Cows, Bells and Mountains...

This video gets to stand all on its own. More soon - off to Copenhagen tomorrow!!!

Lots of love,

Karen x

The Swiss

We've now been here more than a month, and I feel it's time for a list. (Is that a British thing, compiling lists? Or just a Nick Hornby/male one?) This one is dedicated to Maria and will be entitled:

What I've learned and happen to like about Swiss people:

1. They're nice! As in incredibly friendly. Even the faintest contact with a Swiss person ends with them wishing you a good day, evening, weekend. In English, German, or Swiss German. This includes people at eateries, in supermarkets/shops, in the lift, on the phone, you name it.

2. Their customer service is out-of-this world! In our first week, we got offered coffee (proper 'crushed-bean in a machine' kind of coffee) in three different shops: When we went to buy a SIM-card (pay-as-you-go-only, nothing fancy) for our mobiles, when we looked at Nespresso-machines, and lastly when we'd been to a furniture store to purchase various items (the coffee here came with chocolate).

3. Wherever you go for walks, there are benches (see last week's post).

4. Wherever you go, generally, there are drinking water fountains.

5. The toilet paper in their public loos is SOFT! (I've sampled a few so far...)

6. They have a very natural relationship with their bodies. We've started using a public pool 10 minutes' walk from here, and for the first time since I lived in Denmark, I've used a changing room where women actually take off ALL their clothes in front of other women. And also shower in communal showers (women and men shower separately, I hasten to add!). There are facilities to shower in private, should one wish to do so...(On the other hand, I did find it a little strange, when I came across two teenage girls shaving their legs in a sink in a public toilet in the Swiss version of John Lewis the other day...)

7. They LOVE their flag. And it looks almost like the Danish one, so I love their flag as well. The pictures below are of some eggs, which my Swiss colleague, Sara, bought the day before their National Day on 1 August.

8. Their transport system. I'm so grateful to be finally living in a place where the trains are on time and regular. It really does make a difference to one's daily commute and day in general. Furthermore, travelling by public transport is cheaper here than in the UK and the ticketing system much, much easier to understand. It may actually be based on logic!  

9. Their professionalism but still relaxed and helpful ways. I thought, the Swiss would be quite strict and pedantic, particularly those in authority, but we've only come across people who couldn't be more helpful. From day one, we've felt in good hands when dealing with the relocation manager, the importation agents, the bank, the post office, the management team for the building we're living in etc.

And finally:

10. Their patience. This is needed in abundance when I try to speak German before I give up, if it gets too complicated (it's usually me overcomplicating things and trying to use words and grammatical structures which are completely out of my reach yet). When I finally, after having probably offended them as well as their family in various ways, ask them if they speak English, they often modestly say yes, and then conduct the rest of the conversation as if English were their first language.  

I think we'll stay a bit longer!

Lots of love,

Karen x

Herbjørg Wassmo, Bellinzona and Locarno

This is probably the laziest Sunday, we've had here so far. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it! Have been sitting on the balcony since we got up and, apart from a swimming break later, I don't think we're going to move far away from here anytime soon. (Though I do want to watch the Closing Ceremony this evening.)

I've started reading Herbjørg Wassmo again. Probably for the fifth or sixth time. I absolutely love her books about Dina and came across 'Karnas Arv' among my books the other day. Reading about people living in a cold and rough climate in the most northern parts of Norway makes the heat here more bearable. Because it's HOT! I've had to purchase proper summer clothes (shorts primarily) and haven't worn socks in weeks; something that's almost unheard of in the World of Karen.

Yesterday, we got up early and drove to Bellinzona which is about two hours south of Zurich. Like most places we've seen here so far, it's absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and it has the three best-preserved medieval castles in Switzerland which are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We walked up to one of the castles and took a couple of pictures:

After this exposure to culture, we decided to go a bit further towards the Italian border and have a look at what Locarno had to offer. Again, more of the same: Mountains, a lake, sunshine, benches (the Swiss have a knack of placing benches everywhere), ice cream vendors etc.

The pictures here don't do the views of the lake any justice, I hasten to add - and I'll take some pictures of benches at some other time...

Oh, work's still going well by the way!

Lots of love,

Karen x

Sunny Strasbourg

We've now been on our first long weekend to one of the surrounding countries which border Switzerland. The trip went to France, more specifically Strasbourg.

We hadn't really planned anything as we wanted to see how the weather was going to behave. According to the forecasts, rain was expected at some point every day, but all we saw were (semi)clear skies and sunshine. Hence we didn't spend any time inside: Didn't visit the Cathedral, didn't go to any museums or galleries, didn't take the car and go to places outside of Strasbourg; instead we went for walks, tried out the tram, hired some bikes, even went rowing on the world's smallest lake (when does a pond become a lake and the other way around?). We ate croissants, drank espressos and cafe au laits, ate ice cream, ate tarte flambee, drank wine and basically had the most relaxing time.

To illustrate how beautiful Strasbourg is and what a city-bike looks like there, please see below:

A pretty house in La Petite France (the old part of town).

View of the canal running through La Petite France.

The same canal.

The lake/pond.

Water feature in the lake/pond (probably purchased from the same water feature shop as the one in lake Zug - please see one of the previous posts).

EU Parliament taken from the tram.

I'm looking pretty ecstatic - this was before we faced the traffic (which wasn't that bad, really).

Apparently there used to be a lot of drummers frequenting parks in Strasbourg.

I kept telling Paul that there was a building near the Cathedral which had an unexploded hand grenade lodged in the wall. We eventually found it - see above on the righthand side as well as below.

However, it may not be a hand grenade but more a cannon shell...

This is my paparazzi picture of a stork in Parc de l'orangerie.

And a not that great picture of (part of) the Cathedral. It seemed like everywhere we went, we were able to see some part of the Cathedral, so we didn't really bother taking any pictures of it! But it IS impressive and in the tourist season, there is a light show in the evening which displays how intricate and detailed the building is.

All in all five gorgeous days in a city I'd definitely return to!

Lot of love,

Karen x

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.