Just an update

1. Sleeping woes: The plan was to buy a big masterbed in Zurich so all four of us can sleep comfortably since both kids continue to sleep in the bed with us. Unfortunately the concept of masterbed in Zurich is quite different from what I'd seen at my brother's place in the USA and the huge masterbed here is just about enough for the two of us and one kid. So four of us, with both kids sleeping diagonally or horizontally in the middle leads to the hubby and me sleeping at the edges of the bed every night. Not a very comfortable situation. So, we tried to convince S to sleep on a mattress next to the bed. The example of my nephews was given on the first night- my brother's family had just visited and we don't have enough beds so the boys had to sleep on mattresses in the study. S thought it was a big adventure for them and eagerly agreed on the first night and slept quite well. The second night she was a bit reluctant and held my hand tightly till she slept. Then after that she refused to sleep on the mattress and insisted on coming back to the bed. Promises of a "Car bed" or "Princess bed" or bunk beds which we had seen in Pfister (the furniture shop) did not help and she snuggled up on the bed and refused to go down. So after A dozed off I put her onto the mattress. When i checked a couple of hours later I found she had rolled off the mattress and under the bed. So that was the end of that. So its back to the four of us sleeping uncomfortably on the not so master bed while the guest bed lies vacant. I can hear my mom laughing, I was scared to sleep alone and had slept with my parents till the ripe old age of 11. Please no...

2. Exercise time: We bought a treadmill last week. Yipeee. Wanted to for a long time, but we didn't have enough space in our Mumbai appartment and the nearby gyms were always easily accessible. Here with managing the kids alone full time I don't have time to go to a gym- I can't always wait for the hubby to return from work and then go, or go only on the weekends and teh effort of finding a creche to leave the kids, for an hour, for me to work out is too much. We've kept the treadmill in the balcony adjoining the masterbedroom and that's really an ideal location as I can keep an eye on A while she's sleeping- if the hubby is not at home I can only exercise when A is asleep. S is either also asleep or can be bribed with 1/ 2 hour of her favourite movie. I'm really enjoying the treadmill. I used to run for half an hour twice a week before S was born and after that I could never get back to those levels. But in the last week I've managed to ramp upto 24 mins of running and hoping to increase as the days go by. I feel much more energetic after the run and its nice to have time apart from the kids doing something for myself. Zurich is a lovely place to run and there are nice jogging tracks near our place, but the treadmill is convenient. I can just slip it in when I get half an hour free during the day and I couldn't have left the kids alone in the house and gone for a jog! Happy to have reached my lowest weight since S was born.. another 2 kg to go to reach pre S levels.

3. Kindly neighbours : I was quite worried before coming that we'll have very strict and unfriendly neighbours. I'd heard all about the no flushing after 10 pm and no making loud noises rules from my brother who had lived in Geneva for a while about 20 years ago. But I've been very pleasantly surprised, touchwood. The neighbours have been quite friendly. Our next door neighbour is our landlady's daughter and speaks fluent English and has helped us translate during discussions with the electrician etc. Our downstairs neighbours have been pretty understanding about the racket S and A make the whole day and with the wooden floor they can pretty much hear everytime these two drop/bounce anything on the floor or run around the house! The lady told me she was happy we had moved in with kids as earlier she was the only one with kids in the building and used to be worried when her kids ran around the place. Unfortunately her youngest is eight so no playdates for S and A. Today I was really touched when I opened my door and found a paper stuck to it. I had met the downstairs neighbour while returning home yesterday and she mentioned about "Artergut park" where she used to take her kids. I hadn't asked about any park but she mentioned it herself saying the girls would love it there and gave me detailed instructions to go there. And this morning I found a diagram she'd drawn of the route to take to get to the park and what tram to take etc on my door stuck on my door. Very sweet and unexpected.

4. Language problems: Language continues to be the largest stumbling block to an otherwise pretty smooth settling in. People are pretty helpful and there are many booklets/literature/websites on activities for us/ kids and where to take them but its all in German. Today I took the kids to the indoor play area in the local GZ (community centre). Every locality has one and our centre has indoor play activites three times a week and you can just take your kids and they can play inside with the toys there/do some painting/indoor cycling etc. Its pretty nice and a good way to keep the kids entertained on a rainy day. And you can meet other parents with kids as well. But since we don't know the language I could not speak to other parents and S could not speak to the other kids. I saw her looking a bit downcast later and I asked her whether any of the girls there who were playing on the slide with her had said/done anything. She said that they played by themselves and did not speak to her because they didn't like her. My heart broke on hearing this and I tried to convince her that they didn't speak to her because they don't understand her and she can't understand them. And I can foresee this to be a problem if we live her for a reasonably long time. Because S is going to go to an international school where they speak English and German will only be a second language which she may not pick up that well. So other than her school friends she is not likely to make any other local friends as they won't be able to understand each other. Which is unfortunate because a mom in the park was telling me that they all come to that park with their kids quite often (the "Artergut park" which i went to after my neighbour's detailed instruction is a lovely park with a paddling pool for kids in the summer months, green space to run around in and many swings/slides/sandpits/rope bridges etc) and they play together. This mum knew English and I was able to have my first conversation with a local today! After 2 months! Anyway coming back to the point about the language, at the GZ also the lady in charge was very helpful and gave me lots of literature on kids activities and details of a place to go to to ask about creches in the locality but its all in German. Sigh, I wish i could have a German application installed in me, similar to the helicopter training course installed in Trinity in the Matrix.

5. Managing alone: The hubby has gone for his first semi long trip (4 days) to London leaving me alone with the kids. Its actually the first time I'm managing them alone as I always had a live in maid in Mumbai after A was born. I'm quite a scaredy cat and get scared of thieves/intruders/vampires (yes) when alone but this time I'm worried mainly about one thing. What to do if something happens to me, like when I fell down and broke my jaw in Mumbai. I had passed out for about 5-10 mins and when I came to my husband looked after me for the rest of the night. What if i fall down and pass out. and don't come to. Who will look after the kids? Who will know that they are alone at home. I'm terrified of this. So I instructed S to go down to the nighbour below if anything was to ever happen to me and to leave the main door wide open while she did this otherwise A and I would be stuck inside the house and no one to open the door. Honestly I think she'll just cry and wouldn't know what to do in such a situation but I'm praying we never have to find out. Otherwise, its been ok. Gets a bit overwhelming by night, with no adult conversation and managing the kids alone the whole day. On the positive side, I have little cooking to do - I just have a sandwich for dinner and dal rice with the kids for lunch.

And oh yes I found an Indian beauty parlour in Zurich. Where they do threading..so yes I am looking human again :)

Interlaken with family

We made our second visit to Interlaken with my brother's family last week. Will post about the first visit soon, posting about this while its fresh in memory (yes signs of aging other than the 5 white hairs on my head which refuse to go!)

Both my brothers family and my family are late risers, and given a choice would not wake up before 9 am. But the weather forecast predicted only one day of sunshine in our 3 day trip to Interlaken (the first day) so we decided to do the Jungfrau summit on the first day itself. The trains rides to the top are quite long, and the last train back it at 5:45 so we had to be there at the base train station latest noon to actually do anything at the Jungfrau peak. My brother had to pick up his rental car- we decided not to hire an 8 seater van for both families as a) it is very expensive and b) difficult to drive, so the hubby and bro were actually out of the house at 8 am itself and we managed to get all the kids ready and out by 10 am.

We decided to drive directly to Grindelwald train station as our hotel was in Grindelwald and catch lunch at the Jungfrau peak itseld, otherwise a lunch break would set us back at least an hour. We drove directly to Grindelwald and reached there around 12:30 and by the time we figured out the car park and bought the train tickets, we just managed to make it to the 1:17 train. Good we decided to drive non stop. The girls had decided that today was the day they should act up. S threw up in the car, and we had to stop and change her and clean the car. Then A woke up with all this activity and decided to cry all the way to Grindelwals (which was a good 45 mins away). When i offered her milk in Grindwald she got so agitated that she also threw up and another 10 mins went in cleaning her. Good I had packed one set of clothes for both kids in the handbag which I carry around, next time should pack an extra set for me! The size of the handbag is a big bone of contention between the hubby and me as he can't seem to understand why i need to carry so many diapers, change of clothes, milk bottles etc. But this time I used all the items in the hand bad- so there!

The train ride from Grindelwald to Kleine Scheidegg was about 1/2 hour and was a beautiful ride through the mountains. We could see the valley as the train climbed up through the mountain and in particular the Eiger wall (the sheer face of the huge Eiger mountain) was amazing. At Kleine Scheidegg, which is the terminal stops for all trains coming up the mountain from various points in the Interlaken region we changed to the train for Jungfrau top (or Top of Europe or so it called, though I believe some people dispute this and say that the Montblanc peak is higher). We quickly grabbed some sandwiches and samosas (can you beat that samosas in a remote village in Swiss but I guess more than 50% of the tourists are Indian here and we love our samosas :)) and ate it on the train ride up. This ride is not as scenic as the first as most of it if through a tunnel in the mountain. There were two stops where you could peak out of a viewing window and we were soon among the snow capped mountains. It got colder as we reached the 3400 m mountain peak.

We first went out to the viewing deck where we got a lovely view of the surrounding mountains and the region. The boys (my nephews were very keen on the snow activities such as snow boarding and flying through the air suspended from a rope among the mountains) but unfortunately they closed it just then as a snowstorm was coming. We went out to the plateau instead where we all made snowballs and threw them at each other (except for A who happily slept through most of it) and played around in the snow. It was very cold and we soon retreated to the cozy warmth of the cafe where S enjoyed her staple diet of fries and the boys were happy with hot cocoa. We then went to the ice cave where they have the ice sculptures, but after a point me and one of my nephews had to go back as we were experiencing difficulty in breathing and our hearts were paining (I had this sensation many years ago when I was a kid and had gone with my parents to Nathula pass in the India China border)- its breathlessness due to the lower oxygen levels at the high altitude and my nephew suffers from the same thing. I had visited Jungfrau in the last visit as well but did not experience this, maybe because that time we had spent a night at Wengen (one of the towns on the way up to Kleine Scheidegg) and my body had got used to the higher altitude. Anyway S enjoyed the ice sculptures in the cave and when she came back was delighted about the squirrel of Ice Age which is captured in one of the sculptures. We set off on the long journey back, down to Kleine Scheidegg and then to Grindelwald. It was raining when we reached Grindelwald at 7:45 pm and we were all exhausted from the long day. We had dinner in our hotel itself- it was about 15 mins drive from the Grindelwald town, located in the middle of the farmland and while the view from the hotel was breathtaking , one downside from being in the middle of the farmland is the flies from the farms- they were all over the restaurant and quite spoilt our dinner. The cheese foundue was excellent though and we all overate. It helped that they had a childrens playroom next to the restaurant and A and S were busy there, giving the hubby and me some time to talk with the others!

The second day also turned out to be sunny (never trust these weather forecasts fully I say) and we drove towards Stechelberg (a particularly scenic part of Interlaken region). On the way we stopped at Trammelbach Falls which is a waterfall inside a mountain. We had to take a life up inside the mountain and then climb the steps inside the mountain towards the top. We could see the gushing waterfall (this drains the three mountains of the region- Jungfrau, Eiger and Monk) inside the mountain and it was spectacular. At the top we could see the sun streaming in from the top of the mountain inside the mountain and lighting up the inside (somewhat like the view in 127 hours if you're seen the movie but obviously not as gory :)).

We walked around Stechelberg a bit but there was not much to do there other than the cable car up to Schilthorn mountain, which we were not keen on after Jungfrau the previous day, so went back to Lauterbrunner town where we had a leisurely lunch of pizza and rosti, again helped by a kids play area in the restaurant) and strolled around the town. The nephew got his swiss army knife (small version) promised by my brother and was occupied with it for the rest of the trip! After lunch we drove to Grindelwald as the boys were keen to do some fun activities (and not sighsteeing!) and while the hubby baby sat (or baby slept as the three of both slept in the car in the car park) S and A, I went with my brother and his family up a cable car to Pfingsteg and we went on the rodelbahn (tobaggon ride) there. The cable car ride was nice as we could see the mountains all around and I personally found the tobaggon ride quite scary as it was going down the mountain and I was quite sure that if you take the curves too fast you might just fly off the mountain!!). Looks like my brother had the same fear- in his second ride he didn't press the brake at all (the accelerator and brake are in our control and we can chose how fast or slow we go) and at some point he felt he was going out of control and the tobaggon would fly off the mountain so he actually used his elbows to stop the tobaggon (and got huge scars from the friction!). The boys of course enjoyed it and went some 10 times totally on it.

The evening we got some pizza for dinner and after many rounds of vodka made maggi and had that too (i had carried my cooker for S and A's dal rice) and it turned out to be useful for the greedy adults as well. I tell you nothing like a hot maggi on a cold day.

The next day was heavy rains and we had originally planned many things for that day- cable car upto First where there are activities for the boys, and a visit to the Ballenberg musuem at Brienz which is an outdoor museum with animals (which S and A would enjoy) and Swiss crafts such as cheese making, wood carving, watch making etc which the boys would enjoy. But the rains were too heavy for us to do any of these so we drove down to Interlaken and took the cruise upto Brienz. Its a lovely cruise on the Brienz lake and the view was amazing even in the heavy rain. S and A were busy in the toy corner of the ship (love it, I can relax as well). It continued to pour heavily at Brienz also which was 11/2 away, so we decided to have lunch first and wait for the rains to recede. We saw the pizzas getting tossed and put into the wood fire oven (the hubby went upto the chef and asked him to add more chillies to his pizzas) and everyone enjoyed the warm lunch more watching the heavy rain outside. The rains had lessened by the time we finished and we spent an hour browsing through the shops in the town. We took the cruise back to Interlaken (its a round cruise stopping at many points in the lake and you can hop on and off wherever you want) and the rains had stopped by the time we reached Interlaken. We walked through the town- there was a yodling festival going on and we saw many people in traditional costume, and there were many corners in the town where they were singing in groups. Very merry indeed! The children were direct beneficiairies of this general merriment as they were given balloons at a local shop. S was sleeping in the pram and we tied all the balloons to the pram and we heard one mother telling her kid that the pram was going to fly away with so many balloons!! My eldest nephew who is 12 was not very happy to be carrying balloons and my sister in law tried to convince some other parents who did not have balloons to take them, quite unsuccessfully. Most of the balloons were carted back all the way to Zurich and the younger nephew and the girls had a ball playing with them at night- S actually turned to me and said-everyone is playing with balloons at home, we are having a balloon party. These girls, they miss company so much and are so happy to have their cousins over ( as am I)

After the walk around Interlaken we headed back to Zurich. My mom asked why we did Interlaken twice in a month- but we had booked our hotel for the first trip before we decided to go with my brother there, and there are so many things to see in the region that you don't feel its a repetition at all. And I really enjoyed my second trip with family much more- it was more relaxed and fun and nice to do things together. When i look back at the trip, its not only the waterfalls and the cable cars and the train rides and the views, its the lunches together, the getting drunk and bottoms up and late night conversations which make it a holiday!

Trip to Rhine Falls

Rhine falls is a beautiful waterfalls about 1 hours drive from Zurich. Its supposed to be the largest in mainland Europe, but its not that big (i personally think Jog Falls in Karnataka is bigger) but its really beautiful and there is a climb which takes you right upto the waterfall.

It was our first weekend trip from Zrich and we went the first Saturday I arrived. I've always wanted to get out and travel in the weekends and we are quite keen to make the best of the summer here. It was a sunny day, and the hubby was keen to take his new SUV for the first long drive.

We are not early risers, and by the time the kids had their breakfast and were ready to leave it was already 10 am. A mad scramble to find my passport (we have to drive through Germany to get to the Rhine Falls and a colleague had a bad experience at the border checkpoint as he had forgotten to take his passport) pushed it to 10:30 and we felt we had already lost half

the day.

We had a slightly tough time getting out of Zurich city as the hubby was not familiar with how the GPS worked, and even on the highway we went much slower than the speed limit as he was getting used to the car settings. It did not help that A wailed in her car seat at the back continuously for the entire trip! We reached there in an hour (I think can be done in 45 mins once we are familiar with the city exits) parked our car and started the trek down to the lake. I had A in a sling and S walked with the hubby.

Along the way we stopped to show S the ducks on the lake and A was extremely excite

d on seeing a dog next to her. She kept pointing at it, and the owner opened the leash and let it come towards us. She immediately got scared and clung to me :)

We then walked to the boat point and bought tickets for a one hour cruise around the lake, which goes to many points on the lake and along the waterfall, and then realised

that we had just missed the boat and would have to wait another hour. We managed to exchange the tickets for a much shorter ride, just to the waterfall and back, which left every 15 mins. S was highly disappointed as the one hour boat was a pink boat and the boat with the shorter ride was not!

The boat took us to a set of steep steps just next to the waterfall. The steps were quite steep and narrow and rose sharply and there was a lot of crowd on the steps so midway I got worried about S and A. So we just quickly went to the top, looked around and came back down. There was a group which kept on taking photos at one of the landings in between, and with their various permutations and combinations of people standing for the photos, hogged the entire landing till we got frustrated and went down. C'mon just take a photo and get on, and allow other people to come and see the view!

The waterfall was beautiful up close and S was quite excited to see her first waterfall. There is a castle on the top of the waterfall, but we decided to skip it and keep it for another day.

There was a long queue at the he self service restauarant and everything was in German, so the hubby got me the only thing which seemed veg - ricotta cheese and tomato salad !!! (i had said no fries) so that was a most exciting lunch. A refused to eat the cereal i offered or anything else (she chomped on some teddy bear shaped snacks though) . S had her staple fries and some croissant. We made up with yummy ice cream.

After lunch we walked around the place, spotting a playground which we had promised S. She was hesitant at first to go on the big slide but after seeing other children (and some aunties!!) go on it, she tried it and really enjoyed it. A was lazing cosily on my lap while I watched the beautiful view of the waterfall.

We set back for home around 3 pm, this time A slept in the car so it was quite an uneventful ride back. I gave A a late lunch at home, and S got some maggi (the highlight of her day after the slide I'm sure). A fun trip overall, though I was a bit tired from carrying A around in the sling. But the pram would have been impossible on the steps, so will just have to become stronger!!