Europe Day 69: Swiss Meals

Ciao Ragazzi!

Yep, that's what my fingers will look like. 

Ok, gosh I still have a lot to write. I still have to write about Switzerland, Germany, France, my trip back down to Italy, and then what happened today when I went back to school and then when I went olive oil tasting tonight... My head hurts just thinking about it all. My fingers are going to be insanely muscular when I get back home from all this writing. I will now refer to my fingers as Arnold... you know... as in Arnold Swarafkjsfkjkk (obviously I don't know how to spell that man's last name and you know what... I could certainly look it up on the internet and get it for you, but I just don't have the patience to do that right now, besides I think you already know who I am talking about here), but because I have more than one finger I will have to call them my Arnold's.
Hahaha. Oh man, I do a good job at keeping myself entertained.
Ok my Arnold's lets get down to business.


So... oh wait a minute. I need some tuneage (you bloody red line! you grammer Nazi! tuneage is a word!!!!) right now. I'm thinking about some XX or Florence and the Machine right now. Such good bands. Holy moly...

Why do I even write you these things???
Oh yes because earlier I mentioned about the whole stream of consciousness thing. I just write whatever the heck comes into that walnut of mine up there.

Geez louise Amanda. Just write your freaking blog!!!
Fine. Gosh. You are so freaking demanding.
(Remember I am a gemini... dual personalities. AKA: Psycho.)


Ok so the last time I left you I said I had dinner with my Swiss family, but I didn't actually get into that did I?
Nope, I didn't.

Ok, so let me tell you about that then.
So, that night Thomas, Regula, and Timo took me out to dinner and what was so funny about this was that at first I didn't know we were going out to dinner. They were all bundled up in several layers and I left for my room to get bundled up too because obviously this meant we were going outside to go walk to this restaurant. It was FREEZING there. It hurt it was so cold. I hate the cold. Gosh, I hate the cold so much. I've gotten used to the nice warm weather in Florence. So, anyhow, we walked out of the hotel and literally went about ten feet down the sidewalk to this restaurant. Bundling up wasn't all that necessary because I just took off all those layers (well, hold on now, I didn't take off ALL those layers... goodness, I need to be careful about how I explain things because of some of you weirdos out there).

Alice Cooper.

So, then I sat down and we weren't really talking a whole lot for a while. Oh wait! I don't remember if I brought this up earlier, but Thomas was a foreign exchange student who stayed with my mother's family when she was around my age. My mom asked me to ask Thomas about her snake Alice Cooper (by the way, isn't that an awesome name for a snake???) and so I did, but all he did was nod and say: Yes, she had a snake named Alice Cooper.
Mom asked me to ask him about his first experience with a Californian earthquake and so I asked him this. Here is what he said: Yes, there was an earthquake.
I later found out that he freaked out at both of these events in very funny and embarrassing ways from my mother, so yeah... why the heck would he admit to that and tell me those stories could possibly make him sound like an idiot. Not that I would think that though. They were funny yes and I wish I heard the stories from him, but I can understand why he didn't tell me that though. I mean, I don't like to make myself sound like an idiot, but let's face it... people already know I do idiotic things... my brother especially... but also... I kind of enjoy making fun of myself in order to make others laugh.

Anyhow, we talked about my mom's crazy driving mostly. Oh yes... and Disneyland. It was fun. Then they told me a little bit about this Hotel Convention they went to. I was very interested in what they had learned from the trip. I guess it makes sense, but before I met them I wasn't aware that Hotel Conventions existed. Haha.


Oh so I need to tell you something else. Stuff in Switzerland is a bit on the expensive side. I mean I could get more stuff because it is less than the Euro, so like 10 Euros would be 12.28 Francs, but let me just put it this way... I really needed some sunglasses, but the cheapest sunglasses I could find were 38 Francs and this was at every store I went to. 38 Francs is about 30 Euros and 30 Euros is about 39 US dollars. I am not going to spend 39 dollars on sunglasses. I only buy 10 dollar sunglasses... that only last for a year, but that's ok.
Where was I going with this?
Oh yes...
So, yes, things are expensive so I didn't really buy anything, except for that disgusting meal I had once with the Facebook obsessed man at that VERY strange restaurant. 
(This isn't going to flow well I just know it.)
So, breakfast at the hotel is from 7 to 10. I like to sleep in... yes, past 10 o'clock, but because it is free food in the morning and things are rather expensive here I make myself get up in the morning to go eat a HUGE meal, so I don't die later in the day from starvation. Haha... and here is what I normally eat. 

1. Three pieces of chocolate cake. (These are small pieces mind you.)
2. A couple pieces of salami. 
3. Some toast, which I cut myself. 
4. I mix myself a drink with half orange juice and half apple. 
5. A cup of yogurt with some mixed fruits and granola. 
6. An orange. 
7. A banana. (I hate those things, but... I have to eat them so I don't get muscles spasms.)
8. And then the lady who works in the kitchen will bring me some coffee with warm milk and the sugar is already at my table. I put a TON of sugar in by the way. In fact, I am probably drinking more sugar than I am coffee because the coffee is super strong. 

Yes, so I'd eat this all up and get a stomach ache from it. I'd also have to go pee pretty badly later in the day because of all the liquids I drank, but I had to keep myself full because I am a cheap person who doesn't like to spend a lot of money, so I didn't really go out to eat. I'd just get little snacks like, haha, chocolate or an apple at the store. 

I know... I am so healthy. 

So, anyways, back to what I was saying earlier... by the time we have dinner and Europeans eat much later at night... like 7 or 8 o'clock... I was rather hungry to say the least. So, when the waiter asked what I wanted, which was a chicken curry salad, and then asked what size I wanted. I hesitated because of the price at first, but Regula said I could get any size, so because I was starving at that point I went with the large size. And oh man... it was certainly large, but guess what? And I'm sure you can guess this already. 

I ate the ENTIRE plate. I even got a side of fries, which I ate all up too. 

I think they were amazed at how much I could pack in that tummy of mine. 

I LOVE food and I LOVE to eat. 

The next night, my last night in Switzerland, I went over to Thomas and Regula's apartment to have Raclette (this is the spelling I found online by the way). Um, I LOVE raclette. It is such a beautiful thing. We actually had this meal because I told them that it was one of my Swiss favorites. I learned about this awesome way of eating from my Swiss cousins. I had it at their house. And what you do, for those of you who have no idea about the magicalness of raclette, is you get a baked potato and you have it on your plate. Then you put cheese onto this little slider plate thing that you put beneath the grill. And basically raclette is like this grill you put on your table and you can grill anything you want. What was interesting with this though was that, unlike my cousins, Regula does not have you cook the meat on top of the grill. She has you put everything you will grill with the cheese. 

We had amazing Swiss cheese. Some potatoes, corn, bacon, bell peppers, and something else that I can't remember. We also sprinkled this lemon pepper/salt onto our potatoes and some paprika. It was incredible. So good. I have never ate so much cheese in my entire life. 

They really filled me up because they found out the previous night how much I could eat and they were kind of shocked when I started getting full. Yes, I am human and I get full. Go figure. 

That night I asked Thomas and Regula about the hotel business. I asked them what they loved most about it and what they didn't like too much about it. They told me they liked making people happy and helping people out. 

Side-note: I LOVE asking people about what they are passionate about. It is one of my favorite things ever. 

I learned so much about the hotel industry. I learned how a hotel can get more stars. Apparently hotels have a certain amount of points and the more points you get the more stars you get. It has to do with the amount of things and the quality of things in the rooms and a whole bunch of other stuff that I both don't remember and, honestly, I am just really tired right now, but I have to keep writing. Dory the fish is singing in my head and saying: Just keep writing, just keep writing...

I am and sorry if this seems like a bunch of rambling because this is definitely what it feels like to me right now.

Then we talked about my back and what happened to it. Why I had to get two surgeries and how this affected my life. We had a really great talk. It got rather intense actually. 

Ok two funny things I want to mention here...

Some English words are a pain in the hairy buttocks to say. I never really thought about this much until Thomas and Regula had issues saying these words. 

Word #1: Success 

Word #2: Drawer 

Yeah, I know you have issues saying these words too. I hate saying "drawer." It is the weirdest word ever!!! I told them even I have difficulties pronouncing those words, so don't worry about it. 

Later I showed them pictures of my horses, of me competing, and of my family. 

Then I said goodbye to Timo (who didn't join us for dinner--teenage boys across the world are very much alike... this is all I will say) who I wouldn't see again because I was leaving the next morning and he would already be off for school. 

So then I went back to my room and made sure to get all my stuff packed up because I was leaving for Germany the next day. 

And I will tell you about my Germany trip for the next post. 

Goodness... I HAVE SO MUCH TO WRITE!!!

My Arnold's are killing me... well, not really, but I really wanted to say "My Arnold's" one more time before I ended this post. 

I have to go grocery shopping now. Well, actually I need to take a shower first because I stink, my hair is a mess and... wait a minute that might be a good thing to go out into the street like that because then the Italian men will leave me alone, but then again the major creepers, the dirty homeless ones that is, will come up to me, so... um, nevermind. I will just stick to my original plan. I am looking forward to buying some apples and some Ritz crackers with my precious peanut butter. Goodness gracious I love Ritz with peanut butter!!!

Hey, guess what? (Are you even reading this still? I wouldn't if I were you because I'm such a rambler... both in writing and in real life.) My mom is coming in 9 days!!! So excited to see her. And I go home in less than 2 weeks. Yay!!!

Arrivederci!

~Amanda