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

One of the Hilltop Towns Near the Riviera

Peek-a-boo Anna Claire

Touring the Riviera with Patrick and Emily

Very QUICK Stop in Monaco -- Note the Flags

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Wow, our first week in Switzerland has been full of adventure! We packed up our house last Wednesday, flew to Geneva on Thursday and arrived Friday morning where Rob had five minutes to shower and rush to a work meeting. We are living in a little town called Lonay. It’s the quintessential Swiss town – cobblestone sidewalks, rustic buildings with green shutters and flower boxes, a tiny market with “pain” and “lait”, and a quaint little church with bells that toll every hour. Fortunately, a little path outside our door leads to a park down the street. Our apartment is roomy but sparsely furnished. Fortunately, man from the relocation agency came over and put together a simple IKEA crib and a changing table. We had also requested a high chair. But in the language confusion, they had purchased an IKEA chair that is high – not at all a high chair. Anna Claire is just going to have to survive with a booster from the local baby products store and her IKEA “high” chair for now.

Our Lonay apartment (note the lovely shutters)

Rob and I have had our share of laughter at our “foreigner faux pas”. The first day here, I ran to the tiny market first and was trying to communicate to the cashier what I needed when Anna Claire found the candy section and chewed through a Spree wrapper. Not a very nice thing for the neat and clean Swiss. Rob and I later drove to a real grocery store. First we had trouble trying to get a grocery cart. In Switzerland, they have the kind of carts where you put in a coin and retrieve the coin later, after you’ve returned the cart. Well, we had no idea which coin fit in the cart. After noticing us make a fuss, a man who spoke a little English stopped and gave us a “fake” coin that we could use. After meandering through the store noisily discussing which products were which, we purchased our items and the cashier asked us something about bags. I nodded and she gave us a tiny bag in which to put our frozen goods. It turns out the Swiss are so recycling conscious that they bring their own bags. Here we were with a grocery cart full of items and no bags!

Another difficulty we had initially is how to close our shutters. Those cute little green shutters outside every window are more complex than you think. The first night, we wanted Anna Claire to sleep without the streetlight glaring into her eyes and I couldn’t figure out how to detach this little roller that holds the shutters open. Rob finally got frustrated and bent the rollers until the shutters came loose. We finally figured out that the rollers just have to be pulled up in order to loosen the strollers. I’m sure this is something that every Swiss child knows, but to us, it seemed so complex! Now, any Swiss who walks down the street can see where the clueless Americans live – in the apartment with the bent rollers and shutters flapping around!

Despite the little complexities of living in a new country, Switzerland is gorgeous. We took a stroll down to the nearby town of Morges and walked along a promenade next to Lake Geneva, where you could see all the boats coming into the harbor. Anna Claire discovered that ducks and geese live in Switzerland too. Our little town of Lonay is surrounded by vineyards and cornfields – not the most productive use of the hilly countryside – but certainly picturesque. On Monday we drove up a steep pass to Mont Tendre. (Yes, Rob was exploring potential bike routes.) After driving through the fog below we caught a breathtaking view across Lake de Joux of Mont Blanc. What a sight!

The view from our apartment!