Swiss News

But first a comment or two: It's snowing like crazy here today! I'd say for the last several weeks, we've had steady snow showers that keep the total accumulation to about an inch. No big deal. Today, I'd guess we're up to about 3 or so already and the snow is still coming down. It's so weird to be at work and not at home avoiding the crazy southern drivers while eating my bread and drinking my milk that I purchased at the grocery store yesterday!

I really am having a hard time focusing at work. It's like my body is programmed to stay home when it snows. I guess that's what 30+ years of living in the south will do to a person.

I did wear my snow boots to work this morning. They look phenomenal with the rest of my work outfit. If you're lucky, I'll let Andre take a picture later.

Anywho, a couple of pieces of news came out today that I thought were particularly interesting.

#1: Confirmation that my timing is generally horrible: Zurich has overtaken Tokyo to rank as the world’s most expensive city for the first time in 20 years
http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/15/worlds-most-expensive-place-to-live/?hpt=hp_c2

#2: Immigration issues are not limited to the US. It's weird being an immigrant and thinking there are people out there who don't want you here for no reason other than you aren't originally from here. Obviously the issue isn't that simple. Still.
http://www.thelocal.ch/2574/20120215/

Apartment Hunting & Other Musings

Friday was a big day here in Zurich! We got ourselves registered with the canton of Zurich (pretty sure the only reason for this is so we can be taxed), we got ourselves a bank account AND we checked out our first apartment.

For those who haven't done extensive research on the Zurich rental market, let me sum it up in a few short words = landlord's market = everything is tiny and suuuuper expensive. Anywho, we went to check out this place that we found online. It was reasonably priced (in Zurich terms=1.5 times our mortgage) for the size (80m2 = 861 sq ft). Our relocation agent had already warned us that the market is really competitive and each apartment will likely receive close to 50 applications so we weren't surprised to see a line of people waiting on the sidewalk for the stated open house time. We decided to take a quick walk around the neighborhood while we waited on the door to open. Turns out the apartment is located next door to a strip club and across the street from another strip club! Andre's response: What's wrong with that?? Since we were already there, we went ahead and went inside to look around. The apartment was quite nice and was packed with other people looking and filling out applications. We decided to pass. :)

Saturday, it rained....again. Our big outing was to the supermarket. We had to stock up because all of the stores are closed here on Sunday. As in totally closed. Not open. At all. It's like being back in east TN in the 80's.

On Sunday, it rained....again. We said to hell with it, put on rain proof jackets and headed over to Uetliberg to see the sights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uetliberg The conventional wisdom is that one should take the train to Triemli and then hike up to the top of the mountain and take the train back down. We, being rather out of shape, elected to take the train to the top of the mountain and then hike down to Triemli. We took some lovely pictures of the view shrouded in rainy fog. I'll throw those up online tomorrow. I'm sure we'll take the exact same pictures sometime this summer when it's actually sunny outside!

Sunday was pretty action packed. After Uetliberg, we took the train to various parts of Zurich to get an idea of where we might like to live if we can't find an apartment in the city. We found two neighborhoods that we really liked. After all that, we came back to our apartment and our neighbors invited us over for tea at 7pm. We're in temporary housing so everyone here is in transition. Our neighbors came in about a week after us so we've actually been helpful to them! One week can make a huge difference in a brand new place. After tea, we did some skyping with the parental units (and Sophie too) and then I tried to go to bed.

I'm having a hard time sleeping here because of all of the caffeine I'm consuming! We had tea with the neighbors on Sunday night. I couldn't refuse the tea b/c I had already skirted around the bread they were serving (it's hard to be polite when you have gluten issues - good thing I have a husband who doesn't mind eating two servings!). At work, I've found that after lunch, it's expected that on the way back to work, everyone stops in the break rooms for a coffee break. I've been drinking tea but still...more caffeine. In addition to the regular post-lunch coffee break, on Monday, the Irish expats at PwC held a welcome back from holiday happy hour beginning at 4:30pm complete with Irish coffee and snacks. More caffeine! I "watered" down my Irish coffee with an extra helping of whipped cream but still that sucker was strong. Good thing I didn't have to drive anywhere!

Sidenote: Apparently the only people that work in Switzerland the first week of January are suckers like me that don't know any better. Everyone else takes off before Christmas and doesn't return until the second week of January (hence the welcome back party yesterday). Note taken.

Continuing on then, we went to check out our second apartment last night. We liked it a lot. Tomorrow, we go look at more apartments! Hopefully after tomorrow we'll have seen enough to be able to make a decision. Fingers crossed!

Oh...AND...it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow! I think this will be the first time we've seen the sun since leaving the states two weeks ago....

Pics & Observations

Today we began researching the different areas of Zurich so that we can hopefully decide on an area to live. To that end, we spent the afternoon exploring in the city of Winterthur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterthur

A few pictures:

12.29.2011

Some more random observations:

1. It appears to be more socially acceptable to wear (tight) sweatpants in public here. By grown men....

2. All the good US shows are dubbed in German here (i.e. Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, etc.). All the bad US shows are still in English with German subtitles (Teen Mom, Room Raiders, mostly MTV shows....)