Saying Goodbye

Our last day of Switzerland was set aside for packing and cleaning. First we all needed one more outing. So after one last bath,
we headed to a new park that Mike and Katherine had found the night before. It was beautiful and warm, and most importantly (to me) it was right on the water.

Ellie just likes to play in the dirt

Katherine wanted a picture with her "antlers"

On the way home I took a few pictures of St. Prex.

Elementary School

Wouldn't it be fun to live in one of these buildings?

After our last little outing (besides a trip to the grocery store for LOTS of chocolate), it was time to get down to business. We spent the rest of the day packing and cleaning. Packing to come home wasn't too hard - it was just a matter of fitting everything we had into our suitcases. Mike and I finished cleaning after the girls went to bed.

Thursday morning we woke up early to catch the 6:40 bus. We BARELY made it. Other than the sprint to the bus, the trip home was relatively uneventful. I was very sad to leave our little town. I cried on the train ride to Geneva. Our second flight was 11 hours, but thankfully we had the bulkhead so that the girls could have some space to move and wiggle. My wonderful sister-in-law, Becky, picked us up from the O'Hare airport. Sadly, Katherine got car sick and threw up twice. In our family throwing up in the car is slightly traumatic, but if anything gets on a "blankie" it becomes VERY traumatic. Luckily Katherine had her cousin Hope to distract her. It was nice to finally crawl into our cozy beds after our 20 hour trip home.

Ouchy

Chateau d'Ouchy

After our trip to Evian-les-Bains we spent some time near the pier in Ouchy (the southern area of Lausanne). There was yet another awesome playground. Katherine had fun climbing up all of the different ways to get to the big, steep slide. Ellie mostly just played around the bottom of the structure. Mike and I have decided that the slides in Switzerland are much steeper than those in the USA. Katherine kept trying to climb up the slides, but they were too steep. I guess the Swiss have figured out that slides should be made just for sliding, not climbing!

After walking around the Ouchy fountains, we stopped for strawberry ice cream and a Nutella crepe. That ice cream was the best ice cream I have ever had. I'm sad that we didn't discover that booth earlier in the trip because we would have made several visits.

Taking the Boat to France, on Purpose

Cool statue on the Ouchy pier

View of Lausanne

On our last Tuesday I took the girls across Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) to Evian-les-Bains, France. I had planned on making several journeys across the lake to various towns, but the schedule was sparse. In the summer there are many boats that cross the lake, however there are limited times in cold weather. It only took about 45 minutes to cross.. I wanted to sit outside in the sun, but Katherine is not a fan of wind. Oh well.

On the ferry - Swiss flag

On the ferry - French flag

This little town was wonderful. We walked up to the main little shopping street and wandered around. I found "my" store here, and bought some capris and a skirt. I could have bought nearly everything in there if money were no issue. I mentioned to the owner that I loved her store, and her reply was "Thank you. It is unique." I think it would fit in beautifully in Madison.

I wanted to find the fountain where people can fill up water bottles with Evian water for free, but I didn't want to miss our ferry back. Instead we walked up and down the lakeside.

The girls eating their rolls with Nutella - a trip staple

Our ferry

On the way back we got hot chocolate, muffins and chips. I remember getting a Snickers and hot chocolate (I burned my tongue drinking it) on the ferry to Alcatraz when I was little, so I thought this may be a fun memory. Mike said I probably only remember the hot chocolate because I burned my tongue. He is probably right. Also on the way back, a woman spoke to me in French for what seemed like an eternity. I had told her I only speak English, and very little French, but she carried on anyway. I was proud of myself for understanding a great deal of what she said. She told me it is good to live in different cultures while kids are young, because they can pick up the language so easily. Her Mom spoke 5 languages because of moving around when she was little. I explained to her that we were only visiting for a month, but that I agreed with what she was saying.

Last day at Church

We had a great experience going to church in Switzerland. The ward building was in Renens, a town on the outskirts of Lausanne. As I've mentioned before, a kind woman, Valerie, translated everything for us. Katherine loved primary. She gave the prayer one time and all the kids looked at her wide-eyed because she spoke a different language. Ellie had a little bit of a hard time in nursery, so Mike or I had to stay with her.

Callier Chocolate Factory

For our last Saturday family outing we went to the Cailler chocolate factory in Broc. It was amazing. The first part of the tour reminded me of Disneyland. We progressively entered small rooms that literally entertained us with history of the factory. After a room of smelling the different cocoa beans and seeing the actual process of the chocolate assembly, we entered what some may call heaven: the tasting room. Here we were able to try each of the 15-20 types of chocolates. By the end my stomach was not happy. My favorite of the whole lot was the plain dark chocolate. Mmmmm.

After purchasing a big basket full of chocolate bars, we sat down for some panini and a dessert of Meringues with Double Cream. If only I could explain how yummy that dessert was.

Mom's Day Off

Mike took Friday off so that I could have some time to myself. YAY! I had originally planned to go to some thermal baths in Yverdon-les-Bains, but I decided I wanted to walk through the shopping district in Lausanne.

I popped my head in many little shops, and wandered through the Globus and Manor department stores. My favorite store was the 3 story toy store, Franz Carl Weber. When I read about the store online, I was thinking FAO Schwarz. Well - this was a tiny store! I loved it though, and ended up buying a little carved wooden cow wearing a cow bell. I walked through an all English bookstore and was shocked at the prices. A paperback version of The Help was 49 CHF. Can you imagine paying $50 for a paperback book?? I have to admit that I did cave and bought a kids book, Giraffe's Can't Dance. It is adorable.

I ate lunch at a Creperie. I wanted to eat a real meal, so I ordered a ham and cheese crepe. However, I couldn't leave a Creperie without a yummy dessert, so I then ordered a lemon and sugar crepe. What a perfect lunch!

I was exhausted, and headed home after only a couple hours out on the town. I took a long nap, and it felt good. It was a little weird and lonely being by myself, but I needed some personal time. It is strange how having my two girls with me makes me feel more secure, but it certainly does. I love them!

Daddy Daughter Adventure

This is a guest post by Mike.

On Friday we let Marianne spend the day by herself, while the girls and I went on our own adventure.  Katherine seems to have had a lot of fun at the last museum she had gone to, so going to a museum was what she wanted to do.  I was happy to oblige.  We went to Lausanne to check out a bunch of museums all located in the same building.  Within just two hours of arriving, we had seen everything we could handle.

It was funny because Katherine kept saying throughout the day that she wanted to go to the "real museum."  I guess that since it wasn't as fun as she expected, it wasn't really a museum.  Anyhow, it was a great day outside, so we were able to pass some more time eating lunch on a bench with a nice lookout for awhile before I decided to get us in gear to go somewhere else.  (Lausanne is great for lookouts because it's situated on a hill right next to the lake.)

The next stop was the "Espace d'Inventiones" a sort of science and discovery museum that I decided we'd go to on a spur of the moment decision.  I was a little worried that it wouldn't be something we could get much from since I was sure that it would all be in French and perhaps geared towards older children.  Well, I was right about that, but additionally it didn't open until 2pm and I got us there promptly at 1:15pm.

No problem.  It's located in a large park area with gardens (that no doubt will be spectacular in just a few weeks, but just had budding flowers and plants for us), playgrounds and walking trails.  This too is located on a hillside and we saw several people whiz by on bikes, skateboards and rollerblades.  We started in the garden where I was happy just to take it easy for awhile.  The highlight was find a lizard.

I was excited to take the girls to a slide I had seen that has been built into the side of the hill, but we first played on the some of the playground equipment.  The girls had a great time.  So much so that it took some work on my part to get them to go to the slides.  But after going down once I'm sure the playground equipment was no longer on their minds.  Almost as fun as the ride down was the climb back up.  Katherine called it rock climbing--closer to bouldering I think, but still a pretty good climb, especially for Ellie who did it all by herself.

The museum was pretty much how I expected: for children ages 7 and up and all in French.  That said, we actually had a nice time looking at the exhibits.  I was able to deduce from the French what most of the exhibits were about, and the fact that the girls were a little young just made it easier to just move on when we didn't understand.

In all it was a pretty fun day.  Marianne seemed happy that I was able to wear the girls out.  (Besides all of the time playing, I didn't take the stroller along so there was even more walking than usual.)

Traditional Swiss Lunch with Mike

Cathedral of Lausanne

I have been wanting to eat some Raclette, so I asked someone from church for the name of a restaurant that serves traditional Swiss food. Per their recommendation, Mike met us for lunch at Restaurant de L'Eveche. It turns out that they don't serve Raclette, so we ordered a regular cheese fondue and a tomato fondue. I have discovered that I'm just not a huge fan of fondue. I think my palate doesn't appreciate "stinky cheese" as much as it needs to. The tomato fondue was wonderful though.

The restaurant was next to the Cathedral of Lausanne. We didn't go in, but the outside is very impressive.

We decided to go home a different way and walk down the steep hill through the shopping district . . . this way we could also spend more time with Mike. I scoped out the little shops I wanted to look at later.

View down one of the little streets with shops

I'm sad we didn't have Raclette, but I'm glad Mike was able to have some fondue. AND, this fondue (especially the tomato) was better than my "favorite" Gruyere fondue!

Servion Zoo

The girls in front of the little rams

One of the destinations on my list was the Servion Zoo. I looked it up, and it was fairly easy to get to using public transportation. So, we went! This place was smack dab in the middle of the countryside . . . i.e. in the middle of nowhere. After taking the train, metro and one bus, we were dropped off at a bus stop to wait for our final leg of the trip. We waited over 10 minutes, then I worried that the bus wasn't coming, so we turned to walk to the one little market in the town. Just as we got to the market I turned around to see OUR bus driving past the stop. Here we were in the middle of nowhere, and the next bus wasn't coming for TWO hours. I panicked a little, before realizing that maybe we could just WALK to the zoo! A cute teenager pointed us in the right direction, and fifteen minutes later we were up and over the hill, at the zoo.

The zoos here (at least the two we have been to) are beautiful because they are tucked into the natural landscape. There were no elephants or giraffes, but there were wolves, wildcats, bison, and many alpine animals. We spent a lot of time by the goats. We could pet them through the fence, and we fed them some pine needles. They were all adorable - especially the little ones.

I really wanted to take this little guy home with me.
I think the girls wanted to also.

It was fun to watch the snow leopard. His huge caged home was beautiful. Part of it was in the forest. We had to walk off the path into the forest so we could find him. Seriously, walking through the forest to go find an animal at the zoo? Awesome!

Snow Leopard
(it was tough to get a picture, can you tell?)

Big old Bison

Bunny Rabbits

In the very front of the zoo was an enormous playground. I think most of the kids at the zoo were more interested in playing than seeing the animals. There was a huge "gerbil wheel." I got in it with Katherine, and I fell down. She did great in there though, even when a few other kids got in.

It has been interesting watching Katherine interact with other children here. She speaks to them in English, and they speak to her in French. The language difference doesn't seem to bother Katherine or the other children. They run around, laugh, squeal and have fun - and that's all that matters. One time Katherine turned to a couple of boys she was playing with and said "I speak English." It was super cute.

We walked down the big hill to the bus stop and journeyed back to our quaint little St-Prex. Another fun day in the land of the Swiss.