Category Archives: Learning & Growing

What’s the opposite of Lance Armstrong? That’s me.

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Post by Lauren

Yesterday was really pretty so I decided to go to the beach to study French.

Normally, my mode of transportation is the TPG ( transports publics genevois) because #1 – I am lazy and #2 – I have a toe condition that I am supposed to limit walking and # 3 – TPG is awesome. We splurged on TPG annual passes and it was our best purchase yet. We can hop on and off the trams, buses and boats anytime we want. Even still, I probably still walk 2 to 3 miles a day.

While there are two buses that go to the beach, they require connections. It’s not a bad walk either, but yesterday with the sun shining, I felt brave enough to take my bike out.

We have been out on our bikes 3 times, but this was my first time without Gabe. I have been afraid so far since I am not a very good at it and city biking is intimidating to me. The big deal is that In Geneva, you have to blend in with traffic and are forbidden from using sidewalks. I like to follow him and just do whatever he since I have no clue.

I should also note that the few times we had been, it was late in the evening or on the weekends where Geneva is very quiet so there weren’t a lot of cars. For a great recap of what it’s like to bike in Geneva during the day with obstacles, check out my friend A’s post. She has really good diagrams.

On the way there, I got honked at twice. Once, really really loud. I am not sure if I mentioned that Swiss people like to point out when you do something wrong, so this was no exception. It has just never happened to me with horns yet.

Nevertheless, most of this venture to the beach was downhill, so I just managed to weave in and out of traffic to make it to the main Quai where it was easy-peasy and I could mingle with the other beach cruisers on the large bike path.

Grateful for still having my life, I happily camped out on the beach for a few hours with my French workbook enjoying the day.

Going home, I was more determined to not have anyone honk at me. I choose to go home through the park where I didn’t have to work in with the traffic. The steep park. I almost had to stop halfway through as my legs couldn’t go anymore. Then onto the main roads again.

Stopped at a light, a homeless man kept smiling at me and pointing at a BMW motorcycle parked right beside me and pointing. I am not sure if he was saying that bike was better than mine, or just laughing at my bike-skills, but it was in French and I couldn’t understand.

Nevertheless, I trudged on, up more and more hills. Cars, motorcycles, and buses whizzed by me coming about 6 inches from me. I wish they knew that I didn’t really have very much control at all. In fact, I almost hit an elderly lady while going uphill in the park. However, they continued to get within inches.

I considered leaving the bike on one particular hill as my legs wouldn’t go anymore after a really hard lifting session today at Globo Gym. I could always go back and get it later. However, I realized how hard Gabe would laugh at me if I did this. I am not sure where the energy came from in the end, or maybe it was the flat road that finally came, but I finally made it home. I had never been so grateful to see that place. I was so tired, it took 3 attempts to lift the bike back on its hook in our scary basement.

I think I may stick to the TPG during traffic hours from now on. It’s much safer for me.

Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas Anymore: Part 1

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Post by Lauren

This is a new series meant to bring a little bit of humor to things that we see on a day-to-day basis. Of course, we want visitors to come see these neat differences yourselves, but hopefully this will keep you up-to-date in the interim!

1 – Freshly baked pastries and FREE wine on short flights – this is a normal occurrence on Swiss Air. I understand they had some financial problems recently but I am not complaining. I have never had an airplane meal this good, sans charge.

2 – The lack of refrigeration of dairy (milk, cream, whipped cream) and egg products. Milk products are ultra pasteurized so that they can stay on shelf. They’ll last up to two months before opening. Eggs are also left on shelf, but just need to be consumed within a week. If you could see the size of our fridge, you’d be trés grateful you can stock up on dairy without needing precious cold space!

3 – Don’t even try it, folks. This gas station does not take 1000 CHF bills. Note: this is like $1200 USD. In the US, they frown at you for giving 50 dollar bills.

4 – The use of Indians to guide angry cars and people during construction. Here he is saying, “Caution – roadwork. I am your guide”.

No further comment. I am just pretty sure I wouldn’t see something like this back home.

Mr. Edible

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Post by Lauren

If you love animals, you might want to stop here.

So, as a beginner in French, our first week here, I took notice of a menu posted on the street with “cheval”.

 

“Hmm” I commented to Gabe, “ I thought that cheval meant horse! Ha, my French is really awful….Rosetta Stone really didn’t pay off, huh?”

A few weeks later, I saw it again. It must be some sort of goat cheese…..like fromage de chèvre. Sort of sounds the same, right?! So, thirsty for French knowledge, I looked it up.

Oh no.

And, I found that I was accurate the first time.

Yup, as confirmed by the meat labels in our local store, people here like to eat Mr. Ed.

Riding or eating. Either will work!

I was shocked and brought it up on our next women’s hike. My friend M noted that usually this is served prior to fondue, as a dried meat. Bleccccck!!!!


Horse steaks on sale in Carouge!

If you don’t believe me, check out the little animals on the packages they have at the Co-op to help people identify the meats. I should dedicate a Gratitude Friday to these labels so that I haven’t mistakenly eaten horse.

Speaking of mistakes, when we were in Chamonix a few weeks ago, I was eating the dried meats they served with raclette until I remembered M’s fondue advice mid-bite of a really tough piece.

Getting upset thinking about what I might be eating

Don’t worry, we asked the waitress and it was a false alarm – all jambon, or ham. I couldn’t eat any more after that though.

Zip-Pity do-da (excuse the pun)

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This week is a really fabulous week. Not only did it start off with a Canadienne Buffet, continue with a washer and dryer delivery, but now the icing on the cake….I have actually found out where exactly we live.

In Switzerland, the sections of towns are broken up into four digit zip codes. It has been quite a saga to find out which one we actually live in. This adventure started when we found out we got our apartment, at the end of March. And we have hopefully found the answer, only 14 weeks later. I’d like to share a chronological timeline of our experience with this:

March 2011: The agency calls to say “Congratulations! You got the apartment after 4 weeks of waiting on pins-and-needles! It’s official!”

March 2011: Lauren instantly takes address from house-hunting documents and enters them into TinyPrint.com to make wedding thank you cards. Hits Order. Second guesses realizes that she forgot to put an actual apartment # as it wasn’t listed on house hunting documents. Emails agency and asks whether she should stop the order to include the apartment #. Agency writes back that the address IS in fact correct, people don’t list their apartment #s. There are none – just your building number. Note: don’t apply for mailmen positions in Switzerland, this would be not fun to figure out for 16-20 apartments in every building.

April 2011: Beautiful Tiny Print thank you cards come

May 2011: Move to Switzerland. Carry one of the little thank you cards everywhere – to get TPG pass, to register for things, as it has the proper address and it is easier than butchering our address or spelling our names aloud in French. Note, registration people also appreciate such effort.

May 2001: While in temporary living, learn how to use TPG (public transportation of geneva) site to map out daily transportation. Curious to what buses come to new permanent apartment and try that. Realize that our Zip Code Original doesn’t work. It suggests our address, but with Zip Code 2…..hmm. Houston, we may have a problem.

May 2011: Email Agency. WTF? Agency advises to in fact, start using Zip Code 2 moving forward. Give out Zip code 2 when doing the rest of home-set-up. Figure that eventually people with Zip Code 1 will catch on. Realize that most people in the US won’t send us mail, so not a terribly big deal all our wedding thank you cards have the wrong address, right?

June 2011: Go on “familiarization” tour of neighborhood with agency.
When we get to the post office part, agency advises that they called prior to our day together, and actually Zip Code 1 is correct. Revert to using it. Yeah, all those Tiny Print thank you cards aren’t a waste after all!

June 2011: Go to women’s club luncheon. Have new member kit handed back to me as it was rejected when sending to Zip Code 1. Has a very clear note from La Post saying to start using Zip Code 2. Start using Zip code 2 again since they said so….

June 2011: Use Zip code 2 when ordering train tickets. Days later, train office writes me a personalized email (in English!!) saying my tickets were sent back to them. Advise them to use my husband’s name (I am not legally converted yet – story too long for this blog post) and re-send to Zip Code 1. Thank them profusely for their amazing customer service.

June 2011: A brilliant idea occurs to me. Our neighbors must know where we live and actually have the right address on their mail. Since the neighbors don’t speak English and we don’t want to confuse them hoping they’ll give us lenience on noise and all the other things we know we’ll do wrong, brainstorm an ingenious idea. [ The rest of this part has been omitted to protect author ] . Confirm neighbors have Zip Code 1.

June 2011: Train tickets successfully arrive to Zip Code 1. But, I have to walk four blocks to go get envelope with a retrieval ticket, as it was held at the post office. Even though it was an envelope that would have fit in the mailbox. Bizarre.

Conclude that sending mail to Zip 1 with husbands name is the best approach. Mission accomplished…zippity do da dandy.

Gratitude Friday: Mon Mari

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This Friday, I just wanted to dedicate my post on gratitude to mon mari (my husband).

Last night, I was just reflecting on how lucky we were to not be doing the long distance thing anymore. For two and a half years, both of us traveled back and forth from Charlotte and Atlanta. While we love to travel, four hours each way on I-85 is not an ideal experience to have most weekends. During that time, neither of us felt settled in our own cities or with any free time going back and forth.

I remember a dream of mine was just wanting to watch a rental movie with Gabe on a weeknight. It was never really possible on our short weekends as we usually had events or plans with friends.

Just 8 weeks ago, we were doing long distance. And now, I find myself married to my best friend.

And, last night, we watched a rented movie from iTunes, it hit me that all I ever wanted had come true…..getting to live in the same place as the one I love. Each night, I get so excited for him for him to walk through the door.

Beyond that, we get this great adventure as our honeymoon. While the move may have its ups-and-downs, it is an incredible thing to experience a new country together. We share all the tough points, as well as the awe of the fact that we live in this absolutely amazing place. And sometimes, usually as we cross the Mont Blanc bridge in our car, I have to pinch myself and say, “we really live here!” and then we both smile.

A selection of photos taken in a few week period – our wedding, a picnic and our first weekend in Geneva at Caves Ouverts.



So, this week, and every week, I am thankful for mon mari, and all he does to make me the happiest girl in the world.

Communication

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Everyone will be excited to know that our washer and dryer is arriving on Monday (hopefully). I anticipate that laundry will be a bit more pleasant, now that I can control all the little dials, # of minutes, and I have access to my own bathroom (which is where it goes, basically almost in the shower) vs. it being in a scary dungeon that is sometimes locked and sometimes not.

And, the reason I say hopefully is that you can’t really count on anything here until it happens.

For instance, last week we had an appointment for an electrician to put all our light fixtures up in our apartment (in Switzerland, when you rent an apartment, there are just wires hanging from the ceiling – you have to purchase and install all your fixtures yourself). He came last Friday at 2pm, and after 2 hours, at 4pm, he told me in French that he had to leave. It was quitting time. He still had half of them to go. He is supposed to come back today, as if it wasn’t today, he was booked and had vacation, so who knows how long this would take.

I prefer email tremendously to the phone to communicate with people here. It is a bit anti-social, yes, but the benefit is having Google Translate. I just type what I want, pop it in Google Translate, and then copy/paste. Done! I do the same with communication back to me.

So, I requested this with the washer and dryer delivery, and here are the bits of communication that I have to determine if it is coming or not and when. Bless this guys heart for trying English. He knows a ton more than I do. Without Google Translate, I’d be lost!

When the washing machine comes, I am planning to open the champagne we were given by Gabe’s co-workers. We have been waiting for a special occasion, and I cannot think of a better reason to celebrate!

The day I almost cried over toothpicks

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Those who follow our blog know that usually one in seven days ends up in tears for me. Don’t feel too bad……in comparing notes with new ex-patriate haus-frau peers, this is about par for the course, so I feel like I am doing quite well!

I’ll preface this story with the comment that we really really love our new apartment. Settling in is going great! We promise to post pictures soon. And, one of the best things about our apartment is that it is a 8 minute walk to beautiful Old Town, the high-walled city. Hmm….one might have realized that its quite a hike to get up to to our apartment based on its elevation with a spot where medieval warriors built their town to defend it from attacks. But this had not quite occurred to me until this week, when five-grocery-trips-in-two-days later, I feel like I have quads and hamstrings of steel from carrying all our groceries up these hills from the Co-ops and Migros down on lake level. Plus, I am coming down with a cold so the energy isn’t as strong as it usually is.

Things I learned from this:
-Four bottles of wine is too many. Maybe every trip, grab one. Not four. Hiking uphill with a third of a case of wine is not a good idea.
-Remember your list. In passing the store, I always get the idea that I should just duck in and pick up the groceries. But, with my memory, I always forget to bring the list which results in more trips!
-Just expect to get some things wrong. I happily discovered goat cheese the other day and learned that the goat on the front must mean goat cheese. “Score!”, I thought…. I love goat cheese in salads which I happen to eat most days for lunch. The second time, I bought some more cheese with a goat on the front for my spring salads and realized I got some kind of gooey cheese, similar to brie. Whoops! This also happened today when I trammed 30 minutes out to the one hardware store and meant to get matches to start enjoying our candles and I got some kind of camping sticks??

The wrong cheese and wrong matches purchased earlier in the week….



Back to the story. I am quite excited that the women’s club had their spring luncheon planned for tomorrow. I volunteered to bring my friend Noelle’s caprese bites (a cherry tomato, mozzarella ball, and basil on a toothpick, doused in olive oil & balsamic vinegar with fresh ground pepper) since it was delicious, but easy. Time is limited with the settling-in.

At the second grocery trip yesterday, I remembered to grab the tomatoes. Luckily, we have basil now growing on the porch, so I had that. But I forgot the mozzarella. And forgot it the third and fourth time. However, today, I was out for a meeting, I grabbed it (fifth trip).

Since tomorrow morning was full of back-to-back errands & activities already, I settled in to make dinner and prep my delicious app.

So, I pulled out everything to assemble and realized……no toothpicks. Toothpicks are something I always had on hand so never thought of this.

I started to feel familiar culture shock frustration set in….the sinking feeling….“Why can’t this just be easy?”…..“Curses, why didn’t I pack my $%^^ toothpicks in the shipment??”…… “What is the French word for toothpick anyway?”

But this time, I turned it around. I had a glass of wine (thanks to one of the four bottles I had bought yesterday) and made myself dinner (Gabe is gone all week in Brussels, so solo).

Afterwards, I walked down to the Migros and started to look all over the store. They don’t really have a cocktail / mixer aisle, which is where they would be at home. So, I started walking down every aisle. Then, all of a sudden, the lights started flashing and went off. Darkness. A French voice came on saying something that I imagine was “We are closing….get out now!”. I scrambled around the store rushing to find the coveted toothpicks. People were rushing to the cashiers.

However, much to my delight, I found skewers and considered just putting them on the ends of those. But finally, much did my happy eyes find, but below were the toothpicks! If you are wondering, their name in French is – cure dent en bois!

So, I headed home and successfully made my appetizer, as seen below displayed in lovely new Rubbermaid Glass container.

Whew….disaster averted. Let this be known as the day I almost cried over toothpicks but turned it around. Maybe wine can cure all culture shock?

Gratitude Friday: Curiosity and Learning

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This week’s gratitude post goes out to curiosity & learning.

This is top of mind because we traveled to the U.K. this week. So, after 3 jam-packed days of absorbing everything we could culturally, visually, and culinary about London, I did what I always do when we go on a trip that involves a historical destination….search for all possible books, movies, wikipedia articles, etc. to learn even more about where we just were.

When Gabe and I went to Greece last May, even before arrival back to the US, I was watching Alexander in our hotel room, shortly followed by 300 and Troy. Much to my happiness, my bible study group was also starting a study on the book of Esther the week I returned and so that whole 2 month study included more snippets and context about Xerses & the Persian Empire around the Grecian times. I think I may have driven the ladies crazy trying to encourage them to watch 300 & Alexander to get a better picture in their minds of that day & age!

Exploring Greece, 2009

So, in London this week, we learned a ton about the monarchs, particularly Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Lady Jane Grey. So they are on my list to absorb all literature, information I can about female monarchs and the wives of Henry III. Last night, I watched Elizabeth for the second time – it put our Tower of London visit and the story about her time in captivity there into vivid picture vs. my first viewing. I also need to re-watch The Other Boleyn Girl…its been a few years.
Also, another fascinating area for me was the devastation to London during The Blitz and the stories from those who lived through it. This was started in the US, when my book club read The Postmistress and The Gurnsey LIterary And Potato Peel Pie Society last year. We had also read Sarah’s Key that shed some light on that horrific time. Reading historical fiction helps me have more empathy and understanding for what the people who lived through that time went through. Both Gabe and I really wanted to go see the Churchill Museum (recommended by our friend Nick) but we didn’t have time this trip.

I also added Oliver Twist and The Canterbury Tales to my must read list too based on seeing some of the streets in our touring. I particularly felt more compelled to read some of Dickens work since Gabe and I enjoyed a few beers in the pub basement which he frequented. Just kidding…but still, its time to re-read some of these classics, especially since many times the classics are free on Kindle.

Seeing a show at the Globe was a highlight for me. I must re-watch Shakespeare in Love as it provides a fun look at this Elizabethan era, while not historically completely accurate.

Also, for more regarding the last century, Notting Hill, Alfie, Love Actually and Bridget Jones Diaries. Mainly, just so I can continue to hear more British accents (love them!) and potentially see familiar scenery from London.

Anyhow, back to gratitude:

-I am just very fortunate to be able to go on these trips to historical sites to inspire me to keep learning more and more.

-I am grateful for living in a day and age where travel & the quick dissemination of information is possible. Building on that, I am thankful for Wikipedia, iTunes and Amazon for letting me feed my habit from Switzerland. If it wasn’t for that technology, I’d be impatiently waiting for my first trip back to the US to stock up on knowledge in the English language. And I’d have less room in my suitcase for enchilada sauce.

-I am grateful for still having the love of learning. I love being a “sponge”.

-I am also grateful for my husband putting up with my habit and not minding too much. Thanks, babe (didn’t you want to see Young Victoria this weekend??)!

-A bonus “shout-out” to my book club ladies in Charlotte, NC for contributing by recommending these great historical fiction novels!

Book club at my house, circa 2008

My last Book Club @ Tara’s April 2011

So, what do you love learning more about??

Reason I Wish I Knew French #23

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Today I am starting a new series entitled “Reasons why I wish I knew French,” in order to bring some humor to the language barrier.

We now have 4 large mattress/bed parts in our teeny shoebox of an apartment.

I think that they are renovating the apartment and this is part of it? Although I am not quite sure as the building guy (who I have seen before, so I do know I didn’t accept some random mattresses) only speaks a little English and I basically speak only a teeny amount of French. It would have been better if he asked me things about food or farmers markets, or ordering at a restaurant, as I am getting better at this part 🙂

Anyhow, I think they are coming back to do something with these in an hour and I am supposed to stay put until they return because they don’t have a key. If only I knew for sure….I kind of wanted to go to the gym today before it closes at 5pm so if my French were better, I would really understand!!!

On the bright side, Gabe got an email from the customs/moving people and we are supposed to move in to our new place on Saturday…..yippee!!!! I wish you could see my smile right now!

Keeping change in check

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Most readers know I am OCD in terms of organization. So, I always had to have to a billfold that had separators – a divider in the larger cash section – one for bills, one for receipts and lots of little side pockets for keeping various things separate. I never fully took advantage of the dividers in the change section of the billfold though….until now.

Since Switzerland doesn’t use Euros (they aren’t a part of the EU), we use Swiss Francs day to day. I also keep a small amount of Euro change since we are on a border town of France, and in case I need a bus ticket there, etc. When we arrived in London this weekend, the pounds and pence added a third dimension. I surely have to keep them separate as you can’t tell the coins apart at a glance (or at least I have not become that skilled yet). So, I have my little change purse divided up with all the different currencies.

I can’t imagine what is was like before the EU & one monetary system for most of Europe!