Welcome to Switzerland

So much is going on it's hard to take enough pictures! Nevermind actually write about everything and post it on there. So slow and steady... we'll tell you about what we're up to. First we'll rewind back to our first few real days in Switzerland...

When we first got back from Paris we weren't able to move into our place right away because Nathalie wasn't moving out until later that week. So she arranged for us to stay with a neighbor, Martine. Best decision ever. So Martine lives across the street and is the BEST part about Switzerland, in my opinion :). Her house reminds me a bit of my friend Liat's (shout out in case you read this! :)... lots of exotic decorations, a little bit crazy (in a good way), and big, friendly, hairy dogs everywhere. Okay there were only two dogs, but that's a lot for a cute little Swiss house. Anyway Martine is probably just a bit older than our parents and speaks juuuuust enough English for us to all get by with miming, google translate, and a lot of laughing. She is seriously full of energy and so expressive and animated. She has some of the best sound effects I've ever heard, and some of the best stories too-- which is saying something given our language barriers! During our 4 days at her house we discovered that she grew up in Paris and joined the circus when she was a teenager where she rode horses and did air acrobats. I felt like that explained a lot when I found that out :). After a bad fall she had to stop the circus, but she rode horses for a lot of years. She pretty much remodeled her whole house herself, and all of her furniture has a story too :). She explained to me that a wardrobe she has in her room, that she sanded down and stained herself ("four days! I... pffffthhhh work on this one part"-- she explained that she spent four days carefully chipping out paint off of a delicate carving on one part of the wardrobe), was actually an heirloom given to her family from Louis the 16th (yea I'm not doing that roman numerals thing, as if I know what strange combo means sixteen anyway... XVI or something?)... crazy right? I loved her stories. One day when I got home she took me up to her room all mischeviously and it turned out she wanted my girly opinion on a dress she bought for an upcoming wedding. Adorable! And perhaps our favorite moment was when we came down one morning to discover that our bread had gone missing. Martine explained to us with much gusto and apology that "the ruh-bber take!" What? "The Ruh-Ber!" She pointed at the dog, Gnin (French for "Genie"), and said "he is a ruh-ber!" Ohhhh a robber! The robber took it! We were in tears laughing. Anyway she was a doll and bought us a new baggette and then made us an amazing dinner of raclette. It's a famous Swiss dish where you eat potatoes with freshly melted cheeses. She had all kinds of meat and other things to enjoy with it. So great!

Nathalie came and joined us last minute.

Nathalie, Martine, and me

All four of us!

So much fun! We're so glad Martine had us to stay. We still enjoy going over and taking the "Robber"  for a run every once in awhile. We thought we'd have Martine over for a typical American dinner too, to return the favor... but then we couldn't figure out what that was. Burgers? Lol. So, any suggestions on what would be a good "representative" or typical American dinner?