Everyday

We've been here in Lausanne for more than a month.  Hard to believe how fast time is going!

Our time here has the feeling of a mix between vacation and everyday life.  It is at the same time both a vacation and everyday life; yet not really either.

While we have posted on most of our vacation-like moments, we have not said much about everyday living. Our everyday life here is a lot like our everyday life in Durham, only very different.

Housing. We live in a lovely two-bedroom, 1.5 bath apartment.  This is much smaller than our home in Durham.  When we were contemplating renting this space, we wondered if we would end up killing each other in such cramped space.  Turns out, no.  We are doing just fine.  The guys are sharing a bedroom without any problem.  Mark and I share a work table without any problem.  And we've already shown you the view from our balcony.

Our Living Room

Christopher and Matthew asleep at last.

The only spot that feels cramped is the kitchen.  I like to cook and thus end up spending a lot of time here.  And you know that phrase "too many cooks spoil the . . ." Well, it simply cannot happen here.  There can be only one cook in the kitchen.

The boys at breakfast in our kitchen

All things considered, we like our apartment very much, and we're very comfortable.  It makes us think we have obscenely too much space back home, and makes us wonder if we should downsize when we get back.

Playing. Fortunately, our apartment building has a nice yard with a largish grassy area that the kids can play in.  They go out most days after school to play soccer.

The boys playing soccer in our yard, as seen from our balcony.  We are only
three floors up, though it seems higher from this perspective!

And we are really fortunate to have several parks nearby.  One of our neighborhood parks has an area where the guys play "the owl game."  This is a game they invented in which the boys play as a team against Mark.  If they kick the soccer ball and hit the owl they get a point; if Mark kicks the ball beyond the lovely carved logs and into the grass, he gets a point.  It is quite fun.  The boys have won more games than Mark.

Owl Game

A major difference in everyday life is that we are much less tightly scheduled here.  No little league, piano lessons, chess classes, basketball, choir, etc.  We have signed up for a Saturday morning soccer camp, but that's all.  We are enjoying the slower pace and wondering if we should try to reduce our usual mix of scheduled activities when we get back.  But that'll be way easier said than done.

Shopping. Shopping is a major adventure.  The only real shopping we've done is to the grocery store (our local chain grocery store is called Migros).  Here, as in many (all?) European cities, when you go to the grocery store you bring your own bags.  We forgot the first 2 or 3 times we went to the store (which was embarrassing and difficult -- my purse is big, but not that big!) but after just a few shopping trips bringing bags became automatic.   And we are still working on mastering the art of the small shopping trip.  This is an important skill to master because our refrigerator and kitchen storage is limited.  And fresh-baked bread really is better when eaten the same day that it's made.  So we find ourselves at the store with some regularity. And we really do love the fresh bread.  Sometimes we refer to it as cake; it is that delicious.

A number of people have asked us about items we have not been able to find here.  Shopping is a funny experience.  So many of the things are the same, and yet also different.  It was hard to find maple syrup, chocolate chips (though there is a whole aisle of chocolate bars), fresh spinach, or canned soup, to name a few.  And Goldfish do not exist here.  But we've made do.

Eating.  We eat differently here.  Beef is massively more expensive than at home, so we have eaten it just once since we've been here.  We eat about as much pasta, and more pizza, poultry, sausage, cheese, chocolate, ice cream, and potatoes.  We haven't eaten seafood since we've been here.  The price differential here between eating in and eating out is way larger than at home (with the cost of takeout close to the cost of eating out), so we eat homecooked meals basically every meal (compared with 2-3 meals out per week at home, counting takeout).  We do miss Thai takeout. 

Getting a Hair Cut.  Getting a hair cut is just one of those things that must be done.  It cannot wait the five months until we are back.  So we got out our French-English dictionary, chose a place to get a cut (of which there seem to be several on every block in the city -- the coiffure business is really big here!), and ventured forth.  This first trip to the beauty parlor was just for the guys.  I am waiting for my hair to get really out of control before subjecting myself to the scissors.  And we did OK.  We maybe should not have said, “coupe court”  (short cut), as the gal really took it to heart.  The upside is that the guys will not need haircuts anytime soon!

Coupes courts!

Transportation. Lausanne has amazing public transportation.  We can hop on a bus a half block from our apartment (never waiting more than 5 minutes for one on a weekday) or walk 3 blocks to a subway station.  (Lausanne is the smallest city in the world with a subway system.)  We take the kids to school on the bus or train, so we ride it twice a day every day.  We almost never drive when we go somewhere in town, including to the University, downtown, to the Lake, to a museum, or to the office supply store on the other side of town.  The only exception is that we do usually drive when we go grocery shopping (since, as noted above, we still have not mastered the art of the small shopping trip).  And we also walk many places.

All in all, we drive very little here, which is very different from our day-to-day life in Durham.  We had a long debate before we arrived about whether or not we should lease a car here.  We did.  I think at the end of the day we are glad we have a car, even if we don't use it that often.  Besides grocery shopping we mostly use our car for weekend outings out of town.  The car is especially nice to have for the weekend outings, though even for some of those (like to Geneva) we take the train.

Our car.  It's a Dacia.  Not sure its country of origin.

Washing.  I don't mind laundry, but it is not my favorite chore either.  Here I find that I do not mind laundry at all.  I attribute this to two features.  First, the distance between the dirty laundry bin and the laundry machine is very short -- another virtue of a smaller living space.  Second, we brought so few clothes that, at most, we can only do three loads of laundry at a time, which is amazingly easy to do and does not take that long to fold!  Basically, it's clear that, just as we don't need as much living space as we have at home, we also don't need as many clothes.  Another adjustment to consider when we get home.

Our washer and dryer.

Reading. We read a lot, and we wondered how we were going to manage getting enough English-language reading material here.  This has been solved for us in some traditional and non-traditional ways.  Upon our arrival, our landlady generously brought us three bags of Enlish-language children's books that her children were willing to share with us.  She provided us a great selection of non-fiction and fiction books.  And, for the non-traditional solution, we have become huge users of our e-readers (Kindle as well as ibooks).  Kindle has been great for me, Mark, and Christopher.  The ibooks reader (on the ipad) has been great for Matthew.  Through these devices, we've been able to get (almost) all the books we've been interested in, not to mention reading U.S. newspapers every day on the internet.  And none of this reading material will weigh down our luggage when we return!  I do feel a little guilty about not patronizing the local book stores (we hear there is an English-language bookstore in town, but we haven't had a reason to track it down), but on the other hand we are saving many trees!

Speaking of Kindle and ibooks, this experience would be very different in a lot of ways were it not for all of our gadgets and the internet that enhances their power.  This is one area of packing we did not hold back on.  We brought three laptop computers, an iPod, two ipads, an internet phone (with headset), two DSIs, a GPS (with European maps), and two Kindles.  Upon arrival we bought a printer and two cell phones.  Our apartment came with hi-speed internet access.  We spend so much time using one or the other of these gadgets that it's very difficult to imagine this experience without them.  Maybe we'd be spending more time hanging out in cafes speaking French and asking local people for directions.

Our gadgets

Other random things we are glad we brought:

Calculator. Christopher chose to bring his calculator in his carry-on luggage.  This little machine has come in super handy--from calculating exchange rates (which we try not to do too often, as it is painful!) to learning about the concept of "power of..."  And Christopher discovered this neat little fact:  1, 2, 3 is the only three-digit combination (or, at least, the only one we could think of) where the numbers multiply to the same number that they add to.  That is:  1 +2 + 3 = 1 * 2 * 3 = 6. Very interesting!

Band-Aids.  I always have a little bag of Band-Aids with me.  It is just a feature of having two young, super active kids.  In addition to my usual stash, I added a bunch to our luggage.  And, in just a month, we have blown through them all.  I guess Band-Aids are a high-use item in our household!

Tape. When I threw a roll of scotch tape in my carryon bag, one might have thought that was a strange addition to our luggage.  However, Matthew loves, loves, loves to make creations out of paper (masks, paper trains with tracks, scrolls, daggers, people).  These often require lots of tape.

DSI. Under any other circumstances I would not be praising the virtues of the kids' DSIs (these are electronic handheld games that suck any hope of conversation out of the room when they are on), but I feel the need to mention their value. They have come in very handy -- as alarm clocks!  Our apartment has no alarm clock, nor did we bring one.  Turns out the DSI has a very effective alarm function that we use daily.  It even has a snooze feature.  Who knew?

Uno.  Just as we were heading out the door for the airport, Kathy George (our friend and former nanny) suggested throwing the Uno cards in Matthew's bag.  I was skeptical about the value of carrying them across the ocean, but they have come in very handy.  Not only do we find ourselves playing Uno on some of those afternoons and evenings when we are not rushing off to a basketball game or finishing homework (which the boys don't have here -- see our post about the first day of school), the non-English speaking children of our friends Joerg and Denise knew how to play too!  We knew soccer and chess were international games, but who knew Uno was as well?

All in all, everyday life here is very pleasant.  It makes us question some of the ways we live when we're at home, which I suppose is part of the reason for living abroad for a time.