Lazy day

Today is Sunday, Father's Day, and a very lazy day for us.  We had a slow start to the morning, just playing around the apartment.  After lunch, we headed out to a brocante, or flea market, in a neighboring town.  We were hoping to find some things with which to furnish our apartment, but it was mostly antiques.  Very expensive antiques.  We did find some little books for Claire, all written in French.  After we walked around the flea market, it was time to play at the park.  All of the kids at the park were bigger than Claire, but she did her best to keep up.

Now she is napping and I'm reflecting on the past week.  It was mostly a good week.

Laundry day was, of course, a huge pain.  My clothes got stuck in one of the washing machines and after trying to open the door for about 10 minutes, I looked in the manual that was given to us with this apartment.  The manual said that if the door doesn't open, I should pull on the yellow cord at the bottom of the machine.  To me, the yellow cord looked like exposed wire.  But I pulled on it and alas, the door popped open and my clothes were free at last.  Our apartment looked crazy again with clothes hanging on every available surface.  Gordon came home from work that night with drying racks and saved the day.

On Wednesday, Claire and I met up with some new friends at a beach/park nearby.  I didn't bring Claire's swimsuit because I thought she wouldn't be interested in going in the water, but I was wrong.  She wanted in as soon as we arrived.  One of the other moms gave us an extra swim diaper and I let Claire go in with her t-shirt on.  Here she is, testing the water.

The kids enjoyed the water and the park while the other 3 moms and I enjoyed some good conversation.  We shared a picnic lunch and took advantage of a beautiful day.

After a fun day at the beach, I had a meeting at the language school to discuss my French lessons.  Gordon's company is paying for us to each have French lessons.  Gordon will have private lessons and I'll have lessons with one other student who is around the same level.  I look forward to beginning these lessons as I have forgotten so much of what I had learned!  I am able to have conversations with people in French, but I often struggle to think of a word.  And my grammar is awful!  My French teachers/professors would be horrified!  Soon, I hope that will all change.

On Thursday, one of the other moms and I met up again at a park in Vevey (the town in which we live).  The park has a big kiddie pool right in the middle.  This time, I remembered Claire's swimsuit and she had a blast in the water.

Playing at the park after swimming.

On Friday, I went to a playgroup that is run by wives of men who work at the company where Gordon works.  For some reason, this playgroup left me feeling very homesick.  The other moms were all very nice, so I'm not sure why I was so sad afterwards.

Fortunately, Gordon came home from work early that day.  And he came home with our new (to us) car!  Yep, we only lasted just shy of 3 weeks without a car.  Living here is definitely doable without a car, but it is so much easier with a car.  We will still walk almost everywhere we need to go, but it will be nice to have the car when we need it.  We got a great deal on the car from a family who was moving back to the USA.

Here's our car, a big silver station wagon.  Good luck to me trying to parallel park that thing.  Thankfully, it has those back-up sensors to yell at me when I'm getting too close to another car.

Friday evening, we took advantage of having a car by going out to dinner and doing a bunch of errands.  We came home with full bellies, a rain cover for our umbrella stroller, a GPS for the car, and some delicious Swiss ice cream.  If you have access to Movenpick ice cream, try it.  It's awesome.

Here's a photo of our drive home.

Saturday morning, we woke up to rain.  We had arranged to buy a crib from a family who is moving to London, and we got the car just in time to go pick it up.  Can you imagine bringing a crib home on a train? Me neither.  On the way home from picking up the crib, I decided that it was time for me to try my hand at driving in Switzerland.  I was nervous because there are roundabouts everywhere here and the stoplights can be very confusing.  It went much better than I had anticipated, though, and I feel like I will be fine to drive by myself.

Today, I'm looking forward at the week ahead.  My mom friends and I have talked about taking a boat across Lake Geneva to France on Friday if the weather is nice.  Claire and I will not be returning to the playgroup this week.  Maybe when I've adjusted more.  Tuesday is, of course, laundry day, which I dread. Wednesday, Gordon will have a meeting with a relocation agent who will help us find our permanent apartment.  I can not wait to start looking!