Greetings from our new home in Switzerland!
Where are we physically? We are renting a home in a beautiful old suburb of Zürich called Küsnacht.
We live about 500 steps from Lake Zürich and 300 steps from the train that takes us into the city in 10 minutes. We have really lovely neighbors who have been extremely helpful. And we are often stopped in our tracks by the beauty around us!
Where are we mentally? We are down to the fumes of adrenaline we've been running on since about July 2015. Fortunately, we are starting to figure out how to do things in Switzerland (just do the opposite of everything in South Africa). We understand a few German words and can tell now if someone is saying hello or politely telling us we are messing up!
And emotionally? We still miss South Africa and our life and friends there. However, we have found an amazing community of support at the international school. The kids have had their best transition ever into their new school.
Here's a picture fresh off the overnight flight from Joburg. The balcony of the house comes off our dining room and looks over the center of the village, the local high school, and Lake Zürich.
View of neighbors' homes from our kitchen window.
Our living room. We have spent nearly every Sunday evening with the Michels family (from church and school) having dinner and playing games!
Our home. The bank of windows on the front of the house is the living room and the window on the far left is the kitchen. The alley takes you to the entrance stairs which go to the front door on the middle level.
Our landlords, the Müllers, brought these tulips to welcome us.
And one of our neighbors showed up on Day 3 and said, "Get your coat! I'm going to show you where to walk your dog!" We walked 5 minutes to forest and waterfalls! Here is a picture of Michelle and Emma in the "tobler."
Michelle came from South Africa to visit during our transition. We loved having her here for about a month! Here's a picture of one of Kate's teachers who is also an expat. During our first week, she said she wanted to show me how to shop at the local Migros. She said "It took me a year to figure all of this out and I don't want you to have to go through that!"
Yes, people are good here!
We use public transport to go almost everywhere, and we love it! Driving here is the best motivator to take a train or bus or tram or walk!
John and Kate take the city bus to school. This is their bus stop to come home from school. Kate loves all the interesting people and animals.
Taking the train to the English branch of church on the other side of the lake
Jeff's train station in Baden (note: there is a !castle! on the hill). Yes, he still spends most all daylight hours inside his office!
The main train station in Zürich
We join the school parent dog-walking group a few times each week. Emma loves to run free through farmland and forest. (As long as she doesn't attempt to chase a deer, we are okay!)
The Hotel Sonne is a small Swiss inn down the hill from our house. In the winter, you can sit on sheepskin, drink hot chocolate, and watch skaters. We hear there's ice cream in the summer and swimming in the lake!
...So we really are in the middle of Europe!!!
We took a day trip to Lucerne, Switzerland.
And another to Constance, Germany.
Michele and I took the train to Paris for a weekend.
Jeff and I spent a long weekend in Vienna.
We were told that if we rubbed Göethe's boot, we would learn German faster. We have started lessons!
Michelle and the kids went skiing at Flumserberg
To a Fasnacht parade
And bear park in Bern (unfortunately, the real bears were still hibernating)
We bid farewell to Michelle at a fondue restaurant downtown.
The kids have been off school for a week and Jeff took some days off. It has been so great to all be together! We still kind of feel like we're on a vacation that has involved a ton of work. Lucky for you, there are no pictures of the Swiss registration process; the licensing, taxing, and training to get Emma to be a "Swiss dog"; the piles of mail and contracts all in German; the fevers, colds, and dog's bladder infection; the items lost from the air shipment; hard homework; VAT; getting scolding looks from bus drivers; trying to set up a Swiss bank account as an American; trying to use Google Translate to ask store clerks for things like turmeric and lightbulbs; not noticing that a road went from 50kph to 30kph on a rare driving excursion (that's an expensive ticket!); paying CHF60 for a mediocre men's haircut and not even flinching; homesick tears; continuing delays of our household goods coming by cargo ship into Antwerp. Hopefully by the next time we write, we will be sleeping on our own beds again. Despite the hard stuff (like the rental beds!), we have so very much to be grateful for! This has been a good move for our family.
We are thrilled and exhausted...but mostly thrilled...to be here!
