Baby, when the lights go out...

So, when we moved to Lausanne apart from the many adjustments we had to make, power outage was one of them. And its quite possible you might face them too. Many of us were rather surprised by the fuse burning out so frequently in the beginning and had no idea what to do because explaining the emergency to your immigrant concierge/ watchman/ landlord who speaks minimal French can be quite a task.

So if you don't have a Georgie or an Alison in your group and are unable to get hold of Marcella (which never usually happens but still) in such a situation, here is what you can do. 

First, make sure its only your apartment and not the entire building. Unlike some people (clears throat, smiles sheepishly) before you panic yourself into changing fuse after fuse and end up confusing the faulty ones with the ones that work only to realize that your entire building is suffering from a power outage and its not just your apartment, open the door and take a look outside. If the entire floor is nicely lit up and no one's pounding the elevator, here's what you can do in a building like Avenue d'Ouchy 58... 

If the fuse box in your apartment looks like this (keep looking for the fuse/switch box, you'll find it; check behind doors, just above the entrance; perhaps even outside the apartment) :

all you need is something like this:

Unscrew that round eye-shaped thing in the middle of the fuse box and you'll see a fuse in the center. Just need to replace that and life will be beautiful again.

This is easily available in Migros or Coop. It would be wise to stock up on them before hand. Remember to read the label on the fuse; replace with the same power voltage. 

Also, keep some spare bulbs in stock always. We've had ours go 'poof!' a couple of times. 

Another tip: Try not to give your electrical circuit a heart attack. If you're using the hoover (vacuum cleaner) try not to use something as power hungry- such as the washing machine- simultaneously.

When we came back from our summer vacation, the stove wasn't working. I thought the fuse burned out again, but everything else was working just fine. Turns out, the stove (even the refrigerator) has its own fuse box. So all we really needed was to switch the dead one with a healthy one in this case too. 

Sometimes, you may need to change the main fuse (main fuse box of your floor or building) corresponding to your appliance/ apartment. But hopefully, the landlord/ concierge should be able to indicate that.

In other news, most of us are getting increasingly horrified with how the bank accounts are drying up with no jobs in the horizon (the assessments are on-going). Apparently this is normal. Also, our lovely Amelie gave birth to an adorable little Lou. I think the temperature touched 3 degrees today. So cold after so long; I am definitely going to miss the warm sunny days. 

Until then, Au revoir...