Two Weeks Today!!

The building next door, which is (or was) attached to the wall right on the other side of my bedroom, finally came crashing down. The building extended all the way down the block and was about 5 floors high. Every day at about 7 am I wake up to an earthquake from the construction. Now all that remains (at least above ground) is a big pile of rubble. For the past few days little crowds have been gathering to take pictures of the demolition. Today, as Mom and I were heading home, we stopped to watch for a few minutes. The final chunk was not too large but still reached up about three stories and we watched the tractor (looks like a big claw or a dinosaur) pick the walls apart piece by piece. Once we went inside there was a huge crash that shook our whole building and blew a huge cloud of dust outside the window. When we came back outside the building was gone. Now for the rebuilding!! I'm pretty sure it won't be as disruptive as the demolition was.

We went out to lunch today with Sandy at a Greek restaurant on the corner of our street. Within the few block on Rue Beau-Sejour there are a lot of restaurants. Greek, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, a few small cafe bars and the Chat Noir. All within about a 30 second walk. Sandy then showed us where the American Women's Club is and showed us how to use the kiosk to pay for the bus. She has been very helpful, especially for Mom, and has met a lot of English speakers through the Women's Club, which Mom is going to start getting involved in. She also invited Mom to join her book club, so I feel better knowing that Mom has found some ways to meet people and won't be too lonely when I'm not around anymore.

Yesterday we walked down to an electronics store by the train station to look at TVs. I found a nice HD LCD screen that is multi-voltage and thus will work back home as well. It was also on sale, and a better price than the other electronic stores we have been to. It's about a five minute walk (mostly uphill, of course) so we bought it and Mom and I carted it up the street. (And then today we finally got a car, although this is a loaner until the car Dad ordered arrives.) I got the TV hooked up with DVD (also have to make sure the DVD player is multi-region and will play US DVDs) and our cable box, which gets a lot of the BBC channels. We have about ten English speaking channels now. Next we need to get a Sling Catcher so we can watch our Tivo recordings from home on our TV here. Technology is crazy! I managed to do it all without blowing anything up too!

On Sunday we are taking an overnight train to Prague and meeting Dad in the city on Monday. He will be there overnight on business and then will return to Lausanne. We are going to stay an extra night in Prague, then take the train to Innsbruck, Austria for one night and then Zurich for a night. Three countries in five days! (Three currencies as well...) These are all new places for me (Mom has been to Innsbruck about 10 years ago) and I am especially excited to see Prague. I have heard nothing but great things about the city. I am also going to start planning a trip to Spain. My goal is to see at least Barcelona and Seville and then take a ferry over to Morocco for a couple days. This freaks Mom out but I've pretty much talked her into it. She put me in charge of planning Spain and she is going to habdle planning our trip to Ireland in March. I'm getting very excited to do some travelling.

Frustrations

For the sake of reality, not everything is picturesque and enchanting. Yesterday the cable man came to unhook the cable. He spoke no English and we spoke no French, but he insisted on trying to talk to us a mile a minute as though we would magically understand him. I showed him the cable jack and he took care of it, and before he left he turned to Mom and said "learn French." Apparently he did know SOME English. Mom was very bothered but I'm trying to get her to laugh it off.

Later in the day I tried to hook up a Skype telephone to the computer. However, they are on US power jacks. Power converters might sound like a simple ordeal but they are not at all. US wall plugs run on 110 volts while European plugs put out 220 volts. So, simply converting your jack is not good enough because most appliances can't handle all that voltage and will blow out. There are exceptions, like my lovely computer, cell phone charger, camera battery charger, etc. However, standard things like lamps, hair dryers, stereos, etc. need a transformer to step the power down in addition to a converter to fit into the plug. That's not all. After figuring out the voltage, then you have to worry about the wattage. Our transformer is good for up to 300 watts. It's bulky and seems like it would work for a lot, but something like a blow dryer runs on about 1500 watts. Needless to say, we bought a new blow dryer out here rather than try to deal with that mess.

So, I hooked up the Skype phone modem through the transformer. This should have been no problem since it only runs on about 8 watts, and the other appliance plugged into the transformer is a stereo which takes about 60 watts. However, I couldn't get it to work. I tried it with the transformer and without and apparently blew it out and gave up. Then I couldn't get the stereo to work and thought I'd somehow managed to blow it as well. Does this sound frustrating enough? Well, I left Dad to figure out what happened and apparently the fuse in the transformer blew so we need to replace it. It came with one extra but if you know the McGowans at all you would know the chances of finding it are pretty small. So now Dad has to get a new one next time he returnes to the States. Fortunately I didn't damage the stereo, but I have no idea why the fuse in the transformer blew since is good for 300 watts and both appliances together drew less than 100 watts.

I give up. I drank a lot of wine last night.

One good thing: good wine is very cheap out here. That's about the only cheap thing. The conversion rate from USD to CHF is almost matching, something like 97cents to a dollar. 200CHF is about 180USD. We went to Starbucks today (Mom made me do it) and the average cost of a tall beverage is about 7CHF. A cup of tea which is $2 back home is over 4CHF here, or just about $4. A pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream costs about 9CHF, and a half gallon of Orange Juice is about 8CHF. Guess I won't be drinking as much orange juice.

Another funny thing is UHT milk which has a shelf life of nine months and doesn't have to be refrigerated. UHT means ultra high temperature, which is probably about twice as hot as pasteurizing for a much shorter period (2-3 seconds) to kill the spores and thus make the milk last longer. We haven't been brave enough to try it. There's lots of Gruyere cheese but no cheddar. These little differences are easier to deal with though.

Don't get me wrong, I love it here. Mom wants to go home. I'm working on her attitude problem.

Lucerne

For our first excursion out of Lausanne, we took the train to Lucerne and spent a night there. We got up on Saturday morning to find that it was snowing in Lausanne. This didn't make Mom or Dad very happy since we had to walk to the train station in the weather. However, I have not been in the snow for almost ten years so I was excited. In any case, it's not like we were stuck in a snowstorm, there was barely any snow actually on the ground. It was about a two hour train ride to Lucerne, and fortunately it was not snowing. It was, however freezing ass cold outside (to use Peggy's term) and very gloomy.
Lucerne is a beautiful city, located on Lake Lucerne and completely surrounded by the Alps. Lucky for us, Sunday was clear and beautiful (although still freezing) and we took a three hour walking tour of the city with a wonderful tour guide who was born and raised there. The city is still surrounded by the stone wall and wooden bridge built in the 1300s as a defense for the city. The wooden bridge is the oldest in Europe and still decorated with original artwork. Many of the buildings are covered with old frescoes and old fountains are scattered throughout the city which provided water in the days before modern plumbing. The city certainly has more character to it than Lausanne (I like it here too, though).
I have added pictures of the Olympic Museum under the Lausanne link and made a new link for pictures of Lucerne.

Olympic Museum

Today, despite the rain, Mom and I walked down to the waterfront and visited the Olympic Museum. Lausanne is the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, and the museum had a lot of great olympic memorabilia, including examples of medals and torches from throughout the years. I took a couple pictures outside which I will post late.

Our furniture has arrived and the rental furniture removed, so the apartment feels much more like home. In addition, one of Dad's colleagues who is returning to the states has given us some lamps and appliances and plug converters. It has been an adjustment figuring out the different voltages and wattages of everything out here and trying to track down things that will work at home as well as here. I've already blown out two small transformers.

Tonight we went out to happy hour to bid farewell to Carl (the one heading back to USA). Everyone was very friendly, and the people were from all over. It was nice to talk to people who have shared the experience of moving to a foreign country and have experienced all the stresses and inconveniences that go along with it. We also got lots of advice about places to go not only in Lausanne but throughout Switzerland and Europe.

Monday, January 19

I have reorganized the photos of "Around Lausanne" to create sub albums from each day. It is a bit easier to navigate this way. I also added photos from today. We went to the Cathedrale Notre-Dame, (not to be confused with the famous Notre Dame in Paris) the first Gothic building in Switzerland, comissioned in 1275. Originally Catholic, it was once covered with frescoes and ornate decor. During the Reformation the church was whitewashed and many of the relics were destroyed. The church remains Protestant and generally plain, however a few of the naves have been restored to uncover the original paining underneath.

The view of the Alps from the apartment. It's been foggy, so it's hard to see, but on a clear day you can see across Lake Geneva to France.

Busy day today. We took the train to Alleman to Ikea (pronounced by the locals as ee-kay-uh) to buy a few things for the apartment. It must be the most popular store inSwitzerland...what a zoo!

After that we walked to the Cantonal Musem (A Canton is like a State. Lausanne is the Capitol of the Canton of Vaud.) The Museum had an exhibition of the works of Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, a Lausanne born artist who later moved to Paris. (I posted one of his famous posters of the Chat Noir above.) On the way home we discovered he was born on the very street we live on, and the building now has a restaurant called Au Chat Noir.

Lausanne is called the San Francisco of Switzerland. It's really nothing like Switzerland except for one thing: hills. The city is built on three major hills and there are stairs everywhere. I don't think it is possible to live here if you are disabled. However, the city is very walkable. Many streets do not even allow cars, and even on busier streets pedestrians walk right across the street without even checking for cars. You don't even have to bother waiting on the curb for a break in the traffic because the cars stop once they see you. I was a bit confused the first two days but I'm starting to get a feel for my way around, at least in the area right around our apartment. We still have a lot of exploring to do.

So far Mom has been a little overwhelmed by the language difference. Every time someone speaks to her in French she looks at me with panic in her eyes. However, she is trying very hard. I have taught her how to count to five (we'll get to ten eventually) and she can ask for the check please when we eat out. She is still working on "I don't speak French" but for the time being it's too much of a mouthful so that's my job. We went out to dinner with a Honeywell couple tonight who have lived abroad for twelve years and in Lausanne for a year and Mom already speaks more French than she does so I think she is starting to feel a little better about herself.

Tomorrow Dad heads back to the States so we will be on our own for a few days. I have posted some more pictures in the already existing albums. Some of them are photos Dad took of the apartment and around Lausanne before we arrived, and some are photos we took today.

We arrived in Lausanne yesterday morning but were pretty jet lagged so we only went out for a bit. We went to the grocery store and a bar/coffeeshop and then went out to dinner when Dad came home. Today Vanessa (our relocation specialist) took us out and about and showed us the city. We still have temporary furniture but our things should arrive by Tuesday. I have posted some pictures I took around the city and the apartment today.