Switzerland decides to keep its guns

It was interesting to see the Swiss referendum process in play this weekend. On Sunday, Swiss voters decided in a referendum that they'd be able to keep their automatic weapons in their homes. We've seen signs in opposition to the referendum along the roads here. (Picture below is the same as the sign we see except in German rather than French.)

Opposition poster to the Swiss gun control.
Why do you think they chose this guy?
(Basically, it says, "Do you want criminals
to be the only ones with weapons?")

Here's a link to a news story on the failure of the gun control referendum. I'm copying a few of my favorite quotes from the story.

"Pollsters said the referendum was backed by a majority of women but overwhelmingly rejected by men. One poll taken shortly before the vote found a 24-point difference between the sexes, the widest ever recorded in Switzerland. Exit polls indicated that men turned out in greater numbers than women to swing the referendum their way."


"Ueli Maurer, the Swiss Defence Minister, had marked the campaign by claiming that women "don't know anything about weapons", sparking a wave of anger among female voters."


"Debate centred on the right of Switzerland's conscript army to keep weapons at home when their military service, which is compulsory for all men aged between 18 and 34, ends. The policy is designed to ensure that Switzerland is ready to fight off invaders at the drop of a hat since men only have to take their Swiss SG 550 assault rifles out of the cupboard to start shooting. But critics point out that the country has not been invaded since 1798 and that the law is a source of danger."


And, the money quote:


"There are an estimated two million weapons in circulation for a population of eight million, the third highest rate in the world behind the US and Yemen." [Emphasis mine.]

"Protect families." One of the pro-gun control posters. You can see
why the other side won.... 

Eine Kleine Nachtfotos

Or, perhaps more accurately, being in Swiss Romandie: trois photos de nuit peu (?)


Anyway, no real commentary here, but I thought I'd share three pictures I took from our deck as twilight had nearly completely faded away last night.

Looking west over Pully and Lac Leman

Same view, but in a format to pick up the moon at top.

If I'm not naive, those lights across the water are Evian, of French water
(and "Reality Bites") fame.

Finally, physical activity!

So, you're Jared and you're moving to Switzerland. How do you expect you'll spend most of your time?

Skiing, of course!

I've been in Switzerland over a month. I've not been skiing yet. Until last Thursday. And my first Swiss skiing experience was in Verbier. I don't know what to say about Verbier, except Verbier was made for Jared, and Jared was made for Verbier. It may very well be my favorite place to ski. Ever. And, it's about an hour away from the kids' school. I may be putting a lot more miles on the car....

Stopping for coffee and a brownie half way down the mountain.

The long promised apartment "tour"

Hello, everyone! I know I've been promising a picture tour of our apartment for weeks. I actually took these photos almost two weeks ago, but then got a little gun shy about posting all the details of our living space for everyone to see. So, here we go with a bit of an abbreviated view of our new living space.

Our apartment is in a middle-aged building, but the apartment was completely remodeled before we moved in. The neighbor upstairs told us it had been empty for a year before we came. It's not clear if that was because they were unable to rent it before remodeling or if the remodel took that long....

Outside and entry:

Here we'll start with a photo of the outside of the apartment building looking toward the lake. The first picture was taken during our house-hunting trip in September. It doesn't really look that beautiful here in January/ February! Our apartment runs along the side of the building and is the second floor from the top. You can see the blast shields down in this picture!

Our building.

Entrance driveway: Door to our box (garage) on left, entrance to
building and apartments on right.

Not yet very organized entrance hall to our apartment.
You can see here and above that Swiss aren't too
concerned about presenting visitors with a
"grand entrance!"

Our main living space:

This is one of the first things that attracted us to this apartment. The living area including the living/dining area and kitchen is very large and open by Swiss standards. Laura always missed that we didn't have a "great room" in our old house, and I guess this makes up for it! We have so far done a lot of good family living in this area.

In this first picture, we're looking into the living area from the entrance hall. You'll notice Calvin wearing a hat from his school birthday celebration, which was during the week of January 23, proving these photos are almost two weeks old. You can see the art above the fireplace is still missing glass from when it fell off the mantel and shattered on New Year's Eve and narrowly missed killing Elliot. I still haven't even bothered trying to find out where you go to get a picture re-framed!

Living/dining area looking from entrance hall.

Looking back toward kitchen.

Part of kitchen and eating location. We always eat here;
we haven't even used the dining room table once yet.

Our "American" kitchen. We're in love with this kitchen.

If the great room initially attracted us, the kitchen nearly sold us. You just don't see kitchens like this in Switzerland. First of all, it was unusual to be open to the great room (and view). Most of the kitchens here to be stuck back around some corner or behind a wall. Secondly, it's big. Very unusual to have an eating space inside/attached to the kitchen. And, look at those appliances! Notice the refrigerator. Most of the apartments we had included a refrigerator with tiny freezer underneath that totalled the size of the freezer compartment on the left side of our refrigerator in the picture. You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm dead serious*. This kitchen prompted some expat visitors to tell us, "You're not living in a Swiss apartment, you're in an American apartment."

Our other main living space?


LeDeck: If the great room initially attracted us and the kitchen nearly sold us, it's the outdoor space that sealed the deal. In the summer we hope that we'll be spending most of our time out here. We think we'll eat most of our meals out here and also sit out here enjoying the fresh air. A note about the view: generally, we find ourselves with envy of other friends' views when we visit them. There are better views of the French Alps across the lake, or the vineyards terraced on the hillside over picturesque towns. We have more of an urban vista looking out across the lake toward Geneva. On the other hand, where but in Switzerland would we be living here and also exhibiting signs of "view envy?!"

Our slice of the French Alps across the lake. Most of our view is
overlooking the town and lake to the west. I don't have a picture of
that to share and today all we have is haze. Maybe another time....

Sitting area on LeDeck. The doors you see open onto the
TV/guest room (close) and the master bedroom (far).

Long view of the deck. I think we'll be eating a lot of meals at this table!

The rest of the space:


This is the TV room and guest bedroom. So, if (when?) you visit, this will be your base of operations. Don't worry, that sofa bed is much more comfortable than you're thinking!

Evidence of bad parenting: the boys are clearly watching
TV or a movie while dad does something very important.
(I couldn't find time to take the photos during school?)

Bedrooms: So, this is the area where I balked at posting for the world to see. However, here are a few bits and pieces of the boys' and our bedroom with some commentary....

View down hallway through master bedroom out to LeDeck.

Closets: More evidence of our "American" apartment. You simply don't see this kind of closet space in Swiss apartments. Most of the time you're walking through apartments looking at a lot of cheap IKEA wardrobes and armoires in every hall and room. It's not that expats refuse to spend money on decent furniture, but who wants to spend lots of money on wardrobes when you'll be moving back to a house with closets after your three or four year tour? Presumably, the Swiss have nice wardrobes in their apartments. We don't know whether this is true because we haven't been in a the home of a Swiss citizen yet. And, even when we do, apparently you aren't ever given the grand tour. You'll be lucky to make it past the living/dining/kitchen area of a Swiss citizen's apartment even after you've known them for years!

Master bedroom closet. Are we in Switzerland or Plymouth, MN?

Closets in boys' room. Looks big, but still overflowing with toys and clothes
we don't need....

* Didn't believe that I was telling the truth about the impossibly small refrigerators here? See below! Actually, having a huge refrigerator isn't as convenient as it seems. They don't use many preservatives in the foods here, so you can't save most things in the refrigerator past a few days anyway. But, American expats still leave our apartment with "refrigerator envy."

Refrigerator in another apartment we considered. That bottom
part is the freezer. This is "average" size -- we saw even
smaller than this!

Up and Away in Chateau-d'Oex

We embarked on our first real adventure Saturday. True, we did go snowtubing toboganning in Leysin a few weeks ago. And, the Saturday after we finally got our car registered we took a drive to Fribourg and Neuchatel. But, this Saturday was our first true Swiss adventure: we visited Chateau-d'Oex (sounds like chateau day) for their Festival of Balloons. Many of you may have heard of the huge hot air balloon event that takes place in New Mexico every year, but there's another huge one that takes place over 9 days every January right here in Switzerland, and on Saturday we decided to make the trek.

When we got up in the morning, it seemed like it would be a dicey proposition. Although temperatures were around 40, the lake was covered in haze. Of course, as we've found over the past month, the lake is pretty much always covered in haze in the winter. Temperatures haven't been that cold here -- nothing like Minnesota -- usually hovering right around freezing. And, while the lake water is pretty cold, it's not frozen, so you have a classic temperature inversion and that leads to lots of fog and haze. But, that's not very comforting when you're planning on making a trek go visit a hot air balloon festival!

Of course we decided our first true Swiss adventure had to include a voyage by train, so we nixed the idea of driving to the festival. First we took a train from Pully to Montreux, and it was a lot of fun for me to see our daily voyage from the vantage point of the train rather than the car. The train line runs right next to the lake road, so it was pretty much the same journey until Vevey, but this time I got to really enjoy the view. Then, we hopped on  a panoramic train up over and through some mountains to Chateau-d'Oex. It was a fun trip and thankfully, when we popped out of a long tunnel on the other side of the range the skies were crystal clear -- perfect for watching balloons.

Surprisingly, given his obsession with trains, Calvin was complaining the entire train ride, wanting to "just get there" and thinking the train ride was taking too long. I took out my phone in the past few minutes to show him the countdown to our arrival, which was a big mistake because as far as I know it's still sitting on that train car today. Neither Swiss rail, Goldenpass (the operator of the panoramic train), nor I have seen or heard from it since. But, we're here! On to the balloons!

View from the train station at Chateau-d'Oex. We brought Flat Stanley
along for a family friend.

Do you remember Breitling Orbiter? I didn't. It was the first balloon to make a circumnavigation of the world in 1999. Well, it launched from right here in Chateau-d'Oex! Who knew?

Breitling Orbiter gondola in Chateau-d'Oex Centre.

Wow! Cool! Lots and lots and ... lots and lots of balloons being launched. Pictures don't really do it justice, but here are some to view. There were balloons of every shape and size -- some gondolas could fit a dozen people, and we saw one balloon that didn't even have a gondola, just a two person bench hanging from the balloon.

Looking down on the launch area.

Can you tell Elliot thinks this is REALLY COOL?

Laura and Elliot are having fun.

Maybe he was tired? Hungry? It wasn't Calvin's best day....

No, pictures don't do it justice. Plus, we need a
telephoto lens for this kind of work.

It was fun to see the few that came down through town. We don't
have a picture but saw one going down the street within 20 feet
of houses on each side.

We were perched up near a church on a hill overlooking things and decided to walk straight down the hill rather than on the long curving path. This was a mistake. Elliot wanted to roll down the hill, but I told him that was absolutely prohibited (it was a BIG hill!), but it was also a really STEEP hill, so like it or not Elliot went tumbling down after a ways. I think Laura lost her footing a time or two, as well. My feet slipped a few times in the mud, but I managed to keep my footing -- I was pretty worried about tumbling down that hill with Calvin strapped to my back. On the way back we walked AROUND the hill.

Steeper than it looks. Anyway, you'd have to be an idiot
to go straight down this hill....

Who are the idiots? Still a long way to go.
Elliot hasn't gone tumbling -- yet.

We had been up there. Elliot looking fine after doing
his part to reenact Jack and Jill.
Seriously, it's steeper than it looks (and slippery)!

Rewarded with closer view of the action, though.
This is the two-seater.

Looking down on Chateau-d'Oex from the tram.
It's sort of a break in the balloons right now.

We planned on watching the balloons in Chateau-d'Oex for five hours or so, but after an hour of standing there the kids got bored and started running around, Calvin was complaining about wanting to get back on the train (the same one he hadn't wanted to be on in the first place), and we found things to be getting repetitive. Watching dozens of balloons launch at once is pretty fun but... Well, we decided to find a place to eat an early lunch and come back for the "shaped balloons" launch. Finding an open restaurant at this time of day required an aerial tram ride and chairlift ride to the top of a ski mountain, but that may be a story for another day.

Riding the chairlift back down from lunch. That's Chateau-d'Oex
way down in the valley.

In the end, we ate lunch, I finally discovered I was missing my phone, Calvin's incessant whining was driving me further into a fit, and we decided to skip the shaped balloons and take the train back to Pully. When we popped back onto our side of the mountain we found ourselves back in the haze. Ah, home!

It's amazing what static electricity can do to Elliot's hair.

Picking up brochures with pictures of trains on them
made Calvin much happier on the ride home.

Ah, home! Can you see the haze over Montreux behind Flat Stanley?
That's what most of our days here have looked like.
(Not that we're complaining!)

Random Observations Photo Essay

I was out and about today and thought I'd just take some photos about things here that I find amusing, different, or just worth commenting on. There's not much of an organizing theme and nothing important going on here, but you can get an idea of the little differences I see from day to day.

1. Parking is usually a tight squeeze. Granted there are more small cars here, but there are a lot more tight spaces, and they usually have big columns impinging on one or both sides. This is under a mall with a pretty big grocery store in Lausanne. I tried to park our car in the space you see on the right, but it was a no go. WAY too tight for the Touran. Or, maybe I'm a wimp.

2. This is part of the skiing section at a sports store chain in Lausanne. Just the skis and a tiny portion of the boots. It doesn't include the space devoted to helmets, goggles, snowboards, clothing, avalanche probes, etc. It's a fairly large store in Swiss terms, but nothing approaching a sports mega-store in the US. I guess people like to ski here. That might also explain the absence of many overweight people and the surprisingly large number of people moving around on crutches....

3. It's amusing to see foreign language books for English on the store shelves.

4. Swiss efficiency, part 1. The carts are all chained together in the parking lot, and you have to put a 1 or 2 franc (typically) coin into the cart to detach it from the other carts. Then, you bring the cart with you into the store, use it to transport goods to your car, and return it to the queue of carts to retrieve your coin. Would a $1 to $2 charge keep me from stealing a shopping cart if I wanted one? No. Is it enough to convince me to walk the 20 yards metres back to the cart queue? Absolutely!

5. Swiss efficiency, Part 2. All of the shopping centers have a dry cleaner on the bottom level just inside the doors from parking. Sometimes shoe repair, too. Convenient place. You're going to the shopping center anyway, you don't want to carry this stuff with you through the hallways, and probably cheap rent below ground....

6. Swiss efficiency, Part 3. This is one of Laura's favorites. The parking garages have counters to tell you how many spaces are available. These things are great, you can see the sign count down by one number when you drive past. Then, the levels and sections are split up with sensors and signs to tell you how many spaces are available in each section. That way you don't waste time driving through full sections when there might be more spaces available on a different level. There's also a sensor at the exit of the section, of course, so that the sign counts up by a space when a car drives out. This particular garage had another feature I hadn't seen before with lights to show empty or full spaces. You could drive through a section of red lights to see a green light down the row and know that that space would be available. (The individual space lights are hard to see, but you can see it if you click on the picture and explode it to full size.)

So, these were just amusing observations from my day today. I have now visited nine different furniture stores and haven't been able to find the side table I want. Maybe it's time for me to change my list of requirements?

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Birthdays and Baking

Calvin turned 4 today! He was very excited. Actually, he was pretty upset when he woke up on Saturday morning and it still wasn't his birthday yet. He complained that the nights are so long and it wouldn't be his birthday for a very long time.

It was a delightful birthday. Elliot was very conscientious and kept thinking of things for the "birthday boy" to do, like letting him push the button to raise the shades in our bedroom. Mimi and Granddad got to participate in the opening of presents via Skype, and Elliot was very happy to give Calvin a present this year. We also had some new expat friends visit after dinner to sing happy birthday (first in French, then in English) and watch Calvin blow out the candles. It was very cute to see him get shy when everyone was singing for him. That's typical Elliot behavior, not Calvin!

Grandparents join in for the birthday celebration!

Calvin mysteriously turns shy during the birthday song.

We also baked a cake. Overall, things went surprisingly well! We couldn't use our normal recipe because there doesn't appear to be such thing as baker's chocolate here. And, even if there were, I doubt we'd be able to use it. I've looked at every single bar in the chocolate aisle of the grocery store (no exaggeration, every bar) and all but one kid's brand have nut cross-contamination. So, we had to find a recipe for chocolate cake that used cocoa powder. But, all in all, it worked out, and the cake wasn't too bad!

The boys enjoyed baking the cake, too! (Sshh, don't let Laura's old
food-safety coworkers know we let the boys eat raw cake batter!!!)

There was one annoyance. Swiss vanilla is sold in 5 gram packets, which we think is roughly equivalent to a teaspoon. Although it took a long time to find, that in and of itself isn't so bad. But, it also costs about $1 per packet. First visitors to Switzerland, please bring us a bottle of vanilla! It's really not asking too much....

Two dollars worth of vanilla.