Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Well, it's Christmas Eve! We've been sitting around mostly... listening to Christmas tunes, doing a few Christmas crafts and thinking of all our dear friends and family scattered around the globe. Since there is no snow in Zurich (but apparently loads in Portland - what's up with that J.C.?) we busied ourselves crafting a flurry of homemade snowflakes so we would be guaranteed a white Christmas. I hope Santa comes soon because Eric is turning every piece of paper in this house into a snowflake. I should seriously probably hide the cash and our birth certificates.

**Rocky, Eric made you a special snowflake... a very special snowflake. I wouldn't allow him to take a picture and send it though. I'll let you guess why. (Hint, he said to tell you it smelled like garbage.)

NORAD is reporting that Santa is somewhere over Australia right now. While we wait for him to make his arrival in Zurich, we plan tomorrow's Christmas feast and Eric is accidentally drinking a whole bottle of wine by himself, determined to ruin Christmas. :) Anyway, we already know what Santa is bringing us. A trip to Spain! On January 3rd Eric, baby, and I will be flying to Malaga and spending a week in Sevilla, Spain with our friends Elias and Irina. Elias, a native SPANIARD!!! spends most of his time talking about his beautiful country... or just talking, period. If everyone in Sevilla is as friendly as he is, we'll have a great time. We will get to experience the day of the Three Magic Kings, including a parade on the 5th and a gift exchange on the 6th. After that we will travel to the Southern coastal town of Cadiz where we get to stay at a 4 star, beach front hotel for a mere fraction of the normal price. Thank you economic crisis!

Our other Christmas present is a new apartment! We move in January 1st. It's nice and a little less expensive than where we are now. It's not perfect, but one can't be too choosy with this housing market. It's a one-bedroom attic flat with a nice, cozy, wooden, peaked ceiling. It kind of reminds me of our adorable cottage back on Belmont Street. It's not too far from Eric's lab and there is great access to public transport. We are going to have to furnish it and will most likely be sleeping on camping pads for a few weeks. I expect that won't be a whole lot of fun at 35 weeks pregnant, but it's part of the adventure! I promise we will have it up to snuff in time for everyone who is coming to visit us.

In baby news, everything is going great! She keeps herself busy at nights by karate-chopping my internal organs and seeking out/freeing little air pockets, creating constant opportunities for my embarrassment and for Eric to laugh at someone's gas other than his own. We got some more baby equipment and are slowly getting ready for her arrival. It really is amazing...

I guess I should wrap this up so we don't leave Santa waiting. I think we'll snuggle up on the couch and watch a pirated Christmas movie or two while Eric puts this bottle of wine to bed and I eat the baby's weight in cheese and chocolate. What? It's Christmas! We miss you all and hope you have a very, very Merry Christmas.

Love,
The Hayden's

Happy Thanksgiving only to members of Beaver Nation.

And if I said Happy Thanksgiving to anyone not of Beaver Nation prior to Civil War, I hereby retract it. (Not counting my mom, since as a parent to a Beaver and a Duck she is exempt from pledging allegiance to one or the other... plus she probably has no idea what I am talking about and can't be faulted for that.) Eric and I will remain in seclusion in Switzerland following the loss of the beloved Beavers for the next 2 years.



Oh, we put up a few new pictures at Picasa!

http://picasaweb.google.com/thebrynster

28 Weeks Later

Oh man. So, I spent a little time watching some birth videos today. Uh........ hmmmm......... I'm going to do that? I guess the realization is a little late but it hit me right in the face ala Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. I'm pretty sure they didn't show any videos like that on Choices and Challenges Day at St. Mary's. Or maybe I was *skipping* absent, but I think I would have remembered something like that. I guess it has been working for eons, so no reason for me to spend any more time figuring out an easier way to do it. Puts away graph paper, protractor, and calculator

It's weird how your perspective changes as your life changes, too. Now I covet people's strollers instead of their bikes. It's Petit Bateau and Bonpoint instead of Kate Spade and Joe's jeans. We got a crib, as in a place where babies sleep not as in a place where rappers live that they give tours of on MTV with fountains of Cristal and live-in, round-the-clock booty shakers. Folks, it's a stark reality... I'm on my way to becoming one of those people. One of those mom people. The Dirty Diaper Club. And I'm totally excited about it!

Everything else is going really well. Eric is making good progress in the lab. I couldn't possibly describe any of it - something about rna transcription evolution ham sandwich. Maybe he'll update his old science blog! He can probably summarize bio-chemistry better than me, which isn't surprising considering that I don't even know what day it is. (January?)

We're still looking for an apartment. People have said that it takes as long as 8 months to a year to find (and get approved) for one here. So we aren't discouraged. I do hope we find something before baby comes so we'll have extra room for all those guests we're expecting?? Someone?? Anyone?? You're coming to visit us, right? crickets chirping, tumbleweed blows through blog

Just an update!

It's been awhile and my mom is starting to get lippy with me about me not updating this. (I love you mom!) Things are going great! For starters, Obama won - so yeah, we'll probably come home in 2 years afterall.

It snowed really hard here last week and we got a few inches... it was so beautiful! I wish I would have taken some pictures. I'm sure there will be many other opportunities........... many, many, many, many others. It is soooooooooo cold. Which is unfortunate because I really have very few clothes that still fit. I have to invent all kinds of new ways of bundling up which usually leaves me looking like I blindfolded myself and jumped in a Goodwill bin, rolled around until some clothes wiggled onto me and called it good.

Last night Eric and I attended a childbirth preparation class at the Hospital where we will be having the baby. It seemed very informative. Couples were nodding at each other in agreement after the doctor said something with an encouraging expression. Husbands were laughing at the nurses jokes as wives lovingly shook their heads in mock disapproval. People were voraciously scribbling notes when the doctor took a more serious tone. Eric and I were playing thumb wars under the table because it was all in German and we couldn't understand shit.

Everyday I discover new things about Switzerland that make me close my eyes and reflect in wondrous awe... "wtf"? I guess it's not that weird to buy horse at the supermarket in the rest of the world. It took me by surprise when I was putting some stew meat in my shopping basket and I noticed a little, tiny cartoon horse in the very bottom corner of the package. We're from Southern Oregon... more specifically, Eric is from Azalea... so it's like mandatory to eat meat with every meal. We've been here for a month now and while I can't say for sure how many times we've eaten horse, I'm pretty sure it's happened. Almost positive it was horse when I made some funny tasting hamburgers our first week. Now I pay close attention to all of the cartoon animals on meat packages. Ostrich, bunnies, goats, and one that has a wild boar, a deer, and an elk all huddled together under a tree. I've gone ahead and named that one "the huntsman's grab-bag".

Another exciting development that my new friend from Ireland made me privy to was that some channels have this "dual language function" some of the time on some of their shows where you can turn off the German dubbing and watch in English. We figured it out and have gotten to watch movies like Something About Mary and Old School and shows like House and CSI. But there's a very dark and sinister side to this new luxury. Out of desperation for english-speaking entertainment, we watched......................... Beethoven's 5th. As in part 5 of that movie about a big, quirky yet lovable St. Bernard and all of the hijinx he can get into in an hour and a half. The whole thing. After that movie we both left the room and couldn't make eye-contact for a few hours because we were so ashamed.

Welp, now that you know all of that, I'll be on my way. :)

Baby Update

Yesterday we had our first Swiss Dr.'s appointment. It went really well... they wanted to go ahead and re-do all of the tests, exams, etc., so they were done to Swiss standards. It was fun because we got to have another ultrasound, and a little awkward because I don't think Eric was expecting to be in the room with they "surprised" us with a full pelvic exam.

They are much more cut and dry here. Things like during the ultrasound, when the Dr. said "okay, now we look to see if the baby has the club feet" and "now we look to see if the baby will have a normal face". The good news is that everything is great! However, it got me thinking about all of these little things I hadn't been thinking about. Of course I had worried that there would be abnormalities with major organs or something serious along those lines, but I hadn't considered that maybe the baby wouldn't have a "normal face". But not to worry, the baby has a normal face by Swiss standards. :)

Schaffhausen!

Saturday we took a journey to Schaffhausen, home of the thundering Rhine Falls - the largest waterfall in Europe (or so the brochure claims). I don't mean to sound like a jerk... but it's hard to beat the waterfalls we have in Oregon! It was really great, though. The town was beautiful. Historic, medieval, all Europylike.

We visited the Munot fortress, built in the 16th century. It sat high up on a hill above Schaffhausen, surrounded by vineyard. Then we toured around the windy cobblestone streets admiring the murals and fountains that were everywhere. Next we headed to the falls, where we were able to take a boat ride to a cliffy-rock that sat in the center of the falls and hike to the top. It was so beautiful!

For pictures, visit here: http://picasaweb.google.com/thebrynster

Apartment Hunting

There's a housing shortage in Zurich. I got a little first-hand experience with this cold, hard fact when I "arranged" to go view one I found online that looked pretty good. It was on the river, in an okay part of town (by no means central) with pretty average rent for Zurich... more than we wanted to pay. It was about 2,500 fr./month which is about $2200! It is pretty crazy how expensive it is to live here. Unfurnished. 6th Floor with no elevator. 1 bedroom.

I show up................................ along with at least (literally) 50 other people. It was elbow to elbow in there, and people were totally jazzed about what a great place it was. Not being able to speak the language and ask any questions, combined with the fact that it took me and my continually expanding baby bump 15 minutes to walk up the 6 flights of stairs made it a pretty easy decision. We'll keep looking.