Where's Abby (+ Dylan and dogs)

    It's been a while since I've written again but have had a pretty busy couple of weeks. Last week, Claus was out of town from Monday until Thursday so I had a lot more time with the kids which was really nice. That whole week I felt like I was much more of an au pair than I have been; a lot of times I feel my main job is cleaning and don't get as much time with the kids as I expected. But it was so much fun and more fulfilling as well getting to take Christopher to school one day, pick up the two little ones from school another and make breakfast for them with just me, pick up Eva Kirstine from a play date another night... A lot more time with the kids. It's always nice getting Eva Kirstine by myself too, because like I mentioned before, she's usually more standoffish than the others, so when we get to have fun with piggy back rides, playing as ghosts and animals on the way home, making attempts at English and Danish conversation, and just goofing around in gener

   It's my last day in Zürich and I'm writing this as I lay out on a bench in a park that I stumbled upon with a great view of the city. The weather is the best it's been the whole trip so I'm enjoying the sun!    Yesterday I had a super lazy day consisting of many hours spent in Starbucks updating this blog and catching up with people back home. I also went on a boat tour around Lake Zürich and wish I'd done the four hour one instead of just 90 minutes. It wound up just being a nice nap on a boat, waking up sporadically to nice views.    After the boat tour, I had to go back to Sprüngli to get some truffles someone recommended... 6.50 francs for FOUR baby truffles. They were delicious but dang.    To kill time before going back to Pascal's, I went to the river at night and am so glad I did. It was so  pretty. I just at on a little ledge by some steps by the water. Really nice.    Making it back to Pascal's I finally got to meet his fiancé who's al

      I'll continue here with my trip to Bern. After Erwin and his grandma dropped me off, I was able to catch a ride in like 15 minutes. After what was a kind of strange drive, I made it to Bern. My main safety measures with hitchhiking were intently watching the street signs making sure we were going to my specified destinations.This ride consisted of trying to communicate with a Turkish/Italian/Swiss guy, getting a free cup of coffee, and I think him wanting to marry me. But I made it to Bern to meet Martin, a friend that Pascal's, for lunch. He took me to a very traditional Swiss restaurant that's supposed to be one of the best in Bern. I had veal cordon bleu and rösti, which is like the Swiss version of hashbrowns... Delicious!    Martin was really nice and good to talk to, and showed me the capitol building and told me a little about Bern and where to go. He was just on his lunch break though so it was just a quick visit. I'm really glad he could meet up anyway

   I t's almost the end of my trip and I keep looking back at everything in amazement of what all has happened. I'm just in Starbucks now, back in Zürich after another successful, but cold, hitchhiking trip from Bern. Recap: Yesterday, I woke up in Luzern at this dairy farm and went out to help Erwin's grandma and uncle in the barn. It was about 7am when I was up and ready to milk some cows (my 6am plan failed but 7 was still pretty good right?!). Just walking out of the house to see this land at dusk was so nice. I entered the barn with work boots, Erwin's clothes and all. I've never milked a cow before nor was I caught up on the new advances in this work. So I was surprised to find his uncle attaching this crazy looking suction thing to the cows' utters.     I asked later if I could try the old-fashioned way just to get the full experience, so he taught me how to milk one and gave this milk to the cats. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be! Ma

   I just arrived to what seems like a dream. But before I can get to it, I'll catch you up on the rest of my Sunday.   On my way back from chilling at the botanical garden, I passed so many amazing  houses. One of which I stopped and stared at in amazement and asked a passer-by if it was really someone's house. This simple remark turned into a long walk and conversation with this lovely Swiss lady who ended up recommending my place for dinner.    I headed back to Pascal's for the night where we watched the epic jump of that Felix guy. I arrived to his house JUST in time to catch it. I hardly even knew about it before. But anyway, we caught up on our weekends and then looked into the idea of me hitchhiking to Luzern. So we set up a plan and spot to go and were excited to see how it would work out.     So this morning I woke up and was off to begin my first REAL hitchhiking experience. Cardboard sign and all. I started out at one spot for about an hour with no luck unti

   Yesterday I decided I was going to have a proper Sunday with church at one of the three great churches, brunch, and a walk around the lake. So this morning I woke up with plans to attend a church service at Grossmünster. As I was cutting it close on time, I wound up choosing Fraumünster instead since it was closest to me. It was a really unique experience attending a service in such a magnificent cathedral and especially in a different language. The organ was definitely the best part of this service. The last song actually gave me chills it sounded so beautiful and powerful. I'm really glad I made it to this service. The one thing I felt was a little disappointing though was there wasn't much interactions between the people... No saying of the peace, communion or visitor introductions.    After church I hoped to find Sprüngli, which I read was the best place for sweets and popular for Sunday brunch. I didn't know where it was so I just started walking and there it was!

 F amily, friends, friends of family, and any other concerned individuals, I am alive, well, and thoroughly enjoying my time in Switzerland. I arrived in Zürich on Thursday around 1400 and met my first couchsurfing host, Pascal, at the main train station. It became aware to me quite quickly how grateful I was for him being there. It would've been quite complicated finding out where to go, which train tickets to get, etc. So he first proposed to take me to Üetliberg, which was conveniently one of the things on my to do list. Üetliberg is (usually) a good lookout point of the city but it was quite foggy when we got up there. It was still quite cool though.          From here, we went to grab a beer at one of his favorite places, a REALLY cool restaurant called El Lokal, that had a super eclectic ambiance... Giant skeleton hanging from the ceiling, chaotic-like decor all around. I wish the picture turned out better to show how interesting this place was. One of his friends met us out

      Since I've been here, there have been a slew of mishaps from directional issues, phone problems, key mishaps, and so much more. Just remembering all these blunders can be quite comical/entertaining/eye opening. So here goes. Technologyyy    My fight with technology seems to never cease. First, when I got here, I went through leaps and bounds to get my iPhone 4 working here... Getting it unlocked, taking it to Apple, erasing everything, biking to and from Lyngby twice trying to fix it, having no phone for a week or so, FINALLY getting it to work to have it stolen right out of my pocket a month later. So I went two weeks without a phone while having a failed attempt at unlocking Lotte's old phone, buying a cheapo one, switching SIM cards a million times, and resorting to buying an ipad during this crisis. I finally find a working phone from Rachel that I use until I get mom's iPhone 3 in the mail after she upgraded.    About a week later I drop it in my cleaning buc

 Aah Dyrehaven...     I got a sense of peace just thinking about this place... This Sunday afternoon, after waking up to sunny skies outside my window, I was eager to enjoy it. I had my mind on Dyrehaven, so I cycled off to check this place out and eventually met up with Anne-Lise. When I got here, I entered the forest and was amazed from the start. It's a huge area where deer were originally fenced in by some king in the 1600s to have a "royal hunting ground." Now it's a place for people to go to walk, bike, run, picnic, and enjoy the wildlife. There are deer everywhere . You'd see them right on the side of the paths nearly close enough to pet. It was so bizarre to me. You'd see deer running through the beautiful meadows with plants flowing with the colors of autumn. It was soo nice.    I biked around and found the castle in the middle of the forest, then continued to the water I could see from this hill. I walked down these spiral steps covered in more

After a full day of celebrating Christopher's birthday... We had Mischa's going away party at good ol' Charlie's.  So many people came out, with everyone in good spirits.  Mark, one of the English bartenders, played his cover songs with his country accent that I later told him to ditch.  Eventually, we moved to The Viking, where we got special treatment and could stay after hours... At least I think that's what happened.  We added a Danish Maria and a cool Polish girl, Ewelina, to the group of friends.   Climbed through Mischa's windows (mainly for the effect) at 7:30am  Conclusions : Copenhagen is great so far. I've met so many awesome people already, and even at 5am, this city is still well alive with people on the streets. The next day...  we met up with Anne-Lise for a chill day at Christiania Followed by a very entertaining night ride (extra thanks to Christiana), sitting in the front of the Metro. We felt like little kids on a t

   So I'm about 3 weeks behind now and so much has happened. For Christopher's birthday, we went to this Frilandmuseet which is like a 5 minute bike from the house, where they took houses from all over Denmark and all different time periods and reconstructed them here for everyone to see. It was so interesting seeing how differently they lived, both in different times as well as for different statuses. Some were from the rich and some the poor, so you'd see some where FIVE people lived in a tiny one room building and some with fancy dresses and china. We had a picnic lunch and rode a horse carriage to see the large amount of ground we didn't cover. This museum was huge.    Back at the house, we had afternoon tea, coffee and cake, and I actually made apple crisp which turned out great! A successful meal or dessert is always rewarding. I had made chocolate chip cookies with m&ms as well that I'd made the night before for their Disney Sjov. Everyone loved those.