So who did Uncle Ben sleep with?

I feel horrible that it has been so long since posting. Really. Life has been a hectic whirl here: we moved locations and are now in our permanent residence in Basel, went on vacation in Greece (actually ended up doing that the same time as we moved - longer story), traveled to California for work, and tomorrow will mark the arrival of our 7th family arriving to visit - that's right, 7 in the last 7 weeks. We have been blessed with lots of friends from California who had plans to come to Europe anyway, and were able to swing by for a day or two and hang out in Basel and the surrounding areas - if you want to know how we are doing, just roam around Corte Madera or Larkspur and you are bound to run into someone who visited.

Eric has done most of the entertaining, but Sue has been able to free herself from late night meetings and travel to join in most of the time as well. We now have a standard city tour down pat, but we had the chance to take people floating down the Rhine, watched a lot of World Cup Soccer, visited a few museums, got out on a fair amount of hikes, lots of time at the Bottmingen pool, and our favorite: grilling in the forest. Eric actually said he is sick of meat and grilling - and we have been eating vegetarian all this week. We will see if we can muster up the "meat" energy for the Zecs who arrive tomorrow.

It has been fun to share our house (still in a state of being unpacked) and connect again with what is going on in California. The boys have been thrilled to have new playmates every week, and it really has made it feel like San Franicsco is not so far away.

One thing people have asked is what we miss from home. Hmmm - this is really hard, as you can anything you want here. Mexican ingredients? They have it. Peanut butter? No longer a foreign item. We even found a asian market that would give stores in Chinatown a run for their money - every spice known to mankind and things with no english that look like they are fermenting in the jar - things that are probably illegal to sell in the US (we will have to see how adventurous we are feeling...). But one thing has absolutely alluded us...

Long grain white rice.

I don't really care if it is from California - just some good old plain long grain rice. When we first got here we bought rice assuming it was long grain (it is hard to tell how long a grain is if you don't have another grain next to it to compare it to). When we got home and made it, it became quickly clear that it wasn't the right stuff - and further inspection of the label showed that it was...par boiled...rice.

Yuck.

I don't want to pass judgement if you happen to like par boiled rice. I just don't. The rice is off-white and all rolls around on the plate with each grain separate, and it really tastes like all the life and vitamins have been stripped away. I want the white stuff that kind of sticks together and feels really heavy(keep your brown rice vitamin talk to yourself. I like brown rice, too, but white rice is what I am focusing on). The asian market did have jasmine rice which isn't a bad alternative - but it isn't long grain. My last pass at the supermarket actually showed that the whole rice aisle was Uncle Ben's rice. Rows of red boxes with Ben smiling up at me - who had the marketing savvy to knock all the other rices off the shelf? Do the Swiss know what they are missing?

So last time I was in California, I, like all good Japanese tourists, bought myself 10 lbs of California long grain white rice. If you are reading this in California, realize how lucky you are. If you plan to come and visit, be sure to throw a bag in your suitcase for us!

World Cup Baby!

So life here has been racing along. Sue works long hours; Eric and the boys have been busy with school, after school activities, and getting wet in the rain. Moods have gone from high to low for each one of us, and the days when everyone is dipping make no fun for anyone.

However, what has brightenend our mood, along with most of Europe and the world outside of the US, is that it is World Cup time! The Somervilles have been gearing up since May when we bought our Panini sticker books, and started the (apparently) multi generation tradition of spending a few hundred dollars on little packs of stickers in hopes of filling up the book with all 600 or so stickers. There are stickers of the teams, each player, each stadium (takes two stickers to get the whole stadium picture), each team emblem...

It was actually working quite well for disciplining our kids, as we finally had a stick and carrot worthy of changing behavior. How many of you have been at your wits end that nothing you can think of to take away from your kid really does the trick to stop them doing what they are doing: Silly voice for too long? Too loud in the car? Want to have your sticker book taken away? Played nice with your brother? Helped set the table and clean up without needing to be asked? Hey, I think you get to have a packet of stickers...

Well all was going well with the stickers - they would get a pack every other day or so, we would slowly open them and get them in the books - when one day I come home, and every pack of stickers has been opened. "What the heck happened here?" I asked Eric. He had a slight panicked look in his eyes - "They started trading at school - we need to get all of our stickers in our books and know which ones we are missing, or else we will miss out on the trading and end up with none of the cards we need..."

Really?

Well, this started hours of work on spreadsheets with the cards we needed (they are all numbered), spreadsheets with cards we could give away, daily trading in the school cafeteria and multitudes of emails of who had what and who needed it. There was the sad story of the boy (sorry forgot his name) who finally got #172 (I don't remember exactly, just humor me), the last card he needed, and then he lost it - total devastation! There was the dinner we had a Tony's house, where you would think it was the NFL draft or something, with Eric and his (whoops - Karl and Bennett's) cards on one side of the table, and Tony and his (whoops - Josh and Brandon's cards) on his side of the table, with two hours of dealing: "Well, I can give you 422 if you can give me 112 and 565"...

In hindisight, Eric probably timed the trading just right. Both Karl and Bennett are now proud owners of full Panini sticker books to remember the 2010 World Cup and Switzerland with. Now if Switerland can just keep up their winning streak...

Videos of our trip to Italy

A little late, but thought you might enjoy these videos from Italy:

http://www.youtube.com/user/essomerville#p/u/1/okrSQB7YJao

http://www.youtube.com/user/essomerville#p/u/2/60-ANIhWqzQ

hanging out and chasing lizards

Sorry for not blogging sooner - life is just flying by here. We have been to Geneva (or thereabouts), Italy - Sue even got back to California in the mix. There were so many funny little stories to tell, and yet nothing so exciting that it had to be told. We have tucked in lots of hiking and lots of eating, lots of biking and lots of sleeping. Sounds like we never left California...

Being here is different,though. We had a nice picnic in the park with a set of parents and kids from the school: a couple from Toronto (husband here for some banking job) and another from Houston (husband in the shipping business). They had been here 9-12 months, and said that you never really feel like you are here. I don't know if that is a function of thinking this is temporary, or not fitting into the culture, or the fact that it feels like vacation everyday because you are surrounded by people who talk a foreign (to you) language and hence you logically conclude that you must be on vacation. I have hope that when we move to our "permanent" housing in July that we will feel more settled - but then the parade of California friends will start arriving, bringing on that vacation vibe - practically the entire summer. So maybe, in September or so, when everyone is gone and the kids are back in school, maybe then we will start to feel settled in and "at home"...or maybe...

Our friend Aslam drew a graph on a piece of paper the other night. He said he had gotten the chart from a friend who had been an expat a while back. Imagine a line drawn from left to right showing time marching on, with a little hill at the beginning, followed by a huge trough at least 5-10 times as big as the hill, followed by an flat line that is a small amount higher than where you started. He said this is your mood on an expat assignment - excitement at first, followed by a long, large deep depression, followed by some level of acceptance that makes you a tad happier than you were when you arrived but not as high as the high you had on the little hill when you first got here. It was actually quite depressing because I could imagine it isn't far from the truth - isn't this supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime, this amazing life experience you can't have just staying at home?

Well, when we went for a bike ride this weekend, we passed by a set of garden plots. It is quite common here, as so many people live in apartments, that they can rent a piece of land (probably 20' X 30' or so) and have a nice garden, often with veggies, flowers, an occasional pond and most often a shelter with table and benches and a grill. So as we passed the garden plots, we saw group after group - be it family or friends - with wine and beer and the grill going, out for a Sunday meal together. That to me, was witness to an amazing life experience. Getting together with friends and family to eat and celebrate nothing more than the joy of another weekend is really as good as it gets - anywhere in the world.

But wait - I finally rememberd a story worth telling - and I have a picture to boot. On one of our great hikes in Italy (props to the two boys for being good sports and keeping up) we found a bright green lizard with a bright blue head. You would have thought we were in Costa Rica or something - what is a technicolor lizard doing in Northern Italy? Anyway, Eric and Karl became obsessed chasing this lizard to get the perfect picture - they must have spent 15 minutes chasing it from one bush back to another - you could see the poor thing breathing its little lungs out from exhaustion (I was praying it was not some rare almost-extinct species). Finally they chased it up the tree, and - wala - our nature photography at its best.

Anyone who can ID the lizard for us gets a prize!

Ciao!

The Three Year Old Man and the 1017 CHF Parking Garage Fee

In the last few weeks we have really begun to settle down and start a routine: Eric getting the kids to school, Sue getting to work, dinner together in the evening, homework and then off to bed. A quick yet welcome disruption to our routine was the final arrival of our air shipment. It had been delayed for a week or so due to the volcano, but finally arrived bringing a series of Christmas-like events of toys (for the kids) and shoes (for Sue) that had been absent for the last four weeks. Now it is surprising how once you don’t live with something for four weeks, you really don’t miss it anymore (except shoes). So we are now in a mix blessing state of liking all the new things we are rediscovering traded off with the fact that more stuff needs to be put away and more stuff needs to be cleaned up. It is amazing how little you can actually live with…

One of the recent trips we took was up to Schwieberdingen (outside of Stuttgart in Germany) to visit Sue’s cousin Michael Hatbauer, along with his wife Iris, 6 year old daughter Sina, and 3 year old son Tom. Michael had spent the summer with us when we lived in Emeryville, so we have the close relationship with him that comes from having lived in tight quarters for longer than a few days. So we were welcomed with open arms, but only seconds after arriving, Michael had an announcement to make: die ganze Wochenende sollen wir nur auf Deutsch reden (the whole weekend we only speak German!)! Eric protested, but again Michael knows Eric – so there was no arguing. About half way through the weekend Eric had a bit of a breakdown, and he admitted that he felt like a 3 year old man with his struggles with the language (though truthfully Tom was speaking better German than Eric). To his credit, Eric did a great job, and the kids even joined in the German fun – Eric is more committed more than ever to learning German – and as he is using it everyday we expect fast progress.

The weekend with the Hatbauers was a ton of fun. There was lots of eating, and lots of Kaffee und Kuchen! We went to traditional May Day festivals in the town Iris grew up in – complete with May pole, little girls dancing and weaving ribbons around the base, and an umpah band right out of the Music Man with men fashioning handlebar mustaches. Perhaps our little town of Corte Madera should erect a May Pole??? We then spent Sunday on a great hike through towns to a Besenwirtshaft Festival – effectively a farmer’s cooperative / wine inn which once or twice a year throws a weekend festival of bratwurst, French fries, and potato salad along with big beers and local made wine. All was good except Bennett’s non-stop whining on the hike, but you can’t blame the kid as it was raining slightly and was his fifth or sixth big hike (>2 hours) in less than three weeks. Mom and Dad – can’t we just stay in and watch TV once in a while?

We celebrated Karl’s birthday this Monday – the big 0-9! We went out to dinner (now a special treat – I still gag at ordering a $5 soda for the kids) and Karl got his Swiss Army Knife (don’t you give your kids knives on their birthday?) but he really lit up at getting a cactus – just like his Oma! After dinner the family headed to Sue’s work as she had taken the car that morning to drive her boss around. She parked in the nearby garage, but had gotten an exit ticket from her admin so we could leave cost free. We were all a bit tired and bordering on cranky but got to the car and started driving out of the garage – only to find that the ticket would not let us exit, but that we owed 17 CHF. With a heavy sigh, Sue backed up the car and parked next to the exit and Eric got out to pay the ticket so we could just get home.

Time passed. And passed.

It must have been close to 15 minutes when Eric finally came back, with one of the garage attendants. You could hear Eric getting friendly with the attendant in German:” mein Sohn Karl hat Geburtstag heute!” echoing off the garage walls as he approached. “You won’t believe this “, he started as he got to the car. Turns out he found the kiosk and put in the ticket, and then followed it with a 20 CHF bill to pay the ticket – turns out that it then asked for more money – 997 CHF as a matter of fact. So our little exit ticket must have been another exit ticket I had from entering the month or so before – asking us for 1017 CHF, instead of our naïve assumption of the bargain price of 17 CHF. The kind attendant, probably mystified by the outrageous ticket as well as tired from Eric’s broken German let us out for free. Nice to know there is a limit to how expensive things can be, even in Switzerland…

This weekend it is off to Geneva to visit Suze and Didi – old friends from Genentech. And stay tuned - Eric will tell you tomorrow about the tram wreck he was in…

The Art of Garbage

Now one of the first things that really changed us already was garbage. The rules here around garbage are so extraordinary, that if this system was implemented in the US it would change the country overnight. What could possibly change the way you think about garbage? Well, let me explain...

First, food here is really expensive. Eric was notorious at home that if he wasn't in the mood for leftovers, he would eat what he wanted and throw the left overs away. Here, with basic meat for a meal costing $30 or more, you can virtually see little $$ on each bite. We are getting used to the prices slowly (Sue will probably go crazy next time she is in a supermarket in the States), but it still makes you cautious to eat everything. The other reason you don't want to throw it away is...

Here in Switzerland, you do not have a monthly fee for garbage service - you pay for every bag. In Basel you actually pay 2 CHF (about $2) for each special garbage bag (the little kitchen size bags) - here in the suburbs you can buy plain old trash bags, but you have to put these tax coupon stickers on each bag. So even though at home you pay a monthly fee that probably adds up to about the same, when you put that sticker on the bag, you are completely concious of the money you are spending to throw things away - so you do everything you can to not throw things away. There is less packaging that comes with food, so that helps. I think in the first week we actually only used one bag - much less than we would use at home. In the US when you have a whole garbage can to fill, you don't even think about it. Heck, if you make more than your can full, you go to the neighbors and borrow some space from their can - not here, no way.

And that brings us to recycling. Obviously, with the concern here about garbage, recycling is a big deal, too. Now in the US they come to your house and pick up the recycling - it is probably the only way we would actually do it. Here, remember, you don't want it in your trash because you would have to pay more - so they don't come to you - you have to bring it to recycling "stations" around the city. It isn't quite clear what to do, as each recycling station may only take some things - glass only, no plastic; glass and cans, plastic bottles only. So we have had a pile building up in the kitchen, that once in a while gets smaller when Eric can find a place to take those things - inevitably some things come back home as we can't find the place to drop them off.

The best, though, was the recycling section in the "Welcome to Basel" book we got from the relocation people when we got here. They have 5 full pages of items listed in alphabetical order, so you can read where to take it. Quite handy, and useful to figure out where everything can go. It covers the gamut, from electronic equipment, to car tires to the basics like glass and plastic bottles. But the best part of the directory was the added commentary regarding how you should lead your life - let me give you some of the best examples (word for word - no editing on my part):

Cans: Try to buy seasonal fruits and vegetables as much as possible. Take cans ot the metal collection or give them to the metal collector.

Battery Recycling: When possible use carbon zinc batteries. Avoid alkali/manganese batteries - they contain more mercury. Purchase rechargeable batteries and a recharger. Also consider a plug in AC/DC adapter or charger to use with appliances. Return old batteries to the store.

Disposable Diapers: In the garbage, never the WC. Here is another case where avoiding the use of something is better than disposing of it. The routine use of disposable diapers on most babies today is one of the major causes of hte growing refuse problem. Cloth diapers, while intensive in terms of human energy are still cost effective and environmentally friendly.

Wow, think what disposable diapers costs in terms of garbage tax coupons!

tulips. volcanos, and fire

Tulips

So spring has sprung here in Basel, and it is amazing. We can grow anything in California, but we can't grow tulips like they have here in Switzerland. Not only are people's yards full of them, but the city medians and tram stops are full of the most amazing arrangements - Corte Madera Beautification Committee, eat your heart out. To go past just tulips, the magnolia trees and other trees are all in crazy bloom - it is just wow wow wow everywhere you go. As there has been little rain and no wind, it seems like it will last forever, but today was the first day I saw the beginning of the end - tulips starting to open wide; leaves starting to show up on the trees - I need to keep enjoying these bulbs and spring blooms as I can tell that they will pass soon.

Volcanos

Some people e-mailed asking us if the volcano was affecting us - so here is the update: we couldn't see any ash here in Switzerland, but truthfully I don't think you could see it anywhere (except maybe Iceland itself). The impact was huge, though - not only for Sue's company (drugs don't ship either when planes are not flying) but people at her company (stranded for a week), and our friend Rob, our official first visitor, had to take a train from Brussels instead a plane. But he got here nonetheless, and we were thrilled with his second visit, on the way back from Milan, because he couldn't get a flight back to Frankfurt to get back home. It was also an amazing sight to NOT see any planes flying all weekend - ala September 11th - made us all realize how little control we really have sometimes...

Fire

Now this is the best part. Some people have asked us what feels different - well, let me tell you, it is the joy of fire. Switzerland is every boy's dream come true - there is fire and the possibility of fire EVERYWHERE. We have gotten out frequently to go hiking - there are amazing trails everywhere, and just 10 minutes from our temporary housing there are great woods to go hiking through. And every 10 minutes or so in the woods you find fire pits - some like campfires at campsights - nice and official; some just spots off the trail where someone could not contain themselves and had to build a fire.

You think I am joking, but I am not - ask Rob - he saw it, too. He actually helped us stoke an old set of coals back into a fire.

The official fire pits are for people to come and grill and picnic - and the signs say it is ok to collect wood as long as it has fallen down (no chopping down your own trees) - but it is hard to imagine for a California girl that it is ok to start fires in the middle of the woods!

So the kids had fun adding to the stoked fire - closing it out with a pee-ing ceremony as you should put out any fire that you start. Next time we will have to make an official grill out and bring along the picnic.

What else is going on? Bennett celebrated his 7th birthday (got a Swiss Army knife), Karl is excelling at German class, and Eric lost both of their backpacks on the tram one day. All in a day in Switzerland...