The Adventure Ends......

Well that went quick. 7 and a half years in the blink of an eye. It all started so innocently, 1 year in Zurich, jam in as much travel as possible and be back in San Francisco before we know it. “Before we know it” finally came, just a bit longer than planned and with a few extra turns in the cobblestone road to say the least. Hard to recap all that happened, hopefully as time goes on the 1 million pictures we have and the few fun little posts to this blog will serve as documentation of the journey and help jog the memory.

I guess the easiest way to summarize it all is in 3 chapters. Chapter 1 Zurich. Chapter 2 Paris. Chapter 3 London. So let’s start at the beginning.

Hopfenstrasse 12, 8045 Zurich

Zurich. Looking back, Zurich was a perfect entry point. With its medium size, ease of travel, efficiency in everything, and that everything is closed on Sunday, it gave us a good way to begin European life. Even after leaving Zurich, both of our jobs took us back there often and we got to know it fairly well. We learned some valuable lessons there. For one, European doors have a neat little design flaw in that you can get locked “in” the house (earlier blog posts can be viewed for full story). The Swiss take public transport seriously. Busses and trains are always on time, like to the minute, it really is amazing. Screens on windows would not be a part of our life in Europe, which is a real bummer in the summer heat since AC is not much of an option either (this still makes no sense to me at all, but I’ll let it go). We got to experience Christmas in Europe for the first time, ski a bunch which from Zurich was super easy, see the seasons come and go and for that 1 year (plus all the work travel in years to come) came to form a special bond with the city.

19 Rue Chapon, 75003 Paris

Paris. Oh Paris. Where to even begin. 4 years there and now forever a second home, forever a place I will want to get back to, both Paris and the country of France. Special for so many reasons, the baguettes, cheese, wine, the term “getting Frenched”, the language, the architecture, the gritty side, picnics, the Metro, and even those green trash cans found every 50m and the green brooms the street cleaners use. Its chaos and confusion were fun to experience for 4 amazing years. Oh, and Joséphine arrived along the way too! Everything changed in Paris, we got to see the city, travel some more, meet new friends, and not only find out we were expecting our first child, but go through the process just as any other French couple who had no idea what was about to happen would do. One surreal memory among many will be sitting in the hospital on the 2nd night, looking out through blurry and sleepless eyes and seeing the top of the Eiffel tower off in the distance. Our lives changed with Joséphine of course, the travel slowed down but for the most part we still got out of town a number of times. We had Wilma as our nanny who was amazing and definitely eased our transition to working parents. The sleepless nights are always tough, but pushing her around the streets of Paris in her “poussette” for afternoon naps, maybe even getting “une seize” while she slept was always fun to do. How many people get to do that? Parisian memories to be sure.

Paris may have been the last stop for us were it not for a career turn that extended the journey a few more years in Europe, taking us on to London.

3 Victoria Villas, Ewald Road SW6 3ND London

London. London got off to a rough start, though not really London’s fault to be fair. We moved there with a 2 and half year old in tow, busy jobs, all the transitions of moving to a new city and country, and then within 3 months little miss Elaine joins the party! 2nd time around and many things were certainly easier; diapers, feeding, sleep, it’s all business and you know the drill. New wrinkle is that #1 needs attention, so mom and dad can no longer trade off taking naps. And the 2nd really slowed down the travel. Even travel around London was hard as it was so much more spread out and more difficult to get from A to B. So we definitely found ourselves sticking close to home which was perfectly fine as our little corner of London called Parsons Green was a lovely place. We had a nice park, the river nearby, picnics on the green, and of course several pubs to choose from, our favorite being the White Horse. As our time in London moved on and things settled down, we started to find our rhythm, explore a bit more, and it really started to grow on us.

As 2017 came to a close, we finally decided that our time in Europe would sadly come to an end. 2018 would be the year to make the move back and wheels were set in motion. Rationale was pretty simple, Kindergarten was around the corner for Joséphine and it was simply time to get settled somewhere. So back home to California it is. Given that we didn’t actually leave until September of 2018, that gave us one final spring and summer which brought us a trip to Italy and one final journey to Paris before heading home to California.

So many memories and experiences over the 7+ years in Europe, a chapter of our life we will never forget and we’re fortunate that we have found a second home of sorts there. While it will never be the same, we will certainly look forward to future European vacations and the dream of one day being able to spend maybe 3 months a year in France once we retire. Given the experience we had there was more than we could have ever dreamed of, certainly doesn’t seem so farfetched that we can make that happen!

And Finally - My top 10 “things” I’ll remember in no particular order:

1. Summer heat with no screens on the windows
2. Pain / Vin / Fromage
3. Swiss Public Transportation
4. Sunday in Switzerland
5. Running along the Seine
6. Picnics in French parks
7. European Holiday schedules
8. Walking the streets of Paris
9. English Pints in London Pubs
10. The places we were able to see, people we met, and experiences we had!

7 Great Years

Where it all began...

Our home in Zurich

It’s been about 7 months since we moved back home after our time in Europe. I of course had intended to write this last post much sooner but life has been busy with finding a home, finding daycare for the girls, getting ramped up on a new job, unpacking boxes, holidays, and just plain life.

In some ways it’s hard to believe that our European adventure is over. It’s been all we’ve known for the past 7 years. And what an adventure it’s been. We never expected that what was supposed to be a one year assignment in Zurich would have turned into 7 years, living in 3 different countries and having two babies. It has truly been a dream come true for me and I am so grateful for having it.

Many people ask us which of the cities we lived in was our favorite. This is always a tough question to answer as the circumstances in each one were different. Zurich was amazing. It’s clean and safe and beautiful and everything ran on time and just worked well. But it was also small and super expensive. We were here for 1 year and took advantage of it being quite centrally located in Europe to travel to many different cities and countries.

Then there was Paris, where we lived for 4 years. We loved it here. It’s obviously an iconic city with beautiful architecture anywhere you walk. We loved exploring the city but we also really enjoyed exploring France. I think we covered most regions, especially the wine regions. If I really have to choose one city where we lived as my favorite, I do usually say Paris. Amazing and cheap wine, cheese, baguette, croissant….those are just a few reasons Paris is on the top of the list. Plus I just never ever got tired of seeing the Eiffel Tower.

Our home in Paris

And then lastly there was London, where we lived for 2 years. I don’t know if I can fairly compare London to the others. When we moved there, Josephine was 2.5 years old, I was 7 months pregnant and Nate and I were both working full time (and in hindsight we stupidly didn’t take any time off for the move). As soon as we got there we had to furnish our home (after living in furnished apartments in both Zurich and Paris), find daycare for Josephine, find a doctor for me and get registered at a hospital for my delivery. Looking back, that was definitely a stressful time. And as soon as we started to feel like we were settling, Elaine came! So London didn’t get a fair chance from us in the beginning. But as we got more settled into figuring out life with two little ones and could get out to explore London more, I was really starting to like it. I absolutely loved our neighborhood of Parsons Green. It had a few parks, a cute main street and had a small neighborhood feel that I loved. And it wasn’t far if you wanted to go into Central London. There is a ton to do in London and so once we finally got to start doing those things, it was really growing on me. English was another big bonus moving here. While I loved the opportunity to learn a little bit of French and practice it regularly, it’s just so much easier and less exhausting to live in a country where you speak the native language fluently.

Our home in London

Overall though, I have such fond memories of all three cities and each one of them will always feel like home and will hold a special place in my heart. I already look forward to going back to visit and going by our old neighborhoods and favorite places!

It’s hard to sum up the entire experience except to say that I am just so grateful. I learned a ton from working there and worked with a most amazing team. And through work I got to travel to some very cool places like Budapest, Lisbon, Sydney and on and on. The Europeans have taught me to cherish your holiday and to truly take a break from work. I hope I don’t lose that notion of a 2 week vacation every summer (although I already see this as potentially challenging just due to a different mindset in the US).

I was certainly sad to leave London and Europe in general. The month before our departure date I looked at everything I did on a daily basis and tried to soak it all in as much as possible. Just the simple things like riding the tube every day, my walk from the tube to work, walking to the grocery store in my neighborhood, taking the girls to the park. All of those things became just a bit sentimental to me in those final days.

But we are now back home in the Bay Area and settled into a house we love and in a neighborhood we love. We’ve seen our friends and had family come visit and it’s a reminder as to why we moved back. It’s certainly a change though. For the first weeks after we moved back, whenever we’d go somewhere Josephine would always ask “Mommy, are we driving or walking there?” and I had to break it to her that from now on, most likely we would be driving everywhere. I too miss all of the walking from our life in Europe. But it does feel good to be home and there is a certain familiarity about it all. It's comfortable.

I will always cherish the experience we had in Europe. The countless cities and countries we got to visit, the friends we made while there that we will have for a lifetime, the numerous visitors whom we got to share our life with, all of it! And even though our European adventure has come to an end for now, deep down I don’t think that’s the last time we’ll be living there. It’s hard to predict the future but I feel we may be drawn back at some point again down the road. At least I hope we find ourselves back there again someday.

Some highlights from the past 7 years...

Paris avant le grand départ

Hi!  It’s been awhile since I’ve been here, life even in Europe gets busy especially when you have two little ones running around.  And in case you haven’t heard, we have left old world Europe after 7 years for new world California! We are back home again. The time finally arrived and as they say in the corporate world, “it is with mixed emotions” that we have made the decision to get the family back to California. But before we did one last long haul flight, we took the final chance to visit our favorite city, Paris.

Paris was and always will be special.  We loved our time there and having gone back for work multiple times after moving to London we knew that we needed one last trip before leaving. Wanting to recapture the feeling of living there, we found an airbnb one block from our old house so that we could enjoy the neighborhood just like old times.

Couple of must do’s were on the agenda.  1 - Get proper baguettes, croissants, et viennoiserie aux amandes!  It just isn’t the same unless you are in France. 2 - Fromage. Lots of cheese was a must because again, it just isn’t the same unless you are in France.  3. Wine. If you need an explanation here, well I can’t really help you.

With full tummies we also had to do a bit of sightseeing and in particular Joséphine wanted to be sure to see the Eiffel Tower. We made sure to walk around and get some pictures.  From there we took a leisurely walk down the river, stopping for a snack and a moment to enjoy the views.

We also took this last chance to do family photos with Katie who was the photographer we found when Joséphine was born.  We always loved her photos and with Elaine having joined the party we were able to capture a few pics with the whole family.

Being back in Paris was a great reminder of how much we enjoy the city.  Paris will always be a second home and a place we will look forward to returning to someday soon!  

Tannaci’s Visit and Happy Birthday Elaine!

Before moving home, we had the pleasure of the Tannaci family stopping by for a visit. They were on their way back to Saudi Arabia after their summer in California and decided to break up the trip with a week long stop in London. On Saturday we all headed over to Regent’s Park for some time on the playground and lunch at the Regent’s Bar & Kitchen. Regent’s Park was on our list of places to see before moving and the Tannaci’s were happy to go along. What a beautiful park! I’m so glad we didn’t leave London without visiting it. The girls loved playing at the playground….the tall slide was a particular favorite. And we had such a lovely lunch sitting outside with beautiful weather. As we only saw a small portion of the park, we could certainly go back and explore so much more.

As a bonus, we also got to celebrate Elaine’s 2nd birthday during the Tannaci's visit. Happy Birthday to a fun, spunky girl who makes us laugh everyday and has fun playing with, and trying to keep up with, her big sister. We love you so much Elaine!

And on the last day of their visit, Josephine got a special treat and stayed home from school so she could go to the Natural History Museum with her cousins. I got to meet up with them for lunch and it sounded like they all had a fun time.

Overall it was a great visit and all of the girls had a blast playing together over the week. In fact it was so great that Josephine was crying as we waved goodbye to them as they drove off to the airport.