| ma | di | wo | do | vr | za | zo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 |
« juli 2006 | Hoofdmenu | september 2006 »
Yep, the Swiss are morning people.
Last Saturday there was an article in the Basler Zeitung, the local paper here, in which a couple of Swiss people described a typical day; pretty much everyone got up between 5 and 6 AM. One of them mentioned that on work days, she got up at 4:30AM. The article didn't mention anything about it maybe being a little on the early side. That's just wrong. People should be asleep at that hour.
Sometimes morning people frighten me.
When my granny moved to a nursing home a few years back, her house had to be emptied. Years and years of stuff, with memories attached from when I was a child and spent summers there with my family. Furniture that we played on. Clothes we dressed up in: closets full of shoes and purses. My granny was a big fan of purses (“Where’s my bag? I wanna give you something…”). When it had to be cleared away, we all picked things to take with us, to share throughout the family. But I lived a plane ride away and couldn’t take anything bigger than the magazine rack that she always had next to her chair, packed full of Redbook, Better Homes, and Reader’s Digest. It's presently in our home, packed full of magazines, as it should be. I’m glad that my brother and sisters had space to take most of her furniture, so I get to see it sometimes when I visit. And these little pieces of history with all of the memories make their houses feel like homes.
Last year, my parents decided that the big house the four of us grew up in was getting too big, and it was time to move somewhere smaller. Again, the house had to be emptied: 25 years worth of stuff to be pared down to fit into a one bedroom apartment. When my mom asked if there was anything I wanted from the house, I didn’t have to think. There was something that I wanted: the secretary. A desk that my mom found in the basement of our previous house, the one we lived in when I was born. The previous owners had used it to store paint. They didn't want it back- old ugly thing with paint all over it. My mom has a nose for these things: she stripped it and had it restored. It's beautiful. It has little cubby holes to put things in. It has a hinged front that lowers (don’t forget to pull out the pegs it rests on first!) and glass doors on top that creak a little when they open. The desk was in our dining room, where my mom would periodically take out a stash of papers from the little drawer in the middel for the Lost Art of Balancing the Check Book.
During our vacation, a very big box came from the United States, adressed to me. Very big. And very heavy. 150 kilos (300+ lbs). I’m glad it is here now. A piece of home. Making our house feel like a home.
You don't realize when you leave for another country at 18 that there will be a time that you wish home was a little closer to home.
Vacation summary: Munich is beautiful. I've found out that I like opera, but who doesn't when it is performed in an opera house with 6 balconies. Italy is beautiful. The leaning tower of Pisa really leans. Italian food is really very, very good. Italians, particularly around Pisa, are friendly, warm people. Italy in summer is very, very warm.
After 3.5 weeks of Germany followed by Italy, with much city touring and relaxing, real life is starting up again. Slowly, to be sure, since August is Vacation Month in Europe so my department of 25 is now at 5 people present. There is something strange about working in August in Europe; it is just so quiet! Every year, I promise myself that in the quiet of August I will finally get all of the things done I never get around to.... after all, no e-mail, no phone calls, no meetings, sounds peaceful, doesn't it? But somehow, it just ends up being not so productive. This year will be different. Really.
Laatste reacties