Friday, August 7

Greetings from Zurich! It’s been a long road but I finally made it and am reunited with Tyler and the cats. Guess what. It’s HELLA HOT here. It’s been 80+ degrees with 10000000% humidity (I think. I’m no “scientist”, mind you). Tonight thunder showers are predicted and I can’t wait.

My first day I came off an 11 hour flight and was met by Tyler and Aline (a woman who we hired to help with our relocation). My flight was delayed and Tyler and we had to hurry back to our temporary apartment so he could get to a 1:00 (that’s 13:00 on the 24 hour clock which is causing me some serious math anxiety) work meeting on time (it being his third day at the new job). As I had previously agreed, we were to look at some apartments that same afternoon after I had a change to freshen up. We also had to go and register with the Kreisburo. Zurich city is divided into different Kreis (circle in German), much like the Arrondissement of Paris. Upon arrival, new residents have 14 days to register with the appropriate district. At 3:00 we met back up with Aline and headed to what I will call the Swiss DMV. Very efficient! After registering Aline drove us to 5 different apartments in various areas of the city. By this time I had crossed over from exhausted to delirious and I think I had super powers for about an hour. We first looked at a very modern apartment in a building that had just been built (the landscaping wasn’t even in yet). We also looked at a dark, garden duplex in a very chic neighborhood built in the 1970’s. We saw two apartments in historic buildings (1700’s) with exposed beams and delightful rooftop views and finished off with an art deco or art nouveau apartment with gorgeous wall to ceiling windows overlooking a very busy intersection. While it was great to see such variety so early on, none of these were quite right for us. We ended the day with Vietnamese take-out (over $50 for the two of us, yikes!) and discussed the pros and cons of each apartment we had seen that day.

For now we remain in our temporary apartment. Tyler can walk to work and there are plenty of shops and tram lines nearby. Here is a picture of our street.

Charming isn’t it!?

Here is our front door.

And here is 1 of 4 flights of stairs we walk up every day, sometimes several times a day.

We’re getting in shape and have 4 kinds of cheese in our fridge. We’re getting Swissed!

P.S. I have not met Tina Turner yet but will keep you posted as my stalking progresses.