Latest Weather Report

So Walter neglected to tell me about the Autumn weather in the 'littoral Neuchatel' area. From the beginning of October(ish) to the end of December(ish) there's a thick layer of fog all the time. Occasionally, it clears in the afternoon and everyone takes the day off and catches some sun! Actually, it hasn't been that bad, but we're looking forward to a snowy, crisp Christmas (hopefully). This was the view from the living room window yesterday morning. The fog had lifted a little...
This is a compilaton of panoramas of the front view. We look over the garden of the vicar, with the church to the left and construction of a church 'youth hall' to the right. No one ever uses the garden, which is shocking considering how few people have one. I should offer to look after it in return for letting the boys play there.

Bragging for the Grandparents

I've got a bunch of pics that I know the G'parents will want to see. The rest of you are free to do whatever you do on the internet :)

Allie has been getting into drawing, and all of a sudden he can draw things that are recognisable. Current medium: chalk on screechy board...
Allie drew a big A then a little A, then drew wee feet, then a circle around them and said he had a bag of A's!
He then drew a sad face on one and a happy face on the other
Toby draws too, and really enjoys it, but by the end he's smeared chalk everywhere and eaten the contents of the chalk box. I haven't got photoing on my mind... so here's one of him during a quiet moment:
Tobe's favourite way to read. Check out where he's plonked his bottom..

So when we're not drawing, we're at the park swingin' :



I should inclue this last one of Tobe the Daredevil. Not only does he have a nice scar on his forehead from his visit to 'Uncle Gummy", but now he has another right beside it. This one didn't need stitches, but we had to visit the insurance guy to go over health insurance paperwork about half an hour after he did it. Lucky for us he has 4 children of his own.
Toby hamming up his scars

Our First Houseguests

On Tuesday of this week, Walter's cousins Grace and Ruth came to visit by way of TGV from Paris. Allie and I went to meet them after his first day of 'school'. It was a very exciting day for Allie. I took him on the bus early in the morning and met the head teacher (who was very nice and spoke some English)who sent me on my way, saying she would spend her time with Allie and help him settle in, and call me if he was unhappy.

Allie goes to School!

I picked him up a couple of hours later after spending the whole time checking to make sure my phone was on! He apparently sang, read books, ran around outside and made a best friend (who's name he can't remember). He went again yesterday and stayed through lunch. He cried a bit when he found out he had to stay for lunch... Anyhoo, when I picked him up on Tuesday we went up to the station, had a nice sandwich and watched the trains (he had ice cream as a first day treat too). When Ruth and Grace came in he got very excited about seeing the TGV (and it is indeed cool to see: http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/fr/electric/emu/TGV/Sud-Est_mod-Lyria/Switzerland-misc/pix.html and ofcourse them! On Weds. we took them into Neuchatel and had lunch (which was really cheap by Swiss standards and delicious) at a crepe shop. I ordered a ham, cheese and "erable" combination crepe because Walter ordered it on one of his trips. He had no idea what erable was but thought it might be some vegetable, some kind of mushroom maybe.... When he ordered it, the waitress looked at him rather questioningly and made sure that that was the order. So what's erable? It's Maple Syrup!!! Let me tell you, it's delish... I love it. After Walter's initial surprise, he liked it too. Who thought of it? It's common in crepe shops here, and it's not native.... We've showed them the local parks and now they're visiting a friend in Liestal for a few days. The boys have had a great time with them and have been showing off and flirting like flirty things :)

Commando Allie trys it for the first time


Cousins

Toothpaste tubes of food.

I'm getting into a routine of shopping now, so instead of blindly plowing on to find the bread etc. I can take my time and 'smell the daisies'. I've noticed a section with nothing but large 'toothpaste tubes'. On closer inspection they contain all kinds of things: various meats, fish pastes, mayonnaise, tomato paste and other stuff I haven't had a chance to look at. I kept noticing tubes with pictures of eggs on the front. I thought "well, how inventive of the Swiss- having their eggs in tubes!". Those are the mayonnaises..... I've bought mayo. and tomato paste so far, and one day will try meats and fish...... I hope it's not "fish-flavoured-food-product" type stuff.

Back by popular demand....

Here's another pic of the boys that I found. A and T at one of the fountains that dot the landscape here. In the summmer, people have been known to have a dunk too.

Quick Wee Boy Pics

It's picture catch up time. Tobe's napping and Allie is engrossed in making elaborate arrangements of peppercorns (weird boy).

Gorge De l'Areuse

Sunday, our neighbour Matthew took us and his kids to Gorge De L'Areuse in the Val de Travers. It's a stunning, deep gorge in the middle of forest. There's a river with deep pools in places (can be dived into) and caves along the way. The walk can be quite nerve racking- thin trails, mud and bits of the edge falling away. Apparently, a few weeks ago a boy died while he was fooling around with his sibling! Well, anyway it was a lovely walk and the boys were troopers. They plodded along chatting and playing, although Toby doesn't like to hold hands or have anyone holding onto him... that's even more nerve racking. Here's a photie of one of the pools taken with my new, incredibly portable camera :)

Honey, I'm home!

WooHoo! We have internet... well nearly. Walter's trying to get my computer to work with the router and I'm on his. No photies till it works (there are a tonne to post). So here we are, 3 weeks in our new digs. The boxes are nearly all emptied. We have to buy a few armoires, since apparently the Swiss 'don't do closets'. We also discovered the Swiss don't do used furniture either, so there are very few second hand stores here. We went to the one in Neuchatel today along with all the other foreigners and didn't find much at all. We've heard the decheterie (dump) has good pickin's since all used furniture gets tossed. This is a country that has one of the best recycling records too....
We're living in a really nice apartment in the center of Saint-Blaise (4 km de Neuchatel) right next to the 'bongiest' church in the world. It bing-bongs once on the quater hour, twice on the half, thrice on the three quaters and fours on the hour. Then it bongs the number of the hour. At 12pm it bongs for 5 mins (telling everyone it's lunchtime?) and at 10pm it bongs for 5 mins (I was told this goes back a long time and has something to do with curfew). On Saturday at 6 pm it bingbongs for 15 mins and Sunday at 10 am it bingbongs for 15 mins (calling the faithful). It bothered the boys a bit at first, but we're all pretty immune now. It's actually quite handy. I find myself in bed at 10 exactly a lot, and Walter (mr-California-no-watch) knows what time it is :) Allie has also become very interested in telling the time too. Speaking of him, he learned to 'read' the word 'go' today! He was looking at Walter's computer and and asked him 'What's that go button, Daddy?'. It was a window with a wee red button with GO written on it. Walter typed GO later and Allie said what it was. He also knows it in lower case...
Anyhoo, He's also staying in bed longer in the morning because he's in a separate room to Tobe and he has a digital clock. We told him he couldn't come down till it said '6' something. He comes down at 6:01!
Our house is on the side of the building, so it's thin and tall. We don't have anyone above or below and the 300 year old walls keep out the noises beside us. There's a young couple one one floor next to us (we don't see much of them) and a French/Irish family on the other 2 floors. We've gotten quite friendly with the family- they're really really nice and have been showing us around. Tomorow we're going to the Gorge de L'Aruse with them :) The kids (8,10 and 12) are very patient with the boys and their parents are very patient with our French.
There's a 'Coop' store 3 mins walk away (Coop and Migros are the 2 competing grocery chains) and the big shopping center in Marin is 5 mins on the bus (the stop is 2 mins from us). We can walk to the 'lake park' which is in a lovely beachy area next to the harbour, or the 'train park' which is up a very steep hill, next to the stream... and the train track. That brings me to the park equipment. Those of you with young children (in the US at least) will know what kind of stuff you can and can't get. Old fashioned seesaws, roundabouts etc aren't around any more due to their 'dangerous' nature. Weeell, when I saw my first park here, my jaw dropped ;) I've seen seesaws and roundabouts, and at the parks in Saint-Blaise there are 'commando cable slides' for kids! Allie's slowly getting up the gumption to go whole hog on one. I'll post a pic when I can. The climbing frames are also huge and complicated beasts. I spend a lot of time trying to get Toby not to launch himself off them.
So are we assimilating? Well, we just consumed a tasty bar of chocolate tonight (orange/noir), and I have eaten chocolate EVERY night since we moved. I also know some of the vendors at the farmer's market now- it gets me free parsley :)

Offline for a bit

Emma wanted me to post a note -- she's offline till we get the internet to our apartment. She should be back up October 11th or 12th.

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.

Get the Door.....

Dominos has it's first store in Neuchatel. Our upstairs neighbour got himself some the day it opened (the enthusisatic delivery boy came to our door). We can post the # if anyone's feeling generous. I'm just waiting for the Starbucks.....

On another (food related) note. During one of my frustrating trips to the store, I wanted to buy some jam or jelly for toast. Easy, right? I picked up one that looked like blackcurrant jelly. It's label says : Electuaire bais de sureau. It's actually elderberry, but that's OK. Electuaire????? I couldn't find anything in the dictionary, or online, in relation to this product. It's like a syrup. I'd rather put it on my ice cream.


PS- guess what i'm eating....... chocolate! Must keep up with the Swiss consumption.

Fun'ambule

I took the boys on the Neuchatel Fu'ambule today. It's a 2 minute ride down a steep tunnel with a nice chcildren's paark nearby. Here's a description and pic. from an enthusiast:

http://mikeaz.free.fr/suisse/Funambule01.htm

This one's for you, Nick! And there will be ooh soo many train pics coming- the station is a favourite Stockwell boy hangout :)

BEASTIES!

So, I thought Switzerland would have a normal array of creepy crawlies. It's not like it's tropical here, and it gets cold enough to kill off mosquitos. Imagine my surprise when I see one of these things:

What the blikyblonky is it? I could look it up. They're about 2-3" fully grown, are extremely fast (all those legs) and come out at night...and during the day. How come I haven't seen one in the States? I'm getting more squeamish as I get older, and this is grossing me out. Walter's used to them it seems. Every time I run around chasing one with a book, he says absentmindedly "don't waste your energy, there'll be more". How can he be relaxed???? He's currently in Shetland where only the hardiest beasties live, :( so he hasn't seen the HUGEST spider that I found yesterday morning. I killed it then measured it: Legs 2.5", body 1". The legs were thick and hairy, and it was horribly fast. We found (and microwaved) one in Scotland that was slightly smaller. That was the first one I've ever seen, so we looked it up. It's either one that gives nasty bites or one that is very useful in killing other beasties and it's native to Western Europe! I don't believe that either.

Ok, so the spider could be one of these:
http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th11f(1).htm