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!


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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!

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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.

The Apartment Search

I have a lot to catch up on as far as blogging about our adventures here.  Right now, though, I want to write about a different kind of adventure, the adventure that is our apartment search.  The housing market in this part of Switzerland is crazy.  There are many more people looking for apartments than there are apartments available.  That means that when we look at an apartment, we have to decide on the spot if we want to apply for it.  Usually, there is more than one person who applies for each apartment, so we just have to wait to see if the owners choose us.

I saw an apartment that I loved last week.  It was in a new building, so everything in the apartment was shiny and new and beautiful.  The location was great.  It was close to the train station, close to Gordon's office, and walking distance to grocery stores.  We applied for this apartment, but we haven't heard the answer yet.  We do know that there were other people who worked at Nestle who applied for this apartment before we did, so our chances are not good.

Today, we went out searching again.  Today was the first time Gordon was able to go with me on the "housing tour" as it's called here.  We saw 5 places and we loved one of them.  It's in an even better location than the place we saw last week and it's about 600 dollars less per month.  We are definitely putting in an application for this one and I really hope we get it.  If not, we will continue with our search.  The good news is that there are places in good locations that are not only affordable, but very nice.  I feel better after today's search than I have after any of the other times we had gone.

In other news, I bought my ticket yesterday for Claire and me to fly home in October.  We'll be there for FOUR whole weeks and we'll be home for Halloween!  Claire and I will fly to Washington to visit Gordon's mom while we're in the states.  As an added bonus, we'll get to see Roxy and Indy (our dogs) at Gordon's mom's house!

Wednesday

Yesterday was Tuesday, which used to be known as laundry day.  Because we have our own washing machine now, any day can be laundry day!  To celebrate, I did not do any laundry yesterday.  Instead, Claire and I went to the beach.  It was a hot day yesterday, so this was just what we needed.  We packed up the beach blanket and toys and walked over to the beach in La-Tour-de-Peilz, which is about a 10 minute walk.  The beach was pretty crowded when we got there because there were a bunch of school kids there for their lunch break.  School doesn't let out till next week here!  After the kids left, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves.  Claire had a blast digging in the pebbles (no sand on these beaches) and splashing in the water.  I don't have any photos this time because I was in the water with her!

This weekend, we have booked a hotel in Italy!  About 3 hours away from us is Verbania, Italy.  It's on Lake Maggiore.  Our hotel is right on the lake and has a pool and a beach, so I hope the weather is good.  I'm looking forward to exploring a new town and, of course, to eating some real Italian food.

Last weekend was awesome.  On Saturday, we drove to Gimmelwald, just outside of Interlaken.  We took a cable car/funicular up to the town of Gimmelwald and explored this little mountain town.  Rick Steves (google him) said it was a must-do and he was right.  We had our lunch at picnic tables that had a magnificent view of the Alps.  Then, we walked through the little village.  I can't even think of the words to describe this town.  All I know is that I loved it and its charm.  Next, we hiked up to Murren, another mountain town.  Charming and adorable, but bigger and more touristy than Gimmelwald.  We explored Murren and enjoyed relaxing here before we got the funicular back down to our car.

On Sunday, we walked over to the beach and let Claire splash around while we dipped our feet in the water.  Then, we set out to find some lunch in Vevey.  We grabbed some "kebab" and fruit from a little shop and walked over to the lakeside path to eat it.  Then, in the evening, we headed over to our friends' house for a barbeque.  It was awesome.  Great food, great company, and a great time had by all.

Monday, we both began our French lessons.  Gordon has one-on-one lessons.  Because I am a spouse of an employee, I am entitled to semi-private, rather than private, lessons.  I have a partner for my lessons.  He is a stay-at-home dad from Mexico and his wife also works for Nestle.  It is very interesting to have French lessons with someone who speaks a different language!  After 1.5 hours, I already felt like I had re-learned quite a bit, so I am confident that by the end of these lessons, I will have improved enormously.

Although I miss my family, friends, and dogs terribly, I am truly enjoying our time here.  I occasionally have a homesick day, but that tends to be on the days where something goes wrong (like the laundry!).  Most days, though, I just can not believe that we are so lucky to be here, doing this.

Craigslist

For some reason, Gordon and I decided that we would not need our pack and play (portable crib/playpen) in Switzerland.  Therefore, we did not bring it with us.  Nor did we ship it with our other belongings.  As we make plans to travel on the weekends, it has become evident that we will in fact need our pack and play.  If you know me well, you know that I love Craigslist.  Fortunately for me, Switzerland has a Craigslist.  After searching the Swiss Craigslist, which is all in French, I found a nice pack and play and went to pick it up today.  Getting there was a harrowing experience as I had to drive through vineyards on teeny, tiny roads with hairpin turns.  However, when I arrived, a very nice French woman was there in the driveway to greet me.  She showed me the pack and play, I agreed to buy it, we chatted a bit about where we were from and found that both of our husbands work for Nestle.  I left her house with a pack and play and an invitation to come back to their house with Gordon soon for drinks and appetizers (aperitifs, as she called them).  I love Craigslist!