Vising Santa

On Saturday, Gordon's birthday, we took a train to go visit Santa!  The train left from the Montreux station and made a steady climb up to Rochers-de-Naye.

Claire had fun on the train ride, playing with mom and dad and checking out the view from the windows.  

When we left Montreux, it was a chilly day, but there was no snow on the ground.  And when we arrived at Rochers-de-Naye, there was snow EVERYWHERE!  It was so cool to feel like we had arrived at the North Pole.  

We walked in and saw this sign leading to "La Grotte du Pere Noel" or "Santa's Grotto"

Through a long, Chrismassy hallway we walked until we came upon the big guy himself.  We waited in a very European line, meaning there was no order, people were just pushing their way to the front with no regard for who arrived first, and eventually it was our turn.  

Claire seemed to be suspicious the whole time we were waiting in line and then when we walked up to Santa, she knew for sure that we were up to no good!  

Santa was very nice and spoke great English, but Claire was not interested.  

She did take a minute to look at Santa from a distance

Scary Santa encounter finished, it was time for lunch.  It struck me as funny that if we were in America, the lunch choices would have been pizza and hot dogs.  Here, however, Claire's lunch consisted of spinach quiche and veal sausage.  

Lunch eaten, it was time to play in the snow!  

Claire had fun checking out the snow and playing with mom and dad in the snow.  Her mittens came off a few times when she fell down, and she said "Oh!  Cold!", laughing the whole time.  

Soon, it was time to get back on the train and head back down the mountain.  When we arrive back in Vevey, it felt like a beautiful spring day.  

This was another great adventure in Switzerland!

Secret Santa Party

On Tuesday, Claire and I were invited to a Secret Santa party with all of our mom and kid friends.  We bought a gift for the kid whose name we got and we headed off to the party.  

Waiting for the train.  

Having fun on the train.

More fun on the train.

Once we arrived, I changed Claire into a very Christmassy dress.  Soon after, all of the other party guests arrived.  In total, there were 12 moms and 14 kids!  There were moms and kids at the party from Germany, France, England, Ireland, South Africa, Italy, Canada, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the U.S.  Each mom contributed a recipe from their home country to a recipe book which was made by our hostess.  I loved looking through the book to see the different recipes.  I might even try to make one.  Ha! 

After some playing and eating and chatting, it was time to exchange gifts.  Claire received some dishes for her kitchen and was thrilled with her gift!  I have been treated to many bowls of delicious soup since the party.  

Here she is, making some soup and sporting a very fancy hat.

The party was so much fun.  We really have been lucky to meet such wonderful new friends here in Switzerland and it was great to celebrate Christmas with all of them.  

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Party!

Snow!

On Sunday morning, we woke up to see snow covering the mountains that we can see from our apartment. What a view!

Vacation's Over

We are now in the final days of November, which means that we have been living in Switzerland for exactly 6 months. This is incredible to me. It is truly hard to believe how fast time has gone by. For me, the first 5 months seemed like a majorly extended vacation. We were living in a new and fantastic place, going on great day trips and weekend trips, with a couple longer trips thrown in. Claire and I were making new friends and exploring new places each week. The routine that I strictly followed for the first year of Claire's life was nowhere to be seen. Naps, meals, and bedtime happened whenever they fit in between play groups, play dates, and outings. While this was a fun way to spend our first months here, it was also exhausting!

In the past two weeks, it seems as though reality has set in for me. We do indeed LIVE in Switzerland now. This is our home and it is time to start treating it as such. Over the past two weeks, I have made a huge effort to stick to set bedtimes and nap times for Claire, as well as to have all meals and snacks at set times. Play dates have been scheduled around Claire's routine, and not the other way around. As a result, Claire has been sleeping more, eating better, and playing harder.

I have also spent some time looking for a baby sitter so that Gordon and I can have an occasional date night. Date nights are something that have definitely been lacking in our life here. I found some great options for baby sitters, so all that's left to do is set up a night for us to go out. As much as I look forward to going out on a badly needed date with my husband, it's taking me a very long time to work up the courage to leave Claire with a sitter!

My next big task is to find a place to send Claire one morning a week beginning at age 2. I would love for Claire to learn French while we are here and I think that going to a French pre-school is her best bet in that regard. Fortunately, I still have 5 months before she will turn 2. I will probably need every minute of that time to get comfortable with the idea.

This week, our mornings have been spent enjoying what may be the last park days of the year. We have spent our mornings outside in the sunshine, exploring new parks in Vevey and leisurely wandering through the town. It is mornings like these that remind me just how very fortunate I am to have this one-on-one time with Claire. She is developing into such a sweet, silly, and adventurous little girl and I am grateful that I get to be there with her every step of the way.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Long time, no blog

Last week, Claire and I returned from a month-long trip to the USA.  The trip was fantastic.  We saw many of our friends and family and it felt great to be in a familiar and comfortable place.  After a month away from Gordon, we were both ready to come back to Switzerland.  Last Wednesday, we returned to Vevey after an 8.5 hour flight to Paris, a 5 hour layover in Paris (where I was NOT allowed to bring my stroller through security.  Let me tell you, a 5 hour layover with an 18 month old and no stroller is not for the faint of heart!), a one hour flight to Geneva, and a one hour drive to Vevey.  Claire had a few not-so-great moments at the airport in Paris, but was otherwise a champ.  I am grateful that she is such a good little traveler.

We have now been back in Vevey for a week and we have been keeping busy and having lots of fun.  We are back to daily playdates with friends and I'm back to my twice-weekly French lessons.  It has been great to reconnect with our friends here and to get back to our not-so-new-anymore routine.  I feel like we are finally settling into our "new" apartment.  Great news regarding the apartment:  I used the building's laundry room on Monday to wash our sheets and I used the dryer to dry them.  When I put them in the dryer, I fully expected them to come out only half dry, but to my ultra pleasant surprise, they were completely dry and fluffy when I took them out!

This weekend, we plan to go to France to a ski sale as the ski season is quickly approaching!  I think I will rent for this year because I don't know how much I'll be able to go, but Gordon is definitely going to buy some as he plans to ski often.  Also on the agenda for this weekend is stick shift driving lessons for me.  Our car died a painful death in Italy and we'll get our new, manual transmission car on Friday.  Wish me luck!

Looking Out My Back Door

After a long, busy, and frustrating week, we are finally completely moved into our permanent apartment.  Gordon completed the exit inspection of the old place this morning and handed over the keys.  I am grateful that we had the temporary apartment to stay in, but I am happy to be out of there!  We've only been in our new place for 2 nights and already I feel more at home than I ever did at the old place.  We are right in the middle of Vevey, so everything is very easily accessible.  We have grocery stores, bakeries, playgrounds, and the lake all within a 5 minute walk.  Along with being in the center of Vevey, however, comes the city noise of the cars and buses on the street, but I think we'll get used to that pretty quickly.  It's truly a small price to pay for the convenience that it affords.  And the view!  We have a fabulous view from our apartment.  Here I sit at our dining room table, writing this blog post, and looking out my back door with a view of Lake Geneva.  And on the other side of Lake Geneva, I can see France!  I love being able to see France from my dining room table.  These are the things that remind me each day how fortunate we are to be in the place we are.  

This week is only going to get better because tomorrow, my mom will board her plane in Chicago to come for a visit!  She will arrive in Geneva on Wednesday and I can not wait to see her.  I miss her so very much and I am excited to be able to show her around this beautiful country.  Wednesday can't come soon enough!  Until then, I will keep organizing our new apartment and continue to make it into our home.

Moving

On Friday, we completed the entrance inspection of our permanent apartment and the keys were handed over to us.  Finally, we were about to begin the process of settling in.  This had been a long time coming.

Inspection finished, we brought a car full of our belongings over to the new apartment and began moving in.  Finally!

Early Saturday morning, we took Claire to our friend's house where she would spend the day.  While Claire played with our friend's kids, we went to IKEA and bought 3 armoires (there are no closets in most Swiss apartments) and then we rented an IKEA truck with which to transport the armoires and some other furniture.  We picked up a dining room table and chairs as well as a sofa that we found on the Swiss version of Craigslist.  Thank goodness for IKEA trucks!  It was so convenient and so inexpensive.  After lugging everything up to our apartment, which is on the 6th floor (thank goodness for elevators!), we returned to pick up Claire.  This was the very first time that Claire has been watched by anyone but Gordon or me since we moved to Switzerland and I was very nervous about how she would react.  But she did great!  She started playing as soon as we arrived and didn't cry at all when we left her.  She played hard all day and even took a nap there.  It was very nice to be alone with Gordon, even though we were doing some hard work and it was really great to know that Claire is still fine without one of us at her side.  On Sunday morning, we had planned to take our bed over to the new apartment.

This was a job that Claire could not be present for, so we took her to meet up with one of our friends at the park so they could play while we moved the bed.  As I put Claire into her carseat, I put the keys on top of the car.  Then I got into the car and we drove off.  It wasn't until we had dropped Claire off and returned to the apartment that I realized that I never took the keys off of the roof of the car.  We scoured the streets all along the path we drove, but the keys were nowhere to be found.  I felt sick.  I could not believe I had been so stupid.  Nearly everything in Switzerland is closed on Sunday, so we were unable to get into the new apartment all day.  Because of my stupidity, we lost an entire day of moving.  On Monday morning, I was able to get in touch with our building's concierge and he was able to give me our third key.  I have been checking the police station daily, but our keys have not shown up.  By the end of this week, if the keys don't show up, we are going to have to pay 500 francs (about 700 dollars) to have the locks changed on the apartment.  What a terribly expensive mistake I made, monetarily and time-wise.  Fortunately, we have until this coming Monday to get everything out of the temporary apartment.  I have been working like a crazy woman this week to get everything done so that we are ready to go this weekend.  I have been putting together our armoires, taking car loads of our things over to the apartment, buying the necessities for the apartment, and sneaking in some play time with friends for Claire.  I am so tired, but it will all be worth it in the end.

On Tuesday, I took Claire over to Gordon's boss's house for the day.  His boss's wife offered to watch Claire so I could work at the apartment.  I was nervous because this was a new person for Claire and there weren't going to be any children there.  Nevertheless, I brought her over there, hoping for the best, and to my surprise, she did great!  She immediately wanted to explore the house and play with their cat.  I quietly exited the house and I was able to do so much work at the apartment that I could never have gotten done with Claire there.  When I picked her up, the baby-sitter told me that Claire did great and had a lot of fun.  They live out in the country and they have a lot of fun things to do out there.  They went raspberry picking and Claire ate every single ripe raspberry that they picked!  The baby-sitter took Claire to see the cows that live across the street from their house and Claire enjoyed mooing back and forth to the cows.  Claire even took a nap at their house!  I was so happy to have such a great report when I picked her up.  So happy, in fact, that I'm bringing her back there tomorrow.

Hopefully, by Monday, I will have some pictures of our new apartment to share on here.  I can not wait to be living there.  It really is a great place and I think that we will be happy there.

Playgroups

This week is the week that all of the play groups and activities begin again for the year.  It happened that the week after we moved to Switzerland was the last week for most of these activities before they took a summer break.

So yesterday, we went to a Kindermusic class.  I was excited about this class because I thought it would be a great opportunity for Claire to be in a structured group setting.  The class, however, did not live up to my expectations.  There were far too many children in the class and it was complete chaos.  Also, it took us 25 minutes to get there and 25 minutes to get home when the class was only 45 minutes!  Fortunately, we had not yet enrolled in the class and I decided afterwards that we would not enroll.  One great thing that came out of this class was that I met a mom from Indiana who just moved to Switzerland a month ago.  She has a one year old daughter and we are planning to get together to play tomorrow.

Today, we tried another playgroup that is right here in Vevey at an English church.  After a short 5 minute walk, we arrived at the church and were immediately welcomed by the leader of the group.  Claire was delighted to see all of the fun toys in the room and got right down to playing.  Lots of other moms and kids arrived shortly thereafter.  Claire played with play-doh for the first time, she colored a picture of a butterfly, she enjoyed the music time, and story time, and she definitely made some little friends while we were there.  My heart smiles so big when I see her walk up to another kid and hand them a toy while babbling in the toddler speak that they both seem to understand.  She still gets overwhelmed when the rest of the kids get crazy, but she seems to enjoy the company of other kids much more now than ever before.  After 2 hours, the session was over and we headed home for lunch and a nap.  We will definitely enroll in this playgroup.

This weekend is a big weekend for us as we are finally moving into our permanent apartment!  I am so happy to get out of this temporary apartment.  On Saturday, one of my friends will watch Claire for the day while Gordon and I begin the move.  I hope that we'll be sleeping in the new place Sunday night.

Claire had her first Swiss doctor appointment this Monday.  To my surprise, her appointment was pretty much exactly the same as her appointments in the USA.  The doctor said she's healthy and right on target for everything.  She got 2 shots and took them like a champ.  It seems that doctors are the same everywhere because we had to wait 45 minutes for the doctor to see us!

With all of these activities beginning and us moving into our permanent apartment, it feels like our summer-long vacation is ending and real life in Switzerland is beginning.  I hope the real life here is as good as the summer was!  

Animal Park

Today, Claire and I met up with her friend Mathilde and Mathilde's mom at an animal park in Lausanne. The park had sheep, goats, boars, rabbits, cows, and lots of ducks and geese. There is also a lake in the middle of the park where all the birds hang out. Claire enjoyed feeding some bread to the ducks and even munched on some of the bread herself. She also enjoyed pushing Mathilde's doll stroller all around the park. Claire and Mathilde are only 2 months apart, so they are great playmates for one another. It will be interesting to see their friendship develop because Mathilde's parents speak French and German to her and Mathilde really has not heard any English until she began to hang around Claire and me. Maybe Claire will pick up some German words along the way in addition to the French!









- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Expanding my culinary horizons

Yesterday, while Claire and I were spending another tough day at the pool, my friends and I were talking about our cooking habits and how they have changed since moving to Switzerland.  It occurred to me during that conversation that I cook pretty much the same things as I did in the states.  So, today, while at the grocery store, I decided that I was going to expand my culinary horizons.  Sausage is a very popular food here in Switzerland and something that I generally don't choose to buy.  Today was going to be different though.  I chose some little sausages that seemed to be just the right size for Claire and I looked up on the internet how to cook them.  She just ate them for dinner and she loved them!  I have decided that I am going to make a serious effort to cook like a Swiss person, not like an American living in Switzerland.

It's only temporary

Three and a half months of living in a temporary apartment is about 3 months too many.  In the past 3 months, we really haven't been able to settle into our apartment because we've known that we would soon be leaving.  As the weeks have gone on, our apartment has become more and more crowded.  We have been slowly accumulating things for our permanent apartment, but we have no place to put these things.  Therefore, they are piled on top of or next to the things that were already in the temporary apartment.  I will be so happy to be in our new place where everything will have a place to go.  Fortunately, our move date of September 7 will be here soon.

Since we didn't move any furniture to Switzerland with us, we need to furnish our entire apartment.  We have bought a bed for ourselves and a crib for Claire, but that's all the furniture we have so far.  The easiest thing to do would be to go to IKEA and buy everything there and get it all delivered free of charge.  However, I do not want an entire apartment of IKEA furniture, so I'm choosing to do it the harder way by finding used things on Gordon's work website and on the Swiss version of Craigslist.  I hope that this way, we will have good quality pieces of furniture for less than Swiss prices, which are entirely ridiculous.  Tomorrow, though, I will go on a scouting trip to IKEA to see exactly what I would like to get from them.

Summer days

Today, Claire and I went to a pool in Ouchy, which is a few towns away.

While at the park yesterday we met a woman from Germany and her 18-month-old daughter, so we invited them to come to the pool with us.

Claire and her new friend had fun playing in the water and going down the slides into the pool. Claire had so much fun, in fact, that she fell asleep in her stroller as we walked to the train station, slept through the train and metro ride home, and then slept for two more hours when we got home!

I will be sad when these lazy summer days are over. This has been a magical summer for us.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Summer

Sadly, summer is quickly coming to an end in Switzerland.  The kids here will go back to school in the next two weeks.  I have been told that this means that a massive amount of expatriates will return to Vevey.  Everyone will return from their summer of traveling to get back to their school year routine.  Right when we moved here is when all the expats left for the summer, so we haven't experienced Vevey this way.  In some ways, this makes me happy because I think that Claire and I will encounter more moms and kids at the parks and it will take much less effort to meet new friends.  In other ways, this makes me sad because expats mean a lot of English speakers.  I quite like Vevey as it is right now with very few English speakers.  Hearing French spoken all around me and speaking French with the locals has been wonderful.  My French has improved hugely in the past 2.5 months.  I fear that with the return of all the English speakers, I will not use my French as much.  We shall see...

A return to routine also means that playgroups will begin again.  The playgroups that I had researched before we moved here all ended for the summer very shortly after we arrived.  Today, I received confirmation today that Claire is enrolled in an English speaking Thursday morning playgroup beginning September 1st.  I'm very happy that we'll have a structured playgroup to go to.  My next project is to find a French speaking playgroup for another day of the week.  I want this little girl to learn as much French as possible!

 

A new park

Today, Claire and I met up with a bunch of our mom and kid friends at a park in Lausanne. We had never been to this park before and it was fabulous. A huge green space in the middle of the city with trees everywhere, fountains, sculptures, a big section with birds of all kinds in cages, and a big playground. Claire could just run free and explore this enormous park. She loved it and so did I!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Really?

I can't believe we live in SWITZERLAND!  Seriously!

Food, phones, and friends

Last Friday, Claire and I went to one of our friends' houses to play and hang out with a group of moms and kids.  In the group of moms were 2 moms from Ireland, one from South Africa, and me.  At some point, the conversation turned to talk of bread.  The South African mom said that she bought some bread the other day that was called "American Sandwich Bread" because it was already sliced and seemed easier.  But then she was disgusted when she realized that after 5 days of being in the pantry, the bread had not grown any mold and was just as soft as when she had put it in there.  One of the other moms said "Can you imagine the preservatives that are in that bread?  I am sure that bread is not really like that in America!"  Sheepishly, I said "Yes, that is how the bread is in America unless you buy the organic stuff that specifically says it contains no preservatives."  Cue the looks of shock and disgust from the other moms.  That got me thinking about the food in Switzerland compared to the food in the US.  In our apartment here, the pantry is tiny and the refrigerator is even tinier.  At first, this seemed like a big annoyance to me because I would have to go to the grocery store much more often.  Now, however, I realize that the food here spoils much quicker than it does in the US.  Because everything is so much more natural here, it behaves as food should.  It is for that reason that I have to go to the store at least every other day to get our groceries, not because of the small refrigerator.  Furthermore, when I'm at the grocery store, choosing produce or meat or milk, it is rare that I see a sign for the name and price food that does not have a Swiss flag on it.  Almost everything I find in the grocery store was grown locally, right here in Switzerland.  After having to make such an effort to buy locally grown produce in the Chicago area, it is nice to be able to walk right into the big supermarket and find it right there on the shelf, and so clearly marked.  I feel happy and proud to feed my family and myself this food, knowing that it's fresh and natural.  And, of course, super delicious after I cook it for them.  Ha!  Actually, my cooking skills are improving rapidly now that I cook every meal at home.  So when you come visit, and I know you all will, you'll get to have some delicious, locally grown food prepared by yours truly!

Yesterday, I was washing dishes, listening to my favorite Phoenix morning radio show on my brand new iPhone, and Claire was playing around in the kitchen.  Suddenly, I felt her standing next to me, and I saw my iPhone drop from her little hand right into the dish water.  I quickly took it out of the water and dried it off and put it into a bag of dry rice, which is what the internet said to do.  The thing is that it would not shut off!  I would turn it off and it would turn itself right back on.  Then, it started making crazy noises and I realized it was randomly calling people!  I don't even know how many times it called one of my new Swiss friends before I realized it was doing it.  That was embarrassing!  Later in the evening, when it called her again, Gordon tried to get it to stop that and we realized that more of the features were working than before, so I have high hopes that its functioning will continue to improve as it rests in its bag of rice.

After dealing with the phone debacle, I had to head off to my French lesson.  I hopped on my bike and tried to forget about the phone as I rode to my lesson.  My French lesson partner and I were told last time that we would have a new addition to our French class beginning this week and that the new addition would be at the same level as us.  The new addition happened to be one of Gordon's coworkers who Gordon had told me about and I had invited to come out with my friends and me for a girls' night out this Thursday, but it took me a while to figure out that it was her because I had never met her.  Gordon had told me that she had recently moved here by herself from Chile and didn't know too many people, so I should ask her to come along with us.  So I sent the email to Gordon and he forwarded it on to her.  After learning her name, her nationality, and some personal details throughout the French lesson yesterday, I realized that the girl in the class was the girl Gordon had told me about.  So at the end of class, I asked her and it was indeed the same person.  It was good to meet her in person and I was happy to hear that she will indeed be joining us for dinner on Thursday.  What a coincidence!

Austria and Germany

This weekend, Gordon, Claire and I packed up the car and drove off for a weekend adventure to Austria and Germany. Our main destinations were Salzburg in Austria and Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. We left on Friday at about 5 p.m. and, after stopping for dinner and then for gas, we arrived at our hotel in a small German town at about 11 p.m. The next morning, we walked around the little town and got some coffee for the drive and headed to Salzburg.

After checking into our hotel, we walked into the Old Town of Salzburg and had lunch at a restaurant that was recommended by Rick Steves, my favorite travel guide writer. It was here that we all had our first Wienerschnitzel. We also tried some sausages and saur kraut, which are traditional Austrian foods. Claire loved the sausages and ate quite a bit of the Wienerschnitzel as well! After lunch, we set out to explore the town. We walked for a few hours, checking out the place where Mozart was born and where he composed a lot of his music.


Here you can see Salzburg in the foreground and the fortress that guarded Salzburg in the background. We toured this fortress the next day.

We then walked over the the Mirable Gardens and enjoyed the gorgeous flowers. Here's Claire, looking like such a big girl! Where did my baby go?

These pictures really don't do the gardens justice. They were gorgeous.

That night, we had bought some frankfurters from a street vendor and then topped it off with some gelato. With full bellies, we walked back to the hotel. We were all happy to go to bed after so many hours of walking!

The next morning, we drove about a half hour, crossed the border into Germany, got a fine of 120 Euros for not buying a sticker for our car that allows us to drive on the Austrian highway, and then continued on to Hitler's Eagles Nest. This was a vacation home given to him by the Nazis. It was beautiful up there. The views were unbelievable. It made me mad that such an evil person had such a gorgeous place to retreat to.

After touring the Eagle's Nest and taking in the views, we headed back to Salzburg. We went back into the old town to tour the fortress that guarded the town. Construction of this fortress was begun in 1077. Because it was so foreboding, it was never used in battle because no one attempted to take it until Napolean took it peacefully. It was amazing to see this fortress and to know that people were walking around in there so long ago and here we were, checking it out with our daughter.

Here's a view from the fortress.

Here's Claire playing on a medieval unicorn.

Here's Claire, blocking her face from yet another photo.

The next day, we headed back to Germany. Our destination was Neuschwanstein Castle. Google it! On our way there, we stopped in a small town in the German countryside for lunch. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The town was not at all touristy and the people there were so very nice to us. The food was delicious too! Claire was given this Bavarian pig by the owner and she loved it. She even tried to feed the pig her water from her sippy cup.

Here's the outside of the restaurant.

And then, finally, we arrived in Schwangau and caught our first glimpse of the beauty that is Neuschwanstein Castle. Seriously, google it! We bought our tickets for a tour and missed the last bus that would take us up to the castle, so we hiked up to the castle instead. We arrived with plenty of time to spare. This place was spectacular. I wish we could have spent much more time there, exploring it. Unfortunately, it is forbidden to take pictures inside the castle, so we just have outside shots.

Here's the one inside shot I got before we got yelled at!

That night, we had dinner in Fussen, a neighboring town.

The next day, it was time to head back home. We stopped at a store in Germany and bought a bunch of things that we'll need for our permanent apartment. Everything is so much less expensive in Germany than Switzerland. Then, we passed through Austria again, making sure to buy the sticker this time, and stopped in a little resort town where we had lunch and I bought some English books. I was so happy to find reasonably priced novels written in English! We then continued on home. And now it's back to real life. Gordon is back at work and I am back to deciding when the next play date should be and with whom. What a life!

This was a fabulous trip. I fell in love with Germany on this trip and I can't wait to go back and see more of this beautiful and welcoming country.

One thing that I have to share is that the hotel we stayed at in Schwangau was also a dental clinic. The guy who checked Gordon into the hotel was the dentist! He was even wearing his white lab coat. I was so creeped out by that! I must watch too many horror movies because I had visions of him stealing us and making us his next "patients"!

New Friends

I just realized that Claire and I have either gone to friends' houses or gotten together with friends every day this week!  And tomorrow, we will go to another friend's house to play.  Our mom-baby social life is much busier here than it ever was at home.  It has been astonishingly easy for me to make friends here.  There are so many men who have been transferred her for their jobs and along with those men come their wives and children, and all of those wives and children are looking for friends, just like Claire and me.  So with a little searching, it has been easy to connect with these women and then meet up.  Being so busy makes it very hard to be homesick!  

The Weekend

What was forecasted to be a very rainy weekend following a very rainy week has turned out to be much nicer than expected. 

Yesterday, Claire, Gordon, and I drove over to France for some shopping and lunch.  I finally found a bike after searching for one since we moved here.  It's a bike that's meant for riding around the city for errands, so it has a bag rack on the back and a basket in the front.  It will be perfect for our almost daily grocery shopping trips.  When we got home from France, we rode our bikes up to the store to get some essentials.  It was so nice to be able to ride our bikes there rather than drive.  And it was so much faster than walking, of course.

This morning, Claire and I headed out to Lausanne to an English-speaking Catholic church.  This was our first time there.  The priest was great and all of the parishoners were very welcoming.  It's amazing how a Catholic mass is the same in Switzerland as it is in Mokena.  It made me feel right at home. 

After church, we drove back home, changed clothes, and we all went for a bike ride to Montreux.  It was about a 5 mile ride along the lake.  We had lunch there and then rode back home.  I am so happy that we both have bikes now and that we can go for these family bike rides.  Switzerland is a very bike-friendly country, so it's easy to get around on a bike.  On the way back from Montreux, Claire fell asleep in her bike seat.  I put her in her crib when we got home and she's still out.  We must have tired that little pumpkin out! 

This evening, if the rain holds out, we'll go for a hike in Vevey.  I sure do love our weekends here!

We got it!

Today, our relocation agent called and gave us some great news. We got the apartment we really wanted! The apartment will be empty beginning September 1. Then they will clean and repaint and then we are free to move in.

This apartment is great. It's in a relatively new building, the rooms are spacious, we will have a parking spot in a parking garage, and it is in a fabulous location. It is about a 5 minute walk from Gordon's office, it is literally above a grocery store, about a 3 minute walk from the train station, and a 3 minute walk to the lake. It has its own park and there are many parks within just a few minutes' walk. To make a good thing even better, the rent is well below our budget that we had set for ourselves.

Now we just have to furnish it!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Day at the Zoo

On Friday, Claire and I met up with a large group of our mom and kid friends at a local zoo.  In total, there were 8 moms and 11 kids in the group!  Our group of friends here continues to grow.  The group includes people from Canada, England, Ireland, the Slavic Republic, and of course, the USA.  All of the moms are very nice people and Claire loves playing with the kids.  

Here are some photos from our Zoo adventure.

This zoo was much different from a zoo in the US.  The animals were so close!  We could have touched these monkeys if we wanted to.

Here is a lioness, staring at us!

These bears were pacing, making me a little bit nervous!

Claire loved walking around the zoo like a big girl.  Here she is following her friend Robyn down a path.

A wild boar.

A raccoon.  

A peacock that was just wandering around.  Fortunately, when Claire tried to touch her, she jumped up onto the fence so Claire couldn't touch her!

.

Ostrich

 These wolves were so cool.  I loved watching them.

 After all of the zoo fun was over, everyone had an ice cream treat.  Claire thoroughly enjoyed hers!

Here's a small part of our group, with a large part of our strollers.