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Published: September 8th 2017
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It was late in the evening when we unlocked the door to our next home - Rue Jean-Calvin in Geneva. My pram wouldn't fit into the lift, so I was carried upstairs 😊. We weren't there long. Almost immediately, I was carried back down, and put back in my pram. The cobbled streets bounced me off to sleep, whilst mummy and daddy found a place to eat nearing midnight aside the Old Arsenal. A very accomplished violinist was practicing / busking adjacent to the restaurant, so dinner was accompanied by live music. This was not the lifestyle mummy had when she lived in Geneva - she rarely went out to dinner back then! Daddy was very tired the next morning because apparently, after dinner, he had attempted to move the car closer to our apartment. After over an hour circling around one way or closed streets, he had relented and parked back in the lower car park.
The next day was the Swiss national day, so when we commenced driving, despite it being a weekday, the roads were empty. The public holiday also meant that everyone who lived in Geneva was off-work and on holiday somewhere. Luckily there was a
holiday, as one of mummy's old skiing and hiking friends had some free time to see us. As we had kept the car, we drove to meet Juan in Nyon, a short way up Lac Leman. We arranged to meet in a café, where I had nearly (I'm getting better) spilled the glass of orange juice. I was prammed over more cobbled streets, to Nyon castle followed by a walk along the foreshore. We all sat at a lovely spot by the lake and daddy even went for a swim as the day was beautiful! A little later, Juan's wife came to meet us, but I was expecting her to bring a playmate for me. You can imagine my disappointment when I heard she had left Daniel (their 6 week old boy) at home with the grandparents!
The hours had flown by, and it was already afternoon. We had to return the car by 2pm, so we dashed back up the motorway to the airport. Luckily no one had asked for our passports because daddy and mummy are not used to changing countries and had left them at the apartment (we had rented the car on the French side
of the airport)! We were also lucky no one had stopped us at the border control because we had dropped the car seat off at the Villard's place (yay, no more car seat!) and mummy hid me on the floor as we passed through the controls! 😊
Finally we arrived at the airport, returned the keys, passed through passport control (which was unattended - phew!) and then caught a bus (free from the airport) back into town. We got all the way back to the apartment door when daddy suddenly realised... he had left the apartment key on the car key key ring which we had dropped off at the airport!!!
Rather than return to the airport straight away, mummy suggested heading to Galia's place, who we had arranged to meet that evening and accompany to the the Fête de Genève (she was hoping we could stay with her and daddy could head back to the airport to find the keys!). As no one had wifi to contact Galia, we walked to her apartment (mummy has a good memory from 12 years ago!) and hoped they hadn't left yet.
We were in luck! Everyone was still at
home and mummy and Galia looked very pleased to see each other. There was even a little boy who I wanted to play with - Aliosha. Galia's 6 year old son has even more energy than me! How I wish I could run and play with him!!! So while Julian, Galia's husband, kindly offered to take daddy to the airport in their hire car (Galia's mother was visiting from Bolivia so they had hired a car to take her around - you don't need a car living in Geneva city), mummy, Galia and her mother chatted in a mixture of French and Spanish, and I watched wide-eyed at all the cool toys Aliosha was playing with. Mummy and Galia said I couldn't touch them though because the parts were too small! 😞
As I watched I was feeling really hot and my head was a bit dizzy. Mummy suddenly realised how hot I was and Galia got a thermometer to measure my temperature - 37... 38... 39 and rising! I hardly had the energy to move and mummy and Galia looked really worried. They said it must have been the vaccinations from the day before and mummy texted Frédéric
Villard for advice on what to do. Next second, I was being lifted into a cool bath. It was magic! I felt my energy return and soon was happily playing in the bath.
Julian returned shortly afterward but... no daddy!! Daddy finally returned home brandishing our key. After sending someone to look for the key at the car return to no avail, he had finally seen it was still on the front desk where it had been returned! Galia headed out to the Fête to join her mother, Julian and Aliosha who had left earlier, and we finally returned home.
I was still a bit hot, so mummy cuddled me off to sleep while daddy went for a walk around the Geneva festival to see what mummy keeps talking about. He seemed very impressed at the number of people our and about but he said there were too many people smoking... maybe they had a bonfire?
The next morning we went up to Bourg de Four square, a couple of minutes from our place, to breakfast with mummy's friend Leanne. Everyone talked very animatedly while I sat on daddy's lap. Then mummy and daddy were in a
big rush to find some gifts to take to Ly and Frédéric Dumas place - the couple grandma and grandpa had met in their 20s in Europe (and who had invited them to stay when grandpa sang on the train!) and who came to mummy and daddy's wedding. Ly wore lots of bright colours which were fascinating to look at and Frédéric had a big bushy white beard I wanted to pull! We went for a lovely lunch (I got lots of cuddles and tried some yummy vegetables) near a very long bench - the world's longest park bench apparently! I hope we see Ly and Frédéric again as I liked them!
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