Playground Party

We've got such great neighbors here! Last night, all of the ex-pats that live in our apartment complex got together for an "apero", which is a Swiss word for something like a happy hour. My Australian friend and I were talking about how nice it would be for all the families to meet earlier this week, so she decided to put notes in everyone's mailboxes to meet at the playground on Friday.

It was such an international mix! We represented the US and the other families were from, Australia, Argentina, Sweden/Spain, Austria, and Norway. Everyone who came spoke English, but there were lots of mini-conversations going on in multiple languages. The kids, who ranged in age from 5 months to 7th grade, all got along really well and had tons of fun playing together. We all ordered pizza from the local restaurant and brought our own drinks and snacks and chairs.

It was amazing to find out how many countries these people have lived in! We are the only ones to have come directly from their home country. The Norwegians just spent 3 years in China; the Swedish/Spanish family had lived here previously, in the US, then most recently in Spain; the Austrians lived in Boston for a few years; the Aussies lived in the UK and traveled extensively in the US, and the Argentinians have lived in Italy and London. I can't believe how many languages they speak too! The Swedish/Spanish family speak 4 languages fluently!

It was just such a nice night. It wasn't the same as being with people I've known for so long, but it was a good step towards making Switzerland feel like home right now.

First Day of Kindergarten

Aidan started Kindergarten today! And I didn't cry! Yea for me!

He was really excited to go to school. He packed his backpack last week. He thought he may need a few things, like a notebook, a few books, a stuffed animal, some Post-it notes (is he my kid or what?!?), and a tie. Yes, a tie. When I asked him about the tie, he said "I may need to look fancy on my first day. I want to be prepared."

Jason and I both took him and his backpack (minus the tie) to school this morning. We walked him to his classroom and he hung up his gear and went right in like he'd been going there forever. We had to ask him for a hug good-bye.

The school's Parent Association hosted a coffee morning after drop-off, so Lainey and I went to that. I met some nice moms-even one from Ohio and one from Atlanta. People come in and out of the school so often, that they really do a great job of welcoming new families.

Aidan stayed all day, until 3pm. When I picked him up, he was all smiles, except for being hungry. I had signed him up for hot lunches, but the lunches there are more gourmet than school fare, and all he ate was rice and bread (no sweet and sour chicken for him!). I decided he's too "normal" of a kid to eat such gourmet meals. He's better off with a PB sandwich than Pork Pot Pie or Curried Chicken (which are on the menu for the rest of the week!). He was excited to show me the book he made which illustrated his day and give me the "Important Information" folder. He made me sit down to look at that as soon as we walked inside.

We're going out to dinner for pizza to celebrate his special day tonight... if he can stay awake that long!

Snow in August

It is totally out of character for me to choose to go anywhere colder than it is where I already am, but today I actually agreed to go to somewhere it snows in what is the hottest month of the year!

We drove 1 1/2 to Mt. Titlis just past Luzern and went up the 10,000 ft mountain where it's snowy all year. It was amazing! To reach the summit, we rode in a gondola (think sky bucket at Cedar Point), then a cable car, then in a rotating cable car (the only one in the world, by the way). It was warm and around 75 degrees when we parked our car, and on top of the mountain it was below freezing and covered in snow.

The views of the Alps were fabulous. We saw cows on the side of the mountains and could hear their bells ringing up in the gondolas, it was just like what you'd imagine Switzerland to be. On the mountain, we saw men playing alphorns (those l-o-n-g horns like in Ricola cough drop commercials) and played in the snow and took tons of pictures. We even got to walk through a glacier cave and go sledding!

The best part (for me anyway) was that after we played in the snow and came down from the mountain we took off our snow gear and put back on jeans and t-shirts! It was around 80 by the time we boarded the car ferry to cross back over Lake Zurich and go home. The kids loved the snow and sledding, but I think the car ferry was even more exciting for them.

"Funny Money"

When we came here on our "look-see" trip, I spent an afternoon with Jason's boss's wife, Judy. She is a great lady and a wealth of information and really made me feel comfortable with the move. One of her tidbits of advice was to think of Swiss Francs (chf) as "funny money". She said this because of how inflated all the prices are here. She said it's too crazy to take seriously, which I've come to realize is totally true! (She also recommends taking a bunch of empty suitcases when we go back home to stock up on stuff at Costco, since you don't have to buy some things with "funny money".)

I now see why when companies send people to other countries they figure out the cost of living difference and give you a supplement to your salary if where you move has a higher cost of living rate. Someone here told me that even the basic labor jobs (painter, handyman, delivery driver) make over 80K a year starting out! That's minimum wage.

We've lived this month as though we are using "funny money". We've been buying things left and right for the apartment and at the grocery store and other things. We have had to pre-pay for a bunch of things that we'll be reimbursed for and are still waiting for our moving allowance. So, it's impossible to think of a budget for now.

The fact that I can't take the prices seriously really hit home when I had to search for a babysitter. I can't take Lainey with me to Aidan's K orientation on Monday, and I didn't want Jason to have to take a day off, so I found a baby-sitter thru an ex-pat group. She nannied last summer and just finished a Study Abroad program with Boston U. I also got a few names from Jason's friend Rob, who we can use in the future. They are all nice girls with lots of experience, but I cannot believe the going rate for sitters. $20-$25/hr! We went out Wednesday night, just for dinner. It cost us $120 just for the sitter! Our dinner was the cheap part-we went to a wine bar and just had wine and cheese (which in the US is usually expensive) but actually cost the same as when the four of us went to McDonalds! Prices are so backwards. Cheap things at home are expensive here, expensive things at home are more reasonable here. (Notice I didn't say cheap. Nothing is cheap here.)

Hopefully, once the settling-in phase is over we'll get a better grasp on understanding budgeting so we can start saving to take vacations. We are planning to go to the Italian part of Switzerland in Sept. and Paris and EuroDisney in either Oct. or Nov. so hopefully we can figure things out by then! Until then, it's just "funny money"!

Connected!

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have access to the outside world! CableCom got their acts together and finally installed our phone and internet yesterday, and Jason just hooked up our Vonage, so I can talk to the USA again!

YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kids are so great...sometimes

So... Aidan threw wood chips at Lainey after she supposedly bit him on the playground tonight after dinner. They have such a love/hate relationship going on. It's enough to make us crazy. Jason and I dragged them in and made them go to bed early. Then, just when we have had it with them, they turn around and do things that make us realize how great they are.

1. Aidan started a journal when we moved here (courtesy of PatTone). He wrote in it before bed tonight about seeing the castle yesterday. He amazed me when he could sound out almost every word to spell it correctly and when he got stuck on "knight" he didn't ask me to spell it, he went and found a book he had called The Knight at Dawn and looked at it to spell the word. I can't tell you how many times I've begged a second grader to do such a thing. He's pretty awesome sometimes.

2.Lainey wanted to "read" to me tonight. She "read" The Foot Book and a Disney princess book to me. She used pictures and her memory to retell both stories pretty closely. Not bad for not even being 3 yet!

I guess we'll keep them.

Flood!

All I can say is Thank God we had the foresight enough to bring shelves for our storage room and to put things in Rubbermaid totes!

Thursday and Friday last week it rained. All day, both days, non-stop (which is apparently is common for Switzerland). Saturday morning, Jason and Aidan went to the storage room to get something and the next thing I hear is Aidan running up the stairs yelling "Emergency! There's a flood!". I ran downstairs to see 2-3 inches of water covering the entire storage room.

Water was also splashed onto our wine rack and some totes and one shelf of supplies. Luckily, only Lainey's sit and spin and a few coloring books were fatally damaged. We tried calling our relocation people's emergency hotline so they could call the landlord, but aparently they have a different defintion of "emergency hotline" than I do. They never called back. Luckily, I have already met some people around here, so I called my friend Megan who had the number of our apartment maintenance man. He came over around 7:30 Sat. night with a wet/dry vac and didn't leave until almost midnight! That's how much water there was.

The maintenance man left the vac for us and a dehumidifier in our room. We spent yesterday morning moving our stuff around and vacuuming under totes and shelves. Besides the few things we couldn't save, the only other damage was to boxes. We have a stockpile of medicines and other toiletries and they had to be all taked out of their packaging, but the acutal bottles and such are fine. Our winter coats were hanging in a cardboard hanging box, and the box was damaged, but the coats are OK since they weren't touching the bottom of the box. My hiking boots and Jason's new backpack were on the bottom of that box and got wet, but they'll survive I think.

I'm interested to see what our landlord has to say about all this. It could've been REALLY bad if we'd just piled cardboard boxes on the floor. I'm not sure if any other people's rooms were affected. The actual leak was in our unit. The water came from the escape tunnel (our storage unit is in the bomb shelter part of the basement. Yes, we have a bomb shelter. Switzerland prepares for everything!) The landlord will have to do something otherwise this will happen everytime it rains (and did I mention it rains A LOT here??).

So, we'll see. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough drama for one weekend, our refrigerator stopped working. The freezer is good, though. Jason and I get another gold star for preparedness in bringing a cooler! The contents of our refrigerator are now in the cooler. The maintenance man said he'll have the repairman come today to check the fridge. So, we'll see.

I'm Beginning to Feel Like Bree Van De Kamp!

I'm becoming such the "hausfrau" as they say around here. And I'm not sure I like it. Since we moved in, I've been cleaning and cooking. Cooking and cleaning. And going to the grocery store. Seriously, almost everyday I've been at a grocery store. You have to go so much more here because the refrigerator is slightly bigger than the one I had in the dorm and the freezer is about the same size as the dorm one. Plus, everything here is so stinking healthy. It's like they don't believe in frozen foods, canned goods and good old American preservatives. Food only lasts a few days before going bad. Further, they don't use microwaves here! Which seriously cuts down on my normal cooking style. I've had to learn how to use a steamer (which looks deceptively like a microwave upon first glance) to reheat things. I actually like it for cooking veggies, but it's tricky to make EasyMac! At least my can opener and pots arrived in the air shipment. Now I can at least cook green beans for Aidan on the stove. I think I've used cookbooks more in the last 2 weeks than in the last 2 years. Having time to cook is actually kind of nice, but the daily trips to Migro I can do without!

Cleaning and unpacking seems to be unending too. Our air shipment FINALLY arrived. As much as I was looking forward to getting the rest of our stuff, I didn't realize how much more stuff we had! I had just finished organizing and putting away our first load and the apartment was looking good (minus the empty boxes stacked up waiting to be taken away). Then the new load came.

The main problem is that in Switzerland, they are fanatics about recycling. You can't just throw stuff away. You have to buy stickers to put on every (small) bag of trash you have and recycle everything that can be recycled. Not bad if it's glass or aluminum or plastic bottles, because there are recycling drop off locations all over the place. It's bad when it's huge quantities of cardboard moving boxes. You can only put cardboard out once every 2 months to be taken away, so we were told to make sure that the movers take ALL the boxes and wrapping away with them so we didn't have to worry about it. Sounds easy enough. So, when our first shipment arrived, the movers were here all day and they did take most of the boxes with them then. We knew they'd be back with the air shipment so we just stacked the others behind the couch until they came back (which was supposed to only be a few days later). We should have taken them down to the storage room. I didn't realize that to a 5 year old boy, those boxes were fort building material.

This is where the cleaning comes in. There happened to be some big pieces of styrofoam in a few of the boxes that I didn't know about. Aidan built a house for him and Lainey with the boxes and they decided to break apart the hidden styrofoam to make "train tickets". Then he decided to make a snowstorm. All of this happened within 2 minutes while I was trying to throw in a load of laundry. When I came back to the living room/dining room, it was literally covered in tiny white balls. I almost lost it completely. I have no vacuum yet, and at the time, I also didn't have a broom. Just the kids toy broom and a swiffer. These items were no match for the snowstorm. Those white balls would not be taken down lightly. A week later, armed at least with a normal broom and dustpan, I'm still sweeping them up a few times a day.

So back to the air shipment's arrival. Since I learned my lesson about keeping even a few boxes, I wanted to make sure every last box left with the movers this time. This meant that the movers and I emptied everything on to any available surface or floor in the matter of less than an hour. 35 boxes just dumped all over my apartment. Fabulous. Chaos.

Needless to say, I spent the last 3 days hanging clothes, reorganizing cupboards, and hauling load after load down into our storage room while Jason was at work and the kids were coloring or watching yet another Scooby-Doo movie on the laptop.

This is getting really long...sorry, but I'm not done yet. There's another reason I'm cleaning all the time. My brand new, soft, comfy rug from IKEA sheds like a sheepdog. I have a love-hate relationship with it. We bought the more expensive rug because it was very soft and I figured it would hold up longer than the cheaper ones, but it's kind of a shag made of wool. I didn't know wool sheds for a while until all the loose fibers work their way out. I swear I don't think I swiffered up as much Maddy fur in the nine years she lived with us as I have of rug fibers in the last week! And again, remember I have no vacuum so I'm chasing furballs all over with a swiffer and broom and dustpan.

I've gone so Bree Van De Kamp/Martha Stewart/housefrau that even Aidan has commented on it. He said "I'm glad I'm a boy so when I grow up I can go to work and not have to do all this cleaning and stuff". Great. Now my next assignment is to break down gender-role stereotypes in my 5-year-old.

Fun Times at Gymboree-Zurich!

OK, I've finally had to realize that my "baby" is no longer a baby. We went to check out the Gymboree in Zumikon yesterday to find out what their programs are for Lainey once Aidan starts school. We walked in and it was a blast from the past! I immediately flashed back to Aidan as a baby crawling through all the obstacles. I looked back at him and saw a little boy, not that chubby baby who couldn't even walk or talk the last time we were at a Gymboree. It made me a little sad. Sometimes I really miss that baby who didn't talk back and test his limits and run all over the house!

Anyway, I was really happy to find the Gymboree. It's just like the one back home used to be and they'll even honor my US registration, so I don't have to pay the extra fee! As a further bonus, all but a few classes are in English with American or English or Aussie instructors. They offer more classes than the old one did, too. The really cool thing is that they have drop off classes for Music and Art and there's a "school readiness" class that meets for 2 or 3 hours 3 days a week. I think that in the New Year, I'll have Lainey do that so I can have a few hours to myself. Plus, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than the other preschools around for her age! When Aidan starts school, I'll sign up for the regular play class with her once a week. With that membership we can also go to all the open play times and there's at least one hour everyday for that. I think that's a pretty good deal! They let the kids play for a half-hour yesterday and Lainey LOVED it. Especially the mini-trampoline. I think I definitely need to look into getting her one for her birthday.

It still seems funny that I had to move half way around the world to do Gymboree with Lainey!

A good first weekend

On Friday, the kids and I met some friends! We met an Australian family in our apartment complex. They also have a 5 year old boy and 3 year old girl! Aidan and James got along really well. It's nice to have a native English speaker to talk to .

We went exploring again yesterday. We went to a "StrandBad" which is a beach. It was so nice. They totally cater to families, there were special swimming areas for kids, a playground, sandbox and slide into the shallow part of the lake. The water was warm and so clear. I'm not sure I've seen such a clean (seaweed free!) lake before. There isn't really sand to lay on, it's all grass which is actually nicer and cleaner.

After the lake, we went into Rapperswil at the other end of the lake. There is a castle there from the 14th century. We went to check it out, but it wasn't that great. It was mainly rose gardens and a church. We got a great view of the mountains and lake from the top, though. Aidan was hoping for knights and swords, so he was a little disappointed.

We finally finished all our IKEA projects too! Now we just wait for our air shipment...it was delayed again! Here's hoping we have it by the end of the week. It's hard to have dinner without proper plates and utensils and I can't open any cans until I have my can opener! But the good news is we should have phone and internet service by Friday!

IKEA-Every ex-pat's first stop

OK, so I've never blogged before, but some friends of mine told me I should start one to recant my experiences in Switzerland. (What they probably mean is "Don't e-mail me the details of your life! I have enough junk mail already. If anyone cares they can check your blog!:) So here I go...

We've been in Zurich almost 2 weeks now. We spent our first week in a hotel (one bed, one pull out couch-not fun nor spacious!). We were hoping to get into our apartment sooner, but our furniture got held up on the Rhine River and last Friday was a Swiss holiday (Aug. 1st is equivalent to the 4th of July in the USA) and NO ONE in Switzerland works on Sundays, so we couldn't get our stuff until Monday. But, being the ambitious people we are, we decided to hit IKEA on Saturday to pick out and purchase our "shranks". Shranks are closet or wardrobe systems. You may not realize, but in Europe homes do not come with closets or light fixtures (many don't even come with kitchens, but luckily ours did!). So, everyone goes to IKEA to buy, and of course assemble, closets and light fixtures.

So Jason and I drag the kids into IKEA thinking we'd be in and out no problem. Right. It took us 5 hours (no joke, we were there so long we ate breakfast and lunch!) to get out of that place! We had to pick out 12 different light fixtures and get closet systems for 3 bedrooms. Lainey and Aidan's were easy, they each just got one, but for our room we had to measure and pick out all the drawers and accessories and figure out how to ask for help when we don't speak German. Finally, we were ready to check out. I waited in line only to find out that our credit card wouldn't work. Apparently, we'd spent too much on it in a few days in another country, so the security blocker went on. Great. Luckily, the customer service people let me call Mastercard to get the blocker taken off. Unfortunately, it was only 5:30 am in the States and MC's security department wasn't open yet! Next, they let me call Visa, who was in fact open and did take the blocker off that card so we could buy all our stuff.

Oh, it doesn't end there! We can't fit everything in our car so we ask to have some of it delivered. IKEA calls this taxi-type delivery service for us and says they'll be at our house in 2 hours. We go to the warehouse, get the stuff we're taking and drive home. Somehow the delivery guys beat us home (way to go for our GPS!) and are waiting at our apartment. I start showing them where to put the boxes, and they tell me, that'll be an extra $150 to bring them into the house, otherwise we'll leave them on the curb. Fabulous. So Jason and I don't want to pay double, so we haul the boxes (all 20+ of them) into the house. Thank God we have a ground floor apartment!

And now the fun begins! Assembling shranks is equivalent to hazing new ex-pats. Supposedly, it's all step-by-step and part of the "experience". Bull. It's HARD!!!! These things are 8 feet tall and weigh hundreds of pounds. It's especially difficult when you don't have tools yet! We had to go buy a grocery store set of screwdrivers (one of which we used as a make-shift hammer) and didn't have so much as a chair to stand on as a ladder. (Instead of a ladder, we used suitcases.) By the time we start the DVD on the laptop to keep the kids happy and begin assembly it's 6pm. (This is when we really realize how nice it was to be able to drop the kids off at Grandma's when we needed to shop or do a project!) We think we can get one done before we go back to the hotel to sleep. Not a chance. Once we get the main part screwed together and try to stand it up, we realize that it is too tall to put in the upright position. We tried every which way, to no avail. By now it's after 7, and we have to take the whole thing apart and start over!!! But, we wouldn't give up that night. So we start over from the standing position to start with. Definitely a harder way to do it, but also the ONLY way.

By now it's 8pm. In Switzerland, they have "quiet hours" at lunch time and at night after 8. You aren't supposed to make any noise (some books even say you shouldn't take a shower or flush the toilet!!!). We still aren't done with one stinking shrank so we decide to play dumb on the quiet hours and start hammering away. Luckily, most of the apartments in our building are still vacant! Around 9:30, we finally finished the first one and went back to the hotel.

The assembly continues still, a full week later. We did cave in and hire our lights to be installed when we realized that the wires are completely different from in the States and we still didn't have a ladder. Jason didn't want to tell people at work that we hired it out. He thought everyone he works with did their own too. We later found out that NONE of the other people he works will installed their own lighting or shranks!!! Did anyone tell us that it's normal to have someone else put the IKEA stuff together? No. That's what I mean. It's like ex-pat hazing. The locals are all watching us and laughing as we bust our butts.

We are almost done with the assembly of everything, and our air shipment comes Monday. Our apartment will feel like home when the movers finally take away our stacks of empty boxes and IKEA packing materials. Now, if we can only get our TV and phone installed...