Moving Day! Interim Report --

In the middle of moving day. The container arrived in Saint-Blaise as scheduled. Emma was there to coordinate the move in, I'm at "home" with the boys. There was a half-hour delay as the truck tried to find a place to park. But as of 12:00, everything is unloaded. Now they are unwrapping and unpacking. Looks like everything came through ok.

Stylin' Dinin'

So on Friday night Walter and I left the boys under the wise eye of our landlords and took a stroll into town for Anniversary Dinner :) We had asked about good places to eat, and many abound. We decided on Swiss speciality (getting to know our country) and 2 places were recommended: Cafe du Jura and Maison des Halles. We stopped at the Jura first and looked over the menu. It's hardcore Swiss. There was 'tete et langue' of something (head and tongue) and tripe, which is a speciality in Neuchatel (tripe Neuchatelois) and of course, fondue. We'll save it for another time. We ended up going to the Maison des Halles. It's in the pretty central square, in the old building with spires (built in the 1600s). It was lovely. The interior is gorgeous, not smokey and the food was scrum-diddly-umtious. We both chose prix fixe menus. His was local produce (Neuchatel sausage, some kind of white fish and zabalogne with Absinthe). Apparently, Absinthe is made here and becoming very popular. I had the 'treasures of the forest' (carpaccio with truffles, mushroom soup, salmon with mushrooms and berry cream stuff).
http://www.maisondeshalles.ch/

We were utterly stuffed and happy, so we went for a wee walk around town in the p#%@ing rain. We came across a strange street performance. Foour people were suspended ~15ft off the ground, lying on top of each other, facing the ground. They were controlling what looked like >30 strings on a lifesized marrionette below (which was female, naked and freaky looking). They did it in absolute silence and really slowly, while 2 people with guide ropes slowly turned their platform round. We didn't see it again on Saturday...
So, we continued on and happened past the "Highlander Pub". Who could resist, eh? What a bad bad idea ;) It was run by money hungry Morrocans (20 CHF for 2 drinks) and featured Hookahs, palm trees and teenagers looking for a good time. We were the oldest there till a couple of confused looking British men entered. It was good for a laugh dissing the music and dress of everyone around us!
The walk home was 20 mins of bucketing rain. Our jeans were still wet through the next day! Yes, I've forgotten what it feels like to walk home in the rain....

Saturday, we did the shopping expedition to town and had lunch there. The Migros has a very nice deli type area with tables you stand at to eat. That makes it more fast food, I think. Walter took the boys on a quick wind blown walk to the harbour in the apres midi, where they're building the floats for the Fete des Vendange.
http://www.fete-des-vendanges.ch/

Today, more inclement weather (bloody cold), but we took the bus to the end of the line to go see our friends Herb et Vero for lunch. They had a BBQ and invited us and a couple (French Canadian and Italian), one of whom Herb went to highschool with. It was a nice afternoon of French/English conversation and tasty meat! The boys had fun and behaved (except Toby's insanely loud screaming waking the baby).

Tomorow, we embark on our last week in temporary housing...Hoorahoorahoorooh!
Tuesday: Walter takes a walk through with the rental company and is given the keys to the Saint Blaise apartment. The Swiss are incredibly picky when it comes to leaving a house in good condition. Some have been know to put on white gloves and look for dust! It's quite common to pay up to 1000 CHF to have your house cleaned when you move out, that's on top of taking all the light FIXTURES with you!
Walter rents a car on Weds and we go 'crazy' buying light fixtures, appliances and some furniture. IKEA may be in the pipeline (~1 hour away). The movers come on Friday. I need to learn some 'moving in' French phrases. Walter goes Stateside on Sunday :( Me and the boys will have all of our stuff (last seen ~7 weeks ago) to get reacquainted with, though :) After Walter comes back, we're getting some serious French lessons.

Smellin' European, Feelin' Minnesota

It's been long enough since we arrived that we've had to buy new personnal hygiene products- deoderant, hair care etc.... I've long suspected, and it's been confirmed by smelling all the products in Migros, that Europeans smell very different to Americans. Brits smell a bit different to mainlanders, come to that. I can't put my finger on what exactly makes the difference, even in stuff that is sold in both places. Maybe American stuff is more fruity.....
Anyway, it's all part of the integration process ;)

Yesterday, I took the boys to the beach (it's been really beautiful weather) which is a 10 min walk towards the center of town. The beach is small and pebbley, with a glace stand nearby. We paddled and threw stones. Toby had to throw the biggest ones he could find (and barely lift). Allie and I collected interesting looking ones. Apparently, the Neuchatel area is quite interesting to paleontologists and the like. Here are a couple of pics taken at the same beach, but a few weeks ago.

PS- It's our tenth wedding anniversary today :) Just seems like yesterday we were having fun on the Queen Mary..... Tonight, our landlords are listening out for the boys while we sample Neuchatel night life!

One Swiss drawback

Yesterday the shops weren't open- including the huge Migros (think Target, M&S, Tesco...) in Marin (yes Marin- pronounced maran. So it is a real place name, not one thought up by hippies!). I can understand that. This is a historically Catholic country. On Mondays, though, most (essential) shops aren't open in the morning. It's not like the Swiss are recovering from the weekend. Wednesday afternoon the shops are closed too, with late openning (till 8pm) on Thursdays. A lot of shops also close for lunch! It's certainly made us plan our time more, but boy was I spoiled before. This economy ain't built on consumerism....

By the Lake

We took a wee walk down to the lake this afternoon. It was a warm, humid cloudy day- lots of people sunning themselves, riding bikes, boating, boys flying huge kites that pull bikes along.....

EuroMTV games

We now watch cable TV here. There are 2 music channels- the local Swiss all Euro music and EuroMTV. Our new game is "guess what country the song's from" before any singing starts. We're pretty good now ;) The (mainland) Europeans have a lot of catching up to do hehehehe.... Here is one of our favourites (no, we really do like this song)-

http://videos.tf1.fr/video/musique/clips/0,,3224854,00.html#

Walter says 'anyone who learns the dance gets to stay for free'.

Too much of a good thing.

I've sickened myself on chocolate and stinky Swiss cheese. I recognise very few of the cheeses here so I've been trying everything. Now all I want is a litttle cheddar or maybe some good Monteray Jack. Some of the cheeses outrank Gorgonzola. I keep them in a tight tupperware container and they still make the fridge smell (mmmmm yum). I can't find bicarbonate of soda (get rid of fridge smell) here, I think it's a controlled substance.

John & Sarah, 3rd Sept "05

My brother John married Sarah this weekend. Yay J&S. We love you guys :)

We flew to the UK on Friday and came back Monday, going by an untried route. I thought we'd try flying out of Basel. It is supposed to be the "Europort" on the border of France and Suisse. Unfortunately the train doesn't go to the airport (unlike everywhere else here) so you have to pay for a bus that takes 20 mins with a 15 min wait. At the train station there are no signs pointing to the bus stop, so it took us ages to find it. The airport is nice and quiet, plenty of kid running space. We went with Easyjet (a first)- Brtiain's Low Cost Airline. They're crap. If you want to connect to another flight (even on Easyjet) your bags won't be transferred, you have to pick up and recheck them! Huh??? Our flight was delayed an hour on the way out and 2.5 on the way back. Both times they really didn't want to say how long the delay was. The hostie burds looked like tarty 15 year olds and behaved terribly (like 15 year olds hehehe). We'd be up the creek in an emergency with that lot. Walter and I indulged in a lot of "In America things aren't done that way....blahbllah". I think we're a little homesick.

We stayed in a hotel in Kings Lynn (in Norfolk) along with everyone else at the wedding- it was great fun seeing John's "wee pals" as 30somethings, and my parents' friends, and ofcourse my family. The last time I saw a lot of them was 15 years ago! It was really nice meeting Sarah's family too. Jamie (Emma's brother) and Susan had the room next to us and we didn't milk the noisy chilldren early in the morning enough ;) The wedding was held on the grounds of Haughton (sp?) Hall, abode of Lord Chalmondsley (pronounced Chumley- seriously). The Stockwells were the last to arrive, ofcourse. The church is very old (I didn't have time to find out particulars) and has no running water or electricity. It's beautiful. The ceremony was lovely, and a few tears were shed. The reception was in the gardens, where Allie and Toby went crazy running around and eating the plants. Allie can pick out mint now! By the time the 'wedding breakfast' started we had to take the boys back to bed. The Friday travelling and the first night in a new place had rendered them unfit for human consumption. Walter and I missed the dinner and speeches :( We've been promised video. We did make it back for the dancing. When we arrived there was an ambulance parked outside the tent! The only other American (Californian at that) broke her ankle pole dancing! It was a great evening- there's nothing like men dancing in kilts....

On Sunday we said goodbye to everyone and drove to Cambridge, where we didn't see very much due to bad directions from a hotel clerk. What we did see was gorgeous- I highly recommend it. Monday, we woke to serious lightning and thunder, had a difficult day of travel (including Allie throwing up all over the bus from the airport to the train- the driver was not amused) and got home to a spectacular heat lightning storm. That's more lightning than I've seen in 10 years!

Walter's in Helsinki right now waxing eloquent :) The boys and I met a new friend at the park today. Veronique, her daughter Julia (20 mos) and son Alec (2 mos) are the family who lived in the apartment we'll be renting. Not only that, her husband Herb works in the office right next to Walter. Crazy, eh? We need to buy a car so we can visit them. They live in Courcelles-Cormondreche, a ways away in Swiss terms (15 mins). Can anyone recommend a good European car? I have no idea......

Here are some photies of the big day.