Shakespeare

It is the last couple of days. We have been packing, cleaning, moving furniture back to its original position and restoring the apartment to its original sparseness. The pants go tomorrow and the cleaning ladies arrive in the afternoon. I have packed four suitcases and Steve has packed three. We have left four small tubs of household things in Jed's garage. Other friends are holding the bicycle, BBQ, etc. We are two nights and two days away from our flight in Geneva.

Curious Auke & Curious Tern Listen to Grandma Read
a Curious George Story 

All I can think of is Shakespeare had it right. "Parting is such sweet sorrow." I am so ready to return to the States. I will miss the boys hugely. It has been a wonderful opportunity to really get to know them and for them us. It is a happy sad turmoil in my heart.

Getting Out, The Exit Visa

With less than three weeks left in Switzerland we decided it was time to go to the Office de Population and ask for an exit visa. We never did get an entry visa. 

We started with the Canton office in Vaud. This is the equivalent of the State government office. We had been here before several months ago.  The office hours are short with a long break at lunch so we timed our visit accordingly. At the door we took a ticket and waited. When it was our turn in the cubicle we explained that we never received a response to our appeal for an extended stay visa. We had submitted all the requested documents including a copy of our marriage license, and a copy of our lease. Now we wanted to leave and so needed an exit visa.

They explained that nothing we did mattered. Swiss law does not allow for extended stays. The only way to stay for more than 3 months is to become a "retraité" which is an option for people over 60 years who desire to make Switzerland a permanent home. This would mean paying Swiss taxes as Switzerland would be considered our primary home. This was not what we wanted to do or why we were there.

Then it was our turn to explain that we are leaving on Sept 30. Though we realized we had been here longer than possible we now needed an exit visa to leave. This they said could be done for 90 chf  and passport photos. The money we had, but the photos were at home since we did not realize we might need them. They told us to come back with the money, the photos and photo copies of our plane tickets to USA. 

Next day we returned with everything including the extra copies of the passport photos that we had made for our train passes. My photo was approved but Steve's photo was rejected as he was smiling and showing a little bit of teeth. It seems passport control does not recognize you if you are smiling. Steve was livid. It was good there was a glass wall between us and the clerk.

So we had to once again find a photo booth in the train station. This was another 8 chf. Steve took his photo looking grim and solemn. I went off to my class at the gym and Steve returned to the office for the third time in 2 days with the required copies plus 180 chf for both of us. He waited 1.5 hours and finally he received our exit visas. Hallelujah! BUT. . .

The next step was to go to the commune of Pully, our city, to notify them in writing that we are departing the country. Again we had to produce our plane tickets with our exit visas from the canton as well as  5 chf each.  The woman clerk here remembered us from the time we registered as residents of Pully and they took 234 chf from us for the privilege of living there. She rolled her eyes in disbelief that they did not give us a resident permit.

Then she surprised us with the good news. The 234 chf that we paid in April was returned to us on the spot since we never received a resident permit. So after months of waiting and jockeying with bureaucrats we are finally official to leave the country.

The Rainy Day Option

Almost every week we go on a hike to some new place we can get to by train. Occasionally it has been on the weekend with our kids. More recently we have been going by ourselves during the week. Yesterday we had two possibilities, one for a rainy day and one for sunshine. Weather dictated the rainy day option.

We took the train to the third largest city in the French part of Switzerland. La Chaux-de-Fonds may not be well known outside of Switzerland but history and culture abounds in this high altitude city. It is the birthplace of Le Corbusier and Louis Chevrolet. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its watchmaking town planning. It has a beautiful gem of a Beaux-Arts museum and a phenomenal Musée International d'Horolgerie. It is just North of Lac Neuchâtel in the mountains separating Switzerland from France. We visited on the last day of August and it was cold, windy and rainy. The city is known  the Swiss Siberia for getting the most amount of snowfall in the country.

Planetary Clock

La-Chaux-de-Fonds owes its structure, looks, character and existence as a town to the watchmaking industry. Originally an agricultural village, it expanded in the late 18th century due to clock and watchmaking. The long, cold winters were perfect for indoor activity. The light from a low sun in a high altitude was a natural asset. The town took a cottage industry and made it into a manufacturing giant by building factories with large windows facing south.A devastating fire in 1794 forced a thoughtful reconstruction and a city grid mindful of optimum conditions of light for factories. Today, most major Swiss watchmaking brands manufacture all or part of their models in this area.

Traditional Watchmaker's Tool Bench

The Musée International d'Horlogerie has thousands of clocks and watches on display. From the most lavish Louis XIV clock to a watch so tiny it can fit on the head of a seed pearl, to original manufacturing equipment to the benches and tools of watchmakers from past centuries. It is a concrete building of four floors built underground. We barely grazed the surface of things to see there. It is a wonderful place to spend a rainy day.

Stone Sculpture at  Musée des Beaux-Arts

Next door to the Horolgerie is the Musée des Beaux-Arts. It is an art museum with a small but excellent collection of paintings from the last three centuries including modern art. It specializes in furniture and artwork, on paper and in cloth, of the Art Nouveau period. The entrance hall walls and floors are covered with stunning art nouveau mosaics.

Mosaic at the  Musée des Beaux-Arts

Le Corbusier's Maison Blanche

Maison Blanche, open to the public, is the first house which Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, later named Le Corbusier, built as an independent architect for his parents in 1912. For a young architect of 25 it shows an astonishing command of space and light. It is the cornerstone in the genesis of modernist ideas developed by the architect and makes for a fascinating visit. There are several other homes in the area designed by Le Corbusier that can be seen from outside.


Louis Chevrolet was also born in Chaux-de-Fonds, in 1878. We all know where he went to make his fortune. (My Dad owned Chevys his whole life and I like to think he would have enjoyed the fact that I visited his birthplace.) The city is very proud of him and holds a festival in his honor every year.

Even though we managed to squeeze in a delicious lunch at a traditional boulangerie, we were exhausted by the wealth of things to see. By the time we got back to the train for the journey home we were glad to sit and enjoy looking out the window.

Building a Community

It began when Steve met Jay at the bike store. They met for a weekly bike ride and he and his girlfriend invited us to dinner at their place. We had our first friends. It was a momentous beginning and then there was a long dry spell. This month has brought great changes. We have crashed through the glass ceiling separating us from the community.

Of  course, the reason for being here has been our kids, our most important connection. They are busy at work and with the children on weekends, and though we participate with them in some fashion every week, until now there have been no peers, no colleagues, no friends of our own age.

Not speaking the dominant language has been a significant challenge to making friends. In addition,  I did not know where to go to meet people, especially English speakers. I thought it would be the gym but there people are rushing in and out. I tried the American International Women's Club. There I met some nice women and one who I felt could be a friend. Two weeks later I emailed her about dinner together with our husbands and we were invited to their place. That was a wonderful evening.

I have been reluctant to invite people to our apartment for dinner. It's not the dishes which are the remnants to two or three different sets,  or the uncomfortable dining chairs with torn upholstery, or the faux leather sofa that was worn out twenty years ago, or the cheap blue and brown plaid sofa bed in the living room, or the bare white walls, but the combination of everything that kept me from wanting to be judged by this "student" apartment. But we have now been invited to several people's homes and have been out to dinner with others. We are leaving soon and I would like to strengthen these connections.

It took many coincidences and  wanders into the greater world to make possible these fledgling friendships.  We met one couple on our walk home from Jed & Helga's house. We met one couple at the August 1 party. We met one couple from IMD, the business school at which  Steve got a work visa. I now need two hands to count the number of new people with whom we have connected.  We plan to spend our last month here returning the invitations and welcoming our new friends to our table despite surroundings.  (Full disclosure, our apartment itself is lovely, good size rooms, light and sunny, great view). This week we are looking at places to rent for next year. Life is community. Without friends we will always be visitors in Switzerland.  It is now beginning to feel more like we belong here, and there will be people for us to return to in addition to our family.

Yesterday in the locker room at the gym a woman said to me (in French) that the class we just took was difficult. I responded with a smile and a "oui".  When she left and said "bonjour" a bye bye flew out of my mouth before I had time to think about it. She picked it up immediately. She asked if I was English. We did the usual where are you from routine and it turned out that she is from Culver City, CA. Just another day in multi community Switzerland.