It seemed like Jack was on the platform before the train had even stopped, but it wouldn’t have been possible, we were in Switzerland now, train doors simply don’t open before trains stop.

 By the time I got to the door of the train with Poppy and Kai, Jack was already down on the platform with two bags beside him, Pete was passing down another, blocking the passengers behind him from getting off. I handed him the luggage bag I had and he passed that one down to Jack too. Then Pete got out so he could help Poppy and Kai with their backpacks that were loaded up with soft toys. Noah and I were the last off.

 

I looked up as I stepped onto the big wide platform that stretched back into shops. There were people rushing everywhere. I searched through the crowd looking for Denise, Pete’s Aunt, and Christian, his cousin, but they weren’t there.

 

‘Can you see them?’ I asked Pete.

 

‘Nope.’

 

I started going through the ‘taxi’ or ‘bus’ argument in my head that I’d have to have with Pete, but then I stopped. I’d spotted a small woman in her late seventies jostling her way down the escalators, madly waving at us. Jack must have seen her just before me, because before I had even said, ‘There she is,’ he was running towards the escalators waving both his arms, calling out, ‘Denise! Denise.’ When Denise reached the bottom of the escalators she was wrapped up in a big Jack hug and all we could see of her from where we stood were her grey curls just over the top of Jack’s shoulder. Jack pulled back and then gave her the three kisses that he knew he should, one for each cheek and then another one for good luck.

 

It was amazing how good it was to see someone that we knew and loved. It felt like being wrapped up in a warm blanket and being told, that just for a little while, we didn’t have to think. Pete, Noah and me dragged our luggage over to Denise while Poppy and Kai were hugging her around the waist, then we pushed our way in for our share of hugs and three kisses. All the kids were talking at once and Denise was standing in the middle of them with a huge smile.

 

Christian, who was leaving work early to come and help Denise cart all of us and our four bags, to Denise’s house, hadn’t arrived yet. Denise said if we headed towards the car park we’d probably bump into him along the way. We piled onto the escalators with our bags trying to keep to one side so people could get past. I was a bit disappointed at how crowded the train station was, how many people there were and the hurry they were in. I’d been under a misconception that once we crossed the border everything would be quiet and peaceful.

 

We hadn’t gone ten steps off the escalator before we heard Christian, calling out hello in his singsong Swiss German accent. The kids had only met Christian once before, a year ago at Pete’s brother and sister in law’s wedding. Christian and a whole contingent of the Swiss family, including Denise, had made the long journey to Tumut for the wedding. We’d spent a week with them down around Tumut, and then, after they’d travelled for a couple of weeks, they’d come and stayed with us on the Gold Coast for another week. The kids had adored Christian, they played soccer with him, took him surfing and loved the special twisty Swiss bread that he made for them which smelt and tasted more like cake than bread. Watching him stride towards us I could feel the kids hesitating beside me. In Italy they hadn’t been able to wait to see Christian and had talked about him often, but now that they were here, and he was in front of them, there was a sudden wave of shyness, even Jack was hanging back.

 

‘Go on then,’ I said, ‘go and say hello, give Christian a hug.’

 

Christian was close enough now for the kids to be able to see the smile on his face. Jack was the first one to go forward, very formal, putting out his hand out to shake Christian’s and then, not being able to help himself, wrapping his arms around Christian’s chest. Christian laughed and pulled Jack into his big bear hug. The other kids ran in then, any shyness they might have felt was gone and they were jumping up hanging off Christian’s arms, everyone laughing.

 

‘Thanks for taking time off work to come and get us,’ Pete said.

 

Christian smiled shaking Pete’s hand; there was no hugging or kissing, that seems to be a Swiss custom saved for women and kids. ‘It gives me much pleasure,’ he said, ruffling Kai’s hair who was standing next to him.

 

We made our way, all eight of us and four bags, to the car park walking past shops that no longer smelt of garlic and sausages but instead chocolate.

 

Denise lives in a small town twenty minutes from Basel called Dornach. I’ve known Denise now for almost as long as I’ve known Pete, twenty years. She’s visited Australia on and off over that time with her husband Werner, always with a smile and arm loads of gifts, the kids favourite great Aunt. I’ve heard all the stories about Switzerland and the two-story house she lived in with Werner up until two years ago, when sadly he passed away.

 

It was strange visiting Denise’s house without Werner there, particularly for Pete who had been many times before to visit Denise and Werner in Switzerland. Somehow it always brings a death home, makes it more real when you go to the place where the person always was and they’re not there anymore. There’s a big photo of Werner sitting on the shelf above the heater. Werner at his best, a big smile, looking straight at the camera. He would have loved spending time with the kids, showing us around his Switzerland. The photo and an old cardigan of Werner’s that Denise pulled out for Pete to wear was enough to make Pete cry, to reinforce just how much he misses someone who was an important part of his life

 

The house Denise lives in is the same house she grew up in with her Aunt and Uncle. She moved there from the French side of Switzerland to the German side when she was thirteen. Today Denise’s German is better than her French, although not by much, and the English she has been learning on and off over the past ten years or so, is way better than what Pete and I can do in French.

 

Denise’s house didn’t fall short of all the pictures I’d built up in my head. It’s a typical Swiss house, a rectangle standing up on its end with a pitched roof on top, shutters on every window. There are three stories. The level you walk in on is where all the living is done, the lounge room, dining room and kitchen. On the top level there are the bedrooms and then there’s a basement with a garage and laundry, and of course, like nearly all Swiss houses, your standard bomb shelter.

 

Jack and Noah were thrilled when they realised there wasn’t enough room for them to sleep at Denise’s, that they would have to sleep at Christian and Francoise’s house down the road. It meant they got to spend more time with Christian and proved, as if it needed proving, that they were the big kids. It was a bit strange for me though at first, letting them go. I was still hanging on to the feelings I’d had in Italy, where I’d needed to know where the kids were all of the time. I’d only been Switzerland a few hours, I didn’t realise how different things were here. I didn’t yet know that kids as young as five and six walked to school by themselves or to the local school bus stop. I had no idea of how strong the trust was of the community to do the right thing. It didn’t take me long to adjust to their nighttime and early morning absence. Three weeks of travelling together in close confines is a long time.

 

We were thoroughly spoilt for the five days we spent at Denise’s. Denise had breakfast ready for us before we’d even opened our eyes, there was fresh bread for lunch every day with chunks of cheese from all different parts of Switzerland and hot dinners of fish and chicken and pasta that I didn’t have to think about. The most involved I was allowed to be was with the clearing of the table and washing of the dishes. After three weeks in Italy, of trying to feed six people on the run, it was heaven.

 

We had two dinners at Christian and Françoise place. The first was a special dinner, a sort of welcome to Switzerland dinner. Francoise’s father has a friend who’s a farmer, a man her father helped out once. Ever since the family has got free cheese. The dinner was raclette. Francoise’s had got the cheese from the farmer at the beginning of the week. A huge semi circle of cheese. The cheese was stood upright, the cut side revealing the cheese facing up, and held in place by metal arms and then a glowing element was lowered over the cheese to melt it. When enough of the cheese was melted someone’s plate was passed up from the table, the cheese turned on its side and the melted part of the cheese scrapped onto a plate. There were little mushrooms, potatoes, gherkins and carrots waiting in bowls on the table ready to be smothered in the melted cheese and there was also salad to go with it. (I soon learnt that in Switzerland, like in Italy, there was always a salad to go with dinner). The strong smell of the cheese, which was nothing like the gouda, Kraft, or Coon that we get at home, had Noah curling up his nose before he’d even got a forkful near his mouth. It only took one dirty look from me though to make him smile as he finished the first plate full and then said no thanks to more.

 

Christian and Françoise had us for dinner another night, this time much more Australian style, a chicken BBQ, the only difference being that Christian was BBQing in minus three degrees. This night Monique came. Christian’s sister, Denise’s daughter. I met Monique for the first time last year at the wedding in Tumut, but she’s someone I feel I’ve known for much longer. She’s so much like her mother, a big smile and always her hands full of gifts. Our conversations in Australia involved a lot of hand signals, drawings and dictionaries, but there was always a lot to talk about. Monique lives in the country in a tiny village called Bleiken. She’s got two horses and works as a nurse, so we’ve got a lot in common. Monique’s English had improved a lot since I last saw her; there was no need for a dictionary anymore. It was exciting that our conversations could be longer and more in depth. But also scary, Pete and my French had a long way to go to catch up to Monique’s English.

 

The first five days in Switzerland were a lot about organization. We had to hire skies, stocks, boots and helmets for everyone. Françoise came along with us and converted all our Australian sizing into European sizes and then acted as interpreter between the German speaking sales assistant and us. The sales assistant didn’t reveal that she spoke quiet good English until we were well into the process of trying on boots. Françoise, who went to America for a year when she was thirty to study English, speaks faultless English. She said when she arrived in America she spoke only German and French, she didn’t understand a word of English. When she got off the plane in America, the guy at the airport told her to stay behind the yellow line, Francoise’s had no idea what he was saying, he had to come over and grab both her shoulders and then push her back behind the line. ‘They don’t have yellow lines in Switzerland,’ she explained to me laughing. For us, her year of learning English, in America proved to be very helpful. Our little bit of French which we’d picked up off tapes was not only useless because of how little we knew but also because we were in the German part of Switzerland. Besides that, it became very obvious with Francois, Christian, (who also speaks excellent German, French and English) and Denise, (whose English gets better every time we see her and is now up to a very good conversation level), that there was no point in us stumbling our way through any conversations just yet in French, we were better off sticking to English. It was our first insight into the Swiss people and their proficiency with languages.

 

Along with the skiies stocks and boots, we had to top up on warm clothes for the kids. We spent a morning in Basel gathering jackets, jumpers and skivvies, at much cheaper prices than we would have paid in Australia.

 

After we took all the clothes we’d bought back to the car we had the treat of going to the Basel Christmas markets. The markets were much bigger than the one we’d been to on the lake in Como. There were tiny stalls with fairy lights covering a large cobble stone area. They were filled with traditional Swiss art and craft, wooden carved ornaments, knitted beanies, homemade Christmas sweets, lace snow flakes, lamps made out of intricately carved wooden scenes and the kids favourite, a stall where a guy was blowing glass. It was late afternoon and freezing, everybody was in long coats, gloves, scarves and hats. The only thing that was missing was the snow, but the fairy lights that came on at dusk and made the fake snow on top of the stalls glow, almost made up for it.

 

There was the smell of warm wine, melted cheese and glass being stretched and burnt. It was the smell of the white Christmas I’d been dreaming about for years. We even found Sammy Clause (Swiss German’s Santa Clause), an old guy with a belly and a long thin beard that stretched down to his belly button. It wasn’t one of those shiny fake beards you see in DJs and Westfield’s, but a beard of real hair. The belly was real too; dressed in his red and white outfit I would have sworn he was the real deal if I didn’t know any better. The kids all got to sit on Sammy Clause’s lap while he talked away to them in German, making the crowd that had gathered around him laugh. Each of the kids were given an orange and the photo which had been taken was given to us for free.

 

The day before we left Basel Pete drove with Christian to Geneva to pick up the car we were going to have for the next six months. He said on the way there that Christian pointed out wide stretches of highway that had been built in a way that could be used as a runway by the airforce if it was ever needed. And there were tunnels before the road/runway, well hidden by mountains, big enough to act as emergency hangers. Being on the border of Germany during world war two had left a lingering effect.

 

Pete and Christian had a rare steak lunch with Sammy, Christian’s brother (who is also a butcher) and then headed back to Dornach, this time Pete in our car with misleading French number plates. Number one we weren’t French and number two, chances were if you tried to speak to us in French we would say pardon enough times to make you give up and go away.

 

The last morning, after presents had been given for putting under Christmas trees, there were hugs and more of the three kisses, promises of seeing each other again soon and then we were off, to stay with Pete’s rele’s who lived in the French part of Switzerland, to holiday in their chalet in the snow. The kids couldn’t wait, finally after four weeks of traipsing through Europe they were going to be able to do what they were promised from the start, click some skiies on their feet and go down hill, hopefully with a bit of style.

 

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