A sweet surprise indeed!

Our final days in Geneva (just 3 more days to go) saw me packing up stuff and passing some of the useful items and/or food over to our friends.  I was feeling a lot better so was out and about making arrangements to meet up with friends to catch up over coffee.

I’ve been meaning to catch up with L over at the Swiss Watch Blog after her surgery but had been too ill to do so over the past 2 weeks.  So, I was really glad when I received an email from her last week asking if I was free for tea before our departure from Geneva.  Yay to an afternoon out, for I really wanted to could catch up proper with her.  I asked if it could be a bigger gathering asking if the other gals were free, I knew I wanted to meet with A (The Switzerland Hughes) to pass her our rice-cooker.  L said she would arrange, but I thought no one else other than A could make it.

Boy, was I wrong!  I rushed in carrying 2 heavy bags filled with stuff for the pair but as I stepped in, I was greeted with shouts of ‘Surprise’ by familiar faces!  So it seems that L had been planning this surprise and I was not to know that the rest of the girls were going to be there.  Must say they were pretty good at keeping me in the dark for I met with S from Schwingen in Switzerland earlier that morning for coffee and she gave me a quizzical look when I asked if she was going to join us for tea.  I also met with N at for a morning session yoga but there was no mention of the party.  L, you certainly did a great job on planning this little surprise!  Thank you! 

That’s not all!  A lovely spread of afternoon tea delights (they knew I was crazy about making macarons) were prepared in my honour by these superb ladies.

It was indeed an afternoon that got us all on a sugar high – macarons from Laduree from A, home-made peanut butter cookies by N, home-made pumpkin brownies by L, home-made matcha (green-tea) tiramisu by T, chocolates and other treats from S and L.  We had girly conversations and stuffed our faces silly with the sweet treats.  The girls also compiled a little online album filled with the adventures that we had taken during our stay in Geneva.  Aww.. thanks ladies for everything!  Once again, am really touched.

Prior to moving to Geneva, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make any friends and I’d probably become a hermit by the end of my expat journey.  Honestly, making friends from scratch can be rather challenging but looking back, I most certainly did not become a hermit for I’ve gone on to make this small but amazing group of friends.  How?  One of the ways was through blogging.  It has really opened doors for me here and after that, we kinda expanded the group further by pulling people we knew separately into the group.

Thanks again ladies for the wonderful memories and the great times that we spent together exploring Geneva.  It was short but I’m thankful that our paths crossed.  It’s goodbye for now but hopefully we’ll get to see you real soon.  And be sure to give us a shout-out if you ever come to Singapore. 

[All photos courtesy of L over at the Swiss Watch Blog]

P.S: Vain me talking here but I wished I put on some make-up before leaving the house.  And let’s not talk about my bad hair day! 

Au Revoir Geneve with Whisky

The men talked about a whisky night last year during this party. We never really gotten round to planning it proper, it was supposed to be in January and then it went all quiet because of our crazy traveling schedules.  In the end, we decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone – combine the whisky night with our farewell party.

We invited friends we’ve made during our course of stay here in Geneva.  The apartment wasn’t too big so the party of 14 people suited us just fine.  Friends bought along bottles of whisky to share and even helped whipped up some of the food.

Prior to hosting this party, I ran off to the whisky guru – the Imp – asking her for help with what type of foods I should serve up for the party.  She gave me a couple of tips.  Apparently, smokey types of food, cheese, chocolates and even gummies would pair well with whisky.  Not too difficult, so we cooked up a little storm and served our guests these simple dishes – Teriyaki Drumlets, Char Siew Ribs, Truffle French Fries, Baked Mac & Cheese Cups, Crab Rangoon Dip with veggies sticks and Cherry Tomatoes with Prunes topped with plum powder.

And for the fun of it, I even got the friends to chip in and bring along a dish that they think will pair well with the whisky.  L from the Swiss Watch Blog whipped up an absolutely delicious Bourbon Bread pudding that went down very well with practically everyone at the party.  A from the Hughes made a refreshing cucumber salad along with home-made salsa and Tortilla Chips.  Talented T from Sirenatoco in Europe made a huge platter of Chirashi Sushi.  S from Schwingen in Switzerland kindly brought a box of gourmet chocolates from Stettler.  N also contributed a cheeseball that she made from scratch.  The food spread looked amazing thanks to the additional contributions from our friends.

[Photo credit: L from the Swiss Watch Blog]

All in all it was a very good night.  The alcohol flowed, everyone ate merrily and pockets of conversation took place throughout the evening. Think the guys did pretty well, finished close to 3 bottles of whisky with the Yamazaki being the whisky of choice for the night.

Thanks all for coming to our little farewell soirée!  Thanks for your wonderful gift of friendship for it definitely made our stay in Geneva a lot more memorable.  Au Revoir Geneve, it’s been one amazing roller-coaster ride, thanks for the lovely memories and till we next meet again…

Side-note – Whisky or Whiskey?  It’s kinda like you say Tomato, I say Tomatoe type of argument.  Did a little online research and here’s the explanation why it’s spelt differently.  The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra ‘e’. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra ‘e’ is also used when referring to American whiskies. This ‘e’ was taken to the United States by the Irish immigrants in the 1700s and has been used ever since.  Scotland, Ireland and America all have a rich heritage in the whisky industry.

A quick tour of Lausanne

Since we were expecting slightly warmer temperatures last weekend, we decided on a whim to make a short trip to visit Lausanne.

Lausanne (pronounced as loh-san) is Switzerland’s fifth largest city.  This hilly city enjoys a spectacular lakeside location (which we didn’t get a chance to see because we didn’t have enough time).  Other must-sees in the city according to my new-found friend, Shinn include heading over to Ouchy to see the Musee Olympique and Lake Geneva, visiting the Eglise Saint-François and for a bird’s eye view of Lausanne – the Lausanne Cathedral.

With only about 2.5 hours in the city, we arrived to a some-what grey Lausanne and did a leisurely walk around the Rue de Bourg and Place de la Plaud where boutiques and shops lined the narrow and hilly streets.

With my fave gal!  Check out how we have matching bags with our some-what matching leather outerwear.  I didn’t know if the leather jacket was going to keep me warm, so I decided to layer my faux fur-vest over the jacket for good measure.

Then, we took a leisurely walk to visit the Cathedrale de Notre Dame.

My fave pic of the trip where we took a snapshot of our shadows as the sun slowly set behind us.

I guess this marks one of our very last excursions with one of the closest family that we’ve grown rather attached to during our stay here in Geneva.

let it snow.. let it snow..

I was awoken to the unmistakable sounds of shoveling outside our apartment at 7am Monday morning.   That could only mean one thing.. it snowed overnight!  Got up and saw heaps of fresh powder snow that covered the grounds.  Simply lovely.

And the snow showed no signs of stopping.  I had a couple of errands to run so I made sure I put on enough thick clothes and my trusty Moon-boots that’s great for stomping around in the snow.

Such a pretty sight behold despite the chills.  The Man captured a shot of the famed Flower clock all covered in snow.  Pretty dreamy huh?

For more shots around the city covered in snow for a day, check out S’s blog over at Schwingen in Switzerland.

Watching a movie

I can count the number of things that we could do on a weekend back home, but in Geneva, this proved to be a little challenging especially when most of the stores are closed on Sunday.  While I used to live for the weekends, we now find ourselves actually planning in advance the activities to fill our weekends for fear of being too bored or wasting the entire 2 free days away.

Watching a movie should seem relatively easy except for a couple of things.  One, there aren’t too many cinemas here in Geneva.  Two, some of the movie screenings are in French so while booking for a movie, we’ll have to make sure that it’s in the original language.

It wasn’t our first time at the movies.  We watched X-Men: First Class last year at Pathe Balexert.  Getting to the cinema proved to be rather adventurous as some of the exits to the cinema were closed.  But we eventually made it to the movie just in time before the credits rolled.  We were not able to choose our seats so we ended up sitting in the front row, stretching our necks to catch a piece of Professor Xavier in action.  That marred our experience a little so we haven’t been back since.

We had planned on going snowboarding on Sunday but the weather wasn’t on our side.  So, the morning was spent on blogging and catching up on reading blogs.  It turned out that S from Schwingen in Switzerland recently went to the local cinema to catch ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ so I decided to check out what movies were screening at the cinema she recommended for that was something that we could fill the rest of our day with.

Great, they were showing ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ -a movie that I had been wanting to catch at the Astor Film Lounge. I reserved the tickets on-line and was pretty excited about our afternoon of movie activity.

Going to the movies in Switzerland isn’t exactly cheap but at CHF 18 (approx. SG 25) for a ticket that comes with a free alcoholic beverage, I say this was definitely a STEAL!  We arrived at the cinema a little earlier to hang around at the plush lounge and enjoy our free cocktail.

The theatre was pretty neat as well.  Loved the leather seats that allowed us to recline while watching the movie.  And if you’re feeling cold, you could help yourself to some of the blankets and keep warm.  You could also order some food and ice-cream from your seat but there was no popcorn.  Darn!  Popcorn and movies go hand-in-hand, how could they not have popcorn?  Hmm, perhaps I could ‘smuggle’ my own snacks the next time?  But I guess this movie experience was soo.. good that it kinda reminded me of the Gold Class Movie experience at Golden Village back home.  Looks like I wouldn’t mind hanging out here and watching a movie on my own the next time.

Marché de Noël at Montreux

Many ‘moons’ back when the Man and I first visited Europe in December, we loved the little winter markets that sprung up in the city centre.  I had my first taste of mulled wine and it tasted oh-so-good in the chilly weather.  So, when L over at the Swiss Watch Blog suggested a little road-trip to check out the Christmas markets around Geneva, I immediately said yes!

Thankfully we had 2 very lovely ladies who offered to drive so the 5 of us set off for a little festive adventure over at Montreux.

According to the weather forecast (the ladies checked), it was supposed to be a chilly day with no rain, but ah well, it started to drizzle shortly after our arrival into Montreux.  Nevertheless, we stayed around the epicenter of the market which was covered and had all these cute little stores plus food!  After some hot onion soup, we braved the rain and walked down to check out the rest of the stalls.

Playing with my new camera and loving some of the settings that it has.. like this ‘Toy Camera’ function.  The little doggy reminded me of Sparky when I took this.

Also, loving the Panorama function that allows me to take this awesome pic of the snow-capped mountains and the lake.

The Christmas market sold loads of different stuff – from Christmas decor, to jewellery, bonnets, candles, chocolates, bon-bons.  We were kept fairly occupied looking at the offerings from the various stalls despite having to brave the rain.  Having a cup of Vin Chaud (Hot Red Wine) also made the difference for me!

Here are my lovely companions on this little trip to Montreux.  It was really nice to see the ladies and to make a new friend before everyone goes on their Christmas holidays.  Travel safe and Joyeux Noël to you all, we’ll see you in the New Year!

My thoughts this Autumn

Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolour, Summer an oil painting and Autumn a mosaic of them all.

Stanley Horowitz

The above quote basically sums up my thoughts on Autumn for it’s so true.  When I take a walk around the neighbourhood or when we go for a car-ride, I pay special attention to the leaves and the trees for it truly is a mosaic of lovely colours which is such a beautiful sight to behold.

Can you believe that more than 6 months have passed since we’ve been here?  Woah.. why did all the time go?  The journey has been amazing with a couple of kinks along the ride which made our lives a lot more exciting I guess.

So goodbye Autumn, it has been such a wonderful experience.  Hellooo hot/humid/rainy Singapore in November and we’ll come back to chilly Winter come December to complete the rest of our journey.