Bonjour la Suisse!: October - November Travels

Well, here we are -- halfway through November and I'm just updating this. We love living in Switzerland. What's not to like? Everything is beautiful, the bread and chocolate are to die for and we've met some wonderful people. I'm taking a French class once a week and I can now actually say a few phrases. (Of course, I quickly learned the phrases "excuse me," "I'm sorry" and "Don't touch!" just to make it through a grocery shopping trip with Anna Claire.)

Anna Claire finally has a little schedule with playgroups and Kindermusik, all of which give me a chance to meet other people. I haven't befriended many Swiss yet because of the language barrier, but I've met some really great expat moms from all over the world! And lots of them are older moms (or mums as the Brits and Aussies say) just like me.

One ongoing drama is laundry. The Swiss are quite regulated about their laundry. We have one washer and dryer in our apartment building and we have special times assigned to us for our use. Our main time is Tuesday from 7am to 12pm. That gives me 5 hours to do all of the laundry for the week -- including blankets and carseat after Anna Claire gets car sick. Tuesday mornings have become quite the circus. I get up and rush to sort the clothes so that I can pop them in the washer right at 7am. I still haven't figured out what all the buttons mean so I push as many as I can until the machine starts, just praying that I won't end up with the long 1h45m cycle. Of course, Anna Claire won't let me leave her in the apartment along, so in addition to my giant belly, I carry Anna Claire in one arm and the laundry bag in the other as I stumble up and down two flights of stairs. And while I'm there, Anna Claire inevitably lets our neighbors know that she is down there by screaming or stomping or spilling someone else's laundry detergent. Ah, the joys of parenthood!

World Cycling Center and Le Chateau de Chillon
A few weeks ago we took off on a little weekend exploring trip around Lake Geneva. We somehow stumbled upon the "World Cycling Center," which is about an hour from Lausanne. Rob was totally entranced by the cyclists riding the indoor cycling track. It's pretty amazing to see the cyclists ride the track at an almost 90 degree angle to the ground and not fall off their bikes. The Center had a fabulous exhibit documenting the history of the Tour de France.

Rob at the World Cycling Center

We also stopped at the Castle of Chillon. It's a gorgeous castle right on Lake Geneva that was the old Savoy fortress and residence. The best part was seeing the old dungeon where the "Prisoner of Chillon" was tortured for 5 years (and inspired the Byron poem).

The Castle of Chillon -- isn't it picturesque?

Grenoble and Alpe D'Huez
At the end of October, we headed to France to check out the land of "The Tour". Grenoble is in a picturesque location, surrounded by Alps on all sides. Unfortunately, our attempt to visit its great art museum was somewhat thwarted by Anna Claire refusing to stay in her stroller and giving the guard a heart attack by smashing her hand against an expensive piece of modern art.

Anna Claire and Mommy in Grenoble

Our afternoon drive to Alpe D'Huez was breathtaking. Rob finally did it! He biked up the famous Tour de France route to Alpe D'Huez. The road is just as windy as it looks on television -- and even narrower. I thought it would take Rob hours to climb it, but he did it in just over an hour--after not biking for a month! I do have quite the cyclist husband! We loved seeing all the names of great cyclists painted on the pavement. Unfortunately, the only pavement messages written to Lance Armstrong were explitives. (Gee, the French really do hate him.) Anna Claire had a little bit of a rough time coming down and threw up all over her carseat for the third time since we've arrived.

The End of the Epic Ride in Alpe D'Huez

Yep, Here It Is -- the One and Only

Nice, Cannes and Monaco
Last weekend, we took a little (actually quite long) road trip with our Stanford/HBS friends Emily and Patrick O'Laughlin. Emily is on a consulting project in Geneva right now. The five of us squished into our tiny Jetta and headed to France. We didn't do the traffic calculations quite right so our 5 hour trip turned into a 7 1/2 hour trip. But, hey, we got to see the Riviera!

We did have a little drama with our hotel. The crib they provided was really short and Anna Claire just climbed right out. Not wanting her to fall out in the middle of the night, we put her mattress on the floor. Free from her normal prison, she just wandered around all night, climbing in and out of our bed. Needless to say, we ended up exploring the French Riviera through tired, bloodshot eyes.

Anna Claire Making Mischief in our Hotel

Thank goodness for regular cribs!

Nice is a charming city with a gigantic, colorful fruit and vegetable market in the town center every Saturday morning. Now I understand how Matisse got his Fauvist inspiration from here. Cannes is a beautiful beach town. For some reason, all the Europeans we spoke to liked the beaches in Nice -- but they're all rock. They were great at preventing Anna Claire from running off (she can't run far on stones) but not quite as comfortable as the brown sand in Cannes. I was hoping to run into some can-can dancers, but no luck. Instead, we discovered a quaint little Provencal restaurant by the local chateau. On Sunday we attended church in Nice at a little chapel that my mom helped to build 40 years ago when she was a missionary there. Hooray Mom, it's still functioning!

On the Beach in Cannes