Meeting the Family...........drum roll please.

My honey has a huge family, his mom has 13 brothers and sisters, and his dad 12. WOW!! I think I have 12 people in my entire family total.

We have never been to a family function before, he is not real keen on large family functions. Eventually, in life, there is a family event you must attend. It was his godfathers birthday party. I was really excited because I love meeting new people and I love families. They tell a lot about people, whether we like to admit it, or not.

The excitement wore off for me, really quickly when I started thinking about how I can't speak the language and I have a lot to live up to since his sisters Egyptian husband, learned Swiss German and spoke Swiss German with the Grandmother.

It turned out great!! The scariest part of the whole night was the car/truck ride there. First when Honey told me that I was the first girlfriend he had ever introduced to his grandmother.(anxiety mounts) Then we were driving in a small work truck from Honeys company, 3 of us were crammed in the front cab of the truck. Our driver, a traveling carpenter whom we found a few days previous, was a fabulous driver but there was snow on the ground and we were swirling through these tiny little Swiss village country roads with only one lane for all traffic. No guard rails, only mountains and big drop offs. As I dug into Honeys leg, they were wondering what my problem was. I just said my usual reply, "I come from flat land, don't mind me."

We arrived at a beautiful location tucked in the middle of nowhere. We had to walk down a winding road, the first part of the evening was spent outside. Where we enjoyed, typical Swiss music ( you know that funny sounding music, that you don't know if its politically correct to laugh, or if the musician is doing that on purpose). Honey assured me that we would have that kind of music at our wedding. (and i think he was serious) We enjoyed Gluh Wein (hot spiced wine), Rum punch, and wine. Thank god for the hot drinks, these Swiss are crazy, hanging outside for 4 hours in the freezing cold rain.

The setting was beautiful, there was a huge waterfall right behind us. Eventually, once everyone got frost bite on their toes we went inside. It was a big cabin style building. The story was told that Honey's great grandfather used to own the property. It was a really famous mill, where huge logs were brought to be sawed in half using the waterfall as power. Then, it became to costly to transport the huge logs up the hill and the city bought the place, now you can rent it for events.

Most importantly. THE FOOD. The food was great. I could have stopped at the appetizer it was so yummy, lachs, a few varieties of shrimp, fois gras, pate, and many other delicacies. The food continued, and was all great. We had a really interesting soup, the English translation, wine foam soup. YUM!! I will have to look that one up.

Oops, another Most importantly. THE GRANDMOTHER. Mutti, she was beautiful. I love grandmothers. My grandmother was my favorite person on the planet. Mutti looked fabulous. She is 80, has raised 13 children and gets along wonderfully. She always has a huge smile on her face. So we just smiled and grinned at each other and it was perfect.

The picture is me walking down the windy road to the event. If you squint your eyes in the background you can see the waterfall!! The first time I saw snow in Switzerland, besides when we were high up in the mountains.

Seafood Love

We are taking a small break for a moment from love, man to woman. And changing genres to Food Love, man to food, woman to food.

I am currently in Zurich, working (just wanted to type that for a minute, instead of saying dog sitting). Dog sitting is ....... Well atleast I get to wander around town, and stare at all the lovely shops and most of all, all the great food.

My new favorite place is the food section of this really fabulous swiss department store. Its called Jelmoli. Anything you could ever possible want, gourmet everything.

What does a Florida girl go for? A person who insists on always traveling to a place with a beach!

SEAFOOD!! Thats right.

I know I know, I am in Switzerland. A landlocked country. No Ocean. Its kind of tough for me at times. But love conquers all, right?(don't worry, my love is a seafood lover as well!)

Sunday marked a special occasion. My Swiss love, left the village and came to the big city with me. Its Christmas time, so lucky us, the gourmet food land is open.

My love says, " Lets just buy whatever Seafood we want, we will cook it up, and it will be better than going out to eat."

I said,"hmmm... ok."

#1: We purchase 1 kilo of mussels = 25 chf ( i thought this was a pretty good deal, considering)
#2 We purchase 1 filet of red snapper = around 250 grams =21 chf (gulp)
#3 We purchas a salmon steak= 9 chf

Then we were off to buy the essentials for cooking, lemons, garlic, onion, and white wine.

Mussels w/ white wine, a squeeze of lemon, garlic, onions, and a dash of thyme.

Fish cooked in a pan w/ sauteed garlic, onions, and the juice of 3 fat lemons.

We ate it one item at a time and enjoyed every bite. It was all so scrumtious. I can't remember the last time I had salmon. The last time I had red snapper was earlier this year when we were in Nicaragua.

That was the hard part for me, buying seafood in a landlocked country. The prices are just different. Of course, it makes sense.

My love had to keep chanting, as I babeled," Kiara, its ok, we are not in Nicaragua, remember in Nicaragua, even the red snapper was more expensive, it was $4 per fish there."

I miss the ocean, but atleast w/ modern technology. The ocean can come to us! (I am usually one that prefers to eat locally, however one can't live on sausage alone.)

It always feels good when.....

there is a happy ending/ beginning!!

I am really into the law of attraction. Basically, what you focus on or put your energy towards, is what you attract in your life.

This could get really deep and philosophical but its not!

The little story is:
Last night after I posted my piece about the beginnings of Travel Love, my phone rang.

It was a friend of mine from England, whom I met in Nicaragua. She fell in Travel love w/ a guy from the states. She is "in the beginning" the exciting part, that part that feels so mysterious. (Its so mysterious to you, meanwhile the people around you are saying,"Duh... you guys are obviously in love, whats the big deal.")

Here is a bit of the conversation:

SHE says: I just don't know how he feels about me. He keeps talking about his future plans but doesn't say my name in there. He keeps saying "I."

(meanwhile he has only flown back and forth to England 2-3 times in the last couple of months to see her, I think he might like her)

I say: Well did you ask him if you are in his future plans? Did you ask him if he would like to speak in the "we."?

(she sputters!!)

She says: Well no, but I just don't think he is as serious as me. He isn't even looking into his VISA options or anything. I just think he thinks this is a fun thing.

I say: Oh, I am so sure he really has flown back and forth spending every last cent he owns just for a bit of fun.

She says: Well If he doesn't want to think about the "We" then I just want to end it now.

I say: Hmmm.... Is that what you really want? Is that what your heart tells you to do?

Then we go about chatting. I say the basic stuff: be yourself, don't think all bad things, he obviously likes you.

Then I recieved this e mail from her today:

Spoke to "BOB" and he just laughed at me and asked which bit of all
this was still casual. He's as serious about seeing if we might be serious as I am. And he's upfor seriously planning in the"we" and finding a solution. SO-oooo good to speak to you. You cheered me up so much. I promise I
won't leave it so long before I call again.


See wasn't that beautiful!! All you have to do is ask..... We all know that but always forget when it comes to our own life! When we step aside its crazy to think we would kill off love just to protect ourselves. But we do it all the time!!

Moral of the story: Don't make up what you think the other person is thinking. Just freakin' ask!! Silly!

The Thrill of the Unknown.....

In the beginning.....

In this travel love situation you never know what to think. Especially in the beginning. I was in that situation and constantly meet people that are in that situation.

First you wonder. Was it love? Was it travel love?
Then, you wonder, all the other thousands of questions.
#1 How will this ever work. We are from two different ends of the world, and do not speak the same language.

I say, That is great!! The less talking the better. When I first met Achim that is what I loved. I didn't realize it at first. But after meeting him and then being apart from him, having lots of time to think. I realized, WOW!! He didnt ask me any of those annoying questions like:
What happened in your last.....?or How many people have you.....? or What are your issues? How do you feel about....? or What are all the names of your ex's?

There was no judgement based on who we were in the past.

(So many times i think we ask people a thousand questions about their past, and then judge who we think they are and what we think they are all about. which not fun,and takes the sparkle out of who people are.)

It was just he and I in the now! There was no past, there was no future (in the beginning). It was just us in that paticular moment of time.

We would meet up somewhere half way around the world and just not know.

Looking back on those times that were not that long ago. I realize that I knew all along. But I had snuffed out all those instincts that we have just because I did not want to get hurt or look like the fool again.

Then you fall in love and act like a total fool all the time. Its really liberating.

Was it love? Was it Travel love?

The inspriation of this blog is travel love.
Travel love- when you meet someone traveling and you fall instantly in love. You do not know if its the real thing or if you really like this person just because you are traveling.

This is the situation I was in with the fellow in this picture. Was it love??? Was it travel love?? Well after going back and forth accross many continents, we know. Drum roll please.......... ITS LOVE!!!

So what do you get when you mix a traveling carpenter from Switzerland (who traveled for 4.5 years with out coming in a 50km radius of his home) and a girl originally from Florida who is into traveling, health and nutrition, and mostly just loves to talk?

You get many adventures. Many of which end up in the kitchen combining our backgrounds and food experiences from around the world.