An Update on Life's Great Pleasures: Wine, Chocolate and Football

Hello friends and welcome to a quick instalment of the SCR to bring you up to date on what we've been doing for the past few weeks. We left you with the promise of a pending hike to a chocolate factory in the woods. In fact, this turned out to be a long uphill walk to a chocolate factory on a mountain.

Woods

Mountain (not Woods)

I hope our longterm subscribers will see fit to stay with us after this unfortunate error. Those responsible have been sacked. In any event, a few weeks back Sam and I joined some colleagues to walk from the lakeside town of Rolle to the mountain village of Bougy-Villars. Surrounded by vineyards, B-V is a rather upscale little part of Switzerland (will let you know once we find a downscale part of Switzerland), in part owing to the fabulous views of Lake Geneva.

Bougy-Villars

The distance was only about 5km or so, but mainly uphill with some impressively steep sections. This didn't bother Sam though as at the steepest bits he wisely insisted on riding in his stroller. That he hates. On flat ground.

Sam Taunting His Father As They Drop Farther Behind the Group

While a bit of a gloomy day, the outing coincided with the annual grape harvest so we got to see the vineyards during the thick of the action.

Delicious Wine Seeds

Buckets of Harvested Grapes, About Twice the Size of Sam

On Their Way to the Winery

Despite the appearance of lots happening, in practice, vineyards are pretty calm and picturesque places even at the height of activity.

Wine Country: Bucolic

Chateau Something-or-Other: Nice Neighbourhood.

When we arrived in Bougy-Villars, we stopped in the churchyard to enjoy a picnic lunch and the promised views of the lake and Mont Blanc.

Sam and the Church at Bougy-Villars

Sadly, there was fog and the views were unremarkable, so we had no choice but to introduce ourselves to the small winery (Fechy) across the street. A few sample bottles and a tour by the affable owner Georges-Claude Blanchard was enough to convince us of the merits of this fine Swiss enterprise, so we loaded the stroller with a few bottles of their Grand Crux for the trip back down the mountain. (Please stroll responsibly.)

The Busy "Fechy" Winery in Bougy-Villars

Before we could head back though, we first had to make a stop at the famous Tristan Chocolatier, which is considered by many (at least according to Wikipedia) to produce among the finest chocolates in Switzerland.

The Best Chocolatier in Switzerland?

I am by no means yet an expert on Swiss chocolate, although I did invest considerably in my ongoing education during this visit, but in my opinion this place certainly deserves consideration for the title.

Chocolate: Delicious.

On the way down the hill, we took a short break to enjoy some grapes and wine from the fields of a family who bottle only for their own use and enjoyment.

Sam Joins a Lumberjack Biker Gang

The following weekend we had big football related plans. The local club, FC Collex-Bossy (as in the club that plays at the field directly behind my house) had unexpectedly advanced to the final 16 of the Swiss Cup (unexpected as they are a fifth division semi-pro side) and were taking on Swiss Axpo Super League giants Sion. This is not Collex-Bossy's first brush with footballing titans, as the wee field had once played host to Liverpool, Aston Villa and Real Madrid in the heady days of the early 1980s (and the way things are going at Anfield, they may be moving in the same circles as the Reds again soon).

FC Collex-Bossy's Home Field

We planned to go as a family and with friends of ours, but the weather on game day was "good football weather" as they say. Meaning it was freezing and raining and awful. While about 2000 made it to the match, the game-going crowd from our group was reduced to me and a friend who left at the end of the first half. I, soldiering on alone, enjoyed a fine display of football. By Sion. Who scored 45 seconds in before dismantling the plucky upstarts from down the road 4-0. I felt a bit responsible for this given the way 2010 is unfolding on the sporting front, especially since they had been doing quite well up to that point and haven't won a game since I became a fan.

Alas, that's the way it goes. Those are the high points from the past few weeks. We'll be back with our next update soon, wherein the family takes up the battle for French pension reform by derisively shrugging off the fuel shortage and blockades to visit riot-scarred Lyon for the weekend.

Now here's a parting shot of our village, Jura mountains outlined in the background.

Collex

Woah Baby!! It's a...

...Peacock?

No joke (but not what you were expecting, was it?) As I exited today from the massive United Nations complex, full of up-and-coming 20-somethings carrying designer bags (they can't ALL be real...can they?) there, strutting it's stuff in front of the main doors was a peacock. Minus tail feathers mind you, but a peacock none the less and looking just as cocky as one would expect.

The peacock

I soon noticed that noone else found this to be strange. It WAS, after all, my first meeting at the UN. Perhaps this is a resident peacock. We get geese on campus at home. And there are also palm trees and bamboo all over Geneva. Maybe peacocks are par for the course. Anyway. All I know is that I need to get a designer purse.

But back to the subject of this post. Aaron and I went in for the 20 week ultrasound this morning - the one where they check out all the organs and where you can find out the gender. We are happy to report that the baby has 2 legs, 2 arms, a head (with a brain inside), a beating heart (130 - but clearly in chill mode), 2 kidneys, a stomach a bladder and a little face. However, after a lot of back and forth, we decided not take a look between it's legs. I learned my lesson years ago when I hunted down and opened my christmas presents before the 25th (Ok, so it took a few christmases to learn that lesson). We are looking forward to the surprise, and to surprise you all.

Sorry Darlene.

Baby from outside - 20.5 weeks

Meanwhile, we hope you are satisfied with this pic of the blob (as my grandmother would say). Although this particular blob is now 20 cm long, the pics aren't that clear. Looks like a boy to me but maybe that's because all fetuses look slightly neanderthal-ish at this point? (big eyebrow bones and protruding foreheads). not very delicate. And those ears...

Baby from inside - 20.5 weeks

Vickie, can you tell if it has the Woodworth chin?

The ultrasound experience, like the rest of my health care experiences so far here in Geneva, was very pleasant. it was a very nice, modern facility. There was one ultrasound and a small desk in a big room where in Ottawa they would have crammed 2-3 machines. The technician was very good - took no time at all to discern that all was well and the supervising doctor came in midway to review and give the ok...right then and there. clean bill of health. The technician also took the time to tell us what everything was and tried to get some good shots of the face (kinda weird, negative-type image, frankly).

We expect that we will have other ultrasounds along the way, as my ObGYN has an ultrasound machine right in her office. Unheard of back home. Again, her office is very modern/contemporary - I couldn't believe it when I walked in there the first time. It is going to be hard to resist the temptation to find out whether Sam is getting a baby brother or sister, that's for sure.

Finally, let me share with you some images of the place where I will have the baby, sometime in the week of February 13 - 20 as I'm told I need to have a c-section (after last time, i'm not complaining). Hmmm..I was initially disappointed that I wouldn't get to deliver at the newly remodeled Montfort hospital when learning we were moving to Geneva, but I think that this has it beat.

Classy Geneva private hospital food: no Jell-o.

And this isn't even the hospital (ok, private clinic) where they have a one star Michelin chef on staff. Apparently people go to the clinic just for dinner! Unfortunately, my OBGYN doesn't deliver there...I'll have to make do with simple, gourmet food, rather than world class gourmet food. Oh well. You can see more here:

http://www.la-tour.ch/votre-sante/maternite/galerie-d-images/

Lastly, when asked about what was in Mommy's tummy the other night (a daily topic now) Sam said: "...come out, and POP! a baby chicken!" . In addition to the new baby books, he has a book where a chicken hatches from an egg. I hope he isn't too disappointed come February.

Any baby chickens in there?

Blogging 'till the cows come home...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome back to another edition of the Swiss Cheese Report. This week we go in search of traditional Swiss culture, with visits to a mountain festival, a mountain and a restaurant serving big pots of cheese. Obviously, there's a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started.

Found it.

First up was a Saturday morning drive to the lovely mountain village of Saint-Cergue, nestled high in the Jura range, for their annual desalpe festival. Desalpes are common festivals in Switzerland where thousands come out to celebrate the return of the cows from the high mountain pastures where they spend the summer to the lower altitudes where the herds winter. No seriously, that's it: Cows are back. Party time.

If only the Islanders could draw crowds like this...

Okay, maybe the origin of the celebration had more to do with the return of the cow herds to their families than to the cows, but it definitely seemed like it was the cows getting the applause. Just saying.

Cow herds sporting gang colours.

It may go without saying, but the Swiss really love their cows, which are in many ways the embodiment of their connection to the land, the symbol of their heritage and the source of their wide selection of middle-hard cheeses. This deep appreciation is demonstrated by the loving manner in which the Swiss march them repeatedly up and down mountains adorned with giant crowns of wildflowers and extraordinarily heavy bells that clang incessantly. Because the one thing missing from a cow's life is pageantry.

Cow: Thrilled

Frankly, No Stranger Than Most Beauty Pageants

But there's more to the desalpe than the cow parades. I know what you are thinking: What more could you possibly need? True, but nevertheless, there are smiling people sitting in wooden huts selling all manner of things: hot chocolate, pastries, sausages, and strong mountain wine in tiny plastic cups (hence the smiling). There are also such Swiss hallmarks as yodlers and alpenhorns.

Alpenhorns: practical

And, lest the cows get all uppity about their celebrity, there are assorted other animals decked out in their Sunday finest for the amusement of ignorant tourists like me.

Dogs Pulling Carts of Flowers

Runner Up to Butterfly Landing on Baby's Nose Under Rainbow, Most Adorable Moment of 2010.

And there was lots to occupy the kids: assorted cow bells against which to compare their height, a playground, animal feeding area, face painting, games, and lots and lots of cow poo to jump in. Sam couldn't have had more fun.

Cow Bells the Size of a Child. Why?

Sam Feeding One of the Stars of the Show

Alas, eventually the crowd got so big that we had to go home. No, seriously. But stoked from our first truly Swiss experience (not including the five week bureaucratic shell game that is the vehicle registration process), we decided to double-down and go out for our first fondue!

Fondue: Healthy

We went to the place we'd been told sold THE best fondue in Geneva. I can only say that it was certainly the best I've had so far. That night, sitting on a terrace, eating little bits of bread dipped in wine-infused melted cheese we contemplated the shortcomings in our diet and decided that we'd really better get out and do some serious exercise.

So, on Sunday with the sun shining and the city effectively in lock-down mode, as is all the rage on Sundays, we headed out to do a hike on Le Salève. Known as "la montagne des Genevois", the mountain which rises to 1400m and towers over the city of Geneva is actually, shamefully, located across the border in France.

The Mountain in Question: French

We took the cable car to somewhere very near the top, then hiked the remaining half hour or so to the summit. I'd blame this rather feeble excuse for exercise on the fact that we were hiking with a two-year old, but Sam embraced trail running and actually overtook a group of adult hikers on the way up the not entirely gentle trail, thus confirming my suspicions that he is in fact a robot child with infinite energy reserves. The views from the top were great, but, due to unfortunate issues with downloading the pics from our camera, you'll have to make do with this picture I stole:

Dramatization

Well, that's all for this issue. Thanks for joining us for our introduction to the real Switzerland. Tune in next week when we hike to a chocolate factory in the woods.

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