Madame Secretary

So after "hanging up" on Brad in a google chat today (sorry, Brad!!!) I thought I'd better at least post about my life!

Of note, last week I met Kathleen Sibelius.


Okay, I didn't meet her (and no, my picture is not nearly as amazing as Alex's--looks like a great summer, Alex!), but I set up chairs for her and sat on the third row to watch her speak. She's not as tall as she looks in pictures, but she is a woman with a presence! I think she definitely earned her governorship and cabinet appointment. It was fun to hear what she had to say.

Other than that, things are continuing much as normal. I hit 300 hours this week (wahoo!) but I still have three weeks left on the job. I'll be back August 15th. I'm totally excited for classes (Is that still nerdy?) and school supply shopping. See you in a month!

Brad: are you in New York, yet?!! I didn't even get to ask!!!!

Back in North America

I’m glad to be back in North America. Here are some things I learned from my experience:
1. I really love good public transportation. I think we could have comfortably lived in Geneva without a car long term, granted having one would be convenient. This not only cut cost with owning a car, but it encourages people to walk. On returning to Vancouver, Eliza and I noticed how we’ve grown-up in places that are heavily car based. This probably explains why we rarely saw any fat people in Europe compared to N.A.
2. I would like to live where recycling is the norm. There are these giant recycling bins near most apartments and housing areas in Geneva and people would bring their bags of recycling (paper, glass, plastic, metal) daily it seemed.
3. Also, I learned the art of hanging up laundry (hangers for shirts and getting pretty fast with the clothes pins). Apartment complexes have laundry rooms in the basements along with large rooms with metal wires as lines for hanging clothes. I found out that if you don’t use hanger for shirts and clothes-pins for pants that they don’t dry as fast and thus smell a bit mildewy from drying slowly. However, through all this hanging I learned how much I missed having a dryer.
4. We are a really loud group of people. Maybe it was because I was more sensitive to hearing someone speak English among the constant French but it still seemed that English speakers, and especially North Americans, have a higher volume setting even when just talking on the phone.
5. I love the French. They expect you to speak French and even when you don’t reply in French they keep going on. I liken it to Americans that expect others to speak English which I have been guilty of many a time.
6. I don’t think I could do data validating and management for a career. However, I found that I grew to kind of enjoy it during my internship.
7. Going topless in public parks is not illegal in Geneva. Yikes!

Here are some pics from our last month.

Duomo in Milan, Italy

Montreux, Switzerland

Cailler Chocolate Factory, Broc, Switzerland
It was all you can eat... I could have had more but decided to pass on the stomach ache.

Grindelwald, Switzerland

Lance Armstrong's Team Car. Eliza was the paparazzi for this shot from our borrowed car.

And of course, the team I worked with. Great people.

The interns.

Hope everyone is having a great summer. Also, Eliza and I found out last week that we are having a boy. Due date still October 22nd.

An Unexpected Treat

I remember being pretty young and driving past this building while visiting SLC. I've passed it multiple times since then and have always wanted to go in it, but I was never sure what it was.

Yesterday, I found out.

It's the City and County Building.

I attended a meeting for the SLC Mayor's Coalition on ATOD at this location. I loved the building. It was so cool to finally be inside.




And I really loved the huge trees all around the grounds.