Boricua en la Lima

This weekend was officially our last summer weekend as the weather is getting noticeably colder and Gabi starts school this week. So we went to Montreux – a beautiful town on the opposite side of the Lake where supposedly the biggest jazz festival happens every year and, as we later learned, was also home to Freddy Mercury for years. We arrived Thursday evening just in time for dinner and to get a glimpse of how beautiful the town is. However, Friday morning was chilly and rainy and I had to work so we just did a little bit of shopping around in the nearby clothing & toy stores. The kids were pleased with that of course, and Sebas, as usual, left the toy store with only Toy Story related items. He also left the clothing store with either Toy Story or Cars related clothing. That one has a one-track mind! On Friday afternoon when the weather cleared up and I was ok to stop working, we went to Chateau Chillon , a beautiful castle that served as the main fortress for the surroundi...

It's been getting cooler than I would like it to be which sadly means the days of summer are coming to a quick end. I guess that's another thing I'll miss about Cincinnati, having warm weather way into September and even being lucky enough 4 years in a row to have awesome weather for my daughter's birthday part in late October. I've told we will have no such luck here, which also means I gotta find a place to have a birthday party for a 5 year old who unfortunately only has 2 friends so far! Hopefully that changes pretty quickly once she starts school next week. But anyway, we went to Geneve Plage (or Geneva "Splash" as Gabi likes to call it now) on Saturday and then to Excenevex Plage on Sunday just trying to soak up the last few rays of sunshine while it's still warm enough to wear a bathing suit. Gabi is officially a different color now and Sebas is a slightly less pale shade of pale. It's too funny how to people who look so much alike can have ...

We traveled to Madrid on Wednesday morning and drove about 2 hours to Salamanca to a house my father was renting for the week.  We had a nice time walking around the town of Salamanca and eating.  However after about 2 days I couldn't have any more jamon iberico -- total overdose!  I am now in full iberico detox mode. As well as in wine detox mode.  On Friday we traveled to La Alberca, a town about 1 hour from Salamanca. This is where my sister's wedding was on Saturday afternoon.  We had a wonderful time and the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  We are back home exhausted but happy to be "home" for a few more days.  On Friday Aug. 27th we are going to Montreaux just for the weekend.  Then afterwards no more travel until October!!!! Also Gabi is in summer camp this week again so at least she's happy she's got stuff going on. Especially because she made a few friends during the wedding and I would've felt back if she went back home to be b...

This weekend we went to Disneyland Paris.  We took of Wednesday night after work, spent the night in a beautiful little town in France called Auxerre, and then drove the rest of the way early Thursday.  We literally spent every waking hour at Disney.  We would be there when the gates opened and would be there until around 9 pm when we couldn't take it any more and then we'd go back to the hotel lobby for a beer (or a milk depending on your age) and then hit the sack to do it all over again the next day.  However, I felt that this time was so much more fun than the last time.  Maybe because Sebastian is a little bit older and he therefore enjoyed it a lot more (although he was terrified of most rides in the beginning and then he started losing the fear as time wore on) or because the park is smaller and we were able to do a lot more (met a bunch of the characters, saw the different parades, rode the rides a bunch of times, etc.).  Or maybe because this was t...

No beach pictures this weekend!  We did have a nice time at the pool Saturday afternoon and got to the beach ready to go un Sunday around 10 am, but Gabi got bitten by a bee while building a sand castle and I didn’t know if she’d be allergic or what given it’s her first time so we decided to leave for a clinic not knowing if we had to remove the stinger.  The only clinic that we’ve been recommended is close to our house so even though it’s a 40-45 min. drive to the beach we came all the way back to the clinic as we didn’t want to risk it.  Turns out the stinger wasn’t inside, so she just got a prescription for an anti-biotic, and anti-inflammatory and an anti-histaminic (so many ANTI’s!).  By the time we got out of the clinic and the pharmacy (there’s only 2 pharmacies open on Sundays and they’re both pretty far from home) we were starving and it was too late to go back to the beach.  We had to make do with the food at home (it was the Swiss Independence Holiday so practically NOTHING ...

Gabi finished her summer camp on Friday -- her teachers were already sad despite the fact that it was only a week long! By Friday I had decided I would sign her up for another week in August.  She was super sad on Friday morning that it was all ending and started to say she missed her Cincinnati frieds after she found the bracelet her good friend Andrea gave her as a farewell gift.  I felt so bad for her -- 4 year olds shouldn't suffer from being far away from friends and family but I guess living on the other side of the ocean it's inevitable.  So at least she was happy she's going back for one more week before school officially starts on September 1st.  So she's got one "boring" week this week, next week is Disney, then Spain, then summer camp, then one more "boring" week and then school starts.  Hopefully that's enough activity to keep the homesickness at bay! Alberto came to visit us yesterday he's in town today for meetings and then h...

Gabi had a blast. She says she made 16 friends but doesn't remember any of their names. Her teacher is half Venezuelan and the assistant also speaks Spanish. They did so many cool things she can't remember. All she knows is shes grown up and pretty soon the jonas brothers are going to show up and start singing like in high school musical or something like that. Tomorrow is water day can't imagine it being any more fun than it was today but I guess it will be!!! And as proof she wont remember anything. I take it as a sign that things were so overwhelmingly fun there was no way to keep it all straight in her head. Today we finally got our drivers license, a DVD player that plays US movies so they can watch something OTHER than toy story, and a cd player for sebas' lullabies so he's off going to sleep all by himself. Thanks to the music to quote ABBA.  And gabi? She went to sleep before any of us did, including sebas. Cant wait for school to start in September. :)

This is a bilingual post because I'm too lazy to translate, plus some things really do just come out better in Spanish... We got 240 CHF in speeding tickets by mail yesterday I almost died when I saw the letter. And we got both on the same street. Today we found the camera once we knew the address. And by the way, every ticket for 120 CHF was for going 6 km per hour above the limit! Can you believe it? We are scared of what we'll get from July. At least now we know so hopefully no more from here on out! But 240 CFH is a pretty expensive lesson to learn... No nos querian dejar entrar al cina a ver Toy Story porque Sebas no tiene 3 anos. Por poco me vuelvo loca empece a gritarle a la tipa "I've been promising to take them for a month!!!!". Por poco le hago todo el cuento CABRONA LOS TRAJE A GINEBRA ESTAN ABURRIDISIMOS EN CASA LES LLEVO PROMETIENDO ESTO HACE UN MES THIS IS THEIR ESCAPE IF YOU DON'T LET ME IN THEY WILL BE HEARTBROKEN. Pero Jose luego fue el so...

We are enjoying our stay -- but I definitely do miss being in the old little world where I felt the kids were so happy. I feel guilty about making them be here at home, I feel like they are all bored and I think back to their wonderful teachers and their wonderful friends and feel badly for pulling them out of that happy world! I think things will get better for them soon but my heart breaks leaving them at home with the nanny. The nanny is wonderful but of course she has other responsibilities too and is not there to play with them all the time. So it's just Sebas and Gabi and I feel like they just get bored all day long. They go to the park every once in a while which is the highlight of their day when they do go. Thankfully Sebas isn't biting anymore, although he pinches now! :) Next week Gabi will go to a one week summer camp in her new school - while it's only one week I think it'll help her maybe get to know some people and just do a lot of fun activities for a ...

I want to go visit Cincinnati soon. I was supposed to go for work at the end of this month but the meetings got cancelled and it didn't make sense for me to go at this point.  But I want to see all my friends and go to spinning and get pedis/manis and waxing and all the stuff that is way too expensive here. And I want PANCAKES. No pancakes here and no maple syrup at the store can you believe that! Other than that things are good, slowly getting used to the little quirks that the country has. They’re so annoying in the beginning but once you start getting used to them it doesn’t feel so bad. I do miss having girlfriends, I need a good girls night out! The office is too quiet since my whole team seats in the US so I’m all “alone” in the morning and once people start coming in we’re emailing all the time and there is no actual TALKING! We are planning a couple of trips – Euro Disney early august, Spain for a wedding mid-August, then hopefully late September Spain again just to meet...

I have to say with the heat this summer if we keep going to the beach every weekend we will all be toast by the end of the summer.  Welll all except Sebas.  As Gabi so aptly puts it everyone in our family is a "little brown" -- Mami, and Papi, and Gabi.  Everyone except Sebas who is "really light".  Evidence of this is the fact that by Sebas' standards he is SUPER TAN, but he's just a slightly darker shade of beige. As a result Jose is always prompted to ask who really is the kid's dad.  If it wasn't for the fact that he's identical to Gabi (save for the skin color),  I might be prompted to ask myself. On Saturday our neighbor had told us about the "Lake Parade" so we went to down to see what was going after Sebas' nap.  What we ran into was quite the interesting sight.  All the cross dressers and crazy folk came out in style.  My only question is...where are these people normally hiding?  However, let's not forget there is ...

This is next to our old house! Mt. Lookout bank robbed

Well that was the most fun I'd had since Ivonne came to visit me in Cinci last month!  Mara came to visit us for a SHORT but fun-filled weekend and we of course had to show her the best we've seen of the city so far.  She arrived Friday afternoon and by total luck we were both at the SAME WRONG train station.  Amazing how things work out isn't it? On Friday night we went to a school year end parade around Thonex (the area where we live) and then to the old city to get a bite to eat, a few drinks, and watch Ghana lose in penalty shots -- heartbreaking. On Saturday morning we took her to Annecy but we decided to do it up a little bit vs. last time.  Instead of renting a pedal boat we actually rented a REAL boat -- way easier on the legs!  Way to live it up man.  Like they say in PR: "Como viviran los ricos?"  It means "if us poor folk live like this, how do rich people live?" On Sunday we went back to Yvoire as well. Both places were SOOO much mo...

Yesterday we ventured out to the "beach".  It opens at 10 am and in true Jose fashion we were there at 9:30 am.  To my surprise by the time the gates opened there was a pretty long line and people were rushing in when the gates opened to find a good spot.  We ended up situating ourselves around the kiddie pool of course.  The kids had a blast going between this one and the adult pool where there was one of those big winding slides that Gabi actually went down in after getting up enough courage to do it.  We were only there until ~12:30 pm cause we started getting tired and hungry but it was pretty crowded by then.  Sebas loved the sprinklers although fell right smack into the pool at one time from running out of the sprinklers a little too excitedly.  The funniest thing about the whole day was that we didn't actually found a beach.  It's more like a big water park with different pools and stuff.  And I guess people do jump in the lake....

Things I wish (and thought) should've been on the air shipment but weren't: - Cat stuff: when the cat arrived I had to run out and get food, plates, cat litter, a cat litter box, and a scooper which was the HARDEST thing to find on Earth. - My SCALE (which was a wedding gift from Mauricio): I want to know what I weigh in POUNDS not Kilos thank you. - CAR SEATS:  We have to return the rental car today and come to realize we don't have car seats for the kids.  And I refuse to buy a new car seat because there are TWO FREAKING CAR SEATS for Sebas in the move when now we only need one because we only have one car. - Contact lenses:   Before we left Cincinnati I bought a 6 months contact lens supply not knowing when I would find an optometrist and also being pretty sure whatever I got at Sam's club would be waaaay cheaper than what I found here.  I only packed one month's supply though (maybe 6 weeks) and I am dangerously low on that supply.  If I have to...

We'd been going past this place a few times.  It's literally two doors down from our house.  We went in last night on a "special date" with Gabi.  It was a lot fancier than we expected given the facade that we always walk by, but it was a great little place to go back to (especially when Dads visit and they can afford to pay for all of us).   The best part is that it's literally next door.  http://www.hostariadevillette.ch/main.php I loved seeing the pictures on the wall of how our street looked like 100 years ago...which is SURPRISINGLY the SAME as it looks like right now. Also, I had a flourless chocolate torte with apples in it and ice cream on the side so I gotta go on the treadmill for an hour today...

It was bitterly cold this weekend.  As if summer had decided to stay in Cincinnati and not come with us.  Plus it's been raining and overall super dreary. But we decided to do a bit more exploring this weekend nonetheless.  When we came back from Yvoire last Sunday our next door neighbor (who also owns the house we are living in) recommended that we go to Annecy, he said it was even more beautiful than Yvoire which was a little hard to believe.  But I guess he was right.  This place reminded me so much of Venice, but it might be even prettier than Venice because it's not so crowded. Although who knows had the weather been a little better.  We walked around, had wonderful food, then did the pedal boats around the lake, followed by a little train ride which let us discover everything they had there.  We discovered they have a little beach so we'll definitely be bringing our friend Mara when she comes to visit.  Hopefully the weather is ...

The food here is awesome.  I joke about having a glass of wine and brie every night and it's actually not far from the truth.  I remember during our house hunting visit going to some "fast food" sandwich place in the middle of the city and having the most amazing sandwich - it was the simplest recipe: baguette bread, brie, and lettuce. I loved it.  Not to mention the belgian waffle covered in chocolate that followed it.  But then somethig happened and I started to get that "American food" craving.  Right before we left we went to one of those fancy chain food seafood restaurants and I remember ordering apple pie.  And don't get me wrong, I have ALWAYS liked apple pie, but never to the point where I would pass something made of CHOCOLATE in favor of apple pie.  But I wanted to eat anything that was remotely American. Now I crave all things American: hot dogs, apple pie, hamburgers.  And I've never been one to eat those things, well maybe except f...

Thank goodness it's Friday cause this morning I've had enough aggravation for the whole weekend.  Jose got home last night from London thank goodness not too late.  But this morning he had to wake up super early to purchase the used car from his boss.  So I'm stuck again having to do the "goodbyes" at home with the kids which are getting worse and worse because they cry every time I leave.  It's heart breaking.  But then I got the bus which was even faster than before so that was good.  However, as soon as I get to work and start cranking away on the to do list the nanny calls that we have to move the car because of the construction. At first I thought she was calling to say Sebas had thrown up again cause last night he threw up all over his bed and I had to wash clothes in the middle of the night without Jose being there in that crappy washer/dryer that doesn't dry anything.  Worse yet I had to take Sebas' blankie away from him which is a huge ordeal....

It seems like I take two steps forward and then two steps back. Today I had an allergist appointment at 11 am so I decided to combine " car errands " to use the car only one day and go back to the bus tomorrow . Yes I'm that green. No I'm not really that green it's just that driving in the city is so aggravating it's so much easier to take the bus (even though last night coming home I missed my exit in the rain so I had to walk longer than I normally would in the pouring rain in flip flops ). But anyway , first I went to Gabi's future school to drop off an application for summer camp so that she'll have something special to do during at least one week this summer . Of course it takes me 20 min. longer to get there cause I'm going around in circles cause the GPS can never find the exact address . At least I heard that she's getting in so...