We are not in California anymore...

So Fall is here, with an explosion of color and leaves. At home, people always talked about the Fall colors on the East Coast, and I always felt we had our fair share of Fall action where we live in California - trees turn colors, leaves fall, etc... However the difference here is clear: leaves fall in epidemic proportions; you are ankle deep or more for weeks, and no one bothers to rake them because they are replaced the next day with more. The leaf drop is also partnered with crisp weather, so the mix of crunch beneath your feet and heavy coats really signals a season change.

Eric got a chance to go and visit his family in Ohio for a week, and I took over responsibility for getting the kids where they belonged, while getting my job done at the same time. Eric had left me a great schedule with support from our friends here, so it actually all worked out well.

While Eric was gone, the boys and I got a last minute visit from my Uncle Wolfgang and Aunt Dagmar who came down from Germany to spend a Sunday with us. We had hoped for good weather to go on a hike in the local hills, but we instead had a cold, wet day to contend with. We decided when they arrived to do a walking tour of the city which was quite pleasant until the kids got chilled and bored with window shopping. We stopped for a coffee / hot chocolate (two coffees, two hot chocolates, and one cappuccino for 25 CHF - lord help me, I will never get used to these prices...) but this only appeased the boys for the duration of the chocolate. So I made a bold decision.

Parents in California, please make sure you are sitting down.

I gave Karl the house keys and put them both (age 7 and 9) on the tram by themselves to go home. That is right - no parental supervision to make sure they get off on the right stop, no one to help them across the two streets they have to cross to get to our house, no one to supervise them when they got home that they didn't burn the house down.

And even better: I didn't worry at all that anything would go wrong. I didn't worry that people would stop them and ask where their parents are. This choice was totally normal for Switzerland, and actually when we describe the helicopter parenting of California, people here wonder what is wrong with us. I actually have thought about this a lot since being here, and need to do a bit more research - as kids we had the same freedom that kids have here, but something must have happened in the 70s in the US, because a shift took place that tightened control on our kids, stopped a lot of trick or treating, and drove a paranoia of child abduction and torture that has made us stop allowing our kids to grow up and take care of themselves. If you know or have an opinion, please drop a line...

My aunt and uncle then took our time strolling through the city, enjoying the sites and the shop windows, talking about life choices like where to live, what to accomplish, what really matters, etc. When we got home an hour or so later, they kids were comfy on the couch watching age appropriate TV, and everyone was happy and content. The visit with Dagmar and Wolfgang was really great, and we made plans to meet in the Black Forest in the future for hikes and outdoor fun along with getting Eric in the mix.

A few days after Eric returned, rested and energized, we got to celebrate my first birthday in Switzerland. We had a lot of anxiety - what was the appropriate ettiquette for who to invite, how to invite (would people open an Evite?), would it be too crowded, what to serve to eat, what to serve to drink - we set up the invite as an "apero" which is the Swiss equivalent of a cocktail party, so that the pressure to have a full dinner wouldn't be there. However we stocked the tables with open face sandwiches, butter pretzels, cut vegetables, a platter of cheeses and a pot of lentil stew on the stove. We haven't found a party rental place (yet) so it was plastic wine glasses and paper plates, but we felt well stocked for all possible outcomes. Eric even ordered a birthday cake from a local bakery (no way were we going to trust our continuous bad luck at cooking and baking on a cake).

So, unlike California, everyone arrived at 5:30 pm exactly - just like the invite said. There was actually a line out the door for people to come in. Lucky for us and our party anxiety we were ready on time, so the tsunami of guests was not problematic. We did hit some snags in that the guys who work in my group all wanted beer, where Eric and I decided it would be a wine and champagne party. We scrounged through our basement stock and came up with 12 or so beers, but the mistake was well noted for our next bash. People also commented on the blue birthday cake - I guess color is not common here - but it did not stop people from digging in.

The party then ended just as it started, with everyone streaming out at exactly 7:30 like the invite said - except the Americans who assumed that was only a suggestion - and some Americans who actually arrived at 7:30 to start the party... So we stayed up and partied further until 10:30 or so with a smaller more manageable crowd picking at the food leftovers, and the amazing apple pie our friend Terri brought over (complete with "Sue" cut into the crust).

Overall a great party - one of the highlights was the "clinical suppply" leckerlei cookies (very traditional Basel) I got from the global trial coordinators in my group at work. Find a Swiss person to help you translate the label - my favorite line is "keep out of reach of children and your husband"...