Author Archives: lauren

What exactly are these people doing in my living room?

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Post by Lauren


I have been wanting to learn how to use Gabe’s SLR for quite a long time. Even before we moved to Geneva, I looked at taking a photography class when we arrived at a nearby University. The obstacle was that most classes were in French.

When a friend mentioned her partner teaches photography courses in English, I was thrilled and signed up immediately. The course was supposed to happen ten evenings in January but some scheduling conflicts ended up canceling it. It was rescheduled for 3 full days during the week after my surgery. I had sadly accepted I’d just have to wait until the next one.

However, when the group found out that I couldn’t walk in order to get to class, they brainstormed and came up with an ingenious idea…why not bring the class to me?

So over the course of the last week, I have had 8 people (and one puppy) here for a photography course in our living room. We learned a lot of the technical background behind how SLRs work so that it can influence our creativity and ability to take pictures with emotion.

Our professor of photography

Learning our SLRs

The puppy wasn't as interested in learning skills

It’s been so nice to break up the time during my first two weeks home. The social interaction of having 8 people here was awesome since I can’t get out of the house. Also, having 24 hours of instruction on a topic really interesting to me helped make the days past faster.

I learned many new techniques and feel fairly educated on the right approach to use when taking photos in the future. Hopefully you’ll notice it in the coming blog posts.

See Digital Light’s website for upcoming courses in the Geneva & Lausanne area.

Gratitude Friday: TLC

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Post by Lauren

This gratitude Friday, I wanted to give a shout out to all the TLC (Tender Loving Care for those not familiar with this acronym) that I have received during my recovery. From here in Geneva to the Grand old US of A, I have been showered with visits, messages, cards, food, DVDs / magazines for entertainment, and flowers.

There are a few times that being away from “home” stings a little more. The worst is when major life events happen like my close friends having babies or getting married. I am totally bummed about not making the wedding of close friends next weekend. Also falling into this bucket is being sick or having surgery. All the thoughtful gestures from loved ones has made this experience so much easier.

A special thanks to my husband. I am incredibly lucky for his patience. It’s not easy to deal with a Type A, obsessive-compulsive patient who can’t walk or organize her own things. He does it without complaining one bit.

Below is a cross section of the really nice things people have brought / sent:

Merci beaucoup for the TLC!

I’d like to point out that what makes some of this food even more special is that N had to sacrifice her enchilada sauce to make our chicken enchiladas and N & N had to use some of their precious Skippy Peanut butter to bake the cookies. Nothing says TLC like a sacrifice of your US bounty.

*R & R: sorry, I forgot to get a photo of your care package before I dismantled it and started eating it!! I loved it and I really appreciate it even though I didn’t get a photo 🙂

Merci beaucoup to all who have done so much to take care of me!

Bon weekend!

The Röstigraben

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Post by Lauren

Switzerland has many different divides based on its mountainous geography. Since many of the areas stayed remote for a long time, it prevented the ease of travel and communication. Thus, there wasn’t really ever a “melting pot” effect in transitioning into one Swiss culture. Still today, there are still four official languages, based on the geography.

A few months ago, we looked at this language divide. This divide can sometimes be expressed as the “Röstigraben” (rosti divide in German) or in “rideau de rösti” (curtain of rosti in French). While the divide is named for a culinary dish ( based on the farmers breakfast rösti which originated near Bern ), it is actually more commonly used to reference the attitudinal differences that exist on either side of the divide.

The Swiss Germans have political differences to their Swiss Romande neighbors. It includes voting (Swiss Germans don’t want to be a part of the European Union, and want to keep the franc vs. adopting the Euro) as well as general lifestyle differences (Swiss Romandes are less conservative, less strict on rules, etc). During the elections, you can see a lot of this exemplified in the political ads.

And what is Rosti anyhow, you might ask? It is a potato dish. The best way to describe it is like upscale Waffle House hash browns. Sometimes it is served as a side, but most times, times its a main course – usually smothered, covered with something yummy – cheese, mushrooms, an egg, or perhaps sausage. It’s simply delicious.

Rosti at Restaurant du Pont, Zermatt, Switzerland

Other countries have similar divides reflected in foods.

In Germany, they have a line called the Weisswurstäquator. It is known as the “white sausage equator” because the Bavarian region eats the white type, rarely consumed by those living in the Northern region.

In Italy, the pizza is better in Naples and Southern Italy. Why? Because the Southern part of Italy was notoriously more poor than the Northern part. Thus, they often scraped up simple inexpensive ingredients to make a meal….thus creating and perfecting the dish we know as pizza.

And, back in the United States, I believe we have our own version of a Röstigraben, if you count the succulent Waffle House hashbrowns as a national delicacy. There are far more WH’s in the South than in the North and the West.

I wonder if our forefathers brought this back from Switzerland?

Courtesy of Waffle House restaurants

What other places in the world have divides based on food?

Whisky Night

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Post by Lauren

Our friends Lady J and The Man are leaving Geneva soon. They hosted a final soiree at their posh flat last Friday themed “Whisky Night”. Guests brought a whisky to “taste” and a food that would pair well with whisky.

The selection of whiskeys to taste.

Serving it up, classy style

There was a diverse group of guests, from Japan, France, India, and The States. And of course the hosts whom will return to their native Singapore in a few short days.

I didn’t partake in the whisky as I am taking one important medicine that is reduced in effectiveness with alcohol, but loved spending the evening visiting with everyone from the vantage point of the couch. It was a nice treat to get out of our flat for a few hours.

At least there was another non-whisky drinker

Below are just a few of the samplings of the pairings:

Sweet and Spiced meat jerky from Singapore
Teriyaki Chicken Wings
Pork Ribs in Char Siew Sauce
Truffle French Fries
Vegetable sticks with Crab Rangoon Dip
Refreshing Cherry Tomatoes with Plum
Sashimi Rice dish
Cucumber salad
Tortilla chips and homemade salsa
Bourbon Bread Pudding (our contribution)
Selection of Stettler Swiss Chocolates

Champagne and Baileys were also served as alternatives for the lesser whisky enthusiasts.

Cheers! Not sure whats wrong with A.

The group enjoyed the whisky, emptying three bottles by the night’s end. If you are looking to host a themed soiree anytime in the future, Whisky Night was certainly a hit!

My new kicks

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Post by Lauren

Check out my new shoes. My surgeon jokes they are my new Jean Paul Gaultiers. He thinks its funny but I know they cost just as much as a pair of Jean Paul Gaultiers* so the joke isn’t as funny to me.

New shoes!

I also get cannes anglaises. It means crutches. Sort of. They are different than the US kind**.

The shoes plus the crutches redistribute my weight, allowing me to walk very short distances by myself. They are little miracle workers, considering that I have 2+ inch incisions on the side of both feet. I’ll do you a favor and not post the image of those.

I can walk 5 minutes every hour. At the pace of a snail. What this means is that I have to be super efficient with what I do. I keep a little list at my side of what I am going to do the next time I can walk….eat, go to the bathroom, grab the remote that is out of my arms reach, etc.

The rest of the time I do this:

This is like 20 CHF of vegetables.

Everything is going awesome with recovery. We are lucky to have had so many caring friends come visit. More on that later this week!

*this is a famous fashion designer. Apparently more famous in Europe and with people with more income than us.

**A few years back, my friend broke her leg on ski vacation in Italy. I remember her mentioning only getting half a crutch when she was released in the hospital. The cannes anglaises type is actually the only option they have here in Europe. I don’t mind it at all and find it easier than the ones that go under your shoulder….at least with my condition of having two bum feet.

Gratitude Friday: The Swiss Pharmacy

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Post by Lauren

One thing I am recently grateful for is the Swiss Pharmacy. I had a few prescriptions I had been dreading taking in. I was almost positive the interaction was going to go badly with my French skills.

However, it turned out to be one of my most pleasant experiences yet!

I walked in and presented my four prescriptions, including one for crutches (yes, you have to have a prescription to get crutches).

The guy took my prescriptions, typed it in the computer quickly and walked back and got them all out of separate drawers that the computer indicated. In less than 5 minutes. For four prescriptions and crutches! How awesome is that?

This particular pharmacy handed my prescriptions back with their stamp on them and a receipt. So, I have to bring it back in for refills. Not a big deal.

What else should you know?

–In Switzerland, you must have a prescription from a Swiss doctor to get medicine. You cannot use a prescription from a different country.

–You must file the claim with your insurance to get funds back, this isn’t taken out up-front.

–They do not keep your prescription on file in a computer for easy transfer on refills. They either give it back to you, or file your prescription and make a tick mark when you use one.

–If you are visiting or new here to Switzerland, you should note that grocery stores and convenience stores don’t sell OTC medicines like they do in the States. You have to go into a Swiss pharmacy. But don’t worry – there are a ton of them, one on every corner. When we first moved, our real estate agent jested that she had a client once assume the Swiss were more sick because of the presence of so many pharmacies. Not so; just a different system. Kinda like how you can by alcohol or beer at the grocery store in some US states and not others.

–There may be a Swiss Pharmacy on every corner, but they are not open after 6pm or on Sundays. You can always go to the airport pharmacy if you are in a bind!

–The Swiss pharmacy has over the counter meds as well as high end lotions like L’Occitane.

–This Swiss pharmacy doesn’t have all types of OTC medicines that Americans are used to. If you are an expat, bring 2 years worth of your favorite cold, tummy, and painkiller medicines. Sometimes when you are sick, its easier to just have what you know and like vs. navigate the best substitution in a foreign language.

 

Up Close and Personal with The Glacier

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Post by Lauren

There are 24 major glaciers in Switzerland. We had seen the one on Mont Blanc in France before and it is truly magnificent to see, especially in the summer when everything else has melted.

However, we had a closer experience during our time in Saas-Fee. As you can see from the photo below, the glacier is visible from the town.

See the blue? That's the glacier!

What is neat about Saas Fee is that you can actually take a cable car up to ski or hike on top of the glacier. Gabe and S & S skied on the glacial snow.

Skiing on Glacial Snow

While they rocked out their glacier skiing, I decided to explore the Ice Grotto and revolving restaurant found at Mittelallin, 3,500 meters or 11,480 feet high, directly above Saas-Fee. Both are considered the world’s highest of their kind.

Worlds' highest revolving restaurant - 2 miles high.

I’d like to point out that when its snowing, it doesn’t really matter if you are two miles high on the worlds highest revolving restaurant.

My view at the world's highest restaurant

Luckily, the sun peaked out or a second and I was able to see a glimpse of the mountains:

Also at the top of Mittelallin is the Ice Pavilion — a glacier that you can walk into. It was my first time stepping inside a glacier. At -12 C outside air temperature, it was super frigid inside.

It was Sunday and quite a coincidence they had an ice chapel at 11000 feet.

It was a nice relaxing way to spend a Sunday, sans skiing in Saas Fee. Say that 5 times fast.

For more scientific information on glaciers and why they are blue, consult Schwingen in Switzerland. http://schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/3058/

Saas Fee

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Post by Lauren

We decided that it would be good to spend my last weekend prior to surgery doing something wintery. We knew it would be quite awhile before I could experience the outdoors again. At least on foot. The week had been super busy planning for surgery and prepping meals to freeze, so I hadn’t gotten around to selecting a place or activity.

So, we pretty much decided where to go at 9pm Friday night at Happy Hour at S & S’s place. We planned to hit the Carnival celebrations in Wiler and to continue onto Saas Fee in Valais to spend the night and potentially do winter sports Sunday. S booked hotel rooms round midnight for that next day.

Saas Fee is located in a valley very close to Zermatt. Until the mid-twentieth century, it was remote and not accessible by cars. Currently, trains are still not able to reach Saas Fee through its narrow valley. However, even though you can drive there now; the village itself is car-free. You must leave your car at the deck at the city entrance.

Driving in was "squiggly"

 

Majestic mountains on the horizon as we drove into Saas Fee

The books say that Saas Fee is just as picturesque as Zermatt, just without the Matternhorn view. For all Gabe and I know, it was equal since we didn’t see the Matterhorn when we went back in January with Pascal and Gisele.

We arrived at sunset and it was quite nice to walk around and to see the après ski buzz.

 

After exploring, we grabbed a bite of Italian at Boccalino and then had an after dinner drink at Popcorn. We called it an early night due to the ski activities planned for the next day.

Saas Fee was a lovely little town. I think I might prefer Zermatt a little more, but all in all, a nice stop.

 

Navigating International Insurance and The Swiss Clinique

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Post by Lauren

In Switzerland, you don’t go to the hospital for planned procedures such as delivering a baby or foot surgeries. You go to a Clinique. No, not like the make-up counter. A Clinique is like a cross between a doctors office and a hospital. And then add in a little high end hotel.

In Switzerland, they are very cautious. They don’t take chances. So, I wasn’t surprised when my doctor indicated that I would need to come in the night before to spend the night at the Clinique. Nor was I surprised when I found out I would stay four nights there.

I had a bit of trouble trying to convince my US-based insurance of this.

These conversations took place over the course a week, but I have condensed it for you as well as deleted the multiple tear-sessions by yours truly that they induced:

“Hi. I need a guarantee of payment because the hospital either needs this or 20,000 swiss francs from me upfront*. I had been told that I should contact your agency to secure this documentation if a need ever arose.”

“Okay…we can help you. Please tell us what you are having done.”

“I have severe arthritis in my toes. I need a chilectomy and an osteotomy. This was supposed to be done in March, but my surgeon just fit me into a cancellation spot and the operation will be next week. Sorry for the short notice but I really need this quickly.”

“Okay we will work on this. No problem.”

(days pass)

“Hello. I want to check on the status of my guarantee of payment. My surgery is in four days.”

“Ma’am, these things take time. Likely another week before you will hear back.”

“But I don’t have time!!! I just got an appointment with a world renowned surgeon who just had a cancellation. My feet hurt…I am in pain…I have guests coming……I can’t wait until late Spring!”

“Wait, Ma’am. Why do your feet hurt? We have noted you were having a colon operation”.

(lots of resulting explanation occurs)

“We don’t understand….why do you have to stay in the hospital so many days? In the US, we see in our computer that this is outpatient”.

“I agree….but I live in Switzerland. If you have a baby here you stay in the Swiss Clinique 7 days while in the US its 48 hours. I am not going to get a surgeon to operate on me and release me. Since you specialize in international medical insurance, doesn’t the computer indicate this is different in certain countries?”

“You’ll have to get your surgeon to write us a letter saying why you have to spend the night. Maybe you can make an appointment with him to write the letter.”

“It took me 3 months to get my first appointment with him!! Plus his office is closed…. its “Ski Week”** in Switzerland! Every person in Switzerland is on vacation. There is no way he can get this done in the timeline.”

“You must. Or NO guarantee letter for you.”

(frantic calls and detective work to find doctors’ personal contact info. Many butchered French conversations and Google translated emails later, I contact the doctor over email and he agrees to do the paperwork and fax it on his vacation)

(call insurance company Friday to confirm they get his fax he sent the day before)

“Ma’am, it takes 48 hours for faxes to reach our computer system. You’ll have to get back to us in 48 business hours. Monday end of day, maybe.”

(2 more days)

“Hello. You are working on my case. You should have received the doctors letter by now. Just checking on the status.”

“Ma’am, be advised that your case is with the medical review committee. These things take 10-15 business days. Please check back then. ”

(Supposed to be admitted the next day. I loose my s&^% on the insurance company)

Later that day, I got my letter. Thank goodness.

And no wonder that the insurance questions it. Here is just a cross section of my meals while staying in the Swiss Clinique, all standard:

 

 

 

A dessert also came around at 2pm each day with coffee.  The cream was always steamed and piping hot.

Sparkling water is on demand. Oh, and I can’t forget the Swiss made pen we got as a gift:

Regarding forms and documentations, EVERYTHING, must be translated from French in order for me to understand and sign. All pre-op, insurance, and post-op instructions. Google Translate has really been a good friend of mine lately. I’ll no longer complain about having to fill out paperwork in my first language.

Speaking of French, communication at the Clinique has been a bit challenging. Of course, I do not expect that the staff know English at all since this is a French-speaking country. And I do study French regularly. However, in medical situations: explaining levels of pain, what is wrong, and interpreting post op instructions clearly, it can be a bit challenging.

The first time they were trying to teach me how to walk with my stabilizing boots and crutches to get to the bathroom, I couldn’t do it. We tried to communicate in my tres mal français where to put the weight so I could improve my technique. I kept misunderstanding, so it took a while to master.

I have been improving because my roommate is a Swiss woman in her mid-seventies who is very chatty. She told me I can come visit her at her house when I can walk and we can talk French again.

In summary, the medical care is FANTASTIC here. If you think you might undergo any type of procedure in Switzerland, just be prepared for battles with your insurance and a crash course in French translation.

*All doctors offices and visits require upfront payment in Switzerland. You then have to file the claim and track your reimbursement with your insurance. Believe me, it’s a ton of fun. Don’t blame them though…a smart business practice.

**Our friends had their baby in the same Clinique as me this same week (so nice to have visitors!). They were supposed to have a C-section on Monday, but BOTH their primary doctor and his back up were injured while skiing during Ski Week. They had to push their delivery up a day so that the 3rd doctor could fit it in, apparently the only one in the practice who wasn’t injured during Ski Week. And yes, they stayed 7 days in the Clinique as well with their newborn!

CERN

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Post by Lauren

Recently, I was fortunate enough to get into a tour at CERN. CERN is located in Geneva, but its underground facilities span both in Switzerland and neighboring France. CERN stands for Conseil European pour la Recherche Nucleaire but also is known as the European Lab for Particle Physics.

 

 

It was founded in 1954 by 12 countries (now 20 are members) to determine the origin and structure of the universe. You may remember it from the scene from Angels and Demons when the antimatter was stolen.

I am relieved to find out that this scene is not based on fact. You can’t use antimatter for energy like this, and it can’t be captured and “stolen”. Good to know. Especially because it under us right now. Like literally. They are trying to recreate the Big Bang underneath where our apartment lies so they can understand more about the Universe.

 

 

As you can see, a 27 km pipe runs 100 m underground, creating a vacuum comparable to outer space. The particles are whizzing beneath us within the ring 11,000 times a second into France and then Switzerland.

Basically, they accelerate and create head-on collisions for the particles to try to detect and look for “The Higgs Particle” sometimes called “The God Particle.” Each beam has around 3000 bunches of particles, with an average of 100 billion particles in each bunch. Even with those numbers, there is typically on 20 collisions among 200 billion particles. The machine generates. However, there are so many that they can only keep the most interesting ones. So they filter for that and store only the most interesting data.

 

 

They have about 100,000 computers in a networks (called computer farms) to analyze the interactions. Only 10,000 or so are here in Geneva  and the rest are in labs all over the world. They use a web network to share and confirm the data transmissions.

 

 

You can see in real time how this data is coming in from all over. In fact, the World Wide Web was actually invented at CERN in order for scientists to share their data & experiments. Interesting!

Someone is watching the data and systems 24/7. Mostly it is a team of scientists in Europe. But they said that the folks in the USA take the night shift, so its being monitored and controlled by a lab in Chicago.

They used to let people underground up until when construction was finished 3 years ago. Thus, I didn’t get to go underground, but did get to see the former version that they still use in conjunction with the new systems.

However, I did get to see the spot where antimatter was first discovered!

 

 

The CERN guy joked that while the main building is in Geneva, since their facilities spans the border, they actually tap into French electricity. They are using 7 trillion volts of electricity to make this happen and in France it is a lot cheaper. Just like my groceries.

For another take on the tour, check out my new friend’s blog, The Adventures of Miss Widget and Her People.