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I just woke up, it's 5pm. I just had potatoes and with Swiss chard and beans from the garden that Lise picked, and cheese. We're just about to walk to a store to find some more food.

I might still have time to chronicle the house in the daylight that's left. I'm pretty sure I'll have time. The views are amazing!

I had a weird dream I might write about when I get back…

 

Ok, so my dream: I dreamt that me and a friend (not sure which- just a friend) were invited to babysit for this guy. So we walked down this long driveway in the middle of the woods, and eventually got to a place where it split into several different driveways. The guy lived in number one, so we followed that path. There was a gate and he met us there, then led us to where he lived which was a really old dangerous-looking wooden sailing ship that was mounted on wood and adapted to life on land. It was really dark in the clearing due to the tree cover, but I don't think it was night. The masts were still there but there were no sails. He lead us round to the backside where there was a ladder heading up through a hole cut into the hull of the ship. We went up the ladder and into the ship, somehow the floor was flat (I think we might have been on deck but somehow also inside. I'm not sure but there was definitely a roof). Inside was really small and dark and all wooden. There were barrels and bits of old rusty things around. I didn't wonder in the dream how the guy actually lived here, it didn't look lived in at all. We asked were the kids were (he said he had two young girls to look after) and he said to look to one end of the ship and wait. We looked at the front end of the ship at the little ledge that was sticking out, and the ghost of a little girl in a white dress with hair in pigtails appeared on the ledge. She was just sitting there, and she had green eyes. The guy said you could tell she was a ghost by the fact that her irises were slightly off centre- and they were, her green irises were slightly to the side of her pupils, just green rings floating in mid air. They were still partly overlapping the pupil though, like someone had tried to draw them but missed. Then another girl with blue off centre irises and a similar dress appeared on the ledge opposite the first ghost, at the end of the boat. Then the guy left and said he would be back in awhile and that he was glad there were people to look after the two ghosts because they have trouble on their own. Then I woke up.

So that dream was a bit disconcerting. I think I had another one (I did sleep for about 15 hours after all), something about acting out the script of an action movie but in real life, but I forget the details.

 Anyway, so in real life, I went to the grocery store. I wore my Canadian Improv Games orange shirt to really fit in. It's about a five minute walk from our house. This area is considered pretty rural, but it's European rural which means everything is still within walking distance.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

It's very helpful to understand French, as most labels here are in German, French, and Italian (the three official languages of Switzerland). We had to find gluten free products for myself and Lise, so there was lots of label reading. The produce purchasing method is to put the stuff in a bag, put the bag on a weighing kiosk and punch in the code of the product, and then take the sticker label it prints out and put it on the bag. There are also plastic gloves for testing and picking up the fruit. This is the same system as in Spain.

We cheated the cart locking system by using a Canadian quarter instead of a euro or a Swiss franc like they wanted you to. It was a bit small but it still worked.

I'm reminded of all the small differences between North American and European grocery stores: eggs sold in groups of ten and unrefrigerated, tons of cheese selection, equal amounts of cereal or musli selections and only either chocolate or berries in your cereal, less milk and yogurt selection, less chip selection, less raw unprocessed meat selection, and carts that have four rotating wheels. There are really more similarities than differences though. There are still tired mothers and running children and little old ladies.

The cashier spoke English, which was helpful.

 

And that's about all I did today, except come home and eat a bunch of the stuff we bought. It's now 9pm and just now starting to be a little cool outside (it was so hot today!). I'm writing this on a swinging bench on one of the three outside decks at our house, watching the sun set and people swimming in the river and Tobin jumping on the trampoline. I can hear the constant buzz and click of insects (although there are noticeably less flies and mosquitoes- not a single bite so far) as well as the distinctive European pattern of wood pigeon calls. I heard it first in England: coo-COO-coo, coo-coo, then noticed that in Victoria it's a very different pattern: COO, coo-coo. But here it's the European call pattern. I like it better. I've never heard it in Victoria.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

So about the house: the lowest level is a mini suite, with a small kitchen and bed and office space. It has a deck that leads right out into the backyard with a table and chairs under a covered area on the side. The backyard has a trampoline, an amazingly maintained flower and vegetable garden, a currently empty rabbit hutch (I thought it was a chicken coop, but Lise says its for rabbits), and a wood oven (I think). It's very pretty and has a view of the fast-flowing river about 300 metres away. All the houses are close together on the steep slope here, all similarly amazing with four floors and great gardens and lots of decks. The suite also has an entire wall of rocks in glass cases, each labelled. They must collect rocks.

The next floor up is the main big kitchen and living room area, as well as a pantry with a big bunker-style door and a bathroom. It's quite a nice kitchen, with finished matching drawers. The fridge and pantry pull-out just look like the drawers around them. The living room is on the other side of the stairs, and leads out to another deck on top of the one below it that goes around to face the backyard and has another table and chairs on the side. You can take a stone path from this deck through a flower garden down to the backyard. The swingy chair I'm sitting on is on the side of this deck between the table and the back part of the deck.

Up another floor are the bedrooms. There are three of them. Two for the two teenage girls who normally live here and one for the parents. There are so many plants in this house: in my room alone there are three orchids, a tower of various ferns and cacti and other leafy stuff, and a hanging plant that has vines that have been attached across the ceiling. The living room has three big orchid plants, a hanging plant, four plants in the kitchen, and a ladder that serves as a plant stand. Both girls' rooms, mine and my brothers', have slanty ceilings with skylights that open to a view of the river. The kids' room are also heavily adorned with horse memorabilia: they ride horses a lot. I think this family owns a horse too. There's a saddle at the top of the stairs. The parents' room has another small deck attached to it. The last floor at the top of the house has the garage and a small office room full of stuff.

There's an interesting glass coffee table in the living room. Outside it smells like a rainforest (and maybe buchart gardens) in the evening. The water here is full of minerals so it washes away the soap too quickly from your hands. The bathroom has no fan. There are lots of native Austrailan-themed painting on the walls (I think they might have made some of them).

I think that's about it for describing the house. Suffice to say it's really neat and well decorated. And it's in a cool neighbourhood.

The moon is starting to rise.