A taste of Switzerland

Crisp alpine air, friends, food and wine – the perfect ingredients for chicken soup for the soul. 

This was my second trip to Switzerland.  Having first visited Switzerland in November, I was curious to see if this small, beautiful country of ‘peace lovers’, bell-toting cows, Olympic hopefuls, cheese, Toblerone and structured, law-abiding society would still capture my heart in June. 

I fell in love. Was it Switzerland? Or the whole package of a perfect weekend among dear friends? Walking along the rocky shores of Lac Leman, picking wild strawberries and playing hide and seek in the forest like kids again. Laughing hysterically as we were chased over pine needle paths by our 10-year-old chief to avoid fresh wood shavings down our backs and in our hair.

Wildflowers of every colour in bloom, strawberry fields ready for picking, farm fresh eggs (just drop your money in the box – thank you! the honour system still exists!), cherries from the tree in the garden, (several) delicious Viognier bottles from the local vineyard and a dramatic picture postcard view of both the Jura and Alps.  

As my delightful hostess put it, “one never gets tired of looking at this view.”  

I couldn’t agree more.

The sensory pleasure of gratefully immersing one’s body into warm, healing thermal baths like those at Lavey Les Bains. Drifting on a mat, eyes closed in the ‘relaxation pool’, I listened to the soothing singsong of whales through the underwater audio system. Standing under the ”mushroom shower”, the water massaging my head and neck, I marveled at the majestic view of the rocky ravine towering above me.

For the love of natural beauty, travel, friendship and that invigorating feeling of breathing pure air and living off the land. Yes Switzerland, I will be back!

Kiawah – ta? Friends, fun and alligators

Kiawah Island, South Carolina officially ranks as one of my favourite places to be. Having travelled across many far corners of the world, I bestow this honour on this little South Carolina gem of a barrier island 10 miles from Charleston that never fails to rejuvenate and bring me happiness.

DaisyBoo, Ladyvino and I make it a point now (after 24 years of friendship) to put life’s little challenges aside for an extended spa weekend to be pampered and indulge in life’s little pleasures away from the rat race. We first discovered The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island in 2007, as tree-hugging, granola-loving Washingtonians having never been ‘to the South’.  We immediately fell in love with the southern hospitality, ghostly Spanish moss covered trees, magnolias, beautiful beaches and cheddar jalapeno grits…

2008 took us to Scottsdale to experience spa life in the desert. While beautiful and relaxing, Kiawah kept calling us. We decided to go back this year. Have you ever tried to re-create a fantastic experience you once had, only to be disappointed the second time around? Any concern we may have had, quickly disapated upon receiving surprise room service containing a magnificent cheese tray, crackers, caramelized walnuts and bottle of chardonnay – a gift from the concierge to welcome us back!  Three chairs on the balcony and a view of the ocean, we laughed at our luck and sent obnoxious photos of the good life back to the husbands who were not invited. (Girls weekend!)

Strolling along Kiawah beach the next morning in search of sand dollars and shell treasures, Ladyvino and I spied activity further down the beach.  A group of people were standing near a beach rescue truck and there seemed to be a thing – an animal? turning in circles as it was kept at bay by a lifeguard with an orange stretcher. We walked closer and came upon the approximately three foot ”baby” alligator who we named “Jerry” for no particular reason. He just looked like a “Jerry”. Jerry had wandered down to the beach from his five diamond bog on the golf course lured by the Atlantic Ocean and thought a dip sounded like a good idea. Fortunately for him, the early morning shellseekers spotted him and called in reinforcement before he made that fatal swim.

It is not often one sees an alligator on a beach!  The encounter only added to our love of this special place. We later sipped cava on the 18th hole overlooking the beach at the far end of the island and took turns taking photos in the Cape Cod chairs. They say Maine is ‘the way life should be’ – and I agree, in summer but South Carolina’s ’smiling faces, beautiful places’ similarly holds true for spring.

Kiawah, we’ll be back. And next time, I’ll take the spa treatment with the Reiki addition again, close my eyes under a lavender infused pillow and drift away to the sounds of birds chirping and waterfalls. With a little luck, we’ll see a sea turtle or two if we stay long enough.

Watch the video!

Daily Devotions & Wise Words

After another frustrating day at work, I drove home grateful to leave the rat race behind me. It’s a challenge to leave the subject of work off my blog on days like today. Yet, my vow to only mention work in passing forces me to concentrate on the rest of my life and appreciate what I have.

Struggling with writer’s block, I turned to my library shelves in search of wise words. Mark Twain? Been there. The Muppets? Been there. “Pooh’s Little Book of Wisdom”? Been there. Clearly lacking inspiration, I stumbled across a mini journal I bought two years ago called ”Daily Devotions”. I remember buying it in Savannah, Georgia at a time in my life when I thought such self-help books held the key to happiness. 

It’s funny, there are only two entries in that little “Daily Devotions” journal. The first on 24 April 2007 where my ’special prayer’ said, “May I find the strength and courage to tackle my three current demons and move forward.”  (Three?! Just goes to show you how hard it is to sometimes see the forest through the trees and what seemed like big demons can dissipate into dust with time..)

The second entry was on a plane on 15 August 2007 when I had cast my troubles away and concocted a crazy weekend trip to New York City to see Justin Timberlake in concert with KO. VIP tickets, 1 airline ticket, a new beginning. “This extravagant trip to New York  to see Justin Timberlake at Madison Square Garden with KO is the cumulation of a long difficult year – work and personally.  I like to think of it as a bonus treat to myself and the beginning of a new chapter of my life.  I have since lost my Grandma, yet, I know she is next to me.  This trip is a new beginning for me – and I can’t wait.”

That trip goes to show you how important it is to live life fully.  This month marks the one-year anniversary and sudden, tragic loss of my dear friend KO.  It’s days like today that I would call her from my car on the way home, always comforted by her wise words and rational side when I could find none myself.  

So it is in this spirit, and in tribute to KO, that I fill in my third entry in my “Daily Devotions’ journal for today, 6 April 2008: 

I am grateful for:

Having KO in my life, if even for a short time

Special prayers:

May her family, particularly her husband and brother get through this particularly difficult month. May family and friends continue to be by their side and may we all remember the happy times and hear KO’s wise words wherever we go.  She would want it that way.

Donations of the heart (acts of kindness):

Checking in with a friend today that I had not heard from for awhile

Goals and ideas for a better tomorrow:

Making time for a couple long overdue emails to other friends

Going to the gym! Five days last week, keep to task this week!  (Purely selfish – but I am determined!)

Notes:

One step at a time.

That’s what friends are for

It wasn’t a typical Saturday morning. My alarm shrilled at 7.00 AM closing out the chatter of birds, busily trading tips about spring nest building.

Tiptoeing out of the bedroom to not wake the husband, I stared into my wardrobe. What would be fitting to wear for a funeral for someone I never knew, but whose short life touched so many? Gray and black seemed a safe choice. A blue scarf thrown on for a dash of colour, I drove to the church in the shadow of a dark sky, rain plummeting down on the windshield.  

Having never been to a Belgian church funeral before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. My friends and I met in the parking lot to be in the company of familiar faces. We walked up the hill, through the town square and waited patiently to go through the church doors to offer our condolences.  

My eyes brimmed with tears as I looked into the mother’s eyes of my friend, a glimpse of her pain as she bravely put on a smile and thanked me so much for being there. When I hugged my friend (neither of us being huggers) and felt her appreciation for the moral support.  When she read a text in front of a church of some 300 people, bravely and purposely, on behalf of her family – a young, bright pint-size woman with impish humour and incredible strength and resolve, reminding me how proud I am to be her friend. Listening to the soloist on the balcony, clinging to the tissue-laden hand of the friend sitting next to me, as the sad lyrics conjured up memories of those, we too, had recently lost.

We walked out of the church one hour later, the clouds had cleared and the sun was suddenly shining brightly as if to say, “it will be okay.” The grey hearse and family pulled away down the cobblestone street and we watched from the sidewalk, musing about the experience. It had felt good to be there to support our friend and her family – even if we couldn’t take the pain of loss away.

“Coffee?” Yogurt said, breaking the silence as we looked at the crowd of people still milling in the street.

“Great idea,” Mini Cooper and I readily agreed, anxious to go inside and warm our freezing feet.

Our coffees no sooner arrived when my mobile beeped with a text message. My eyes welled up with tears for the fifth time that morning, as I read the message to the others:

“Thank you so much for being there. Made me feel better knowing friends were there.  Really felt supported.”

….For/in good times, and/in bad times, that’s what friends are for.  Carpe diem.

A pint of Guinness and toast to St. Patrick

It’s been one of those weeks. Time keeps flying and you wonder where it’s gone as you gratefully crumble into your 300 thread count sheets, blissfully happy you can shut out the world – if just for a couple hours.

A new website, too many meetings, Brussels traffic jams, dinners with friends and LeJaguar, early mornings, late nights, I feel as if I was the multi-tasking queen this week. 

I was reminded that you can have all the planning in the world, but most of the time it’s the spontaneous events that prove to be the highlights of the week.  Such was the case on St. Patrick’s Day.  Having spent the day running from one appointment to the next, I met a friend at the Irish Pub Kitty O’Shea’s to toast St. Patrick as we waited for our dinner companions.  A pint of Guinness, a pint of Kilkenny , sandwiched between revelers and Eurocrats, we shouted above the din and Irish folk music bellowing from the corner.  

Little did we know Bob Geldof and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso had been there only hours before as Geldof joked a couple pints might help speed up the Commission’s response to world aid..  Who needed planning? We were obviously at the place to be!

“After that bear, we’re going through”

I love this quote from our ‘girls weekend’ and 2009 Viareggio carnival adventure in Italy (near Pisa).  It sums up the scene perfectly as we pressed our way through a crowd of clowns, smurfs, ‘toilet paper rolls’, ‘French maids’, ‘mafia gangsters’ and some very real looking ‘Jack Sparrow’ pirates.  (Impressive – Italian men don’t need to work very hard to look the part – they got the looks AND they don’t mind eye make-up!)  

“Why are there so many furry animals (e.g. a bear, leopard, lion, giraffe…), smoking?!” a friend mused sipping her beer in a plastic cup leaning against a stand selling speciality carnival wafer-like sweets and popcorn. This was just the first night. Little did we know what to expect the next day…

It turns out floats are big business in Viareggio.  The people of Viareggio build huge paper-mâché puppets and floats in hangar-like buildings by the sea, often taking a full year to bring these enormous floats to fruition. Many of the figures satirise public and political figures and are paraded through the streets on set days during the month under the watchful eye of Viareggio’s carnival mascot, Burlamacco. The floats carry a few hundred people in costume dancing and singing to loud Italian carnival songs in the shadow of huge moving, animated puppets – eyeballs rolling, bones rattling, gorilla arms reaching towards the crowd… (People inside the floats manoeuvre the weights to prevent the puppets from toppling over.)

We learned carnival is also a licence to play practical jokes.  This includes throwing confetti (think of us wading through confetti snow when the parade was over), the fun of spraying silly string and tagging unassuming people with shaving cream. (errr… I know nothing about a group of rowdy teenagers targeting my black wool coat but luckily my friends were well prepared and had tissue ready to remove the trace…)

It would not be Italy without the delight of fabulous Italian food for virtually nothing.  Grilled sea bass, fresh octopus salad, spaghetti vongole… several bottles of montepulciano Tuscan wine and prosecco of course!  

You can’t help but take secret pleasure and satisfaction in seeing the usually chic, fashion-conscious Italians look absolutely ridiculous.  The Venetian carnival seems much more civilized, but not in Viareggio.  The pink and purple hair and clown-like hats had an amusing resemblance to German carnival in Cologne.  If you looked really carefully, the Gucci, Armani and Prada sunglasses were still there…

My favourite part of the weekend? It’s hard to say.  Taking in the scene with good friends, actively participating in the revelry around us through the eyes of our carnival masks and enjoying the laughs made it well worth the journey.

Oh yes, and there was that wink and mint thrown to me by a very handsome ‘Jack Sparrow’ Johnny Depp-like pirate who caught my eye from a float… Viva il Carnevale di Viareggio, Viva Italia!

The beauty of laughter

You have to put on your best pair of rose coloured glasses and consider the glass half full in times like this to keep perspective and a sense of humour.  Friends are doing an amusing job of keeping me laughing as we navigate through excruciatingly long days, egos and uncertainty at work.

Laughter and camaraderie have a way of lightening the load and reinforcing you are not alone:

- We laughed until we cried testing the new ‘telepresence meeting’ room this week. London has never looked so close as we covered our eyes, yelling ‘nOOOO!’ to avoid examining the nose hairs of our comedian colleague who seemed to delight in pressing his face against the camera. (I can tell you high definition television takes on a whole new meaning!)

- Arriving in my office to see ‘Happy Birthday!’ on the white board in big letters, my desk covered in presents and a fabulous birthday book reminding me the day was mine and to live it up.

February birthday cakes

- Another friend winding me up about my birthday all day making me think it was forgotten yet again, until I received an email with a ridiculously cheesy ‘Hippo Birdie to Ewe’ tribute just before midnight.  

- My Flemish officemates teaching me Dutch: (translated) ‘a man with an ape’, ‘I did NOT sleep well’, ‘I love you’.  These are the phrases of the week…

- Borrowing a random lady’s mexican sombrero in a bar in Brussels (when she wasn’t looking), passing it around, taking pictures of all five of us, only to return it without her realising it….  followed by the great ‘frites’ escapade in search of Belgian fries and mayonnaise at 2.00 AM on a Thursday.  (We finally found an open friterie in the red light district on the suggestion of one savvy New York-based friend who ‘had never spent much time there’.) The owners were so amused by us, we ended up with free portions. (I am still finding frites in my cream coloured car interiour where no one is ever allowed to eat but it was worth it!)

- The Italian carnival trip last weekend with its own priceless adventures and laughter deserves a post of its very own.

- And so much more…

Yes, laughter heals and makes life all the more entertaining.  It’s been a good couple weeks.