Funny conversations and other updates

The other day A turns to me and says, who will take me to school when you die Mama? Such concern i say....the things these kids think about.
I am back to being in a good mood, because yeah next week is holiday time. Last 3 months have been crazy busy, I've been on my feet everyday from 6:15 am till 9:45 pm (when A sleeps) and on the weekends its all the tasks which were not done during the week.
Touchwood, fingers crossed we've got a great nanny who really likes the girls and does an amazing job. Work has been more hectic than i expected and I'm home usually only around 7 pm. Then its dinner and bath time for the girls, then story time and then sleep time. So i dont get to do much with them during the week. Am missing the coffee mornings, chats after pick up from school etc etc but I am happy to be back at work. For S i think its ok. I invested a lot of time making good friends with her friends moms over the last 2 years so she still gets invited to playdates, outings etc even if i cant make it. The nanny and A also get to go along and its nice that the friends mom have been so accomadating. For A really I have not been able to spend any time getting to know her classmates moms, or arranging playdates for her, but luckily she's adjusting well, has made a good friend L and seems to be happy at school. Of course its not 100% as i would want it to be - she hardly eats her lunch and here they dont feed the children at all, they expect them to eat on their own. She's lost some weight and I am a bit worried on that front. For S she only went to school till noon at A's age and she used to come home and have lunch and I wish I would have been able to do that for A as well. But I guess its always a bit of give and take. I needed to go back to work and the children will have to make some adjustments. Would I want to ensure that A is eating well, is sleeping ok and is well looked after? Yes of course. But am I ok with ensuring that she is overall ok , yes I guess for now I am. I just hope I don't miss any vital signs because I am so busy at work.
Next week we are off to Greece for a 1 week holiday. Its the girls vacation time so i took mine as well. We fly to Athens and then we are on a 7 day cruise to the Greek islands, and even touch Turkey one day. I cant wait. Its the Homeric cruise as it touches many of the islands Homer's journey covered. Corfu, Santorini, Rhodes, Katakalon. The ship itself it a luxury cruise ship with kids clubs, swimming pools, tennis spas etc so am super excited. We plan to get off at each of the islands and explore them. we might just end up lounging on the beach, but each of these islands has so much history it would be great just to see it. Santorini has black sand because a huge volcano erupted there a long time ago. In Rhodes you have the remnants of one of the Wonders of the Ancient world. The weather has been crap in Zurich for the last one month and i am itching to see the sun! 28 degrees in Greece. Yippee!

Coming back to our crazy schedule. We've not really been able to relax over the weekends because of my working guilt. One weekend we went to Legoland. The other weekend it was back to back birthday parties for the girls friends. One weekend we went to Munich for the Oktoberfest with some friends- okay that was more for us than for the kids, but it was exhausting to come back from that and still have all the tasks which need to be done over the weekend pending. We've been able to squeeze in some tennis over the weekends also, but my running has taken a big knock. From running 50 mins thrice a week, now i can barely manage 35 mins once in 3 weeks. Everything in its time I say.

Back to googling things to do in Corfu...

Montreux Calling

We've been to Montreux thrice in the last 6 months. And each time i just cant get enough of it. Its really beautiful and so relaxing to just go to the beautiful French part of Switzerland.

We went the first time in May. Had a nice time walking up and down the lakeside promenade which had so many interesting sculptures, flower arrangements, statues etc that you didn't realise how much you were walking. A's favourite was a spider in the trees (just a wire arrangement!) and a statue of a crow with a piece of cheese in its mouth, singing and a fox staring at it below (foolish crow story anyone?). The Freddie Mercury statue was of course awesome, because he was such an awesome star, and that being city centre there were tons of things for the kids to do there- bouncy castle etc. The highlight of the trip was the train ride upto Rochers-de-Naye. Its about an hours drive into the mountain where you have breathtaking views of the lake and the mountains on either side, it goes right up into the mountain and from the top you could see Eiger,Monk, Jungfrau. Just beautiful. There's a small marmot exhibition on the top, but nothing worth visiting, really. Its enough just for the breathtaking train ride up and back.

The second time was on the August 1st holiday. It was a crazy four day holiday. 1st August (Swiss Day) was on Thursday and holiday for me but Friday was a holiday only for the hubby and not me and we thought we should take a 4 day holiday to enjoy the summer weather, so we drove out to Montreux on Wednesday evening, spent thursday there, Friday i took the train back to Zurich (2 and 1/2 hours) while the hubby entertained the girls in Montreux and then drove to Zermatt and then i took the train from Zurich to Zermatt and joined them there at night. Super hectic, but fun!

This time in Montreux we visited the beautiful Chillon castle. It was a very long walk about 1 hour but the girls somehow managed with a lot of coaxing and ice creams on the way. The castle has a lot of history being in an interesting place near the Italian, Swiss, French border. Its prisoner was made famous by a poem by Lord Byron! Since it was Swiss Day there were lots of games organised in the castle for children to play, where they would play the games,and get points on their book and a prize at the end of it. S and A were especially interested in seeing the princess bedroom! We missed the train back and had to walk back. this time we ended up carrying A most of the way and S half the way and all of us were quite exhausted by the time we reached the hotel and slept after lunch. In the evening we went to this awesome water park- AquaParc near Montrex which is a huge indoor and outdoor water park. The girls loved the 'lazy river' and the slides. The hubby had an unfortunate accident on the 'black hole' slide and had to miss most of the water park, but the girls and I had a lot of fun and even now the girls keep asking when we are going back to the 'lazy river'. The next day i had to return to work but the hubby took the girls to the Zoo in a village near Montruex and they saw a lot of exotic stuff they hadn't seen before, and in the evening they went to the Games museum which had all the games from across the world. It seems most of the board games (including chess) originated from India or China! In the night we met up in Zermatt where we went up the Kleine Matterhorn for the amazing view of the Matterhorn (an inspiration for Toblerone chocolates! And how could i miss out on mentioning the awesome fireworks we saw over the Lake Geneve on 1st August. It was great, sitting on the promenade watching the fireworks till late at night with the fireworks over the lake and the mountains in the background. 

We went back to Montreux one month later with my parents. The wooden sculptures we had seen the artists sculpting the previous time were now finished and on display. On the way to Montreux we managed to squeeze in an awesome fondue at the Gruyere cheese factory (from fresh Gruyere cheese, it cant get better!) and a visit of the cheese factory. The city centre was abuzz with activity for kids and this time A wanted to have a go on the trampoline thing (with the ropes where you can go really high). She had  a great time, though we got a bit shocked when the organiser let her go on a rocket blast which basically meant giving her a big push up in the air, and being the little thing she is she went super fast way far. But she was happy |

The next day we visited the St. Bernard musuem (the girls love dogs and so does their Ajja) and went up to the St Bernard pass crossing into Italy. The view is just awesome there. The girls wanted St. Bernard dogs, but they had to make do with the stuffed toy version instead (A has named her doggy Bernadita!)

I missed the Montreux Jazz festival though. Maybe next year?

The more things change, the more they stay the same

So the other day i was just whining to my friend about how all my colleagues speak only German to each other and don't involve me in their conversation and about how nobody calls me for lunch and I have to eat all my myself on my desk. Then she started laughing and told me how I'd had a problem about eating alone even in my graduation college.
So the other day, after i picked up my sandwich  and was making my way back to my desk, I thought to myself, this can't be right. I'm much older and wiser now. I have two kids and I can't have the same complexes and worries I did 15 years back. So I walked over to the open space outside my office and prepared to sit all by myself and enjoy my lunch. As it happens, one of my colleagues (not in my dept but on the same floor as me) joined me and we spent lunchtime bitching about these bl**** Germans and how no one speaks English in this office or in this city! She's also an expat in case you were wondering.

And today, I again sat all by myself outside and ate my salad in the hot sun and felt proud that I had finally grown up!

Already missing out

I’ve been at work just a week and already I'm missing out on some important stuff in the kids life

A’s ear piercing. The hubby andAjji took A today morning to the jewellers and got her ears pierced. They said she was very quiet and didn’t make a fuss at all. She cried a bit after the first ear but didn’t fuss to have the second ear pierced and sat on the stool by herself. Very different from S who started screaming when they put a black marker on her ears to mark the spot for the ears to be pierced. Shucks I missed this, but she was in safe hands and probably would have kicked up more of a fuss if i had been there

S’s haircut. Alright it was just a trim, but they washed and blew dry the hair and made it straight so she must have been delighted. She loves brushing her hair straight so much, I keep on telling her that curly hair looks lovely but unfortunately all the princesses she idolises have straight hair! Everyone in the family functions fawned over the girls curly hair so am hoping this makes them happier with their lovely curly locks

S sporting activities – according to the hubby S is learning to play cricket and has started batting well under the able guidance of her cousins whom she absolutely adores. She already does front flips on the trampoline which she says her cousin Y taught her. They went bowling as well last night, but that was not so much of a success since the bolwing alley did not have an option of keeping the gutters up and am sure S balls kept going into the gutter

S X ray- i had planned to take S to a paediatrician on our India visit since i wsn’t too happy with the doctors treatment here. Am sure they are excellent but they are not very communicative and I am not sure what to expect in terms of S recovery. So the hubby took S to a leading orthopaedic paediatrician in Bangalore and they did an X ray and said the leg is fully healed now. I wish i could have been there to ask more questions, but cant do it all

I guess this is how its going to be going forward. I won't be able to be there for everything in the girls life like i have been for the last 2 and a ½ years but I hope to make it for all the important stuff or at least enure one loving close relative does. Love you girls, miss you!

The first week back at work

The update is that I’ve finally got a job. It was very sudden, I’d been pursuing an opportunity since May and I’d not heard back from them and then one day I was called for a second interview and told I should start within 1 and ½ weeks.

Firstly yippee, I finally got a job after months of futilie searches, applications and rejections without even getting called for an interview! But the suddenness of it put paid to my 3 week holiday in India which was scheduled to start the same week  they wanted me to join. I asked whether I could join in August but they said that the opening was only now since  its a project for which I’ve been recruited and the conceptualisation stage was going on. So it was a mad week of deciding whether to join, how to manage the kids (it coincided with the start of the 2 months summer vacation!), what to do about holiday etc etc and to top it all the hubby was in Australia so I could only discuss these points with him late at night Zurich (early morning  Australia).  After a couple of discussions about salary and working hours (I barely break even at the salary offered after factoring in the additional tax and nanny costs) I decided to bite the bullet and accept the offer.

Now came the managing kids bit. We realised it may not be possible to to get a nanny so quickly and I was not keen on the girls spending the whole day with a new nanny during  the holidays so we decided to continue our planned holiday in India , albeit without me. So on the 5^th of July, I flew to Bangalore with the girls, spent 1 and ½ days with them making them comfortable and flew back to Zurich to start work on Monday the 8^th of July. The kids were with my parents and their cousins for a week and then the hubby and I flew to India  the following weekend. There was my nephew’s Upanayna (thread ceremony) which i had to attend   (the whole family had flown down for that) and  i left immediately after to get back to work on the Tuesday. The hubby is staying back with the girls in India as per the original holiday plan and will bring them back to Zurich  after two weeks. After 1 week my parents come to Zurich for a month to tide over the rest of the summer holidays and also to be around for the first 2-3 weeks of school so that the girls can settle into a routine with the school and the new nanny.

And so my holiday,is cancelled. Ok cant really complain since ive been on holiday for the last 2 and ½ years. I did manage to get one day leave and fly down for the important function and the girls are in good hands and enjoying themselves so thats fine.

And, getting back to work after 2 and ½ years, hows that been. I feel very much like my first few days at my first job. Quite lost, all the people speak German in office and I can’t really follow what they are saying. The official meetings, conference calls,  notes , ppts and emails are in English but all the informal chatter around coffee, lunch, at the worktable and even some of the discussions around the work are in german so I end up feeling quite lost!   Also the sense of amazement at some of the technical stuff is comparable to discussions i used to have with my b school batchmates about dustbins from Singapore at my first workplace.  The desks here move up and down and many of the people prefer to work standing up! The lift has no buttons and you have to key in the number of the floor you want to go to and swipe your card and the system will display which of the 8 lifts you can take (only if you are allowed access to that floor) and the lift has no buttons so you can't just randomly go to any floor. Seems too high tech for me especiallz since nobody told me that you need to have a pin number to access this compliocated system after 7 pm  so i ended up getting locked out of my desk and could only go out and home one of the nights!Also doesn't help that sometimes the swipe card  doesn’t work too well and you might just end up being stranded on a floor ! And lastly  i have the german keyboard for the computer now – so its not qwerty anymore but qwertz and there's all the äöü etc and some random alt gr function to access this function on certain keys, let me just say that i don't know what exactly i have set the login password as, only the combination of keys i have to press on my keyboard!

And coming to the work. Its pretty different from what I’ve done so far, its in a different area of banking and its a project so I’m getting to learn a lot of new stuff. Half the time I feel like a duffer since I don’t know basic terms which everyone keeps bandying about, and also since  its a project and there are many internal and external people working on it nobody has really sat down with me and told me what exactly i am supposed to do. The first week was very hectic as i was helping on an important presentation. But now that that’s over and i already told my boss i have no work am wondering whether to just be quiet and read up as much on the project as i can, or again go and seek some more work.

And how can i end without saying i must be the fattest woman in this office. All the women are impossibly thin, and since its pretty formal dressing here with shirts tucked into skirts/pants I'll have to start working on my big paunch as i cannot hide behind the blazer forever.

Miss the girls who are away in India. But last week the timings were so crazy in office because of the presentation that I’m glad they are being well looked after in India. 

Europa Park

Last Sunday we took the girls to Europa Park. Its a huge amusement park in Germany about 2 hours drive from Zurich. Really big (i think bigger than Euro Disney) and very nice. Its divided into sections each based on a different European country. Each section is done up with the theme of that country, the rides are based on popular things from that country and the cuisine is from that country. For eg in the England section, the rides were names Crazy taxis, Big Ben and football cars and there were a couple of pubs  where you could have your lunch.

We reached there at 10 in the morning (after waking up at 6:45, getting the girls ready and us out of the house by 7:45 am) and there was already a huge crowd there. After looking at the map we quickly realised there was no way we could cover the whole place in one day so we just decided to do however much we could. We went on some kiddie rides in Italy and France (that sounds so funny doesn't it!) and then i was captivated by the Silver Bullet (11 years plus). I had to ride it. It was a huge roller coaster, which takes you many metres high up and drops you, and your stomach, down suddenly. Its fast, thrilling and lots of fun. Only the hubby has no stomach for huge rollercoaster and anyway someone had to be with the girls, so i queued up alone and the hubby said he would take the girls to the mini rollercoaster in Greece. The ride was amazing, and when i was done I asked the hubby where he was and he said he was taking the girls for their second run of Pegasus, the mini roller coaster in Greece.

View of Silver Bullet from the waiting line!

When i reached there i realised it was for 4 years plus and A was only 3 and a 1/2. She met the height criteria and the hubby just coolly said she was 4. And after the ride started he had second thoughs (too late!!) because it was super fast and quite scary. He got a little grief (just a bit, because i wouldv'e done the same since she met the height criteria) from me about A being put in a risky situation,and I really thank God, nothing happened to her, but we shamelessly proceeded to go on the roller coaster again with the girls- them in front and us behind. We have a lovely picture at the scariest moment- A looks terrified, S's cap covers her face but she's gripping the front rod and back seat tightly and the hubby and I look weird! When we asked A she said she loved the ride and when we went a third time with S friend in the evening she was so excited.
After Greece, we went to England where there were many kiddie (3 or 4+) rides for the girls and they suddenly got very hungry so we ended up eating at the worst place possible there. They had fish nuggets and we had burgers but they were too oily, and when we met up with our friends later they told us about he lovely tapas lunch they had in Spain. And we later stumbled upon lovely Greek restaurants. Never mind!
After lunch we went to the Children's play area where the girls freaked out on huge slides,  and even managed to do some boating on their own. I was a bit worried about sending A out on a boat on her own, but she did fine! Next was the Enchanted Forest which had many cottages set up on the Grimms fairy tales. We visited Sleeping Beauty's castle, Red Riding Hood's grandmother's cottage, rung the bell for Rapunzel to let her hair down and even took part in an adventure to find a missing magic book. Lots of fun.
In Spain we went on the flying chairs, ashamed to admit I ended up getting RGed by the crowd (I thought they would follow rules but the singles line kids ran into the double chairs) and S had to sit on a single chair behind me instead of us sitting safely in a double chair. My heart was in my mouth throughout the ride, but it was ok. S had a safety chain and I told her to hold the rails safely. A was safe with the hubby on a double seat-he had no problems running in front of the others!
We met up with S best friend M from school's family after that and redid the Pegasus roller coaster ride. Its amazing how S and A changed after meeting M. Just before they had both been fighting to sit on the stroller, after they met M, S wanted to walk holding M's hand and A wanted to walk holding S hand! Again fighting over that too. As for their mum and dad, forgotten in the excitement of meeting their friend!

We finished the Pegasus ride again, and by this time it was very warm. It was a hot sunny day, we'd been out in the sun since 10 am and by around 4 pm we were quite exhausted.  We did a couple more kiddie rides (bumper cars, flying cars etc etc)- mainly it was the hubby with S and her friend M with her had since A had gone off to sleep in the stroller and I was chatting the M's mom. The highlight for them after the Pegasus boat was the rocking ship. They also wanted to go on the Rapids ride but that had a 1/2 hour wait so we decided to skip it and take them to the indoor play area in Portugal.
Around 7 pm we decided to call it quits for the day. We picked up pizza from Italy (i just love the way that sounds!) and it was 9:30 pm by the time we got back home. S slept throughout in the car and also back home.
A fun day out. Maybe next time we stay overnight at the hotel there because the park is too big to cover in one day and I missed out on some of the exciting roller coasters!

Thoughts and Musings

Its been a hectic month. After having virtually no visitors in the last 10 months except my parents, we suddenly had two within a span of 10 days. The first was my cousin, really more of a sister whom I grew up with who visited with her hubby and 10 month old daughter A. S and our A took an immense liking to their cousin A who was absolutely adorable and S has been pestering me to give her a baby also soon (I love the way these kids refer to siblings as their babies!). They were here only for three days, but it was 3 hectic days of sight seeing, eating, gossipping and drinking way too much wine. It was so different for my cousin and me when we were growing up, we had long summer days with nothing to do but idle our time away together. And now we have to sneak time after the kids have gone to sleep to catch up on old times, and that too after her making all the effort to travel half the world to see us. I wish I had tons of money and could fly wherever i wanted, whenever i did. The days ended up being quite hectic because I had to manage S school schedule (i just kept A home) - i had friends taking her home for playdates and me landing up later in the evening to pick her up so I could get more time in Zurich city with my cousin.
Soon after my hubby's sister visited us en route to a conference. The girls adore her and she spoils them. It works out well :) We did a lot of day trips with her and it did get quite hectic managing the house, sightseeing and the girls.
After that its been a series of end of year celebration at S school - sports day (was that a tiring 2 hours in the sun), making cupcakes with the class to belatedly celebrate a teachers birthday and finally organising the end of year celebration party. Add to this, our sudden fascination with playing tennis in 30 degrees heat and suddenly we find that our bodies can take it no more. The day of the end of year party S woke up with high fever, cough and vomiting. I had a bad sore throat. Since I was class mom I had to help organise the party and stupidly I thought S would feel bad if she missed out so I took her there for an hour. Big mistake. She was exremely tired within an hour and started crying. It was very hot and A started howling asking to be carried, so I had to leave within 15 mins of the party starting and rush home. But we had a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and another 10 hour sleep at night. And I think it was a way of our bodies telling us to slow down, to relax and to take a break. I think I've just been pushing it too much, taking on too many activities, playdates for S, and activities for me as well, and not taking a break in the weekends either- last weekend we had a birthday party and park on Saturday and a long day in an amusement park (Europa park) on Sunday. My problem is I've always kept myself busy, I just can't sit still, but i think its having a toll on me and the kids. S now asks what to do if we're home for half an hour and there's no activity planned. And she looks tired also by the end of the week. I think its time to take a step back, relax and just do nothing.

In another 3 weeks I'll be in Bangalore and what better place to do that than my parents house!

Separately I had an interesting discussion with some women in my book club.  I found them to be strangely content being at home travelling with their husbands as expat wives after giving up a career. Maybe its to do with the fact that they have much elder kids who are of course much more independent and are in school the whole day leaving the mums free to do things like hiking, skiing, tennis, board games club (doesn't that sounds like fun!) etc during the day instead of having a little one where my schedule consists of either dropping or picking up the kids, or making their lunch, feeding them, putting them down for a nap or taking them for playdates. Maybe I would be less resentful of not having a job if I was having fun in my 'free' time instead of being a driver/cook/maid all in one. I'm sorry I just can't look at this situation and say I get to spend this time with my kids, isn't that great. Yes, it would be great if i actually got to do fun things with them. But having two youngs kids (especially since I've not been that  great in disciplining in training them) is a lot of physical work and after you finish all the daily chores, if you get to spend an hour quality time with the kids thats a bonus.

Wow so much ranting, but its so easy to get despondent in such a situation and I find that keeping myself extremely busy at least stops that.