A Weekend in our Swiss Village

One of the greatests parts of our Geneva experience has been living in a typical Swiss village. One of the greatest ironies of our Geneva experience is that within the last couple of years, our Swiss village has become populated with increasing numbers of anglophones. Funnily enough, rather than inhibiting integration into village life, this fact has facilitated it by making us all feel a little less isolated.

This new reality was never better demonstrated that this past long pre- la rentrée scolaire weekend (back to school) which was spent attending back-to-back aperos, dinners, and brunches without ever starting my car. So in detail...

Thursday was another hot day with temperatures peaking in the mid-30s. At the end of the day, J heard his name being hollered over the high hedgerows in our back garden and we wandered over to our neighbours, recently returned from summering in Romania. J spent the next couple of hours in their pool while Ioli and I caught up. I must admit, my French language skills have somewhat suffered in the last couple of months.

A couple of hours later, I made my way over to my South African friend Leigh-Anne's for a ladies-only champagne evening under the stars. Lots of lively conversation and lots of laughs ensued between we Canadian, American, South African, British, Swiss, and Finn women - it was a great party. Cindy and I staggered home together around 2:00 am.

Friday was the last day of a weeklong football camp for J, and Cindy scooped him up for the afternoon to play with her guys. She called later in the day to invite us over for a pizza and red wine evening. It was a gorgeous warm evening, and again we had lots of lively conversation and lots of laughs. C2 was in Zurich for the day but J and I meandered home under the stars around 11:00 pm.

Saturday dawned bright and warm again and I spent most of the day working in the garden. My geraniums are spectacular this year! Around 6:00, the three of us walked down the road to Jawahara and Bijoy's house for an amazingly prepared Indian dinner. Mmmm, my mouth is watering remembering that meal. Yet again, lots of lively conversation and lots of laughs. We wandered home admiring the stars in a clear sky around midnight.

Sunday morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 8:00 for a 12k run. I would not normally be quite so motivated quite so early on a Sunday but I'm training for the 16K Paris-to-Versailles race in late September and am adhering to a training plan. I could have run later but...wait for it..yep at 10:00 am, C2, J and I walked down the road and around the corner to our new American and Romanian friends, David, Lavinia, and their little son Dacian (see earlier blog about Kentucky, Transylvania and a Bottle of Palinka) for a champagne brunch that went on for several wonderful hours. Needless to say there was much lively conversation and lots of laughs.

All in all a pretty terrific weekend in a pretty terrific place with some pretty terrific people!