Laowai

• I’m getting used to driving around here. Not hard really. There are round abouts everywhere. I drive round and round and round and somehow I get where I need to go. I don’t think I’ll be driving in Zurich though. Driving alongside the trams scares me and besides taking the train is faster and easier.

• Last week we finally got around to adding me to our bank account and getting a credit card for me. We had to actually go to the bank – such a contrast to in the US where you can get a credit card by just opening your junk mail. They showed us into a room and brought us refreshments. The little boxes contain chocolates… of course. Makes me wonder what type of treatment the truly fancy people get.

• I’m bummed we missed the eclipse.

• Migros is one of the two primary grocery stores here. The Migros brand has been around a long time. It’s a cooperative and I guess many many Swiss people own part of the company. Anyway it’s very Swiss and I feel like I’m living the Swiss life because setting up our house and filling up our pantry makes me go to Migros almost everyday. I joke that the church bells are reminding me to go to Migros. There is a lovely park/cafe/playground place not far from our house that was created by the Migros founder. Their logo is orange so they have an orange garden and you can ride the most adorable donkeys.

• Yesterday in the school pick up line I saw a Bentley. Ummm. I don’t know what to say about that.

• They like and use rhubarb here. I feel like back in the US rhubarb is not mainstream you don’t see it in grocery store products. But here you can get rhubarb drinks and rhubarb yogurt. It’s just more popular. I’m pro-rhubarb.

• You should see my view on the way to school. It’s a beautiful wide look with Lake Zurich below and the mountains in the distance. And right now there are apple-full trees in the foreground. Lovely!

• Swiss construction workers don’t have to wear shirts like they do in the US. I don’t have anything else to say about that.

• I watch the sunrise each morning.

 

• There are cows right next to the girls’ school. Tinkling bells and all. Claire said she sat and watched the cows for a bit during recess one day.

• I made some art for my bedroom wall. I am anxious to get some color on the walls and it felt good to get out our paints. I’ll show you the artwork on my bedroom wall one of these days.

• Here’s a family selfie – what else do you do while you are sitting on the car ferry?

OK – gotta go – I promised the girls we would take a dip in the lake today.

There’s our apartment – the turquoise building on the left. This is a view from the arboretum and across the orchard. We are very lucky to have this big green space next to our apartment. It’s all part of some sort of agriculture school and above the arboretum is an agriculture research organization which is housed partly in a beautiful old estate. We can look out our windows over the fruit trees and grape vines and we can walk through the arboretum and through the grounds of the agriculture organization. There’s a stream that falls down the hill and there are greenhouses and fields of research crops to look at.

I know I’ll spend a lot of time in this lovely green space. It’s so close and the girls already love to put their little playmobil boats in the stream. I’m eager to see the seasons change in this area and to take some more photos. I have an overwhelming thought of my dad-in-law as I walk and look around. He would have absolutely loved it. He would have eaten up the huge old trees and the greenhouses where they are researching. I remember how he so enjoyed walking through the vineyards when we lived across the lake. I expect I will think of Doug each time I walk into our arboretum.

I feel a little like I’m trying to catch up on posting to my blog and I’m trying to catch up to our new school schedule. The girls started on Tuesday and they’ve done great – handling all the newness so well! Bea was lucky enough to have art class on her first day and she came home so excited about the art room. She described a complete workshop full of power drills and saws and sewing machines, a whole wall of paint and lots of fabric. I wish I could take art class with her. Claire and I giggled because her teacher says maths instead of math. She is obviously British.

Here are some photos from our last few day.

Around town there are signs posted along streets to remind everyone to take care as kids are starting to walk to school now.

The girls are required to wear a uniform for PE class:

We took a lovely boat ride this weekend:

Brian likes to treat us:

We ended up at the Chilbi one town over. It’s like a county fair but without the 4-H animals.

The girls and I went to the zoo at the bottom of Lake Zurich. The same zoo we went to many times when we lived here before. I kept thinking of the past and how little my girls were the last time we visited. It’s such a nice zoo – all the animals were out and about and there is a really fun playground.

Brian was gone all last week and the weather was terribly rainy for four days in a row. It felt good to eventually get out of the house. We went for a quick walk to the old ruins in our town.

I bought a new rug before we moved. It’s made of shaggy soft wool and it’s shedding. The store said it will shed for a month or so and then stop. It’s a LOT of shedding! There are little bits of wool floating all around the house. A little annoying but I do love our rug. I had to scoop up some of the bits of wool and make a little lamb. I could make a whole flock of them if I felt like it…

We were treated to a rainbow just before sunset the other night. I need rainbow photographing lessons. It’s in the photo above on the opposite side of the lake.

The rain cooled us down a little so it was time to do some baking. Just the most basic things since my pantry is not very stocked up – I made a coffee cake and Bea made snickerdoodles. Nothing makes a place feel truly homey like something baking in the oven.

Then Bea tried to sell us her cookies – for a dollar each!!! I gave her 25 cents for one and then gobbled up the others free of charge.

My girls have had a strange summer and now it’s almost over. School starts in a week. We drove over and tried out the playground on Sunday. They were all smiles.

We happened upon some talkative sheep the other night. There’s a video at the bottom:

 

• The bells – oh my, the bells! They ring every quarter hour (even through the night) and on Sunday they go on for many minutes at a time. I can’t decide if I like them or hate them. Here’s a two minute sample if you’re interested: 

• Our kitchen has mostly drawers. Without high cabinets the girls have no excuse not to put the dishes away – yay!

• Speaking of our kitchen. The contents of our fridge are about 50% cheese and 50% everything else. Brian is living it up cheese wise. Don’t tell him, but I love the cheese too.

• I need to get comfortable driving. I drove a few times when we lived here before and we did a car share thing. It makes me nervous because I don’t always understand all the signs. Brian is going to take me out tomorrow for some practice. We have a nice little Volkswagon Golf that I think I will be comfortable in.

• Speaking of driving – we went to IKEA today and we went through a bunch of tunnels. They love their tunnels here. If you don’t drive you almost don’t notice them very much – you just see beautiful rolling green hills. Who knew there were cars zooming through those hills.

• Speaking of IKEA – oh my – it’s another love/hate situation. We stocked up on all the little things that we needed. Things like shower curtains and lamps and doormats and extension cords. My list was huge. I generally like putting IKEA furniture together, but after building two bunk bed desk combos for the girls and a bunch of other small things I’ve had enough.

• Speaking of enough.. I’ve also had enough of tying up neat bundles of cardboard. The recycling is great here in Switzerland because you feel like things are actually getting recycled and used again. But it’s a lot more work. It’s not like chucking everything in the bin and putting it out by the road in the US. For paper and cardboard you have to look up your town’s scheduled pick up days (help me Google Translate!). One day for cardboard and another day for paper – usually once a month. Glass goes in bins – you’ll find them around town – don’t forget to separate clear, brown and green. Aluminum cans also go in bins near the glass bins – remove both ends and then flatten. Plastic bottles and other things like batteries go to bins at the grocery store. Food scraps go in the composting bin – thankfully that bin is just outside our apartment building. And then there is actual trash – you have to buy special trash bags and then they go in a big bin by our apartment building. It’s tempting to just throw everything in trash – recyclables and all, but since you pay for bags and it’s a serious no no to throw out recyclables you don’t want to do that. Are you zoned out and bored yet? Yes, it’s very trite to go on and complain about Swiss recycling. It’s just that when you move and you have tons of paper and cardboard from your stuff being shipped and from IKEA packaging you end up with a mountain of things to dispose of. If you don’t hit the ground running and figure out where all the stuff is supposed to go you can get overwhelmed. Here’s my handy work – just a portion of my cardboard. Golly, I hope I did it to the standards of my neighbors.

• We saw two (yes two) dogs riding in carts at IKEA. They each had a little blanket to sit on and they seemed perfectly content.

• Here are the girls eating fake food at IKEA – later when we were all completely exhausted we sat down and ate some real food. Swedish meatballs of course.

• I’d forgotten just how large the snails are here.

• Small things like making dinner still feel cumbersome because I haven’t memorized where everything is. The apartment is slightly chaotic because we are still getting the last boxes of things unpacked and organized. Routines need to be ironed out –  like doing the laundry – soon I won’t have to translate the words on my washing machine every time. I’m excited to do the fun decorating parts around our home (and show you some photos) but first I have to fit all our clothes in the wardrobes (no closets – another Swiss-ism). Things have seemed a blur and school is just around the corner. But we’re getting there and Switzerland is charming us with all its quirks and its beauty. If you want to visit just ring our bell anytime.

Check out Claire’s blog http://laowai.typepad.com/clog.