France is everything you thought it would be

 It feels like there is such a contrast between France and Switzerland , Germany and Austria. This is my personal perception of course. The later three felt conservative.  Switzerland seemed perfect but it wasn't.  The German and Austrian  people seemed stoic, family oriented, traditional.

France honestly feels likea wild card. The first day here we could see this was going to be different. Very diverse. People obviously feel they can be whoever they want here.  There is a big alternative culture.

What struck me the most is how everybody here looks like a million bucks. At least they did on a Saturday night.  The young people had on the latest sportswear, hip trends, soccer jerseys. Women here know how to look chic with little effort.  The men look cool. 

You may say - oh get over it, there are fashionable people everywhere...but I'm telling you that what you hear about the French sense of fashion is true. 

It is already fun here. There were some street performers  imitating Michael Jackson's dancing. Not the first time we've seen that on this trip. One of the guys was really good.  No Elvis impersonators yet. We saw five young  women filming a video in a public square.  Their dancing was very good. A teenager was kicking a soccer ball down the street and he'd kick it to random strangers, some of whom played with him for a couple of minutes. Skateboarders in a plaza, trying to do a hard trick, surrounded by people of all ages cheering them on.

In the middle of all this are beautiful French apartments with ornate wrought iron balconies, centuries old buildings, fountains. There are restaurants and bakeries with real croissants. And to think we've only been here two days. 

N 

S

Austria was 

Will we continue this trip for a year?

Will we continue this trip for a year?

 I have to say there have been days of doubt and homesickness on this this trip on the regular. 

For me it's moving place to place in airbnbs and hotels. You never know what your gonna get in these places. Your standards might not be theirs. It's hard living in a place that isn't yours with your stuff. You don't realize how important your home is til you don't have it. It's a place of comfort and security. 

Going to new places, you hope the neighborhood is decent and safe. We really haven't  had a problem with that so far. Where is the grocery store? Figuring out the transportation system.  How much is it? Where is it? How do we use it? 

In the airbnb how do you operate the stove, dishwasher, washing machine. Instruction manuals online are a beautiful thing. 

For M it's all of the above and having to ride the trains from one country or town to another. Sometimes even trying to figure out how to buy tickets is hard. Often if you are going any distance you are riding two or three different train systems.  There are times you transfer 2 or 3 times.  It's exhausting. The scenery makes up for it though like the route from Geneva to Lyon along the river through the hills was beautiful. 

Lastly, this is expensive. Going to major cities is expensive. Even in an airbnb. We had planned to go Berlin in September but it was just too expensive. So we decided to break up September into Vienna, Augsburg, Germany and Lausanne Switzerland and Lyon. We really hadn't had plans to go to Austria or Switzerland but it was probably one of the best parts of the trip. 

Vienna was stunning and I want to go back there. Augsburg was fun because of the Plarrer. Switzerland was probably one of the beautiful places in the world. 

Paris is another very expensive place even on the outskirts so we have put it off so the prices will be lower. We are in Lyon for 2 weeks because we needed to stop the one week here and there thing. Then the plan is to to Spain for most of October and Paris in November. 

Will we continue this for one year? Don't know at this point. If we were to quit after six months, it would be disappointing but not the end of the world. We have done a really cool thing either way. Only time, 

and how we feel, will determine it.

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September 18, 2022 at 06:59PM

We're living in a dungeon in Lyon France

We're living in a dungeon in Lyon France

 So we are now in Lyon, France. Our airbnb is in a 17th century building. I really didn't realize it would be like this when I booked it. 

When we came, the entrance there was this massive door. The guy who owns it let us in and showed the way to the apartment. We went past some courtyard where people used to got their water from a well. There was an area that led to a cellar. We went up an an elevator down a hall to another door and finally to the apartment. It has a stone floor and all these beams of wood. 

There is a a narrow spiral staircase that leads up to the bedrooms. One bed is a loft with a window with a beautiful view of the river. The other bedroom is across this glass walkway that looks below to the first floor. 

After the guy left, we sat there kind of stunned, looking around. Not what we expected. There are skylights. The windows in the living room look into the sort of courtyard that looks

Coming in the door feels like coming into a dungeon. You have to actually use four keys and a code to get to your floor on the elevator.  It's like you are entering the CIA headquarters.

To think people lived here 300 years ago. I'm sure their ghosts haunt the halls.

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September 17, 2022 at 08:26PM

Switzerland and the Truman show have a lot in common

 Switzerland is a fascinating country. It is almost too good to be true. It's kind of reminds me of the Truman show where everything  seems perfect but you wonder what in the hell is going on behind the scenes?!!  Har. 

People here are happy, have good salaries, good healthcare, excellent infrastructure. It's a beautiful country. Its diverse. They won't get involved in anybody else's war. It's too bad they're stark raving mad!! (Just kidding)

So here are some fun facts about Switzerland:

1) I don't know about other cities in the country, but Lausanne has few traffic lights and no stop signs. When drivers see pedestrians, they stop and let them cross. I may move here just for that.

2) It's not unusual to see soldiers on trains with their assault rifles. I sat next to one today. Men have to do either military or civilian service. They go through basic training for about six months and then have annual training every year for 10 years. If you choose not to comply, they take 3% of your salary til age 37.

3) A Five Guys cheeseburger is $15.

4) Sundays are sacred. You are to do nothing to disturb your neighbor: mowing the lawn, washing clothes, hanging laundry, parties, etc. it is a day of quiet to spend with family and friends. Nothing is open.

5) Switzerland has a low obesity rate. With all these steep streets, I can see why.

6) Woefully behind on womens rights. Women did not get the right to vote until1971!!  One small district didn't pass the right to vote until 1991. YEAH 1991.

7) The Landsgemeinde.  Switzerland has 26 cantons(districts or states). Historically, four times a year, people would gather in large groups in 8 of the cantons. Anyone could propose a new law or amend an old one. It was majority rule, by show of hands. This still happens in a couple of places.

8) Switzerland has shelters for every single person in the country in case of nuclear war. It's the law. Large complexes have to build it into the building. The biggest one is in Lucerne which is built under a motorway and can hold 20,000 people. These are kept up and have necessities to live for months.

And there you have it, wonderful and quirky Switzerland!

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September 16, 2022 at 07:43PM

What the heck is the Sch-Sch-Schengen?

 I had never travelled out of the U.S. except  in 1990 on my way to the Middle East. We had stopovers in Frankfurt and London. Never saw anything except the base. So I had no idea how to do any of it. I didn't even have a passport. 

Never had to find out about entering other countries, how long you could stay, etc. Didn't know what to expect at customs. I did a lot of research. Got true and false information. 

As an American, it's fairly easy to enter the UK and Europe. In England you line up, scan your passport and it takes your picture and that's it. Once you are in the UK, you don't have to show your passport again. As of now, passing into Ireland from Northern Ireland, at least, by train,  required no passport. I think they are still negotiating the border situation after Brexit. .

When we entering Europe it changed. We entered the Schengen zone, made up of 26 countries in which you can travel without showing passport for 90 days. (By the way,  Ireland is not in the Schengen and neither is the UK).

Leaving Ireland our passports were checked. When we got to Vienna, checked again and asked where we were going and how long we would be there.

If you overstay in the Schengen even one day, you can be fined, jailed or banned. You can spend 90 days in the Schengen every 6 months.  So we will leave here after 90 days. 

We will have to spend 90 days outside the Schengen. We plan to go to Morocco and Turkey and another couple places yet to be determined. 

Mint juleps at Melty in Lausanne Switzerland

We are in Renes, a district of Lausanne.  There are under 2,00 people in this area.it does have a very small business street with 2 grocery stores and restaurants and shops. 

So today we were there at the grocery store and on our way back to the airbnb. I wanted a coffee so I looked for a place. I came across a shop with cups on the front so walked in and noticed no list of prices so I walked out. 

I'm a little leary after paying 8.50 for a mocha at Starbucks. One of the guys came out and asked what we wanted.I said coffee and I asked how much it was. He said free! Free for you today! It's your lucky day!

So we went in and it was obvious their business was in the process of being set up. It was a brand new place that was opening next week. 

One of the women offered us a mint julep with no alcohol. Sure, we'll try it. The man kept asking if we wanted coffee. At one point he offered to fix us something to eat. All for free.

We said no. We asked about the restaurant and the man's son said it was a family effort, first time they had done it. The original man was his father. The son had his son there too, maybe about 14.There was a women who made the drink. 

They showed us what the menu would look like. It looked good. As we left I gave the lady a tip for making the drinks for us. They were a very nice family here's hoping that Melty (store name) succeeds.

You can make $53,000/yr at McDonalds in Switzerland

In Switzerland you can make $53,000 working at McDonalds. Not bad for flipping burgers. The salaries are high here. The minimum wage is $23/hr.  The salaries have to be high here because it's so expensive to live in Switzerland.

You find that out real quick. Early on, I went to Starbucks, not paying attention, order a small(tall) mocha. It was 8.50! No Starbucks mocha is worth that much. You might as well say that everything here is twice as much as it would be in the U.S. 

Whats weird is that our Airbnb was relatively cheap. We are in a 2 bedroom condo with two balconies overlooking Lake Geneva and two sets of mountains. Lausanne lies between the Jura mountains and the Swiss Alps. I'm sure this condo is worth a couple mill.

We are up the hill in Lausanne in Renes. To get down to Lausanne we take a train for 5 minutes. Sounds weird but otherwise it's a 52 minute walk down there. You would not want to walk back up. Just walking from the Renes train station up the hill to the air bnb is a challenge.

This entire city is on 3 hills. From the shore of Lake Geneva to where we are is straight uphill. It's amazing. I see people biking up the hills and I can't believe it. Lots of practice I guess. 

It makes for beautiful views.

I get the feeling that Lausanne is made up of the rich and everybody else. The average house price here is just under 2,500,000. Obviously the vast majority live in apartments.  The average house price in the whole of Switzerland is 1,092,000. 

Switzerland has one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Great schools, public transportation, environmentally progressive, absolutely beautiful. College for bachelors and masters is $400- 3700 a year. BTW, everything is closed on Sunday.