“Well, that was the first time I….” is always an interesting conversation starter, but when you’ve just moved to a foreign country, it can get very interesting. Some of my firsts are trivial, like my first time getting flashed at the lake (turns out that even though the Swiss are uptight, they still have the European attitude towards boobs in public, which means whenever I look left or right I see a boob). Some have been fun firsts with Florian, like when he painted my fingernails and gave me tips on how to properly push back my cuticles in order to make the nails look a little longer and more elegant. But I’ve been lucky that my first truly “Swiss” experiences have been overall fantastic so far!
First Drive on the Audubon: Though they aren’t England and don’t drive on the “wrong” side of the road here, driving is scary nonetheless because everything is smaller. Lanes, parking spots, roads on the Cliffside – all miniature! Note: Don’t get disappointed, but Audubon is just the German word for “highway” and there are speed limits here. But Florian did say I could take the Maserati out to Germany and floor it on their Audubon… oh wait, no, he definitely didn’t. Actually, after he administered my first driving lesson here, he actually asked me not to drive his Audi anymore.
First Dinner Cooked for the In-Laws: You all know I started this blog so you could watch my radical transformation into the best housewife of all time. However, since that transformation has not yet come to fruition on its own, imagine my rude awakening when I realized I still didn’t know how to cook but had to invite my in-laws over for dinner! Miraculously, Florian and I pulled it off (fine, Florian basically cooked everything and I made the salad). But everyone was “ooh”ing and “ahh” ing over the salad so much that Florian agreed to eat salad more often and my Mother-In-Law asked me to make it again for the guests at their Independence Day party! Plus I got to wear my cute apron, so overall I call it a huge success.
First Glacier Hike: I use the term “hike” loosely, but we did walk through a Glacier! It’s got a beautiful blue-ish hue to it and is oddly warm considering you’re wandering through ice. You could actually see where it started melting and then there was a beautiful waterfall over a steep cliff nearby. Beautiful! There’s actually an ice hotel in the Alps that basically allows you to pay a ton of money to freeze your ass off in an igloo-type of room. Obviously we already started looking into making a reservation.
First Legitimate Swiss Party: You haven’t been to a truly Swiss party unless it was held in a barn and you looked at the animals you were about to eat for dinner. That’s right, I got to pet my very first cow! It was only a matter of time here though, since the cow to human per capita ratio is about 73:1 (totally made that number up, btw). Bella was definitely scared of the cows (well, when you see the picture below I don’t exactly look ecstatic either…). Bella did take a surprising interest in the giant 300lb hogs, but she has always liked bacon so I suppose in hindsight the love affair makes sense.
Since I think I’m going to have many “firsts” here in Switzerland, this post is just my first post about firsts. J