Everyday Life in Lausanne

Above left is a picture of the green & white awning front of our local grocery store. As you can see from the outside, the grocery stores are MUCH smaller than we're used to. The picture above left is the kids in the produce section, ready for our day's shopping.
There are 2 main chain stores: Migros and Coop. The strangest thing to us is that you can't buy the same brand name products at both stores. Migros sells Pepsi, Coop sells Coke. We shop at both stores. About 8 stores down from this Coop, there's a 2-story Migros (basement and ground floor). Both stores are less than a 5 minutes walk from home. The picture on the left is Isaac in the snack isle... yes, that's it!!!
We usually shop for 1-2 days worth of groceries. Since we have to carry everything home, we don't splurge as much as we'd like! I have a small cart on rollers that a neighbor in MN loaned us - it's been invaluable, as carrying water home every couple days would be a huge load!
There are several "everyday American" items that are not available here: macaroni & cheese, regular mustard, colby/cheddar/monterey jack/etc. cheese, and fig newtons among others. Peanut butter is hard to come by, but we can find it. Even if they have items we're used to, they taste different. The mayonaise is MUCH better, but other things, like the frozen pizza, will take a little longer to get used to. We ordered Pizza at our house last night - very un-Suisse of us! It was really spicy and good, and the pizza boxes here have advertisements all over them. Maybe we Americans can learn a thing or two here!



After a morning of eating, shopping, laundry, etc., we head out for the day on our scooters. Lots of kids here have them. Store owners are usually not too excited to see scooters, so if we're shopping we usually leave them outside the store. Switzerland is known to be extemely safe, so in most communities leaving your things outside a store (like scooter or stroller) is completely acceptable. However, it's not advised in the busy districts, like the city centre.





We spend a lot of time swimming here. The lakeshore is a string of marinas, public parks, and public beaches. I haven't seen a lakefront home yet in Lausanne. It makes for a very nice community. There are lots of bike riders, walkers, sunbathers, and swimmers along the lake on any given day. Our favorite activity is swimming and playing along the sandy beach. We have picked up some sand toys here, including a huge inflatable frog.

Another way to cool off here is to jump in any of the large fountains in the city. The one pictured here is in Lausanne near the city centre. The park is absolutely beautiful, and meticulously maintained. We were recently here around lunchtime, and the park benches were filled with people having lunch. It's very common to see kids in their underwear (or young kids naked) cooling off in a fountain. Girls rarely wear swimsuits until they reach 6 or so, and even then they just wear bottoms until they're older.