First Days in Switzerlang

This is the beginning of the Diana and Markus Swiss journal. In past stays abroad, I have written lots of paper letters, eventually turning to email. Now, to join the 21st century I plan to try my hand at blogging. Also, this is a good way to post pictures of our adventures here, should any of you be interested.

We are now Swiss residents for a week, and I have a number of thoughts on our (collective) life here. So far, we are still talking about the adventure of it all, and that is true. But also, as anyone with small kids knows, there is lots of reproducing routine involved in maintaining sanity as well. Markus especially is in a routine since he goes to work every day. The rest of us have also settled into a kind of routine by going out for a long walk or tram ride in the morning, ending at a playground and then hiking up the stairs to have lunch and for Timo to have a nap. One of the apparent losses in the transition has been a nap for Nicolas. Then we go back down to street level, do some grocery shopping and go again to the playground before returning home to make dinner and head to bed.

We bought monthly transportation tickets, so the kids and I just pop on and off trams and buses as we need. Nicolas in particular is really loving the trains. We have now had several outings to the main train station just to look at engines coming and going. However, this Friday the kids and I will actually take a real train as we go to visit Markus’ brother’s family in Basel for the weekend. Other outings include an involved trip on several forms of public transit to IKEA for necessities like Tupperware and plastic plates (More so than even McDonalds, IKEA is truly the same everywhere-even those strange Swedish names for products seem comforting here!); a walk along the lakefront (Zurich is right on the Lake Zurich and it looks like a postcard: ringed by snow-covered Alps…see picture!); a trip through downtown; and visit to the local police station to register; and a visit to the new shopping mall just south of us.

Just so you don’t think we are only having fun, we are having some adjustment problems as well. Markus is trying to be available to work on both time zones, so he is often in meetings in the evening (Mt. View) as well as in the office here all day. The kids are clearly having some adjustment stress as they are fighting more than usual and having more tantrums. I am really feeling the lack of adult interaction and because I am with the kids all the time I feel like I have little time to just be alone. Next week we will begin to search out some kind of child-care or playgroup in earnest.

As is always true about travel, one of the most fun things is comparing and exploring how people do things differently here. I am happy that the most surprising thing about people here is how friendly and helpful they are. My past experiences traveling in Europe is that people will help if you ask (particularly if you ask in their language). Here, when I pause to get out the street map, inevitably someone comes over to ask in English if I need some help. On and off the trams someone almost always chips in to help carry the stroller in. And whenever I am clearly not understanding what people are asking me in Swiss-German (which is basically all the time) a passerby always jumps in to help in English or German. It is actually fun to ask for help (which is good, since I am the one averse to asking directions) here because people are so friendly and apparently eager to help.

Ok, enough about us; now for some of my outsider observations about Swiss life. All the guidebooks talk about the rules which govern life here, and we have also encountered them. For example, one isn’t allowed to flush the toilet after 10 pm. Or run the washing machine on Sundays. Outside on the street are bins for recycles (bottles, cans) but they have hours posted on them: you may not deposit recycles after 7 pm or at all on Sundays! Garbage collection here entails buying specific bags at the grocery store that have a tax added to them. Everyone just puts their garbage out on the street, but no one seems to cheat by buying generic bags. So it is clear that as a society, the Swiss are into orderliness and people following the rules. At the same time, things that are considered dirty or antisocial in California are common here. Of course, lots of smoking everywhere, but also the sidewalks are absolutely covered with chewing gum that has been spit out. Another thing I didn’t expect here is how ethnically mixed the population is, although no Latinos and rather more people from the middle east or Africa. And the food offerings, at least in the parts of town we have so far explored are often very diverse: lots of donner kebab (Turkish food like shawarma) but also Indian, Thai, Chinese, Italian, Lebanese, Sushi etc. Unfortunately, still pretty expensive, and not worth it in terms of eating out with kids. Even IKEA was a pain with them! Anyway, at this point, just the grocery store is enough adventure!