Jackson goes shopping.

Jackson's been a naughty boy lately.

He's always been a 'special' dog.  We adopted him from the Humane Society when he was about 8 months old and concluded that he was probably abused in some fashion before turning to the streets, where the puppy police found him.   Paper, sticks, newspaper, loud noises, quick movements, etc. used to freak him out... tail tucked, ears pinned back, eyes squinted, and big sad eyes.  He's come a long way and he's adjusted pretty well to city life, although the elevator was a challenge at first.  I don't ever think he'll be a calm cucumber, but we love him dearly and he's such a sweet boy.  We feel blessed to be able to give him (and Rocco) a good home full of treats, back scratches, and tummy rubs.  They've convinced us that adopting is the way to go.  :)

However, recently he's digressed.  He's been a stinker since we returned from our Christmas trip... not sure why, but he seems to want to eat everyone and any dogs he sees.  He's just more on edge.  I've resorted to taking the boys on individual walks to do some intensive training.   I'm a certified dog trainer after watching 87 YouTube videos and reading 900 articles on the topic.

I think it's working!  :)  I was able to take Jackson to the touristy part of town (on the bus for three stops) to meet a friend and run some errands.  We had a 'mother son' day and found ourselves in...

Yes.  He was allowed inside.  I won't lie.  I was pretty sure he'd drop a fresh pile in H&M.  He's notorious for that at the 'puppy store' (PetSmart) even though we make him go before going in.  Nope.  He followed me around everywhere and seemed to enjoy looking at a few furry scarves.  No accidents!  You can see he's excited, but still a little on guard because his tail isn't in 'go-cart flag mode' as usual.

Why iz we here mom?  Fur treatz?

Dogs are allowed inside of a lot of stores in Geneva.  Pretty much the only places they can't go are groceries, most restaurants, the post office, and some business buildings.  It's kind of awesome.

He did so good and only barked once at a big dog that barked at him first.  Yay!!!

The Dreaded Laundry Day

I wrote this amazing post last Monday and somehow it got deleted before I could finish it.  I've been mad at Blogger for the past week about it, so sorry no posts recently.  I'm going to try and recreate my witty and perfectly written post....

Monday was laundry day again.  If you didn't see our first post about this go here.... and then come back to this one.

Anyway, laundry day used to be welcomed with celebration.  Not anymore.  Laundry day now usually comes with a trail of problems following closely behind.  Here are a few examples...

Issue 1

Monsieur R., who is our resident innkeeper, manages the key for the scary laundry room.  We get it for 4.5 hours every two weeks.  No, that's not a typo.  He slips the key into our mailbox and we put it back in his when we're done.  Simple right?  About 85% of the time he forgets to put the key in our mailbox on laundry day.  It's the most frustrating thing ever.  Monsieur R. also speaks four languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French), but no English.  If I have an issue then I have to carefully orchestrate my visit with him.  This is what I did while waiting for him to give us the key... an hour and a half later.  He's forgotten altogether before, so I guess I should be thankful it was just late.


Issue 2
One time Monsieur R. forgot the key completely.  So...
I hauled 3 giant bags down to the laundromat, put in a 50chf bill, got back 14.  Hmmmm.... I know it's expensive (7chf just to wash a load), but not that bad.  There goes 29chf.  I shoveled all of our clothes into three washers, used the rest of my money to pay, and hit start.  Then I tried to call Adam to tell him about the money debacle.  Where's my phone?  In the washer.  The washer was locked and I had to spend the whole cycle watching my phone clank against the glass... drowning.

Issue 3
We can only wash our clothes with the scary washer.  I think I've forgotten how to use those magical drying machines and I'm not paying 6chf to dry a load at the laundromat.  Our apartment takes on the feeling of a humid rainforest on laundry day.  No monkeys, just wet crap everywhere resulting in 99% humidity.

Issue 4
The crazy scary washing machine charges whatever it wants.  I use the same setting for everything because I can't figure out German or German symbols.  It should be the same price each time, but I've see 2chf, 1.30, and 4.  So, I wind up putting more money than I need into the machine and losing it when my time is up.


Issue 5
Also, the scary washing machine (notice a theme here?) forgets to spin every so often and there's no coaxing it to do it after it's finished.  I open it sometimes and the clothes are literally dripping... then I leave a trail of water up to our apartment.  I might as well go throw everything in the river and fish it out.  We've had to wring out at least three loads of laundry in the tub before.  It's an amazing upper body workout.


Issue 6
Crunchy towels.  Because we have to air dry everything, our towels aren't soft.   The words 'towel' and 'crunchy' should never be used in a sentence together.  I don't like exfoliating when I'm trying to dry off.  :(

These people appear to have crunchy towels too.

That's it so far.  I'm sure next laundry day will bring more fun.  I'll be sure to let you know.

If I see one more picture of a gorgeous laundry room on Pinterest... I'm. going. to. flip.   I can't take it.  If you're on Pinterest, new rule: no more pictures of laundry rooms, big cars, houses with yards, high heels, or Sour Patch kids.  Seriously.

Au revoir!

I would like to buy a hamburger.

"We don't quit!  We do not quit!  Again!  Again!"  

So, most of you know that I've been teaching English here since August.  No, I do not sit around all day in my pajamas, eating bon-bons, painting my nails, sleeping, and blogging.  Ok, maybe a little blogging.  It's not full time work, but I feel blessed even finding a school willing to hire a 'trailing American spouse', considering the nightmarish process they go through for me to be able to work for them.  It's much easier to hire someone from the EU (European Union) who already has an AVS card (work permit type thing) and knows the curriculum.

I have roughly 30 students in three separate classes and I love it.  :)  My kids are from Argentina, Spain, Russia, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Bosnia, Thailand, China, Africa (not sure which country), and a few others.  Pretty diverse crowd.

Class 1:  equivalent to US 2nd-3rd graders with very little English (roughly the same as our 2.5 year old nephew)
Class 2: equivalent to US 5th-6th graders with beginners English (similar to 3-5 year olds)
Class 3:  teenagers (13-17) with pretty proficient English (a lot of grammar, writing, and pronunciation work)

I'll admit, it was hard at first.  These kids are extremely smart in their various studies and it was really hard for me to keep remembering that I didn't need to explain what things were, like weather.  Duh.  They know what snow is and how it's made, just not the English word for it.

Andermatt, Switzerland got a TON of snow recently.

Almost all of them know at least three languages; French, German, & Italian.  Seriously.  Talk about feeling like a 'stoopeeed American.'  All of them in my third class know four and one girl can speak seven.  Seven.  I can barely remember to turn the coffee maker off when I leave.  I don't know how she does it.  With all of these languages, the kids know how to talk to each other without me knowing what the heck they're talking about.  They usually use French, but I'm getting good.  I can understand if they're talking about inappropriate things... like 'caca' (poop)... actual incident.

      

One more thing to mention... I have to teach British English.  No I do not use a fake British accent.  There aren't many differences that cause problems, but a few vocabulary words that are definitely different are:

British = American

rubber = eraser

lorry = truck

biscuit = cookie

boot = trunk (car)

chips = French fries

crisps = potato chips

lift = elevator

flat = apartment

rubbish = trash

torch = flashlight

So, that's my English teaching job in a nutshell.  I think I've got this ESL/EFL thing down now.  Don't you just love the Steve Martin video?  Bahahaha!!! It's hilarious, at least to me, because that's how some of my class interactions go and most of my kids do have trouble saying 'hamburger.'  Kind of like how I have trouble saying every other French word.

It's going great so far and I've really enjoyed staying on top of my 'game' while we're over here.

Au revoir!

Skiing in La Clusaz, France

This past weekend we went to another adorable mountain village for skiing.  La Clusaz, France.  The drive from Geneva was only about an hour.

On our way!

These are our friends Lady J and her man.  They're awesome snowboarders.

 

The town of La Clusaz.

                                                                                                                                                               







Here's a map of the slopes.  We stayed in the central and right part of the ski area.  Adam did a couple of reds and I stayed on blues all day.

Our whole group:  S & S (from Schwingen in Switzerland), J&J (from Lady J's Musings), L&G (from Swiss Watch Blog), and us.

I won't lie.  I had a difficult time.  This trip may have resulted in me breaking my own 'wipe out' record.

Ski Terminology 101:

Yard Sale (noun): A ski term referring to instances where falls (wipe outs) result in the loss (or scattering) of all or most of ones ski gear.  "Dude, did you see that guys yard sale?  Hilarious." 

Although there were no 'yard sales', there were a few of us who spent more time on our butts that we wanted.  I'm not sure why I had such a rough time.  Adam did great and he's probably close to conquering his first black slope... which kinda gives me nightmares.  We had fun though.  

Here's a pretty shot and S having a hard time with her long skis.  Haha... this was before deciding to trade them in for shorter ones.  We had some fun laughs during the numerous falls we racked up together.  

   

I made sure to have at lease one 'vin chaud' (hot wine).  :)

Cute kids taking lessons.  They were pretty good.

Lunch on the mountain at Chalet des Praz.  Adam and I shared an amazing burger, chicken, and some hot chocolate with rum.  Delicious.

  

Snow covered patio at the restaurant.  Wonder how they get to work?  Skis?  Snowmobile?

 

Back to skiing... 

In the gondola on the way up. 

 

Here's some more amazing ski footage.  Again, please have a barf bag.  Lots of motion sickness.

My first ski injury.  Not a horrible one, but it rendered my left hand more useless than it currently is.  I fell, landed awkwardly, and hyperextended my thumb.  I thought I broke it at first, but that's my first reaction to any injury.  It grew to be a lovely shade of greenish-purple and I can now say that I'm able to hold a bottle of wine with my left hand now... impossible a few days ago.  You can see the lovely shading on the left side of my palm and the opposable sausage.

After a rather disappointing last run and a worsening case of 'sausage thumb', we found Lauren... on the ice rink.  Brilliant idea.  We joined in.  Helmets and all.  I'm fairly certain we were the only adults on the ice that weren't there supervising children.  

Going from skis to ice?  Kinda difficult.  Good thing I had my helmet on.

Planking...

 

Au revoir!