For the past several years, Zurich has been named the best city in the world in which to live (source: Forbes). The rankings for this year are out, and Vienna, Austria has uprooted Zurich by 0.8 points to take over the top spot! Zero point 8. We are sssssssooooooo done here. Our standards are just way too high for this nonsense. We can't settle for second best.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7472659&page=1
We have decided to leave the country, forget all about this horrible ranking and escape to Thailand for a few weeks...where the cheap prices flow and the massages grow! Oh, and by the way, Chicago didn't even make the top 15 US cities to live in. We have lots to de-stress over.
No, seriously, things are going well. We finally finished up most of the big things for our move back to Chicago. We still need to finalize our de-registeration from Switzerland and turn in some more paperwork, but all is falling into place nicely.
Since we wrote, we had Ferd visiting us for about a week (April 17th-23rd). We had a great time, and the whole visit was really relaxing. He got in on Friday and I left work to pick him up at the airport. On Saturday we went to Bern, Switzerland where Aggie and I ran a 10 mile race (dubbed "The Most Beautiful 10 miles in the World"). My girl proved to be quite the athlete as she and I ran the whole thing together and finished in less than 9 minute miles. They weren't joking about the race course - it was beautiful, weaving in and out of the city, through the old town and on the cobble street roads, into the forest and along the river. Plus, the sun was shining the whole time, the temperature was perfect. It was awesome!
On Sunday we went to our friends, John and Helen's, for a delicious brunch celebrating the Russian Orthodox Easter (Helen is from the Ukraine) and then to the Rheine Falls with Ali, Dave and Dave's mother, Matilda (who was in town visiting as well). It was a great day as - again - the weather was perfect.
We (Ag, Ferd and I) headed to the southwestern part of Switzerland on Monday (20th). We visited the small ski town of Gstaad and then headed to the town of Gruyere. It was a really nice day and the old castle village of Gruyere was fantastic. Gruyere is one of our favorite cheeses, and it comes from this region. Needless to say, the fondue in Gruyere was probably the best we have ever had.
On Tuesday I had to work, and Aggie and Ferd went to Lugano, Switzerland (in Southern Switzerland, near Italy) for the day. We have been to Lugano before (check back for the post from May 2007), and it's a place you go to just chill. They walked around a bit and then plopped down at a pizzeria right by the lake. They sat, drank some beers, ate some pizza and watched people walk by. Talk about a really stressful day! I had a work party on Tuesday night, and it was actually a lot of fun. It was a going away party for myself and Jen, another co-worker. I was "roasted" a little bit, and everybody had many laughs.
Wednesday we all just hung out and, that evening, BBQ'd. I took Fred to the airport on Thursday morning and then headed into work. Aggie got things sorted for the move and the big going away bash we were thowing on Saturday...
So Saturday, I went skiing for the last time in Switzerland (pending any future visits) at Engelberg, near Luzern. It was me and John, just like old times, and it was a good day. The first part of the day we skiied on the glacier, which was basically a huge sheet of ice. We ditched that part of the mountain and headed to the Jochpass, where the snow was much softer and nicer. There were tons of little "lips" that we were jumping off of, trying to do tricks and such. The slopes were our playground b/c it wasn't crowded at all. At 12:30pm, there was a competition where people would ski down a slope and then across a long, skinny pool filled with water, trying to get across without falling in. It was warm, so most of the people were in bathing suits, some girls even in bikinis. It was entertaining, to say the least (I'll post pics and videos after we get back to the States) .
John and I got home around 5:00pm, and by 6:00pm people started to roll in for the big BBQ at our place - it was the last time we could host a party in Zurich! We kicked off the event with flutes of champagne and rocked it out until 2:00am or so. Cornhole was played, the beer was flowing like wine, whiskey was drank, pork chops, chicken and sausages were grilled, Apples to Apples came out, hot wings were served at 1:00am, dancing was going on till 2:00am...it was quality! Sunday was a bit rough, but that's okay. The whole event was a blast!
Sunday we moved some of our furniture that we had agreed to sell to various people the week before. Thanks again to Ali and Dave for their help! Then, Monday and Tuesday were insane days of organizing, cleaning, etc for the big move that was to take place on Wednesday.
Wednesday morning came and the movers were to arrive at 7:30am. Well, they came at 7:10am! It was an early morning...and they were very funny about how they worked. There were 4 dudes and we thought they would have had the place packed up and such by 10am. We had seriously organized everything into piles so that it would be cake for them. Another reason we thought this was because when we moved from Luxembourg to Zurich, we had 2 movers and a ton more shiat. These 4 guys took their time, took an hour coffee break at 9:30am, etc. It was so funny! Whatever though. The move was finished and we were happy. That evening we went out for drinks to celebrate the fact we were finished with the "big" part. Hooray!!
The rest of this week went well. We are staying with our good friends, Ali and Dave, which has been working out great so far! We'll see what happens when I start to get bad gas... We checked out an Irish Pub that recently opened near their place last night which was cool. Today we have a BBQ and then who knows what will come up tomorrow.
We will be around all next week then heading out the Thailand on Friday. The countdown is on my friends!!
Sorry there are no pics to accompany this blog...there are plenty of good ones but they are all loaded up on our "home" computer, which is packed up and in transit back to Chicago! You can see the ones from the party and the move
here. As soon as we get back and get our stuff in our new apartment, we'll post the rest.
