Zum Gerburtstag viel gluck, Zum Geburtstag viel gluck!

Aww! My birthday has been so amazing! Seriously the best ever so far for so many reasons! Spending it away from family in a country across an ocean and miles upon miles away can be hard but can offers so many surprises and blessings! I have made some amazing friends while being here that I'll keep a lifetime! Last night I met up with Miriam in Central Starbucks in Zurich (many memories at that place) and we sat for a bit and chatted and she said okay we are getting you a cake! We then walked to COOP and bought a chocolate torte and candles and walked down to Rudolf Brun Brucke and on the side with the huge stone wall (also memories there, lol) we found a dry spot (had been pouring and hailing an hour before) to consume my cake. :-) She also bought my a white rose (heheh) and my fave chocolate bar and the best card was hidden inside the chocolate bar that I found later when I took a few bites. :-D
The Grossmunster in the distance!

22 candles!

Golly, ich bin alt! ( i am old) hehe

Gorgeous babe, love ya!

So we are sitting there fighting over who was going to eat the rest, when she hit me the half the cake!!! Lol, a huge fight broke out, haha, best ever! People started walking by, some judging the mess we were making and others seeing the humour in our zest for life! ;-)

She totally started it!

Earlier that week walking back from church, enjoying the sunset!

ZURICHSEE from the Uetliberg! Mirm and I decided to last weekend explore the Uetliberg and see Zurich from above! Gorgeous!

There were some interesting Giraffe lamposts up there . . . *raised eyebrow*

Zuich and me! How can a place be this lovely?!?

Storms in Zurich! View of the lake from Bellevueplatz!

That cloud looked like death coming to snatch us away! Loved the feel in the air though, sitting by the lake! Made it just in time to the COOP restaurant for tea before the heavens opened and rained down God's fury . . . Was also Euro pride weekend.

Past month off a.k.a. being kicked out of my apartment . . .

Turned out really well! I traveled to Vienna and Salzburg in Austria then Dublin and Cork in Ireland as well as Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland and then the grand finale in Italy was Rome, Florence, Pisa, Verona, and Venice! It was such a blast and such a whirlwind of non-stop bustling and fun! Thankfully I have a lot of awesome friends in Europa who were willing to help me out and give me shelter at various times inbetween trips as well as store my stuff at their places.

I am now unpacking all my stuff and getting back into the routine of working . . .

Venezia

Venice was lovely and everything I had expected and more! I would really love to come back for the carnival that is held annually in February. :-D
The city to find masks!

Hahaha, so not allowed to take photos and I love the fact that I got this woman in the shot!

The famous bridge in Venice and the water highway! ;-) Sarah, me, Miriam

Tourists waving to tourists! We asked how much the gondola rides were and the lady at the trainstation kept yelling at us, 80 euro for 40 minutes! So, then whenever we needed to know the price of something one of us would yell, 80 EURO FOR 40 MINUTES!!! lol . . .

Dipping our feet in the grand canale.

Hahah, no photographs allowed . . .

Here we found a little restaurant were famous old actors enjoyed the venetian cuisine, like Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Charlie Chaplain!

Love this art! I want to hang this in my home someday!!

Hehehe, fulfillment of many dreams!

Creepers, but amusing ones at that . . . typical italian behaviour I guess. ;-)

European sweets! and NUTELLA!!!! LOVE this stuff. I guess rather an aquired taste like Rivella and mineral water, which I am surprised to say I have grown acustomed too. ;-)

Front door!?!?

And yucky croissants! lol . . .

So ended our amazing, whirlwind taste of Italy! We jumped on the train again after a few hours in Venice to make our way back to Switzerland almost missing three connections because of the typical italiam lateness. We were even more thankful for the Swiss efficiancy and ever constant clean surrondings and sighed with relief once crossing over and passing Lugano! Was lovely all the same though! :-D

Pisa and Verona

The next day after Florence we left in the morning to have a quick two hour stop in Pisa to see the leaning tower and then onto Verona. The town where Shakespeare set the stage for Romeo and Juliet! We figured out that our 4day European train pass to Italy did not include the fast trains therefore we had to wait another hour for the late, no air conditioning SLOW train to Pisa and Verona, and while doing so we thought we would go crazy taking silly photos! Big grins!!!

Lol, we be sexay! ;-)

Yep, so then the train that we were supposed to catch in Bologna to take us to Verona, well, the station was closed. Lol, so that meant that we had to figure out without speaking Italian how to get from the Bologna station to a bus that would take us to another nearby station which would then take us to Verona! Traveling is always some sort of adventure!

While bored, fixing hair . . .

Countryside! One should always travel by train at some point in life! It is so much better than flying because one really gets a sense of what traveling from one country to another is like. One sees the countryside, hears the dilects and languages change. Absolutely a wonderful way to travel.

A bit of an inside joke . . .

Verona finally!!!! The streets were marble!!!! This is a very wealthy place apparently. Where your nice clothes out to dine here. :-)

Square in the old town

Flame thrower guy! Hehe, quite amusing!

Sarah Carter! Lol, Miriam's highschool friend from Canada was an aupair in Como, Italy for a couple of months and she mt up with us for Verona and Venice!

I was so pleased over our italy trip! I planned it all myself and it went rather well. Although traveling with Miriam was such a bonus, I really could not have done it without her and we really traveled well together. Only fought once, lol, and that was over water temp. Haha, only lasted a few minutes before we started laughing!!! ;-)