Lugano and other random happenings

Hallo! (As they say in German...) Grützi! (As they say in Swiss-German...)

This past week has been a relatively uneventful one, other than going out to a delicious Italian restaurant for dinner with my leading lady Wednesday night after work. We did have an exciting trip last weekend, though. We went to Lugano, Switzerland...a small city about 3 hours (by train) southeast of Zurich. The city is in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy (as a side note, a canton in Switzerland is what we would consider a state in the US). Lugano is actually not even 30 minutes from Lake Como which is another well known Italian destination (think George Clooney, Ocean's 12, etc). So here's the low down on Lugano...let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Friday morning was actually an early one for us because our couch was (finally) being delivered. We got a call at 6:50am from the delivery crew that they would be there in 10 minutes. Two minutes later our doorbell rang! In comes the couch, Aggie and I do a little "construction" and voila! We had our couch and promptly retired the camping chairs.

We didn't have much time to sit around and test the couch out, though, because we left on the 2pm train from Zurich to Lugano. We got into Lugano around 5pm. It was a super easy train ride through the mountains, which were amazing and gorgeous. Everytime I ride the trains here in Europe, it just amazes me that something like this can't be implemented in the States. The thought of how much energy, gas, pollution, etc that we could save is ridiculous. Also, it's just so easy to take the trains. You can read, listen to music, you can show up two minutes before the train leaves...it's such a great way to travel. Anyway, off my soap box and back to our trip!

We walked out of the train station, hopped on a bus, and in about 5 stops we were at our hotel. We checked in, dropped our things off and headed down to the lake.

The walk to the lake (Lago Lugano) was not even 5 minutes from our hotel. Once we got to the lake, we had the option of taking a water boat/taxi, taking a bus or walking for 15 minutes to get to the main center. We opted to walk along the boardwalk and just take in the view. The area was just like a picture book. The path along the lake was shaded with trees and benches were lined along the entire path. The hills and mountains really just seemed to just "hug" the lake. The lake water was crystal clear. The sun was setting. People were out strolling around, eating gellato, etc. It was just really nice.

We were pretty hungry and decided to stop to eat. You'd think we would have opted for an Italian restaurant but no, we went for Chinese! Whatever, it was good! After that we stumbled upon this courtyard of outdoor bars/clubs and decided to sit and have a few cold ones. It was excellent, excellent people watching. Saw more dudes sending out the vibe and getting shot down than we have seen in a long time. Very entertaining!

So the rest of the night we just walked around town and got a feel for the place. Then the next morning we got up relatively early and headed back out to explore, do some shopping, etc. In true Swiss style, everything was crazy expensive and so we didn't buy too much. But oh well, it was just nice to walk around and the weather was amazing. We spent the day exploring stores, an old church, parks around the lake and gelatto stands. There were so many people out and it was a great atmosphere. One thing that was cool: you can rent a paddleboat, paddle out to the middle of the lake and then jump out and go swimming. So many people were doing this and it looked like a blast. We promised that next time we came we'd make it a point to do that.

About 2pm we went out for a boat tour on the lake. It was really nice and we got to see a lot of Swiss and Italian lakeside villages. The two things I couldn't get over was 1. how secluded the place seemed, tucked away in the middle of all of these mountains, and also 2. how clean the water seemed. You could literally see to the bottom in certain places.

When we got back from the boat tour, we went back to the hotel, got fancied up and then headed out for some dinner. We ate in the center of the town and it was a decent meal. Again, good people watching. After dinner we went to the Lugano Casino.

The Casino was right on the lakeside and looked incredible from the outside. I was expecting this to be like a "Casino Royale" or "Monte Carlo" type of place...high rollers in suits, models walking around with martinis, $1,000 chips being strewn around the craps table, etc. This image was further bolstered by the Ferraris, Bentleys, Mercedes, Mazeratis, etc sitting out front of the place in valet spots. We walked in and were greeted by pretty Italian burds and huge bodyguard looking guys checking passports, etc, further living up to my expectations.

When we walked into the actual casino, my balloon quickly deflated. You couldn't get chips at the table...you had to go to the cages and change your money there, and the line to do so was enormous. It didn't matter anyway b/c the place only had a handful of tables and they were jam packed. There were no craps tables, no martinis, and no models. Just a bunch of depressed lookin dudes chain smoking and playing with $5 chips. We gave the place a cursory tour and then bolted back out into the warm evening. So long, suckers! We grabbed some gellato and strolled around a little more before heading home.

Sunday morning we kind of slept in and then took a cog train up to the top of San Salvatore mountain. At the top we walked around and took in the view. Again, the weather was great and the views were amazing. We tooled around a little while and then headed down to the hotel pool to catch some rays before hopping the train back to Zurich.

The train ride home was uneventful. Again the mountains, waterfalls, rolling green hills and bell cows were out in full effect. Unbelievably pretty.

This weekend has been good so far. Yesterday we took a train to Sihlbrugg and hiked back. It was such a nice, although long, hike. A good mixture of woods, mountains, hills and beautiful views. It took us about 5.5 hours to get to the end of the trail, which was in Uetiliburg. Once there, we jumped a tram back into the city and headed to an Irish pub to watch some rugby and soccer and have a couple frosty brewdogs.

Last night we met a couple (Nicole and Gary) for drinks. Long story short, before we left Luxembourg, Agnes looked on this website for American expats in Zurich just to see if there were jobs, etc, posted on there. Well, this site was actually more like a social networking site, and this couple had posted a profile of themselves that we thought pretty much sounded like us. We had arranged to meet up with them last night and it went well. They seem really nice and normal and fun, so hopefully it will work out. I was teasing Agnes, calling it our blind date and wondering on our way home if she thought they might call us back! :-)

Today we are grilling out with my co-worker, Jen, and her husband Bryan. Jen is the girl who semi-recruited me to come to Zurich after Luxembourg. Well, she just found out that she made partner in our firm (the highest level you could make). So, basically, she is going to be loaded now and we're throwing her a celebration bbq.

Next weekend we are going to take a day trip to a yet to be determined location. Basically, Jen gave me a "Tageskarte" for the Swiss trains which she kind of had lying around and didn't think she'd be able to use before it expires. A tageskarte is like a day pass where you can travel first class to and from anywhere in Switzerland for free for one day. The one Jen gave me expires on June 6, so we are going to try to go somewhere within 1.5 hours next weekend (we'll go early in the morning and then come home in the evening). Interlaken and Luzern are the top contenders at the moment, but we'll see. Agnes the travel agent is going to be hot on the case this week and we'll figure out where we want to go and what we want to see.

The weekend after next, we'll be heading home (Hamilton) for a week to do some wedding stuff and attend Brent and Erika's wedding in DC. We are really looking forward to that!

Anyways, ciao for now and make sure to check out the pictures via the link above...they are some good ones!

Cheese Days

This past week has been a short work week for me. Yesterday (May 17th) was a holiday here, and now today (Friday) everyone is "working" from home. Perfect for us! We just got our couch delivered this morning and finally got the apartment in order. I can't tell you how excited we are!

Last weekend was pretty fun. On Saturday we went to a town called Unterwasser for "Kase Tages" ("cheese days"), which was basically a cheese festival. It was pretty cool to see different farmers there, different cheeses, etc. The best part though was the town itself. It was totally what you'd expect a small Swiss mountain town to look like. Check out the pictures (link above)...they are really good. On the way home, we passed all sorts of "giant" things...big wooden chairs outside a homemade furniture store, for example. Well, we passed a butcher's shop and I'll let you see for yourself what the "giant" thing outside that was! It should be about the last picture in the slideshow. We also passed a really cool restaurant and had some dinner. A skewer of pork, beef and shrimp (and a few brewskies) later, we headed home.

On Sunday it was gorgeous outside, so we walked down to the lake front to soak in some rays and lay around. In the 80's and sunny; the mountains in the background, people playing volleyball, bike riding, chilling, etc etc. It was a great day. Unfortunately, the weather has been rather iffy the rest of this week. Kind of cool and rainy, but it's supposed to clear up for the weekend which is good.

Speaking of this weekend, we are taking off this afternoon for Lugano, Switzerland which is about a 3 hour train ride to the southwest, right at the Swiss-Italian border. We have heard some great things about this place and figured why not!? We will be back next week to post pictures and let you know how it was. Have a great weekend!

(PS: Funny thing that we saw this morning. We have Swiss cable, which isn't so bad. There are some shows in English, we get North American Sports Network which is like ESPN for Europe, MTV, MTV Base (holla!), etc. Well, I was flipping through this morning and came upon "Sesamestrasse"...Sesame Street in German! Well, at least I thought it was funny...)

Gruetzi, Zurich!

First off, let me say two things:

1. Happy Mothers' Day!

2. We've posted two blogs simultaneously, so make sure you go back one and read the one titled "Au Revoir, Luxembourg" before reading this one (or else things won't make sense).

So, we left off at leaving Luxembourg, right? Well, the drive down to Zurich (about 5 hours) was pretty uneventful until we got about 30 minutes from the border of Germany and Switzerland. I started hearing these strange "popping" noises as we were driving on the highway. Almost like it was starting to rain, but there weren't any clouds in the sky. Then I noticed that the windshield was getting harder and harder to see through...what the hell?

We drove through what must have been the highest concentration of bugs in the world at that particular moment. It was like a snow storm, only with these huge bugs. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. I swear that one hit the windshield right in front of me and I could hear it yell "Ouch!" You should have seen my car once we stopped. In fact, you can...check out our pictures link above.

So we got to Zurich late in the evening of Thursday, April 26th. We decided to stay at our new apartment that evening even though we didn't really have any furniture. Ag had packed an overnight bag for us, with a shower curtain, toilet paper, towels, sheets, plates, food, beer, etc (basically the essentials). I had a feeling the movers would be there early Friday morning (they had said 8:30 or 9:00am) and I didn't want to stay at a hotel and then try to drive over to the new place in the morning…not knowing where exactly where we were going! So we camped out on the floor of our new bedroom and threw a DVD on the computer.

My inclination was right! The movers called Aggie's cell at 7:30am. They were out front and ready to move everything in if we were ready. Two hours later, the guys had the move complete. They did an excellent job and we were really pleased with their services.

I had taken a few days off and since Tuesday, May 1st was a holiday here in Zurich, I was starting work on Wednesday, May 2nd. Therefore, from Friday till Tuesday, Ag and I just really enjoyed each other's company, put together furniture (oh, did we ever!), explored the city, etc. It was such a wonderful feeling not having any worries and just relaxing with Aggie that when my first day rolled around, it was hard to get out of bed!

So, we have now been here for 2 weeks. Hands down, we love our apartment. We met our land lady (Frau Gschwend) and I'm pretty sure she owns this building (an old, renovated mansion) and just collects rent and hangs out. She's got a fake orange tan, an Italian guy that seems to hang out with her and do odd jobs around the place (we think he's her Italian Stalion), and Ag swears that her eyeliner is tattooed on her face, but all in all she seems nice. As of now, we've gotten all of our furniture put together, the TV and internet set up (although we're having some technical difficulties every now and then) and the bed delivered and assembled. The only thing left is that we haven't gotten our couch yet. Once that happens, we'll be all set.

We really like the city and feel it's going to have lots of opportunities for us….work wise and activity wise. There are lots of things to do and places to see. The bike path along the lake (not to mention the lake itself) is beautiful. Snow capped mountains are in the background and on clear days they look unbelievable. There are always lots of people walking around near the lake and surrounding areas, and the beach is really close to our place too. Plus, there are quite a few parks around for lounging around, playing volleyball, etc.

The public transportation here is excellent, with a mixture of trams, buses, and ferry boats all put to good use (I'm debating on whether or not I really need my car). Everything is really clean and efficient. The only bad thing is that we live on the top of a fairly steep hill, so to get home from the tram stop outside our place is on par with summiting a small mountain! We've decided that unless you are part Billy Goat, there's no way to avoid being winded by the time you get home.

They are recycling nuts here and really, you don't have a choice but to recycle. Let me explain. To throw anything away in the trash you have to use a Zuri Sack. A Zuri Sack is a trash bag that you purchase at the counter from the cashier at the grocery store. The bags come in three sizes and your trash can only be disposed in these bags. If you use other bags, you will be found and they will fine you. (Apparently, our friends say, they will go through your trash and look for mail with your name on it so they can send you a fine!) In a Zuri Sack packet, there are 10 bags and they cost 20 CHF….that is about $16 USD, people! As I have said, it forces you to recycle….

Work is going well so far (knock on wood!). I am happy with the setup and everyone seems to be alright. Everything is handled in English so I definitely feel I am in the loop on things which is a major plus. We'll see...I've only been here a week, so no one has really given me anything important to do yet.

This place is amazing, but it's extremely expensive. We went out to a Mexican joint for Cinco de Mayo last Saturday and had 4 Coronas with dinner. Normal size beer bottles that you would get in the States. The alcohol on our tab was 30CHF…basically $6.25 for one beer. NUTS! The grocery store isn't much better but Aggie is working some magic and finding ways to save….we will be eating tuna meatballs instead of real meat balls. A pound of meat is anywhere from $12-13USD and chicken is just as expensive…pork and turkey seem to be a little bit more affordable. So, we'll make some slight adjustments and see how things work out.

This weekend we are planning on going to a Cheese Festival about 1.5 hours outside of Zurich. We have heard these are fun things to attend as the cheese is a bit cheaper and even more fresh and delicious than in the stores.

So that's it from our end for now. Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!

Au Revoir, Luxembourg

We are back folks! The past few weeks have been very busy for us to say the least. We know we have been 110% slackers with our blog, but our excuse is that we have been BUSY and haven't had an internet hookup at home until this past Wednesday night.

Way back in April, I had a few really busy weeks ending things at the Lux E&Y office. Long story short, things went fine and I accomplished just about everything that was tossed at me throughout my 1.5-year rotation there. The experience of working at that office was definitely challenging (at times overwhelming), yet rewarding.

One of those last evenings, some of my close friends from work took Aggie and I out for a"going away" dinner. We went to this great French restaurant in one of the villages near our office. The 3 guys that hosted the dinner were Luc (Belgium), Robert (Scottish) and Nicolas (French). Also in attendance were Luc's wife, Bea and Robert's girlfriend, Alexandra (Portuguese).

For a going away gift, each decided to put together a "basket" of things that are traditional and meaningful to their respective countries. Luc and Bea gave us delicious Galler chocolates, refreshing Belgian beers, an Arlon hat (Arlon is his town), etc. Robert and Alexandra gave us sardines, a raw fish, a bottle of Scotch, a head of cabbage, etc. Nicolas gave us a baguette, a really nice bottle of Burgundy Grand Cru wine, a jar of duck livers, some pate, etc.

The evening was a blast and I am really happy I made such good friends with these guys and their families. On my last day, I showed up at the office with three handles of Jack Daniel's, one for each of them!

While I was trying to finish everything up at the Lux office, Aggie and I made two trips to Zurich. (You read about the first trip in our previous blog.) For the second trip, we went down April 19-21st. Aggie was meeting with Renate (our relocation lady) to set up a bank account, get the keys to the new apartment and do a walk-through for it, etc. I had to go to an all day training for E&Y Zurich and had a chance to meet some of my new co-workers. The trip was short and sweet, and it was a success. We stayed right in downtown Zurich at the Sofitel and were walking distance to everything, which was great!

On Friday after the training, we went to dinner at a delicious Swiss restaurant right in town off the main strip (the Bahnhofstrasse) with my new co-worker, Jen and her husband Bryan. On Saturday morning, Aggie and I went to Ikea to order our couch and bed.

For those of you that have been to Ikea, God bless you! I HATE Ikea. Unfortunately, it's one of the main furniture shops here in Europe and all the other shops are really expensive. And I shouldn't say I hate it. Aggie and I agree it's fine for what you need, but the place is just a zoo. Not exactly where I want to shop all the time. With Ikea, you get average quality products and products that you can use in any room of the house. From lawn furniture, vases, plates, lamps, beds, couches, kitchen stoves, bathroom sinks, chairs…you name it, they have it! The one catch is that you buy everything in a box and then you assemble it yourself. EVERYTHING!

Anyway, we figured we would order our big stuff (couch, bed, etc.) and then it might take a week or so to get them delivered. Once we decided what we wanted (it took us 2 ½ hrs to decide!), the sales lady told us it would be 5 weeks for the delivery. We were moving in a week! Oh well. We couldn't do anything about that and decided to go ahead with the order.

The other thing about this particular Ikea location: we think that Swiss families decide to go there as an all day event...to get out of the house, for the 1-franc hot dogs, and to just walk around really slowly in front of me! AAhhhhh!

We got out of there and made it home Saturday evening rather late due to an accident on the highway in Germany. The wait was so long that people were out of their cars, peeing on the side of the road, etc. We noticed some cars trying to pass everyone in the "pulling over lane". Well, these carswere trying to get to a path on the side of the road that led them into a huge cornfield. People were literally driving through this field to get off the highway! I bet that farmer was fired up.

On Sunday, April 22 we were supposed to drive up to Brugge, Belgium and then on to Amsterdam to have one last visit with our friends Jacob and Annette. Well, that trip was cancelled b/c I had a few things that came up with work and Aggie got an email from the lady we were going to buy all our other furniture from.

Long story short, we were going to buy all this dark, classy furniture for super cheap from this wealthy lady in Lux. (We think she just wanted someone to get it out of her place for her!) Unfortunately,the woman's mother-in-law passed away and she had to go to Scotland (where she is originally from). She was not going to be back in Luxembourg before our movers were coming to our apartment to take all of our stuff to Zurich, so it made no sense to buy it from her (we couldn't move it all ourselves). This was a big disappointment to us b/c we LOVED her furniture, but obviously her problems were infinitely worse so we can't really complain.

Sunday evening we spent cleaning and packing at the apartment. For dinner, we decided to do some fine dining and headed down the street to the only store that's open on Sundays: the gas station. Serioulsy, EVERYONE hangs out at the gas station on Sundays. It's always packed and now we know why. The fresh baked bread and baguettes they make in the back are actually delicious (I know, strange, right??). Plus there is a lady that sets up in the gas station parking lot every Sunday and sells rotisserie-style chickens. We felt that since it was one of our last evenings in Luxembourg, we had to buy a chicken from the Chicken Lady truck.

On Monday we decided to head back to Ikea (this time the one in Arlon, Belgium...Luc's town) and get everything we needed for our place. The plan was for us to buy it all and have our movers transport it to the new apartment. The Ikea in Zurich tagged on an additional 10-20% of your total bill for a delivery charge so we thought we should avoid the extra fee if we could.

This experience at this Ikea was a little bit better than the last time, but we still had a few issues. For instance, we found a huge shelf unit in the clearance area and bought it, because basically it was going to be perfect in one certain part of our apartment in Zurich. The shipping guys loaded it up on a big cart and told us to head over to customer service after we paid, where they would take it apart and load it onto a rental truck for us. Fine.

This thing was massive...as I wheeled it over to the check out lane, I basically couldn't see where I was going. In the meantime, Aggie waited with our other cart (we still had more shopping to do). After I went through and paid, I headed over to customer service. I kind of walked up with a "here I am" look and the lady kind of stared at me like "What?" I explained to her in broken French that I needed this thing to be taken apart and she seemed to understand and headed into "the back" area. A couple minutes later, out she comes with a smile and a toolbox. Yup, this was going to be a "self-dissassemble" exercise.

I come running back to Aggie to tell her I have to take the whole thing apart, and that she should go get the rest of our stuff and bring it over to me. So while I set up shop in the "kiddie's play area" and was working on this thing, Aggie was running around trying to find the other items we wanted to buy. She would load up a cart, pay for it, drop it off by me and then head back with another cart and start all over again.

It was really comical and I have to say, even though it took a long time, it ended up being a total success! The Ikea in Belgium has little trucks that you can rent for 5 euros an hour. We lived not even 20 minutes away so after we got everything together, we packed up the truck, took everything to our garage in Lux and then came back to drop off the truck. Seven hours later, we were done with Ikea!! Hooray!! (and Whew!)

To celebrate, we decided to head to Trier, Germany for dinner at our favorite joint, the Bitburger Haus. The beer that day was one of the most refreshing I have had in a long time!!

Tuesday I went into work and Aggie finished getting things packed up at our place. Wednesday, April 25th, the movers came in the morning and packed up our fudge. I went to work that afternoon and had some meetings. Thursday, Aggie and I went with Nirma (our relocation lady in Lux) to "sign out" from our village, Bereldange. Once that was finished up, I went to the office to turn in my computer and clean out my desk and off we went to Zurich!