Geneva Week 5 (6/7 - 6/13) - Jason visits the U.S., ‘Glocals’, and the World Cup!

Coming off of the previous week’s whirlwind of activities, eating and my vacation at DDC, it was a welcome treat (not literally, unfortunately) to have a relaxing week 5 and start getting into a bit of a routine.

Week 5 did not start out all that enjoyable, though. After having both my dog-parents around for over a month, Jason flew back to the U.S. on Monday morning for work and would not be returning home until Saturday!

As much as I love Natalie, I also love my Jason and it’s always preferable both people are constantly in my presence. I do understand, though, that Jason needs to go back for work periodically and he did promise me that his visits would only be occasional, so I let him go this one time. If his time away does becomes a frequent occurrence, though, I’ll have to put my paw down at some point.

After we said Au Revoir! (goodbye) to Jason, Natalie and I settled into our week. On the days I did not go to DDC, Natalie was diligent about letting me dig for a solid hour in the mornings, giving me the opportunity to sniff and roll in the grapevines in the afternoon, and then providing me with gorgeous views of the lake on our evening walks to the center of Anieres and back. All in all, on non-DDC days, I got a solid two hours in of walking and playing. The rest of my time, I spent sleeping and begging if food was present - Oh, how nice it is to live a dog’s life.

(My afternoon 'rolling' near what I like to call the 'grapevine trail.')

On DDC days, which are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Natalie and I tried a new schedule, which was for me to be at DDC from 7:30am – 3pm. This works with traffic and it allows Natalie a little bit of time in the mornings to sit at the lake in nearby Saint Prex and read, or get prepared for her day.  It also keeps the afternoons free to get stuff done, and take me for another walk! Although, I’ve been having so much fun at DDC and have been playing so hard, my favorite thing to do when I get home from these adventures has actually been sleeping on my shag rug, or the couch.

(At the beach in the morning in Saint Prex!)

(Another picture of the view from the Saint Prex beach in the morning! I couldn't choose between which pictures I liked more, so, I just included both!)

Natalie spent her days this week continuing to fill the home with much needed gadgets. She purchased a printer that is also a copier and scanner. This will be especially useful, as there don’t really seem to be FedEx-Kinkos in Europe. Therefore, rather than Natalie trying to fumble around figuring out where to get a copy made, she just bought a machine that is capable to such tasks at home.

Natalie also purchased an immersion blender that has food processor and hand-mixer attachments, which is all about saving space and money! Unfortunately, with the different voltages between the U.S. and Europe, Natalie and Jason are unable to take any of this back with them when return to San Francisco in a couple years.

The other large purchase Natalie made was a super strength Dust Buster. Due to the new climate and the fact the summer is so desperately trying to shine through (we get rain about 4 times a week here still), I am shedding what seems like pounds of fur a day! In an effort to avoid our house turning into a massive furball, Natalie is attempting to keep the floors clean with constant vacuuming and the furniture and car clean with this handy-dandy Dust Buster.

In addition to Natalie’s attempts at draining the bank account, she also spent a couple days this week at the gym running and getting her free coaching session for signing up at the gym.  As mentioned in my earlier post, the gym is right near our house (and conveniently on the way to Natalie and Jason’s favorite bakery) and is like a mini-resort all in itself, with spa services, pools, a restaurant, etc., etc. 

Natalie was also introduced to ‘Glocals’ this past week. Glocals is an organization of internationals living in Switzerland. The site is mainly in English and it contains group activities organized my Glocals members, discounts, classifieds, member reviews of just about anything you can think of (think Yelp!) and is, overall, a very useful forum to people like Jason and Natalie.

The way Natalie and Jason found out about Glocals was through Jason’s co-worker, Julie. Julie just arrived in Geneva last Wednesday and emailed Natalie and Jason wondering if they’d be interested in attending a Glocals new member drinks at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in downtown Geneva. Jason was obviously out of town, but, Natalie decided to go and had a nice time getting to know Julie, meeting a couple of new people and learning about the Glocals organization.

The Friday evening before Jason was set to come home, Natalie and I decided to go out for dinner. Natalie cooked at home all week and we both figured it was time to treat ourselves. We went to Café Marronniers in Collonge-Bellerive, which is not far from our house. Natalie had a Parma pizza (pizza with Prosciutto on top) and a meringue with red fruits and fresh Gruyere cream for dessert. I, of course, got to sample the prosciutto from the pizza.

Saturday finally rolled around; however, both Natalie and I met it with a lack of sleep.  Jason was supposed to fly out from San Francisco to Frankfurt on Friday evening at around 11pm (Geneva time). Natalie talked to him right after our dinner and he was sitting on the plane ready to go; however, an hour or so later, Natalie got a call from Jason (which, was strange, because he was supposed to be in the air) telling her the Pilot found out the landing gear sensor was broken as he was leaving the gate.  Therefore, the plane had to turn around and go back to the gate.

Since this was an International flight, Jason couldn’t get off the plane, so he had to wait until the problem was fixed. Three hours later (it was around 3am now in Geneva), Jason called Natalie again saying that they were still fixing the problem and he was still stuck on the plane; however, it sounded like they’d be flying soon.

The plane finally took off 4 ½ hours after it was scheduled to leave. Unfortunately, Jason had to sit on that plane the entire time and, to add insult to injury he was going to miss his connection to Geneva from Frankfurt.

Thanks to past experiences, both Natalie and Jason already knew Lufthansa is worse than the worst with respect to making it easy for people to reschedule connections. Therefore, neither was surprised to find out that once Jason finally landed in Frankfurt, he would have to stand in line for over two hours to get his connecting flight rebooked.

While Jason was dealing with one of the most painful flights he’s ever had, Natalie drug herself out of bed to take me on my morning walk and then headed downtown where she joined up with a running group she found through Glocals. Despite her fatigue, Natalie ran about 6 miles through beautiful new territory in Geneva with a really nice person she met in the group.  

This particular running group Natalie joined is actually involved in Achilles International. Achilles International is a worldwide organization that helps get people with disabilities involved in sports, or back into sports. Achilles is new here in Geneva, but Natalie hopes to help it grow and get involved during her time here.

Natalie did some grocery shopping after her run, made another stop at her favorite bakery in Veigy and then got home and cleaned up in anticipation of Jason’s return!

Jason finally made it home Saturday evening by 7pm. Since Natalie is still tentative on how to drive to the airport and the train is really easy to take from the airport, Jason took a train from the airport to the Geneva train station, where Natalie and I met him nearby. He was obviously exhausted and groggy; however, since Saturday night was the World Cup Soccer (or Futbol, as it’s referred to in Europe) match between U.S. and England, Jason managed to muster up enough energy to go out.

After a refreshing shower and a very quick break at home, where Jason so graciously gave me a few belly rubs I had been missing so much all week, Natalie and Jason were off to see the match.

Now, I am generally not a fan of being left behind, and I am definitely not a fan when my Jason comes home after being gone and then leaves right away! Sure enough, both Natalie and Jason got the ‘snake-eye’ as they were heading out the door.

Jason, Natalie and his co-worker Julie all met up at the Lady Godiva Pub in the Plainpalais district of Geneva. This is a British-style pub and there are a lot of British people in Geneva.  It is almost too obvious to say, but about 70% of the bar’s customers were British. Luckily for Jason, Natalie and Julie and the small contingent of Americans in the room, the U.S. tied the match with Britain! And, if I may put it in doggie terms, the Britains definitely left that pub with their ‘tail between their legs.’

The match ended around 10:30 and since Natalie and Jason hadn’t yet had a proper dinner, they found a nice little Italian place near the pub. Jason had very fresh-tasting seafood pasta and Natalie had one of the yummiest lasagnas she’s ever eaten outside of home. This lasagna came piping hot in a soup bowl and was swimming in a cheesy-tomato sauce. The lasagna itself consisted of perfectly cooked noodles, a tangy Bolognese sauce and fresh mozzarella. Since Natalie is not a fan of ricotta and every single restaurant includes ricotta in its lasagna, Natalie was very pleased to find lasagna without it.

Natalie and Jason finally made it home very late in the evening and we all slept in on Sunday until close to 10am. Between Jason’s horrible flight and my and Natalie’s lack of good sleep the night before, we all needed to rest.

Sunday was a relaxing day – we went, yet again, to the bakery in Veigy and then headed out for a leisurely, yet somewhat rainy drive towards Chamonix, France.

On our way to Chamonix, Jason actually found a new town, called Samoens, France. Samoens is a very charming place and we look forward to spending more time there, hopefully when it won’t be raining as much. It was a nice town to walk in and also had a very rustic boulangerie where Natalie and Jason got jambon et beurre (ham and butter) sandwiches and cookies for dessert.

We arrived home from Chamonix later that evening and went for a walk to Anieres – the weather had dried up, which was nice, and the lake against the clouds was magnificent. The only downside, though, was my nose getting me into trouble again! On our way back towards the house, I happened to be sniffing at some sheep through a seemingly basic fence. Well, all of the sudden I felt this horrific shock, let out a large yelp and jumped about 3 feet.

Natalie, not knowing fully what happened, yet having her suspicions, asked Jason to be the guinea pig and touch the fence. Sure enough, it was ‘hot.’ I’ll make sure to not get too close to that fence again.

(The sign showing the entrance to our small village of Chevrens - this is along our walk to and from Anieres.)

(Natalie and I at the entrance to our village on the way back from our walk to Anieres....this is after my shocking incident. Luckily, it appears no permanent damage was done (although Natalie and Jason may have another opinion about that.))

After a dinner of merguez sausage sandwiches and salad, Natalie and Jason did their French homework and bills while I slept and we all retired in preparation for our next week of adventures here in Switzerland!

Paws,

Sabrina