Experimenting with photos

Time to start uploading some photos. I am starting small as this is my first time (ohhhh what excitement) and I want to see how it turns out.

Photo # 1 - My hubby in the kitchen cooking dinner!

Photo #2 - Le Tour de Champel. Our street is chemin de la tour de champel and this is the tour de champel. Go figure! It is right around the corner from our house about 50 yards away from the front door. Very cool.

That's Lars in front of Le Tour.

Photo #3 - The view from our patio.

Bush in Rome

Lars and I went to Rome for a weekend in June - the same weekend that George Bush was there. We found this out the hard way. While the taxi was driving us to the hotel we saw many military vehicles and dozens of police at each exit with guns. I thought that perhaps that we got off of the plane in the Middle East instead of Italy. The taxi gets about three blocks from our hotel and the driver says in broken English. Get out - walk to your hotel - all roads are closed. Turns out that our hotel (The Rose Garden, very nice by the way) is right across from the US embassy. So, we walked the rest of our way to the hotel. We were upgraded to a superior suite and all was well. The girl at the hotel kept saying what a tragedy it was that Bush was in Rome. I hoped that she wouldn't dwell on the fact to much that I had a U.S. passport. Everywhere we went we heard the helicopters. In the Vatician we had to leave early b/c Bush was coming in. No explaination from the guards, all they would do is say Bush...Bush...You must leave.....Bush, Bush.......while clicking their tongues and shaking their heads. They were none too pleased that our fearless leader was in their country.

I was excited that I finally got to see Rome and all of it's history (well, almost all of it. We walked so much I thought that my feet were going to fall off). I even saw George Bush. He was driven surrounded by a heavily guarded motorcade but he was in the back seat waving to all of us standing in the street watching him drive by. Who would of thought that I would of seen the President of the United States while in Italy. Now that is two for the price of one!

Time to Blog!!!

Well, for now I figured out how to fix the dashboard so that everything is in English. Hopefully I will be able to keep it that way because it gave me a headache just trying to fix it.
We have received our shipment of things (i.e. junk) from the U.S. and I am finally up and running on a computer. WHOHOO!! It has been approx. one month since I moved here and I am looking forward to being able to write about our adventures.
Things in Switzerland have been going well. The weather varies more than you can imagine. One day it is sunny and 90 degrees, and the next day there are torrential downpours - with hail no less. Very odd.

There are other odd things (well, odd to me) about Geneva that I have noticed and I have decided to make a list of them for your viewing pleasure.

1. People are very courteous/proper. Now, that might be normal in other parts of the world but when you are moving here from Boston it actually strikes you as odd. You people in Boston know what I am talking about. Before you ask someone a question in a store you must say (in French of course) Good day Sir (or Madame). If you do not, the person will actually correct you.

2. Red means stop (yes, stop. Not go for the first three seconds after getting the red light just because everyone else does), green means go, and people driving cars actually let you walk at a cross walk without trying to run you over. Again, this just might be a Boston thing but when I lived in the city it was every man/woman for themselves and God help any pedestrians.

3. Sundays are a day of rest. Literally. Almost all stores, restaurants are closed and I believe that it is illegal to even wash your car in your driveway on a Sunday. You are almost forced to spend the day with your loved ones. It's actually kind of nice....who would of ever guessed?!?

4. Geneva is a very clean city. I have actually seen people pick up a piece of trash off of the street and put into a garbage can. They seem to wash the streets almost every day. I have seen shop cleaners vacuuming the street in front of their shop. No lie. Oh, and did I mention that you will actually go to hell if you do not recycle?? In the interest of recycling/not wasting, if you want a bag with handles to put your groceries in, you actually have to pay 30 cents for it. I have invested in a tote for small purchases and a "wheelie" tote/cart thing for larger purchases when I walk to the store. I thought that you had to be at least the age of 80 to own one of those carts but they do actually come in handy. Not to mention that mine is very cute. Black with white flowers (fancy). If you do major shopping and need a cart you have to put a 2 chf coin into the cart. The only way you get your money back is if you return the cart to where it belongs. This is brilliant and they should enforce it in the States. This way you wouldn't have shopping carts in the parking lot because people are too damn lazy to return their carts. Target could definitely benefit from this idea.
Ohhhhh Target.........I wish that they had a Target here (sigh).

Free time in Geneva

Well, it has been one week and 5 days since I have moved to Geneva. I have had a LOT of free time to myself. I feel like I am on vacation - minus the beach. Although.......the lake here is quite lovely.

Dilemma #1 - I have finally gotten around to doing this blog AND it turns out that most if not all of the icons on my blog are in German. I have no idea what is going on or how to correct it. I can't even spell check b/c every word is showing up as an error because the spell check is - IN GERMAN. Bloody hell, like I can't understand what is going on around me in since it is in French and now I have to deal with German??!! UGH. Lars' server is a Dutch server so that is prob. what is going on. I only have today to do this post so please excuse the misspellings.

Dilemma #2 - I don't have easy access to a computer. Soooooo on line time has been very limited. It's very annoying but there is really no use in buying a computer for one month while we are waiting for our shipment to arrive.


That is what I am faced with today. I think that I will go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Who wants to sit at home on a laptop anyway when it is sunny outside???? NOT ME!!

April: Getting ready for Geneva

I knew that I would be in for an adventure when I married a man named Lars from Sweden...... I just never thought that the adventure would happen so soon!


This blog will be about the trials and tribulations of a "trailing spouse" UGH! What a terrible term - who in the world ever invented this term? I think that it was the mortgage industry (go figure!!) I must say that I am looking forward to having some time off and starting a new life. It's not everyday that you get to re-invent yourself.

A blog was the easiest way (for me!) to keep everyone up to date on the "Vicksen Adventure Series". I intend to keep you all amused and smiling at my mishaps in a foreign country. I just have to remember that this will be much different than when I lived in Spain. I am glad that they didn't have blogs back in the day. Think of all of the trouble that I would be in. ; )

Boston has been good to me. It has had its ups and downs but I have had a fantastic time and have made so many wonderful friends. I wish that I could take you all with me.... I will just have to trust that we will have many visitors once we get settled in.

I have given my notice at my job and my last day will be the 30th. What will I do with myself???? How will I not handle not being a slave to my phone/email?? I suppose that I will do just fine!! Summer in Europe - what could be better? I have signed up for French classes for 9 weeks from July to Sept. That should be interesting. I tried taking a basic French class here in Boston and I pronounced everything in Spanish. Learning French will be difficult but I am up for the challenge. I am hoping that the classes will occupy me for awhile.