(April 20, Geneva): Woe is GPS

Friday was Team HW's last day before morphing back into the McMartin family.  Jonathan took the second week we were in town off so that we could do a little Euroaming.   Our family trip plan of attack was to take a road trip to Florence for a few days and then a train trip over to Paris to for good measure. 


We decided to leave at 4:30 am on Saturday morning in hopes that Jake (mon feces) would sleep for the bulk of the 7 hour trip.  You may not be shocked to find out that travelling to foreign lands for a week with a 17 month old requires a lot of prep time.  Given the fact that Team HW had been pre-occupied with picnics, fancy shopping, castles, and other tourist/socialite activities... we were obviously far too busy to spend Tuesday through Thursday nailing down some of the finer points of our travels.  By finer points I mean the small matters of where to stay in Paris, ensuring the correct ratio of boy band to non-boy band songs on our road trip playlist, booking train tickets to Paris, securing a GPS, gasing up the car, ensuring proper underwear quota for Jonathan, etc.  So, Friday was a busy day for our little trio.  Completely un-correlated fact: this was the first day that Team Housewife got in trouble.


Let me back up to the GPS.  I promised you more details on this little baby and I am sure you've hardly been able to sleep since.  So here we go.  Melanie responsibly did her research and decided to purchase a GPS knowing that we would be coming to town and that a road trip was in the works.  She purchased said item in the first week of March.  It was coming from out of the country.  This purchase thus kicked off what sounds like the craziest set of circumstances ever to happen to 1 single Amazon seller**. 

After about 2.5 weeks later it became evident that the GPS wasn't just fashionably late and Melanie started asking some questions.  First, the seller told her it didn't arrive because the Royal Post had lost a few bags of packages.  Then, it didn't arrive because he hadn't sent it.  Then it didn't arrive for some other reason I can't remember but let's say it was something along the lines of a bird stole it.  Then he promised a refund.  Which fell victim to the same thieving bird.  Twice.  In the midst of all of this, the GPS must have arrived in Zurich.  Team HW discovered this fact on Tuesdsay and tried to amend the situation so that the GPS would arrive before we left.  No such luck. 

All of these facts culminated with an exciting dinner conversation on Thursday evening whereby Jonathan effused how excellent his "feel" was thus rendering a GPS useless.  Melanie played an Angel card on that.  The ultimate outcome of the family meeting was that the market options (getting 3G on the iPad or purchasing a GPS in town) needed to be priced.

This brings us back to Friday.  Team HW task #1 for the day was to meet Jonathan for lunch and to do some market pricing.  We were so busy making sure people were excusing mon feces that we wound up being 25 minutes late to our appointment with Jonathan.  -100 for Team HW.  After the master market pricers did their thang it was determined that buying a GPS locally was the best alternative.  It was also determined that Jonathan did not have time to eat lunch with us and that we were thus still in trouble. 

In an attempt to wiggle out of the doghouse we spent the remainder of the day checking things off our list left and right.  First, we purchased the GPS.  I'm sure when that cash register rang an angel got her wings.  Then, we gased the car, we made some killer PB&Js for the road, we ensured appropriate tune-age, we laundered Ryan's Ninja Turtle shirt, we acquired milk for Jake-y, we packed, we reserved hotel rooms for Paris under Ryan's micro-managing, breakfast-obsessed eye*** - we were really rocking it.

Look at that shiny beacon of directional hope.  This is an action shot, obviously.

By the time Jonathan arrived home the only remaining item on the to do list was to purchase train tickets to Paris for the second half of the week.  Seems simple enough, right?  Wrong.  Of course this turned into a debacle which led the men to the train station to close the deal.  So our time out of the doghouse was short-lived.

We wrapped up the day on a happy note by meeting up at a "burger" place called Roadrunner for dinner.  While the burger itself was tasty, the size and inexplicable inclusion of pineapple gave it away that we weren't in 'Merica anymore.  However if you find yourself in Geneva with a hankering for a little piece of the US, this is a good alternative to the 2 CHF menu at McD's. 

Once we got home we went to bed since we had to be up at 4:00 am to get our Euro-trip on.  The doghouse doesn't leave much room for photography.  So I've saved up some of my random shots from other days for inclusion here.  Don't say I never did anything for you! 

Ryan claimed on day 2 of our trip to Geneva that he knew we were close to Melanie & Jonathan's apartment because he recognized this ad.  What he discounted is the fact that this ad was on every. corner. there.

Remember when I told you here that I would show you my favorite part of Melanie & Jonathan's place later?  I didn't lie.  I was just saving the best for last.  This is the view from their awesome balcony. 

Swoon.

On a super clear day you can apparently see Mont Blanc back to the left.

The Martins: ruining good views since 2007.

What?  You want to see us from a different direction?  Fiiiine.

Have I mentioned that we had family dinners by candlelight each night?  Because we did.  Sure it could have been because when people leave condos in Geneva they take the fixtures with them but I prefer to think it was for ambience purposes.

Despite the fact that we got in trouble - this wound up being an incredibly humorous and laugh-filled day. I definitely miss Team Housewife. I'm currently busy designing a comemorative tattoo for all of us. Melanie? Ryan?

Next up: the most breath-taking roadtrip in the entire world.

 

 ** sarcasm.  I don't believe this guy.
*** I'm not sure if Ryan was hungry or what during this portion of the day but there were 2 booking options.  One which included the extra 15 euro per day for breakfast and 1 that didn't.  Ryan must have asked 20 times during our hotel booking if we got the breakfast option.  He also made both of us show him independently that we had selected it.  Then in Paris he continuously made reference to the fact that he "got breakfast comped."  Did I win the boyfriend lottery or WHAT?

(April 19, Veytaux): McChateau

On Thursday Team HW decided to take a mini-road trip.  Obviously we'd mastered the art of navigating Geneva and were ready to take our skills on a travelling tour.  Where better to challenge your stroller and child entertainment skills than in a centuries old castle?  The winner of the Team HW visit lottery was Castle Chillon.  It's a beautiful castle situated right on the edge of Lake Geneva nestled in mountains.  Basically it is so pretty it looks fake.  Google image it.  You will not be disappointed.

Due to the fact that our destination was on the opposite side of Lake Geneva, it took roughly an hour & a half to get there.  Way back in the day when I went to Europe with the familia when I was in highschool, we actually made this drive.  At the time my optimistic young self informed my parents that I would honeymoon in Switzerland because of just how beautiful that particular drive was.  Of course, at the time I also assumed my future husband would be Ben Affleck.  So perhaps I was not as all-knowing as I thought.  I fell in love with the area then and it was every bit as picturesque and engrossing as I remembered if not more so.  If you ever find yourself in Switzerland, I highly recommend that you take a drive along Lake Geneva to Castle Chillon.  I also recommend that you take me with you.  I promise I'll sit quietly.

So... to the castle.  Ryan once again announced his country of origin as 'Merica when we bought tickets.  After going 0 for 2 I feel pretty confident in making the blanket statement that Europeans are not amused by that.  The castle is absolutely stunning, of course.  I'll just skip to the pictures.

As you can see it was slightly overcast when we arrived.  Imagine this view with gorgeous mountains in the background instead of those clouds.  Or you can just Google image it.

New Team HW headquarters?

Aqua waters- just like Galveston, right?

Some people take stop and smell the roses pretty literally.

The wine cellar.  We purchased a bottle to share with Jonathan after dinner that evening so he could feel like he was there.

A piece of the rock the castle was built on.  You're probably not supposed to do this.  You probably shouldn't be taking pictures of someone doing this either.  'Merican Rebels!

I'm apparently not good at posed panic.  This was the prison in the basement.

I hope my future children are more well-behaved than this guy.

This was the maid's quarters.  Please note how small people were back in the day.  I would have been like Yao Ming.

Toilets.  Those are just holes that go straight down to the water.  I'm sure this room smelled like roses.

I think this picture is absolutely precious.  Future wedding slide show, Jakey!

Probably part of the moat?  We definitely had lost track of what sight # we were supposed to be on at this point.

I love that little man!

Jake loved the cobblestone and was surprisingly more adept at walking on it than yours truly.  Or maybe that isn't that surprising.

Why don't you sit riiiiight here?  Let me tell you a story about my trucks.

Oh Castle - I'll miss you.

By the time we left some of the clouds had burned off.  So clearly I needed to take more pictures.

Bye fictional dream home!

By the time we left the castle it was around 2:30 so we were starvin' like Marvin.  We started back the way we came because we had passed quite a few cute little cafes on the lake.  We got out to check out one or two and the prices were outrageous and/or the locations were closed.  Obviously while pondering the best course of action we had no choice but to take pictures.  I hear it stimulates the mind.

I suppose if the whole castle thing doesn't work out I could handle living here.

Don't we look like we should live here?

I was incredibly fascinated with this tree that was growing in the middle of the lake.  I would Swiss Family Robinson that in a heart beat.

After much careful consideration (or at least 2 minutes) we decided that the time had come.  We knew that it would.  What time, you ask?  The time to bring shame to the art of tourism by giving in and going to McDonald's for lunch.  We were backed into a corner since we knew that we still had an hour and a half drive back to town, needed to swing by the grocery store and many of the other restaurant options around were closed. 

I hate to admit it but the meal was actually pretty delicious.  Ryan was dismayed to learn that his Fast Food staple, the $1 menu, was ousted by it's fancier Swiss cousin, the 2 CHF menu, at this particular McDonald's.  Our meal cost roughly $30.  So don't worry - we definitely paid for our crime!

'Merica!

After lunch we headed back to town and did our daily grocery store run.  Melanie made some delicious tortilla soup for din-din.  We spent the remainder of the evening watching Hall Pass and trying to convince Jonathan that we should all liquidate all of our assets and try to buy a castle together.  No?  You think that's a bad idea?  So did he.  I know I sound like a broken record but I can't help myself - another perfect day in the books.

Next up: preparing for McMartin family road trip!

P.S. Real life note - today we're in South Bend for my cousin's wedding.  Happy Wedding weekend Miranda & Travis!  We love you guys.

(April 18, Geneva): Salsas En Frescas

Wednesday marked the beginning of Ryan's last year in his 20's (laymen's terms: it was his birthday).  While it wasn't ushered in with 20 different celebrations like last year, it did take place in a different country... and with some fabulous cupcakes.  I'm not actually sure which one I would rank higher?  Upon reflection, I'm really setting some pretty lofty expectations for this guy, aren't I?  Whooooops.

Team HW hit the streets to check out St. Peter's (St. Pierre's) Cathedral.  One of it's claims to fame is that it's where John Calvin gave his sermons in the mid 16th century.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  One of those kinds of days that come around once every 5 years here in Houston. 

I love that spire.

This picture makes me think of the opening to that old show Night Court.  Which did not occur to me once until just now.  Why did I watch Night Court as a youth?  Some questions have no answers.

Pardon the blurriness of this photo - flash-free zone.  Those ceilings make me swoon.  Do you think there's some kind of DIY alternative to add these to our house on Pintrest?

Just gorgeous.

Organ trail.  (Does the pun ever end here?  Noooope.)

Melanie has, of course, been to the Cathedral a few times so she opted to play tag with Jake (I think Melanie was usually it) while Ryan and I did the full tourist experience.  We  paid about 8 CHFs to get our historical stairstep on.  Cheapest gym membership ever!  Thankfully this spiral staircase was more Texas-sized human friendly than probably 90% of staircases in churches in Europe**.

Breaks in climbing make for good photo ops.

You can ring my beeee-eeeee-eeeeeelllll.  Ring my bell.

View of the lake from about halfway up.  Also included: pretty spire and the iconic Geneva fountain thing.  (You following all these technical terms?)

Mini window.  Or am I a giant?

I'm a sucker for aged wood.  It doesn't look nearly as beautiful here as it was in real life.

View from the real top.  If my sense of direction was accurate (which is always questionable at best), this is looking out towards Mont Blanc. 

Self portraits are not our specialty.

After getting our fill of breath-taking views and beautiful architecture (siiiiigh... such a rough life), we headed back to Chateau McClain to meet up with Jonathan for lunch.  More cupcakes were consumed.    The remainder of the afternoon we rested.  Tourism is very hard work!  At the birthday boy's request we watched the rest of the first season of the Walking Dead while Jakey took a nap. 

In the evening Melanie and Jonathan got a sitter for mon feces and we headed out to celebrate Ryan's newly minted old age.  Our first stop was to get drinks in Old Town where we met up with Jonathan.  The place we met at was awesome.  It was so relaxing to sit outside, do some people-watching and pretend to be locals.

So... the menu advertised "beer with grenadine."  Anyone present at New Years 2009 knows your girl has a fondness for that delicious red nectar.  Ryan ordered me a small beer with grenadine and himself a large beer.  Somehow he also wound up with beer with grendadine.  Clearly he was pretty enthused.  Painting your beer red is the new painting the town red?

Our view. 

Cheers to manly beer.

After a couple of beers we headed over to Melanie and Jonathan's favorite Italian restaurant, L'Incontro, for dinner.  "Delicious" doesn't really do the meal justice.  Ryan & Jonathan ordered calzones which were literally about twice the size of their heads.  Jen likes to attest to the fact that my beloved had a large dome, so that is really saying something.  Melanie had some kind of baked cheese pasta thing that looked good even to yours truly - the cheese detester.  I had an ah-mazing shrimp pasta dish complete with baby lobster sized shrimp.  It was all heavenly.

It didn't hurt that this meal was probably the one that we laughed the most at.  Jonathan must have taken a page from Ryan's guide to being multi-lingual because when asking for jalapenos he ordered "salsas en frescas".  Of course at this point in the trip we'd also heard him say "Parlez-vous Inglesias," so perhaps we shouldn't have found this completely shocking.  Not many people speak church by the way.  To top it all off, we got some complimentary limoncello at the end of the meal.

Man vs. Food goes to Geneva.

 It's a little hard to see here but that is indeed my new friend, Prawn-y.  He comes complete with cherry tomato accessories.

After dinner Melanie & I headed back to the house to relieve the sitter and the boys headed over to a Cuban Restaurant for a nightcap.  All in all I think it was a birthday that Ryan will never forget.  Probably mainly because of that calzone.  Merci beau coup to our awesome hosts for making it so wonderful.  Salsas en frescas for life!

Next up: Castle time.

** completely exaggerated and unfounded statistics are my specialty.

We're going to call this photo the outtakes during the credits.  For anyone who is curious if 29 is the age at which men mature... it is not.

(April 17, Geneva): Team Housewife

On Tuesday the Fantastic 4.5 was sadly split up because Jonathan had to go back to work.  That meant that Ryan, Melanie and I were left to our own devices.  Thankfully Melanie is more responsible than us because if Ryan & I were in charge I feel very confident that we would have slept in our bat cave for the next 5 days.  Jake would have been able to have his way with the kitchen cabinets and by the time we finally emerged from the fortress of hurricane shutters, no lollipop or glass dish would have been left standing. 


Jonathan's return to work gave birth to Team Housewife.  Our little trio took on Geneva over the next 3 days and hilarity ensued.  Now, let me preface all of this with the fact that I am the product of an incredibly awesome stay at home mom/housewife.  There's not a snowballs chance in Houston in August that I'd be able to be a functioning adult without her.  I am WELL-ACQUAINTED with the fact that it is the hardest job on the planet.  Obviously not because I was difficult- I was a dream (haaaa) - but because it just is.  It's non-stop.  No sick days.  Completely ungrateful employees/staff.   Staff who flush entire rolls of toilet paper down the upstairs toilet causing it to overflow into the light fixture in the kitchen below.  You know- that kind of thing.  I could go on but I'm pretty sure everyone is on the same page. 


So, I thought I was prepared for the challenge.  Apparently I AM wrong sometimes. Consider my face shoved.  Let me just give some mad props to Melanie because being a housewife in Geneva (and I suspect all of Europe) is HARD WORK.  Cobblestone and strollers are not BFF.  Navigating the strictly time-controlled bus doors by yourself with a big stroller can lead to some precarious situations.  It's hard to fit babies AND groceries into a stroller.  Sometimes sacrifices need to be made (don't worry - it was never Jake).   Melanie works so hard and does such an amazing job that I just feel it should be pointed out.  Jake and Jonathan are two very lucky men.  One would think that having Ryan & I to "assist" would make things easier on her.  I'm not sure that was really the case, but we had a fabulous time getting to tag along and at least provide some comic relief.


So, for Day 1 of our Team HW adventures Melanie decided to take us to Rue du Rhone which is Geneva's fancy shopping street.  En route we stopped by the mailbox which contained an exciting surprise regarding the GPS Melanie had ordered a month (you read that correctly) prior in the form of a letter in French.  All that we could really determine was that it was not the GPS and that it seemed to say that the GPS was in Zurich.  Since we hoped to have it for our trip to Italy on Friday, we decided to swing by the Post Office to see if a little Fren-glish could get that situation sorted out.  That was most definitely a fail.  Something about taxes and receipts.  More on the GPS in my post covering Friday.

There's a cute little boulangerie/coffee shop type place within walking distance of Jonathan & Melanie's.  I think we went here nearly every day we were in town.  We made a quick stop before taking on the Swiss Post Office.  One needs fuel when trying to take on the government after-all.

While we're on the subject of French, let's talk about Ryan's grasp of the language, shall we?  I am not sure I've mentioned it on the blog, but I've been taking French at work.  Once a week during lunch we have class at the office taught by an employee who is fluent.  I am by no means picking this up easily.  However, I have at least a working knowledge of a few phrases, the numbers, the days of the week, a variety of nouns, etc.  I am super intimidated to use it though because I know that I butcher the pronounciation and French-speakers are not the most forgiving.  Conversely, Ryan has taken 0 French in his life and has absolutely no shame in using any phrase he hears.  What phrases did my beau hone in on?  Let's go through them.

1.  S'il vous plait.  (there's an accent here that I'm too lazy to look up how to type correctly).  This is pronounced (essentially) seel-voo-play and means please.  I would venture to guess most non-French speakers are familiar with its meaning.  Ryan would not be in the majority because I told him at least 4 times what it meant.  Typically after he would just randomly proclaim "s'il vous plait!"  For at least the first half of this day's journey he probably sounded like a kidnap victim running around saying "please! please! please!"

2. C'est bon!  This is pronounced say bawn and means "it's good!"  I'm not sure what day Ryan figured out what this meant, if ever.  Again- did not stop him from using it.  He would alternate between "c'est bon!" and "non c'est bon!"  The latter is not correct grammar.  Perhaps my favorite time Ryan utilized this phrase was as we were walking towards the bus stop, we encountered a lady who's yorkie took a #2 in the middle of the sidewalk.  Ryan looked her in the face as he maneveured the stroller around it and said "C'est bon!"  That, my friends, is actually NOT c'est bon.

3. Mon feces.  This means nothing but it's what we were under the impression was the phrase for "my son".  It was later determined that my son is actually "mon fils," pronounced mon fees.  You know Ryan was fully on board with pushing the stroller around and saying "excuse mon feces," at every opportunity possible.  And I do mean EVERY opportunity.

Most people say that French-speakers are much more apt to be nice to you if you at least try to utilize the language.  After 1 day of Ryan Martin in Geneva, they may be re-evaluating that policy.

Our view headed to Rue du Rhone.  C'est bon!  S'il vous plait!

Eventually, mon feces, Melanie, Ryan & I arrived on Rue du Rhone.  Those Genevans know how to jack up some prices, I can tell you that.  I fell in love with no less than 15 pairs of shoes.  Ryan convinced me these matches were just not meant to be by informing me the exchange rate was about 1.8.  I typically have a good idea of what the Euro exchange rate is from work, but I don't know the first thing about the Swiss Franc rate.  Jonathan later confirmed at dinner that it is 1.08.  Let that be a lesson ladies- study up on your exchange rates before you shop abroad or your sig others might talk you out of a shoe marriage that was meant to be!

After we had our fill of broken dreams, we decided to grab some lunch and head over to have a mini-picnic on Lake Geneva.  Melanie and I opted for some deli sandwiches on baguettes.  Ryan, being the adventurous eater that he is, selected a Greek shop to get his take out from.  All sounded on the up & up until we realized that the shop was empty and Ryan actually had to wake up the gentleman manning it to put his order in.  Luckily, no food poisoning was contracted and Ryan claims that his gyro was delicious.

Beautiful park on Lake Geneva.

Lake Geneva and it's iconic big fountain thing.

Our view while we ate.  Hey hotties!

Lake Geneva... now with boat.

My awesome partners in crime.

Ryno y yo.

After lunch it was pretty late in the day and we decided to head back to the apartment to start preparing for dinner.  Melanie made some mouth-watering baked chicken.  I maintained my usual post as watch-in-awer and every once in a while retrieving Jakey's truck from under the rolling island.  She also made the BEST cupcakes I have ever tasted for Ryan's birthday the next day.  They were white cupcakes with chunks of real fresh strawberry in both the icing and the cupcakes.  Just thinking about them makes me hungry.  I'm telling you... we were spoooooiled.

Yup, I married that.  P.S. This is the front entry/parking lot to Jonathan & Melanie's building.  Aren't the flowers awesome?

After dinner we once again shared a bottle of wine and watched some TV.  This particular night we got addicted to Family Feud.  The Steve Harvey version is SO MUCH better than the Al Borlin (I dont know his real life name) one.  Yet another fab day in the books.

Next up: Ryan's birthday and touring St. Peter's!