View From Our Dining Room Window

It hasn't taken long for our daily patterns to change, and the new normal to feel good.
We wake up later, shop at the market everyday, walk or ride busses everywhere, see our grandsons almost everyday, have lunch at various cafes, and eat dinner much later.
We haven't yet carved out a life for ourselves outside of our kids but we will. There hasn't been time yet. I know I must bring more comfortable walking shoes since by evening I feel like I've walked a marathon. Again I am grateful for hiking at TSR and for Denny's body pump class which is very popular here. It is not a surprise that Europeans do not have an obesity problem like ours. We do not miss driving.

We shop at the market daily as we only buy what we can carry. We each take a backpack and a large plastic reuseable grocery sack, but it is a long climb uphill to home. We limit canned goods, and it is a big decision whether to buy the 6 or 4 pack of toilet paper, for space rather than weight. We are also restrained by the size of our very small refrigerator  and our miniscule freezer. There we can just about fit one container of fabulous Movenpick ice cream, an ice tray, and a small poulet.

Food, restaurants, clothing, gasoline, are more expensive here than in the US. If one could live on wine, bread, an local cheese, one could live very reasonably. Though we are enjoying these things our diets require additional items. Fruit and veggies are quite high and things that are commonplace at home are difficult to find here, like limes or ground turkey or a small ceramic teapot at less than 50 Swiss francs.

 I am glad so much of the meat comes in packages with pictures as well as words. There is a picture of an animal on the meat or cheese package, a  little chicken or a cow or a lamb or a horse. Yesterday I wanted to make a turkey loaf. It ended up being a chicken/ pork loaf as turkey was not to be found.

I am making a list of items to bring back here when we return. There are things that I wish I could bring but weight makes it unreasonable. There is no such thing as boxed stocks for making soup. The only thing availabe is Knorr boullion cubes. My kids bring home Skippy peanut butter when they visit the US. I will bring Dove soap bars. We will definitely bring home our winter clothes and return with summer clothes.

The forsythia and magnolia trees are blooming. The past two days have reached 70 degrees. We have had only 2 days of rain in 2 1/2 weeks. Life is excellent.