Her First Mothers' Day

Last weekend was our first experience of a commercialized holiday as parents, as Sunday was Mothers' Day in Switzerland. Thinking that, at 2 1/2 weeks old, Lydia might be a bit too young to buy some treats and pamper her mum, her dad stepped up to the plate.

What did I do?

Well, I spent most of Saturday evening and Sunday morning preparing an Indian feast. We had invited Christelle's sister (Caroline) and her fiancé (Pascal) around for the meal, and they had been piling the pressure on my shoulders in the build up to Sunday by saying how much they were looking forward to it. As someone who doesn't really know much about cooking indian food, it seemed to be an enormous challenge.

I scoured the Internet for recipes, printed off a few that I liked, and went out to the supermarket to get everything I needed. My plan was to do a proper three course meal, consisting of starters, a main course and a dessert. Deeming this to be somewhat overambitious, given my limited skills in the kitchen, Chris thoughtfully offered to provide the dessert, so that was one less thing to worry about.

My preparation started on the Saturday evening, as I spent roughly 3.5 hours chopping onions, garlic, chilli, ginger and peppers, and carefully filling Tupperware with spices for each of the dishes I had planned. I know I often make fun of Chris for her love of Tupperware - she has loads of plastic containers that have taken up box space during 6 separate house/apartment moves, some of which has never (to my knowledge) been used - but on this occassion I was truly grateful, as I used just about every pot and bowl in our cupboards to hold either vegetables or spices. I lined the containers up in small piles according to which meal they were for, and stuck the printed recipes on the cupboard doors in the kitchen for reference the next day.

Exhausted, I went to bed. Lydia woke us up during the night for a feed, and I made the mistake of trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. I wouldn't normally consider this to be a mistake, but as I had not washed my hands properly after chopping chillies I soon regretted my actions. My eyes felt like they were on fire and became redder than a robin's breast. Ouch! I had to lay down with a cold flannel over my eyes to try and soothe my pain.

The next morning I woke up bright and early to get cracking with the remaining preparations and the cooking. Thankfully the pain in my eyes had gone and my eyesight was intact, so I was able to concentrate on what I needed to do.

Following FC Lausanne-Sport to the Final - Part II

Back in the away fans’ end, the FC Lausanne-Sport supporters had all been handed blue flags to give some colourful backing to the underdogs. And underdogs they certainly were – FC Basel had been crowned Champions of the Swiss Super League at this point, guaranteeing them a spot in next seasons’ Champions League competition, while FC LS were in 10th place in the league below their opponents. This would be a pretty tough match for the travelling fans.

As the players lined up on the pitch, the announcement of each of their names over the PA system was greeted with loud cheers and flag waving. A sense of hope began to build amongst the FC LS supporters, creating a rising belief that their unfancied team might actually pull off a huge shock and be crowned Swiss Cup Winners for the first time this millennium. With the noise levels reaching a crescendo, the match kicked off and we were underway.

Following FC Lausanne-Sport to the Final - Part I

In England, you can barely go a few hours without hearing a football-related comment, either in daily conversation with family, friends or colleagues, or through radio or television programs or adverts. Football is ingrained in the English way of thinking, reflecting its status as the national sport. In Switzerland, they are far less fanatical about their football.

Every club still has its die-hard fans, ready to turn up at the stadium each week or traipse across the country to offer their support for the team at away matches. But football in Switzerland is far from being the national sport – tennis, ice hockey, skiing, and other snow or ice-based games take centre stage, with football trailing somewhere behind.

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part VI

Tests, Tickets and Triumph

Week six of Lausanne life rolled around quicker than expected. Having booked my MCTS exam for the Thursday of this week, I spent the days leading up to it frantically trying to make sure I had actually remembered what I had read in the course material, so that I wouldn't make a complete hash of the exam.

To say I was nervous about the exam would be a huge understatement - I was terrified, partly because I hate exams and never feel confident about them, but also because the exam fee is separate to the course cost, meaning every time I sit an exam I have to pay for it (therefore failing and resitting would be quite pricey).

I didn't get much sleep in the days before I was due to take the test, and when the day came I really was not confident that I would pass.

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part IV

Sunsets, Sight-seeing and Sausages

More SQL Server studying in my fourth week here, with me sat in front of my laptop for more than 5 hours each day. It certainly was not easy, although learning a brand new subject by yourself is never something that is easy to do. Undeterred by the blurry eyes I had at the end of each day, I plodded on with my studies, aiming to take the MCTS exam within the next couple of weeks.



To take a break from the learning, Nelly and I went out for a walk along the lake in Vidy late one afternoon, just as the sun was setting.^

Queue some more photography - I managed to get a few nice shots of the sun disappearing behind the distant mountains, with the last of the sun's rays reflecting on the surface of the water.

It seems so easy to take nice pictures in Switzerland, as almost everywhere you go has some sort of natural beauty, whether it's a lake, a mountain or a rolling field in the countryside. Photographers must love it here!

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part III

Learning, (more) Learning and Lunching

My third week in Switzerland was much more subdued than previous weeks, mainly because I really needed to concentrate on getting a large chunk of my course done. Although the home learning course has no deadlines (I have to book exams myself and can wait until I am ready to do so), I was eager to try and get through as much of the course material as possible as I felt I needed the certification on my Curriculum Vitae to be able to find a job here.

And so, I spent almost the entire week staring at the computer screen, trying to absorb as much information as possible. Not the most fun week I have ever had, but I made a lot of progress on my course so some good came of it.

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part I

As the title suggests, I have now been a resident here in the land of cheese, chocolate and mountains for 60 days, although it certainly doesn't feel as long as it sounds. In fact, when I checked my calendar today and realised I had just finished my 8th week here I was somewhat surprised that time had passed so quickly - I left England with a niggling fear in the back of my mind that I would struggle to adapt to life here, with each day passing so slowly that I would actually start to long for life in Stevenage (which, as anyone who has visited Stevenage knows, would be stooping pretty low).

Fortunately, I began to like life in Switzerland almost immediately, aided greatly by the kindness of my wife's family and friends, who have all made me feel very welcome here. Indeed, my first few weeks here were such a blur of activities, outings and meals that I barely had time to miss my life in England (although I obviously still missed my family and friends). I soon found that I had passed the one month mark here, and thought that I really ought to write another blog article to let people know how I'm getting on and what its like to live in Switzerland. Another month later, and I'm actually getting round to it!

It's fair to say a lot has happened in these last few weeks. So much, in fact, that this effort might take some time to read (apologies for those who were expecting a "quickie" update), although I will do my best to keep it as brief as possible. In an attempt to make it succinct yet readable, I have had to split it into different parts (this one being Part I), with different sub-sections for each of the 8 weeks I have lived here - sort of mini-blogs, if you will.