Sunday 22 September 2013

Expats Unite!

I wrote a while back about the good people at Geneva Family Diaries taking an interest in my experiences since I moved to Switzerland (see Expat Dads Who Blog - Part I, Part II and Part III), and my blog was also mentioned during a World Radio Switzerland segment about expats who blog (see World Radio Switzerland).

But I'm not only interested in sharing my own story. I also like to find out how others have coped with becoming an expat, how they fared in moving to another country and what they did to overcome any obstacles. As someone who likes to travel, other peoples' stories about their new countries can be a great way to get tips on places to visit. It's for this reason that I am a member of sites like Expat Blog and the English Forum.

While both these sites are great sources of information, I recently came across another site that is more of a global community for expats from all over the world, where people can share their experiences and organize social gatherings, among many other functions.

This website is InterNations.

They have excellent, informative country (and city) guides that provide a wealth of information, covering everything from settling in your new country, driving rules, what to do to find a job and life in general. As well as this, they have forums that cover cities and countries, and discussion groups to provide social interaction on an unlimited range of topics. I only signed up to the site in August this year, but I'm already enjoying interaction with my fellow expats.

My long term goal - as with the other sites mentioned above - is to make new friends in Lausanne and Switzerland in general, outside of my Swiss wife's circle of family and friends. I truly believe that InterNations could help me achieve this, fingers crossed! :)

I would recommend any other expats, wherever you may be, to have a look at the InterNations website and see if it is something that would interest you, even if only to serve as a forum for football banter!
 
 

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Egg & Soldiers

It's a simple yet classic British dish, that requires very little culinary skill but still delivers a tasty result. There are only a couple of ingredients and the whole thing can be ready in 5 minutes.

The dish in question?

Egg and soldiers.

Strips of toasted bread that you dip into a boiled egg. Simple, yet delicious. This was a cherished childhood memory for me, as I fondly remember having egg and soldiers as an occasional lunchtime treat.

Following on from my desire to make sure I pass on my heritage to my daughter (see "Instilling Britishness") I decided to make this for Lydia for the very first time. As you can see from the photos, she liked it!


She finished off the whole egg and all her soldiers, and she seemed to enjoy every bite.

An easy meal to make that children really love - if you are stuck for ideas and don't have much else in the fridge / cupboard than egg, butter and bread, you can't go wrong with egg and soldiers!

Sunday 8 September 2013

The Nati almost there...

I've written articles in this blog about my past trips to watch FC Lausanne Sport play (see "Following FC Lausanne-Sport to the Final" and "Allez Lausanne!"), both of which resulted in me witnessing a disastrous result for the team I was there to support.

Well, this time I made the step up to watching the national team, nicknamed the "Nati", as they battled for qualification to the World Cup tournament in 2014. The match saw Switzerland playing host to Iceland in Qualifying Group E. The Swiss were flying high in their table and at the time had the best defence in international football in 2013. Pretty impressive.

I travelled with friends to Bern to watch the match, and after a nice pizza and a couple of beers, we took our seats to watch the match unfold. Switzerland were comfortably top of their group and favourites to defeat Iceland, who trailed the Swiss by 5 points in the group and had already lost to the Nati in the reverse fixture back in October 2012.


However, things didn't go exactly according to plan.

The expectant crowd had barely settled into their seats after the national anthems when Jóhann Gudmundsson struck first blood for Iceland to stun the Swiss crowd into disbelieving silence whilst the travelling Icelandic contingent were roared into life.

The lead lasted all of 12 minutes, as Stephan Lichtsteiner equalized for the Nati, and the match swung back in the hosts' favour as Fabian Schär and a second goal from Lichtsteiner made it 3-1 to Switzerland at the interval. They were playing well with plenty of style, swagger and intent, and fully deserved their lead at this stage.

A beer at half time was happily consumed amid a buoyant Swiss crowd, with their team on course for victory and another 3 points to cement their lead in the group.

Less than 10 minutes after the restart, Blerim Dzemaili made it 4-1 to Switzerland from the penalty spot, and the Swiss were in dreamland.

Indeed it seemed that some of the Swiss players were still dreaming as only moments later a goal from Kolbeinn Sigthórsson reduced the deficit to 4-2, and give the visitors a glimmer of hope.

Still, at 4-2 up you would expect Switzerland to hold on for the win. Then again, football is a funny old game.

Instead of tightening up the defence and killing off the game, the Swiss players suddenly forgot how to play. It looked like they were doing a post-match warm down exercise as they could barely keep hold of the ball and were hopeless going forwards. Iceland, buoyed on by Sigthórsson's goal and their vociferous supporters, pressed the Swiss and relentlessly surged forward, hitting their opponents with some fluid attacking displays.

Their pressure was rewarded as Gudmundsson scored his second of the night with a little over 20 minutes left to play, and suddenly the full comeback seemed on.

Could the unthinkable happen? Could Switzerland really throw away a 4-1 lead?

Yes. Yes they could. And they did, as the man of the moment Gudmundsson finished off his hat trick in style, smashing in the equaliser in added time.

The final whistle blew and it ended 4-4, as Iceland deservedly took home a point.

It was practically the stereotypical game of two halves, with Switzerland dominating the first half and Iceland running the second.

As it turns out, second placed Albania lost their game against Slovenia, so gaining 1 point from this match meant Switzerland maintained their 4 point lead in Group E, but it was undoubtedly 2 points dropped.

Full credit to Iceland for taking the game to their opponents, but it was worrying to see the Swiss switching off for half an hour or so where they really struggled. They simply got complacent and practically treated the game as though it was over, even when Iceland scored their third goal. If they do that against other teams, particularly the likes of Spain, Brazil and Germany, then they would end up being completely slaughtered.

All in all, I actually quite enjoyed this experience, which gave me a far better impression of Swiss football than the last two debacles I witnessed.

It was a match full of action and goals with plenty of attractive football to keep the crowd entertained. Obviously I supported the Swiss so was naturally very disappointed at the end result, but I can imagine this would have been a cracking game to watch as a neutral.

I saw signs of how Switzerland play, and - barring the disastrous second half - think they might be able to surprise one or two teams at the World Cup next year (provided they seal qualification in the upcoming matches, of course).

Tuesday 3 September 2013

A fun family weekend

This weekend my parents come over for a visit, and we had a great time. Luckily the good weather continued as it was sunny and warm, making it much easier to find things to do!

On the Sunday we decided to have lunch in one of my favourite restaurants in Vidy (see "Restaurant les Berges de Vidy"), and I enjoyed their delicious filets de perches for the umpteenth time. My mum opted for the "salad de soleil", which turned out to be a salad with sunglasses sitting on top! How random!


After lunch we had a stroll along the lake in Vidy, taking in a pit stop at the playground for some fun before both Lydia and I had a go at climbing a tree. From my point of view it was an incredibly uncomfortable branch to sit on, but I stayed up long enough for a photo or two.

We continued our stroll and we all decided to paddle our feet in the water to cool down. Lydia took this one step further and began walking out into the lake until her trousers were soaked! She probably would have carried on even further if we let her, but as we didn't have a change of clothes that would not have been such a good idea.


All in all, a very nice weekend spent with my parents.