The funny business with Danny Zuco

Tonight I am having a calm evening of self reflection and relaxation, i.e. eating M and Ms, practicing my gangam dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFkXT49dKz0&feature=g-all-u and wishing I had somebody to talk to. All day I've been filled with a need to blog out my frustrations and I've been looking forward to this moment so much. The last few entries I've been very aware that I have people who are reading it and who are reading it with certain expectations and hang ups and judgments and I'm worried I have compromised who I am in this blog. I don't want that. I am me. This is for me. This is basically my diary so when I say things here they're heartfelt. I am a peanut m and m, cracked open with my centre exposed.

For some reason, and this could be due to any number of things, I'm having a day today where I just feel like I've gotten stuck between a rut and a hard place. Maybe it's a distinct lack of plans this weekend, or the few tangible friendships I thought I'd built here feeling a bit imaginary at the minute, or maybe it's just one of those days, but I just feel like I am in major need of some time apart.

Anyway, this is probably making for a pretty rubbish blog entry so I will promptly stop thinking about things and tune out of myself, because I have had some funny moments in the last week. That's right, it's been almost a whole week since my last blog entry. I've been taking some time off. A vacation without any holiday days. And now I'm back...to let you know, I can really shake it down! (Sorry, accidental but necessary Dirty Dancing reference)

What has been pretty much a constant in my life for a number of years is the feeling that my life might actually just be an episode of awkward. If you haven't saw this television show, you're missing out. It's funny and true and nice and shocking and...well, awkward. It's one of my true pleasures in life at the minute to watch all the episodes. If you enjoy the awkwardness of my blog, you'll also love this show.

Yesterday evening, I went out for dinner with several of the people from the BIC (Basel Irish Club) in this lovely restaraunt in KleinBasel called Volkshaus. It was yummy (pretty pricey) but yummy (we didn't have to tip.) I had the wurst und kase salat mit pomme frites (sausage and cheese salad with chips) It's one of the local classics and reaaaallly nice, I love the sausages and the cheese over here so it was win win for me. If anybody asks me how I'm enjoying Switzerland, I usually answer along the lines of 'Cheese. Yum. Me likey.' I guess that's why people have stopped asking me how it's all going. Or asking me anything. This seems an ideal time to place an ironic saying :TGIF....

 
Anyway, while out for dinner, there was also a Swiss woman who was sitting with us. So, along the lines of asking politely 'Why are you with the Irish club' I was told a story. A very long story. With lots of background. And a pretty awkward ending. Basically, the short of it, she fell for an Irish man...there was 'funny business'...he was married....wife read a letter she wrote to him...all hell broke loose, or as she said it 'The s*** well and truly hit the fan.' You know, the usual story. She was quite a character. But there was weird moment when I was looking at her, and thinking, and reading her novel she set on the table. And thinking some more. Hold on, she was an au pair, she's now and author, she seems to have appallingly bad luck with any/all males: it's future me! And then I got very deep. I was thinking, is this an inevitable end result? Is there any way for me to change this? I don't want to be the eccentric older woman who is still relegated to being a passing fancy for a man, even when she is older and has children. But she still has no luck?? So I was having an early-20s crisis, and I could sense I was pushing the button on the bus, shouting 'let me off at this stop, I don't like where we're heading', but it wasn't stopping, and the more I pushed the button, the more I was becoming an eccentric maniac pushing a button. I already am that girl that people describe as 'funny'. Crap. Is it too late? Am I ever going to be able to escape this path? Will I have to acquire a cat with a name starting with Mr something, an eccentric plum smoking jacket and an abundance of clashing clothes which I wear defiantly in public occasions while I talk loudly over people? I don't really want to do any of these things but I don't know if I have a choice anymore. I've always been told I'm funny. I have already been served the death sentence.

Danny Zuco

Jess Mariano

At lunch today, a very funny and rather teenaged thing happened. It had been building up for a while. There is a building site directly ajoined to the house here. There is a builder who looks like a cross between Danny Zuco (Grease) and Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls). Anyway, I've been eyeing him up every time he comes around to work, because there's never anything much to look at while I'm working, and it's nice that if I have to play Mummys and Babies constantly then at least I can look at some art while I'm there. Everytime I see him I hear 'I got chills, they're multiplying...and I'm loooooosing control'. I guess it's some sort of social justice that after all the years of womankind being wolf whistled at and ogled by pervy builders, that I can right the wrong by watching him work with pure delight. Anyway, he said 'Hi' to me this morning and gave me a wave and suddenly I was donning my black spandex and some pretty poodley curls and squishing a cigarette with my peep toe shoes and saying 'Tell me about it, stud' in a rather inexplicable way. So, then at lunch, we were eating outside, and I could barely contain myself from staring at him while I was eating my raspberries and the dad of the family said to me 'Careful, you'll hurt your neck' and then said 'I think you fancy him.' Well, I looked at him deadpan and said 'I think you're right.' Well, the silver lining to my incorrigibility, they're all calling him Danny now. I'm terrible...

This afternoon I went to the zoo with the kiddies, and you know who was there??? Fizzy Man!! If you don't remember, Fizzy Man is the imaginary boyfriend of the little girl who sometimes calls and texts her, except the scandalous thing is that apparently he is now my boyfriend yet continued to contact me through her phone. He's cheeky, our Fizzyman. Anyway, I had a creative afternoon of Fizzy Man spotting with the kids, and I had them convinced that he had been allowed to go swimming with the seals and had played a rousing game of football with them while he was there. They were very jealous.

So, there you have it, Fizzy Man and I have plans now to drink a carbonated drink and some Haribo sours..because both these things are fizzy. Like him.

We bid you adieu.

'William Wallace was watching'- my trip to Edinburgh

Howdy!
I just returned from Edinburgh last night and it was so friggin' cold that it should have been renamed Edin-brrrrrr....a poor pun, I'm sorry. I woke up in the middle of the night last night with my light on and my kindle still in my hand, I must have been very tired, it freaked me out a bit, I slept like a dead person until 10 this morning and this whole day has proceeded to fly by, I can't catch a breath at all! Anyway, this is not the purpose of my entry today.

This review comes from INFINITY AND BEYOND!

That leads me to this. The Al Capone of the review world. My 'unique' perspective on all things Edinburgh and this weekend. I'm sure there will be many blogs written about Edinburgh, many photos shared, as it was PACKED FULL of tourists from every which country in the world. It is one of my true pleasures in life to try and work out where people are from, by a wonderful thing called observation. Well, what can I say? I had a blast! I seen a lot of things. All of them interesting. A lot of them funny. It was great to be back with my sister again, we hadn't seen each other since my last trip to the North of Scotland, so it was glorious to catch up!

After meeting at the train station, where we dressed almost identically unintentionally, we sojourned into the city for a breakfast. That first Flat White (best coffee EVER!) was blissful after the ridiculously early start we'd both had that morning. I had some gorgeous granola and yoghurt and compote which fuelled me for the morning. I heard my first pipes of the stay once we breached the centre of the city and that part, I'm glad to say, is certainly not a myth. Every which way you turned there was another piper hiding in a crevice. I never thought I'd hear the Highland Fling so very often in such quick succession. There was a bit of a legendary piper who attempted to play what sounded like the Foo Fighters- it was GLORIOUS!

Girls just wanna....WELD?

We headed off to the National Museum of Scotland which was reaaaaallllly good, seriously the best museum I've been to! There was just SO MUCH, all in one place: history, science, geography, food, art, fashion, modernity- *pause for breath* and lots of things to play with and try on- ALWAYS A PLUS! here I am, learning about welding, learning about ship building, learning that I really suit having a hat that'll literally cover up my face...

We spent several giddy hours playing with the museum and learning lots (because learning is fun!) and it was a heck of a nice change from sitting in the house doing not much of anything. After all of these revels, it was time for lunch. We feasted in a lovely vegetarian deli called Hendersons where I had a lovely cheese and potato and brocolli pie and my sister learnt the joys of being able to finally try a wee bit of someone else's food and it wouldn't be meat. After this, we went to leave our bags in the hotel, after briefly stopping for a 99 at an ice cream van, because Saturday was blissfully warm-ish weather. The hotel room was loooooovely, really comfy, and the bathroom was very spacious and white and I had visions of a man dressed as an angel singing 'Beauty School Dropout' emerging from the harrowed doorway.

Our room....with an eskimo in the corner.

We proceeded to lie like beached whales on the bed for a while, relishing finally ditching our back packs and being freeeee. Enjoying a beverage made with our mini room kettle and the generously provided Viennese Swirls, we watched 'Come Dine With Me' and chilled. After reading some hotel recommendations, we headed out for dinner in an Indian Tapas-style restaurant were we indulged in a huge garlic naan, poppadoms, lentils, samosas etc. We were STUFFED and rolled our way back to the hotel heavier ladies. It seemed, the only way to soothe our stuffed bellies....was to put up our gilet hoods and pretend to be eskimos.

Tough snow to you, sir

 What did you say, sir? That's a bit weird? Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn! We had a blast pulling faces and hiding behind doors and generally acting a little bit foolish. We filmed crime scene photos and shower paparazzi shots and my sister hid in the wardrobe and behind a curtain and tried to scare me. 

After all of these shenanigans, we retired to bed, where we tried to watch 'The Proposal' and feel asleep before it got too far (although some of us survived longer than others *cough*)


As the sun rose over the Edinburgh city-side...Escape to the Country, eat your heart out... we proceeded to the dining room in the hotel for a delightful binge eat. I had yoghurt and pastries and cooked breakfast- even a SQUARE sausage!- but still did not try haggis or black pudding, although they were both on offer for my perusal. There were even free refills of coffee- one of life's true pleasures! 

That's the castle...up there behind my huge head!

Of course, there's lots to see in Edinburgh so we jolly well got our move on.  We went to see the castle but it cost a fortune to get inside so we just took a picture and left again. We proceeded to go to the Musuem of Surgery where my sister, the dentist, fell in love. Her eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and someone had commented on her Youtube video of her riding a pony to the sound of 'I Love Horses'. She revelled over all of the tools and all of the old techniques and poured over things in jars while I tried to control my absolute terror of dummies re-enacting medical scenarios (a fear which has haunted me since my first visit as a 6 year old to the Underground Hospital in Jersey).

We finished our trip with one last lunch out, this time in the gorgeous David Bann restaurant. I feasted on more vegetarian dishes, this time with humus and bread and pear and passionfruit tarts and perfectly cooked celeriac and puff pastry. It was all delicious! We parted ways at the train station and made our lonely way homes. A train journey in which I tried unsuccessfully to strike up conversation with a handsome boy, nearly missed my stop, and told a taxi driver he was 'awful young' for being a taxi driver (I swear my fare was lower than usual!) When we shall meet again Edinburgh, I do not know.  Someday I'll look out of my little thatched cottage window and I'll know, oh yes I'll know, that this is not goodbye but a see you later! Edinburgh, you've been a blast!

QOTR