things:

and Katrina seemed pretty happy to have found these:

(I will put some more photos up on my flickr site) There was an amazing surprise for us too... we had read on the map of the museum that there was a room of model maps, and Katrina thought we should take a look. We were really impressed by the immense size of the models, and joked that here was evidence of some gamers who really needed to get a life. Then we looked at the documentation about it and discovered that the first of these modelers without-a-life was from the 17th century! Blown away we was, blown away.

You cannot believe how big they are... each one the size of my living room. Truly amazing.

The next morning was spent in search of pieces of c-pap machine, which was tiring, painful and futile. Duct tape became the solution (replaced the next day with a piece of plastic tubing - doh, why didn't we think of that when we were walking around Brussels for three hours?). Consequently, much of the day was spent doing very ordinary things, which was kinda nice you know. Just hanging, and gas-bagging. In the evening I had booked us in to eat at the Village Idiot, which was as fabulous as the last time I ate there... and my new digs at the youth hostel were a big step down from the 5 star hotel I had been in the nights before, but, hey, it was fine for a cheap bed to stay in.

Tuesday morning was our chance to go to the Museum of Musical Instruments... mmm pretties. Photos on my flickr page.

In the evening we enjoyed a casual meal with some of David's fellow conference attendees. Katrina introduced me as David's second wife. I explained that while Katrina promised to love honour and support, I promised to give him hell.

Much moules-frite was eaten (though I myself had stoemp and country sausages). After dinner we went back to the Metropole for what I gather is a tradition of Kwak and conversation, at which I had to say a sad farewell to Katrina and David. By the time I got back to my hostel it was coming on midnight, and I had to get up at 4am to get the train to the airport - I was not at my best when I got to work I can tell you on that little sleep!

It was just so good to see Katrina and David, and what is more, they came bearing a birthday gift from Australia, from my mum and dad as well as some vital supplies my sister bought for me, so I was extra spoilt. I miss David and Katrina already.

A few weeks back I booked a rental car for the weekend of 4/5 October. I had no real plans of where I would go, but I thought "what the hey, I will just go somewhere". So a day or two before the weekend, I had a look at the calendar of medieval fairs and decided that I was going to head off to the Chateau de Joux near Pontarlier. I decided for the first time, to be a couchsurfer myself. I have hosted people a few times, but this was to be my first time couchsurfing with someone else. As it happens, I discovered that my host-to-be is actually a guide at the Chateau.

I headed off on Saturday morning, having packed a bag. It was cool and a bit gloomy so I packed a coat and one of my pashminas to wear as a scarf, and off I drove with my map of France. Of course, what the map didn't tell me was the altitude of Pontarlier, and as I turned off the highway and started up the Jura, I had a very nasty shock. The car beeped at me and flashed the light telling me that it was 3 degrees. And then the snow started to fall...

I was SO unprepared. My lightweight coat, and scarf were just not going to cut the mustard. It hadn't even occurred to me that I could possibly need gloves or a hat. And when I saw the chateau, I thought "Oh, I am such an idiot. I am going to freeze. This is not good. This is SO not good."

Although it was still snowing when I arrived at the castle, it did clear up a little, and a glass of hot hypocras did much to improve the outlook of the day. Sadly the inside of the chateau was closed to visitors for the day (too hard to keep security) but the outdoor areas were still worth wandering and the 'medieval' stuff going on was quite interesting.

After the day had finished my lovely couchsurfing host took me to an absinthe factory, where I tasted some absinthe (which I didn't like very much) and some liqueurs which I did. The most interesting was liqueur sapin, which is pine flavoured. Very bizarre to drink something that smells like pine-o-clean, but actually it was kind of cool, and I could see some potential for it for cooking. Back at the apartment I cooked up a meal, which would have been a grand success if we could have gotten the oven to work, so instead it was an ok dinner. Then it was off to the local haunt for a few drinks with some of the staff from the medieval fete, which was fun, and terribly good practice for my meagre French.

The next day I visited the Pontarlier museum, which was small, but beautifully presented. There were more funky buckles to be seen, and what might have been an ancient crown.

Time to hit the road and head for home. The view coming back over the jura towards the alps was spectacular, but you know there are NO places where you can pull off the road to enjoy the view. I did pull over and snap a few ultra quick snaps.

I decided that, rather than heading back to Geneva, I would visit Bulle, near Neuchatel. I had been to Neuchatel and to get there you pass by Bulle, and I had seen the chateau and wanted to visit. So why not now?

Bulle is a pretty little town, with lovely gardens with fantastic views over the mountains:

and a very pretty looking chateau:

which is sadly taken up by administrative stuff, so you cannot get inside. But there is a museum of Bulle, and you know how I love a museum! Another superbly presented museum with a few little gems in it, and well worth a visit. There was some marvellous woodwork, as Bulle has been a bit of a centre of woodworking in Switzerland. As well there was a stunning needlework pouch and some really impressive woven straw.

The drive back was equally spectacular... living here is amazing.

1 October

So its now less than a month till my birthday. I still haven't figured out how I am going to celebrate on the day, but not long afterwards I am having a holiday; going to catch up with a friend in Florence, which is very cool.

IShould you, dear reader, have an overwhelming desire to send me pressies, here are some ideas...

• A letter. More than anything else I miss hearing from YOU. Hearing what you are up to - a few people have said that sometimes they feel that a) writing to me makes them feel sad because it reminds them that I am not there (how sweet is that?) and b) my life seems so exciting that they feel that theirs seems too dull to write about. Well I can't help with the first, but for the second, its just not true. Yeah there are things I do and places I go that are exciting, but you know, I just bloody miss you, ok? I want to hear that your kids have shaved their hair off, or you finally managed to find a pair of shoes that are reasonable looking and yet comfortable, or that you went to the coast the other weekend.
• ceramic pie weights
• Books. My Amazon.de wishlist (if you buy books from Amazon.de they send to Switzerland for free, and there is a 20% discount on all books to Switzerland too. The minus is that the site is in German - what I recommend is opening amazon.co.uk in another tab and using it to help you negotiate the german site. The wishlist (wunschzettel) is in my real name. If you aren't feeling up to negotiating a website, amazon.co.uk probably is the next best option, being in english and probably with reasonable postage costs - I will try to find time over the next few days to reproduce my wishlist there. You may well be able to order ceramic pie weights from there, you never know!
• Foodie things: strawberry daifuku, caramel space food sticks, jelly snakes.
• a cupcake tin (I have a one good for making gigantic meat pies but it's too big for your normal paper cupcake cups and I have one small enough to use for canapes, but nothing in between). Ideally a 12 hole one.
• TripleJ hottest 100 cds (I don't have any of them, and it would be cool to have some) or maybe a cd of current Australian music that you think I might like. A possible site to buy them is CD wow, who have free delivery and usually reasonably ok prices.
• A TomTom... now I know that's pushing my luck, but hey, its something I want.
• 2 or 3 sets of freshmesh bags.

Sadly I think postage just went up... but here is the current prices for sending stuff here (ouch it is expensive isn't it!)

WEIGHT	SEAMAIL	AIRMAIL
up to 250g	$6.65	$10.70
up to 500g	$10.55	$18.15
500g to 750g	$14.45	$25.60
750g to 1kg	$18.35	$33.06
1kg to 1.25kg	$22.25	$40.50
1.25kg to 1.5kg	$26.15	$47.95
1.5kg to 1.75	$30.05	$55.40
1.75kg to 2kg	$33.95	$62.85
2kg to 2.5kg	$37.85	$72.20
2.5kg to 3kg	$41.75	$81.55

I have put the costs all the way up to 3kg, because it occurs to me that if there is more than 1 person out there who wants to send me something, they could all put together. Send letters etc to:

My real name
Rue 31 Decembre 48
1207 Geneve
Switzerland

or if you see my friend before she comes here, you could probably pass her something for me...