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!









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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.





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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!




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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"!