Our First Week

Aside from finding a place to live during our first week we've been busy exploring the city and figuring out how to complete routine tasks like going to the grocery store and how to order food when out to eat while only knowing about two words of German.

Let's start with our experiences at the grocery store. The first day we got here was Monday and by the time we could go pick up any essentials it was after 5 pm. Monday's here are kind of like Sunday's in the way that many stores are closed or only open part of the day. I find it slightly annoying, but I guess just something to adjust to. Anyways, we found a tiny corner market that was open and were able to pick up a few things. Unfortunately by a few things I mean two handheld baskets full. Our mistake. They are big into their recyclable bags here and most stores sell them, but not the corner market, and usually I carry them with me, but not my first thought after a sleepless night on an airplane. As a result we ended up with our arms overflowing with food as we walked the three blocks home - I couldn't catch a photo as we could hardly hold everything we had to begin with! We walked past many staring people, but at least I later came to find out that the Swiss people tend to stare at you as you walk by anyways (arms overflowing with food or not), its like they know you are Americans!

Lucky for us on our second trip to the store we went prepared with bags, which was good since the larger grocery store (and when I say larger think maybe 1/20 the size of your average American grocery store) is closer to 7 or 8 blocks away and would have made for a long walk home!

We've only been out to eat a couple of times so far, mostly because it is going to cost about double the price of going out back home, but I'm sure we are going to have many interesting experiences while trying to figure out what we are ordering. It may become a game of sorts... let's guess what we each think we are ordering and see who is right. So far, I'm winning. On our first night I played it pretty safe and correctly ordered spaghetti, Steve on the otherhand thought he was getting a hamburger and came back with a fried piece of meat the size of his plate. We still don't know what type of meat it was, but we're pretty sure they don't regularly eat anything too crazy around here like dog or cat, so he ate it. I think this is a sign that we need to start our German language classes as soon as possible! But for now the trick is if we know where we're going to eat ahead of time look online and see if they have a menu and then use google translate to figure out what you're ordering. It worked brilliantly when we went out to eat with some other people for brunch and made us look like we knew what we were doing!

So even though we've been here a week and are pretty settled into our temporary apartment it still hasn't really dawned on us that this is for real and is more than a vacation. I'm not quite sure when that will really hit. But now that its been snowing on and off the past four days (even though it has been with little accumulation in the city) it does feel more like Switzerland. For those of you interested, here are a few photos from our temporary apartment:

A few more things we've learned about living in Switzerland...

1. The Swiss have a lot of money (ok, we already knew that one), but its interesting to see how they spend it. We're still trying to figure out why they don't spend more on bedding. For some reason they don't like sheets on their beds and they don't believe in duvets that fit the entire bed. Somehow I doubt this is their way of being cheap, but why only have enough bedding so you constantly have to fight with the person you share your bed with every night? I can't wait until our bed and linens arrive...
2. If you have a car, or rent one, don't speed. Evidently there are speed traps throughout the city everywhere and for only going a few kph over the speed limit you will get a hefty fine. I think we will stick to the trams, buses and trains for now! Pretty much everyone we have talked to here has received a ticket within their first few times of driving - maybe one way of helping to keep down taxes?
3. They know how to encourage people to recycle here, but its not easy to do so. Instead of paying for a weekly trash pick-up in Zurich, you pay 2 or 3 CHF ($3 or $4) to purchase a specially marked trash bag. These are the only trash bags that will be picked up from the dumpster outside of your apartment building, and if you don't use them evidently they will track you down and fine you. As a result everyone wants to use as few of trash bags as possible and encourages recyclying. However, you don't just schedule a recycling company to do a pick-up either, instead you have to haul your recycling to various places. There are random bins for each color of glass set up in every neighborhood. Then you have to take your plastics and aluminum cans to the grocery store. Finally something like every other week they will do a paper and cardboard pick-up outside of your apartment building. This certainly makes it look easy to just throw all of our recyclables in one container and leave it at the end of our driveway once a week back home!