Housekeeping, July 28-29

Sorry gang, no photos for this post.  A hinge broke on our home exchange tiny fridge/freezer unit and so we spent the 28th traveling by bus and foot to the outer reaches of Lausanne searching for a part.

These are the suburbs where the equivalent of Home Depot, Lowe’s, Kmarts and other big discount stores reside.  At first, it was amusing going in and out of home improvement/appliance stores with the broken refrigerator-freezer hinge (and its broken parts) in a zip lock baggie and trying to find a replacement.  We were met with either firm no’s, blank stares or disinterested “I can not help you, nor am I interested, Monsieur” shrugs.

We finally came across a small appliance repair place that looked like it may be our salvation, but their repair person had left at 3PM and the counter person wasn’t sure they could fix this hinge.  We came home foot-sore and discouraged, just as anyone in any country would be after a day of going in and out of stores without success – only ours was exasperated by trying to do it all in broken French/English.

Avez-vous des pièces pour cette charniére?  While showing them the hinge…

Ahh mais non, not here — mais there is OBI store — juste 7 kilometers on the bus, then traverse droite through a park and juste la bas, a pont and voila you is there…

Back home, after a restorative glass of wine, we decided because it’s the freezer door part of the unit – and, given they don’t have ice here (small American sigh), we have no need to open the freezer during the rest of our stay.  So we wedged it shut.  Voila  — c’est tout!

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The next morning we woke to rain, and husband, dissatisfied with the wedged freezer door solution, found some tools and McGuyvered a temporary repair on the hinge until our exchange partners return.  I used Google translate to compose a letter of explanation on the situation…and we did a little high five.

As a second part of our housekeeping, the recycling had to be loaded into the trunk of the car and hauled down into town to big barrels in designated parking lots.  Exciting huh?

After that chore was done and despite the rain, we decided to take off on a side trip with the car and ended up having a short walk around a little hillside village — another beautiful stone paved walkway through vineyards and back garden plots.  We  ducked into a little cafe, had a glass of wine, sampled some local cheeses and just watched the rain come down over the lake.

Two days of routine housekeeping in Switzerland was somewhat diverting and allowed us to feel a little bit like locals.  (But then again — who are we kidding?) 

Back to more exciting ventures tomorrow — promise.