Greece Glorious Greece 2

The third port was Santorini, one of the most beautiful islands in Greece and my favourite. The whole island is covered in black sand as a result of a volcano erupting there centuries ago. The houses and villags are all built on the cliff tops so you have a panoramic view of the sea, steep cliffs and white houses. In fact when i first saw the hills from the ship I mistook the white houses dotting the clifftops for snow and wondered how Greece had snow covered mountains. But as we went towards them I realsied they were white houses. 

The ship does not dock at the harbour, but rather at a little distance away so we had to take a small boat to reach the port. There was nothing at the port itself so we could either take a cable car to reach the village above, or a donkey ride up (no!) or do day trips to other islands. We decided to go to the village of Fiao, a typical Greek village. It was a 45 minutes ferry and bus ride and we reached very hungry to this beautiful greek village at the top  of the  mountain. The view was just amazing and we had a lovely lunch overlooking the sea and the hills. Greece surprisingly had tons of vegetarian food  (unlike Spain and Portugal where I had to really struggle to find anything to eat) so I feasted on Greek salad and Spinach pie. We then walked around the village, the girsl played in park there and we admired the view and resolved to come back and spend a week in Santorini sometime in the future (one day is not enough).

We took the bus to the next village and bought some local wine and sun dried tomatoes there- its all grown on the volcanic soil so the wine actually tastes a bit smoky. We finally decided to walk down to the port as there was a big queue for the cable car and the girls did not want to ride the donkeys. It was a tricky walk down, pretty steep stairs and trying to avoid the donkey poo! and the donkeys!! S was a sport and walked all the way down but A insisted on being carried a lot of the time. To be fair, she was quite unwell and on antibiotics so overall she was a good sport about being out so much.

The next day we docked at Kusadasi in Turkey. We decided to head out only after lunch and only for  a couple of hours as it was getting too hectic for A. We hired a taxi to Ephesus (an ancient city, decently preserved) and walked through the ruins. We managed to visit the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, but there was only a column standing there and we had to imagine the rest of the temple. Historians write that it was one of the grandest structures built and I wish it had been preserved. This trip we managed to visit three of the seven ancient wonders of the world- the Temple of Artemis (Kusadasi, Turkey), the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (Greece, near Katakalon) and the Colossus of Rhodos (Rhodes, Greece) so it was a pretty educational trip. I wonder how much the girls will remember of it though! We declined buying any carpets or leather goods and it was a bit cold to walk around in the town so we got back to the ship pretty early around 4 pm . The girls enjoyed the kids club in the evening and S admonished me for picking her up too early- they had a pirates theme that night and she wanted to take part in the treasure hunt.

The final destination was Rhodes in Greece. We took the Hop on Hop off bus and went around the small town. The sea was a beautiful azure blue and we were tempted rightly to get off at the beach. It was too cold to go into the water but the girls had fun collecting the stones at the waterfront and we just enjoyed gazing into the blue water. It was a long walk to the site of the ‘missing’ Colossus statue and then back to the ship. The hubby did some hectic shopping in the old town and managed to buy all the three wonders of the ancient world across our various stops. They are gathering dust on top of our bookshelf now.

The girls enjoyed the evening in the swimming pool (running between the pool and the hot tub) and I managed to catch up on my book reading. This trip I’ve managed to read two full books and two half books! Am quite happy about that because in between all this rushing to office, getting up early to get thh girls ready for school, coming back and giving them dinner and putting them to bed, my reading and exercising had nearly stopped. I fiished reading Buddha of Suburbia on this trip (very ok book, doesn’t really go anyweher), read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray  Bradbury (interesting and very topical to today’s environment), read The Expats (lovely spy thriller) and half of Lean In (some good insights, but no real game changer).

The last day was in Athens. We saw the Acropolis musuem (had seen the Acropolis the previous week) and spent the evening in the national park with the girls to make up for all the boring historical stuff they had to see! They had fun feeding spaghetti to the goat, fawning over the rabbits and running around in the playground. We had a typical Greek dinner at a local restaurant and went to bed early to catch the early morning flight back to Zurich.

Lovely restful holiday. Back to the old grind now..

Greece, Glorious Greece 1

So we are on our long awaited cruise holiday to Greece. We started at Athens where we had 5 hours before reporting to our ship so we set out to see the Acropolis. Amazing. To imagine such architecture so many years ago. Our cab driver told us it took 600 years to make all the columns and just an instant for the Turkish empire to bring it down.
We arrived at the cruise at 1 pm. Evening swim in the pool and walk around. The next day was a sailing day so again swim, gym, lunch, Kids club and afternoon siestas.
Monday morning we docked at Corfu. We hired a car and drove to the beaches recommended by the internet/local guide. Corfu is just simply beautiful/ Miles and miles of beach sandy ashores, pebbly shores, rock formation lovely weather the first place we stopped was a pebbly beach with beautiful rock formations. We hung around for half an hour dipping our feet in the water, playing with sand toys and then set off for the next beach. The next beach was Glyfinda -  a lovely sandy beach. We ate at a local Greek tavern overlooking the beach. I had my Greek salad (yummy fresh Feta cheese and olives) and the hubby ahd traditional Mousaka. The girls were not as adventorous and had pizza. We played a little while in the beach and it was too hot so we set out to the next place. We couldnt quite reach our desitnation so we ended up at the Achilles palace (deicated to Achilles, built by the Austrian Queen). A and I snoozed in the car while S and the hubby went inside the palace and saw huge sculpture and paintings based on Achilles.
Then we had to get back to the shop to make the 4 pm deparute. Dinner was formal so we dressed up, droppped the girls at the Kids Club and had a nice formal dinner by ourselves. I managed to squeeze in  a couple of rounds of Blackjack at the casino after which was fun. I even made 10 dollars!

Tuessday we docked at Katakalon. Its a small fishing village but nearby is Olympia village where the ancient Greeks used to have the first Olympic Games thousands of years ago. We hired a car and drove to Olympia (the guided excursions are 10 times the price!!), walked around the ruins, S and the hubby ahd a runnign race in the ancient stadium and S got her gold coin (from the machine) and went to the archaelogiical musuem. After all the walking in teh heat we were starving and hadf a lovely Greek lunch of Gyros at the nearby restaurant/ We reached the ship at 3 pm and crashed out for a along afternoon siesta.
On otehr updates A has been unwell and is not on antibitiotics. Shes quite tired and cant enjyo the fun like swimming and today no Kids club for her as well. But hopefully she gets better soon.
I'm blaoting up liek a pig with all the food and ice cream on offer but have managed to go to the gym twice nad hope to keep that up.
More soon!

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.