The black hole continues

Hello again from the black hole of Switzerland. We requested Swisscom to set up our internet almost 4 weeks ago and we still don't have internet, I won't go into the details because it just makes me bitter; but, maybe one day we can return to normal connected civilization.... after they likely blow a hole in the walls of our newly renovated apartment to re-wire the internet cables (I wish I was joking about this!).  Until then we have been spending our weekends and evenings exploring, cooking, setting up our apartment, going to Ikea A LOT, having dinner/drinks with new friends, working, and getting acquainted with the area. I have to admit there is a small part of me that finds it slightly liberating not to feel obligated to check work e-mails or watch TV or be otherwise distracted with something other than each other's company (although Ryan will strongly agree with the point about the TV!)

A few notes on the amazing-ness of modern technology in the life of an expatriate: if you haven't already, download the app on the iPhone and Android systems called What'sApp.  It is essentially a texting application that runs through data which means that you can text either of us for free at any time (let us know when you download it and we will add you as a contact). Also, for those with iPhones, the new iOS6 software allows us to facetime over the data network, which means free video calls anywhere you/we have cell service. These two handy pieces of technology have been awesome to use to keep in touch with friends and family so far. I'm sure Ryan will post one day about his love for a cool gadget called Slingbox too...

This coming weekend we embark on our first Euro weekend trip. We are going to London with our friends from Boston, Sam and Eric! They are traveling around the world en route to their new home in Australia and we are going to meet them in London to go to the Patriots game at Wembley stadium. We're really excited to see some familiar faces and have fun exploring the city. Does anyone have any tips/favorite places to hit while we're in London?

By the way, Ryan is slacking on his inaugural post (booooo!). I said a week or so ago that he was going to post next about his exciting news but he blames his inability to post on the black hole -- bad excuse :) He says he promises to blog soon...

In the meantime, here are a few iPhone photos - once we get internet I can upload my camera pictures.

The best fondue EVER with our new french friend, Alexis

The jet d'eau from the water

The square outside of our apartment with the mountain in the background

Address update

I think I gave a slightly incorrect address to our new apartment in my last post, apparently the dashes and little accent marks make a difference :) so here is our updated address in case you want to send mail, packages, love notes, pictures, American ketchup, carrier pigeons with secret messages, flowers, jars of peanut butter, reservation dates for your guest room, bottles of Frank's hot sauce, etc. etc. -- just kidding... well sort of :)

[ADDRESS REMOVED FOR PRIVACY REASONS: Contact me separately if needed]

PS - We received some REEEEEALLY good news today/yesterday! be looking out for Ryan's first post soon that will explain it all :)
PPS - Check out the big stack of boxes that we accumulated in our living room over the past week, Pumpkin thought we built him his own playground made of cardboard boxes

Busy week...

Well... the amazing Ryan and Lauren alternating vacation period sadly had to end at some point, we are both back at work (more on Ryan's work story in the near future) and we have had long days. The challenging part is that we don't have any internet at home, barely any furniture (bed + couch), and no stores are open past 6PM (i.e., no groceries all week), so we've pretty much been living (and will continue to be living) in a black hole this week. Once Swisscom decides to finally grant our request for a cell phone (which is after they already made us pay a 1,000 CHF deposit for being Americans), we can request internet access and return partially to the real world. Until then, hello from the black hole of Switzerland!

PS - sorry for being negative Nancy, I promise once I can actually have internet and real food to eat, things will be looking a lot more positive. On a positive note, we love love the apartment and have finished unpacking all of our belongings!

KEYS to the Swiss pad

We got the keys to our permanent apartment yesterday! We LOVE this place. Its definitely the nicest apartment we have ever lived in -- well....second to my stint in #337 in North Carolina perhaps :)  It is in an old building, but the landlord just finished renovating it last week, which means new everything (kitchen, bathroom, windows, etc.) while still having renovated old features (crown molding, tall ceilings, old-style closets and windows, wrought iron balcony/window features). The shipping company delivers all of our STUFF today at 8AM and we can't wait to sleep in our own bed. This weekend we will be doing some major shopping because our bed and a few wardrobes is the only furniture that we actually shipped!

A few random facts on renting Swiss apartment that we found interesting (or annoying at times):

• Before handing over keys in Switzerland, landlords need proof of: first month's rent, a security deposit of 3 MONTHS rent (my company loans expats the Swiss francs thankfully!), proof of household and liability insurance coverage, and of course a signed lease.
• All light fixtures are owned by tenants and not landlords in Switzerland. This means that whenever you go into an empty apartment, you will just see one lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling. This should be interesting for us to figure out how to install light fixtures... or maybe we will just wait until Hut visits :)
• In rental buildings that have laundry facilities, you are assigned a 2 hour time slot during the week in which you can do your laundry - the time slot typically ends up being in the middle of a weekday, so a lot of people actually go home from work to do laundry. Can you imagine saying "sorry boss, gotta go home to switch the laundry!" We are actually going to purchase a washing machine and have it installed in the apartment (this is quite common here and you sell it to the next tenant).

Below is a video tour of the new apartment before all of our stuff gets delivered. Make sure you check out YOUR guest bedroom!! :)

Montreaux Riviera: wine country!

Ryan and I are big fans of everything wine, especially when it involves wine tastings, beautiful scenery, and cute little wineries/towns.  Therefore you can imagine our delight when we decided to check out a local wine festival this weekend. The Montreaux Riviera, which is also known as the Lavaux wine region, is a 45 minute train ride north of Geneva. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of the scenery and the thousands of years that it took local winery owners to create the terraced vineyards that cascade down into Lake Geneva. The nature of the terraced vineyards and the climate creates a special wine that is only produced in this region, called Chasselas. Lutry is one of the eight little towns within the Lavaux region and every year for the past 60+ years they host an annual harvest season wine festival where local wine lovers come and enjoy tastings of wine produced by local wineries and lots of yummy food. The local children also put on a really cute parade. Although the weather wasn't spectacular, we had a great time exploring our local Swiss wine country and we're excited to explore it further in the future! Aparently there are some great hikes through the vineyards that have spectacular views.
In parting, I will leave you with a fun wine fact that I recently learned - the Swiss actually produce a significant amount of wine (the countryside around us is covered in vineyards); however, you won't often see it sold in the US or other countries, because almost all Swiss wine is domestically consumed. Translation: trying the "rare" Swiss wine is just another reason why you should come visit us :)

Program for the wine festival or 'Fetes de Vendanges'

On one of the many cute little streets in the town of Lutry

Pretty flowers all around town

Part of the parade

Trying some 2002 wine with the owner

I didn't take this picture - the weather was really cloudy, but these are the terraces on a clear day -- can't wait to return when the weather is nice!

A wine 'cave', literally!

I don't normally take pictures of trash cans :) but I thought this view of all of the different bottles was pretty neat

WANTED: our BED and our STUFF

For a few weeks I thought it was actually nice to be clutter free and only be living out of a few suitcases. There was less to worry about and think about and pack and organize. But now after 4ish weeks of not having our stuff, we want it BACK! Especially our big, comfy, pillow top mattress.  Ahhh... I've been dreaming about comfortable mattresses at night! Our European mattress in the temporary accommodation is stiff as a board. Relief is on its way though - our shipment is currently en route to Switzerland and should be arriving within the next 2 weeks, hooray! I can't wait to have everything here so that we can start making our new apartment feel like home :)

Our new apartment is in the Plainpalais area, which is known for being one of the more lively areas of the city because it is close to the universities.  The actual street that we are on has lots of restaurants and bars (hopefully its not too loud!).  It is also steps away from the Plaine de Plainpalais, which is a big open square that is used as a Sunday market and also for various exhibitions, circuses, and shows. One local told us tonight that it is considered one of the "hearts" of the city. The apartment is currently being renovated while keeping some of the old European architecture which is EXACTLY what we wanted, yay :) We get the keys next Thursday so I will post some pictures when we get in!

The to-do list of a recently arrived expat couple

Ryan and I are lucky that we have been able to alternate in taking time off both before and after moving in 2 week intervals so that we could both help manage the extensive to-do lists pre-departure and upon arrival. I have the next two weeks off before starting work so I'm in charge of tackling the arrival to-do list. So far its all progressing really well -- which ironically now that I look at this list, the lack of things crossed off makes it look like I've been slacking! But I promise almost all of these items have at least been partially moving :) Thought you all might get a kick out of taking a gander at the things on the list to give you an idea of what we will be doing to settle in over the next few weeks. I'm sure many of my future posts will cover how we navigated some of these items (getting the famed 'Swiss bank account', buying a car, renting an apartment, etc.)

Very delayed arrival post!

Hello from Geneva! Unfortunately the internet at our temporary accommodation has been absolutely horrendous, so every time I go to write a blog post, of course the internet isn't working, but for the moment it looks like it is going to let me sneak one in! I promise whenever we get our permanent accommodation, we will have super reliable and fast internet so that we can keep in touch with everyone via the blog and Facetime :) For the next few weeks, we apologize in advance if it appears as if we have disappeared into a black hole because of this problem though....

We arrived on Wednesday and have been enveloped in a flurry of activity!  We have been to the grocery store many times (this sounds a lot simpler in writing than it actually is!), registered at the migration office (essentially Geneva's form of a town hall that registers all expats), gone apartment shopping with our relocation agent and put an application in on two apartments (our application was just accepted for our favorite apartment!), gone to a happy hour with other expats, had some traditional Swiss cheese fondue, explored the city a TON, cooked some meals at home, gone out for Korean BBQ with new friends, hiked in the Portes du Soleil area (essentially the French alps) and had lunch on top of a mountain, and watched some good ol' American football with some more new friends.

Everything is running really smoothly for us so far, we haven't run into any major issues, in particular a lot of the big problem areas for expats entering Switzerland so far haven't created any big issues (our permits were approved really quickly, we found an amazing apartment and the first application we put in for it was accepted, we have had lots of time off to explore and settle in, etc.).  We are really thankful because so far this has been making our transition quite simple to be honest! I also have the next 2 weeks off before starting work to help us deal with any pesky issues/errands that come up.

Here are some pictures from our first few days of initial exploring around the city and region, as you can see the city itself is really pretty - we're liking it more and more each day. It may not be a huge city, but its pretty and situated at the gateway to the most amazing locations within Switzerland and Europe. We can't wait to start exploring!



Scenery from our hike in Portes du Soleil - we hiked up to the top of a mountain and had the most amazing meal and this was the scenery on the way back down



Just one of the many cute streets in the Vieille Ville ('Old Town') in Geneva

The windows in our temporary accommodation don't have screens so we have to keep a close eye on our curious cat to make sure he doesn't fall out of the windows!

This is a view from the city overlooking Lac Leman ('Lake Geneva') - it is one of the largest bodies of water in Europe, stretching over 60 miles long 

Love the European architecture and balconies of the buildings in town

In front of the Swiss flags and the flags that symbolize the Canton of Geneva - Switzerland operates via separate "cantons", which are essentially equivalent to states in the US; however, the cantons operate almost autonomously

There are so many beautiful doors throughout the city - I'm tempted to start a photo album full of photos of doors :)

Another photo from our hike with friends and their dogs in the Alps

In one of the many parks in Geneva - the city is known as the city of parks because parks cover over one quarter of the city's area

Enjoying some traditional Swiss fondue! Tip for future visitors - make sure to accept the digestive alcohol that is offered after eating fondue otherwise you will have a killer stomach ache the next day due to the block of cheese stuck in your stomach -- I learnt this lesson firsthand!

Lovely, inspiring words of wisdom

Various friends, family, and coworkers have given us poems and sayings with such beautiful inspirations for our upcoming journey. Whenever I think about how challenging this process has been, I just go back and read sayings like this and it quickly makes me feel better :) I'm going to take my favorite and paint it onto a canvas for our apartment in Geneva... which one is your favorite?

Temporary housing!

We received an e-mail from our relocation consultant with pictures of our temporary housing today.  It looks like its a decent size and in a nice location!

We also brought the Punk to the vet today and he did SO well. He didn't meow very much on the ride there and back. When we moved out of the apartment a few weeks ago, we tried giving him a tranquilizer for the car ride up to NH and he howled and panted the entire time, so it was really nice to see him fairly calm today - I was afraid the trip to Switzerland was going to be a disaster with him meowing all the time...