Rental in Loveland

We submitted an application for a rental house yesterday and should hear back sometime on Thursday.

The rental market for larger houses is very tight here. Agencies were calling and cancelling our appointments all morning, as their houses were now off the market. The general hypothesis is that people are being kicked out of their house due to foreclosure and are now looking to rent.

The house we are moving into has four bedrooms, three of which are fairly small. Rowan and Nimah might end up in bunk beds. The backyard is currently only partially fenced, but the agency indicated they would fence the rest if we asked them to.

The house is located here.

Italian Trains

We decided to go to Pompeii while in Rome. We followed Rick Steves' advice and took the 7:30 AM train from Rome's Termini station to Naples' Centrale station via Trenitalia. We purchased our tickets at the ticket window and ended up with 3 reserved seats (children 4 and under do not need a ticket). The coach we were in and those near us were very full, which meant that I had to stand in the aisle so Niamh could sit in my seat. It was only a two hour trip, so it wasn't too bad.

From Naples to Pompeii we took the Circumvesuviana narrow gauge train. Although we had read that this train was full of con artists and pickpockets, we met only nice and helpful individuals(and returned with all our possessions).

We missed the standard train in Naples on our return trip, so we ended up on the Eurostar Italia. It was mostly empty, faster, and significantly cleaner. It was more expensive, but the extra cost was well worth it when traveling with 3 kids. After our morning adventure we were going to purchase a ticket for Niamh on the way home. I told the person at the ticket window that both kids were 5, so he would sell us a tickets for Niamh and Rowan. He told me that both kids were 4 and wouldn't sell me a ticket. I am assuming he knew the train would be mostly empty and was trying to save us money.

Rome!

I think that we had a successful trip to Rome and saw everything that we could reasonably expect to see during a 4.5 day visit with three kids. If we exclude the luggage arriving 30 hours after we did and Muriel vomiting in the taxi on the way to the airport, I would say we had a very good trip.

Our apartment was located at Via dei Coronari 222, which was within walking distance of most sights. The Colosseum was a bit of a walk for Niamh, especially in the rain, but she managed to do it. It might have helped that she knew there would be gelato at some point.

Our double stroller was about 5 cm too wide to go on the busses without disassembling, so we used taxis every day. Using a taxi was less expensive than I had expected and saved us quite a bit of time. It was nice having a taxi stand about 100 meters from the apartment. We didn't use any car seats, so I was a bit nervous about getting into an accident. That being said, the driving was not nearly as scary as I had expected it to be. There was only one time when I thought we would hit somebody and that was the pedestrian's fault.

If you have been following us in Facebook, you will know that we ate our (or maybe more than our) share of gelato. Here are a few of the places we wanted to visit. I'm not sure how many we actually sampled.

Ballons!

Today we went to the Festival International de Ballons in Chateau-d'Oex. Pictures and info will come later, but here is what Rowan expected to see.

Engine Shed!

Niamh, Rowan, and I went to the CFF open house in Lausanne yesterday. We had a great time checking out the trains. There were multiple engines, passenger coaches, and the fire/rescue train. They were also a number of people that seemed to be giving details about the trains, but it was all in french so I did not pay much attention to them.

Rowan and Niamh checking out the controls on one of the older engines.
Niamh and Rowan in the cab of a modern engine.

Rowan climbed into this engine and said "this engine is even older than Big Bumpa Charlie." He was wrong.

Niamh and Rowan check out the inside of the older engine.

The controls of the older engine.

The nameplate (?) on the older engine.

Niamh!

Rowan wasn't too excited to be in the pictures. He just wanted to look at the trains.

The kids checking out one of the new coaches.

These are some of the engines in the shed that we did not have access to.

Checking out a switcher in the yard.

Checking out more coaches.

Running for first class.

Checking out the view from first class.

The turntable in Lausanne

The engine shed.

A(H1N1) and kindergarten

This link was given to parents in Zurich, but we didn't receive anything on the topic from Rowan's school.

Expat Postings

I follow a few expat blogs and here are three entries that I found interesting.

The Works: Swiss National Day in Au

Fun on a Budgeté Rheintal and Locarno Regions of Switzerland

Laid Off in Switzerland? What to do first.

A Popular Article

I think I received a half dozen copies of this link, so I thought I should share.

A cheese to add to the list.

This seems like something worth eating.

Spoils from Spain

While Grammie and Bumpa were in Spain they picked us up some of our favorite food from our December visit: Idiazabal cheese, Torta de Queso Cañarejal, and Jamón ibérico. It was, perhaps, a bit more of the ham that we had anticipated--a happy mistake!

When telling them how much we wanted we forgot that there are different grades of Jamón ibérico. We gave the requested amount in euros rather than grams. Whoops! Apparently the man behind the ham counter doesn't have americans coming in every day buying half a leg of sliced ibérico ham. Okay, I exaggerate, it was only 700 grams. But the ham did take so long to slice (a meticulous process that is probably something of an art form in Spain), it might has well have been a half a leg--Grammie Annie got tired and went back to the hotel, leaving Bumpa Mike to wait alone.

Castle Haut Barr!

We visited Castle Haut Barr while we were in Alsace with the Daigles. It was a bit overcast, so we didn't have a fantastic view, but it was still impressive. We had to climb quite a few stairs to get to the top. Rowan climbed all by himself, but Niamh had to be carried up and down.

Rowan seems much more interested in visiting ruins after visiting this castle.

Farm Martzloff

We stayed at the Farm Martzloff when we were in Breuschwickersheim. We had three rooms:

• One for the Daigles
• One for Emily and Muriel
• One for Rowan, Niamh and me

Niamh and Rowan both slept on the floor, which worked fairly well. Niamh rolled under the bed and got stuck there on the 2nd night. I woke up to her banging her head on the bottom of the bed. She went right back to sleep as soon as I pulled her out, so she couldn't have been too traumatized.

Two of the rooms had stoves and refrigerators, which is always nice when traveling with kids or shopping for cheese. Breakfast was included in the very reasonable rates, which was nice. Especially since there aren't too many shopping options in Breuchwickersheim.

The owner raises and races sled dogs, which was a bit of a surprise. I didn't see any dogs on site, so I'm not sure where she kept them.

The farm is associated with Gites of France. I am not sure what a Gite(should have a ^ above the i.) is, but it seems to be somewhere in between a bed and breakfast and a self catering apartment.

Amanda, Emily, & Muriel's Lyon Adventure

On Saturday Pat was nice enough to stay behind in Morges with the older kids while Amanda, Muriel, and I took a day trip to Lyon, France. We, of course, did not spend a small fortune on train tickets to travel to this ancient city for something as mundane as museums, history, or architecture. Ooooh, nooo (as Niamh would say)! We went for food. Our first stop was the famed Bernachon chocolate shop where we loaded up on pastries and chocolates. Here is Amanda pictured in front of Bernachon.

Next stop was a whopping one door down at the Bernachon tea room where we each had a hot chocolate and a quiche. It was no surprise that both were fabulous.

Afterwards, we naturally felt in need of some lunch, so we made our way to Vieux Lyon on the Metro without getting lost, and were only sidetracked by chocolatiers twice.

I've been wanting to eat at one of Lyon's famous bouchons for a long time, and really wish we could have gone to one of Molly Wizenberg's recommendations, but with the time constraint of only one day we decided on a Rick Steve's recommendation that was a bit more centrally located. I am going to make one of Molly's bouchons top priority on my next visit!

We ate at La Machonnerie where the food was delicious and there was a lot of it. Amanda thought she would go light and just order a soup and salad, but both came in enormous serving bowls that held enough for two or three people. I got a three course menu, which I did not even come close to finishing.

Muriel was surprisingly patient during our two hour meal. I think she was glad for a chance to be on the ground for a bit. The photo on the right is from the final cheese platter course. I choose the creme version, and we think what is pictured below is Crème fraîche. It was good on the bread, although one of us might have had the idea that it would be even better on a Bernachon chocolate. And the other one of us might have readily agreed.

After lunch we felt we'd really better see at least a few of the non-stomach-related sights of Lyon so we wandered (or maybe waddled) around the old town for a bit, which is famous for it's over three hundred covered passageways (traboules).

We also ran across some Roman ruins, pictured below.

We ended our day not long after the ruins, as Muriel caught some sort of stomach bug, threw up everything she'd eaten that day, and then some. Despite leaving on that somewhat sour note (Muriel recovered after a couple of hours) Amanda and I were quite satisfied with ourselves for accomplishing the majority of our missions, as well as our superior navigational skills. I was sad to miss the pork cracklings (from Little House on the Prairie as well as Orangette), but there's always next time!

Zattoo

It doesn't have much in the way of US channels, but it does have BBC one. I hope it works ok.

Trip Photos

Photos from our trip can be found at Amanda's Picasa page. The current albums are:

• Breushwickersheim
• Vosges
• Balbronn
• Monkey Mountain
• Castle Haut Koening (or something like that)
• Brettental

Spring Cleaning!

This takes spring cleaning to a new level.

Monkeys!

We went to Montagne des Singes on Friday. Visitors walk into a big cage and there are about 280 monkeys running loose. Admission comes with a handful of popcorn for feeding the monkeys, which is what Rowan is doing above. Right after this picture was taken Rowan decided to squat down and make a funny face at the monkey. The monkey was not impressed and took a swing at Rowan. Rowan ended up with a monkey paw(is that the right word?) print on his face. The guide in the background chased the monkey away, but Rowan decided it was time to leave.

I guess I know what we are doing this weekend!

From the mom-in-law...

I didn't know it was family owned!

My local train/toy store.

Taxes!

I've started working on both the US and Swiss taxes. I've decided to do them myself this year. I am using TurboTax for the US taxes and a free program from the Canton of Vaud for the Swiss taxes. The down side to the Swiss program is that everything is in French. I don't think it will be too difficult, but we'll see.

I hope to have everything done and submitted by the end of the week.