Old Friends and New Adventures

Earlier this month Lindsey and I were delighted to have our first visitors from back home!  My friend Christian L'heureux, who, incidentally, was the best man at our wedding, and his older brother Rob  stopped by Zurich for a few days while doing some other touristing on this side of the Atlantic.  Lindsey and I have known both of them for years, so we were very excited to have them visit.

Given the fickle nature of Zurich weather this time of year, we weren't sure if we would suffer though cold and rainy weather the whole time they were here, or if we would be blessed with some warmth and sunshine.  That being the case, we did our best to plan for both circumstances, but as we've come to discover, Switzerland isn't the best country for indoor activities.  With a little luck, the weather held out and we ended up getting to enjoy several outdoor adventures.  

On Tuesday morning (May 1st) Christian and Rob arrived at Zurich airport and I picked them up for the train ride back to our place.  Lindsey made everyone a hearty breakfast, while we caught up on the most recent episode of Mad Men.  After everyone finished eating and had a chance to shake off the weariness from early morning travels, we decided to capitalize on the nice weather at go out on Lake Zurich.

Lindsey and I had anticipated spending a lot of our summer weekends down by the lake (since we only live about 100 meters from the park and waterfront), so we decided to invest in a set of four inflatable kayaks to use when people come a visit.  While I was initially skeptical on how well they would work, it turned out to be a great purchase - especially considering the cost to buy vs. rent was almost identical!

The four of us took the kayaks our for their first trial run to much success.  With the exception of Christian's kayak, which had a slow leak due to a misplaced valve, they all held up quite well.  We decided to take a few six packs of beer out with us, so after rowing about 200-300 meters from the shore we just sat, floated, and enjoyed the beer and sunshine while taking in the scenic views of Zurich and the Alps in the distance.  Several hours and a bit of a sunburn later we rowed to shore and returned home to clean up and get ready for the evening.

Being May 1st, it was Labor Day here in Switzerland, but unlike back in the US, their are many here that take the holiday quite seriously.  Generally speaking, I would attribute that fact to the larger presence of workers/labor unions in Switzerland and the active presence of more leftist organizations, such as the Community Party, for which Labor Day is held sacred.  Naturally, our collective Capitalist and Libertarian leanings found this all to be disturbing and repulsive.  Since we wanted to show a bit more of the city to Christian and Rob, we decided to venture out to Bahnhofstrasse (Zurich's central avenue and shopping district) despite many of the stores and shops being closed.

After walking around for some time we decided to stop for some Coffee before heading home for another home-cooked meal.  After dinner the four of us met up with our good friends Roberto and Hanna to enjoy a bit of the Zurich nightlife.  We started at a bar near Bellevue called Rosaly's where Roberto subjected all of us to some "interesting" house drinks that I'm pretty sure included hot sauce and licorice.  After a few more rounds we decided to venture out to some other places, stopping for a few tequila shots along the way.  We finally ended up at Kaufleuten, which is a nightclub not from from Bahnhofstrasse which was surprisingly active for a Tuesday night.  After more drinks, dancing, and some attempts to engage the local talent, we called it a night and walked back home.

The following day we decided to get out of Zurich and see a bit more of the Swiss countryside.  To that end we got on a train headed south and ended up stopping in Lucerne for the afternoon.  Lucerne is probably most well known for its scenery and a historic bridge that crosses through the oldest district of the city (see picture).  While walking around town we happened across a boat rental shop that rented out paddle boats and motorboats to take out on Lake Lucerne.  Naturally, we all agreed that renting a motorboat sounded like a good idea, which was only confirmed by the rental manger who encouraged us to take some beers along as well.

We enjoyed some time out on Lake Lucerne, but had to make it back to Zurich for dinner reservations that evening in Zurich.  We decided to take Christian and Rob to Stones, one of our favorite restaurants (so far) in Zurich.  Lindsey actually wrote about our first Stones experience in the blog post "My Romantic Husband", which includes a picture sample of some of the food they serve there.  Without going into too much detail, it is safe to say that the food was excellent, as always.

Sadly, I had to go into the office on Thursday, so Lindsey, Christian and Rob decided to go on an adventure around Zurich to see if they could find the Zurich Crossfit location so Christian could pick up a t-shirt (Christian moonlights as a Crossfit instructor in Bethesda Maryland).  After not having much luck in finding the gym, the trio settled down for some coffee by the lake.  Fortunately, the weather had cleared up a bit so Christian and Rob were finally able to get a good view of the Alps in the distance.  Before heading home they also stopped by the famous Sprungli chocolate shop in Zurich to pick up some provisions and gifts for the family.  Later that evening Christian and Rob caught a flight back to London for the last days of their vacation, before returning to the US.  

Having Christian and Rob come to visit definitely reminded Lindsey and I how much we missed all of our friends and family back in the U.S.  We're already looking forward to visits over the next several months, including my good friend Josh who is coming in early June, my brother Jordan who is coming at the end of July, and my parents who will be meeting us in Paris mid-October.  That should keep us well supplied with tastes of home until we're able to return stateside for the Christmas holidays.

Wrapping up the Ski Season

Ok, so it’s been about two months since my last blog post.  Mia culpa.  I’ll try to do better going forward…

Life has been going pretty smoothly over the past few weeks.  As we’re finally starting to transition from the bitter cold of February and March, to the grey skies and wetness of April in Zurich, Lindsey and I are really starting to feel at home in our new city.  We’ve established several good friendships, and are doing our best to stay active and outgoing despite the drab weather.   Before we completely move on to the Springtime and some of the exciting visits and vacations we have coming up in the next several weeks and months, I’d like to give everyone a recap on the last month or so of Winter fun in Switzerland.

Since I don’t think I ever got around to posting about it previously, our second ski trip of the season (after our weekend in Villars back in January) was to an area called Braunwald.  We traveled to Braunwald, which is in the east central part of Switzerland, the weekend of February 25th and stayed for just a day, but it was a delightful experience.  Unlike a number of the ski resorts we’ve been to this year, the pistes at Braunwald were densely forested, steep, narrow, and in many places quite powdery.  

Lindsey and I had invited several of our friends to join us, but since the trip was planned relatively last minute many of them could not make it.  Not deterred, we took the early morning train out of Zurich HB, heading south along Lake Zurich, and then into the more mountainous part of east-central Switzerland.  It started out as an unseasonably warm day, with the sun shining, perfect for a long day on the slopes.

Since we reached the mountain shortly after the lifts opened, Linds and I were the only ones on the slopes for what seemed like forever.  However, shortly after we arrived I received a text from Amish, one of my colleagues at PwC, that he and another colleague of ours had decided last minute to take us up on our offer, and would be joining us at Braunwald that afternoon.

Once they arrived we met up for lunch on the mountain and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the slopes.  Lindsey had her best day on skis all year, and actually did quite well on several of the more challenging runs.  Despite a brief rainstorm that came through mid-day, it was a great day to be out skiing/snowboarding, and was made especially better when our friends were able to join us.

After Braunwald, Lindsey and I didn’t wait too long before our next ski and snowboarding adventure, which we planned for March 10th at Hoch Ybrig.

We learned of the mountain at Hoch Ybrig through the Snow n’ Rail packages that are offered though the SBB transportation webpage, where we were able to get a great deal on lift tickets along with the train tickets to get there.  The mountain was not at all like what we experienced at Braunwald, instead, Hoch Ybrig was treeless and MUCH more crowded.  The weather was sunny and a bit warm, so the slopes were slick in some places.  While mostly disappointing, we still managed to enjoy our day by finding a few areas in between the pistes where there was abundant powder left over from earlier in the season.

For the last trip of the ski season, Lindsey got stuck staying at home because I headed to Davos with my team from PwC to enjoy a weekend of “team-building” activities, and fun on the mountain.

My financial services consulting team at PwC makes a habit of hosting quarterly outings where we can all get together to have some fun and interact on a non-work basis.  During the first part of December, just before Lindsey and I moved to Zurich, the team hosted a ski trip, so by March it was time for another.  The weekend officially started Friday night on March 23rd, so most of us left work around noon that day to catch a train down to Davos, Switzerland.  In hindsight, the train ride down to Davos was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  Since there aren’t any open (alcohol) container laws in Switzerland, it was an easy decision to stockpile beer and snacks for the two-hour ride.  Needless to say the half-day of work and the plentiful beer put everyone in the right frame of mind.  On top of that, by having a large enough group it is apparently possible to rent out a whole section in one of the train cars, so that’s just want we did!

When we arrived in Davos everyone checked into their rooms and rendezvoused at the bar for our next team activity.  It had been arranged for us to participate in a GPS hunt throughout Davos that would eventually lead us to the gondola that would transport us up to the top of the mountain for dinner.   If you’re never been on a GPS hunt before it works like this:  Each team (or individual) is provided with a GPS device that has locations throughout the city pre-programed in it that will show up as waypoints on the GPS.   By following those waypoints on the GPS, each team is taken on a walking tour around the city until all the waypoints are located.  We split into teams of five or six people and spent the next hour and a half walking around Davos searching for our GPS waypoints, hoping to be the first team back so we could relax before dinner.  It was good to get a stretch of the legs, but the GPS hunt was nothing exciting, so I’ll just skip to straight to dinner.

As I mentioned before, we took the gondola up to the lodge on the mountain to have dinner together.  Dinner was interesting, to say the least.  After enjoying some drinks on the deck that overlooked Davos and the whole valley, we retired inside for wine and fondue.  At this point, I’m pretty tired of fondue, since its basically just bread and cheese - not anywhere close to a satisfying dinner.  After dinner was over I was surprised when half of the team started singing a mixture of German and American pop songs, much like you would expected at a karaoke bar back in the US.  After dinner we returned to the hotel to get ready for our final evening activity:  the club.  We went to Pöstli, which is apparently one of the hottest clubs in Switzerland, and certainly the most famous in Davos.  Like most European clubs, things really don’t get started until after midnight, so the whole team rallied at the hotel and hit the club sometime between midnight and 1 AM.  We had rented out a whole section on the second floor of the club and arranged for bottle service for the entire night.  Needless to say things got crazy.  Next time you see me, feel free to ask for details…

The next day many of us still managed to get up early to hit the mountain for some skiing/snowboarding.  Mind you this was after staying out until around 5 AM, so I’m impressed with myself for even making it at all.  I ended up sticking with a group of colleagues for most of the day, but we were all relatively good so we made it up and down the mountains more time than I could count.  All in all I really enjoyed the slopes in Davos.  The mountain was mostly bare, like it was at Hoch-Ybrig, but on a much larger scale.  The slopes were wide and fast, and there was a sufficient amount of snow to really have a lot of fun.

The PwC event officially ended that afternoon; so many people on the team went home after their day on the mountain.  I, and about 15 others, ended up staying that Saturday night so we could enjoy Davos nightlife one more time.  After a team dinner at a local Italian restaurant we hit the clubs again, this time visiting several places before ending up back at Pöstli.  Since I was still pretty worn out from the night before, I decided to make it any early evening and head back to the hotel around 3 AM.

The next day everyone went their separate ways, and I carpooled back with some of my friends from the office.  The weekend was exhausting, but I had an amazing time.

Stuttgart, Germany

A few weeks ago I received word that my entry visa had been approved. Obviously I had already entered Switzerland, but I was only allowed to stay in the country for 3 months without an entry visa. The long and confusing process of obtaining this visa went on until the very last second, but finally came through a week before I’d be forced to leave the country. Eek! Now that I had approval, I then had to do something called “Family Reunion” to actually obtain the visa. Essentially, I had to leave the country, go to a Swiss Embassy, and pick it up. Only then would I be allowed to reenter the country. So, Justin and I decided to make a bit of a trip out of it. Our approval came from Stuttgart, Germany and we decided to go pick it up the weekend of March 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th. We booked round trip train tickets, scheduled a two night hotel stay at the Le Meridian, and packed our bags.

The night before leaving, Justin and I had dinner with our friends Raphael and Lijin to celebrate their engagement. They are the same wonderful couple that we went sledding with in January. They are a very cute couple and are both really into robotics; this of course explains the awesome engagement ring Raphael gave Lijin that he made himself from scrap robotics parts. It was so incredibly cute. We ate dinner at an Australian restaurant called Outback Lodge near Stadelhofen train station. Justin and I both had the kangaroo and it was surprisingly delicious! We do love trying new things. But no, in case you were wondering, it wasn’t as good as the horse or the ostrich from Stones. J After dinner, we hit the hay early so we could save our energy for our trip to Germany the following day.

Our train wasn’t scheduled until noon so we could take our time getting up and about in the morning. We were excited for our first trip outside of Switzerland and especially that is was St. Patrick’s Day. We headed out and found ourselves standing in Germany about 2 and a half hours later. Not too shabby! I’ll be honest, when we first stepped out of the train station we were underwhelmed by the city. Our first impression was that the city was old, run down, abandoned-like, unkempt, and dreary. We walked past loads of people that in the States we’d called “hoodlums”. It was about 2:45 and these teens were lounging about smoking, drinking heavily, listening to music, yelling at one another, and dressed like they were at a Van Halen concert in the 1980s. It was interesting. Justin and I anxiously headed to the hotel which was an SPG property. We were not disappointed there. The hotel was beautiful and thankfully paid for by Justin’s many hotel points.

We relaxed for a little while watching hand ball on T.V. (may be Justin’s new favorite sport) and then headed out to get bathing suits because the hotel had a free spa that we planned to enjoy on Sunday. My research on the city had told me that Konigstrasse was the best place for shopping. Thankfully, in the same way Dorthy sees the Land of Oz for the first time, we walked over a bridge in Stuttgart and suddenly the place didn’t seem so bad anymore. There was some exquisite architecture, open fields, ponds, and gardens. We walked through a park and found Konigstrasse. The street was probably a mile long and loaded with restaurants and stores. It was awesome. Justin and I found a wonderful sports store where we ended up buying our bathing suits for very cheap compared to Zurich. We also scrounged up a new back pack, basketball, basketball pump, ping pong paddles, and pull-up bar. What can we say… we hadn’t seen good deals in far too long.

Later that evening he and I went to Pizza Hut (yum!!) and then headed to an Irish Pub to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. The line to get in was wrapped around the building and we decided we’d wait in line for about 10 minutes to see if the line was moving quickly. It wasn’t. I was in the middle of complaining when the guy in front of us turned around and offered us a beer. In Europe, it is completely legal to drink in public if you are of age, so Justin and I took him up on his offer and started a conversation with this guy who had selflessly parted with two luke-warm Milwaukee’s Best. He was from Kentucky and had moved to Germany to go to college. He was a very nice guy. At some point in the conversation, the two guys behind us in line joined in. They were from Germany and their names were Matt and Jeffrey. After about 15 minutes, Matt and Jeffrey decided they were going to go to another bar that wouldn’t have a line and invited us along. We decided they probably knew what was best since they were from Germany, so we joined them. That’s when the real fun began.

Turns out, you can order four delicious German beers for around 10 Euros. What an incredible deal compared to everything we were used to in Zurich. So, we stayed with Matt and Jeffrey for the remainder of the evening. They called a bunch of their friends and we were joined by a large crowd, some even were Americans. It was awesome. We laughed, danced, talked, and had an excellent time. There are a bunch of pictures from the evening on our Shutterly account, so make sure you check those out.

After our long night on Saturday, we slept in on Sunday and spent the entire day at the spa (it was free with Justin’s hotel status). We swam in the pool, laid in the hot tub, went tanning, sat in the sauna, and did some reading and napping by the pool. On Monday, Justin and I went to the Swiss Embassy to start the paperwork and they told us they would be finished around 3pm. That was good because our train tickets were for around 4. We tried to go the Mercedes Benz Museum, but it turns out the only day during the week that the museum is closed is on Mondays. So instead, we walked around shopping, taking pictures of the interesting buildings, and trying to experience the culture a bit more. We picked up my visa and then headed home. Turns out, Stuttgart is a great place to visit. We’ve even been invited back for Oktoberfest. Yikes!

Making Friends

Recently, Justin and I met a group of his work friends at Lady Hamilton’s Pub to watch the Swiss versus Argentina football (“soccer”) game. The pub was very similar to any pub you’d go to in the states and made me feel at home. It is located in Zurich near Bahnhofstrasse, a street downtown that leads to the main train station. Among those friends were Roberto, his girlfriend Hanna, Claudio, his girlfriend Ashley, and a guy named Karan. All of the guys work with Justin at PwC. There were a few other people there, but I cannot remember their names at the moment. All of them were extremely nice and welcoming. Roberto and Hanna are both from Switzerland. Claudio is also Swiss and his girlfriend is American. I had already met Ashley before and really enjoyed hanging out with her. She is from California, extremely tan and beautiful, and surprisingly down to earth. She moved here around the same time we did, so our Zurich experience is pretty similar.

The evening was spent waiting for the T.V.’s to work; the boredom inevitably steered the conversation towards American sports vs. European sports. It got heated, but at some point we agreed to disagree. They were especially being haters on basketball. Not cool. It really was just friendly conversation and led to a lot of joking, sarcasm, and excitement. In the end, Justin and I invited them all over for dinner to our new place for chimichangas. Mind you, at this point we still hadn’t found dining room chairs for the kitchen so I knew I had to work hard over the weekend to put final touches on the apartment.

We had them all over on Tuesday, March 6^th. I had spent the weekend cleaning and buying a few items at IKEA and a second-hand store called Zurcher Brockenhaus to pull the apartment together. It was finally looking up to my standards, so I was excited to have everyone over. Roberto and Hanna brought over the wine. They brought 4 bottles of a delicious 2009 Chilean wine called Santa Alicia Reserva Merlot from Maipo Valley. Claudio and Ashley brought over some yummy chocolate brownies for dessert and the tortilla chips to go with my guacamole appetizer. I made the stuffing for the chimichangas and Justin did the rolling and frying perfectly. The food was delicious and the company was wonderful. Our conversations were interesting and only got more interesting as the wine bottles were emptied. We talked about self-defense, owning a weapon, building snowmen, amusement parks, and religion. Don’t think it could get more random? Haha. But, it was a lot of fun and Hanna and Roberto are having us over tomorrow night for pizza. This time we have to bring the dessert. Can’t wait!

My Romantic Husband

Justin and I don’t typically make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day. As a woman, I pretend to be indifferent to it, but secretly I cross my fingers that he will do something special. We know we love each other, yet it’s nice to do something to keep the romance alive. And this year he actually did! He must have heard my not-so-subtle hints, because the night was perfect!

He told me a few days before that I don’t need to cook dinner because we’d be going out. This was a first because we always cook at home since everything is ridiculously expensive here in Zurich. I was already getting excited. Come the big day, I had some chocolates and a hand written card sitting on the kitchen table for him when he woke up. I thought I was doing pretty well up to this point. But, I had no idea how wonderful the evening would be.

So, I did my hair and nails, put on a nice dress and high heels, and made sure I looked my best. He came home around 6:30 and when he came in the door he had a bottle of wine behind his back. My favorite part was the red heart cut-out that was hanging around the bottle. We sat and enjoyed a few glasses and then headed to dinner for our 7:30 reservations. The restaurant, Stones, was only about 2 blocks away and somehow I had never seen it before. The night was freezing, so I was happy that the walk was short. I entered and the gentlemen at the door took my coat and escorted us to the table. The restaurant was small and cozy, but it was surprisingly classy. In fact, there was only one waiter in the whole place. I knew right away it was going to be delicious!

The menu was in German so I wasn’t sure what to order. Justin had actually thought to look up the menu online beforehand, translate it, and memorize the things he thought I would like. So sweet. He ordered the horse and risotto. Yes, I said horse! And I ordered the ostrich and rosemary potatoes. We found out why the restaurant was called Stones when the waiter brought out these 2 wooden platters. Each platter had our meat, the side dishes, an array of sauces, and a heated stone. At first we weren’t sure what to think of the heated stone and once we cut into our meat and realized that it was raw, we realized what we were supposed to do. We had to cook each piece of meat individually on the stone. Every bite was exquisite and different. You could cook it rare, medium, well-done, cook it with sauce, add tomato, dip it in a sauce, add some garlic cloves, add some rosemary, or just keep it plain. It was fun and delicious. I didn’t ask how much it cost; I just know Justin made the perfect choice.

As we were wrapping up the romantic evening snow began to fall outside. Best Valentine’s Day ever!

Sledding, Club Med, and some other excuses for not posting this earlier…

Well, like Lindsey mentioned in her last post, the past few weeks have been really busy.  Surprisingly, even after only being here a month, it was still challenging to move again – even if it was only across town this time.  The fact that we didn’t have a car or a quick mode of transportation only compounded that fact.  Despite difficulties, we managed to pull together the move through a series of tram rides, car/van rentals, and train trips.  Glad that’s all done with.  We’re still on the lookout for some more furniture, but for the most part we’re all settled in!  That includes a furnished guest room, so we are ready for everyone to come visit!

Ok, on to the more exciting stuff…  The past month wasn’t just filled with moving apartments, we also made two weekend trips within Switzerland to go sledding and skiing.

First, on the weekend of January 11^th Lindsey and I joined the Swiss couple I mentioned in my January 8^th blog post for a trip to Jenaz to go sledding (located on the far eastern side of Switzerland, near Lichtenstein).  This was no East Coast sledding mind you.  When the Swiss say sledding, they usually mean taking a sled (the “old fashion” looking kind with metal runners) to the top of a snowy mountain, and then sledding down a steep, snow-covered road all the way to the bottom.  In our case, this meant about a 45 minute long sled ride, where we easily reached speeds of around 25-35 mph. 

The day started off with a early morning train ride leaving Zurich’s central train station, called Zurich Hauptbahnhof (or Zurich HB for short), where we took a train southeast to a small town just west of Jenaz.  From there we took another, smaller, local train to Jenaz itself where we then took a bus up a long windy road to the top of the mountain where our sledding would begin.

Before starting our trip back down that same windy road, this time on sleds, we enjoyed yet another traditional Swiss meal of cheese fondue, bread and fruit.  After lunch, we rented our sleds, received some brief instruction on how to steer and brake (basically just putting your feet down to do both), and before we knew it we were off down the mountain.  Lindsey was the first to wipe out (no surprise there) approximately 15 seconds after starting.  If you ask her, she’ll tell you it was because she was nervous, but since she pretty much ran straight into a snow bank during the first turn, I’m pretty sure it was because she hadn’t yet mastered the whole steering thing.

We continued down the mountain for what seemed like forever, both having our share of wipeouts and “near death” experiences.  At one point I nearly ran head first into a truck coming up the mountain on the same road.  Don’t tell Mom and Dad.

At last we made it to the bottom alive, yet cold and with a few more bruises than we had when we started.  Thankfully one of our group members was thoughtful enough to bring along a few bottles of schnapps to warm everyone up after the ride. 

I wish we had more pictures of the BEAUTIFUL scenery we passed while riding down the mountain, but I think we were both too preoccupied with not sledding right off the side of a cliff to take out the camera.  We did, however, take a few pictures at the top of the mountain in the restaurant, and again once we had reached the bottom.  As usual, you can take a look at the pics on our Shutterfly website:  http://www.theswisskeys.shutterfly.com/ .  We may even get around to uploading them to Facebook…

 The following weekend, Lindsey and made a trek to the other, western, side of Switzerland for a weekend of skiing at Club Med in Villars.  I’m sure many of you have heard that Lindsey and are on a bit of budget because of the move and the general high-prices in Zurich, so you may be wondering how we can afford a weekend at Club Med, ski passes, food, and ski rentals for Lindsey?  Two Words:  Uncle Coop. 

If you haven’t heard already, “Uncle Coop” is my term of endearment for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the firm I’ve been working for over the past several years.  As it turned out, the Consulting West group, which is the PwC Consulting team based out of Geneva, was having their ski weekend in Villars that weekend and they happened to have a few extra rooms available. 

To digress a bit, throughout the process of applying, interviewing, and preparing for this secondment, I have been in contact with several PwC US ex-pats living here in Switzerland, and managed to develop some good friendships along the way.  One of those contacts happens to be a Senior Manager working with the Consulting West group, and he offered up one of those extra rooms at Club Med to Lindsey and me!  The PwC package included the room, two meals at the hotel, open bar and aperitif (French happy hour, more or less), ski rentals for Lindsey, and one day of ski passes.  That meant all we ended up having to pay for was the train tickets, one day of skiing, and a lunch.  I love a good deal. Thanks Uncle Coop!

Anyway, the skiing was fantastic, despite some really snowy weather that made visibility at the top of mountain a bit difficult.  Even though I lived in Sun Valley, Idaho for nearly a year, I never really experienced true powder until that weekend in Villars.  Loved it.

This was both Lindsey and my first trip skiing (in her case) and snowboarding (in mine) this season, so the first half day was a bit rough getting our bearings, but after a few hours of some rough runs, we were having a blast.  Lindsey doesn’t have quite as much experience as I do, but even she was cruising down the blue and red slopes without much trouble.  Oh, the slopes here have slightly different ratings than the slopes in the states.  Here the rating system from easiest to most difficult is green, blue, red, then black; whereas in the states there are typically just green, blue and black slopes.  From what I’ve read it is actually slightly different in most European countries.

We spent a majority of the first day by ourselves on the side of the mountain with mostly green, blue and red slopes, but on day two we ventured out with some of my PwC colleagues to the other side of the mountain where I tackled more red and black runs, and Lindsey got a bit more comfortable on the red slopes.  We decided that we definitely need to plan another trip to the mountains over the next few weeks, although I don’t think that snow is going to melt anytime soon.

Other than the time spent on the mountains, we enjoyed what I can only call the “Club Med experience”.  I mentioned how as part of our package at the resort we received free dinner and aperitif, but it was at bit more than expected.  The dinner was a lot of fun.  We sat with a table of PwC folks from the Geneva area, many of whom were ex-pats as well.  It was great to hear the perspective of fellow Americans who had been living in Switzerland for anywhere from 3 to almost 15 years!  The food was delicious, and since we were in the French part of the country, we got to experience a different sort of cuisine than we’ve experienced in Zurich.  After dinner there was a “show” put on by the resort that I can only describe as wacky.  There were costumes, line dancing, singing, and lots of flashing lights – oh, and did I mention it was interactive?  It was even stranger that the "entertainers" were the same people that had been serving us throughout our stay (i.e. front desk clerks, ski rental staff, etc). Yeah, wacky.  We actually took some video, which I’ll try to post online as well.

Well, that’s pretty much a summary of the two weekends I missed blogging on last month.  Hopefully now that we’re settled into the new place, we’ll have more time to get back to the weekly postings about our adventures here in Switzerland.  Next week I think I’m going to write a bit about what it’s been like working not only with the Swiss, but also with other European nationals as well.  Just a reminder to stay in touch via Facebook, Skype, and thorough email/chat!  Be sure to check out our pics on Shutterfly as well.  Oh, and I’ve also started Tweeting (Twittering?) @JustinKey.  Look me up! 

More to come soon…

The Cold and the New Apartment

Somehow Justin and I have already slacked off and are now about a month behind. I blame Jamie Summs who predicted it would take us about 4 months to stop posting. He totally jinxed us. ;)

Well, a lot has happened in these last several weeks. We have participated in numerous winter sports, met some wonderful new people, travelled to various parts of Switzerland, moved into our new apartment, and finally begun to furnish the apartment. It has been very busy.

The biggest news though has been the COLD!!! It is miserable. The locals are even complaining! It is said to be the “coldest winter in 30 years”. It figures that Justin and I would arrive just in time for that little record to be set. During the day, it has been around 5 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s without including wind chill. When I get dressed to go out, the usual attire for the last 3 weeks has included: underwear, long johns (top and bottom), undershirt, sweater, 2 coats, gloves (sometimes 2 pair), 2 pairs of socks, pants, boots, hat, and scarf. And even then… it’s still cold. I hear Virginia is having an extremely warm winter? Like 60 degrees? If you could spare about 20 of those for us, it would be awesome. Haha. Oh well.

So, I’m going to let Justin tell you all about our sledding, skiing, and skating adventures. I’m going to skip right to the apartment. I don’t know how we got so lucky, but we received the first apartment we applied for! We looked at 5 apartments and he and I really liked 2 of them. We applied for one and actually got it! So many people have said that it is extremely difficult (especially for foreigners) to find an apartment in Switzerland. The availability is terrible and we have heard horror stories of it taking up to a year to find the right one. The apartment is in the nicest part of Zurich, Seefeld, and is only a block from the Chinese Gardens and the lake. It is walking distance to countless restaurants and stores. It is on the 4^th floor of an old building and has views from all sides. The apartment itself has hard wood floors, two bedrooms, one bedroom even has a built in closet (that is almost unheard of), a large renovated bathroom, a state-of-the-art kitchen big enough for a 6 person table we bought, a downstairs cellar for storage, floater lighting in all the rooms (most places don’t come with light fixtures), and a large living room that we’ll be lucky to fill. We only have 2 neighbors and the building is usually very quiet. We love it.

But here’s the challenge. Justin and I had our T.V., clothes, kitchen items and a few family pictures shipped. As far as furniture goes, we didn’t ship a thing. Zip. Null. So, that presented a new problem. We checked out several local furniture stores including IKEA and found that everything was WAY more expensive than what we’re used to. If we wanted to furnish our apartment with the most basic IKEA furniture it probably would have cost close to 5000 CHF. Easy. That was just not going to happen.

So, I have been participating in a few forums, kind of like Craigslist, and searching for furniture day and night. I managed to obtain a 2-seater leather sofa, a TV stand, coffee table, desk, desk chair, new bed and mattress, and kitchen table for around 600 CHF. All of which is in great condition. Justin and I went around Zurich with a rental car on Saturday and picked it all up. It was fun getting it all up 4 flights of stairs. I’m still looking for another bed, 3-seater sofa, some side tables, and some chairs for the kitchen table. But, obviously we are saving a lot of money and it’s definitely worth the trouble. I must admit I’m actually having fun with it. The logistics are annoying, but I love finding good deals. I imagine in a few years Justin and I will be on one of those forums in the opposite role. So, I’m thankful they exist.

Also, just want to throw in a prayer request. The Zurich International School is interested in hiring me for the next school year; however, they are awaiting my work permit. This could take months. Please pray that all goes smoothly and I can get a signed contract for the position soon. It’s a special education teaching position at a middle school and would be perfect. Well, I love you all and miss you.

Hugs and kisses,

Lindsey

Settling in...

We’ve lived in Zurich for about 11 days now and it’s already been quite the adventure.  Like Lindsey mentioned in our last blog post, we’ve experienced quite a bit of culture shock!  Probably what stands out most for me, besides how expensive everything is (ouch!), is how friendly and welcoming people have been. 

My first week of work went really well.  It was interesting going through a two-day orientation for a company I have worked at for the better part of the last 3-4 years.   Despite most of the material being nothing new to me, it was still a lot of fun to get to know all the other new-joiners from around the world. 

There were about 30 people in total starting with the firm at the same time as I was.  The majority of which were Swiss college or university graduates starting their first job with PwC.  The remainder of the group was made up of experienced hires, such as myself, from around the globe.  I met individuals from as far away as China, New Zealand, and Kazakhstan, as well as many from countries and areas much closer by, such as France, Germany and the Netherlands.  Thankfully, orientation, and all official work at PwC Switzerland, is conducted in English, so I had no problem getting along.  The real challenge comes with communicating and working with people from many different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  For example, you might have a Swiss working on a project with someone from China, but to overcome the language barrier they must speak in only English – neither’s native tongue. 

In general, most people here have no problem speaking in English once they realize you’re struggling to put together a simple phrase or question in German.  In fact, I’m pretty sure many of the people here speak better English (as a second language) than many American’s I’ve met back home.  Sad truth.

It is a humbling experience to walk into a meeting with ten or so other people speaking German (or Swiss German), only to have them immediately and effortlessly switch over to English for my benefit.  It’s almost embarrassing to admit to only speaking the one language!

By the end of the week I had already bonded with a number of my new colleagues over lunches and the ever-popular coffee breaks (it’s important to note that “coffee” here usually means enjoying a fine espresso, cappuccino, macchiato, or latte of some kind.  The Swiss take their coffee here quite seriously – thank goodness!).  On Saturday Lindsey and I were even invited over for dinner at one of my new Swiss colleague’s home.  We enjoyed wine, fondue, and probably some of the best fruit salad I’ve ever had (fruit salad is a traditional after-dinner dessert served by the Swiss, but includes a more exotic variety of fruits that you might not find in your typical American fruit salad).  After several hours of good food and good conversation Lindsey and I headed home pleased with the fact that we’ve already managed to make some new friends here in Zurich!

Coming up over the next week or two, Lindsey and I are planning to spend more time exploring the city doing “touristy” stuff like visiting museums, going to the Zurich zoo, and hopefully seeing some more of the night life.  Since we’ve been here it has rained almost constantly, so it’s been hard to go out and do much besides look for apartments.  Additionally, we’re hoping to embark on our first ski/snowboarding adventure to the Alps next weekend!  We’ll definitely have some pictures from that posted up to our Facebook or Shutterfly account afterwards (http://theswisskeys.shutterfly.com/).  Hopefully by our next blog post we’ll have some more information on our adventures here as well as on our search for a more permanent apartment, or “flat” as they call it here.  Stay tuned!

Culture Shock

Justin and I have really enjoyed being here so far. They set us up in a temporary fully-furnished apartment that is quite possibly the tiniest studio ever. Thank goodness for the word “temporary”. We can’t complain too much though. It is clean, simple, newly renovated, has a balcony, and really has a cozy feel about it. We have unpacked all of our suitcases and eagerly are awaiting the arrival of our shipment of stuff from the U.S. It is presently somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean making its way here. We have begun the search for apartments and would like to be moving by February 1^st, but we are trying not to rush too much. The rent is about 3 times more expensive that we are used to, so we want to make the right choice.

The stressors aside, we have made sure to explore every day. We have gone to see Lake Zurich on multiple occasions, checked out the night life, celebrated New Year’s Eve at the firework show, shopped for groceries (a real adventure), gone for a run around the city, taken the tram around town, ate at a few restaurants, and just walked around to admire the beautiful architecture. Every time we go out we have a great time learning new things. One thing we KNOW is that we are not in America anymore. Here’s how we know:

Trash is only picked up if it is in special bags that are taxed.

You have to pay a TV/Radio Tax. This sucks because we only get one channel in English. CNN. Everything else is dubbed in German.

When you toast to anything you should look people in the eye when you clink glasses. They take offense to it if you don’t.

Ovens are in Celsius… not Fahrenheit. I found that out the hard way when I was mad the oven only went to 250 degrees. Let’s just say I burnt the potatoes.

Measuring is all metric. We knew this, but it takes some getting used to. No more miles, yards, teaspoons, cups, inches, or feet.

Swiss German is not a written language and is a mix of German, French, and some English.

Everything is closed on Sunday. Everything.

Most stores close around 6pm during the week.

Most places recommend you do not do laundry or take out the trash on Sundays. It is a disturbance.

They have massive recycle bins everywhere.

The water fountains constantly stream so you don’t have to touch anything when you want to have a sip.

There are special buttons on the toilet. The large one should be used to flush #2 and the small one should be used to flush #1. This saves water if you only need to do #1.

Evidently, you can drink the water from Lake Zurich.

Everything is outrageously expensive, even compared to Northern Virginia.

They charge for plastic bags at the grocery store (we accidently stole some… already criminals)

The tram (subway) is above ground and the cars drive along the same path (example: you could be driving and suddenly a huge tram is tailing you) .

The roads go in a million different directions changing constantly. Justin and I can’t find a rhyme or reason to it all.

People actually wait for the “Walk” signs to cross the street, even if no cars are coming. Very pedestrian- friendly.

Movies at the movie theatre are in English with German subtitles.

Swiss German is not a written language.

There are a lot of smokers and yet, they seem WAY healthier than the average American.

I have seen one overweight person since I’ve been here.

The tub in our apartment sits about 3 feet off the ground. Glad we are tall and young.

They are weary of foreigners and like to get to know you before trusting you.

Everybody speaks English. Justin and I will spend a few minutes trying to speak German and then finally give up and try English only to find that they speak perfect English every time.

Military time is fun to get used to. It’s weird to look at the clock and see 0:45 or 23:30.

Cars do drive on the right side of the road here. Phew! One less thing to get used to.

Church bells are SO loud and wake us up in the morning.

It’s no fun buying adapters for everything you want to plug in. Especially when they cost about 20 bucks a piece. We’ve already bought 4 and we need more.

It is ridiculously clean here. We went out to watch fireworks on New Year’s Eve and people had trashed the streets with bottles, confetti, etc. By morning it was perfect again.

They like for people to hang up their jackets in a closet when you go to restaurants. Women even leave their purses hanging. That is how safe it is here.

There is no Wal-mart or Target. Everything you need you have to find at specific stores.

The pillows are awful! They are twice the size, but have half the stuffing. It’s like having a 3 foot by 3 foot blanket. Thank goodness we had some nice ones shipped. Can’t wait until they get here.

No streaming video allowed in Zurich. That means no Hulu, NetFlix, HBO Go, etc. Lame.

No central air ever. They don’t use it for environmental reasons… which I understand, but I’m sure that will make summer fun.

Cheese: delicious. Chocolate: delicious. Bread: delicious.

Well, these are just a few of the things we have noticed since we’ve been here. Hope you all find it as interesting as we did. Love ya!

-Linds

Christmas with the Family

After the hellacious moving experience that Lindsey described in our last blog post, we took a tour of Roanoke and Richmond, VA to visit our respective families. 

First stop:  Roanoke.  After enduring the thrilling (that’s sarcasm, by the way) drive down 66 and I-81 we made it to Roanoke around 3:00 AM on December 18^th.  Naturally the whole family was still up and about, ready to greet us as soon as we walked through the door.  Unlike we had initially planned, we didn’t go to sleep the moment we arrived, instead we decided to brave another hour or so of the early morning hours to recount the hectic week and moving day Lindsey and I had just conquered.  Eventually we made it to bed with the promise that we could sleep in until dinnertime the following day.

If you’ve never been to the Key household in Roanoke during the Christmas holidays then you’re missing out.  My mother, Nora, always goes all-out with the Christmas decorations and holiday cooking for the whole family.  I’m pretty sure that she still makes the same amount of food for the four of us (now five including Lindsey!) as she does with the whole extended family in town.  I’m still not sure whether or not the time with family seemed to fly by because I was having such a good time the whole week, or if it was just because I was on a perpetual sugar high from all the cookies, pies and assorted holiday treats!  I’m pretty sure it was a little bit of both.

It wouldn’t be a vacation at home with the family if Jordan (my younger brother for those who may not know) and I didn’t spend at least half of our time, and all of our evenings after 1 AM, playing video games or watching old movies.  True to form, I bought him a copy of the new Elder Scrolls Xbox game for Christmas, which I gave to him four days early, so we could spend some quality “bro-hours” down in the basement trying to save the world (again) from dragons, tyrants, warlords and other assorted mythical creatures.  Ah, Christmas.

To cap off the great week at home, we were able to spend the first few days in Roanoke enjoying the company of my longest-standing friend, Lianne, and her new husband Devin who just moved up to Roanoke from Florida/North Carolina.  Lianne and I have known each other since we were both in diapers and our mothers would walk us to each other’s houses down in West Palm Beach.  Now we’re both married, moving, and all grown up!  I’m sure our parents have exchanged more than a few “it seems like it was only yesterday…” moments in the past few months.

Needless to say the time with family was much needed and greatly appreciated.   Words could never express how much they all mean to me, or how much I’ll miss them while we’re over in Zurich, but just like the Christmas holidays, family will always be there, whether in person or over the phone, to share memories, laughter, tears, and special moments.  Some things never change…

Second Stop:  Richmond.  After leaving Roanoke early December 25^th, Lindsey and I made the trek to Richmond, VA to visit with her family before our eventual trip back up to DC for our flight. 

Over the course of several generations the Arpaia clan (Arpaia is Lindsey’s family name on her mother’s side) has managed to live and work all in the greater Richmond area.  This would include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, bothers and sisters all living in greater Richmond.  That being the case, every holiday is a large family gathering.  In fact, my experience has shown me that it doesn’t even take a holiday to bring their family together – big family meals and outings are just how they like it!

This past week while we were in Richmond, Lindsey’s family showed, yet again, their propensity for a good family gathering.  It is their tradition to host a meal for the extended family on Christmas Day, so it came as no surprise that there were plans already established for the night of our arrival.  We had an inkling that the family was planning something to celebrate our wedding the previous month, as well as our imminent departure to the land of chocolate and fine watches; but when we arrived at Lindsey’s Aunt Denise’s home for dinner we were greeted by a crowd of about 30 friends and family there to celebrate a belated wedding “reception” – cake and all.  What a surprise!  It was all very heartwarming that they had gone through the trouble to plan such a gathering, and what made it even more special was the fact that we were able to spend time with the whole family all at once.

After the reception Lindsey and I retired to April and James’ new apartment (Lindsey’s cousin and her new husband) to watch movies with the gaggle of cousins – ages 11 to 27.  As the night wound down there were some tearful goodbyes mixed in with plenty of well wishes as we departed back to Lindsey’s parent’s house. 

The remainder of the time in Richmond was spent seeing friends and preparing for our last days in the United States (at least for the time being!).  As with our time in Roanoke, there was never any shortage of good food and good cheer.  Lindsey and I left for Dulles International Airport before dawn on the 28^th knowing that the love and support of our families went with us on our journey overseas.