Tha Latest Haps

As many of you are hopefully aware, there is a space shuttle mission going on right now. This fact keeps Charlie and I pretty busy these days, often working long hours for "the man" only to come home to relax with a couple hours of good old-fashioned classwork. Ahhhhhhhh, sounds very zen-like, I know.
It is all for a good cause, no doubt, but it sure does seem daunting sometimes. I have 2 years of school left before I graduate with my MS in Astro-super-nautical Engineering and Charlie has only a couple classes left before his MS in Electrical Enginerding. Boy, I can hardly wait already for school to be done and I know Char-lez feels the same way. Today happens to be one of those busy, long days.
While I was working over this beautifully sunny Houston weekend, it will come as no surprise to anyone that Charlie re-wired our living room to accommodate mounting our entertainment speakers on the wall (yay!). After much ado with some floor joists and a 2' long drill bit, he successfully got his project completed today. Good thing he's so smart, because MAN, that's a lot of work for one guy to get done. He prepositioned some wiring, too, for the patio speakers we don't have yet and don't have a plan for...at least the wires are in place so he doesn't have to do it all again :)
After this mission lands, I go to work for the Space Station program for 7 days straight (I think I have a day off before that stint begins?), have a couple days in the office, then we both head back to MN for Thanksgiving with our families. It will be really good to see Charlie's family again! The week after we get back from Thanksgiving I will be in meetings all week and then on Friday 11/29 I head to Munich, Germany for work. I will be there (in theory) for the first week and a half of the next shuttle mission scheduled to launch in early December. If the stars align just right, Charlie will be joining me in Munich for xmas and a mini-vacation until ~12/29 when we'll return to TX.
...at least that's the "plan" for now. Hey, spending a month in Germany isn't all that bad, right?
In addition, I talked to my good friend Ryan Weston from trampoline today and the National Trampoline Team is getting ready for the 2007 World Championships in Quebec City (http://www.trampolinequebec2007.ca/index.php?module=SiteNews). It makes me nostalgic for yesteryear when I used to do all that fun stuff too. Maybe a comeback is in my future!...HA! I'm sure my coach Dima would get a kick out of that, not to mention the T&T Program as well...and my family. But I digress...I wish them the best in that competition and will be thinking about them in the next couple of weeks most especially. Bonne chance mes amis!
-Jaime out.

Travel Tips ala Marshiks

- Keep your voice down when in public. There is never a need to shout, unless there's an emergency. No one wants to hear your casual conversations.
- Things abroad (rooms, seats, elevators) are not too small. You are, perhaps, too big.
- When feeding a city mascot, it is never appropriate to throw a peppermint candy at it, in lieu of real food.
- Sidewalks are for accommodating all people, not just the group you are traveling with. Please be considerate.
- If the place you are visiting does not regularly offer an item that is commonplace in your own town, they are not stupid and they are not wrong. You should also not feel the need to demand this item. It is rude as a guest in another country to suggest that someone should change the customs in that country because you refuse to respect their existing ones.
-Traveling is for experiencing the wonders of a new place and different culture. If you are not prepared to experience something new, please stay home.
...To be continued, I'm sure.

Boo Buckets

I'm sure we're the last to know about this thing, but on Saturday afternoon while taking a luscious 3-hour nap, we received a ring on our doorbell. Too lazy to disturb our naptime, we waited until we were awake a couple of hours later to go see what the fuss was all about.

On our doorstep was a cute green pumpkin filled with goodies and a note. We were "ghosted" or "Boo'd". One of our neighbors had started the apparently popular tradition of "Boo-ing" fellow neighbors and we were lucky recipients of a gift! The note said we had 24 hrs to make 2 Boo's and distribute them to 2 neighbors anonymously.

Surprised and excited, we ran out to the store and bought supplies to make our own Boo's. See pictures below (SOON) for our finished products. Jaime's is the green bucket with the witch, Charlie's is the black bucket with the scary house.

Contents of each bucket included: Candy of course, squishy red goo-filled balls with floating bugs in it (ewwwwwwwwww), fake mice that roll on their own when pulled back, a cute ghost or bat tealight candle holder, black cat or spider tealights, and a few decorative items.

Late that night we snuck out of the house and placed the treats on neighbors doorsteps, though we decided against ding-dong-ditching people since it was pretty late. This idea, while not new, was very fun to partake in and next time we'll be prepared for next year!

Free Day - Vevey & Villeneuve (10/16)

Our final day in Switzerland was absolutely gorgeous again weather-wise. Thank you for the sunny days and cool temps!
- Bus ride to Villeneuve (not much there at all worth mentioning) on our free Riviera bus pass
- Vevey on the other side to bum around town with nothing to do but shop, eat and hang out by Lake Geneva!
- Dinner as a group for the Suisse farewell at La Vielle Ferme (the old farmhouse). Awesome food with fresh local mushrooms and a pastry as an appetizer, pork roast with plum sauce and ice cream for dessert!

All Switzerland pix can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/marshiks/2007_10_18_Switzerland

Gstaad and Gruyeres (10/15)

- Train ride to Gstaad, walk along the river
- Bus ride to Gruyeres
- Fondue lunch and double creme dessert at La Maison des Traditions. Ohhhhh, so much cheese...
- Cheese factory tour and more cheese snacks
- Sunset and picnic dinner alongside Lake Geneva just the two of us
- Chocolate and bedtime

Zermatt and the Gornergrat Mountain (10/14)

- Zermatt town by train
- Gornergrat bahn (the Matterhorn railway, 45 mins to the top) to the highest point of our trip, the top of the Gornergrat mountain 3089m (10,134 ft), where we could see 29 peaks over 4000m high. Breathtaking! http://www.gornergrat.ch/
Also we had the best views of the Matterhorn - what an amazing mountain.

- Bus-time, bus WINE, nap-time.
- Dinner at a local restaurant as a group, Le Cavernaux des Vignerons it was okay.

Bern, Bear Pits and Interlaken (10/13)

- Capital city of Switzerland, Bern city tour and the clock tower.
- Bear Pits and the infamous lifesaver incident of 2007
- Interlaken, cows and bells (Summer Cows, in fact), paragliders and that damned interesting dog
- Stairways are tough business...for the aged and striped-of-sock
- Dinner at La Locanda, a provencal, italian restaurant - pumpkin ravioli, mushroom risotto and chestnut mousse

Switzerland, Italy, France...Oh My! (10/12)

Bonjour!
Yesterday was another busy day on the tour bus. We took a bus ride over the St. Bernard pass to Aosta, Italy and then on to Chamonix, France. On the way, however, since we have a huge bus filled with overly concerned people, there was much excitement. If you've never driven on a mountain road, it is filled with hairpin turns and switchbacks galore, as you wind your way up and down the mountainside. One side of the bus was inevitably on the "cliff" side and boy, were those people excited!...Excited with fear and screaming, that is. Our bus driver Jose is very good at his job and can weave a tour bus in and out of anywhere, which we found out most importantly after our stop at the top of the mountain on the St. Bernard pass (Napoleon crossed there with 40,000 troops at one time). There was road construction going on and bobcats and cranes all over the road. Jose had to squeeze our huge tour bus by these giant tools of construction, only by about a few inches or so. Our fellow bus companions even asked Charlie how much room we had on "his" side of the bus...as though we were teetering on the brink of some kind of destruction. *Sigh* About 1.5 hours on the bus through the beautiful mountains of the Swiss Alps took us to a small town of Aosta, Italy. We had lunch at an outdoor bistro - pizza and super rich, super yummy hot cioccolatta (plain and hazelnut), saw some very nice Roman ruins, then boarded the bus for Chamonix, France.
Chamonix was absolutely beautiful, surrounded by mountains and lush green forests. We saw the town a bit and had some more hot chocolate and cappuccino, plus some nummy gelato (Jaime's was passionfruit, Charlie's was pecan).
Once we arrived back in Montreux after our 2 country tour, we cleaned up for dinner at a local restaurant, Le Rouvenax. It was a kind of trendy Italian restaurant. It was packed for dinner, so we sat at a cozy bar-height table and had pastas and wine for dinner. Don't ask about the Yeti-walk...

En Suisse! Days 1 & 2 (10/10-11)

Hello all! We made it to Switzerland yesterday (10/10) after a bumpy, but otherwise decent flight. We only got to drive by the UN, since it is pretty off-limits for just stopping to take pictures, as you can imagine, but the flags were neat to see.
We toured a bit around Geneva on foot and it seemed quite nice. Very metropolitan. They have a 450 ft tall water spout that just blasts a spout of water out of the lake super high. It was huge.
After the hour drive on our tour bus to Montreux, we arrived at our "home" for the duration...Le Montreux Palace. It is a wonderful and beautiful hotel, both inside and outside. Charlie and I got an upgraded room because we're on our "honeymoon" (we'll tell about the 'newlyweds' comment later). It's really a nice room. Marble/granite floors and countertops in the bathroom, a high-tech closet and a two-flush toilet. Charlie is mostly excited about the "big flush" option. Maybe we'll have one in our home soon?
We took a small nap for about an hour, hour half, then met the group downstairs for dinner across from the Chateau Chillon, which we would visit today. I think the restaurant was called Le Taverne du Chateau Chillon. Good beef dinner and a glass of wine. Then it was off to bed. We were so pooped.
Today we got up after sleeping 10 hours (at least) and met the group downstairs for our daily breakfast. Fantastic meats, cheeses, juices and even some eggs. I was jones-ing for some soft-boiled eggs in those fun little egg cups, so I grabbed one. Unfortunately for me we got to breakfast a smidge late, so my soft-boiled egg was fully-boiled. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. Also, our guide told us we should try this mueslix-yogurt mix that looked like tuna, so we did. It was quite good, really sweet and had a tang to it. I asked Charlie if he thought it was laced with something fun.,.he declined to comment.
Once breakfast was done, we headed to the Chateau Chillon, about 10 minutes down the road from our hotel. We had a wonderful guided tour of the place and of course I took a million pictures. It was a nice tour and was Charlie's first castle tour, so I think he enjoyed it even more than I did!
After a quick break for lunch in Montreux (we had a chicken sandwich from the Migros, a local grocery store), we headed to Aigle to get a tour of another castle and wine museum. That was very cool. We had no idea that Switzerland was known for its wine too, but it is! There are vineyards all over the place here, and the wine is very good. Today was Swiss Wine Country time. The castle guided tour was also very fun to listen to, but I think we were all ready to hop on the tour bus and get to our wine tasting by the end of it. Our driver, Jose (yep, ho-zay) got us a little lost on the way, but it was fun. The local vineyard/winery we went to, Vogel Winery, was very generous with their tasting sizes, I think we had a total of 1.5 glasses of wine, trying 4 wines and enjoying them all. Que delicioso! As the sun set over lake Geneva and the vineyards, it was great sipping on the local wine and snuggling my husband.
A quick drive to another small lake was a good dinner of Schnitzel and french fries, some more wine and passionfruit-marscapone cream dessert...now it's time for bed as we have an early day tomorrow. Ciao!

Travel & Travel Some More

Today I get to go to MN for the first time since Christmas of 2006, I think. I get to see my Dad and my pregnant sister (and excited husband/family) for the first time since hearing the news way back when (yes Mom, you too - but you I've seen!). She's due in early/mid December and so by now her tummy is full of Baby Turner! She's super cute in her pictures she sends me, so I really can't wait to see her and poke at her belly in person...I hear pregnant people loooooooooooooooooove that, right? Maybe I'll even whisper a few things to the little Turnball in person. We'll see :)

Visiting Minnesota for another rousing round of rush-rush travel as usual, but the family baby shower should be fun (oh yeah, did I mention that's why I'm going?) and I look forward to seeing small-people items like little blue socks and squeezie toys. No wait, that's for dogs. No wait, it can be for babies too! Yesssss. Point for Jaime. My bestest friend Jenny would be so mad to hear that I'm comparing people and dogs. According to her, they're absolutely not the same! Just wait until her husband convinces her to get a dog...then she'll see.

Anyway, I'm off to MN for a late-night arrival tonight and then afternoon departure, evening-return to Houston on Sunday. Mom flies in to H-town on Monday evening to graciously watch our house and dogs (and work), and then Charlie and I leave for Switzerland on Tuesday for 9 days. Schew! Lots of travel, but fun Fun FUN!

That is all.
-Jaime

ps: I guess that was not all, but this should be all - Charlie will someday recount his surfing tales, just be patient :)