Paragliding in the Swiss Alps (Verbier)

Last weekend as we were skiing in Verbier, we came across a group of paragliders that were taking off from the ski slopes. What a beautiful, peaceful way to take in the scenic views - I definitely want to consider doing this at some point...

A Swiss winter wonderland

We have been busy winter bees over the past few weeks.  The weather has been really terrible in the city but that means LOTS of snow in the mountains. So lots of snow + Mama K and Andrew visiting = adventures up in the Alps. I can't even describe how beautiful the landscape is once you are up in the Alps, it takes your breath away. Its one thing to see the mountains in the distance everyday and its another thing to be on top of them!

The first weekend my mom and Andrew were here we spent the weekend exploring the mountains in the Lake Geneva area (i.e., sort of close to home). We started by taking a train up to the top of Rochers de Naye, a scenic mountain top area with a mountain top observatory, visits with Santa Claus, yurts that you can stay over night in, and a marmot habitation area (I know what you're thinking.. what a strange combinatin).

 Next, we ventured by train to the region of Gruyere (yup, the actual birth place of Gruyere cheese). The town of Gruyere itself is this adorable little medieval town in the middle of the mountains. It has only 200 residents and a cheese factory and education center.

Cheese cellar where the gruyere cheese stays to age

Then next we went to eat fondue at a traditional restaurant in town

And then stopped by a bar in town that was designed by HR Giger, the guy who created the "Alien" movies, this was definitely the strangest bar I have ever been in and very cool but out of its element in this quaint medieval town

Then after the cheese and fondue, we moved onto the Nestle chocolate factory for a tour of the factory and all you can eat chocolate tasting (do you notice a trend here.. this weekend was dubbed "fat weekend", but boy was it delicious!)

The chocolate tasting room at the factory

The wall of chocolate at the end of the tour

So after fat weekend 2 weeks ago, we jumped on the opportunity to burn off all of those calories with a ski trip to Verbier this latest past weekend. The skiing was like nothing we have ever experienced, feet and feet and feet of fluffy powder with amazing views and wide open trails.  We went with two of our friends and we were happy to have Andrew with us for our first Swiss alps skiing experience. We had so much fun that we're already starting to look into renting a ski chalet for the winter next year - which means you should start scheduling your ski trips now ;)

Yo!! (this is Ryan)

Sooo, this is way overdue...  I hope no one was holding their breath.  This blog is great and I love what Lauren has put together – I should have participated a bit sooner…buttt I have been contently following!!  She is doing an awesome job documenting this once-in-a-lifetime adventure --- all the entries, pictures, and captions are amazing and something we will def be able to look back at.

I don’t even really know where to start – I feel like I just woke up.   We took this huge process head on 10 months ago …but everything is awesome and def settling down a bit.  We have successfully moved ourselves 4000 miles, navigated the apartment (flat) market, transitioned into a new lifestyle/culture, and met lots of great people.  Its all been hectic and overwhelming, but very rewarding at the same time. 

Like I said before, Lauren has done a great job following us each step of the way, so I don’t want to retell all of her great stories or post any of the same pictures – so I will touch upon some of my favorite things! 

We love our apartment and Pumpkin is happy and fuzzy as ever.

Of course, this is Europe and we have a smaller than normal bath tub with a shower wand and no shower curtain.  Me in a small confined tub area with a high pressured hose that isn’t fixed to the wall doesn’t work that well...

Lauren and I have assembled more Ikea furniture than anyone should in a lifetime.  Slowly and painfully we got beaten up by tables, chairs, and fixtures – this lasted for a month until we finally caved and hired the Ikea assembly team to take care of the last few pieces.

Wine happens to be a personal favorite of ours.  What’s better than wine festivals!  These are not uncommon and we have already found ourselves at a few of them.  For some reason they always seem to be a great time…  If you know me well, you know I could never turn away a bottomeless wine glass with what seems to be an infinite amount of wine.

We met our friends in London to tour and watch the Pats crush the Rams at Wembley.  Eric took one for the team months ago, waking up at 5am one morning to score some of the best seats I have experienced.  London was a lot of fun and as a whole we thought it was a very cool city.  Although it is a huge city it reminded us a lot of Boston.  It seemed to have a similar layout and geography with things that we like to do…but the weather is exactly as advertised – dreary and cold.  Gronk Spike!

The difficult things about being away are family, friends, and Americanized holidays…such as Thanksgiving.  I love Thanksgiving.  BUT, the normal routine of getting up early to prepare dishes and drink mimosas and seasonal brew with whoever was around wasn’t in the cards this year. The solution…4 roasted chickens, a huge pan of Moms homemade stuffing, 5 Kg (11 lbs) of Moms potato casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, gravy, cranberry sauce, and plenty of local wine.  Lauren and I even stayed up til 215am baking pumpkin and apple pies (and burning the top of my hand on the oven).  To join us for the feast was Lauren’s Mom and bro Andrew (our first visitors), Boston friends Sam and Eric, Lauren’s colleague and his girlfriend, and our new French friends.  No one went hungry and the general consensus was that we could do it again.

I could go on and on about interesting things we have done and experienced…you will just have to come and see for yourself (we have plenty of room).

 If you have followed this blog since the beginning, you have now probably read about the one real hesitation we faced when deciding to take on this assignment…the biggest question, “what will Ryan do if he goes?”  One would assume the answer would be that I would just find something to do, but it isn’t that easy.  The economy is not good; it’s expensive to sponsor foreigners to work; and you are constantly fighting an uphill battle against the foreign governments, agencies, and rules.  The deck was stacked against us.  All I could do was give it my best try, but now I feel like I won the lottery.

In the past few months, Lauren has eluded to the fact that I had a promising lead in an area that I was very interested in.  The only thing between me and the desk were the legal permits and visas.  Through patience, hard work, and a whole lot of luck - I am officially employed!

Everything worked out and it is my dream job.  I have settled in well and things are starting to seem less foreign and more normal…it is a good feeling.  I told myself through this whole process that I had to be cautiously optimistic and had to temper my excitement until I was at a desk AND I have received a paycheck because you have to expect the unexpected.  Within the past month, I checked off the second part of that statement and got my first paycheck…in Swiss Francs!  Now it’s real!

So now the cat (not pumpkin) is out of the bag and I have fulfilled my first posting duty that Lauren signed me up for – I promise it will not be another 47 days until my next post - stay tuned and talk soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our cherished family and friends! This year we are thankful for each other, our family, our old and new friends, our good health, our jobs, our sweet cat, this lovely country we are living in, and the fact that we have family coming to visit us tomorrow!  Mama K and Andrew land at 10AM tomorrow morning and we're super excited to have them here for a few weeks! We've moved Thanksgiving to Saturday evening and will be having a Thanksgiving meal with my mom, Andrew, Sam, Eric, and our new French friends who wanted to join in on the American tradition. We are cheating a little bit by having chicken and not turkey, but that's fine by us (turkeys are 25 Swiss Francs per kilo here and don't fit in the ovens!).

Wishing you and your families a wonderful Thanksgiving and start to the holiday season!

The concrete jungle... already?

I was in NYC this week for work, I definitely didn’t expect to be headed back to the US so soon! Don’t get me wrong, the fact that I got to spend the weekend prior with my sister at her house and see my girlfriends in NYC for dinner and shop for clothes and Thanksgiving supplies at amazingly cheap American prices is a fantastic perk, so I’m not complaining, but I do feel like I just left the US. Time certainly does fly, I can’t believe we have already been gone for 2 months, it feels literally like it has only been a week. The nice part is that Switzerland already feels like our new home, which I didn’t expect to happen so soon. The fact that we have quickly settled down in our apartment and jobs, explored, made friends, and made a life for ourselves in Geneva makes me happily surprised. I was thinking that it would take a good 6 months to even start to feel like this!

The best fondue in the world, quite literally

We found the world’s best fondue. It. is. so. good. The restaurant is called Bain de Paquis. This place puts the Melting Pot to shame folks.  Eric actually gave it the distinguished title of “best meal he has had in Europe to date”.  It sits out on a jetty in the middle of Lake Geneva so its pretty AND its one of the cheapest places to get fondue in the city. So just a forewarning, you will be dragged here to eat fondue if you come visit us :)

Castle castle CASTLE!

I have a “thing” for castles, its bordering on slightly obsessive. I love the mystery, romance, and elegance that exude from them. I love exploring their expanses and picturing what life would have been like to live in one of them.  So naturally I have been dying to go to Chateau de Chillon in Montreaux since we arrived. It is Switzerland’s most famous castle (from our house it is about an hour away via train and then a short bus ride). Last Sunday was a rainy day so we decided it was a perfect day to explore the castle. The day we visited there was some sort of “family day” in which the fee to enter the castle was completely waived. A free castle is even better than a regular castle! For 6 Swiss Francs we rented audio tours on iPods in the gift shop and set out on an hour tour of the castle. The castle has been around for over 1,000 years and here are some tid bits on the castle's three major periods of occupation:

The Savoy period (12th century to 1536)

The oldest written document mentioning the castle dates from 1150; it says that the House of Savoy already controlled the route along the shores of Lake Geneva.

The Bernese period (1536-1798)

The Swiss, more precisely the Bernese, conquered the Pays de Vaud and occupied Chillon in 1536. The castle retained it's role as a fortress, arsenal and prison for over 260 years.

The Vaudois period (1798 to the present)

The Bernese left Chillon in 1798 at the time of the Vaudois Revolution. The castle became the property of the Canton of Vaud when it was founded in 1803. The restoration of the historical monument began at the end of the 19th Century.

 

Compared to the other castles I have seen in Europe, this one was distinctly more “Swiss”, set in the middle of the blue Lake Geneva with the towering mountains in the foggy distance.

An interesting fact is that the town of Montreaux, where the castle is, actually has Mediterranean-like climate because it is surrounded on all sides by really tall mountains. Because of this, the town actually has palm trees, flowers, and balmy weather this time of year. It was strange to go only an hour away from Geneva and find palm trees and warmer weather! I have a feeling that we will frequent the town of Montreaux in the winter to enjoy the warmer weather (although the average temperature in Geneva isn’t supposed to be too bad, 40-50 degrees F on average in the “coldest” months). Of course up in the mountains it is MUCH colder, which is why skiing is so popular here (even in the summer you can ski on glaciers that always have snow).

Just another day in wine country

Last weekend Sam and Eric came to Geneva and we were trying to decide where to explore on Saturday when Ryan came home with news that his co-workers were heading to a local wine festival, so we decided to join in on the fun.  We took the train 15 minutes away to the town of Gland and for 15 Swiss Francs, the wine festival was offering bus transportation between 15 different wineries and a wine glass for as many tastings as you wanted at any of the wineries. AMAZING! The area was really beautiful, we could see the now snow-capped Swiss Alps in the background and we spent the afternoon meandering from winery to winery tasting different wines and eating delicious homemade soups and pizzas supplied by the wineries.

I think the “older” I get and the more we continue to live in cities (Boston, Geneva), it only increases my appreciation for the beauty and simplicity of mother nature.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience, history, and variety that cities provide; but, I also REALLY love just hanging out in the mountains and vineyards and enjoying the amazing scenery around. I guess those are the NH roots in me :) And then you throw in wine, a fun loving husband, and good friends and it just becomes icing on the cake. Days like this day make me stop and realize that no matter how ridiculously frustrating this whole moving process can be at time, we are pretty darn lucky to be living in this amazing country/region.

Ryan's coworkers

The Alps and Lake Geneva from one of the wineries

Courtyard of one of the wineries

Little train that goes through the wine country and picks up passengers

London!!

Two weekends ago we went to London to meet up with our friends Sam and Eric to watch the Patriots play at Wembley stadium and also explore the city. London struck us as being very similar to Boston (which makes a lot of sense given the history), it is very lively, pretty, and a tad chilly :) We had a great time exploring the city and it was only 1 hour away by plane, how easy! We will certainly be back to explore more sometime over the next few years. Here are some photo highlights from the trip:

London bridge from our hotel room (the hotel upgraded us after the hotel room on the first night didn't have any hot water in the shower and we had to shower in a strangers room!)

Changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace

In front of one of the infamous London telephone booths

Turkish candies at the Borough market - a huge outdoor market with lots of food and treats to sample and buy

Looking out at the Parliament buildings from the awesome double decker bus tour

The boys loving life at Wembley stadium

Every seat had a colored bag on the seat that people raised in the air during the national anthem - it created a British flag on the left and an American flag on the right

The black hole continues

Hello again from the black hole of Switzerland. We requested Swisscom to set up our internet almost 4 weeks ago and we still don't have internet, I won't go into the details because it just makes me bitter; but, maybe one day we can return to normal connected civilization.... after they likely blow a hole in the walls of our newly renovated apartment to re-wire the internet cables (I wish I was joking about this!).  Until then we have been spending our weekends and evenings exploring, cooking, setting up our apartment, going to Ikea A LOT, having dinner/drinks with new friends, working, and getting acquainted with the area. I have to admit there is a small part of me that finds it slightly liberating not to feel obligated to check work e-mails or watch TV or be otherwise distracted with something other than each other's company (although Ryan will strongly agree with the point about the TV!)

A few notes on the amazing-ness of modern technology in the life of an expatriate: if you haven't already, download the app on the iPhone and Android systems called What'sApp.  It is essentially a texting application that runs through data which means that you can text either of us for free at any time (let us know when you download it and we will add you as a contact). Also, for those with iPhones, the new iOS6 software allows us to facetime over the data network, which means free video calls anywhere you/we have cell service. These two handy pieces of technology have been awesome to use to keep in touch with friends and family so far. I'm sure Ryan will post one day about his love for a cool gadget called Slingbox too...

This coming weekend we embark on our first Euro weekend trip. We are going to London with our friends from Boston, Sam and Eric! They are traveling around the world en route to their new home in Australia and we are going to meet them in London to go to the Patriots game at Wembley stadium. We're really excited to see some familiar faces and have fun exploring the city. Does anyone have any tips/favorite places to hit while we're in London?

By the way, Ryan is slacking on his inaugural post (booooo!). I said a week or so ago that he was going to post next about his exciting news but he blames his inability to post on the black hole -- bad excuse :) He says he promises to blog soon...

In the meantime, here are a few iPhone photos - once we get internet I can upload my camera pictures.

The best fondue EVER with our new french friend, Alexis

The jet d'eau from the water

The square outside of our apartment with the mountain in the background

Address update

I think I gave a slightly incorrect address to our new apartment in my last post, apparently the dashes and little accent marks make a difference :) so here is our updated address in case you want to send mail, packages, love notes, pictures, American ketchup, carrier pigeons with secret messages, flowers, jars of peanut butter, reservation dates for your guest room, bottles of Frank's hot sauce, etc. etc. -- just kidding... well sort of :)

[ADDRESS REMOVED FOR PRIVACY REASONS: Contact me separately if needed]

PS - We received some REEEEEALLY good news today/yesterday! be looking out for Ryan's first post soon that will explain it all :)
PPS - Check out the big stack of boxes that we accumulated in our living room over the past week, Pumpkin thought we built him his own playground made of cardboard boxes

Busy week...

Well... the amazing Ryan and Lauren alternating vacation period sadly had to end at some point, we are both back at work (more on Ryan's work story in the near future) and we have had long days. The challenging part is that we don't have any internet at home, barely any furniture (bed + couch), and no stores are open past 6PM (i.e., no groceries all week), so we've pretty much been living (and will continue to be living) in a black hole this week. Once Swisscom decides to finally grant our request for a cell phone (which is after they already made us pay a 1,000 CHF deposit for being Americans), we can request internet access and return partially to the real world. Until then, hello from the black hole of Switzerland!

PS - sorry for being negative Nancy, I promise once I can actually have internet and real food to eat, things will be looking a lot more positive. On a positive note, we love love the apartment and have finished unpacking all of our belongings!

KEYS to the Swiss pad

We got the keys to our permanent apartment yesterday! We LOVE this place. Its definitely the nicest apartment we have ever lived in -- well....second to my stint in #337 in North Carolina perhaps :)  It is in an old building, but the landlord just finished renovating it last week, which means new everything (kitchen, bathroom, windows, etc.) while still having renovated old features (crown molding, tall ceilings, old-style closets and windows, wrought iron balcony/window features). The shipping company delivers all of our STUFF today at 8AM and we can't wait to sleep in our own bed. This weekend we will be doing some major shopping because our bed and a few wardrobes is the only furniture that we actually shipped!

A few random facts on renting Swiss apartment that we found interesting (or annoying at times):

• Before handing over keys in Switzerland, landlords need proof of: first month's rent, a security deposit of 3 MONTHS rent (my company loans expats the Swiss francs thankfully!), proof of household and liability insurance coverage, and of course a signed lease.
• All light fixtures are owned by tenants and not landlords in Switzerland. This means that whenever you go into an empty apartment, you will just see one lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling. This should be interesting for us to figure out how to install light fixtures... or maybe we will just wait until Hut visits :)
• In rental buildings that have laundry facilities, you are assigned a 2 hour time slot during the week in which you can do your laundry - the time slot typically ends up being in the middle of a weekday, so a lot of people actually go home from work to do laundry. Can you imagine saying "sorry boss, gotta go home to switch the laundry!" We are actually going to purchase a washing machine and have it installed in the apartment (this is quite common here and you sell it to the next tenant).

Below is a video tour of the new apartment before all of our stuff gets delivered. Make sure you check out YOUR guest bedroom!! :)

Montreaux Riviera: wine country!

Ryan and I are big fans of everything wine, especially when it involves wine tastings, beautiful scenery, and cute little wineries/towns.  Therefore you can imagine our delight when we decided to check out a local wine festival this weekend. The Montreaux Riviera, which is also known as the Lavaux wine region, is a 45 minute train ride north of Geneva. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of the scenery and the thousands of years that it took local winery owners to create the terraced vineyards that cascade down into Lake Geneva. The nature of the terraced vineyards and the climate creates a special wine that is only produced in this region, called Chasselas. Lutry is one of the eight little towns within the Lavaux region and every year for the past 60+ years they host an annual harvest season wine festival where local wine lovers come and enjoy tastings of wine produced by local wineries and lots of yummy food. The local children also put on a really cute parade. Although the weather wasn't spectacular, we had a great time exploring our local Swiss wine country and we're excited to explore it further in the future! Aparently there are some great hikes through the vineyards that have spectacular views.
In parting, I will leave you with a fun wine fact that I recently learned - the Swiss actually produce a significant amount of wine (the countryside around us is covered in vineyards); however, you won't often see it sold in the US or other countries, because almost all Swiss wine is domestically consumed. Translation: trying the "rare" Swiss wine is just another reason why you should come visit us :)

Program for the wine festival or 'Fetes de Vendanges'

On one of the many cute little streets in the town of Lutry

Pretty flowers all around town

Part of the parade

Trying some 2002 wine with the owner

I didn't take this picture - the weather was really cloudy, but these are the terraces on a clear day -- can't wait to return when the weather is nice!

A wine 'cave', literally!

I don't normally take pictures of trash cans :) but I thought this view of all of the different bottles was pretty neat