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(this is where cowpies come from)
Cowpie
My Son Surveys Mountain Cows In All Their Glory
(this is where cowpies come from)
About Me
- Candide
- Ferney-Voltaire, Pays-du-Gex, France
- frustrated housewife; overbearing mother; chases her children off the computer every 5 minutes when she herself is checking email all the time; husband works a lot on a science experiment which may accidentally create a black hole and swallow the entire earth, but she tries not to let that affect their relationship...
Cowpies on the run...
Francerland, as one of my friends calls this part of France near Geneva, where we now live, is a land of contrasts. In the cities, you find beautiful people wearing fancy watches and swishing their tiny tooshes when they walk (and not one of them is fat). The men, all dreamboats, are all driving Lamburginis. (NOTE: when Amelia and I checked the spelling for that, the spellchecker suggested "hamburgers" instead). But this site is dedicated mostly to our hiking adventures in the highlands, where you find--cowpies. The REAL Switzerland.
Why "Francerland"?
When our family started talking about living here for a year, I told my friends, "We might go live in France for a year." Then, within the week, I would bring this up again, and say: "It looks like it's really happening. We're going to live in Switzerland for a year." And they said: "Where, exactly, are you going: France, or Switzerland?" (my boss was especially confused, because I was simultaneously quitting and un-quitting my job several times due to intense ambivalence. She is the best boss and that was the best job I ever had, and if you want to see why, check out: www.refusingtobeenemies.org)
If you look on a map, you will see that the international boundary between France and Switzerland kind of tip-toes around Ferney-Voltaire, which is where we ended up getting an apartment. But at first we didn't know if we would find an apartment in France, or Switzerland. CERN, the laboratory where Ed works, is located in Switzerland, and you can literally walk a few blocks from our house and be in Switzerland. Indeed, you can take a hike near our house that lasts about an hour and cross the boundary three or four times, then cross it again three or four times on your way home. Theoretically one should even carry one's passport on such a hike, but I don't anymore.
I will give you more on the history of how this area got so confusing if you want, but you'll have to send me a comment first, because there's lots of other ways we can go with this blog. Would you rather hear about:
-our typical day
-our typical weekend (including what a mountain hike with the Diehls tends to be like, including Madeline nagging Ed not to go off the trail and fall to his death, that kind of thing...drama...)
-what we are eating? (including chocolate)
-how being around so much chocolate is affecting my life? (and it's not all good, let me tell you...)
-other things?
Let me know. Otherwise I'll just ramble on like I always do.