Homesick

So maybe some of you have wondered, I know I myself have wondered, when would homesickness set in?  It hit me last weekend (I am mostly recovered, finding canned pumpkin would help greatly). I had a little twinge last Thursday when the downstairs neighbors (the ones that were living in our current flat) left to go home.  I saw their bags all packed and thought- "They are going home. That sounds nice."
   The real kicker was the weekend. Having all our stuff packed up, moving it, not having a set system for the new flat (things like: we keep the toys in this room and the tweezers are on that shelf in the bathroom) and having no food in our house led to some serious pining for home.  We moved on Saturday which meant we had no food for Sunday. Everything is closed on Sundays, I wasn't even sure what kind of restaurants we would find open, especially for lunch.  There were plenty open, it turns out, but I had already mentioned "McDonald's" so the kids were set on that.  WoW! is it expensive!  But that's pretty much my mantra here.   The kids got burgers and Kenny and I decided to try the "US- Mex" restaurant.  Mexican sounded good.... we got what looked like chicken stew (including green beans and carrots) with tortillas. It was a silly idea- I think we went partly because we wanted to see how the Swiss would do "tex-mex." I think we will stick to eating at the bakeries.
   I'm usually all about the local flare and generally avoid chain restaurants, especially when out of town, but I must admit that I find myself drawn to the familiar. There is a McDonald's downtown and a Starbuck's at the train station; I find them so tempting- especially with the language barrier. And that is the beauty of McDonaldization- you know what you are getting (roughly), even thousands of miles from home.

Speaking of home, here is a picture of ours.  The kids talk about how we have 2 homes right now- our Swiss home and our Illinois home.

 If you are wondering, they do not talk about being homesick or missing things-people do get mentioned occasionally. And I think they have mostly stopped "acting out" their homesickness. It would be nice if Johanna would start using the potty again, but pull-ups are a small price to pay.