Greetings all! This post is later than I would have liked but we have had so much going on the past week I feel lucky to have a few hours this morning to sort through the madness. I write this from our new living room in Zurichberg sitting on our new red couch! This apartment was completely bare when we moved in. Having come from a fully furnished and serviced temporary place it’s been quite a shock to have to fend for ourselves. The stuff we shipped from home is sitting in Antwerp, Belgium awaiting customs clearance meaning we have a couple of weeks with nothing but what we brought on the plane. Even so, we didn’t ship any furniture so we are pretty much starting from scratch here. Swiss apartments don’t even include lighting fixtures, so we’ve been going to bed early!

First order of business was a bed to sleep on. We bought a sofa bed from Ikea to tide us over until we can decide on a permanent bed. We knew we’d need a guest bed (HINT HINT) anyway so we chose one that we wouldn’t mind sleeping on for a few weeks. Next acquisition was a pan, just one to tide us over until the kitchen stuff comes, and plastic plates and utensils.

I saw a message on the spooger message board from a woman who was selling two enormous Ikea wardrobes. Swiss apartments also don’t have closets so we jumped at the chance. No sense in buying big stuff like that new if we won’t be needing or wanting it back home. Did I mention that these things are enormous? Claire (the selling spoogler) and her family are moving into a place where they won’t fit. We got a good deal on them but she lives very far away, at the bottom of the lake, about an hours drive. Claire offered to help transport them to us in her VW camper van. Seemed so simple at the time. Neither of us knew what an ordeal we were getting ourselves into!

It was decided that Saturday would be the day they would bring the wardrobes. Saturday also happened to be the day of StreetParade, a yearly techno/rave extravaganza in which the city center is blocked off and all Europe’s club types descend to party in the streets making traffic insane.

That morning I was woken at 6:00 by an awful kicking and scratching ruckus coming from the vented door to our balcony. Ripley had tried to climb out the door but got her head stuck and was dangling from her neck! I rushed to her aid and was able to pull her free but she dug a claw into my thumb during the ordeal. It was terrifying and for about 10 minutes I was afraid she was permanently injured and would need to go to the emergency vet. However, she recovered quickly enough and after checking that she could breathe normally, drink and eat I looked to my own wound. My thumb had swollen up and was throbbing.

So, not wanting to die of an infection, we decided to check out this Swiss health care system everyone has heard so much about!

View from the clinic. They are setting up for StreetParade. You can already hear the thumping of the techno music.

We hopped a tram to Bellvue, an area right in the city center and found a pharmacy that had an attached clinic. After about a 15 minute wait I saw a very nice doctor who told me I would need to get “five shots of penicillin for 5 days”. WHAT?!!!? Turns out he meant doses and needs to brush up on his medical English terminology. Since we don’t have insurance yet, my office visit cost $150.

All this time I’m waiting for a call from Claire about when they are gonna come by with the wardrobes. When I finally talk to her she tells me they have to completely disassemble them to fit them into the van and it’s going to take two trips, one hour each way. Ok, then! She arrived by herself for the first load at around 3:30. There are at least 40 individual pieces for each wardrobe including two gigantic and delicate sliding glass doors. It took the each of us a minimum of 20 trips up three flights of stairs with narrow bends to unload. Oh, did I mention it was 90 degrees out? Three hours later Claire arrived with her husband (thank God) and we unloaded the second van full. We finished up just as the sun was setting, looked at all the parts and pieces and said “My God, what have we done?”.

One bag of many. So. Many. Screws.

Daddy showing him how to do it.

Don’t worry, there are more pieces in the hall.

Sunday we made our first attempt at assembly but had to stop because turns out we needed some tools to fix one of the pieces. Now Tyler is in Barcelona and I join him tomorrow. Wardrobe assembly will have to wait until we get back.

In the meantime we got our delivery from an awesome second hand store called Zurcher Brokenhaus (all 2nd hand stores are called brokenhauses or brokies for short). We have achieved couch! No more eating on the bed or sitting on luggage! We also got a TV so I can catch up on America’s Next Top Model. Slowly but surely things are coming together. I can’t wait to get our shipment. I’m gonna cry with joy when I am reunited with my knives!

One last bit of excitement for me. I auditioned for an joined a chorus called Vocadelic! We had our first rehearsal last night. It’s a small group of about 10 singers. Rehearsals are held in both English and German. The director is Rose Ann Dimalanta who is a fabulous musician who, get this, is from Oakland! She is married to a German man. She has played with a lot of greats including Prince (she toured with New Power Generation), Stevie Wonder, Sheila E and Tower of Power. I have yet to ask her if she knows Tina, I could be closer to my goals than eva!

Rose Ann (RAD) with Prince!

I am really excited to be working with her and to be singing again. It seems like a great group of folks; some Swiss, some ex-pats, all seemed pretty laid back (though I’m keeping my eye on one shifty lady).

So, that was this week, phew! Off to Barcelona tomorrow. Auf Wiedersehen, homies!