Juice Cleanse Review

So I survived my juice cleanse, which I'm kind of surprised by. The beginning of the first day, I was so disgusted with the juices that I almost gave up. But by the time yesterday rolled by, I was able to pretty much breeze through the juices. The major problem I found was that I had horrible cravings the whole time, so instead of gradually beginning to incorporate solid foods into my diet like Urban Remedy recommends, the first thing I ate this morning was an egg and brie sandwich on a Hawaiian bun--fat, dairy, and gluten all at once. And I'll admit it, if I had found sausage in the fridge I would've cooked that up too--red meat, fat. 

But I guess the juice cleanse me taught me how to handle my hunger. Whenever I'm bored or feel the slightest hungry, I stuff my mouth. But now, I know what hunger feels like and that I don't actually need to eat. I'm not positive this is a healthy approach, but is it that horrible feeling uncomfortable? Maybe I've just grown accustomed to being unnecessarily full? We'll see how resisting my hunger cravings serves me.

Back to the juice cleanse, I'm not sure if I'd do it again. Physically, I don't feel much different. Looking at myself in the mirror, I think I look thinner but that might be some placebo self-esteem thing. I don't think my stomach actually got small with those 3 days of starvation and a couple Soul Cycle classes. However, my skin didn't glow....I'm 95% positive of that. Also (and this is a tad TMI) besides having to pee all the time, I did NOT spend an abnormal amount of time on the toilet. Everyone warned me of that with a cleanse (I mean honestly Rachel, how else does it "cleanse" it from your body") but I guess I just peed it out or it was released through my pores or something. I felt fine. 

All in all, it was an interesting experience, and I definitely got more work done during the past three days than the rest of break. Hopefully, this juice cleanse will really be the beginning of better habits. Here's to exercising more, eating better, and appreciating food more!

Juice Cleanse: Why Do We Juice?

I woke up this morning certain that my phone had died and I had missed my alarm. Instead, I had actually woken up before my perfectly timed chiming period (Sleep Cycle reference). I'm also super hungry but have run out of lemon for my tea in the morning. So here I am sitting in bed, with hunger in my throat, but unwilling to drink the Brainiac juice sitting on my bedside table.
Urban Remedy's email this morning told me that I'm supposed to glow today. As if my juice cleanse has the same magical powers as pregnancy. Looking at myself in the mirror, I don't feel like I'm going to be glowing. I look disgusting, this horrible pale color with a yellow undertone. I'm not blaming my juice cleanse for my unattractiveness. That I can only attribute to poor genetics and my lack of sun. Now I wish I had asked my parents to send me to LA for a "job fair" and gotten my winter tan on. But honestly, even if after this cleanse I feel all fresh and healthy, how could that be properly translated to the world without the appropriate sun kissed face??
Today, I'm hoping to continue with my job app streak. But I'm not feeling as motivated as I did yesterday. Since I submitted my last app, I've started looking at positions I care more about and would be devastated if I didn't get a call back from. I've also stalked every person remotely related to these companies on LinkedIn to see how they got there. I've discovered that they got there by being better than me.
All my life people have told me not to compare myself to others, but that just seems like the biggest load of crap. Grades, GPAs, resumes, not to mention the load of superficial insecurities that I have that do not relate to job searches are all a comparison game. Sadly, I think that I wanted to do this juice cleanse to make myself a better version of myself. I was hoping that I'd be thinner and prettier and more attractive. Maybe this juice cleanse could be the thing that jumpstarted the me that I always dreamed I'd be? That statement seems potentially harmless. Be your best self, right? But under that statement is the true unshakable insecurities that will undoubtedly haunt for the rest of my life. And unfortunately, there's no juice cleanse to detox me from that.

Juice Cleanse: Day 2

Wake Up (10:20) I woke up on the second day of my cleanse feeling pretty good. However, I'm not sure I can attribute that to the juice cleanse or to the fact that I used Sleep Cycle for the first time since my semester abroad. Waking up to the sound of perfectly timed chimes just feels better than the usual uhhhh fuckkkk what time is it??? hungover-like wake-up I experience during breaks.

What I found strange was what my Sleep Cycle told me: I didn't sleep well. It gave me a 51% sleep rating, telling me I almost never fell into a deep sleep all night. This was particularly surprising since I have a temperpedic bed, so I actually thought the phone would detect less movement than it did on my horrible bed abroad. What does it mean if I didn't sleep well on my juice cleanse?

So right now, I'm watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I'm hoping that watching a less serious, more background TV show will encourage me to actually write some job applications. Wish Me Luck!! I'm also waiting for my tea + lemon to cool down to the recommended "warm" temperature and starring apprehensively at my first juice of the day: Brainiac aka the bane of my existence. That's the juice that took me over 2 hours to drink yesterday and had me start the whole juice cleanse with a

horribly negative attitude.

Lemon Water (10:55) The tea was nice and soothing in my throat. Strangely enough, with every gulp, a little headache began to pang. According to the email I received this morning from Urban Remedy, I will be experiencing those all day. I wonder if they realize that I've actually been experiencing these headaches since my pre-cleanse days. This really does mean that I have a caffeine addiction, doesn't it?

Brainiac (11:15) I was really nervous to try this drink again, since I found it so disgusting yesterday. Today, I still don't like it. I don't even like it as much as I liked the "Flush" drink from yesterday, which I barely liked. The salty celery tasting water is apparently never going to grow on me, but I don't find it as horrible as yesterday. I'm able to gulp it down in under an hour.

Time Machine (1:30) The time machine is the drink that is supposed to help weight loss and kickstart your metabolism, so obviously it's one of my least favorite drinks. It was not as difficult to drink as yesterday, but I'm not downing it due to thirst like I did with Brainiac. I have decided to do something productive today, so I actually put in my retainer for the first time since I joked about wearing it to my sorority's crush party. I'm also beginning to work on my AT&T application and just started the cover letter section (it's my least favorite section!) Just kidding, they said it was optional so I'm skipping ahead and doing that shit later.

Flush (3:45) Drinking with a retainer is weird. Also, I submitted my first job application to AT&T. I'm sure it's horrible, but WISH ME LUCK! I really need to be employed in May. Unfortunately, I'm scrolling through more job applications and am losing any motivation. FYI I haven't showered or even changed out of my pajamas today. Sexy can I, right?

After Party (5:50) My stomach is started to rumble in this strange way. I'm not sure if I'm just hungry or have a stomach ache. I am now watching He's Just Not That Into You and finishing up another cover letter. Also, I would prefer a little less ginger in this drink . . .

Warrior (8:15) Oh how we've met again. Once again my favorite. Except this time I took my retainer out and the chia seeds are actually kind of tough on my newly sensitive teeth. Lesson? I need to wear my retainer more frequently. I'm also LinkedIn surfing now, looking at alums who are in positions I'm applying for. It's funny, I'm pretty sure I'm a good applicant but every time I stalk people, I feel so inadequate.

Relax (9:40) I still don't really care for it, but I'm surprised how well the whole day has gone. It's pretty much the end of the day, and I'm not rolling around in hunger pains or cravings. Even more surprisingly, I've applied to four jobs today. My mom asked me if "it's working" and if I'm feeling really good. I told her I'm not feeling bad? It's been kind of nice not having to think about what I'm eating and how to feed myself, but  I don't feel incredible. Although, I haven't been able to convince myself to submit a single job app until this juice cleanse, so maybe that's enough to say it's worth it? How about this: If I get an interview from any of the job applications I submit during this cleanse, I'll say it was worth the $185. 

Juice Cleanse: Day 1

My first day on my juice cleanse was really difficult. I started the day wondering why in the world I thought this was going to be a good idea. I found the first couple drinks absolutely disgusting and preferred starving myself to forcing more of it down my throat. Honestly, I felt like giving up after the very first drink, already regretting completely wasting $185. Urban Remedy said to take it easy fitness wise during my juice cleanse, so I took that as permission to become a couch potato. My intention was to do some job applications, but of course I just watched TV. Specifically, I bought the first season of Girls and watched that for the first time while grimacing through my juice cleanse. If you want more insight into my thoughts during the first day, here's some tweets:

I 100% wish I had spent this money on soul cycle classes instead of this cleanse. This sucks. Ugh.
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 4, 2014

Suffering through my juice cleanse by watching girls. Like seriously, could I be more of a bougie cliche right now? pic.twitter.com/rJbhEWyutC
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 4, 2014

You know what would be fucking amazing right now? A giant cheeseburger...I'm salivating.
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 5, 2014

Like its kind of disgusting how it's 5:30 and I've consumed less calories than a bottle of naked or odwalla juice.
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 5, 2014

Here's my review of the drinks on the first day:

Juice #1: Brainiac is made of Cucumber, Celery, Spinach, Parsley, and Lemon. What it tasted like? Watery, salty celery. Gross. It took me 2.5 hours to gulp that shit down. I seriously hated it, especially how salty it was. I understand that they needed to put my sodium levels somewhere in this juice cleanse, but it tasted like they put all of my daily sodium in my first drink. They didn't, but they did put 10% of my daily sodium intake.

Juice #2: I found this one (Time Machine) slightly easier to gulp down. I wouldn't say I liked it, but I didn't grimace quite as much with every sip.

Juice #3: The Flush. I was super worried for this juice. It sounded pretty similar to the other green juice I had had that morning and almost puked up (Brainiac) but its name was even worse. The name 'Flush' made me think that the moment it touched my lips I'd have to run for the toilet. Surprisingly that didn't happen. And the ginger in Flush made the rest of the drink much more tolerable for my taste buds.

Juice #4: It was carrot, beet, apple and ginger juice. I wasn't in love, but it seems like the juices are getting better as the day goes on. I could see myself buying this drink when I'm in a healthy Marina, yuppie mood. Apparently beet juice is amazing for detoxing your liver, so they named this juice "After Party."

Juice #5: A-MAZ-ING. It was a raspberry shake and it made me feel so much better about the whole cleanse. It's odd, but I think the JUICE element of this has been weirding me out. In reality, juices from Naked and Odwalla are pretty thick, so having all the juices so far be so thin and watery kind of disgusted me. But this juice/shake was so thick with the yumminess of raspberries. It was definitely my favorite drink of the day. I think this juice helped me regain my strength...and the drink was aptly named "Warrior."

Juice #6: Relax. I was really expecting to like this drink more. The reviews I read from bloggers said it was amazing, so when I finally got to #6 I thought the day's struggles were already over. But after the thick quality of Warrior, I was disappointed by the thinness of the Cashew milk. I vaguely could taste an horchata-like quality to this drink. I'll probably like it a lot more tomorrow....and now I want a real horchata.

Well, the whole day is done and I'm not feeling as hungry as I thought I would. I think this might be because I went to bed feeling more hungry the night before. That's the final part I feel like I should mention. I just downloaded the app FitBit, which has been giving me a calorie target for each day based on my activity and the amount of weight I want to lose. After all the calories I burned from Soul Cycle, I actually ended up having LESS calories with my real food (and froyo) than on my juice cleanse........Maybe it would've been better to just eat normal food and have a tough workout?

Urban Remedy: Pre-Juice Cleanse

When I was in Geneva, I was feeling pretty lethargic and gross. I got it in my head to do a juice cleanse and be more healthy. Unfortunately, during the summer I didn't have enough time to both enjoy the yummy food in San Francisco and do my juice cleanse. But here I am again in San Francisco for four weeks with plenty of time to do the juice cleanse, so I have no excuse. Well, I guess I did have an excuse. Juice cleanses are pretty freaking expensive. Ranging from around $150-$250 for 3 days.

I looked around at a bunch of local juice-cleanse spots and settled on Urban Remedy because the juices sounded pretty yummy (well for primarily vegetable juices....) When I signed up for the cleanse, I assumed it would just be those three days. But in reality, it's a 9 day ordeal. In order to prep your body for a juice-only diet, Urban Remedy recommends that you cut out pretty much everything that's good in the world.

So basically, I've already been deprived of chocolate and steak and milk and alcohol and everything yummy since January 1st. Unfortunately, I still have 6 more days of cravings and they will only get worse.

However, I think I did a pretty good job with all my diet restrictions. For breakfast, I would have a breakfast scramble full of veggies. I made my parents buy me chicken which I ate at every occasion. I had my fill of pistachios (like honestly it was disgusting). And I watched my friends with envy as they downed chocolate chip cookie after chocolate chip cookie. Oh and I forgot to mention I also peed all the time. Urban Remedy told me to make sure I actually get my 8 glasses of water a day, which made me realize that I NEVER get my full 8 glasses. Even though it seems like 4 water bottles isn't a lot....it's so much water I have to pee every fifteen minutes!!

I must admit, I cheated. I wasn't supposed to eat sugar or soy, but I met up with my friends at Fraîche after I went to a Soul Cycle class and I just couldn't resist the cool, refreshing froyo. But I got it in soy instead of original because I felt like that would be healthier. Unfortunately, I ended my 3-day pre-cleanse period with horrible cravings which were not helped by my brother who dragged me to Krispey Kreme and In-N-Out as I ate my berries....god I want a fucking cheeseburger, with a milkshake, and more cheese on the side...maybe some poutine on the side. FUCK. I have to start a juice cleanse like this.

Let's Go to the Beach, Each!

One thing I didn't take enough advantage of growing up in California was the beach. Actually back in high school, I hated the beach. I found the sand annoying and my grumpy self proclaimed them stupid and unappealing. This was actually part of my reasoning for choosing Colgate over UCSD, a choice my parents didn't understand since UCSD is located a short walk from the beautiful La Jolla beaches. 

Since going to college in the rural farm lands of Upstate New York, my opinion of the beach has definitely changed. Now, I just dream of going to the beach, feeling the sun on my skin, and of course getting a little color. For my spring break freshman year, I went on that stereotypical Spring Break trip to Miami. And that summer I went on a whole beach hopping adventure from the beaches in Tel Aviv, to Santa Barbara and then finishing off the summer on the Cape. 

My semester abroad was rather dreary with a long cold and grey winter. So the whole semester, I tried to come up with some way to the beach. Ultimately, I never made it. My dreams of going to Greece were shattered and even my plans to go to southern France just didn't work out. So this week, I decided I just had to go to the beach before I headed back east for my internship. 

So this past Saturday, I headed over to Stinson Beach in Marin with my friends Mattie and Camille as well as my friend Albert from Colgate who is interning at WeHeartIt in San Francisco this summer. 

Beyond being just a trip to the beach, this trip was also a great lesson in Bay Area microclimates. Microclimates are when the weather can change from  this phenomenon that apparently only occurs in the Bay Area. I think it happens because we have the ocean, bay, and so many hills all smushed together.

As we headed over the bridge, we were completely engulfed in fog. But Camille, our new marinite, assured us that it would clear. And did it clear, as we reached the final tower of the bridge, suddenly the fog lifted and we saw the sun shining on the beautiful hills and water of Marin. 

Unfortunately, as we continued on the windy road to Stinson beach, the fog reappeared with a fury. In fact, the entire coast was just covered with fog that just got thicker and thicker. At this point, I was pretty nervous. We almost turned back to the city to just hang out in the dolores park, but decided we should make the whole trek since we had already spent an hour to get there. 

When we finally reached the beach, the fog was thin enough to have some sun shine through. Despite the layer of fog, the beach was pretty crowded. Throughout our time there, the fog fluctuated, coming and going. In fact, I got a slight sun burn--my first burn since third grade. Honestly, fog might be more dangerous than pure sun.

Let's go to the beach, each 

Let's go get away 

They say, what they gonna say? 

Have a drink, clink, found the bud light 

Bad b-tches like me, is hard to come by

-Nicki Minaj, Starships

22-Hr-Layover

After my amazing five months in Europe, it was finally time to go home. However, I had to get through a 38 hour journey before I arrived in my hometown of San Francisco. Now in case you didn't figure this out yourself, that is not a normal amount of time for a flight. That is because this journey wasn't a simple GVA-->SFO non-stop flight, but instead a Geneva-->Amsterdam-->Boston-->Minneapolis-->San Francisco adventure. Oh and did I mention that I had a 22 hour layover in Boston!?

Luckily, I have friends in Boston, including one of my best friends Rui who I hadn't seen for a year since we went abroad different semesters. So this ridiculously long flight home wasn't a complete pain in my butt, but was also a great opportunity for me to catch up with some friends. 

But it wasn't only a good opportunity to catch up with friends, but also a nice little opportunity to celebrate being 21 in America. I had turned 21 in April and had a little weekend trip to London. However, turning 21 in Europe is kind of a underwhelming experience. To start off my legal American drinking career, we met up with our friend Nicole, who had also just come back from abroad, and headed over to Boston (Rui was staying in a MIT frat house in Cambridge). 

After wandering around, we stumbled on this pretty nice bar with the prices to match the fancy ambiance. Unfortunately, Rui got this great idea to start chatting with these guys so they would buy us drinks. Even more unfortunately, these guys were not cute but rather old, creepy Arab men. So creepy in fact, that one of them asked me if I had ever been with an Arab man and if I would like to....Not particularly enjoying our conversation, I beelined for the bathroom and chatted with some girls as I pretended to fix my makeup. 

After Nicole had come to the bathroom for similar escaping tactics, we decided to leave and took a cab back to Cambridge. There, we met up with some friends Nicole had made in Costa Rica. Quickly, we realized that we had actually crashed a birthday party of some 27-year-old chick....we were most definitely the youngest people there. Somehow, we made friends with some of the guests and we headed over to an 'after-party' at an apartment close by. Mind you, I had just come back from Europe that very day so it was 2am and I woke up at 7am Switzerland time--that was almost 24 hours earlier. And where was I? I was in an apartment in Cambridge with a group of 26-28 year old grad students as I sipped on a cocktail. 

These are some pictures we took after we woke up at 7am (note the 5 hours of sleep) and got breakfast with our friend Suzie.  Harvard and MIT have the best campus housing, right by the river with amazing views. I can only imagine how much these buildings would go for if they weren't disgusting and covered with beer. 

So that's what I did during my layover in Boston. I guess you could say those 22 hours were pretty eventful. 

humid + airplane hair = not cute

Outfit--Shirt dress: Topshop, Flats: Banana Republic, Sunglasses: Banana Republic

Honey, I'm HOMEEE

I just got back to San Francisco last night. Although it's a beautiful 70 degrees outside, I'm mainly stuck inside because I came down with a cold during my 32 hour journey home from Geneva. I'll tell you about my last weeks in Geneva, my journey, and my quick stay at home later (maybe even today). 

I did have a little drive around the city, along the beach, through the presidio, etc to get back in the swing of driving. I really do love this city, and can't wait to recover and have some little San Francisco adventures.

This picture is from Tank Hill, which is down the block from my house. It's actually from a post I did way back in 2010! 

Classy Day Drinking: Les Caves Ouvertes

On Saturday, we went on this magical wine tasting adventure: les Caves Ouvertes. This was the 26th year of this wine tasting event, which invites amateurs to try a large variety of wine from the vineyards surrounding Geneva. It included free transportation (both train to the countryside and buses from vineyard to vineyard) as well as unlimited wine tasting for the whole day for a mere 5CHF. Now, if you know anything about Geneva or Switzerland, that is a crazy good deal. A single bus ticket in Geneva in 3CHF, probably a ticket to the countryside roundtrip is at least 30CHF, and the vineyards? Well, I'm not sure if wine tasting is normally free (I believe places in Napa are), but the difference between this and that is that they are very aware that everyone at this event is getting drunk and not exactly buying their favorite case of wine after the visit.

The event was a far bigger deal than I had realized when Alice had mentioned the event on our Facebook group. I thought it would be similar to our wine tasting adventure in Montpellier, which was very small (just the group of us), sitting around a table, pretending to taste the horse or raspberry in the wine. In other words, I thought it would be nice, but snobby.

However, this was far more of a party. When we got on the train, the whole thing was jam packed as groups of friends yammered away. Exiting the train, hoards of people drifted towards the vineyards where we found an already packed tent full of wine. At almost every stop, we met some drunk new friends who had certainty taken advantage of the unlimited wine situation.
For me, the best part of the whole adventure was being able to see the countryside and vineyards outside of Geneva. The last time I wandered around Switzerland, there was still snow on the ground. But this time the scenery was so lush and green with beautiful blue skies. Well, beautiful blue skies until our last stop, when it started pouring....

After we took the train home, we stopped by Chez Ma Cousine to get dinner. My family friends in the area said it was by far the best deal in town and I have to agree. 14CFH for half a chicken, salad, and potatoes wouldn't even be a bad deal in the US. Our tipsy sells devoured all our food but I left my wine glass untouched and offered it up to the table. After all that wine all day, I didn't think I could handle anymore. 

In general, the day was quite the success. I spent a grand total of 25CHF for the whole day including a little train ride, wine all day and a half chicken dinner. I'm pretty sure that's a good deal everywhere! As per usual, this experience had inspired me to do something back home. And now I really want to drag my brother to Napa during my two weeks back home now that I can drink legally in the states! 

PS. Check out my friend Faith's blog! She went on this adventure too and has muuuch better pictures than me (and sometimes I steal photos of myself from her blog because I hate asking people to take pictures of me)

There's a Fish on my Fish: Sushi at Uchitomi

Yesterday, I got sushi with Zoe after our final class with Hofmann and Krause. I vowed I would never get asian food while I was abroad, but apparently I crave that shit way more than I thought. Zoe and I already had a sushi craving this past weekend, when I looked up this place online. If you look up "Sushi in Geneva" a bunch of results pop up that are essentially a million Americans or Brits desperately craving their favorite cuisine from home. They are also craving the prices they had a home, but settling for whatever they can get.
One highly recommended sushi spot was uchitomi. It was described as good quality and cheap. I got two pre-made rolls for lunch and a water bottle, which came out to about 21chf. That's Geneva for you! It also goes to show how desperate people are when it comes to prices if they consider that lunch price reasonable and even cheap.

Look at this artsy angle of my sushi that makes it look absolutely amazing. Look at that spicy tuna! YUM!

 

oooo there's a fish on my fish! This is actually what they put the soy sauce in. It cost 20¢ extra -__-

I got a spicy tuna roll and a tempura roll (I finish things I don't like as much first). 

The spicy tuna was actually pretty good, the tempura roll could use some avocado or some kind of moisture

This is a more realistic picture of my sushi, basically a lot of trash.

Isn't it funny how food looks better close up while people always look gross and pimply

This is Zoe coming back to the table with two 20¢ soy sauce fish

I forgot to mention that my 21ch lunch was held in a grocery store. Oh Geneva.

Ô Calm: Monday Brunch in Geneva

It's the third week of May and it's 59º outside and raining. I feel that for this late in the year, I should be enjoying beautiful weather as I sit in a park shining with sunlight.... not this March weather. Well, I guess at this point in the year, I also shouldn't have the majority of my schoolwork to complete for all my courses either. Despite that, I have still left almost all of my essays to do.... sometime in the future? I guess I deserve this weather. Maybe the gods are trying to keep me inside so that I'll do work. Clearly, they don't understand the temptation and distraction of Hulu. I have a TV problem.

Yesterday, which was Monday and the last day of my four-day weekend, was a pretty nice day. Well, a nice day for March, not for May. It was just a little chilly, but looking outside it seemed nice. Thankfully, I didn't spend the entire day inside on my computer procrastinating, only part of it. In the morning, I went with Keith, Zoe, Alice, and Tara to get brunch. Although I thought we were going to the same brunch spot that Zoe’s family brought us to on the island, we went to another restaurant called Ô Calm.

The restaurant was pretty cute and had quite a home-y vibe. In fact, it could have easily been someone’s house. The kitchen was literally a kitchen I’ve seen in plenty of my friends’ homes—even with that island that I’ve played pong on. Moving into the main dining area, it looked kind of like a living room. My favorite element were the bookshelves, I don't quite understand why not every café has a library/book component because it adds a certain level of charm or coziness that can't be rivaled. 

However, when we got there, the whole dining/living room area was too full to accommodate  group of five and they offered us a table outside. When we walked outside, I was almost glad that there wasn't enough room for us inside. Despite the slight chill factor , sitting outside was a very enjoyable experience. I actually think that the patio was my favorite aspect of the whole restaurant. Probably because it vaguely reminded me of the outside seating at Zazie (only Zazie is slightly cuter with flowers everywhere), and I relish every opportunity I spend time outside these days. 

 

 What I was disappointed by however was the food. Now, the rest of the crew seemed to think it was really good and were impressed by the wide selection of jams and spreads. But I can get that at Migros and put it on some toast myself. I can also make better scrambled eggs, the pancake wasn't even near the best pancake I've had in Europe (let alone the US), and my cappuccino was gross for practically the same price as Boreal. So basically, I could have either made it myself or gotten the same thing in Geneva. Yet I paid 27F. WHAT!?

 Now, you should all know that I'm allll about my brunch and I'm willing to go pretty big for it. For example, at the formerly mentioned Zazie, I have easily dropped $27 several times. But do I leave Zazie upset? Of course not because not only do they have a great ambiance, but they also have absolutely AMAZING food. My $27 brunch at Zazie would have beautifully poached eggs sitting on prosciutto, covered with heirloom tomatos, and with a side of home fries with garlic. Not to mention the fluffy pancake for dessert and the latte the size of my face. 

Ultimately, ô Calm was cute and it was nice to get brunch with the crew instead of just staying inside. But I'd rather go someplace else (even in Geneva) for brunch  next time. I'm for ambiance and all, but you're going to have to give me something a little bit more to demand that much dough....even in a city as expensive as Geneva.

Wow, this post made me really want to get Zazie when I go home. Expect a post, hopefully from the patio, within the next two weeks.

Expecto Patronum

I think I'm one of the worst procrastinators of all time. I can say with a good level of certainty that I am one of the biggest procrastinators on my study group. You say you want proof? Yesterday, after coming home from Boreal where I was attempting to do work but probably spending half the time on facebook or watching Ted talks, I decided to change my scenery and come home. Did I then continue to do work, even at that same slow and distracted pace? Of course not, I proceeded to watch both the Hunger Games and Harry Potter. Now just watching the Hunger Games, I feel, would have been a merited 2 hour break. But the part that was really out of control was continuing and watching Harry Potter.
What convinced me that I just had to watch Harry Potter was Pinterest. Stupid pinterest. While pinning away while watching the Hunger Games (yes, I can't even fully focus while watching a movie) I found this really strange Harry Potter Workout. Since I hadn't worked out for a while, I decided it was totally worth spending like three hours watching Harry Potter instead of doing my homework. Here's the list:

Everytime...

• a spell is cast: 10 jumping jacks
• anyone is awarded points: 10 lunges
• points are taken away: 10 squats
• hagrid says "i shouldn't have said that": 30 jumping jacks
• a painting talks: 15 crunches
• someone says "he who must not be named" or "you know who": 15 mountain climbers
• ron says bloody hell: 10 butt busters
• someone cries: 20 crunches
• someone says voldemort: 5 push-ups
• anytime is pet is shown: 10 bicycles
• a ghost talks: 5 push-ups

This exercise really made me notice things about Harry Potter that I had never before. For example, there are constantly animals in the movie! I'm surprised my abs weren't more sore this morning after all those bicycles! Another observations? for a name that no one is supposed to say out-loud, they sure say Voldemort a lot.

But this workout wasn't the only Harry Potter gem I found yesterday. As I continued to pin between jumping jacks, I was looking at pictures of tattoos. While purusing, I came across one that says "expecto patronum." Now I have to admit, that I had already seen this tattoo and not thought much of it. There are a million Deathly Hallows tattoos and other Harry Potter themed tattoos on tumblr and Pinterest that I've never really understood. Harry Potter might have been an integral element of my childhood, but I'm not sure if I want it inked on me.
But this time the caption of the photo caught my eye. "I await a guardian." It had never occurred to me that the spells in Harry Potter meant something, but the etymologies are quite interesting for some of them. Suddenly, expecto petronum is more than just some silly Harry Potter spell, but actually is quite meaningful. See the explanation for this girls tattoo here.