The move to Switzerland

How was the flight?

Had I known the flight on Air Canada was really a three stop flight (web price showed just one) and was over an hour late, I would have paid a lot of extra money to go on a different flight. But even with our 10 carry-on items and stroller that we had to load on and off the planes six times we somehow managed. Usually I had five bags, Brooklyn had four, Alek had one and Reina had Kelsey in the stroller. The kids were generally well behaved and were thankfully able to sleep for a few hours before landing.

We landed in Geneva and made it through customs and baggage claim exhausted and tired. It took several minutes to figure out how to additionally carry our 5 large suitcases as well our our 10 carry-on items - that we were now experts at transporting. Thanks to a luggage cart and extra effort from the kids we made it to the rental car. At this point I have to insert that in the commotion of figuring out the baggage I forgot to pick up the oversized baby car seat (which I’m kind of glad I did since there was no way we could have loaded that on top our our already overloaded tottering cart). So I had to leave the kids alone with all the luggage for 5 minutes while I ran back and got the car seat.

The rental car.

We had tried to rent a mini van but the counter help said he had another nice big car for us and we’d have no problem fitting in our luggage. Our hearts sank as we

saw our five passenger mid-size SUV. I quickly surveyed the other rental cars in the garage to see if there were any mini vans. None. So once again we spent several minutes dealing with the luggage. We loaded and unloaded the car in different configurations. We smashed and crammed and finally ended up pulling all the children out (except Kelsey) and loading the car full of the luggage and then loading the children in on top of or in between the cracks of the luggage.

Finally we were off to our new house. Miraculously we made it out of the airport and past the Swiss boarder guard, with a smile and a wave as he looked at my children crammed in the back window of the car, and onto the freeway to Eysins.

The addendum to this story is that my friend who knew we had a lot of luggage had waited for us at the airport for a long very time but we barely missed her because we were so slow!

The house

Everyone was in a good mood now as we rolled along lush green hills and quaint farms. We had no problems finding our house and were happy that the

management company, a seventy-five year old man, was there to check us in. After an hour wallkthrough we were finally home. The suitcases became chairs and we had one table that belonged to the house. The kids loved running around a new house but I was anxious to get to the store. We went to town and parked underground at the grocery store/mall (at this point I was very glad to have a small car and not the mini van I had hoped for). Close parking spaces had a new meaning.

That night my wonderful friend brought over air mattresses, pillows and blankets and towels and we were able to finally settle into our new home.