A friend of mine who moved here a couple weeks before we did, told me I would know I was settling in here when I have moments that I forget I am in Switzerland. She assured me that moving into our permanent flat with our own belongings would be a big step in that direction. Well, I'm not there yet, but it is starting to feel more like home. I'm still VERY aware, every waking moment, that I am in Switzerland and that everything is exciting and strange. I can't decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. It still has a little bit of a vacation feel to it, except I have to do lots of laundry and nobody comes in to clean my room while I'm away.
Finding our flat was kind of a leap of faith. When we visited in November, our crazy (not in a good way) relocation consultant showed us 2 apartments and claimed they were the ONLY 2 apartments to see even remotely close to the kids school. The first apartment was about 950 square feet and you couldn't fit a twin bed in one of the 2 bedrooms. The second was a good size, if you included the upstairs loft area. Unfortunately, unless you were under 5'2", you couldn't stand up straight in the loft. It would have made a lovely home for a family of little people. When we asked what other options we had, she just shrugged her shoulders and said "Zee market eez very tight". So moving to Switzerland with no idea of where we would live was WAY out of my comfort zone. Some might call me a control freak. I like to refer to myself as "extremely hands on". So when Bryan called me from Switzerland the week he arrived and told me he found us a flat, I was a bit panicked. I had him photograph every corner of the unit and email it to me for my approval. Now, I love my husband and trust his judgment in many areas. However, there are a few areas in which I don't trust his judgment. The first is dressing our children. He once brought the kids home from an overnight with their cousins wearing various pajama parts and articles of clothing that didn't belong to us. And they had attended a first communion that way. The second area in which I question his judgment is selecting a place for us to live. When I met him he lived in a nasty basement apartment and had paper cartons covered with blankets for his end tables. So who can blame me for being concerned when he wanted to select our home in Switzerland. But I took a deep breathe, said "Go for it" and luckily our application was accepted from a pile of applicants. I am pleased to tell you that I underestimated my husbands house hunting abilities and I LOVE our flat.
Moving day was 2 weeks ago and the giant green container that drove off with all of our belongings in Cary, arrived at our flat here in Thalwil, Switzerland. It was obnoxious how excited I got opening up the boxes. "Oh My God!!!! THREE bottles of grape jelly!!!! Honey, come look, I packed 3 bottles of grape jelly!!" I would like to say I am exaggerating with the exclamation points, but sadly, I'm not. The Swiss apparently think jelly should be made from every obscure fruit under the sun, with the exception of grapes. And because one of the 4 foods Z will eat is peanut butter and GRAPE jelly sandwiches, this has been a bit of a problem. So yeah, grape jelly was one of the highlights of moving day.
Our flat sits up the hill from Lake Zurich, in a town called Thalwil. I love the town and can walk to the market and shopping area, although dragging the kids back up the hill to the apartment takes some coaxing. Down the street sits a beautiful old church and throughout the day we hear the church bells ringing, reminding us what time it is. Sometimes we can hear the church bells from nearby towns ringing at the same time and it's one of my favorite things about living here. E now yells, "Church bells, Mommy! Church bells!" whenever they ring. It's really cute the first 36 times...
We have much more space here (including a guest room. hint hint...) and the main living area is surrounded by windows. From our balcony we can see a little of the Alps on a clear day and from the front we can see a bit of Lake Zurich. We love all the windows but think the Swiss need to wise up to the joys of screening their windows. I swear to God there was a bee the size of a hummingbird in our family room the other day. I'm NOT exaggerating. I honestly thought it was a bird until I saw the yellow and black stripes. And the only place I have found to be air-conditioned in this country is our car. So the windows in our flat are always open and the bugs are preferred over the heat.
We live on the 4th and 5th floors of the building and the parking garage is in the basement. It's taken some getting used to having to walk up a flight of stairs, unlock a door into the building, and take an elevator up to our floor. You wouldn't believe the arguments we have about who gets to push the buttons on the elevator. It is one of the mysterious joys of childhood to be able to push a button on an elevator. We now have it worked out that one pushes the button outside the elevator, one pushes the number inside the elevator, and one yells, "Open Sesame!!!!" right before the doors open. If fights erupt, I can usually distract them by looking out the glass elevator to see the view outside as the elevator rises. That trick is bound to get old soon and I may soon need to threaten to make them take the stairs.
Moving here has made our transition to Switzerland much easier. And although we have moments (and occasionally a full day!) when we ask, "What the hell were we thinking?!?!?", most days we are in awe of the opportunity we have been given. Sitting out on our balcony with a glass of wine, laughing about our ridiculous moments here, and planning our next trip to a new part of Europe, we know we are blessed and secretly fear our 2 years will go by too quickly.
Tomorrow we head to the Bernese Oberland area of Switzerland for a second attempt at getting to JungFrauJoch. We'll spend the night in Wengen before heading back down to Interlaken and hopefully I'll have worked up the nerve to go Paragliding! Although it doesn't feel like home here in Switzerland, and we miss our friends and family, we're enjoying the adventure every step of the way.
