I still have to quickly recap my last couple of days in Switzerland.  Thursday morning, we made our last grocery store trip to stock up on a few last-minute things to take home that we cannot get in the US.  Mainly:  more chocolate (believe it or not…), Wheetabix, some hazelnuts, and MARZIPAN!  All of those items are so fabulous and in my top 10 fave list… not sure why they are so hard to find in the US.  S and I wandered around the grocery store.

I loved wandering the grocery stores in Switzerland.  Partially because I am a foodie, of course, but also because they had so much different, interesting stuff.  Of course, I couldn’t read any of the packages… but sometimes that made it even more fun   My best purchase of the day?  These white chocolate kisss candies:

Yes, if you notice, almost the entire 15-candy package was gone by the time I actually took this picture.  Oops.  Anyways, these kisss were just like Krembo, which were my favorite candies in Israel when I was there.  Basically, they are a chocolate shell with creme inside, with a cookie/wafer on the bottom.  Sooo good.  And of course they are fairly delicate, so I had to eat them all.  They would not be able to survive the trip home without getting crushed!

To celebrate my last day, I also wore my new t-shirt that S’s uncle gave to me.  He works for slf, and got us these cool shirts.  I chose pink, of course.

S got a white one.

We spent the day on Thursday with the family.  There was some breakfast, some ping-pong playing, and a lot of reminiscing on the last three weeks now that the trip was coming to an end.

Also, I finally got around to taking pictures of the marathon swag we got.  My favorite was the Lausanne wine, from the vineyards that we ran through.

And here is the t-shirt and the other items.

And S’s bib too, just to prove he actually did it

In the evening, we went out to dinner in Bern.  It was the last dinner with S’s brother before we left.  He took us to this cooperative restaurant – similar to the one at Reitschule, where he lives.  On the drive there, I admired the beautiful sunset out the car window:

I was a little nervous because the menu was small, with not many options, and I couldn’t read it at all (Hello, German.)  As S read the menu to me, one of the options was fried tofu so I jumped on it.  It came with potatoes, and since I’m not the biggest fan of potatoes I asked for a salad instead.  Well, I had S ask for me, since the waitress didn’t speak English.

I am so used to the US, where you can order whatever you want.  I get dressings on the side, make substitutions, ask for special requests… all the time.  Every time I go out to eat.  But in Switzerland it’s not like that, and I keep forgetting.  S explained it to me like this:  In the US, going out to eat is a break from us having to cook.  We go out for a meal and order something exactly how we want it.  We customize it, trusting ourselves to make decisions on how the meal will taste the best to us.  Then, if we don’t like something, we often blame ourselves and the way we ordered it – we say next time we will get it done more rare, or we will get the sauce served separately… something like that.  In Switzerland, when they go out to eat they are paying to get the cook’s expertise.  They want the chef to decide how their dinner will be served, and serve it to them.  No changes, no customizations.  And if they don’t like it, they blame the chef – they decide the chef wasn’t a good one, they didn’t like the experience, and they will not go to that restaurant again.  Kind of interesting way of looking at it.  But I guess I’m American all the way… I want my food the way I want it… not the way the chef wants it.

So anyhow, I get a lot of funny looks when I ask for a salad instead of potatoes.  But thats ok.

The tofu was delicious!  The veggies and salad were great too.  Altogether, two thumbs up for the cooperative restaurant.

It was a great night.  It was tough to say goodbye to S’s brother at the end – especially for him.  I think that the last few days of the trip really made S realize how much he missed his family in the US.  I think he kind of pushed it away before, but being back at home and having to say goodbye all over again brought all the feelings to the surface.

Before I knew it, it was Friday – the last day of our trip.  In the morning, S and I went to Fit Plus for the last time.  We brought a gift of wine, chocolate and flowers to the gym’s owners, S’s former employer, to thank them for allowing us to work out there for free during our trip.  We flew home for a quick shower and lunch, and then went to play tennis with S’s sister.  It was so fun!  I forgot how much I enjoyed playing tennis, because I haven’t played for years.  It is definitely something I would like to do now that S and I are back in California.  S still hadn’t recovered from the marathon, though.  He was hobbling around the court like an old man

After tennis, S went to go meet two friends for drinks and guy talk.  I stayed home and carved pumpkins with his sister!

Her pumpkin was scary:

Mine… not so much.

S said it looked like a Pokemon.

Finally, we went out for one last dinner with the family.

We went to a nice restaurant in Murten called Hotel Schiff.  S’s parents took us there because they have really good seafood, and they know how much I love seafood.  I got the perch.  Once again, I got my funny looks for asking for a salad instead of potatoes.  Why does everything in Switzerland come with potatoes?!?!  Anyhow, funny looks aside, the dinner was absolutely delicious.

I got a LOT of perch, which made me happy.  What did not make me so happy was the fact that there was a smoker sitting at the table next to us.  I swear, I didn’t think this guy was going to live to see dessert.  He must have smoked 20 cigarettes as we ate our dinner… just kept lighting one up right after the other.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  That is one of the worst things about Switzerland… they are way behind the US, and particularly California, in banning smoke in restaurants and public places.  Most restaurants we went to didn’t even have separate non-smoking and smoking areas.

We got home from dinner pretty late, and the rest of the evening was spent packing up and discussing all that had happened on the trip with disbelief that it was over.  I learned a LOT on this trip – a lessons learned post is sure to follow.

Sitting here on my couch, catching up on work and drinking my american coffee with JB by my side, it’s hard to believe that just 36 hours ago I wasn’t yet home from Switzerland.  I feel like I never left – it’s amazing how fast you get back into the groove of being home.

Yesterday was a really nice, relaxing day to settle back in.  After our pancake breakfast, we watched football.  Yay!  I snacked on a Kashi cereal bar:

S made a run to the grocery store to pick up some milk for his cereal.  When he returned, he surprised me with these:

Isn’t he sweet?  Love him.

After watching the Vikings beat the Packers, we both went to the grocery store for a big trip to restock everything after returning from vacation.  The bill came to $150… for two people, that’s a good chunk of change.  Got lots of goodies, though.  I returned to have a quick chocolate snack (oy, vey…  healthy eating starts tomorrow).  There was a chocolate pudding cup:

a brownie:

A some pieces from a few different Swiss chocolate bars:

Can you say cravings???  But damn, they hit the spot.  And it was all good, because after my chocolate, we….

headed to the gym!!!

Oh gym, how I missed thee.  How I love thee.  And when I go with S, it’s even better because I have a workout buddy.  I did 35 minutes on the elliptical, and then we did the pushup game.  For a while I was actually getting better at pushups, but now I haven’t done them for so long that I totally suck again.  Boo.

I realized halfway through my workout that I had a meeting for work at 9pm.  I guess that was when I was officially back to the grind.  So we got home in time, I made a quick dinner of a Kashi pizza:

and for dessert I had some neopolitan ice cream.

After my meeting, I was still craving something sweet so I had a slice of angel food cake.

This week, I am going to start limiting the sweets that I eat.  It has gotten way out of control, and I can feel it because I am feeling sluggish and slow.  I will take the day today to get over the jet lag and relax, and then tomorrow it is off to a healthy new start.

We are finally home.  Yesterday was a long day – we left S’s parent’s house at 4am to head to the airport.  We had a 1 1/2 hour drive to Geneva, where we checked in, handed in our bags, and had a tearful goodbye.  My bag was just under the weight limit, but S’s was too heavy by a couple kilograms.  But for some reason, they didn’t mark it overweight and charge us the $50 over-size charge… we were so happy.

We got our final Swiss coffee from the Swiss Coffee House in the aiport.

I had coffee and a golden delicious apple:

The first flight was long and uneventful.  I watched three movies during the flight.  First was Ice Age:  Dawn of the Dinosaurs.  Very cute, and a good one to watch in the airplane because it made me laugh.  Second was The Brothers Bloom, very weird.  But I love Rachel Weisz.  And last was I Hate Valentines Day – totally sucked.  It was so bad, I couldn’t even watch the whole thing.  And that says a lot, especially because I was trapped in the airplane and had absolutely nothing else to do.  Ugh.

We landed in Newark, NJ and had to get our baggage from the baggage claim and go through customs (only to re-check it, go through security again, and get back on another plane.)  It wasn’t too bad, though.  But then our second flight was delayed by over an hour, which kind of sucks.  We ended up landing at about 7:40pm, got our luggage, caught a shuttle to our parking (we parked about 10 miles away from the airport because it was cheaper), paid the parking, and drove home.  We got back around 9:45pm.  All-in-all, it was a long day but not too bad.  I had a dinner of a chicken enchilada (got it as a snack on the plane but didn’t eat it then…)

And a brownie and some ice cream for dessert.

Then I hit the sack, with JB by my side.  I slept like a baby – Lord, I missed my bed.  JB missed us so much – he won’t leave my side since I returned.

This morning, we slept in until 1pm which was actually noon because the clock turned back.  Woo hoo for an extra hour of sleep!  After a long and wonderful shower, I just enjoyed my breakfast/lunch of pancakes and coffee.  Just lazy pancakes, made from ready-to-mix complete mix.  Just add water

I must say that I missed my giant-sized mug of coffee.

I drank many, many cups of coffee in Switzerland, but they were all teeny-tiny.  It was hilarious, when I ordered a coffee, often times they would ask if I wanted a small or large.  Of course I always would say large… and I got a cup of coffee smaller than a thimble.  Oh well.  One thing that I loved about Swiss coffee is that every cup is made individually by the machine, so each cup has foam on top.  I loved the foam!

I miss you, Swiss coffee foam.

But other than that….

I am waaaaaaaaaay glad to be home.  I missed JB like crazy.  And I also missed tons of little things about the US – definitely missed my comfortable bed.  Mattresses are much harder in Switzerland and I am very used to my squishy bed.

Now off to watch some football and go grocery shopping.  Home sweet home, I love you!