When Eric is Away...

Eric went to Ohio at the beginning of February to visit his family, and to help make the arrangements to get his mother into a nursing home. Not easy stuff for anyone, but life marches on, and this is what eventually comes...

So Eric did a great job leaving me, for the 9 days he was gone, a plan of who would pick up the kids after school each day, and where I had to go to get them. Huge thanks to Laura and Frauke, for without them this would not at all have been possible. However, if only it had all gone according to plan...

Day two I was in an all day meeting with people that had flown in specifically for us to work on an executive presentation. And there we are in the middle of a teleconference to discuss what we had put together, when my phone rings.

School principal.

I need to come pick up Bennett as he has gotten in trouble and he needs to go home for the rest of the day.

What?

Turns out there was a girl who had a book he wanted. Rather than ask her to borrow it (how pedestrian) he decides to get a tack and go out in the hallway and put the tack in her shoe. His thinking: when she puts the shoes on later, it will "weaken" her, and then he can get in there and get the book. Unfortunately, his plan was foiled due to the teacher catching him in the act. And the only reason he had to go home was because he showed the principal no remorse for what he had done.

Buddy: next time, show remorse. You will eventually (by the time I got to the school Bennett was a sobbing mess), and you can save us a lot of trouble by just getting it over with. Better yet - don't make bad choices next time... how many times in this lifetime will I discuss bad choices and have it seem like we are starting from zero each and every time???

So then Friday Karl complains that he isn't feeling so good - I tell him he is fine, and pack him off to school - Frauke calls me that afternoon that he really isn't feeling well, but that he can lie on the couch at their house until I get home from work. I get there to find him napping - so we enjoy a pleasant dinner, to only have him come down and announce that he has thrown up. This is turning into a Somerville family tradition, as Bennett threw up at the Galia's house before as well - but hopefully a tradition that ends here.

Karl and I both thought that it was something he ate, as he felt better immediately afterward, and Saturday, though weak, was still a relatively active day. By Sunday he was getting weaker, such that our day trip to Lichtenstein (check that country off our list!) was a bit lackluster as he felt worse and worse. By the time we got home I found the information for the new children's hospital - if it was strep throat, he would need antibiotics before he got worse.

After four hours of waiting we see the doctor who makes the declaration that it is not strep, but just the flu - and only bedrest and time would make it better. So day 8 and day 9 were spent at home with Karl instead of at work. So much for all of our plans.

One other thing that happened while Eric was away is that I got to sleep with our fluffy down comforter again! The day before Thanksgiving Eric gets the bright idea that the comforter is making him allergic, and replaces it with think cotton quilts.

Really? The day before Thanksgiving?

It turns out it snowed the next day. And then it snowed, and snowed. But there we were with our trusty, thin, cotton quilts. This was killing me...

Once in a while I would sneak upstairs to sleep on the guest bed with the big, fluffy, overly decadent feather comforter. I had this crazy feeling that come spring time, he would realize he wasn't really allergic and we would go back to the feathers - just in time for warm weather. So for a week I luxuriated with the comforter on our bed, and when he got back, Eric was nice enough to try it for a few days. But the allergic feeling came back, and away the comforter went again...

But all is settled back into place now and we are back into our normal routine. And somehow now that Eric is home everything seems to be going to plan...

Vices Abound!

So we have just finished a splendid visit from the Luce / Evison family: Sam, Stacey, Max, and Nora. Stacey is a friend of Sue's from high school - they worked together at the Sizzler and used to sneak into San Francisco to check out punk clubs in the early 80s (yikes, dating myself...).

We spent the week showing them Basel and enjoying the museums as well as getting out into nature: one day snowshoeing in the Jura mountains, and one day sledding outside of Interlaken. For those who care, the modern source of all truth (Wikipedia) notes that the modern sport of sledding was actually invented as recently as 1870 in beautiful St. Moritz by some bored English tourists. The sledding proved quite the thrill for the kids with a 3 km long track down to the gondola that takes you back up to do it all over again. Eric captured it correctly though: "this is way more dangerous than skiing!". We saw one girl taken away on a stretcher, but that did not dissuade us - the little kids seemed to enjoy it the most (yet again, would never be allowed in California...)

On the last night the kids wanted to play waiter - a common game in our house, but frustrating if you are actually hungry because of the long drawn out process it takes: they want to draw up a menu, make tickets to go into the restaurant, and then everyone has to order and they have to dish out the food. This night was especially funny, as they named the restaurant "Angry Panda" after our the giant panda we had scavenged on big trash night - he sat in the corner on a chair with a pretend cigar the kids had made hanging out of his mouth. Karl as well had a fake cigarette, and insisted on keeping it dangling out the side of his mouth during all the order taking.

So Karl and his cigarette brought back two memories:

I had posted back in September or so pictures of the candy cigarettes the kids love. At the time, I had also taken a picture of Karl smoking one of them, but thought: "I can't post that - our friends in California would flip! They would wonder what has come of us that we think pictures of children smoking is funny!" Well, I guess we have been out of California long enough that all of the political correctness has drained from our bodies...

But I was also prompted to post the picture based on an event that took place in Austria during our skiing vacation: at one of the dinners, the hotel ended our meal with schnapps for Eric and me. The tray they brought out, though, instead of having two shot glasses, actually came with four glasses: schnapps for the adults, and then two glasses of Sprite for the kids. I don't think we are in Kansas anymore, Dorothy...
Now, don't think we have gone completely off the deep end. Even though they want to learn poker we refuse to teach them, and as for women: Karl has a healthy fourth grade boy hatred of all girls, and the crush Bennett has on the girls in his class is that he wants to "crush" them - as in a swift right hook. His words, not mine...

But one vice you can't get away from in Switzerland is chocolate. And who would want to, really? We hear that the Swiss hold the world record for chocolate consumption: 11.6 kg (25.6 lbs.) per capita per annum - that is just over 2 lbs a month... We are not there yet, but we are working on it...

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

We love the snow.

I didn't know we loved the snow, but since Thanksgiving it seems we have had more days than not with snow on the ground, and we are not sick of it yet - not even close. I think back on my childhood now with a sense of deprivation: all the snowmen I never got to make; all the missing snowball fights; the snow angels that never got to be. I did have a few trips to the snow when I was young, but my memories were always of being cold and miserable - now, thanks to technology and a bit of money, we have all the right clothing, so you never get cold! Who would have thought?! Even Eric, who grew up with plenty of the white stuff is having fun. His thinking: there is no wind here, so as long as you are bundled up, the cold is quite bearable...

Now I was told that a White Christmas is quite rare in these parts - but I put my order in early, and old man weather delivered! And talk about winning the lottery: a white Thanksgiving as well - boy, are we blessed! Now I know that not everyone was singing the praises of snow, as many got stuck Christmas week unable to get to where they wanted - be it vacation, getting home, or getting to relatives for the Christmas holiday - hopefully everyone was able to keep their impatience in check and just be in the moment, while we enjoyed the pleasure of the winter wonderland.

As is usual, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years has just flown by. We started the holiday season with the Basel Stadtlauf on Thanksgiving weekend - kids (and adults) run through the city streets the first night they light up the old part of town. Quite charming, except it snowed that day, leaving the roads covered in slippery ice and snow that they couldn't clear entirely before the race started (again, something that would never be allowed in California!). I waited at the chaotic finish line so missed the kids slipping and falling - and it took over 15 minutes to find Bennett after he finished in the crowd of parents claiming their kids. You have to give it to the people of Basel, though - they love to celebrate, and despite the cold and slushy conditions, people were out in full force to cheer everyone on.

The next weekend we had a great visit from Sue's cousin Britta - she came down from Frankfurt and we did a treasure hunt tour of Basel with the kids - chasing clues throughout town. We then got an adult night out which included a tour through Basel's Weinachtsmarkt. Nothing like a little Gluehwein to get one in the holiday spirit! We spent the night talking and talking - work, life, retirement - it always great to see her, and we hope to get to see her again soon.

Our next big event of the season was our piano recital. They boys have been taking lessons since October, and it is like fish to water. We had been worried when we decided to move the piano that it would end up just being a piece of furniture gathering dust, but there are days I swear someone is sitting and playing from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep (sorry neighbors!) Our teacher is really proud of their enthusiasm, and they were the only duet at the recital - check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRzHlN8W_Zo How can you not be proud of that?

We then took the week before Christmas and went to Austria to do our first real ski vacation. St. Anton is tucked into the Tirol region, and we were blessed with good weather, no crowds and lots of snow that made the week a perfect getaway. The kids took lessons and went from beginners to able to do any hill with Dad. I took private lessons in my quest to just like skiing, and my instructor Tom was perfect - endless patience, with a focus on having fun and feeling safe. He carried my skis, he held a spot for me in line at the lift, he skiied backwards half the time to help me figure it out. How could I ask for more?

Now what was interesting, in my limited ski experience, was that I was used to the standard designations of trails: green for beginner, blue for in the middle, and black for the hard slopes. Here, you don't see green, which made me think blue was for beginners - but actually, when we signed up for lessons, they showed this little chart that includes green as the beginner designation - they just don't happen to have any green slopes at the whole resort... They have also thrown in red between blue and black - I don't know if that makes the red slopes here equivalent to black runs in the US, and then double black diamond equals black here?? It doesn't matter to me - I am not going off the blue for a while...

What was also fun was that every night we would come back to our hotel for a sauna and steambath. The kids had a ball, and we were amused by the robes they got - pink for Karl with ribbons, and Bennett's peach number made him look like a little victorian girl... Karl was pissed, and it was only the allure of the sauna that got him to put it on - Bennett was oblivious to the humor of it all. Can't wait until they are teenagers and everything bothers them...

Finally we got to celebrate Christmas here - the big event is the unveiling of the tree on Christmas Eve - the hotel resturaunt was blacked out all day, and that night when they opened we were treated to beautiful decorations, along with a tree that had real candles - can't say we have seen that before in California!
All the hotel guests toasted each other, and we enjoyed a fabulous four course meal capped off with a beautiful basket of home made Christmas Cookies. It was really homey (for not being at home) as we played games in the hotel lobby until all were too tired to stay up any longer. We ended up doing Christmas all over again on December 26th once we got home, so for us it was the holiday that kept on giving this year...

We hope you and your families had a great holiday season, and are kicking off 2011 with excitement for what will come this year!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

So what does Thanksgiving in Switzerland feel like?

So first, I actually went to work - we had plans to go to a company sponsored holiday dinner, and so with nothing to actually cook, there was so real reason to stay at home. Everyone looked at me strange when I wished them a Happy Thanksgiving - but who can fault them? When was the last time you wished someone a Happy Swiss National Day (August 1st, for those who are interested)?

So after a busy day at work, I drove over to the company's "executive" dining room, where the relocation people had arranged a wonderful holiday dinner for all expats and their families, and I met up with Eric and the kids. So it was a very considerate and thoughtful event, and we actually had a great time. However, a few things came across as a bit strange:

When I got there, I hooked up with Eric only to ask: "where are the kids?" as they were no where to be seen and even not heard. It turns out they had done an incredible job of arranging games and activities for the kids in a separate wing on the same floor - which, I hear every parent out there applauding: what would be strange about that? So what was strange is that they made a separate dinner for them so they didn't even eat with us - basically having Thanksgiving without our kids...

The evening started with champagne and wine - and our company head of HR gave a quick speech to welcome us there and thank us for moving to Switzerland and promoting sharing and learning across the company, etc... this was great - except she spent most of her speech talking about the announcement the week before of headcount reductions at the company and the hard choices and the difficult times ahead, etc....

Really? At a holiday party? I guess you can't ignore it, but should it be most of your speech?

So then up next was a guy who organized the event, who explained the plan for the rest of the evening. He was the one who broke the news that we wouldn't have dinner with our kids; he also explained that they weren't going to serve turkey, but instead holiday dinner choices from Switzerland (veal stew), Portugal (fish stew), and Germany (weiners and potato salad). Now, I don't mean to be American-centric, but where is my turkey? The dinner was billed as a holiday dinner, but if you have it on Thanksgiving evening... Well, we were disappointed, but Eric later found out from a friend there that had been the year before that they had turkey and it was awful - so perhaps they learned from the previous mistake. But Thanksgiving without turkey (or some large bird) just feels a little wrong...

But the food was quite good, and the wine was plentiful (and quite nice) so the missing children and missing turkey were soon forgotten as we met new friends and shared the meal with old friends as well - just like Thanksgiving should be.

Well, we got home early (remember my birthday party: things end in Switzerland when they say they will end)and Eric and the boys watched Thunderball as they had vacation the next day, but with work the next morning I retired early and was fast asleep in short order.

The next thing I remember was being abruptly woken to the sound of screaming...

"SNOW!! SNOW!! SNOW!!!"

It was probably close to 10 pm, and Karl was screaming at the top of his lungs at our first ever snowfall since we have moved here - the boys and my first-in-our-lifetime for snowfall at our home. Eric dragged them outside in their pajamas to document the event. A white Thanksgiving - something to be quite thankful about.

So we woke up this morning to a beautiful white blanket of snow - enough to make snowballs in the backyard and coat the trees, but not enough to make it dangerous to get out and take a morning run. With the temperature at just freezing, it was just about as great as snow can be. We spent the morning renting my skis for the season, and then after Eric and the kids dropped me off at work, they went and got the rest of our winter necessities: sleds, snow boots (those little feet grow so fast!), shell jackets for skiing... Hey Winter: the Somervilles are ready for you!

However, best of all, waiting for me when I got home from work:

A turkey dinner, complete with garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pickled red cabbage (we had to throw in a little bit of Switzerland)! It was heavenly - possibly the best turkey I have ever had. What made this also funny is that the original plan was to get a goose - but the only ones they had at the store were frozen, which Eric knew would not thaw in time for our one-day-late Thanksgiving. They did have one fresh turkey left over, but at 10 kilos was much more than we could ever eat - even if we invited over the whole block. So the butcher suggested cutting it in half - right down the middle... So we had 1/2 a turkey - maybe that was the trick that made it taste so good...

Asia out of nowhere!

Eric gave me a complete surprise today - the kind that seemed trivial and non-important to him that was really earth-moving for me:

We were sitting around this morning enjoying the nothing-to-do-ness of this Saturday, when I told Eric I had taken some time while he was shopping to post a blog. And then he says, out of nowhere:

"You know I have an electronic version of all the emails we sent when we went to Asia in 1999 - see, they are right here..."

What???!!!

I knew that two of our friends, Dana Mulligan and Jeanne Virca, had given us amazing gifts upon our return from Asia of binders with reprints of our emails from the trip. And I had also known that one of them (was it Jeanne? Dana don't get mad if it was you) had also included a disk with an electronic version of the letters. Now, in our perpetually disorganized life, my plan was to come across that disk when Eric and I were in our 80s clearing out the attic for our move into the retirement home. But no, Eric blows me away that they are in a file, on his computer, ready for viewing and posting.

And so, with a hot cup of tea, I just spent the last hour or so setting them up in their own blog:

http://ericandsue1999.blogspot.com/

Feel free to visit and read at your leisure. Hopefully it will inspire you to travel as well!

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"...

Herbstmesse

Fall is here, and in Basel that means the Herbstmesse (translation: Fall Fair). This is quite an event in this town - 7 locations throughout the city are set up for two weeks with carnival rides and food stands: from pony rides to the 66 meter drop Power Tower; from bratwurst to raclette to sauted liver; from cream fudge to chocolate covered fruit to cotton candy. It is quite literally every child's dream come true with all the neon and music pulsating, people screaming their heads off as multiple thrill rides run in close proximity, and a multitude of sweets is never more than a stones throw away. And like I said - this is all over town, so it just goes on, and on, and on..

Now like any good fair, you aren't going to get away without dropping some cash - but did I mention that a single ride can cost 12 CHF (that is over $12 in today's exchange rates!)? Luckily Karl and Bennett were too short to go on those rides so we stuck to the 3-6 CHF range. The corn in the picture is 6 CHF an ear - would you pay $6 for an ear of corn?? Work friends visiting from California went out with me and the kids one night, and for the rides we did go on, the whole heartedly agreed that no 7 year old would be allowed on them back at home. Ah, yes, we live in the land of few lawyers here...



It really has been a blast (once I let go of the money we were spending) - our favorite ride was the mini Power Tower - a 50 ft or so high tower that raises you up and then drops you in a free fall only to catch you and take you back up to do over and over again. Bennett surprised me with having a liking for the scary spin-me-around rides (isn't he a bit young for those?) and we got in a bit of bumper car action as well. Come to think of it, I haven't seen bumper cars in California in quite a while - this is the place to be for rides that have been banned in the United States...


Now the downside to the fair for me was that the main location was right outside my office building. Mostly that was actually quite cool, as I could look out my window on the 19th floor and space out on the rides going around and around when I needed a break from some intense Power Point - you could actually hear the screams from inside the building! No, the downside was that every day at lunch I would justify for myself why it was OK to again eat fair food for lunch. Bratwurst today,
raclette tomorrow - but walking by the sweets stands proved too much for my willpower, so I would take a bag of fudge or candied nuts with me back to my desk. "Only eat one..." would turn into "try and take some home" and for the most part it didn't happen. I need the fair to leave so I can STOP eating and start losing some weight in preparation for all the Christmas goodies...

And speaking of the holidays, we did get in some Haloween fun...



But the leaves are almost all off the trees - my guess is within the week they will all be done. And I heard there might be snow on the hills on Sunday - let the winter begin!