Upcoming Plans.......

So as you may have guessed we haven't been doing a heck of a lot this last little while but we have a good reason...

This post is basically just a heads up as to what we will be doing trip wise that we know of at this point, from now until the end.

A lot of you know our plans already so I'm sorry for those of you who have emailed me in the past little while and are aware of everything in this post already.
And for everyone else...........

We have no trips planned out officially from now until Christmas but we intend on doing at least one in December for sure before that. It may or may not involve Germany but if it does we are planning on going to Berlin. We want to see this city at some point while we're here so if we can get a cheap night train there, that is what we will do. I think there are supposed to be some really nice Christmas markets there as well so that would be cool to check out.
We also want to see more of Switzerland like usual; especially in December because apparently most cities/villages are decked out in Christmas decorations and full of markets as well. It should be pretty sweet.

The main reason as to why we are not doing much right now; or at least why we are staying in Switzerland and haven't planned anything for December yet is because we do not have our passports at the moment!
Brian gets a 2 week vacation for Christmas and I get a 3 week one. Because of this and since we're not coming home during this time we want to make the most of it. So.........
For the holiday we are going to 4 different places all in the same area. We will be flying to Helsinki and then hopping on a boat to Tallinn. Next we will bus to St. Petersburg and from there we will fly to Riga. We will also be flying to and from Zurich to get there and back. So we will technically be in Finland for Christmas this year and Russia for New Years.
(For those of you who don't know Helsinki is in Finland,

Tallinn is in Estonia, St. Petersburg is in Russia,

and Riga is in Latvia.)
If you don't know much about any of those cities then....well....then we're on the same page! But seriously just google any of them with the words winter or Christmas and look at pictures; it should be gorgeous. Cold, but gorgeous. We will have to pack heavy though

unfortunately because it will be so cold and the fact that we'll be gone for 2 weeks. Wow! We're excited though.

So back to what I was saying earlier about our passports. To enter and leave Russia you have to have a Russian visa; therefore we had to apply to get this visa. In doing so we had to fill out a bunch of forms, photocopy our documents, plus whatever else, and send our passports. At least they're still in Switzerland though. We had to take all of this to the Russian Consolate in Bern and then we will find out in a week or 2 whether or not we get to go! We could have mailed everything but we didn't know if we filled everything out correctly and if we had everything we needed for sure so we thought we would just go there. Even though this was the biggest waste of time to do so at least it's done and over with. So hopefully we will get the good or bad news soon, get our passports back so we can leave the country, and get to go to Russia. If not I guess we wasted some money and cut our trip short; but I'm sure it could be worse, right?
Haha, anyways we'll let you know.

After Christmas we have 4 trips planned already for the new year:
In January we are going to Brussels in Belgium

and Warsaw in Poland. Then in February we are going to

London (everyone knows where that is)
and in March we are going to Dublin in Ireland!
We are super excited about all of them; especially Ireland. Unfortunately we will be in Dublin the weekend after St. Patrick's Day but maybe it will be better this way and not such a gongshow! Other than that nothing is booked but we plan to see 1, preferably 2 places each month after Christmas. Outside of that we want to see even more of this Suisse land and snowboard a lot. Well I don't want to speak too soon but if I like it and if Brian can find the patience to teach me we will be going as much as possible......or as much as our bank account will allow us!

This week we also took a day off of our regular work out routine (Pat, Brian, and I have been consecutively going to the gym most days of the week for over 2 months now) to catch the new James Bond Movie: Casino Royal. Great movie by the way. We have been attending an international church we found in Zurich that we really enjoy, so that is nice. The people there are great; we even almost feel at home. We have had a few supers at different families houses even already so it's great that we're making some more friends here; even though not many of the people who attend are Suisse! I am even going to be singing in the worship team at some point as well which will be super! Anyways now everyone will be forced to read the blog actually rather than just look at the pictures for once! Well hopefully that's not the case but if it is that is fine as well. Take care, God bless, hope to hear from some of you on the posts or via email!

Tchüss, Tchüss, Ciao!

More About Amsterdam

Here are a few key photo's that didn't make it into the last post and thought it is only right that we share them with you.

The first picture : A weird car and an even weirder public bathroom. Like really, what the heck?? It's wiiiiiiide open, in broad daylight. Too much for us... The midget car looks pretty hilarious as well.


The second picture: Yes, you can still live in a trailer if you live in Amsterdam. A little harder to get that "trailer park" atmosphere, but you can get close. Anyways, pretty ridiculous, I couldn't imagine living in a house boat for my whole life.


Picture three: Look closely, cause this bike is decked out. Windshield for the front child(yes that is a kid seat right after the windshield), you can also trap a kid on the back, basket in the front, and a nice paint job. The Amsterdamers love their bikes, sooo many bikes there, all old-school bikes as well, quite funny.


And here are some more pictures of the beautiful city.

Amsterdam

So The Netherlands is another country added to the list of countries we have visited after we spent two days in Amsterdam. Let's just say Amsterdam was an "interesting" city. Nowadays, it is basically famous for its legalized prostitution and marijuana. We don't really fish from that pond if you know what I mean; so we weren't really sure what to expect. But Amsterdam is actually a beautiful city, and because that sorta stuff is legal, it is all concentrated in one small area of the city, and the rest of the city has nothing to do with that (except for the "coffee shops" which are sporadically spread throughout the city and sell weed).

So, here is how the trip went down:
Flew from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam; arriving around 11:30ish on Saturday morning.
Found our hostel and dropped our stuff off.
Wandered around the city a bit, found some cheap food.
Stumbled upon the Red Light District and discovered our Hostel was on the very edge of this.
Went for a free walking tour of the city given by a Canadian from Vancouver. This was pretty cool, we learned a lot about the history of the city and the different sites to visit. Walked around a bit more, and then back to the hostel.

On Sunday we got up and had the hostels free breakfast.
Went to the Anne Frank Haus, which is the house in which Anne Frank was in hiding before the Nazi's captured her and her family. This was quite the experience and definitely worth seeing. Found a place for lunch, checked out the shopping district in Amsterdam, also saw the Jewish quarter, and the port.
Other than that it was raining the rest of the time (and a bit in between stuff) so we didn't do too much else.
Lastly we flew back to Basel around 9:30pm; then finally caught a train home to Baden around 12:00am and got home by 1:30am.

It was a long weekend but so much fun; Amsterdam is a beautiful city!

Hockey Night In..........Switzerland!

Robert Kohler told Brian, Pat, and I about a national hockey game coming up between Switzerland and of course Canada. So needless to say we were there like cheese on a pizza. We gathered up the Canadians and almost everyone came plus some of our other friends from different countries as well...Robert came too. We all dressed as Canadian and red as possible (even though Swiss colors are red and white also) and brought all our flags we could fine; to have a huge cheering section for Canada.



The event was a lot of fun and were actually more Canadian fans than we expected to see.
Here are some of them that we saw near us:

The team wasn't the real national team just a team of Canadians playing in Europe right now and it wasn't the real Swiss team either. So obviously it wasn't the best game to watch; a little slow and not as good but there were some really nice goals by both teams.

Also European hockey is very different than the NHL that we're used to....especially when it comes to hitting! The game was also very quiet in comparison; the fans weren't really crazy and loud but there were a lot of Swiss flags waved when they scored. Then when Canada scored the few cheering sections stood up and yelled but it wasn't enough to make a huge difference.

Unfortunately the Canadians lost 6 - 4 in the end but it was a fun night anyways. We were all very disappointed but were glad that we came out to cheer on our country.




We traveled to Holland this weekend to see Amsterdam
so stay tuned for the post about this trip!

Australia Here We Come......

Well not exactly!.........

When we arrived here in Switzerland there were so many Canadian praktikants, old people and new; but there were also many other praktikants from all over the world really. In particular there was one guy that we hung out with a lot, mainly playing sports. His name is Naveen Nadesan and he is Australian. Nav had the coolest accent and we had so much fun with him while he was still here. Unfortunately he came 6 months before us and then stayed for a year. So as of late October his time had come to an end here and he was heading back to Australia.

Before he left we tried to play soccer and basketball as much as possible to make the most of it while he was still here. Nav, Bri and I would play basketball most nights and while Mere and Mir were here it was great cuz we could actually get some games in. Now without Naveen it's not as fun for Bri and I because there is nobody who will play basketball with us as much. We actually wish now that we hung out with Nav more; he was quite similar to us and we miss him being here for many reasons. It is really too bad he wasn't here during the whole time we were but at least we were able to meet him and enjoy our time together while he was still here.


The night before he went home Pat, Andy, Bri, and I all went out for drinks with Naveen to celebrate his departure and the time we spent together. That night was a lot of fun but really
sad as well. But it wasn't a "goodbye" party for him though because we will see Nav again one day. We don't know when but we do know that Bri and I will be going to Australia one day; hopefully sooner rather than later to visit him. I have always wanted to go to Australia and now I get the chance to do so; we really can't wait until that day comes. We will greatly miss Nav until then and cherish the memories we made here in Switzerland with him. He is a great friend to both of us; full of character that we will one day see again!

A Praktikant Thankgiving

Thanksgiving was very interesting for us here in the land of the Suisse...

If you can believe it, Switzerland does not really have an official Thanksgiving holiday. They do have harvest festivals and meals to celebrate but not exactly "Thanksgiving" like in Canada and the US. The Suisse don't really celebrate Halloween either. A few (or maybe more) years ago they didn't even know anything about the occasion. They have recently begin to incorporate it into their lives; mainly because of the people that have moved here from the States, but still it is getting a little more popular here... Not so much that people dress up in costumes or go "trick or treating" but you know.

Natalie (N. Carolina) Kim -------------------------- Pat (Canada), Krispin
(England), Darren (Canada) --------------------------- (Canada), Kim
- our roommate, Matt (England)

Anyways we decided to have our own Thanksgiving celebration
within the Canadian praktikant group this year and other fellow Alstom and/or ABB praktikants we hang out with. It was a potluck so we made a list and everyone decided what they wanted to bring and share with the group. This was very interesting because some people don't know how to cook and others have never been to a Thanksgiving dinner before and didn't know what to bring. It was our new friend Guilherme's, from Brazil, first Thanksgiving ever and he brought us different Brazilian candy which was really neat...it was very good but super sweet. Brian and I got my Auntie Flora's mashed potatoes recipe (my favorite) and also made an apple crisp from an internet recipe and they were both a big success (we think)! Of coarse our potatoes weren't as good as when my Aunt makes them but we tried! The dinner was hosted at our friend Taryn's house; well our other friends live there too but it was put on by Taryn basically so she gets all the credit for the great evening.

Andy and Taryn (Canada) ---------------------------- Mike (Canada)

Overall it was a hilarious night and a lot of fun hanging out with everyone again. Most of the food was really good and then there was some sketchier stuff but I tried most of it anyways. I definitely didn't have any cow tongue but I think that speaks for itself...
Brian on the other hand... But it was a successful night; we were all very full and satisfied so that's all that matters.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

The Kohler Family

It has been a long time since I talked about my nannying job and shown you pictures of the children so this is way over due. When Miriam was leaving we got a few group photos with everyone so I can show you pictures of the parents (Robert and Murielle) now as well since we don't have any yet! We took many photos of all of us when Mere was leaving too but they are on Robert's camera and I keep forgetting to get them.

Here is the whole gang with Brian, Miriam and myself as well:

I have been having a lot of fun with the children and we are just getting closer and closer each day it feels! We are all very attached and right now I can't even imagine saying good bye, it will be a very emotional day...well month and will break all of our hearts when we leave. It has been great because we've been going over to their house for supper quite often if feels; when Mere left and when Mir left. Then also last week Brian and our friend Pat went for a tour of Robert's company and we stayed for supper as well. That was fun because Pat could now put faces to the people I talk about all the time with funny stories with the children.

So here is Emma (6 years old) :


Here is Leo (3 years old) :


More photos of Emma and Leo playing outside and having fun together:

Obviously it is getting harder to get the children motivated to do activities because of the crappy weather and some days are quite tiring but we still have so much fun and no matter what I wouldn't want a different job while I am here.