Camping in France

I've finally gotten around to finishing a blog post. [gasp]  I just haven't been in blog mode lately... I just post the photos on Facebook and act like it's sufficient in letting people know what we do and that we're alive.  However, for some reason, I forget to email our non-facebook family members the link to our albums.  :(  I'm sorry.  After this post, I'll be sure to link them up on here.

Last month we went camping in Annecy, France.  It's about a 45 minute drive from Geneva and it is b-e-a-utiful.  On Friday afternoon, we crammed the clown car with every camping essential you'd need for living at Everest Base camp.... for one night... with the dogs... with a chance of rain... not knowing if we'd even find a campsite.  It was highly likely that our evening wouldn't work out well.  We wanted to go because we have planned a couple other more 'intense' trips with friends soon.  Also, Adam was SOOOO excited.  5-year old style.  So this was practice for us.  We want to make it appear that we know what we're doing when our other trips roll around.  Here's a map of our drive, courtesy of Google maps.

We headed off, got through the French border (quite busy during rush hour), found more traffic in downtown Annecy, and made it to our campground in about an hour and a half.... not 45 minutes.  Annecy is a hopping little town!  Most campsites didn't officially open until the Sunday after we were there, but we stopped at the tourist office and asked them which places were open and if they accepted two small beasts. Jackpot.

Off we went again... heading around the lake away from Annecy a little.

Another twenty minutes and we arrived at Au Coeur du Lac... which means 'heart of the lake.'  How cute. We wound up having to drive a little bit further than Annecy, but it was worth it.  It was a great campsite and even had toilets and showers!!!  I know.   That's cheating right?  We didn't take showers though.  Ewww.  I will mention that we were one of two spots that had a tent.  Seriously.  Everyone else had a camper or mini-rv.  We were entertainment for them.  Here's a picture of our spot.  This was taken the next morning after we packed up because I forgot to take a photo of our hard work. :(

Here's a run down of how our night went...

• Tied the dogs to a tree [the PETA freaks scream].  You don't know our dogs.  They're untrustworthy in new situations.  Plus, they lack thumbs and couldn't assist in setting up 'base camp.'  They sat there and looked cute while we struggled to keep our dignity in front of all of the people watching from their campers.  
• Laid the tarp down and proceeded to get out 'the big green monster.'  Our new tent was literally delivered 6 hours before we had planned to go... perfect timing.  This is a picture of it.  This is from Amazon and ours didn't exactly look this perfect when we finished setting it up.  The bottom picture is more realistic.  And yes, you can stand in it.

  

One side didn't cooperate with us.  It was our storage room, so we didn't care.  Saggy-lopsided room wasn't priority #1.  Eating was.

• Rocco escaped.  He heard a scream (from our neighbor's special needs child) and decided he needed to investigate... or save them.  He darted away from his tree and I had accidentally leashed his tag ring instead of his collar ring.  Ooops.  More entertainment for everyone... crazy dog being followed by crazy lady screaming.  I caught him and put him in the car.  He had to get used to the random screaming.  He loves the car, so he was happy as a clam.   
• Decided to let Brontosaurus off  his leash... and roam wild.  He did great and always does better when T-Rex isn't around to instigate trouble.  He followed me around the tent to stake it down.  Look at the sweetness!  

 

• Time to get grilling... the sun was going down.   Adam set our new grill up.  Yes, every single piece of our camping equipment is new.  We're not campers and we don't have a patio for a grill at our tiny apartment.  We have a tent and a large grill stored at our house in Phoenix, but we didn't bring them because we don't camp and we knew we wouldn't have a patio.  The new grill worked like a charm.  Grillmaster Adam cooked up some chicken, burgers, and veggie kebabs.  I may have over packed on food. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Decided to let T-Rex out of the car while the food was cooking.  He LOVES people food, so we knew the vulture in him would make him stay.  His favorite is vegetables, but he'll eat anything... even a bag of raw pasta noodles... or an entire loaf of bread... or even a pack of 8 waffles.  He was obviously ashamed of what he had done.  He got out of the car and followed me closely and turned sweet again.  

•  Dinner was amazing and the boys just lounged around with us on a blanket while we played cards, drank wine, and had a nice little chat about life... and how weird it was to say 'Oh yeah, we just went camping in France for the weekend.'  We still have moments where we don't believe we actually live here.

• T-Rex took off again.  The second time, he saw a young boy running back to his campsite and decided he didn't like it.  He chased him down and gave him a good 'barking at' while the boy peed his pants and scrambled to get into his luxury camper.  More embarrassment. 
• After we finished our bottle of wine, it was time to settle in.  Let me give you a quick reminder of our campsite:  lots of older people, kids, completely gated, a tiny French town, showers/toilets, office where you could buy snacks, ping pong tables, etc.  We were not in the wilderness.  However, once I laid down... the paranoia began.  I was sure that a serial killer was on the loose and targeting the only dummies in a real tent... easy victims.  The shadows on the outside of the tent, the sounds of nature, and the fact that we were sleeping in a bag... within another giant bag... with zippers... outside... all played into my mental lapse.  I didn't sleep a wink.  Seriously.  The movies Friday the 13th and Blair Witch even crossed my mind.

At one point (approximately 2am), I woke Adam up with my heart racing.  I thought I heard footsteps through the grass and our grill being messed with... stolen in fact.  Here's how it all went town

Me in whisper voice: "Adam! [poke, poke] Adam!  Someone is stealing our grill.  I think someone is outside!"    

Adam: [leaps up, unzips the tent in .3 seconds, and rushes outside ready to get the grill snatcher]

Me: [trembling with fear and hoping the grill snatcher wasn't going to kill Adam]

Adam: [comes back in] "Nope.  It's still there... and my socks are soaked."

Me: "I swear I heard someone walking around."

I checked the time and laid back down. 

• 3:00am :  Serial killer threat level: 10

• 4:00am

• 5:00am

• 6:00am: sun rises.  Serial killer threat level dwindles to a mere 0.  

• 6:30am: I woke up because I had to pee and our tent was slowly becoming a sauna.  
• 7:30am:  everyone was up and I was thoroughly made fun of for being such a weirdo and not sleeping
• We decided to take a little walk by the lake before heading out.  Here was our view:

 

  

Cue the mosquitoes.

 

• We got out of there quickly once we realized we were being attacked by mosquitoes.  It was such an amazing view though.

After we got back to our little campground, we took everything down and loaded up the car.  It came down pretty fast and we actually got the tent back in the bag!!!  Woohoo!  We were out of there by noon and on the road back to Geneva.  Once we got back home, I took a shower and then an 8 hour nap.  :)

We'll let you know how round 2 goes.  I'm hoping I'll get more sleep next time.   

Au revoir!

Ashley

My life as a first grader.

We (mostly I) have been functioning as a six year old for the past several months.  Some would say that's how I function in all areas of my life, but I think it's mostly just the following:

Address - It took me two months to learn our address.  Sometimes I still get mixed up on our 'post code' (zip code), but I got it down now!  They write addresses differently over here.  For example, if I wanted to send a letter to Big Bird:

Monsieur Big Bird

Rue de Sesame 12

3456 Creepy Town

Street # and zip code are in different places from US style.  You don't put what floor he's on nor do you put the country.  Unless he moves to China.  

Phone Number - I was just recently able to give my phone number to someone without looking at it in my contacts (last week).  This is a huge accomplishment!  Usually I have to ask Adam what it is, but after one too many 'looks' and sighs of disapproval from him, I thought it would be best if I learned it.  Swiss do phone numbers this way:

(+41) 12 345 67 89  (+41 is Switzerland's country code)

It also took us seven hours to figure out how to dial a +

or

012 345 67 89 (if you call from a Swiss phone)

This is Rocco and I practicing on a plastic phone Adam bought for me:

Just kidding.  I would never wear head-to-toe baby pink.

Money - I am now proficient at using the various bills and coins.  Having seven different coins to mentally and physically manage is difficult.  However, I can now go through the grocery line and use coins rather than just hand the lady a 100chf bill (which used to happen each time).  When I first tried using coins, I got death stares because it took me soooo looonnnng to count it out.  Pretty detrimental to confidence.  I'm awesome at it now.  

 

Time - We use 24 hour time (Army time) over here.  It's horrible.  Seriously.  When we arrived, I made a vet appointment for the boys and showed up three hours early because I got times confused.  When someone says "See you at vingt hour" (20:00) I have to mentally subtract 12.  Sometimes I even catch myself using my fingers.  At first I think 20:00?!  That's too late for dinner!  Then I realize it's only 8:00.  I can't tell you how many times I have been asked the time by strangers.  I ALWAYS freeze up too.  Not because I don't know what time it it, but I just don't know how to communicate it.  It's so weird.  I am hoping to master the time skills by the time we move back.  Probably won't happen.

Temperature - Celsius.  It sucks.  I seriously loathe (stronger than hate) using Celsius.  I just poke my head out of the window to get the weather forecast. 20 degrees Celsius means nothing to me.  I know that 24-ish is really nice, 30 is hot, and Phoenix is somewhere around 83.  I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it.

  

Thanks Anders Celsius.  

P.S. Your hair is ugly.

Conversions - Ahh the metric conversions.  I remember learning something in school about them and thought "Pfft, we don't use the metric system here so who cares?"  Funny how that worked out.  Metric is easy in and of itself.  However, going from cups/miles/feet/pounds/etc. (empirical system) to anything metric requires technical assistance and critical thinking skills.  I have an app on my phone (Well, did.  I recently washed it doing laundry... another story.) and I frequently refer to my Better Homes cookbook index for conversions.  Celsius fits in again here.  If someone said, "Hey Ashley, I need 4 deciliters of peanut butter.",  I would have no clue what that looks like.  Is that close to a cup?  A barrel?  A teaspoon?  Equivalent to a swimming pool?  Who knows.   I try to not do any conversions.  Or I just guess.  Hopefully no one will ever ask me for 4 deciliters of peanut butter.

Look at this witty comic I found.  Someone spent way too much time drawing out a cheesy joke.

French - Oh my gosh.  I feel like a toddler trapped in an adult's body.  I am learning French, but I have a very limited range of vocabulary and applicable phrases... equivalent to our 2.5 year old nephew's language skills.  That's actually if I can get the words out of my mouth.  Usually a French conversation induces heart palpitations and extreme palm sweat.  I know how to say random things like "It's snowing out. I am American.  Do you have any apples?  My dogs are both male.  Where is the bank?"  Honestly, though I can't just walk up to people and say "Hello!  It is snowing.  Do you have apples?"

I was 'talking' to a lady one day about the fur kids and she said "Ohh!  Voila! (vwah-la) and quickly stormed off.  It was awkward.  Really awkward.  I mentally retraced the conversation trying to figure out what went awry.  I said my French phrases again and figured it out.  I was trying to tell her they were male and kind of bad, but I wound up saying they were bad and very sick.  Oops.  Also, I may have misdirected an elderly woman asking for directions to the bus stop one morning.  I hope she didn't have anywhere important to be.  Like a life saving doctor's appointment.

I can only wish that one day I will be able to communicate as good as a French-speaking first grader.  I think Adam's given up learning French.  I don't blame him.

              

Au revoir!

Boating on Lake Geneva

This past Saturday we rented a boat. I don't know if words are necessary.  Picture blog time... 

Click to go to boat rental site.

Boat rental:  50chf for 1 hour.  Completely worth it.  It was so much fun.  :)

This shouldn't be allowed.  

Time to switch drivers.  He was a little reckless.

The UN 

We found life jackets.

Now for some ginormous Swiss houses on the lake.  A lot (just the land!) is roughly 5 million.  

Storm brewing.  We needed a bigger motor to get back quickly.

 

Perle du Lac (where we went to see Top Gun in the park)

You can actually rent a sailboat too.  Without a license (scary).  This is our next plan for when it's actually sunny and we can stay out longer.   

...or we might get this one.  It has a table and shade.  Party boat. 

Au revoir!