Permit L

Our residency permits finally came through - 'L' - to be exact, which runs one year. I managed to get a cell phone without it, but need it for repeated Swiss entry and exits, as well as a bank account, if we go that route. You have no idea how much effort it took to get these little violet passbooks.

Regulation of identity and whereabouts can be somewhat touchy and complex: immigrants have redefined the national profile (although Mohammed isn't the #1 boy's name yet, as in Britain), but there is a dark history regarding sending Jews back to the border during WWII, as well. Switzerland wasn't the only country to penalize Jews (Columbia U had a quota in place), but there had been national pride in assisting Jews that suppressed the opposite truth (German historian George Mosse unearthed that Swiss immigration invented the "J" for passport designations).

The installation artwork around the government offices (Lausanne is the capital of the canton of Vaud) was going up, and we were impressed by this "tree." The area - the Flon - was a marginal space for art and antique warehouses and lofts that is being reclaimed by the city.
BTW, we were so relieved when Michael told us during breakfast, "I am so excited to go to school!" We are hoping classmate, Igor, turns a corner, since he told his mom, "I hope the school disappears." Igor is in year two of kindergarten and still hasn't picked-up French; his teacher started learning Russian.
We've been staying with Brady and Stephanie Smith - about a 20 min walk north of the hotel, where freestanding homes are rare. The influx of immigrants has transformed this area into a Vietnamese and Indian enclave, lending this city the ethnic flavor of a larger European city, rather than a parochial Swiss town. I brought home good take-out from "Saigon"; I don't know if North Vietnam is also represented here.
Michael wanted to eat on the terrace, so on this autumnal day we joined other families on adjacent balconies. My experience here and in the States is that Northern Europeans - partly due to climate constraints and partly to lack of central heating - are more tolerant to wider temperature shifts; ie can be seen enjoying a meal outdoors in less than optimal conditions (compared to most Americans, I think).

Ice in drinks is another interesting thing. Although flavor is often cited as the reason Europeans have generally favored non-iced beverages, my guess is it is also related to "old wives" tales about dangers of cold drinks on digestion, as well as to different histories regarding the household refrigerator.

Back to Lausanne, which has 300,000 citizens, but heavy government subsidies give it the cultural amenities of a town much, much larger - amidst the stunning natural beauty, a real jewel of Swiss cities.

We just learned that we can move into the hotel tomorrow PM!!!

Tell Me When You're Leaving

Michael began kindergarten at Mondriand Elementary, which meets 4 mornings a week and is located ½ mile below our hotel apt in the vicinity of Ouchy, the lakeside resort gateway to Lausanne. He is in a class of 14 – considered big – and on day one met Igor, a Russian boy who, similarly, knows no French, except “toilette.” Michael was teary-eyed the first hour, when parents were still in the classroom, but recovered with “just tell me when you’re leaving, OK?”
Mme Cuerel, his teacher, has an old school stature with intermittent warm fuzzies. Upon arrival, the children hold hands, then enter the building (a somewhat foreboding, similar architectural style for most schools) in pairs, until they file out 3 hours later, looking for parents.




That is Igor's mom, Mme Curiel, and Carolyn, of course, on the first day. I liked the Christmas tree drawing above and all the other ones lining the high ceiling.
The school is across one of the largest parks within city limits – a beautifully terraced space with hiking trails reaching a summit plateau with a panorama, and also includes the most imaginative play equipment we’ve ever seen.

School protocols have loosened-up, so everyone has non-standard daypack and clothing (classroom and gym slippers, gym clothes). Shoes are held together with a clothespin, placed in a row, and slippers donned for the day. They are required to bring a snack, which ranges from popular Farmer Bars (granola bars) to tiny boxes of individual Brie.

Other news: we’re finally leaving La Tour after a month, and moving to Lausanne tomorrow, so we’re closing in on the hotel. The much coveted residency permits are ready for pick-up; should be in Hotel La Croisee by Friday. Students arrive Sept 5 – classes begin on the 12th. The lull is ending.

Nearly a Month

Meet Jack Smith. He lives a couple floors down and has become an English-speaking fast friend (Scottish father and French mother). Laundary brought us together. Playing at the beach is a favorite activity, although fall is definitely in the air.
This weekend Vevey celebrate its 10th street fair, where clowns, theater groups, magicians, etc - who run a traveling circuit throughout Europe - from around the world compete at various plazas in cobblestoned sections of the old city. I've experienced similar pre-TV entertainment at Renaisannce Fairs and the Puyallup Fair, but this was so lacking in hype and was simply embraced by everyone. Had a vaudevillean "innocence" that bored me initially, then I caught on. Can't wait for the one-ring circus to arrive later in the fall.
America was represented by this cowboy.
Lots of street vendors - African and Chinese stalls, as well as, the standard Swiss stuff (ham, veal sausages w/fries and chunk of bread) and lots to drink.

A sword-swallower, fire eater, scythe juggler, and snake charmer. He walked on broken glass, too.
Walked home in the lovely moonlit evening. Since attending All Saints and knowing a neighbor or two, we find that we're always running into people. Hope Lausanne will be this way.

Speaking of Lausanne, Michael starts kindergarten tomorrow! We decided to drive Michael to school from here, rather than move to a transitional home for only a week. Very curious how Michael will do with Mme Monique Cuerel!

The Drive

Falling Into Place

Woke up to a beautiful morning to drive into Lausanne for Michael's kindergarten interview. Turned out to be a "readiness" test, not language, and is primarily aimed at assessing refugee children who have known trauma. We will find out shortly which school will be assigned to Michael - generally the closest one - and there will be a separate language component. Applied for Swiss health insurance, got details about my office space, and generally felt like things were finally falling into place.
While Carolyn met with the evaluator, Jack and I wandered around the old section of the city, where I used to explore.
This store sells musical scores and instruments, but I knew it as a record store where I could have a private room (above the Cartier sign) and listen to lps to my heart's desire with headphones.
A humbler arcade modeled after those in Paris. In the late 19th c, flaneurs (dandys) would saunter and look at the new merchandise produced by newly formed industries, as they, apparently, took their pet turtles for a stroll! (People who know about turtles say they can, contrary to popular belief, hustle; for more reading, see Marshall Berman's All That's Solid Melts Into Air or Walter Benjamin's Paris, Capital of the 19th Century). New mysticism was generated from commodities, not religious icons, and the fragility of meaning was experienced as a fluctuation of price.
The local charm of these streets remained, although chain stores have made their way, too, as they have to most American cities, including Manhattan; they virtually define the entire valley of SoCal where we're from. This chocolate store is still there though, and was displaying a circular, chocolate shaver.
I happened to be near this hiply dressed Japanese family, sizing up the fashions on this exclusive street with a distant affect not typical of even very wealthy Japanese. The goods and shops are beautiful (and you can't beat the setting), but hard to compete with the highly visible international haute culture of Tokyo.
This used to be the main tearoom in the St Francois square where a multi-tiered dessert cart with Black Forest cake would be wheeled to your table and coffee was served in china cups on a matching porcelain tray. The old days.

Bouveret: Choo Choo!

If you liked the mini-train pictures awhile ago, you'll really love these of Bouveret, a train amusement park at the east end of Lake Geneva. For a one price admission, you can take trips upon 10 or so different scaled replica trains that run through a real platform run by engineers (retired train workers who volunteer their time). About 1/3 were American (Amtrak, old 19th c. models, etc), as well as familiar local ones.

















The rides are fairly long 10-15 minutes and run along a manicured park around ponds, bridges, and historically faithful replicas of key Swiss buildings, such as Aigle Castle and the church at Saanen (site of the Yehudi Menuhin classical music festival, thus mini-chamber orchestra within).

Hotel La Croisee update

This is really an update on our living status, since we just returned from Lausanne and met the director and assistant. It's a delicate situation (the owner occupies a chunk of the top floor with his mother) and complicated purchase (can't get into), so the upshot is that we have to be patient. We may fall momentarily on plan B and stay elsewhere for a time, since Michael is supposed to start kindergarten nearby on August 27th. He goes in this Thursday for a diagnostic French test. Got a meningitis shot, too.

We hope to move in by the end of the month though and it will be nice! Plenty of space and Michael and Jack will be happy with all the exploring. And we did get a sense of how things will be run, looked at classroom and play spaces (there was an entire nursery of play equipment which we hope they don't lose) etc. Meanwhile, I thought I'd continue my sharing of the mundane details of our lives.

Fountains are everywhere and nearly all of them drinkable. This one is across from where we are staying.

One of my personal favorites: fresh squeezed blood orange juice (and sorbet at some stands)

This is basically a trip to a small market nearby. Switzerland and many countries still take their cues from the USA, so fads like artisan bread arrived, as well. Back home, this meant, basically, "good" bread, as opposed to the factory stuff (kinda like "real" cheese), but, here, where virtually all bread is actually good and real, artisan seems to simply mean misshapen bread. Literally, the stuff looks like someone twisted it then heaved it on a board.

The best hashed browns you will ever taste. A Swiss German food, it comes seasoned in packages or cans and you just fry it up. The slow but undeniable disappearance of grated spuds from America's coffee shop breakfast menu - in favor of home fries - always seemed suspicious to me as a good use for the prior night's leftovers.


The generic brand of the Migros supermarket chain, which also goes into cooking, language, art classes, banking, and the Rolling Stones (a raffle was held in which buyers with purchase stamps could win free tickets to the August 12 show [in contrast, Deutsche Bank bought RS for a night, giving tickets to their top execs]). This is the largest milk container you can buy, and also the only place you can get the lowest fat of 1.5 %. Actually, until now, I hadn't realized that I mistakenly bought 3.5% fat on this trip! And you can let the milk sit outside for weeks until opened. Our boys are great milkdrinkers, but Swiss children seem to get their dairy mostly through yogurt and cheese, drinking far less milk during the day.

These cured ham shanks were conversation items for two elderly Italian men standing nearby. I think they were surprised to see them on display, as well, and took turns lifting them.

Seafood, particurlarly shellfish, is excellent and gets trucked in from Paris 3x weekly.

A supermarket cafeteria warms the coffee cups with hot air blowing from below these trays. The coffee itself is not as hot as Starbucks, but neither tastes burnt either. Did you know you can actually burn coffee?

The laundary schedule for 12 tenants using one machine and the drying room: two days per month and it's all yours! But you can then arrange for half-day use on alternate weeks.

Adjacent to the washer is the drying room where you hang clothes and then start a blower that heats up the room quickly. Pretty effective and not sure the chain link was meant for this, but is perfect.