I have a Part-Time Job

Today I got a part time job with a great family in Geneva (Vessy to be exact). They have to girls, ages nine and five. It's not everyday, which will allow me to maybe volunteer at a cultural preservation organization or something. The family is American and British which means they speak English! I think it's going to be great and I am really excited!

Crepes Rule!

I had my first crepe today. I know, how could I have missed out on the deliciousness that is crepes for this long?! No longer will I live in the dark. In the little town next to us, St. Genis, there is a family owned creperie. It's really cute. The husband serves the food and his wife makes it. They also have a daughter, but really she just looked bored. I think we will be going there often. The husband even helped me with my French pronunciation. For some reason when confronted by real-live French people I freak out and forget all the French I know. According to Rosetta Stone my pronunciation isn't that bad, but put me in a restaurant and I lose it! Oh well, he was nice about it. I'm sure in some way, my stupid American bit was entertaining to him.

Regardless...everyone should eat crepes!

Morale is Low...so is the Internet Signal

We are very dependent on our Internet over here. It's how we talk to family and entertain ourselves. We have very very basic TV, and one shouldn't wait all day for an English programme. For some reason, the Internet has been SUPER slow. It has significantly impacted our quality of life. Morale is low. The Fete de Geneve, a week long party in Geneva is coming up so hopefully that will boost our spirits. Hopefully, I will be able to report that 500 kilograms of fondue tastes awesome.

Anyways, some of you may be asking...What can I do to help? How about a care package? I'm not pushing anything here, just tossing it out there. A care package or even a card would make my day! I feel like I've reached a new low...panhandling for mail!

Bern!

On Saturday we took a day trip to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. Bern is a really awesome place and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Bern is a German-speaking town with a lot of history. Throughout the city there are carved statues of nursery rhymes and Bern folklore. The mascot of Bern is the bear. Unfortunately, Pedro, the bear of Bern, died on Thursday. We didn't get to see any bears, but we did see the bear pit. Joe was really bummed by the death of Pedro because he really loves the Bern bears. A hidden gem in Bern is the Rosengarten located up a very steep hill. It offers an amazing view and about 200 varieties of roses. We ate some traditonal German food, think a Farmer's skillet at Denny's. Mine had cheesy potatoes topped with two eggs and bacon. The bacon was not that great because it was European bacon, which is fatty. Ronny and Joe had locally brewed beer too! We got to see Einstein's apartment where he worked as a patent clerk. Bern is definitely an awesome place, and if you come to visit the chances that we would go there are high.

New Layout New Attitude

The blog has a new layout. It's a little girly, but I'm okay with that. I'm sure Ronny is fine with that too. Yesterday I did about 3 hours of French on the Rosetta Stone. I was yelling into the computer and looking stuff up in a dictionary and the internet. It was like I was in school. This is part of my new attitude. It is incredibly frustrating to not be able to articulate needs because you don't speak French, but I can fix this problem by learning how to speak some French. I'm really going to make an effort.

Something I don't really talk about on the blog, because it's a downer, is my day-to-day life. As many of you knew would be the case, this transition is hard. Ronny has a job and I don't. I'm not too thrilled by that. I am often lonely and bored. I have read all the books I brought and some of Joe's. I can't seem to find any in English here and it costs a lot of money to join the library.(Like 50 CHF at CERN and 100 CHF in Geneva). I have applied for about 7 jobs and set up an au pair profile to be a nanny. Today I got a nibble on an au pair gig. We are not getting overly excited, so just calm down. I'll keep you updated on the job search. It's tough right now, it would be tough back home too (thanks economic downturn), but I am hopeful that "this too shall pass".

Grillin' Machine

What does that look like? Does that look like meat on a grill? We are officially smater than a gas grill.

I Made a Pound Cake

I made a pound cake. No easy feat because I don't have a hand mixer or anything. I creamed the butter and sugar together with a whisk and my brute strength. So far it looks and smells like a pound cake. Hopefully it will taste like a pound cake too!

UPDATE: It tastes like pound cake!

Grill 2 points - Joe, Ronny, Jeannette 0 points

The grill beat us again. Joe bought a very nice butane tank today. We brought every manual the grill came with and gave it to the man that sells gas tanks. He read the directions in French and promptly suggested a small 6 kg butane tank because it's not as heavy as the 13 kg tank. Thrilled with the purchase and the prospect of grilling, we quickly returned home.

When we tried to set up the grill to the tank we realized that there is a connection we are missing. It didn't come in the grill box (I can attest to that) and it didn't come with the butane tank (Joe can attest to that). Another night with no grilling.

Our best guess is we bought the grill in Switzerland and we bought the butane tank in France. You may remeber our probelm with electrial outlets regarding Swiss and French products. We're pretty sure there is a similar problem with the gas tank to gas grill connection. We lose again. Tragic.

Knitting in France

What an ordeal it is it knit in France! I brought two sets of knitting needles with me. I figured I would knit myself a blanket to protect me from the winter I am going to face. For some reason there is no Michaels craft store here. Instead you have to find speciality shops for the crafts you would like to do. There are scrapbooking stores (although I still haven't found them) and I imagine there are other hobby stores. I have been looking online for about two weeks for stores that sell yarn in Geneva. After 30 minutes of web browsing I found a blog posting on a knitting forum about yarn in Switzerland. From there I found two stores that carry Laine yarn. I'm not picky about yarn, and I don't know what's so great about Laine. I google map searched the distance between my house and the shops, searched on the public transportation website to see what tram I needed to take, and finally searched to see if any of them had a website. The one that was the furthest away did, so I decided to go there because I knew the hours of operation.

Ronny worked the night shift (midnight to 7) all last week, but he wanted to go with me into the city. If you aren't used to it, which neither of us really are, it's hard to navigate the streets of Geneva. The street signs are really small blue squares with white letters that may or may not be in an obvious location. We went on Thursday. It rained all day Thursday and the temperature decreased from 90 degrees to 65 degrees. When we reached our stop my directions told us to "walk 12 minutes". It did not indicate a direction. It's pouring down rain, we have one, broken umbrella, and we have no idea where to walk. By some act of God we ended up finding the place, but not before I started crying that I couldn't even ask for directions and all I wanted to do was knit a blanket.

At the store, Claudine, the owner, greeted me in French. She doesn't speak English. As a result of our communication barrier I am now knitting a shawl. It's almost a blanket. Claudine was very helpful and quickly showed me how to knit the shawl. She copied a picture of what the finished product should look like and wrote out some directions for me...in French. She even encouraged me to come to her shop and knit with her if I needed help. When I got home I tried to translate her directions, but she used abbreviations. Therefore I searched online for "knitting in French" and found a glossary of French knitting terms and abbreviations translated into English. (You can find anything on the Internet). And now I can knit! I knit 4 rows and on the 5th row I knit 5 stiches then knit two together, yarn over, knit two together...and repeat.

Who knew that my "simple" knitting project would be such an ordeal or such a long post?!

Biking To Work

So our roomy, Joe, is an avid bike-to-worker . He just bought a nice bike for this purpose. Its a pretty cool bike, and its definitely a scenic, albeit at times treacherous, ride to work on country roads with sub-par, if any, bike paths. Anyway, here is a paraphrasing of what Joe had to say when he came in the door Friday evening after his first experience riding in to work:

Joe (jovially) : "Hello Roomates! How are you all?"

Ronny & Jeannette : "Good. How was the ride in to work. Did it suck? It must not have been too bad judging by the cheerful spirit you seem to be in...?"

Joe (somber) : "Actually... it did suck. I fell off my bike on the way in"

Joe displays a few boo-boos on his arms.

Ronny : "Jesus! How did that happen?"

Joe : "Well...I took on a curb at too shallow an angle and I ate it. The worst part was that my chain fell off my bike and I had to walk my bike the rest of the way in, which was not-awesome. Then some French guy who saw me bust my ass came running over to see if I was okay. That was awkward. I would have preferred if he just laughed at me from a distance. I don't mind falling off my bike if it gets someone a good laugh out of it."

end of story

Joe had us cracking up. He told the story better than I can convey here. It was quite a testament to his cool attitude - that he came home in a relatively good mood (via the bus and not on his brand new bike) even though he had that wonderfully awful experience in the morning. Just to give you an idea of how long of a walk it was for Joe with his broken-down bike, I google mapped it. The path is in red. The place where Joe busted ass is marked in a blue "x". Joe is played by Peter Griffin from Family Guy here.

We have toast!!!

After much anticipation the day has arrived we have toast! It was glorious, not burned, crisp to perfection.

We have a grill

Joe bought a grill from Jumbo and some awesome kababas from the Migros. I set to work building it because I like to build things and I was hungry. About thirty minutes into construction I started to worry that perhaps this was not the charcoal grill we thought it was...rather perhaps it was a propane grill. Ronny read the special care and it said under no circumstances are you to convert this grill into a charcoal grill. The world will open up and you will be sucked into a vortex. Okay, maybe that part didn't happen, but we certainly felt time stand still as we looked at the grill in pieces and the 10 kilogram bag of charcoal. Anybody need charcoal? We'll trade you for a propane tank.

Conforama and Jumbo

Yesterday I took Joe to Conforama, a store that sells everything from a TV to a noodle strainer. It's similar to IKEA in that it has just about everything you need to spiff up a house. However, it seriously differs from IKEA in the amount of English-speaking persons they employ. Joe tried to buy a chair. It was blue. It did not make it with us. Ordinarily you fill out a card, you write down the product number and the price, you give it to the cashier, then you go to a garage type place and pick up your chair that's in a million pieces that you have to put together. We had enough French to say "We dont' speak French" and then came the hand signals. We think the cashier may have said that we could take the display, but we have no idea. We were holding up the cashier lane, I was behind Joe buying a fan and a clock. I had to try to explain with slow English and hand signals that Joe and I were not paying together, she could ring me up. Joe came back after hunting for the chair with no chair. He decided the chair was not worth the humiliation he felt for the poor cashier that couldn't speak English.

Then we went to Jumbo. I'm not quite sure what the extent of their products are, but it's a cross between Lowe's and a place that sells pillows. I was equally confused. Here Joe found a chair. He got some help from an employee that understood the universal language...the point and grunt. He also bought a grill. That will require it's own posting since I'm still putting it together. I like to build things and hey I have nothing better to do!

Honestly, there is nothing like the sting of not being able to communicate a need in French. You immediately want to go home and start the Rosetta Stone...this was our initial thought even if it didn't translate into action.

Tomorrow, our wolfpack grows by one

At first it was just me and Jeannette in the pack, and now Joe joins will be in it. Our roommate (or flatmate as they say here) and good friend, Joe Gartner, will be finally be arriving tomorrow. We pick him up to from the airport tomorrow at 2:30 . For those of you who haven't met Joe, here is a picture of him from a few days ago on the 4th of July. Welcome to the pack!




Note: If you are lost with the wolfpack references, you should see the movie that recently came out last month called "The Hangover" - its hi-larious, albiet very, very filthy as well. - Ronny

Only a few of you will get this...

"We meet again at last. The circuit is now complete. When I first arrived to France, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master!" - Darth Vader to Obe-Wan Kenobi referring to his training in driving stickshift.


I now possess a jedi-like mastery of the manual transmission - Ronny

Five Things That Stink/Are Annoying About Living in Europe

1. People on motorcyles and scooter bikes.

I'm from Daytona Beach. I thought I could handle bikers. No sir, I cannot. The "bikers" here (and I use that term loosely) are ridiculous! Without fail when we are stopped at a red light bikers will weave in between cars until they are at the front of the line in a "new lane" they just created. The biker gangs back home obey more rules of the road than these wanna-be's here. They are maniacs, and one day I will see a terrible accident involving a motorcycle and a driver that has had enough and just hits the biker. There is a thing called kharma.

2. Electrical outlets.

Moving here I knew electrical outlets would be an issue. What I didn't realize was you don't just need a converter for our US products. Example: We bought a toaster at a store called Conforama in Siwtzerland. Upon arriving home I feverishly opened my new toaster ready to toast to my little hearts delight. Nto quite. We bought the product in Swizterland, we live in France. Even though I can get to Switzerland in 10 minutes, I cannot plug my Swiss toaster in without a converter. I still haven't had toast.

3. The weakness of the US Dollar

This week we read an article on CNN that kicked us in the stomach. Geneva is the 4th most expensive city for expatriots that live in Europe but earn US Dollars. Everything is expensive here, and the euro is kicking the dollars ass. Geneva, which uses swiss-franc as currency, is full of investment bankers and people who don't care if dinner is equivalent to $30 per person. Back home Ronny and I would have a date night at Chili's or somewhere every 10 days or so. There is no analogue of Chili's here...we are literally picking one restaurant over another because of a $3 difference in prices.

4. The price of gas

Gas here is purchased by the liter. In Geneva at the BP station gas is 1.57 CHF per liter. There is so much math involved (that Ronny does because I need paper to do the math and he does it in his head) in trying to convert CHF to Dollars and then liters to gallons. When all is said and done, gas is about $6.00 per gallon or more.

5. Drying Clothes

This is something that mainly bothers me because I do most of the laundry. There is no way we will ever get caught up on laundry because it takes two days (if the weather is bad) for clothes to dry. We don't have a clothes line, we have clothes racks. It doesn't work that well. You can only do one load a day, and the washing machine is very small. I now know why Europeans iron everything. It helps ensure clothes are dry. Turn off the steam feature and you have a drying machine! A clothes dryer is something I really miss.

Dear Followers...

Believe it or not, blogging is hard work. When this project first began I received so many questions about how to comment on our blog. I'm pretty sure those issues have been resolved, but alas...no comments. It is difficult to come up with stuff to blog about on my own. Believe it or not, sometimes living in Europe is down right boring. Therefore, I would like to request that people start commenting. Ask questions, start a dialogue, make me feel like this isn't the most boring blog ever!

Thank you,

Jeannette

Lake Annecy pictures

Top: First fondue ever! Clearly I thought it was an action shot.

Middle: A historic preservationist has an eye for pictures like these...HA! It looked to me like a backdoor heading right into the water.

Bottom: Does it get any better than this?

Lake Annecy

On July 5th we went to Annecy to go swimming. Lake Annecy has the clearest water I have ever seen! It is a pristine lake admist the mountains. The old town is so awesome! There are winding canals and backdoors that open into the canals. The most surpising part of our visit was the topless bathing. We're in France...that's what they do. You get used to it after a little while, but the first sight is a little shocking.

Farmer's Market Part II

We went to the Farmer's Market this morning. Bought some peaches, cherries, mushrooms, tomatoes, avacados, and bread. We also got some free plums for being repeat customers. We decided that we would not be buying raw chicken from the farmer's market because the claws and the heads are still on the birds....no I'm not kidding. The top picture is from a wicker basket stand, and the bottom picture was supposed to show you the depth of the market. It is a lousy picture...I'll try to do better next time. Honestly, I think I was so upset about the chickens with claws that I forgot to take more pictures.

The Jet'D'eau

The Jet'D'Eau is one of the highest fountain streams in the world (I think it's actually the second highest). It's in the middle of Lake Geneva and it's a really awesome site. The rainbow in or from the jet was really awesome.

UPDATE! After consulting a guide book, I learned the Jet'D'Eau is THE largest water jet stream in the world. So there!

Geneva Lake Parade

The Geneva Lake Parade is a gay pride, techno music, cross-dressing festival. You can drink in the streets, wear whatever (or not at all), and bounce around to music. I spray painted my hair blue to get into the spirit of the day. Giant floats with drunk, dancing people travel down the length of Lake Geneva. They aren't throwing beads or giving away anything, and yet it draws a huge crowd. In between floats trucks sell beer. Nothing is free. All types of people watch it including parents with really young children. My favorite site was two old rich people watching the parade from the balcony of their fancy hotel. The woman had a nice dress on and the man was wearing a shirt and tie...it was such a sharp contradiction. As soon as the parade is over the street cleaners get to work. The street we were in front of was clean within an hour of the parade passing. The float pictured is the McDonalds float featuring some DJ's that I don't know or care about from the U.S. It wasn't quite the 4th of July, but it was fun!

Qu'est-ce que tu fais?

Just bought a T.V. yesterday... Watching a bunch of lousy French programs until we get a satellite package (soon hopefully). You know its rough when you get excited to see an ancient rerun of "Malcolm in the Middle" broadcast in stupid French. Sigh...

We're getting an early start tomorrow so Jeannette can teach me how to drive stick. We'll try to keep a tally of how many times I stall out. Can't wait...

BTW: "Qu'est-ce que tu fais?" means "What are you doing?". We may entitle a few of our blog posting like this as if we are pretending that one of you is asking us this or simply wondering "Whats up?"

By the way: "BTW" means "by the way"

CMS

I'm not sure why they let me turn it on either...

CMS detector

This is the acclaimed CMS detector. We visited during the last week of access. Next week they are closing up the hole and will begin or continue, I don't know which, to detect cosmic rays or something really physicsy. I'll have Ronny post about the detector since he should know infinitely more than I do.

Thoiry House

The top picture is our living room featuring one of the most uncomfortable couches known to man. Yes, the walls are very white and the rug really ties the room together. The bottom picture is the front of the house. We occupy the first floor and the "cave". Ronny went down to the "cave" or basement. I haven't felt that adventurous yet. According to our landlord the building is about 200 years old!

UN Soccer Tournament

On Sunday Ronny played in a soccer tournament on the CERN team. He's number 10. While they didn't win (or make it to the finals), they did have a player break a toe and Ronny scraped his leg from his calf to his hip. It was a really nice day to soccer (or football). Fun fact: a soccer field is called a pitch.

Chess in Geneva

On Saturday we went into Geneva. I went with one of my friends and Ronny and her husband met up with us for dinner. We found them in this park playing chess. It's quite a scene. Losing is a very public experience.

Our Car

On Friday we finally got our car. It's a VW Polo standard. Driving is pretty easy here. The only challenge was figuring out when to shift since the car is in km/h. It has air conditioning (a luxury here) and four doors (another luxury for a small car). It has certainly been more convienient having a car, but it is expensive. Gas is sold by the liter, so it's roughly $6 per gallon or more! I've been driving since Ronny doesn't drive stick, but he will have his first lesson later today.