Geneva

We spent the weekend with Oma and Papa in Geneva. On Saturday, we took the 3 hour train ride, which was remarkably uneventful- and almost peaceful! Seems like the 4 adults to 2 children ratio works well for us - especially when one of them (Jack) is glued to the DVD player, having just gotten our latest shipment from amazon.com in Oma and Papa's suitcase (with all the Christmas classic DVD's inside). Kate was content to take turns sitting in every seat, and to work on her "Hello Kitty" stickers and post-its with her artistic teacher, Oma. Jay did a little work and I read up on our destination, threatening everyone with "forced march" walking tours if they didn't behave.

We arrived midday to find Geneva in rain - so while Kate took her nap, Jack and Jay hit the pool - with Papa serving as a (smart) sideline cheerleader. Once she woke up, we went out for dinner... Along the way, we stopped at a small Christmas market, where Jack rode the carousel and Kate (having begged to stop at the carousel) refused to ride it after we bought her ticket. (Faithful blog-readers will find this behavior not surprising - what is surprising is that her parents continue to fall for her dramatic rendition of "I want to ride on the carousel" each time!) We then got completely lost, as there was a night-time race around the city and most of the streets were blocked off with runners and spectators. Luckily, we used our very little bit of French and found the restaurant in time for our 5pm reservation! We had a great meal filled with lots of cheese fondue and pasta.. perfect for everyone.

On Sunday, after a wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel, we hit the town... but after 4 stops on my self-led walking tour, the group rebelled and stopped for some impromptu ice-skating. It was Jack's first time, and Papa was brave enough to tackle the ice skates with him. Jack has been begging to try ice skating for the past two weeks, so it was so fun to see him tackle the ice with his Papa. While Jack was not a huge fan at first, he slowly got the hang of it and was laughing as he "tip toed" around the ice - holding onto a penguin (also on ice skates) for support.

After lunch at McDonald's for the kids (why does it seem we always go to McDonald's when traveling?), it was back for napping for Kate - and swimming for Jack - this time with both Mom and Dad. After nap, we took a wonderful boat ride around the lake - a perfect "indoor" activity on a cold and dark afternoon. (Its funny how our boat ride photos don't look anything like those on the tourist sites - where are all the sippy cups, robots and potato chips in the brochures?)

The kids were absolutely exhausted (did I mention Kate enforced her "no sleeping" rule the night before?), so we had them both in bed - and virtually asleep - at 7pm when the hotel babysitter arrived. I gave strict instructions to ignore both of my children (what a great mother) and with that, we went out for a wonderful Chinese dinner. We returned to the room at 9:30pm to find both kids wide awake - and running around the room. Seems like the babysitter decided to pay them some attention after all... oh, well.

On Monday, we awoke early and attempted to do some shopping - but when the rain started coming down in buckets, we decided it was probably better to head home to Zurich, where the kids could play at home - and we could do some shopping back there. So off to the train station we went. We all thought Geneva was a beautiful city, even if the weather didn't exactly cooperate with our sightseeing plans while there.

Once back, Oma and Papa came over to babysit - and Jay and I took a rare weekday trip to Bahnhofstrasse for some shopping. Since my parents had given me some "seed money" for a Swiss watch for Christmas last year, we finally put that generous gift to use - and I found a beautiful watch which will serve as a wonderful reminder of our time here. Jay managed to pick up a pair of shoes (and some free coffee and cookies from my watch store!), so he wasn't totally out of luck. It was a really nice afternoon - buying watches here is like going to a really relaxing, very quiet cafe - except a little more expensive.