Hi everyone. Myself my wife and our 6-year old son are moving to Bulle from Dublin in early July. We are fairly happy with our arrangements so far (work permit, jobs, apartment etc are all in-hand), and look forward to engaging with people in the expat community as well as Swiss friends and colleagues. I am in recruitment and my wife is a global trade manager.

Personally I'll be hoping to get in some trail/mountain-running, or even some golf at some stage, but our top priority of course is getting our son settled, so it would be great to hear of any people meeting up with their children this summer, or arranging any children activities or play-dates (etc) especially in the Bulle area, or even anywhere else in canton of Fribourg or around Bern or Lausanne areas. We are happy to jump on a train!

Language wise we doing our best to learn French, and because my wife is Spanish my son understands Spanish and will hopefully pick up French reasonably quickly too. We'll worry about German later!

But we very much look forward to getting to know English-speaking people, and thanks in advance for anyone saying hello or getting in touch.

Welcome to the forum and soon to Switzerland.

Yes, the German can come later since you'll be in the French speaking part of the canton.

Not sure how much might be going on for the kids at that time; schools will be breaking up here around mid to end July until the end of August for the summer holidays.

So, we made the move from Ireland to Bulle about 10 days ago and are getting settled in. Just to repeat earlier mention that we were wondering if anyone is involved in, or knows of - any informal play-dates or gatherings (eg at a park/lake/mountain) of expat parents with young children anywhere in Fribourg/Bern/Vaud areas, we would love to hear about it as we'd like to get our 6-year old energetic son a little bit of contact with some English-speaking children in this period before school. We're working on his French but that's gonna take a bit of time, and we are trying to engage with other families here in Bulle but due to language barrier (and the endless rain!) it hasn't been easy so far. But we'll get there.. And in the meantime, he'd certainly welcome a meet up..

Hey there and welcome!

Are you or your wife on Facebook? There are more options there for these kind of things - try "Families and Friends in Canton Bern" or "Bern Expats" or "Neu in Bern" - there are a number of Switzerland wide expat groups on there too. I dislike Facebook, but those sort of groups keep me on there.

I don't have any children, so can't offer any other suggestions than that. Wishing you all the best with your move, I really love your new city and am there regularly. If you ever want to have an "adult playgroup", my husband and I would be happy to meet for a pint - he is half Latin & half Swiss, I am American.

Bulle is in Canton Fribourg, no need to learn German there.

Thanks very much Suzie, great suggestions, and yes, I will be in touch. My wife and I are also a mixture of nationaities, she is Spanish I am Irish

Well, it is officially a bi-lingual canton, but Bulle is French speaking so they need to work on that first.

Hi there !

I actually have the opposite issue I speak in English with my 2 girls - 1 and 3yo - since they are born.
They do understand everything but my 3yo replies only in French with some English words here and there, except when I force her...

Hence I am looking for English-speaking kids so she could play with them and hopefully start to talk !

Not sure if you would be interested ?
If so I live in Lausanne but I'm happy to move

Eléonore

Hi EloLsne - yes absolutely, that would be great. Do you want to send me a PM?