*swiss elephants*

We made it back. Whew, what a trip. It was 95% awesome and 5% awful-- pretty good considering we lugged our kids across the world and back and lived to tell the tale. I'll post a big post soon, but thought I'd give a little teaser...

Probably one of the most memorable parts of the trip was when I came back to our hotel in Zug, Switzerland after a long day of visiting friends. I have Eli hanging off one arm, my diaper bag slung over my back and about 5 plastic sacks hanging on the other arm. I am trying to nicely herd the children in my fakest nice "we're in public" mommy voice and not succeeding at much except sounding very screechy. I am trying to head quickly to my room 4 flights of stairs up and unload when the lady at the front desk says, "there is someone here for you." I think she must be mistaken when I see a gentleman in dark clothes next to her that I have never met before. I look more closely and notice that he is a Swiss policeman. Some people have nightmares about monsters, earthquakes, spiders, cannibals... etc. I have nightmares about Swiss policemen. They scare me. Anyway. So the policeman turns to me and says, "Frau Barlow?" (I am trying to keep composure- I figure peeing my pants won't help the situation. Plus, that wouldn't be a very good example for Mia, who I have been yelling at for that exact thing lately.) I put on my strong voice and try to keep circulation in my left arm (the one with 5 bags). "Yes?" (Sam and Mia stare, Eli wiggles and fusses.) "I have a matter to discuss with Mr. Barlow. Where is he?" I weakly explain that he is at work. "Does he have a cell phone?" I finally get a few eggs and say, " Can I ask what this is about?" (Why is the policeman looking for daddy, mommy?) The policeman replies, "He has an outstanding ticket for a traffic violation from a year ago." Phew... relief. Ok. A traffic violation. So I ask if I can pay it and he agrees. So he gets out the paper work and you'll never believe this. The traffic violation was a fine of 20 francs for going 4 km over the speed limit. Let me put this in American. He was going 2.5 miles over the speed limit and the fine was for 18 dollars and 10 cents. Then they tacked on 50 francs for an anal obsessive compulsive Swiss judge to decide whether to track us down. He decided it was worth it. After I had all the info I tried to joke with the policeman... "I thought you were here to arrest my husband! (ha ha)" He replies in a very stern voice "Not yet." (Rule number 267 in the Swiss policeman handbook: Never, ever, let the person you are talking to doubt your authority. And NEVER, EVER, appear to be, in the slightest degree, a real person with human feelings.) The robot was nice enough to let me go upstairs and drop off my items, but not without reminding me that he would have his colleagues guarding all exits with machine guns (not really). Jared happened to call while I was up there and It was actually pretty fun to tell him that I couldn't talk because I was getting money to pay off a Swiss policeman who had come to arrest him. He didn't believe me.

So, the moral of this story is: Swiss people are elephants in disguise... they never, ever forget.