off to the Netherlands.

now that i am done with my french class, time to be on the move again. :) tomorrow i will leave for the land of tulips and windmills. I'll meet up with my friend puk and spend the week there. gotta go packing now. chao!

Lavender, and more!

i have a little piece of good news to share... this morning when i walked in the class, I was told by the instructor to go to a different room. turned out i was "upgraded" to a higher level class! woohoo! I was so happy, this is going to give a boost to the last week of my french learning. :)

aside from that, we had a wonderful weekend in south of France (aka, Provence). and yes, it is everything i imagined and more. the sun, the blue sky,the charming villages, the food and the oh-so-pretty lavender fields! it's so picturesque we can't get our hands off the shutter. there are photo opportunities in every step, every turn, every different angle. we took millions of pictures and almost felt the need for a second camera so both of us can get our hands on it. :)

we stayed at a small village Sault, away from the tourists crowd but close enough (within 20-25minutes drive) to allow us to explore the area conveniently. On Saturday morning, we started the weekend by visiting a local market in the village Apt. I love the market, it's filled with colorful Provencal textile, all kinds of spices, sausages, cheese, and of course for the ladies, natural body care products from the area (think L'occitane!). And it's fun just to watch local people come out and browse what the market has to offer. :)

one of (and probably the main) the reason for the trip is because the harvest season of lavender is August. we were hoping to see some purple ocean before it's too late. still..some of the fields are already wiped out, and in one of the field we caught the harvest in action. it's pretty cool. the machine cuts the lavender as it pushes through, bundles them, and throws it out neatly tied. all that's left for manpower to do is to pick them up. The guy working on the machine must feel like a star, he is being photographed while doing his work (by all the tourists, including us) As a contrast, no one paid much attention to the priest (or ciscercian?) in white robe when he walked out of the Abbey. :)

the view is stunning when we approached Abbey of Senanque (pictures both above and below are taken outside the Abbey). It's here that we caught the harvest in action. we said jokingly that if we had come a few hours earlier, we'd be photographing the Abbey with lavender field in the foreground (below), instead of the bare green. arh. :)

Though it doesn't look like a big area on the map, Provence is full of hidden gems, sometimes we just randomly picked a village or an abbey on the map to visit, and it turned out superb! imagine how many other magnificent places or martkets we missed out on this mini trip. A weekend is not enough to see it all. no wonder Peter Mayle needed a year!

a tidbit from the trip: while walking in this small village Ménerbes (where Peter Mayle settled and wrote his international bestseller "A Year in Provence".) we heard an asian girl asking "is he (Peter Mayle) still living here?" , a guy replied "no.. because everyone coming here is looking for him.". i thought that was a pretty witty reply. As a matter of fact, we later learned that he's now living in a nearby village Lourmarin. The girl was looking at the wrong place. :)

to see more photos from the trip, click here

Weekend in Lyon

thank goodness the rain has stopped since last Thursday (and so does my productivity on yahoo!360). We made a last minute decision to visit Lyon over the weekend. It's the second biggest city in France, with a charming old town (it's an UNESCO world heritage!), a hill overlooking the city with great views, a beautiful church, roman theatre, and leafy gardens. it was France' national day on Saturday so we watched the fireworks by the river. it was great, although, i do think the fireworks on taiwan's national day is even better (how patriotic i am! :P). I've been nagging Pascal to take a train trip since forever, and this was the perfect opportunity. it took only 3 hours from Lausanne, and the subway system in Lyon is convenient, once we get to the city centre everything is within walking distance. it worked out well, and this weekend i am even going to take the train to Lyon, again, to meet up with Pascal, who will spend the rest of this week there taking driving class. From there we'll visit the lavender field in Provence. (now that's a little teaser for what's coming up on my blog next week! be on the lookout for those purple oceans. :) )

Please click here for the photos from the Lyon trip.

Daily commute to french class

you probably noticed i've been super productive on blogging latey, thanks to the rain (with scarcasm)! I have some pictures below taken in (or on the way to) Laussane.... the train station, lake view from the train, and the school. The platform very considerably has these booths with glass walls for people to sit and to stay warm. i can imagine it being a life saver in wintertime. :)

there's really nothing exciting to talk about in the school, other than that my french is progressing little by little. we have different teachers everyday, which seems to be the trend for language learning now. some are very good and some are just so-so. i was pissed the other day when this teacher does nothing more than giving us exercise and tell us to look up the dictionary, then she went on to read newspaper!! then what's the point of us coming to the class? I can stay at home and do the same thing. I thought it was really unprofessional and was seriously considering to talk to the school but decided to hold off on that. it was frustrating to be in a class like that. but don't get me wrong (enough bitching from me. :)) i do enjoy most other instructors. they are very interactive, funny, and excellent actors (to explain the meaning of a word without using english).
all right. enough blogging. now i am gonna go take a shower and go to bed early so i can get 8 hours of sleep. :)

some pictures below:

Ollon

Here are a few pictures taken last weekend.

here is the (Vienne) house where we stay and the surrounding. In summer it's green as far as you can see, but in my previous visits during the winter, just imagine all the green replaced by white and more. :) On the side of the house is a patio with tables and chairs for dining alfresco.

there was a big family gathering last weekend in the house, we had swiss dish Raclette on Saturday night. It's a dish with melting cheese poured onto potatoes, with preserved baby onions, pickles, and viande sechee (kinda like prosciutto but Pascal insists it's different because it's produced in France, not Italy! ha)on the side. You can see him sparing no effort cutting the cheese, and the picture of the dinner gathering in the middle, and Simone preparing baked chicken and apricot tart (it's a tart to die for!)in the kitchen.

this is the device used to melt Raclette cheese.

i'll post some pictures from the school next.. only two more days to go before the weekend, and according to the weatherman, 36 hours to go before the rain stops and the true summer arrives. i can't wait!

New 7 wonders of the world

the new 7 wonder has been announced last night (on 07/07/07) in Portugal. Most of them are well deserved, but i kinda disagree about Christ the Redeemer. no offense, I just think a statue perched on a hill outside one of the biggest cities in south america is not enough to qualify for one of the world wonders, no matter how big it is. am also a bit bummed that Agkor wat or Acropolis of Athens is not elected. however, big relief that Statue of liberty is NOT in (again, no offense). :) seeing these make me feel the world is so big, we've been travelling for half a year, plus all the vacations we previously took, yet both of us have only seen TWO (Chichen Itza, the Colosseum) of the wonders. by year end, we'll have seen THREE (the great wall). that's less than half but well, that way we always have more trips to plan for, which is an exciting thing. :)

next is the new 7 wonders of nature. nomination is accepted till 08/08/08. I already have two votes in mind - Perito Moreno glacier & Iguazu falls.

Chichén Itzá, Mexico	Christ Redeemer, Brazil	The Great Wall, China	Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan	The Roman Colloseum, Italy	The Taj Mahal, India

Vevey

(map of Geneva lake region)

first a bit of geography lesson so you all will have a rough idea of where we are. :) Ollon, where we live, is not marked on the map but it's to the south-east of Montreux, about 15 minutes by car. Every morning, i take the train from Ollon to Lausanne for the french class and back. The train runs along the lake and it's very beautiful - even on a gloomy day.

And as if my prayer has been heard, it finally stopped raining! I woke up to a beautiful, sunny morning today. I thought I should enjoy the weather while I can even tho Pascal couldn't come with me, so viola! - I took the train to a nearby city Vevey (circled on the map), had a stroll along the lake and visited the old town (every european city seems to have a charming old town!), had a cup of coffee and some snacks there and checked out those cute stores with the tempting "sale" sign out front. :)

here are some pictures from the day, but none with me in it because i didn't feel comfortable handing my new Canon Rebel XTi camera to strangers....

there are great photographying opportunities everywhere..even the store signs are like art pieces.

i haven't seen a merry-go-round this elegant..

Swiss life

Hi you all! Hope everyone had a good week. If you are in California, I am jealous of you for those sunny day you are having! It's been raining all week long here, to the point I start to feel rotten inside. :) and my wardrobe is certainly not geared toward this kind of weather. the other day i even went to department store to buy a pair of thick tights so i can wear it underneath my skirts and capris (yeah i know that looks funny but well). That and a pair of gloves (i am glad i brought my favorite one!) did a good job keeping me toasty in my daily commute - yes, commute. This week I started my french lesson and it takes an hour of train AND bus ride to get there from where we live. Despite the rain, I do enjoy the commute very much. The train is clean, modern, and always has seats available. :) It goes along Geneva lake, with world-class beautiful scenary, the hot-off-the-oven pastries at station, plus all the fun to observe other passengers, all make the time pass quickly, and with pleasure (but Pascal told me i won't feel the same way after a few weeks, we'll see).

I've also been pretty domestic here, especially after discovering an array of asian products in supermarket! They even have the Lee Kum Kee brand sauces and quite some selections of instant noodles! I bought some oyster sauce, thai green curry, and am contemplating buying a wok. :)Eating out here is expensive so that makes cooking a logical choice. Simone (Pascal's mom) has some lovely (and abundant) raspberries growing in the yard so we pick them up once a week. We just tasted some delicious berry tarts she made out of it. it's yummmm. Pido (Pascal's younger bro) is the asian food specialist in the family and he's inviting us over for a sushi night. And of course we already had fondue, twice. Although, I do have to admit fondue goes better with winter, espeically when it's sub-zero and snowing outside. :)

The french class is both rewarding and frustrating. I start to be able to catch words here and there, understand the headlines in newspaper (with some guessing), but still far away from being able to carry a conversation. i know it's only the first week and i shouldn't be too anxious cuz learning a language takes time. but still. I'll take the class for another 3 weeks, then go to Germany to meet up with my friend Puk. I am already feeling restless and did tons of research on that. looking forward to the trip!

A day in the swiss mountains

for pictures, please click here