The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
We have found two Italian restaurants in town where, not only can I eat stuff, but where I can actually stuff myself silly on really good food! This one is a pizzeria where (gasp!) they don’t put garlic in the tomato sauce. I shared Katy’s bresaola, rocket and parmesan pizza today. Bean always charms the server dude that is always working on the days we happen to go by telling him in incredible detail what he wants to eat and how it needs to be cooked :-)
Rabbit has found his favourite eatery in Lausanne. We’ve been here twice and already we’re recognized :-)
We just came across a shop that sells not only oil and vinegar in bulk, but also liqueurs, rum and whiskey!
We’ve gotten oral confirmation that the flat we put an offer on is ours. We still need to sign the contract but our relocation agent is going to look into that for us. All going smoothly, we should be able to move in from August 30th.
We’ve been to two different Italian restaurants so far and, though they’re not cheap by the standards we’re used to, they’re not bad by Swiss ones and the food was highly satisfactory! I’ve just had veal roast with a tuna sauce that was to die for, and last week I had a beef carpaccio with rocket & parmesan salad that was nummay! Katy had an antipasti platter and some cold poached salmon. Bean had a pizza and some pasta with prawns and pesto. And the ice cream…. Oh, the ice cream :-) so yeah, as lo.g as you don’t dwell too much on the prices, the food is kick ass.
Katy, Bean and I were chauffeured around Lausanne and the its outskirts yesterday in our first foray into finding a permanent house. We saw some really nice (and ‘spensive!) properties and there are two candidates that we’re humming and hawing about. Both are in what could be nicely called the middle of nowhere (one is in a village whose total population is about 600 people) but they’re nice, big, with lots of storage and a garden for the child and the dog. So yeah, options :)
More news to come as we figure out what happens next.
Every morning, I stop at a little bakery just in front of our house to grab a sandwich for lunch. They’re good, cheap (-er than what it would cost at work) and the lady is nice. This morning, she had a sandwich already bagged up, waiting for me.
This made me inordinately happy :)
– The commute is going to be fairly longish, but fine.
– Prices here are INSANE.
– Horse meat, when you’re expecting it, is really tasty.
– My work laptop has a swiss QWERTZ keyboard. It’s driving me mad. I’ve remapped it to US English and generally ignore the meaningless symbols on the keyboard.
– The Swiss make good bread, great coffee, but shit tea.
– There is a very big smoking culture here. Stopping will be a bitch.
– The science that Nestle plans on doing is impressive. Really impressive. Almost tempting me to get back to the bench. Almost.
– YAAAAAAAY, papwrwork!!!!!!
I think that Bean will be going on lots of Gruffalo hunts in the near future :-)
When we were in the cab heading towards the hotel in Vevey, we came out of a tunnel and saw a beautiful vista of the Alps, the lake, Evian in the background, and a huge rainbow, whose tail end was almost straight on to the Nestle HQ buildings :) I’m hoping that’s a good sign.