Olympics and Love Locks

Writing this whilst watching the Olympics (I'm a woman; I multitask). Being in Switzerland, we can choose to watch the Games in various languages. The choice, for obvious reasons, has so far favoured BBC's coverage...

I sat through the opening ceremony on Friday and thought, like most of the World, that it was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. At some point, there was a lightning storm over the mountains outside which made the dancing of the evil characters from children's stories throughout the times even more dark and spectacular. To illustrate how Germanic this place is, there was a huge roar from various flats when the German team appeared. A small 'Yeah!' could be heard from our balcony when Team Denmark took the spotlight for all of 10 seconds...Rather surprisingly, there wasn't any sound when it was Switzerland's turn.

This week's has been quite quiet at work due to a lot of people being on annual leave. Next week will be no different, but as 1 August is the Swiss National Day and hence a public holiday, Paul and I have both taken 2 and 3 August off to spend five days in France.

Paul enjoying his morning coffee on the balcony.

Yesterday we went into Zurich city to meet up with one of Paul's friends. It was incredibly humid so we ended up vegetating in the shade outside over various coffees (espressos and Schale (cafe latte apparently, I'm still not entirely convinced it's the same drink)) for a couple of hours. On the way back, we crossed a bridge where I noticed clusters of locks inscribed with names or initials as well as a date. Paul happened to know that these are so-called 'love locks'. (I sort of expected him to suddenly, as if by magic, present me with one and add it to the collection whilst quoting Shakespeare, but no. I guess that's not really his style - or mine for that matter.)

The first couple of visitors have been booked in (hej mor og far!), and the guest bedroom is slowly looking less like a collection of cardboard boxes and more like a fully functioning bedroom/office/gym (?).

Stuck behind boxes in the lift down to the 'cellar'.

That's it for now. I look forward to adding another entry next week.

Lots of love,

Karen x

Final Move, Food Obsession, and IKEA

Sunday's suddenly crept up on us again - and a sunny one at that (for the time being). We've now finally emptied the flat we stayed in for the first couple of weeks here and now have all our belongings in one place. The 'import of our household goods' went well and I was particularly happy to be reunited with my shoes and collection of eyeshadows. Please see below picture of my loose table top floating in mid-air. (I was slightly worried about dropping my Ipod, when taking that picture...)

Over the past week, I have been working on feeding my new obsession which is pretzels with butter (or Brezels mit Butter). The best place to go for that is: BREZELKONIG. We did try a different place but that was a disappointing experience and will not be repeated. I love the Brezels so much, I've taken a picture of the stand at Stadelhofen station which is the one we have been frequenting the most. As we'll now be taking the train from a different station closer to our new flat, this picture is a reminder of where I discovered this treat. These stands are fortunately scattered everywhere so I'll be in walking distance of one wherever I am...

What else has happened this week? Well, we've been to IKEA three times. THREE TIMES in fewer than seven days. And this is what IKEA looks like in Switzerland:

We got a lot of stuff we needed and not so much stuff that we didn't need. That's how focused these trips were. Yesterday I got a few things in the delicatessen, one of them being these delicious 'trøfler' (the Danish reader(s) of this blog will know what I'm referring to). I offered one to Paul last night and thought he'd finish off the whole tray after that first heavenly mouthful. But no. His first comment, after having been close to choking, was that this tasted exactly like some sweets they had during Communism and which he didn't like at all. I learn every day and will try not to insult his taste buds ('papilegustative' in Romanian) in the future.

Okay, I'm going to open a few more boxes and do some more tidying up. I'll leave you with a video of Lake Zug which I took during one of my lunch breaks last week:

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Lots of love,

Karen x

Introduction

Hi All,

When I moved to the UK in July 1992, I brought a typewriter on which I spent hours typing sheet after sheet about my year as an au pair in London, and every Thursday I wrote a letter to my family in Denmark. After two decades living in various parts of England, I now find myself waking up in Switzerland. This time around my trusted laptop is accompanying me, and I Skype and email with my family and friends on a (ir)regular basis. 

The idea with this blog is to, hopefully, update anyone who may be interested in reading about our lives here (yes, I'm not here on my own...) on a weekly-ish basis, as I'm much more likely to stick to this than regular emails. I'm also planning on adding pictures so it's not all text based.

Please feel free to add comments, suggestions, and/or questions.

I think that's it for now. I'll try and add some pictures, send this link to some chosen few, and then take it from there.

Tons of love,

Karen x

The rain's been following us from the UK.

View of Lake Zug (I work in Zug). This was taken during a lunch break - 10 minutes from my office.

Corner of our living room in our still empty flat. Notice the view...There will be more pictures of various views once we've moved in.

The opposite end of the living room - there's a balcony on the left.