Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to our family and friends!  

This is the third Thanksgiving that we have spent in Switzerland and while we have managed every year to host our own fabulous Thanksgiving dinner or attend friends' wonderful Thanksgiving dinners, Thanksgiving at home with family reserves a special place in our hearts.  

Tonight we will be attending a Thanksgiving dinner at our friends Ashley and Bo's house -- they are American expats and they have invited 21 people from all over the world to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner together.  

  

Speaking of being thankful, I'm headed to Orlando tomorrow morning for a conference and I will be able to see (most of) my family and my friend Sarah on the weekend before and after, yay!

Late fall season hike in Chamonix

Over the next few weeks I will be playing a bit of catch up to share some of the adventures I've been on over the past few months, starting with a late fall season hike we did in Chamonix in October.

Ryan's cousin Christopher was here visiting with us in October and the forecast for the weekend was absolutely spectacular for a fall day.  Whenever I see a forecast of good weather in the summer or fall I immediately start investigating outdoor activity options.  So on this day we set out to hike up to Lac Blanc in Chamonix; however, once we got to the chairlift that you must take to start the hike, we found that it had already closed for the hiking season in mid-September. We were determined to still make use of the gorgeous day, so we decided to hike instead to Lac Cornu, up on a ridge overlooking Mont Blanc.  The clarity of the views on this day made for one of my favorite hiking days yet in the Alps.  The weather was so warm that we had a picnic lunch on top of the mountain and took naps in the sun before descending back down into reality.  Hooray for extended summer weather in October!

Mont Blanc is directly behind me

Lunch time on top of the mountain!

Getting his tan on

Lac Cornu down below

These same mountains are now COVERED in snow in late November, you know what that means -- bring on ski season!!

Hiking the Saleve

The Saleve mountain is an ever present sight in the Geneva skyline.  It is the "neighborhood" mountain, easily accessible by road, gondola, or foot for close-to-home adventures.  From the top of the mountain you can see amazing views of the city of Geneva and the lake.  Ryan and I have driven up to the top of the Saleve several times for a picnic or afternoon stroll, but I had never actually hiked the mountain.  

The forecast for Saturday was 55 degrees and sunny so my friend Ashley invited me and a few other friends to hike the Saleve with her.  Interestingly enough, the clouds never cleared over the city of Geneva, but our hike brought us straight up and out of the grey city below and into a beautiful clear world of sun and gorgeous views above the clouds.  I love how on the same day, you can experience two completely different worlds of weather by just moving up!  Check out the beautiful views from the day (photo creeds to Renaud and Ashley for these amazing photos!):

Hiking through the clouds

Emerging from the clouds!

Overlooking the Alps 

Overlooking the valley of clouds 

The cloud cover below looked like an ocean!

Hiking along the cliffs

Ah, Italy.

Ah, Italy.  The very word always conjures memories for me of good food, delectable wine, rich history, beautiful scenery, and fun times.

Two weekends ago, we drove down to the Piedmont region of Italy to spend the weekend in wine country - it takes around 4 hours to drive to this area from Geneva and the scenery along the drive is gorgeous.  The highways meander next to the snowy Alps and one part goes directly under Mont Blanc through a 10 mile long tunnel.

The Piedmont area is a wine region that is also known for the international truffle festival that it hosts every fall in the town of Alba.  The best way I can think of describing this region is a lesser touristy version of Tuscany with the added bonus of being in truffle heaven.  Having visited the Piedmont region already last year, we booked various wine tastings and dinner reservations ahead of time for the weekend (which I would highly recommend if you visit this area).

We spent the weekend wandering from wine tasting to wine tasting, enjoying leisurely lunches and dinners, catching up with our visiting friends, and exploring the surrounding scenery and historic towns.  Since a photo is worth a thousand words and we took many, I'll let the photos do the talking….

I love the patchwork quilt-like views over the vineyards, especially in the fall as each of the grape varieties take on a different and distinct color

Cheese (and wine)!

Visiting the beautiful wine cellars of Elio Grasso

Just a few bottles of Barolo wine

Time to taste the wine

Lunch at Trattoria nelle Vigne. This amazing lunch was 10+ courses and lasted for 5 hours for EUR25 per person, I kid you not.

Fried dough balls with bacon/lard on top = yes please

The star of the show, the white truffle.  You purchase the truffle by weight and then the waiter shaves it onto your dish(es) of choice

Shaved truffle on pasta with butter is my jam

Checking out the official truffle festival in Alba

Vendors selling their truffles at the festival 

The tent where the festival is located also houses many other local vendors, who sell many kinds of truffle seasoned products (sausages, cheeses, oils)

The beautiful town of Barolo

In keeping with my trend of providing recommendations for each trip we go on (in the context of "eat, stay, and play"), here are my recommendations for the Piedmont area:

EAT: Trattoria nelle Vigne (don't miss this place, seriously!)
STAY: Casetta San Giovanni, a clean and large apartment located in the vineyards close to Barolo
PLAY: We love visiting the wine cellars of Paolo Manzone and Elio Grasso, both are extremely friendly and welcoming and have beautiful properties and wonderful wines. Of course also check out the Alba truffle festival and wander around the small towns and castles in the area.

For those of you who have been to Italy, what did you love most about it? I would love to hear about your experiences in this wonderful country!

Welcome!

Today is an exciting day in the life of my little blog -- on the (approximate) anniversary of our second year living in Switzerland, I am opening this blog to the public blogosphere.

If this is your first time visiting my blog, welcome! Here is a bit of history on me: My name is Lauren and I started this blog 2.5 years ago when my fiancé and I were living in Boston. At the time, we were presented with an opportunity to move to Geneva, Switzerland.  We had so many thoughts running through our minds those first few months, that I decided to channel them into a blog.  This blog is a compilation of my personal musings and adventures, which chronicle our expat experience, starting with our decision to move abroad and following us into the moving process, settling in a new country, traveling around Europe, developing new friendships, and most importantly - learning to call Switzerland "home".

This blog has been used over the past two years as a way to keep our nearest and dearest family and friends updated on our life overseas.  After two years of blogging to my beloved little audience of 30 people, we decided to share our story and ramblings with the greater public (that is, to anyone who finds it interesting!)

Here are some fast facts on me to catch you up to speed:

• I'm 29 years old and I'm originally from a small town in New Hampshire
• I lived in Boston for 5 years (go Sox!) until moving to Switzerland in 2012
• My husband's name is Ryan, he's pretty fantastic
• Our family and friends in the US mean the world to us, and we miss them dearly
• We have also made fantastic friends in Europe, and they are our family away from home
• We love to ski and do outdoors-y things, which makes Switzerland ideal for us
• We are cat lovers; but, sadly our beloved cat, Pumpkin, passed away a few months ago
• We both have full time jobs in Geneva
• We love to travel, but we also enjoy spending equal amounts of quiet time at home

Feel free to browse around and read my story. To the right of this page is my blog archive, with my posts starting in May 2012.  I'm excited to share my world with a larger audience, so please don't be shy - explore, say hello, leave a comment, and come back often!

"Il bel far niente"

Happy Saturday (…err, Thursday) folks!  We are taking a long weekend off from work to spend time with our friends CJ and Alaina that are here visiting from the US. Tomorrow we will be venturing down to Piedmont, Italy for the weekend for the 84th international truffle festival. You may remember our visit last year to this area. We fell in love with the scenery, wine, and of course...the truffles!

The hills and vineyards of Piedmont last year

In celebration of our relaxing weekend trip to Italy, I thought I would share one of my favorite quotes about Italy, from the book "Eat, Pray, Love":

“Il bel far niente means 'the beauty of doing nothing'... [it] has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I wish!!

Fall wine festival

This past weekend, we met up with friends to revisit an annual neighborhood wine festival that we first explored 2 years ago when we moved to Switzerland.  The town was 20 minutes away by train from Geneva and for CHF15 we got a wine glass and could explore and get unlimited wine tastings at 25+ nearby wineries. Wandering around the nieghborhood vineyards is one of the best ways to spend a Saturday in the fall in Switzerland, especially when the weather is unseasonably warm and you are treated to these views….

Ryan walking into town.  Instead of fall foliage on trees, we have fall foliage on vines

Looking down towards the lake from the town of Vinzel. Mont Blanc is just barely visible in the upper right hand corner of the photo

Sun setting over the vineyards