Switzerland

We're back in Verona after a week of travel and catching up with some good friends which has been awesome. Now Rich Say has come to stay, and he and Simon are out exploring the city.

I'm housebound, as I'm waiting for a courier delivery (for the 2nd day), which incidentally just arrived as I typed this. Hurray! It is amazing how challenging it has been trying to receive this courier (which contains Simon's plane tickets to Prague where he's heading in a few weeks - they don't seem to understand e-tickets) - the language barrier meant we ended up having to ask our friend in the bar downstairs to call the company for us and try and set up the delivery. Just when I thought my Italian was improving, you have a phone conversation with a customer service agent who clearly does not make any effort to speak slowly or clearly or rephrase things for you, and you have to give up.

But it's actually given me an excuse to catch up on emails, blogs etc.

In the last week we visited a doctor in Bern, our good friends Jen, Patrick and Elia in Basel, and our London visitors Em and Tara in Lake Como. We are thriving with the enjoyment of having friends around us, although it has meant our Italian skills are diminishing rapidly.

Here are some pics from Switzerland...

First stop was Bern, which was really pretty.

... although some of the statues baffled us a little...

They have these two bears in a park at the entrance to the town, I think the bear is the city's mascot or something. Anyway they were so cute and cuddly (from a distance!) we enjoyed watching them for ages.

The 19 week scan went well, and our baby is growing strongly. Swiss medical technology is so advanced we were watching the ultrasound in 3D projected onto a screen on the wall in front of us about 2 metres wide. Hard to believe the baby is only 20cm big when you have seen it in those proportions! Here's a pic of the little fish...

We then had a few days in Basel enjoying Jen, Patrick, and Elia's company.

Basel is a beautiful place. We were amazed by the differences from Italy in organisation, cleanliness, maintenance of buildings, people actually obeying the road rules, street signs that actually took you where you wanted to go, public transport that was efficient and accessible...

One of the downfalls of Switzerland is things are fairly pricey. So we booked into one night in a nice hotel, then 2 nights in a private room of a brand new YMCA to save on cash. Unfortunately, the YMCA didn't have parking included, and typically, we managed to pick up our second parking ticket of the trip. Kind of defeated the purpose of saving money on accommodation. I was also not entirely happy with having to climb a ladder to get into bed - that's right - bunks. Suddenly my 5 month bump is making me less agile than usual and bunk beds are really not an option. Next time I think we'll fork out for the nice hotel.

Anyway after an enjoyable few days we headed back to Italy to pick up Emma and Tara, stopping at Interlaken to take in the amazing views.