EURO mania has hit with a vengeance! Brings back memories of Transitioning during the World Cup in 2006! Poland v Germany was just not as much fun without Jochen and Michal, although for consistency sake I still shouted for Deutschland and I had tutors in the Fanzone to teach me some of the chants auf Deutsch! There was however a lack of flag making and there was no security alarm to punk with German flags....siiigh nostalgia! I've been to one match in Zurich, Romania v France...incredibly boring match! But it was worth it to get to share in the EURO experience (hehehe...not meaning to bring back AIESEC nightmares for any WENA people reading :P) and to use my limited Romanian while making friends with one of the few Romanian fans in the French end, supporting those in yellow on Prue's behalf! aaaaaaaand I have the possibility to get a ticket for SPAIN v Sweden this Saturday...lets hope it works out!

Arrived at the magical quarter century mark...I had an awesome birthday..even though I hadn't planned to make a big deal out of it. First of all it clashed with the EURO kick off and second of all I had such a crappy headached for days but I just decided that it wasn't going to ruin my day and even though I fell into bed absolutely exhausted that night...I was exceptionally happy that I had decided to "ignore" the little dancing man in my head...

07.06.2008 started with a phonecall from Mischa :) Live from New York City!! Woke up the following morning to Mr Flowerman with a delivery from Laun Dawn :) Thankies Eviebaby!! Continued with home made lunch at the Kraft apartment and my first birthday cake...thanks girls!!! Then we headed to watch the opening match Sizzerland v Czech Republic!! Disappointing result for the host nation :( but I had fun...birthday cake numero dos....soaked in RUM, Manish had started his attempt to get me drunk! We continued to the fanzone to watch the Turkey v Portugal!! finished up with a trip to Barrique...and hoooome to SLEEEEEP!! of course I woke obscenely early on Sunday morning...of course I did the morning I had the chance to sleep in!! The day was spotted with phonecalls from all over...the folks in Bulgaria, Annika heading to a Norwegian beach, Franky who was celebrating my birthday with a few BBQs and the list goes on... Facebook and sms messages to remind me that I belong to a ridiculously fantastic global community! and of course...thanks again for the most incredible present EVER!!!

Life is good at the moment.. work has calmed to regular hours which means I have a life!! woot! Spent 2-3 weeks when I had only one night a week at home...to do laundry :P Went to see the Counting Crows, a few FANTASTIC nights out! One night in particular that really made me wish that this one was here for a fantabulous night's dancing! At least I had Sarah to share the loss with! Settlers outside for the first time...with a very amiable waiter from SA, and yes Petroula I think that should be our new word for that :P A girl's night out to watch SATC movie...but of course two Indians that will remain nameless crashed our night and ended up sitting next to us! haha joke was on the one that must not be named though because he met his boss on the way out :P LOVED the new Indiana movie! Reminded me of all the reasons I loved it as a kid!

The Indian brotherhood has started to leave! The other half of Oxbridge has already exited stage left...hehe I miss the arguments! And I am sure that by the time I write again, Pasu will have also left the building....which leaves us with Desai... :-/ ooops that was a little harsh :P Mattie is back in Polska too! But it isn't aaaaaaall bad news...Luca will be in Zurich from 1st July to the 24th and Lars arrives for his internship too!! Plus I get to spend a weekend avec l'muppet in LAWN DAUN baby!! and the mega break on the island isn't so far off either!!

By the time I come back after my holidays I want to have a concrete and solid plan for the next 18-24 months...some fundamental planning/thinking is required! I need serious time with the ones that know me best...the big bro', the muppet, the fake little brother and the one that is tooooo far away!

Okis...over and out for now!

Today...

I booked a place on the Glacier Express for the second weekend in May, saw my boss running a marathon and conquered the Uetliberg ... not bad for a quiet Swiss Sunday ;)

I have a postcard on my fridge door that says...

"whereever you are, it is your
friends that make your world"

...I always took that to mean that no matter where you are or what you are doing then it is the people around you that give meaning and reason to the situation. Tonight I was given another perspective, tonight I was reminded that the people who mean most to me, the ones that truly make my world are far away. The good news is that they make my world anyway even from a distance of say here to Delaware, or here to Caracas or even the shorter hop of from here to Cork soon to be Laun Dawn. In truth the list goes on and in no particular order... Mumbai, Verona, San Francisco, Cobh, Dublin, Brussels, Rotterdam, New York...

...And I hope in some small way even from this distance that I continue to make their worlds too...

A few people have reminded me of my blog lately as though I was unaware I hadn't written here since Christmas! Truth is I have been enjoying the old fashioned version of pen on paper!

So just a quick round up....

A definite "homecoming" feeling when I arrived in Zurich after Christmas. Best of both worlds in one weekend as the little blonde one arrived for breakfast and chattage while a much loved aunt and uncle arrived for sightseeing, dinners, drinks and chattage of a different kind. Eisstockschiessen - obviously doesn't need any explanation ;) Bier nach vier every so often with Sabine but must do more! Settlers. Cakefriends and movies - some good, some bad. Counting sleeps! Meeting people in random places. Shocking worrisome news from an incredibly loved friend. John Kelly live in Zurich...for all of 3 hours! Bread in one hand, sausage in the other! A new Indian in town for the weekend and "refreshing" boat trips. Bederstrasse Parties. Work, work and a little more work. AIESEC connections live and kicking although through a few generations ;) 6 NATIONS! Birthdays near and far. Did I mention some work?? Fede v Antonio, I mean Italy v Portugal :) The most special one arrives!! HAPPY DAYS!! February is a fantastic time to work for a financial institution! Going to Kaufleuten for something other than work! The life is good feeling of knowing a friendship is growing. The life is fan-fricking-tastic feeling of having one of your best friends staying at your home so that when you go to sleep they are there and when you wake up guess what?? Still there baby!! Albertisms :) News from Skopje...not what I had hoped for...sending all the love I had in a virtual hug. More news...more broken dreams. Trying to avoid the cliches and yet sometimes they do say it all. Belief that each of them will find their way...a new way! MADRID!! Prado, Reina Sofia, Puerta del Sol, Gran Via, Retiro, "El oso", Lefties :) And all with my FRANKKBABY!!! Another "homecoming"; mi familia Martinez =) How strange to feel so at ease amongst people I haven't seen in such a long time! But so nice! Some things that never change. Catching up with the other papa and talking life and literature with the other mama. Speaking Spanish. Majadahonda! Wishing I had more time. Promising myself to make it. Fabada. Chilling. Cinema - Juno, what a great movie. AIESEC reunions and a new friend...Osea Ale. The King of monopoly! Hmm...and Cluedo for that matter! At least I won the numbers one ;) Palacio Gaviria. Proxima estacion - aeropuerto. Correspondencia con Zurich y Caracas. Tearful goodbyes. Beautiful sugar cubes to make to make the dude next to me on the flight inch further away as I sobbed to myself - hehe. Is it too early to starting counting sleeps to Panama. A hectic return to work! Snow shoe walking...OMG incredibly beautiful..will post photos soon.

Next??
Celebrating 50 years of AIESEC in Ireland! Cocktails and dancing avec mon fave muppet!! Catch up with Danger Mouse; Hopefully one of the alumni events over the coming months. A visitor from Spain, hopefully! A visitor from Strasbourg and hopefully ever improving news from Mumbai!!

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas surrounded by friends and family....

......apart from sending major huggles to all corners of the world this is to let everyone know that I am indeed alive and well,, thanks to those of you that have enquired as to the lack of recent activity here...i hope to be more (pro) active here in 2008 than I have been over the last few weeks!

....much gratitude to all those that made 2007 as amazing as it was and I look forward to many many more adventures in 2008! In particular I get the feeling that this February will be FABULOUS!!! ;)

A quick round up....
1. Thank you Robbie for a wonderful weekend in Milano!! I had so much fun on our quest to discover new "Davids"; our coffee chats were as ever enlightening and oh so very entertaining! It was great to have some normal time to spend together aka non conference time indulging in some somewhat inappropriate storytelling! Thank you for cocktails in the most amazingly decadent bar that Milano has to offer and for being the only other person I know who could not help but immediately make the connection between such a place and Ms Frega and what is more to then follow that thought with a silent but fervent wish that she was there to lead the charge on a) the tequila and b) the karaoke bar!

Oh and also thank you for the email on Tuesday...you do know how I like to worry.

2. I have a new apartment...move in within the next couple of weeks...according to the odd system here in CH it is a 1.5 room apartment! Must study Ikea catalogue this weekend or just take a trip with the undisputed Queen of Ikea.

3. We went to see Enrique Iglesias! No expectations. In fact we were pretty much laughing at ourselves for going, but at the end of the day (loike) it turned out to be such an incredible evening's entertainment! Thank you Petroula, Magda, Mindy, Pilar, Amit and Marcelo for such a great evening!

I should probably write separate posts on the next two....but I know once I hit publish post I will put off writing the following so here goes...

4. Lions for Lambs (Spoilers to some extent)
I went to see this on Thursday night when it opened here, I've been salivating at the trailers for quite a while now. Heavy weight cast of Redford, Streep and Cruise. All Oscar worthy actors even if the academy refuses to acknowledge one. Having recently seen The Kingdom and having been slightly disappointed in the content I was hopeful but realistic about what Lions for Lambs would deliver. During the first 15 minutes I must admit to minor confusion as at that point the irony of Cruise's character hasn't hit home yet and you could be mistaken for believing that the story he tells is the one that the movie in general wants to portray. And then things get going. No fancy tricks are used in the telling of the story. In fact, Redford providing a reality check for a promising young student by using the story of two young heroes that are at that moment fighting for their lives in Afghanistan, was as story telling techniques go kind of cheesy but that didn't matter so much to me as the story that was being told.

"We struggle through one of the worst times to be American" is what Streep's journalist character at one point comments to Cruise's would be presidential candidate. How true is that?! The world woke up on 12.09.2001 to a changed world. The world grieved with the people of the US because very single individual around the globe felt as though a part of them had also been attacked. So prominent is the US in our everyday lives that consciously or not we all grieved for 10.09.2001...grieved for the innocence that had been lost on the day in between and waited with trepidation to know just how much our world was about to change.

The only problem is that the response didn't by and large involve our neighbours, our brothers, our daughters and friends...the response to an attack on the global psyche was delivered by young men and women from the United States of America. It is their children that have been sent to right the wrong and so while we can say that Sept 11 2001 was a turning point in all our lives we have no idea what that really means.

Leaving the cinema I had one over whelming impression of what Redford and Co had wanted to portray. That there is more than one USA. There is the affluent and WASP-esque side of life that is beamed into homes around the world through the OC etc but that is just one side.

Redford's role in the movie is to narrate the story of two young minority athletic scholarship college students. Through hard graft they create opportunities for themselves that set them on the track to great grad schools etc, but it is a life they can't afford. The army seems the only way to achieve it without chalking up huge debts. They have huge plans for what they as minority former soldiers with an education can achieve once they come home. Redford's reply is "if, if....".

More than anything this movie had the surprising effect of making me want to go there. To live there. To try to even begin to understand what it is to be from there. Today it is all too easy to criticise the US; to ridicule George Bush has become, no has been, en vogue for quite some time now. Who hasn't laughed at the loud brash tourists that follow you around any sight of historical importance in Europe preaching exactly what they have read in the guidebook but as though they had a PhD in Roman archeology (ok so that was my xp in Pompeii ;)) but a ridiculously low number of US citizens have a passport. I know at one point not so long ago I heard 5%...how can we possibly judge a country and the people that make it what it is based on a sample 5% that are in no way a cross section of society?!

hmmm...I guess I have about 8 months left to think about that??

It is aaaaaaaaalmost TIME! just one tiny little sleep left!

Next week there will be a mega update - Enrique, Milano avec this one and everything else that has been happening :)

Huggles...just for you though ;)