We made it!

We made it to Zurich... 7 suitcases, 2 backpacks, 2 cats, and 2.5 people - all of us safely arrived on Monday, December 11th on time and in one piece. Well on time is not the complete truth, we got in an hour early. Never before have I arrived so early after leaving a place on time, but evidently those atlantic tailwinds at 100 mph really help a plane. I'm not going to complain...

But let's start from the beginning of this adventure for those of you that might be getting the full story for the first time. Steve came to Switzerland twice this summer to work and we found out at that time that they wanted him to come over here to work for a two year rotation. We were immediately ecstatic at the idea, but daunted by the task of all the work ahead to get ourselves over here. We put the house on the market around Labor Day and by the end of September we received an offer on it! We were extremely fortunate in this entire process and moved out of our house at the end of October. With a lot of help from our parents, a moving company and our good friend Katie Allen, who was willing to let us move in with her until we left the country, we were able to get all the arrangements put together while we waited patiently (or not so patiently) for our visas to be approved. Word finally came at the end of November and we were quickly booking flights to get us here as soon as possible.

The morning of Sunday, December 10th we had some great friends, the Ommens, that helped get us to the airport (since we sold both cars and didn't have a vehicle large enough to transport us and all of our luggage at once)! It was a great help to have four people to get all of our luggage into the airport - I only wish I had a photo of all of us as we were checking in. Lucky for us our day started off right with a very nice airline representative that got us and our cats checked in. It was evidently only the beginning of a much easier travel day than I had anticipated.

I had expected to have issues with the cats from the point of checking in, to taking them through security, to an unpleasant person sitting next to us in the plane, and then making it to Zurich and not having the appropriate paperwork. However, it was quite the opposite in fact - there were no bumps at all - the cats were great travelers and everyone around us loved the cats and kept wanting to look at them, ask questions, and try to pet them through their carriers. It even got to the point that was a bit ridiculous when I woke up to a Swiss couple practically standing on top of me in the middle of the night trying to look under our seats and see the cats. What can I say, but I guess the Swiss love cats? My only lingering concern is that I think we may have actually smuggled the cats into the country. I have spent the last 1.5 months researching and making several trips to the vet to ensure we had all of the paperwork (rabies vaccinations, an international microchip, health certification, and EU passport form), only to not be asked to show one piece of documentation the entire time. I'm pretty sure we accidentally missed something we were supposed to do when we left the Zurich airport, so I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed in the meantime that neither us nor the cats get deported from the country, which would be quite disappointing considering that they have found their favorite new hiding spot in our temporary apartment - under our duvet cover!

Since arriving on Monday we've been busy getting acclimated to our settings and trying to get as much done as possible until Steve had to start work on Friday. This included our city registrations, opening a bank account (I know, a coveted Swiss bank account - if only it came with money in it), and we started looking for permanent apartments. We got extremely lucky and after only a few days of looking we not only found a couple of apartments we liked, but we applied for one and were accepted! In Swiss terms... we were "picked!" And its not easy to be picked for an apartment here, landlords can be downright discriminatory, especially in a housing market such as Zurich's which has an unoccupany rate of less than 1%. Prices as a result are outrageous as is the cost of everything else here. Luckily Ernst & Young provides us a cost of living adjustment, otherwise we would surely be living in a cardboard box. The closest cost of living equivalent to Zurich in the U.S. is probably Manhattan.

However, for the next few weeks we will continue to live in our temporary apartment while we wait for the lease to start on the apartment and our shipment of furniture and other household items to arrive. Lucky for us we have several travel plans already booked for the upcoming weeks, which is sure to keep us busy until it will be time to move in and unpack.

To avoid making this post longer than any of you want or have time to read I will instead have another one coming soon to fill you in on the other things we have been doing around the city, like our first trips to the grocery stores, visiting the Zurich Christmas Market, and trying a few new foods. Until then I will leave you with three things we've learned since our arrival:

1. The Swiss enjoy using images more than words to explain how to operate household appliances such as dishwashers, washers & dryers. One would think that images could be self-explanatory, but not here. At least when I try to cook I can simply use google translate to figure out what the packaging is telling me to do. But not when I want to try to wash my dishes or my clothes. My first dishwashing experience was mostly successful and leaves me hope for the much more complicated washing machine, which I will attack this weekend.
2. Evidently it doesn't bother people to use two different bathrooms - one which has a shower/bath in it and the other with a toilet in it. Now I know this is not all that uncommon and it does not consistently happen in all houses, but why do it at all? Does no one else find it slightly annoying to have to go to two separate ends of the hall when you're getting ready in the morning?
3. Drivers actually stop for you in crosswalks here. It really is a novel idea. The Swiss so much as don't even look when they start walking across the street and there are cars coming full speed at them. It might take a little getting used to that... I think I'm going to at least looking both directions like my mom taught me.