Thanks to Rome, there are ornate public water fountains all over Switzerland. The water is drinkable in nearly all of them. If it's not, there will be a sign clearly calling it out as "Eau non-potable". I love it b/c, as most of you know, I'm a huge water drinker. These fountains help you avoid paying for a bottle of water when out and about and it helps avoid that empty bottle being dumped in some landfill. And it helps when you head out on a bike ride and forget to fill your bottles before leaving. A couple weeks ago, I was out on a ride on an extremely hot summer day (have we mentioned how hot it's been here this summer!?) and realized that I had forgotten to fill my water bottles. No problem. I just pulled off into the next town I saw--Lutry,found their public fountain, filled up my bottles, and hopped back on my bike! Here's a pic of the fountain:
Swiss National Day (the day that Switzerland was founded back in 1291) is on August 1st and all cities have huge fireworks displays. We were lucky enough to be invited on our friend's boat out on Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) where we were able to see the fireworks right above us. Each city along the lake lights off an impressive fireworks display from either their shore or a barge. We were able to see the fireworks right above us and the displays from a few towns along the lake on either side of us. In the pics below you can see some of the other fireworks displays in the distance.
We live about 1 km from work (trying to get used to the metric system!) and I love walking to work everyday. Here are a few pics from my walk.
And as I've been walking around the town (we don't yet own a car), I've been noticing all of the city's electrical boxes have been painted very creatively. I'm guessing it wasn't the city's doing but you never know--in this city there is so much art hidden among public parks and spaces. Either way, they're fun to see around town.
On the work front, things are going well. Everything is new though--new staff (only 3 of us came over from the US office), new offices, new software system, etc--so it's been a bit stressful. I am really enjoying the challenge and the opportunity though. The office is outfitted to hold 30-40 people, but as of now there are only 9 of us and we are truly a melting pot of a group. There are 3 Americans, 2 Brazilians, 2 Swiss Germans, 1 Belgian, and 1 French national. It's extremely common to hear 2-3 conversations going on at once all in different languages. People hop in and out of Spanish, French, German, English, and Portuguese and often blend them all together in one sentence! It's a fun experience for me. Here is a picture of a few of us "cupping" some recently purchased coffee.
We finally received our sea shipment of furniture and other goods from the US a few weeks ago. The stuff was delivered by a large truck pulling a large trailer. In an act of sheer driving expertise, the driver parallel parked the trucks on our single lane road outside of our apartment. The kids loved watching the action!
And finally, the next two pictures are true examples of our day to day life here in Switzerland--we're either at a train station heading out on an adventure or at a park overlooking the beautiful views!
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