Italia! (Italy!)

Hello family, friends and misdirected supply management watchdogs, and welcome back to another edition of the Swiss Cheese Report. Aaron here. Consistent with my personal commitment to remain at all times at least one generation behind the leading technology -- and since it seems that against all hope Twitter is indeed here to stay -- I've decided to post my first ever blog. Congratulations on being a part of this historic moment. Now, without further ado or self-promotion, in we go...

The subject of this particular dispatch is our first escape from Geneva and out into the European neighbourhood. The second weekend of September brought a marvellous little holiday called the Jeune Genevoise (in this case "jeune" should be translated not as "young"but rather as "fast", as in "not eating", but I don't know how to make the little hat over the 'u' so apologies to our francophone readers for any confusion). It should also be noted that I didn't actually participate in, observe or hear about any fasting, but there you go. In any event, the result of this throw-back to the 16th Century is a great little four-day weekend observed by precisely nobody except those living in the Canton of Geneva. And since nobody else is on holiday, you can actually get hotel reservations in popular spots like Italy for less than the cost of an aging Russian free agent (hello hockey fans!) . Which reminds me of what it is that I'm supposed to be writing about here. Free agency. Wait, no, Italy. Onwards!

Italian Houses: Narrow

On the Italian coast (or, more pretentiously, the Italian Riviera), nestled between the hustle and bustle of Genoa and the hustle and bustle of La Spezia, is a unique and charming region known as the Cinque Terre - literally "The Five Lands". This collection of five small villages (from north to south: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore), clinging to the rugged, rocky hillsides overlooking the shimmering sea, was traditionally isolated, connected only to each other via a narrow and at times treacherous footpath.

Riomaggiore

This historic isolation is now a thing of the past, but, together with its UNESCO World Heritage designation, is heavily traded upon by the merchants and tourism authorities of the region to lure hordes of picture snapping tourists to the Cinque Terre, utterly spoiling the whole point. Actually, that is not true at all; as the official holiday season ends in August, we missed most of the crowds and, in fairness, the place would be pretty amazing even if crawling with people.

On good advice, we decided not to stay in Cinque Terre proper, instead opting for a beach front hotel in the beautiful little town of Lerici, just to the south. The idea being that we'd have good access to the more popular destinations without the cost or the crowds. While true, this drastically undersells Lerici's own charms -- it is by no means the poor sister of better known towns farther up the coast. Dating to the Etruscan period, Lerici is dominated by an imposing castle that guards the approaches to La Spezia.

Castles: obsolete

Lerici was once the preferred holidaying destination of dandy-boy Brit poets Byron and Shelley, whose affinity for Lerici lives on in the Gulf of La Spezia's nickname "the Gulf of Poets" and in the names of 92% of all businesses operating in town ("sorry, do I turn right at the Hotel Byron or the Byron Hotel...?"). Lerici has a very lovely waterfront promenade that winds for well over a kilometre past beaches, marinas and discount knock-off prada handbag salesmen, and is well-connected to the Cinque Terre by regular boat and train service (we also tried the bus so you won't have to).

Mom, Dad and Sam on the Promenade

We spent plenty of time in Lerici lounging on the beach immediately across the street from our hoteland feeling pretty smug about our relative odds of developing skin cancer.

Our Hotel Showing Aforementioned Beach Proximity

Anglos: pale

We also spent a day hiking along the footpath between the towns of Cinque Terre. "Rough seas" (these people have clearly never been to Newfoundland) meant that we had to take the boat to Monterosso al mare so, despite having been cautioned against it, we hiked the most challenging part of the trail to Vernazza.

Heavy Seas on the Boat to Monterosso al Mare

This would be a decent workout at the best of times, but it was made somewhat more challenging by the need to carry a two-year old 95% of the way due to the narrow path and generally terrifyingly dangerous cliffs. Fortunately, we were utterly unprepared for the degree of difficulty and so set off with a blissfully ignorant optimism.

Hiking the Cinque Terre Trail, Monterosso al Mare in Background

Sam was a trooper and even managed to fall asleep for a third of the hike. The change from wriggling and squirming to pure dead weight was a refreshing change of pace for Dad...

Sam, Wholly Engrossed in the Cinque Terre Experience

After a quick lunch and some sight seeing in Vernazza (arguably the cutest of the towns), we took the train to Riomaggiore and then walked back to Manarolla along the much more child friendly promenade.

Vernazza: Well Worth the Effort

We also spent lots of time enjoying the delicious italian food and wine on the many uncrowded terraces of Lerici, exploring the nearby town of Portovenere (it and Lerici are picturesque bookends to the bustling port of La Spezia), and stockpiling delicious local pesto sauce and monstrous blocks of parmesan cheese at prices that make a Canadian weep.

Portovenere

After an extremely relaxing and enjoyable interlude in Italy, the family set out for the six hour drive along the Livorno coast, past the medieval castles of Piedmont, into the foothills of the Alps, through the engineering triumph of the Mont Blanc tunnel, and finally through Valois and to the homey comfort of the auto repair shop where we landed when our car broke down on the autoroute 15km from Geneva. The details are best left for another blog written by my very apologetic wife, but suffice to say that "gazol" is not, in fact, a cute French synonym for "gasoline", but rather a horribly confusing French synonym for "diesel".

Fuel Pumps: Confusing

Well, thanks for joining us on this leg of the adventure and hope to hear from you soon. Tune in next week when we discover that "cheval" is not a cute Swiss word for steak...

A bientot!

Context free picture to make you jealous

P.S. - There was a carousel in Lerici.

We get our stuff, Sam gets sick and we go to Italy

Week 3 was very busy. It began with the arrival of our sea shipment on Monday. We both took the day off to receive it. Took all day and there was paper and piles of things everywhere as everything had to be unpacked to make sure all was there and nothing broken. Surprisingly, the only thing broken was a delicate (and not too valuable) glass cover for the cheese plate. No great loss. It was all very chaotic as there were 4 movers and only 2 of us. You would go downstairs to find someone had unpacked entire boxes of christmas decorations and piled them on a shelf...things that were supposed to stay IN boxes. Unfortunately, we had some re-packing to do. The other bummer was that we couldn't convince the movers to put our BBQ together. Oh well.

It certainly was nice

to finally have our things. Work had provided us with a 'pack-up kit' (which they still haven't taken away 3 weeks later - more boxes!) that included the essentials. However, in the land of cheese one misses one's grater (we broke down and bought one in the interim) and other things. The kitchen in our house is nice. White everything, which doesn't let me get away with messy counters. more cupboard space than at home which is nice but our big dinner plates don't fit in them. Will have to keep them down below. I guess European portions are smaller than ours. No surprise there. Our (small) fridge is built into the cupboards (we have extra fridge and freezer downstairs in the bomb shelter) and our stove is the countertop kind. Took us 20 minutes to figure out how to use it - it was locked- but we eventually did. We have an oven which is built into the wall, which I love. The kitchen came equipped with toaster, microwave, electric kettle and hand mixer with all the attachments, which is great as then we don't have to purchase them (with the different current etc. we couldn't use ours). We also have to massive converters if we really wanted to bring our own blender.

Here are some p

ics of the inside of our house - kitchen, living room, dining room and playroom - with our stuff in it. Not our furniture as you will see (although our dining table looks a lot like Dad's old set). Messy as we had guests last night (for pesto with parmesan straight from Italy...see below). Also no pics of the bedrooms because Sam is sleeping in one and the others are even messier than the dining room - still unpacking upstairs. Stay tuned. But there are pics of the playroom in the basement. YES! a playroom in the basement. I'm in heaven. Came in very handy last night when we could send the kids down there to make a mess while we (or everyone but me) sipped wine and ate cheese (ok, I ate the cheese).

Monday night we invited a potential nanny to our house for a meet and greet. we had dinner out back on the patio under the awning. Unfortunately we found out late in the game that she was vegetarian. She was lovely, 20 yrs old and Canadian. Here to get married to a local French guy. We liked her but have decided to stick with the current plan until next year, as I'm being selfish and not really wanting a nanny and Sam home every day when I'm home wiht the baby. Some sleep would be nice. Sam impressed this potential nanny by puking on the patio at her feet.

So, Sam has had his first Geneva illness. Aaron and I were both very busy at work, me having only gone in 3 days the week before and both of us having taken Monday off for the movers. On Tuesday morning, sam had a very runny nose and a cough, but no fever, so even though we knew he wasn't 100% we sent him to the Nanny. I decided we wouldn't send him to school in the afternoon, though, and went to get him at lunch which was good because he had been sick again (Sam has now been 'sick' 5 times in his life - we are luck). So we went home and cuddled and in the morning he was much improved and made it through the rest of a week. This was a relief to us because Thursday and Friday were holidays from work, as it is the Jeune Genevois (with accent circonflexe...still haven't figured out how to do accents on the ibook) holiday, all of Geneva closed down for this traditional fasting weekend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeûne_genevois ) and we had planned and managed to book a last minute 4 day trip to....ITALY. Finally! I was pretty stoked...

Sarah, Aaron, Sam and WFII

xoxo

New school, more exploring, the circus, and another carousel

Week 2 in Geneva began with Sam's first day at school/ with the nanny, and Aaron's first day at work. Here is the all important 'first day of school" photo of Sam. It was all very exciting, although it didn't go that well.

I walked Sam to school and we went in together. We had done a little tour earlier in the week to check it out so it wasn't completely new. Sam started playing with the toys so I said goodbye and left. I went to work with the idea that I could catch up on some emails before I went back to pick him up and take him to the Nanny's. However, I got a call at 10:15 that

I should come and get him because he wouldn't stop crying. and indeed, he was rather distraught when I got there. Poor little guy.

We went home, then around noon walked across the street to the nanny's place. I hadn't yet met the nanny although i had met the parents of the kids she watches, 4 yr old Valentine and 20 month old Raphael. I immediately liked the Nanny, a very warm Nicaraguan who speaks Spanish and French (with a thick Spanish accent). I joined them for lunch (where I learned that lunches in Europe are considerably more involved than ours back home) and then put Sam down for his nap with the promise that I would pick him up after work. The afternoon went better (probably due to the attention of Tania) and I didn't get a call. Went back to pick up Sam at around 4:30, he was very happy to see me, and we went home. Th

e rest of the week progressed much the same, Sam in tears and clinging in the mornings (he is at pre-school on Monday and Friday mornings, and Tuesday afternoons), but we didn't

get any more calls to pick him up early and by Wednesday I was at work full time.

I am happy to say that three weeks in, Sam no longer cries when we drop him off at either places, and he actually happily runs into school. This is a major relief. I"m sure part of his distress was that noone spoke to him in English. We are already getting reports that he is starting to use French, "viens", "au revoir", "merci" etc. He can count to 10 in French. WE also get reports that he doesn't do very well when it is time to sit quietly for story time at school, but apparently he isn't out of the range of normal for a 2

yr old boy. Preparing 2 course meals to take to the nanny's on Tues and Thurs is something new for us - a couple who had a hard time preparing our lunch to take to work, particularly as grocery stores are generally closed by6 pm. We have simply had to get organized and plan menus in advance. Finding ingredients we are used to is also a challenge (spent 20 minutes looking for worscestershire sauce) but we are getting there with the help of our neighbour Julie (ok! pre-made pie shells are in the fridge section, not the frozen section) but so far so good.

Sam is now into playdough - here is his first creation, a helicopter

(of course...)

with wings like an airplane. Sorry, had to share.

The next weekend was as jam-packed as the first. Earlier in the week we had purchased tickets for the Knie Circus, which comes to Geneva annually. We drove to work and took local transport from there (so quick and efficient - Ottawa and Toronto pubic transportation pale in comparison). We weren't sure if Sam would sit through it, but in the end it was perfect. Although he didn't get the French, there were so many acts involving animals (cats and dogs doing tricks, horses running around, elephants, llamas jumping over camels) mixed in with the people acts (contortionists, acrobats, tightrope walker etc) that he was rivet

ed for most of it, even AFTER eating an entire stick of cotton candy (ok - he had help from mom). We really enjoyed and were glad that we did it.

On Sunday we head to a part of Geneva called Carouge. Given as a gift to the King of Sardinia back in the day (way back) it looks like, well, a Sardinian town. It was quite cute - we really liked it and it had great shopping but unfortunately (or fortunate

ly) we were there on a Sunday. On this particular Sunday was the annual Carouge festival with artisans, food and parks for kids. The artisans were disappointing - same stuff you would find in the Ottawa market - sweaters from peru, the usual stuff from Africa etc. etc. No local artists. The food was also ho-hum (we are learning this is the case for most food in Switzerland), but the kids park was great for Sam. There was a carousel (surprise surprise). Unfortunately, Sam got stuck with riding the duck this time but he still seemed to have fun. There were pony rides and there was a midway. More rides for Sam. His favorite was the giant slide - mine too.

Clearly, a great thing about Geneva is there is tons for kids to do...and there is always entertainment for kids at every event. Apart from the food and the amazing company (miss you guys), the Carouge festival could teach the Ottawa greekfest a thing or two!

Geneva part II

We have wasted no time in exploring our environs. Sure, we have 4 years, but they will go by very quickly no doubt, so we hopped in our rental car and took a few day/half day trips.

The first was to Genthod, a little village about 10 mins drive from Collex. Cute little place right on the lake, called Lac Leman by the locals and Lake Geneva by everyone else. It is one of the biggest lakes in Europe, 75 KM long. Genthod has a fantastic park, nicknamed the pirate park thanks to a big boat-shaped climber. It also has a wood house to explore, swings, and a co

ol zip-line that the older kids (and mom and da

d) enjoy. Best of all (for Sam, as he flew 'up to the sky' on the swing) is that the landing airplanes approach the Geneva airport

directly overhead. E

very 6 minutes. Probably not so great for residents. We then headed down to the lake where there was a cute restaurant, a random swing, a marina and lots of ducks to chase. Very pretty. Across the lake you can see 'Geneva's mountain', La Saleve. More of a big hill, really, and it is actually in France but we hope to head there sometime soon to take in the views. There is a cable car up to the top or you can drive and there is supposed to be a cute cafe on top where you can pay an arm and a leg for a coffee and croissant.

Speaking of expensive coffees and croissants, our next little outing was to old town Geneva. We parked the car an wandered about. First, we were lured onto the tourist train. Sam

loves trains, it was cheap, and why not? Took us along

Lac Lem

an and through the English gardens with the famous (???) flower clock. cool, but famous? anyway. We then headed to old town itself, with the 7Euro raspberries and 10 Euro coffees. We bought the coffee, not the berries, as I was really keen to sit in a cafe and watch people go by as we do on typical European vacations. Old town has some great shopping, if you like to spend a lot of money. lucky for me my shopping mojo is wearing off to to expanding waistlines, but I AM in the market for new boots. No luck, but I did get sam a cool toy swiss army knife - only in Switzerland of course. He managed to lose the changeable screwdriver heads in the first 15 minutes. oh well, the fake scissors are pretty cool too. I can't forget to mention the carousel / merry-go round. There one was, right in the middle old town! For the fairly reasonable

price of 1 Euro, Sam got to ride, and of course it had to be in the airplane. Little did we know this great find is really quite a standard feature in European towns. You will no doubt notice a carousel reference in every post from now on. One really cool one in particular - more on that later.

On Saturday of the first week we decided on take-out pizza. Our predecessors had left us a menu for take-out pizza so we thought we'd give it a try. After learning that the 20 Euro pizza was indeed personal size, we ordered and then headed out in the car to find the place, which was in a small town north of Collex and just off the Geneva map, as it is i

n Vaud canton

. We found it no problem, passing very cute towns on the way, and had some time to burn so explored a vineyard right across the street. That is one of the great things living where we do, the sides of the road are littered with apple orchards, vineyards, horses and cows. We really are in the country but with the city so close by. Best of both worlds. Anyway, we picked up the pizza, paid our 60 Euros (we also got a salad), headed home and ate what was...mediocre pizza at best. Oh well, lesson learned!

The next weekend we headed with our neighbours and colleague, Darren and his kids Nadia and Cedric, to an outdoor market in a small town in France called Divonne-les-Bains. I had been eager to get here (for some reason) as I had heard about these great pies. We never found the pies, but we did find another carousel (with another airplane - this one went up and down). It was also flea market day in Divonne and the place was packed. I picked up some great used little girl clothes for 1 Euro - expensive new in stores - which guarantees we'll have another boy. We then headed to the food part of the market. Lots of local vendors - got delicious olives, fresh organic bread (stale in a day as many bakeries here don't use preservatives), a roasted chicken for dinner, some great fruits and veggies and of course cheese, cheese and more cheese (and affordable, too, compared with Canada). The kids started melting down. so we headed to the Divonne park. This place is worth coming to for the park itself. it is HUGE...many play structures for kids of all ages, a climbing wall, swings, slides etc. etc. kids playing soccer, kids on bikes. Although the same food vendors are in a town right next to us on Saturdays, it is worth the 20 min drive to Divonne for the park alone. one can shop and the other can play with Sam in the park.

All in all it was a great first week getting settled. We opened Swiss bank accounts (unfortunately, without the balance that usually implies), got paperwork in for our resident cards (which we need to get our car registered and insured), took turns settling into the office (closed door, big windows), requested phone, tv and internet, and toured around a bit. Unfortunately Monday was the end of the break, as Sam was to start pre-school/with the nanny and we were to start work. But even that would be an adventure. So far so good!

Sarah, Aaron, Sam and WFII

xoxoxo

Geneva

Welcome to the first Swiss Cheese Report, where we hope to keep you all up to date on our life in Geneva and our (hopefully) many adventures while this side of the pond.

After months of preparation, and many gatherings with family and frie

nds, we left Ottawa for Geneva on Aug 22, 2010. We were sad to leave so many great people behind, but were also looking forward to this 4 year adventure. Sam was a trooper. Not only did he get to wear his new 'pack-pack'

(thanks, Dora), but he got to spot the

airplanes landing and taking off pre-flight. Heaven (apparently). After some tearful goodbyes to Mamie and Poppa, and after stocking up at Tim Hortons on enough milk to get Sam through the flight (I'm sure we broke some import rule or another), we were off.

The flight was pretty uneventful, although I'm not keen to repeat the overnight flight with a toddler - he slept (even through rolling off the seat onto the floor), but we didn't get much shut eye. The best part was that Sam didn't vomit on anything or anyone like the last 2 times he has flown. This was much appreciated by his parents (and neighbouring passengers I'm sure).

Tired, we arrived in Geneva at 10 the next morning. We forgot to pick up our stroller from sky check (good-bye stroller), we didn't have any Euro's to get a cart to lug our 7 bags and 3 carry-ons (I will need many shoes over the course of 4 years) and we had no idea where we were going when out of nowhere materialized our colleagues (in the secure baggage zone nonetheless) who had us through customs in record time (with the stroller I might add). There were, however, some jokes about the amount of luggage. Another 15 minutes and we were at our front door, having spotted France and some Bison along the way). Our new neighbour/colleage, Julie (the saint who helped sort our daycare woes while we were still in Ottawa) arrived with a bag of groceries, and her 3 yr old son brought some toys for Sam. All in all a fantastic welcome party. After a quick tour of the house and some instructions on how things worked, we were left to settle in.

The following week was spent getting to know our house, our town of Collex, and of course running around trying to get set up with bank accounts, telephones, internet, television, rental car and groceries. We quickly learned that it is slightly cheaper to do groceries in France (which is good because that is the closest grocery store - a 10 min. drive), that some things take a long time to get set up (3.5 weeks for internet!) but that most people are more than happy to help point you in the right direction. As you can see from the pic, Sam and the cats now have a big backyard to run around in, complete with walnut and what appears to be a pear tre

e. Our house is also quite spacious, with more bathrooms and kitchen counter/cupboard space than our home in Ottawa. The Euro style showers (can't quite stand up under the hand-held nozzle) took some getting used to and we are still getting water all over the floor but it is a small price to pay for having our own bathroom (complete with bidet, which sam likes to use to wash his hands, so it is reserved for that). We also have a big basement with playroom, laundry and bomb shelter (holds our extra fridge and freezer) which we didn't have in the old house. Some of our furniture is, well, ugly, and we seem to have 8 end/coffee tables to many, but we also have patio furniture for the first time and we almost have enough storage for all of my clothes (we're off to Ikea in the next few weeks to buy some more closet space). We have a cute little wrought iron gate at the end of our driveway, a two car garage, and a mailbox that already had our names on it. All in all, we are very happy with our set up. So is Sam, as the previous tenants left him a tricycle, a scooter and a sandbox.

We also went into work, which is a very short 12 min drive from home. We work in a beautiful modern building which is a 10 minute walk to the United Nations and another 7 minutes to the World Trade Organization. Which means a 40 min walk every day back and forth for meetings. Will counteract all the cheese. Outside of the UN is the broken chair monument, dedicated to victims of land mines. Sam never fails to exclaim "big broken chair! let's fix it" whenever he sees it.

Daily life pretty much consists of dropping sam off at pre-school or daycare, going to work, coming home and picking him up, dinner, unpack/set up a bit more, then bed. Sam has grown to like his pre-school and nanny although there were some terribly teary first days. Day one at pre-school I had to go pick him up at 10:30 because he just wouldn't stop crying. I think he thought we had left him there for good. The school is a 4 minute walk from our house, and all the neighbourhood kids are there, including Cedric, 3, who is a colleague's son, Maximillian, 2, our neighbour, Oliver, 2.5, a local kid just arrived from the UK, and Rapael, 20 months, who is the neighbour where Sam spends his days with the nanny when not at pre-school. Sam's preschool teachers are great and speak some English, Sam has his own hook and cubby to put his coat and shoes, and they are very organized with various times for various activities. He now runs in without a look back so we think he likes it. Sam spends the rest of his time with a neighbour who has 2 kids (including Raphael) and a nanny, Tania, who only speaks Spanish and French. Sam got comfortable there before school and really hits it off with Raphael. Aaron and I supply lunches (2 course hot meals here in Switzerland...bye bye PB and jam sandwiches) twice a week for the kids and the nanny. We will keep this arrangement for the rest of the year, and then will get our own nanny (bye bye extra money) starting in September as I think we'll be happier with the baby at home to nap etc.

Anyway, have many more posts to get up here so may as well end this one...

We miss you all very much and hope you come to visit us soon!

Sarah, Aaron, Sam and WFII

x0x0