One More Astronaut

Diary Of An Astronaut

by Lana von Siebenthal and insipired by the best astronaut ever, you know who you are!! thanks!!


It's getting kind of cold up here
More time goes by, another year
I seem to have misplaced my crew
And this is not my dream come true

I dreamed of this as a little boy
I went to bed with my rocket toy
My wife cried when i got the call
But i stood there, proud and tall

They said i'd make it if i'm strong
But how could this have gone so wrong
And what difference does it make
Who's to blame for what mistake

And then the years kind of flew
How are you darling? How is Drew?
Is he being a good boy?
Does he like his rocket toy?

The hell with researching this crap
A black hole's just a fucking trap
I seem to have misplaced my map
And Huston, you're braking up

Am i scared? No. From what?
I've just used up my last shot
But what kills me is the quiet
And i'm getting pretty tired

My vision's getting kind of blurry
Please tell Janie not to worry
Tell her she was always right
'Bout what she'd say when we would fight

I think there's something with me here
But then, my head is not too clear
This space has swallowed me alive
I'm sorry Janie. Love you. Bye.

The White Stripes- Jolene

here's something to ponder...

Who Is Chubby Chuck?

Why, it's Jackie Chan, of course!

We were flipping through the TV channels last night, seeing what's on, and happened upon a movie called "The Medallion". Now, i had never seen the movie but, of course, i'd heard of it and i knew it was with......yeah, that funny, little, Chinese guy who knows karate and does his own stunts. Yeah, i knew who he was except, for the life of me, i could not remember his name. So i say to my husband, "hey, that has to be a good movie, lets watch that one, it's with that guy, you know, Chevy Chase, no, i mean, Chunky Jack, no, no, Chucky Cheese, shit, no, that's not it, ....." and right at this point, my husband yells out, "oh yeah, i know, it's with Chubby Chuck! You know, the little kung fu guy, who's also very funny." Well, i tell ya, i almost fell off the couch laughing my ass off, but we both knew who we were talking about.

We had to go to the Teletext site on the TV which shows the whole movie info, cast and crew, etc, etc, (you guys in Switzerland know what i'm talking about, and the others, don't worry, it's not important) and there we saw his real name. Jackie Chan! Yeah, him! How could you not remember his name? Shame!

The movie was indeed good, you know, like all Chubby Chuck movies, light and funny, no complicated plot, but very entertaining! Thanks for the laughs, Chuck!

And speaking of movies, here, i just have to use the opportunity to vent. A few days ago, i watched "Alexander" which left me very, very disappointed. I love the story of Alexander The Great and was excited when they made the movie, but somehow, it took me this long to actually watch it. And i'm sad to say, it was so not worth my time. Although it was directed by Oliver Stone and the cast included heavyweights such as Hoppkins, Jolie, and Ferrell, it failed miserably to do justice to Alexander. Sorry Alex. Angie did a good job, as always, poor Colin did his best, but had no help from the plot or the director, and Anthony, well, he just looked like a pitiful old man, which is what he was...is. Those of you who've seen the movie and share my opinion, thanks, those of you who don't, well, good for you, and those of you who haven't seen it..go see it and let me know what you think.

Country Night Gstaad

This past weekend, September 21st till the 23rd, saw yet another annual Country Night in Gstaad. The 19th one to be exact. It's actually wrong to call it Country Night since it lasts more than one night but hey, who am i to start changing things around here when they've been a certain way for such a long time??!

Country music stars such as Randy Travis, Rhonda Vincent, Julie Roberts and Riders in the Sky were among the performers and country music fans from all over Switzerland were among the audience. Now, neither my husband nor myself are country music fans but a friend of my husband offered us some free tickets, so we attended part of Friday night's concert. I say "part of" because we kept going in and out for some much needed 'refreshments' when it got too boring. The highlight of the concert was, of course, Mr. Randy Travis. He's gotten older since i last saw him, but he's still got a pretty amazing voice and, i have to say, he did a wonderful job. I managed to snap some shots of him before one of the security guys came over and informed us that taking photos was actually not allowed. Hah! Who knew?!

So, Randy may have been the highlight of the concert, but the highlight of the night has to have been the afterparty. With all the non-locals around, the tiny bars of Gstaad were quite packed. We had a blast as usual even though the DJ spun mostly country and a bit of HipHop, R&B and trance in between. We even saw the guitar man from Rhonda Vincent's band. He was there with these two women, one of which had the most elegant shoes i've ever seen, and as i was admiring them and pointing them out to my friend, she happened to catch me doing that, so we struck up a little conversation and next thing, she's asking me to take a pic of them two with the guitar guy. So cool.

It took us the whole day, Saturday, to recuperate from Country Night Gstaad, lol, but that's quite alright considering we only got home at 5am and to bed at 5:30. We had enough country to last us another year for sure! See you all there next fall!

A Sweet Tour

As most of you already know, we were happy to play hosts to one of our good friends who moved back to Canada just over a year ago and who was here, in Switzerland, visiting for a couple of weeks. She was 'round and about during her stay here visiting old places, and discovering new ones. One of the old places she wanted to visit was the Cailler Chocolate Factory in Broc, a village not too far from where we live. She asked me if i wanted to join her. Huhhh what??? Do i want to go to a place where chocolate is produced and take a tour which includes free sampling of the freshly made product???? Yes, yes, yes, oh yes!



Believe it or not, i had never been there before, even though, like i mentioned above, it is only about a 45min drive from our house, so you can imagine my excitement at her suggestion to take a drive to the factory. The kid inside me was unleashed. We drove to Broc on a gray and damp Tuesday afternoon, well, she drove in her cute little Fiat Panda which she had rented for her stay here. After a year of living away from here and in Canada where the roads are wide and straight for the most part, i have to say she hadn't lost her ability to navigate the narrow, curvy roads of Switzerland. We parked the car at the nearby parking lot and got out. As soon as i opened the car door, a thick, sweet scent drifted up into my olfactory organ. Sensation number one. I swear, the air around the factory is saturated with the smell of chocolate making and it's so intense that it sticks to your clothes right then and there.



We walked inside, where the wonderful, saliva-flow-inducing smell became even stronger, and asked to take the tour. It was a self-guided one, although they do have them with guides in German, French and English, but we were a bit too late getting there, so we were just able to get in and take the last tour. So it was self-guided but that turned out to be a very good thing indeed. The tour included the experience of chocolate making through the four senses: smell, touch, sound and of course, oh god, of course, taste.



The first section dealt with a bit of history, explaining who Monsieurs Cailler and Nestle were and how they came to realize that one can grind up some fine cacao beans, add some fresh milk from the local cows, some equally fresh butter and some sugar, melt it all together, stir it up, then cool it down into various shapes and forms and.....indulge in the sweetest sin ever! I'm not going to go into too much history here and risk boring you all to death, but i'd just like to mention that Fransois-Louis Cailler and Henry Nestle were actually neighbours and that Cailler used liquid milk in his chocolate while Nestle used milk powder and it is still so to this day. I personally prefer the taste of Cailler and now i found out why that could be. Then came the smell experience. You could sample four different smells, the one of milk chocolate, dark chocolate, hazelnut chocolate, and to tell you guys the truth, i forgot the fourth one, silly me. Anyway, i think they want you to smell the chocolate first so you walk around with saliva dripping from the corners of your mouth and the people waking behind you can slip on it and fall down, and that amuses the chocolate makers???well, maybe not.



Second station was touch. There were a few bags full of cacao beans, hazelnuts, almonds, cacao butter and sugar. You could touch all of them. And since no one said you could ONLY touch them, we proceeded to taste them as well. I mean, we were already salivating from the smelling business, who could blame us? Plus, i had never before tasted pure cacao beans so i used this opportunity to do so. I have to say, they tasted like dark chocolate without the sweetness. I liked them....a lot, very cleansing on the palate in between tasting different kinds of chocolate....but i come to that very soon.



Section three was sound and i have to say it was a bit funny. You entered into this tiny room where sound was playing of people eating chocolate. You could hear the paper wrapping and foil being ripped open, then the bar of chocolate being broken into pieces, then you heard chewing and people going "mmmm" (that was the real funny part, i'm chuckling right now just remembering that...should have recorded it). So yeah, we proceeded to the next and most anticipated section of the tour - the taste!



It was a room full of trays upon trays of different sorts of chocolate from Cailler and Nestle and you could sample as many as you liked....or could, lol. So we did. I don't think i have to tell you how absolutely mouthwatering the experience was. I couldn't make up my mind which chocolate i liked better than the other. They were all so fine. My Canadian friend, on the other hand, had a much more sophisticated palate than mine and wrinkled her nose at some of the chocolates while others she liked better. As more people were coming and the trays of chocolate were quickly emptying, the good employees kept bringing more and more out! I ate till i felt sick to my stomach and then we moved on.



On the way out you passed through the store, of course, and i helped myself to some more of the sweet goodness and brought some for my husband of course. My Canadian friend abstained since what she really wanted was to hit the Nestle store where they had not only chocolates but all kinds of other yummy products made by the Nestle company which included pasta and pasta sauce, coffee and hot chocolate, ice cream, cookies, etc, etc, you get the point. She might have needed an extra suitcase for going back home. I, of course, did not miss out on the opportunity to check out the Nestle store and did not come out of there empty-handed either.



Back in the car, it almost tipped over on my side from all the weight. B,thanks for the unforgettable experience which will be repeated over and over again, Allie and Nick don't you worry!



I'm sad to say, B left early this morning for her home in Winnipeg, Canada. B, i miss you tons and look forward already to our next meeting, here or in Canada. Thanks for everything, my friend, and take good care of yourself up in the Great North. See you on Facebook!

P.S. sorry i couldn't post up a pic to this blog. all the pix were taken with my phone, and im not sure why the program cannot upload any of them, but you can see them all on the photo web site and/or facebook

Wholesome Autumn

Autumn. Believe it or not, it's my most favourite season of the year. Yes, I love summer, of course. It's hot, full of energy, lush and green. I love spring too because it signifies the end of winter and the coming of summer. It's warm, colourful and fresh. I have to say, i'm not a big fan of winter, but the season does have its beauty especially when it's a real snowy one. It's white, clean and crisp.

I don't know if the fact that i was born in the fall has anything to do with that but in my mind, fall is the most special season of them all. When we are lucky to have a nice fall like we do this year here in Switzerland, the season is breathtakingly beautiful. It's full of colour, more deep and intense than the colours of spring. It's warm, like spring, but it has a calmness to it and a sense of wholesomeness. The distant sound of the farmers' tractors collecting the last of the summer hay, the faint smell of firewood burning in people's backyards while they prepare fruit and vegetable conserves for winter, the herds of cows, all decorated with beautiful flower wreaths on their horns coming down from the mountain, all of that contributes to the creation of that feeling of wholesomeness, peace and serenity in the air.

My Husband, The Baker

Autumn is the season for baking all kinds of pies from the fruits of the autumn season such as apples, pears, plums, all kinds of berries. Now, as much as i love to eat those pies, i could, unfortunately, never bake one myself. My husband, on the other had, can and very well too. He's also a big fan of the fresh autumn fruit pies and his favourite one is the one made with plums. So the other day, he decided to bake one such pie himself. It only took a few minutes to knead out the dough for the crust, wash and cut the fruit and place it on the crust, sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar on top since plums can be a touch on the sour side sometimes and in the oven it went. Only about 20 min later, it was done! Easy, breezy, right?! I helped too. I washed the fruit. And at the end, when we discovered there was a tiny square of the crust left uncovered (we were about two or three plums short), i had the brilliant idea to cut up a kiwi and use it instead. Ha! The plum pie was truly delicious!

Wild Game Season

For about 3 weeks during fall, opens the wild game season. Enthusiastic hunters, including my boss who was absent from the office all week last week so he can go hunting, gather up their gear and head up in the mountains to stake out and shoot down some wild game which includes deer, chammois, and elk. In the meantime, every single restaurant around begins offering their wild game menu. That only lasts about a month or two before the supply of wild game meat is used up. Some restaurants freeze some of it and continue offering it during the winter but "wild time" is over for most by the end of November. My husband and I are big fans of the wild game menu and use this two month window in the fall to go out and eat as much of it as we can. You can also buy in from the butcher shops but it needs special preparation in order to achieve tender and flavourful results. Neither of us is trained in the art of cooking wild game, so we leave that to the professionals.

Last night was our first "wild" night and our friend, Nicola, joined us. She is Canadian and only in her second year here in Switzerland, so it was the first time for her trying wild game. She loved it. I don't blame her. We all had the chammois. The meat was prepared in such a way that it literally melted on the tongue and it came with a very flavourful sauce, an assortment of fall vegetables, chestnuts and baked pears with berry confiture. A bottle of full bodied Syrah from the Swiss wine region of Wallis rounded up the perfect meal. Bad Nicola twisted my arm really, really hard and we got desert after :) Hers came in flames and drowned in alcohol....of course. I'm happy to say, she'll be joining us again for round two.

My favourite season of the year has officially begun. We opened it last weekend with our blueberry picking and we are planning to enjoy all it has to offer to the fullest because we all know what follows afterrrrrr.............

I've Had It!

I've really had it now with this WindowsLive Spaces website!

A while ago i discontinued writing my blogs on that site because it was giving me numerous problems with freezing and booting me out, etc, but i was still uploading my photos there for convenience to you, my faithful friends and family. However, today as i was trying to upload my photos from BG (and thanks Mom, you were very prompt), i had an especially difficult time with the website and had to restart my computer twice. Well, i'm fed up!

I would like to inform all of you that i am leaving the site forever!! There will be no more photos uploading on that site. I will not shut it down, for there are many photos already on it and i'll be using this as an online storage device in addition to CD's of course, in case something horrible happens to my computer (spit three times in my shirt here). I do very sincerely apologise to you all for having to move from site to site yet again. The new website though is very user friendly, for you and for me both, and very easy to remember.

I have already uploaded some of our Bulgarian holiday photos on the new site and will be uploading the rest in batches since there are way too many. I am uploading almost all of them for the purposes of people helping themselves to some (cuz it'll take me a year if i had to email all of them to all of the people involved). The rest of you can very quickly skip through them, so no worries ;-)

So, here is the new site, and i do truly hope this will be the end of all those changes and switches. So long WindowsLive!!

http://www.thevonsiebenthals.myphotoalbum.com/

Blueberry Picking

Like i mentioned in my last post, we had three weather-perfect weeks of summer in BG and i was a little afraid that coming back to CH would mean cold, wet, and nasty weather. But i was wrong, and my worries were totally unfounded for we came back to a gorgeous autumn in the Alps. It's been sunny and warm and very pleasant since we've been back. Cool in the early mornings and late evenings, cold during the nights, but just beautiful during the days. Indian summer is here to make up for the awful summer we had earlier.

Of course, we've been trying to take advantage of this beautiful weather and last Saturday, Reto took me up on the dirt bike to a huge field of blueberry bushes where we picked wild blueberries for four hours! It was yet another gorgeous autumn day. We rode on the dirt bike as far up as possible after which we proceeded on foot, crossing the Turbach spring, to the blueberry fields. Hiking in the fresh air and warm sunshine, drinking fresh mountain spring water, and eating fresh wild mountain blueberries hopefully brought back my three years of life which got taken away in BG!

Now, since the summer was not conducive to the blueberries, or any other vegetation for that matter, the fruit was scarce and scattered, but we still managed to pick 2.5 kg of blueberries which, after giving some to Mueti and Pappi and eating quite a few, we froze in ziplock bags for later use. You will notice that compared to the store bought ones, the wild blueberries are much smaller in size, but they sure make up for that in taste and nutrient content. Those are some mighty little blue fruit jam-packed with goodness! You can make all kind of delicious pastries with them, but since i'm utterly useless in that department, i think we'll be eating them warm over ice cream or just like that, which is still pretty damn delicious if you ask me!

The next day, Sunday, was little Micha's blessing in the church and Reto was one of the godparents. Micha is the cutest, sweetest little boy i've ever seen! He was real good and quiet throughout the whole church ceremony and later during the festivities. He loved playing with my necklace, and if he were a girl, i'd have given it to him, but i just let him play with it instead. He's gotta be my favourite nephew-in-law! I love that little boy like he's my own! I'm so happy that Reto is his godfather, that means i can spoil him all i want, and oh, i want!

We Are Back!

Hi Everyone!

I'm happy to say we've come back home safely and soundly(lol) from our trip to East Europa. We had a wonderful time despite my initial concerns, and i'm happy to say the whole experience went better than i expected, pfew! But it's oh so good to be back home again. It was tough saying goodbye to the people we left behind and the ones who proceeded on their own way back to their own home, but it was nice to say goodbye to the East. Like i said, we had a very nice holiday but three weeks was just about enough time spent in the place which gave birth to me but has since become distant, strange and uncomfortable to me over the years. Three main reasons why i'm so happy to be back have to do with my health and well being and the fourth deals with my emotional state of mind and inner peace.

I will briefly describe those four reasons below. I will have to write a whole book in order to describe our whole stay and all our experiences which i'm not prepared nor willing to do, so below i sum up the three weeks in three(or so) paragraphs.

Reason #1: My lungs, my poor lungs. The air quality in Bulgaria, in the cities anyways, is poor if not below human living standards to say the least. No vehicle is required to pass emissions tests so 9 out of 10 vehicles on the road spit out black clouds of smoke as they move along. Cars, buses, trucks, etc, vehicles which should have been scrapped many years ago are still driving along the roads of Bulgaria and together with industrial plants contribute to the smog which is the air over the cities and the air we breathed for the most part of our stay there. My husband and i both had a constant sore, dry throat and trachea with an annoying constant dry cough. I'm sure my life has been shortened with at least 3 years after 3 weeks of breathing this horrible poisonous air. So you can imagine my joy at returning to the freshness of the Alps.

Reason #2: My stomach, my poor stomach. I was raised on Bulgarian food, but since leaving the country, my digestive system has grown unused to it. As a result, i had a constant upset stomach during the 3 weeks which included cramps, constipation, diarrhea, bloating and a constant annoying feeling of strangeness and heaviness in my stomach. My husband had the same fate. To add to that, we were fed continuously by various people and we proceeded to feed ourselves even more at restaurants. Wherever we went, people fed us and when we had enough, they fed us some more and since it's not polite to refuse the food they're offering you, we ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. As a result, i gained 1.5 kilos and my husband gained 4.0 kilos(most of it beer) in only 3 weeks! So you can imagine my joy at returning to our light, health oriented eating regime of fresh Swiss food.....and we're both on a strict exercise programme to get rid of the extra weight we brought back with us! Wish us luck with that!

Reason #3: My hair, my poor hair. This summer in Bulgaria was a very dry and hot one. Every day for the 3 weeks were were there, the temperatures soared to above 30 degrees C with no drop of rain. Due to the heat, the draught and the pollution, my hair suffered moisture loss and nutrient deprivation. As a result, it became dry, brittle, lost its luster and because of the hair colour i applied before the trip, it began looking like a tangle of hay and straw on top of my head. To make matters worse, during our stay at the Black Sea, which was the highlight of our trip and where we had a lot of fun and time to just relax on the beach, the combination of the salty water (and the Black Sea is infamous for its salt content) scorching sun and dry wind took away the last drop of life left in my hair and no amount of products which i constantly and tirelessly applied was able to save it. So you can imagine my joy at returning to the cool, moist, clean air and water and to the availability of hair care products my hair loves and is used to. It was intensive hair care week this first week that we've been back and i'm happy to say, my hair has been revived!

Reason #4: has to do with the whole way of life in the country and the attitudes of its people. The people who we know and belong to our family are very nice and friendly and we had a great time with them. I'm happy to have been able to see many people whom i hadn't seen for many, many years including some brand new ones(new babies and boyfriends/wives who have been added to our family). But in general, the public is quite rude and miserable. No wonder considering where and how they live, but regardless, it's not my fault they live the way they do so why take it out on me?? As tourists, my husband, his brother and their friend we taken advantage of on many occasions such as being charged too much for taxi rides, for drinks at bars, as well as short-changing them on change given back. They even tried to "pull the wool over our eyes" with me there. I had the advantage of speaking the language but other than that, i was a pure tourist myself. I had no idea where to go for what or how to get there, i was not familiar with the cities or just the way of life, so a few minutes into it, people were well aware that i'm clueless and tried to take advantage of that. As a result, i got upset a lot which caused some other health/physical concerns. So you can imagine my joy at returning to a civilized place where people greet each other on the street with a smile and are more than happy to help you out no matter if you're a tourist or a local or a disfigured mix of both as is the case with me. Oh so good for the inner peace that is!

Now, if after reading this you're thinking that we must have had a horrible time for those 3 weeks, that's not the case. Those were just the things i needed to get off my chest. To be totally honest, we did have a great time. Like i said, we got to see many relatives, my parents who came from Canada, we got to rest and relax, we got a nice tan, we visited many beautiful places, we ate a lot and drank a lot and laughed a lot, we danced, and sang, and at the end, we cried when it was time to say goodbye.

We miss all the people and we miss being on holiday, but we're happy to be home and back to our own routine of life good for the body, good for the mind, good for the soul.

P.S. the pictures will be posted a bit later due to some still being sent to me from mom's cam in Canada, so hurry up mom :)