JustJess
First six days in my new home country passed unsurprisingly quickly. From the moment my host mum picked me up at the railway station in Lausanne, there was still something going on. New faces, new tastes, paperwork, learning how to drive here, getting to know the children… but what probably got stuck in my head the most was the view. The lake with mountains all around.
I snapped a fast photo from a car when we were riding to the final destination. But the photo can’t really cover all my feelings from reality. I simply found myself in heaven. Even if something goes wrong in just a few weeks and my host family will send me back home, the journey itself will still be worth the view. I can’t get enough of it. I am still looking around and I can’t believe I am now living in such a beautiful place. I am trying to find the words to describe this landscape. But I am failing.
The first day, I got some time to settle down in my apartment and rest after the journey. Of course I did not rest, because I had to go for a short walk by the lake, which is actually… two minutes from my place. The evening I spent with the family, their friends and neighbours by the lake. I also got to meet the children. And my first impression? It was something like: “Oh my God… they are really children!” I mean… Only the oldest one has a phone and he was still running around with friends and they were all playing around. That was a bit of a shock. Back home all the children have their faces stuck on phone screens. Or maybe I was not hanging around children as much to make an objective opinion? Yes, that’s also possible.
The second day I spent whole with my host mum. We got through a lot of paperwork… registration to the population office, registration to social insurance and so on… but the funniest thing of all was picking up a mobile subscription. Because as I mentioned before, I can’t use my Czech subscription in Swiss without paying crazy additional money, so I needed to get a Swiss number. It was very funny and frustrating at the same time.
The thing is, that I worked for one unnamed phone services provider back in the Czech Republic. So I can honestly say, people there have nothing to complain about. And they do it a lot. They always say that they have nothing to pick up from, that subscriptions with high data are expensive and so on… but here… and that’s the funny thing, providers will basically let you choose from 3 types of subscriptions. One is basically without data (around 500 MB) and then rests with unlimited data but those are from 50 Francs a month and up. Which is more or less the same as in the Czech Republic, but there you can have it without a contract. In Swiss you are always bound to pay it for at least 12 months. Back home you are free to cancel any time, you have much more to choose from when it comes to data. Not everyone needs unlimited, right? So honestly… It was a nice comparison. And yeah, Czech people are really fortunate with mobile services providers.
The third day, it was Thursday, I was alone with the kids for the first time. So I came in, I started doing their laundry (which is one of my basic tasks), and then I cooked lunch for them. I got another small shock. The kids don’t like cheese sauce. I was honestly surprised. Because most of the kids back home are killing for cheese sauce. Especially made with Swiss cheese! But no… they ate potato gnocchi which were not touched by the sauce and that was all. Alright… first mistake. I knew cooking was going to be a problem. Because these kids are used to eating something completely different then kids back home. I knew I will have to adapt. But I had no idea how. Luckily, pancakes are a lifesaver.
The same day my girls took me to the lake for swimming for the first time. Unsurprisingly, people here swim a lot and the same goes for my kids. My older girl is such a great swimmer that I seriously started thinking about her having some mermaid gene. I myself, am a bad swimmer. I mean, I can swim but I guess I am moving my legs wrong or something, because I get tired very quickly. But maybe it’s gonna change here. Because the lake is really amazing and the water is so warm! If I were living here permanently, I could imagine myself going swimming every evening.
The first week I was also invited to my host mum’s parents for barbeque, which I couldn’t refuse because I wanted to meet the whole family and also get some cooking inspiration. It was really nice. Even older people here can speak very good english, so there was no problem with communication. There I was offered a cup of Gazpacho soup. How could I refuse? It is a legendary dish that I actually first heard of from the mouth of a TV series character but… yeah, thanks to him I was sure I wouldn’t complain about it being cold. 😀 How did I like it? Well… I found that Gazpacho soup… is not a thing for me. Too much vegetables. Anyway, the soup was so vivid, that I was then unable to eat almost anything else. But at least, I tried something new.
A similar experience almost came the next evening. This time we were at a barbecue held by my host family’s friends. There was a lot of food I knew from my previous visits of Switzerland, like Bratwurst (typical sausages). But there was also a nice looking piece of meat that was smiling at me from the pan and I was thinking about eating it. Luckily, the father of a family we were visiting told me, which meat was what. That’s how I figured out that the piece of meat that was making sad eyes on my stomach was actually… a horse. At that moment, I was very happy I didn’t eat it. Because I don’t know what my stomach would do if this information came after. They were also all very surprised to hear that we don’t normally eat horses in the Czech republic. But in Swiss? Yeah, no problem to buy horse meat in the supermarket. So… that was close. Thank God it was friday.
Weekends are my time off. So I didn’t lose any time and on Saturday morning I went for a walk by the lake to a nearby city called Vevey. It has a nice historical centre and on the main square there is a vegetable market on Saturday morning. I also found that there is a flea market. I was so happy about it! I love discovering old treasures… mainly jewelry. One of my most favourite things about Switzerland in the past, were Brockenhauses. Those are basically shops where people give away their old things and the shops are reselling them. Just like flea markets. But the difference is that the money from the sale goes to charity. It is a very nice idea and in those shops you can always find very original things and treasures. But unfortunately, these Brockenhauses are only in Deutsch speaking part of Switzerland, so I was happy to find at least this flea market.
Sunday I went to Montreux. The city is famous for its Jazz festival. It was over an hour walk from my place, and I unfortunately found out that I can’t walk by the lake. So I was walking by the main road for at least 35 minutes. Once I got closer to the city, I got to the lake pedestrian zone again and enjoyed the view at the mountains at the other side of the lake, as well as above Montreux. The viewpoint of the area, Rochers de Naye (2042 a.s.l) is directly above Montreux.
I took a walk around the city and made a selfie with Freddie Mercury like any other tourist. Freddie’s statue has been guarding the shore since 1996 and it was made by Czech sculptor Irena Sedlecká. Nearby is a recording studio, where Queen recorded from 1978 to 1995. From 2003 the place was turned into the Queen museum. I didn’t visit it that day. There will be enough time for museums in winter.
I was already tired enough to take a train home. So I found a train station on google maps and headed towards it. Surprisingly I ended up at the station of cog railway. That’s another original thing about this place. There are no cable ways. You can get up to the mountains with cog railways. Anyway that was not a station I could get home from. Well theoretically I could, with one transfer but these trains are much more expensive than normal trains. So I found a main railway station on my phone and this time, I made sure I was going to the right place. But it was nice anyway. Because I found a few nice views at the lake and saw a bit more of the old city of Montreux.
By the time I got home, I was only in mode to relax and I was getting mentaly ready for the next week. Because in Switzerland, the school started in the last week of August. So from Monday, I am in full operation as an Au-pair. And my host mum is leaving for a business trip. So I will have to figure it out myself…. Especially… the cooking!
