I suppose no travel blog would be complete without at least a glimpse of the author's digs.
Well, here you are.
I live on Avenue de Beaumont, a street on the outskirts of Lausanne, Switzerland. Dominique and I have a one room apartment in an adorable building, whose entrance you see here.
Note the geraniums. These are EVERYWHERE, and are considered a compulsory part of the Swiss experience. I kid you not, I've read of some tenants who are required to plant and maintain geraniums in their window boxes, and if the plants die, the tenants must pay to replace them.
The apartment I have lovingly referred to as "The Shoebox" is located on the second floor.
When you open the door, this is what greets you.
Yup. twin-sized bed. It's small, but as several couples my parents' age have told me, "it's when you both can successfully sleep in a twin sized bed that you know you REALLY love each other..."
And as we move slightly to the right, we make our way to the beginnings of our kitchen. Note the fridge, (which is roughly one-sixth the size of your standard American fridge) and the plethora of tomato sauce, canned mackerel and the like. I am NOT a fan of canned mackerel. But heck, it's cheap, and Dominique has accumulated tons of it over the past few months, as it is included in every bag of groceries brought by his parents when they visit. So, we'll make do. Anyone know some recipes with mackerel?
To the right, we have our sink, hot plates and microwave. No oven. So, no home-baked pizza or meatballs... :(. But I guess that just means I'll learn new recipes!
Just out of the shot on the right is the door to our apartment.
On the left-hand side of the apartment, we have a table (read: catch-all for random stuff rather than a truly purposeful table) and chair along the wall, and beyond that, our small built in storage.
Now this space I'm proud of. My home in NJ boasts a fairly substantial walk-in closet, so when Dominique told me I'd have a roughly 18" length of closet, two cubbies and two small drawers to keep my worldly possessions, I was a wee bit concerned.
After the concern (read: panic) passed, I and my dear friend Cristelle put our heads together, space-bagged our little hearts out, and picked up some awesome collapsible storage boxes.
Once I arrived, I found that my stuff fit surprisingly well! The drawers handled my lingerie and books, the cubbies housed my art/writing supplies, techie stuff, practical documents and toiletries, and the closet managed to hold all of the clothes I intend to use within first two thirds of my stay. I am proud :)
PS - Note the yellow rainboots. Yup, they made it. I thought long and hard whether I wanted to allocate that much suitcase and closet space to such loud accoutrements, but I decided that so much of this trip is about finding myself, and these boots are a part of me - the smile up at the rainclouds me. The me I want to be every day. So, they came. Rain, how about you stop harassing my hometown a la Tropical Storm Irene, and come over here - tout de suite!
I'm ready for you.
And here, at last, is my favorite spot in our apartment - our balcony!
I should mention that this isn't all ours; our balcony territory runs from that near-most pole towards the camera, until the end of the length of the building. In all, it's about 7' x 3' of balcony space - not bad at all!
This shot was taken on a pretty cloudy day, but in clearer conditions, you can see the Alps beautifully, with so much depth and detail, right down to the little villages built into the mountain. And watching them at night, when they glitter like a strand of diamonds... good stuff. But of course that stuff is near-impossible to photograph well. So I'll just let you imagine it. :)
Annnd... that concludes the tour! I do have more photos, but Blogger only allows 5 photos per post, so I'll let the photos function as an aesthetic haiku.
Things are going pretty well. We have our up days and down days. I'm learning my way around. The French is coming slowly. I'm not too homesick yet. Jet lag has passed. I've learned how wonderful my husband is, in his own unique way. I've continued to learn how incredible my in-laws are. And I am ready to experience more.
Love to you all - especially everyone affected by Irene!
Until next time,
Cathlene
