It’s a rainy spring day in Switzerland and the weather has forced us indoors. Bad weather for Aidan who prefers to spend every waking moment outside, but perfect for writing!
Chris has settled into his communications course. His schedule is pretty full, with class in the morning and on some evenings, work in the afternoon and enough homework to fill in the remaining hours. Needless to say, he looks forward to the weekends! Although the school is busy, he’s enjoying it and we feel it’s the perfect place for us at the moment.
Aidan and I are also settling into our daily routine. The people here are great and have helped us a lot with orientation. Aidan is having a little trouble still with sleeping through the night, but each night is a little better than the last. Burtigny, where we are staying, is a small village about a half hour outside Geneva. We’re surrounded by farms on hills, each sloping further until they meet the Jura mountains. Across Lake Geneva (or “Lac Leman”) are the Alps. They are especially clear after it rains.
The other day, Aidan and I had a little adventure taking the bus into a nearby town. I got off at the wrong bus stop and discovered that asking for directions is a bit problematic when I don’t speak French and most people here don’t speak any English. So I was forced to use the few words I do know and lots of embarrassing sign language. Thankfully, people here are very patient with foreigners and I eventually found my way to the grocery store and back home again. I hope to pick up some “survival” French in the weeks to come.
I’m still trying to decide how I can help out around the base while still maintaining Aidan’s schedule. I had a meeting today about this and it was such a relief to discover that people are flexible and sensitive to our needs as a family. So whatever I end up doing, I should be a nice balance of being a mom and doing enough work to keep me sane.
Wednesday night was “Swiss Night” and we celebrated by wearing red and white and sampling food from the different regions of the country. I love that bread and cheese are staple foods…and of course there is some awesome chocolate! Here are some random facts about Switzerland that I find interesting:
- There are 4 national languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh). We are staying in the French speaking part of the country.
- All Swiss citizens have the right to challenge a law passed in Parliament or to call for a vote to amend the constitution (direct democracy).
- Recycling is free but it usually costs to have your garbage collected; as a result, Switzerland is one of the top recycling countries in the world.
Here are a few pictures from a walk around the area.
