Thwarted.

This morning, when I woke up, I had two goals. First, to get outside, taking advantage of the promised sunny weather, and climb the Uetliberg. Second, to visit a new church. Of course, I was thwarted at every turn.

The promised sun never appeared today. In fact, the weather was absolutely horrid, with a blanket of super thick fog. Thus, I abandoned the hike. No point in going up to a lookout if one can't look out.

When I tried to go to church (an evening service), I ended up wandering around lost for over half an hour before abandoning my pursuit because it was getting dark. I read and re-read and even wrote directions down from the internet, but to no avail. Of course, warning bells should have been going off when the clearest part of the directions involved "...head(ing) east down Hardstrasse..." I am very nearly hopeless when it comes to north, south, east and west even in Minneapolis, a city that I know fairly well. There is no hope for me to know which way is east here, that's for sure. Also, here I find it very difficult to find street signs, so most of the time I don't know what street I'm on. And there was a ton of construction around that area. It was a perfect storm of circumstances conspiring against me, although really I just tend to get lost very easily. Hopefully I'll figure it out the next try.

Of course, my day wasn't bad, but I just didn't get to do what I wanted. With the exception of Skype-ing with my dear friend Jessi, which was the redeeming part of my day. I'm so thankful to have a friend only a time zone away!

Off the Beaten Path in Zürich.

This afternoon I decided to wander around Zürich and see what could be seen. I was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer number of people out and about. I forgot that Saturday is the busiest day of the week, because everyone is running their Saturday errands and doing all of the shopping that they can't do tomorrow, since most stores are closed on Sunday. I ducked into a small square just off Bahnhoffstrasse (the most expensive street in the world) and found an icy fountain and quiet.

From there, I found a small canal (that was mentioned in Lonely Planet) called the Schanzengraben canal and was able to walk right down by the water, basically by myself. I was, however, kept company by a large number of water fowl, who thankfully kept their distance. I saw this really interesting court for some sort of water sport that involved gates and goals. I have no idea what sport would use this sort of set up...

Along the canal I found the Old Botanic Gardens, which are literally an oasis in the middle of the city. There were a few families in the park, but mostly I got to wander around by myself and enjoy the smell of growing things. Even though it's still January, there are little hints of spring. Zürich is definitely much milder than Minneapolis!

I enjoyed the gardens and will have to remember to go back in the spring and summer.

The entrance was a small gate off a busy street.

 

Lindenhof was my next stop. It's a large square planted with linden trees on a hill in the middle of the city. There were groups of men playing large chess games very seriously.

I love the view of Zürich from there. Across the river, you can see the two domes of the University of Zürich and of ETH, where I work. The bells of the Grossmünster (in the video, the church with two domed towers that are seen at the end of the video) were ringing, and it was so lovely!

On Three Swiss Experiences.

It's Friday night, and I'm planning to sit back and enjoy the fruit of my labors. Which involve a headache and piles of clean laundry.

Last night I enjoyed Swiss Experience #1: Going to IKEA.

I realize that IKEA is really not a purely Swiss thing, but the way that IKEA manifests itself in Switzerland is definitely Swiss. The most noticeable example (at least to me) is in the bedding section, where I spent almost an hour trying to figure out my options. Can you guess the item that you cannot find? Flat sheets! The Swiss way of doing bedding is to have a fitted sheet and then a duvet with a cover. You change the duvet cover the way you would change sheets. Since I can't imagine that changing a duvet cover is on anyone's top 5 list of things to do, I'm not quite sure how this whole system developed. I certainly am not super adept at wrestling a large, pillowy blanket into a soft "envelope" where the corners never match and all of the duvet filling usually ends up all on one side or falling out the opening. Between the lack of sheet sets and the different sizes, I really did spend an inordinate amount of time in this section, and still managed to get the wrong size of duvet. Good thing IKEA is really relatively close to my new flat!

This morning I had Swiss Experience #2: Laundry.

If you are not so blessed as to have laundry in your flat, the system of laundry here can range from strictly regimented to kamikaze madness. Some flats will simply assign you a time slot every week, and you must do your laundry during that time, or you are out of luck. One person I know has Friday night. Every week. Another variation is posting a sign-up sheet with slots that one can sign up for up to two weeks in advance. This is the system that is used in the flat where I am moving, thankfully. The flat where I am living now definitely falls under the kamikaze madness, in my personal experience. I have been stalking the machine for a few days and have never seen it free, even close to midnight. Finally I decided to get up insanely early (5 am, anyone?) to do my laundry. So, this morning I got up at 5 am and did laundry, which involved traipsing up and down 6 flights of stairs approximately 10 times. And, the sad thing is that someone else wanted to do laundry about half an hour after I started! Too bad for them... I am really happy that I got this over with and now have clean clothes and sheets for my move next week! I think the early morning definitely contributed to my current headache, though.

This afternoon I had Swiss Experience #3: Opening a Swiss bank account.

Today I opened my very own Swiss bank account- at Credit Suisse. It required quite a lot of information from me, but I believe I was successful. I feel so legit! Me and my Swiss bank account....

Work and Moving and Laundry.

Now that I'm getting back into the groove of working, things are definitely quite busy. I'm try to get a bunch of work in before the start of my intensive German course, during which I will not be able to work in lab, I think. I also found out this week that I move in to my new place next Tuesday! This means a trip to IKEA is in the cards for tonight, so that I can buy my sheets and get them washed before I move. Laundry is a little tricky- there is one washer and tumbler (dryer) for the whole building, which has 10 flats with who knows how many people in each. In theory, each flat gets a part of a day, but apparently the schedule is no longer working, so one has to stalk the washer and pounce when it is free. Did I mention that the washer and dryer are in the cellar, which means there are 6 flights of stairs between my flat and the laundry room? Yep. When I was here in the fall, my coworkers from Minnesota told me that they had never spent so much time thinking about laundry before, and now I'm starting to understand.

A Lazy Weekend.

Upon my arrival in Zürich I really hit the ground running, between starting back at work, looking for a permanent flat, and working my way through Swiss bureaucracy to get my official work permit. I saw at least one flat Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and usually didn't get back to my flat until after 9 pm (21.00). Thanks to jet lag, most of those days I woke up at 4 am, so it made for some long days.

I am very happy to be back at work and to get started on my new research project, which is looking at dark production of reactive oxygen species from reduced humic material. Exciting, I know! It really feels like I was never gone at all- I just settled right in to my old desk and got to it. Several times while I was back in Minnesota I wondered if Switzerland and my job at ETH were as great as I remembered it, or if it was just a fluke things would be super different when I returned. I am happy to report that Switzerland and ETH are, in fact, just as fantastic as I remember them to be. I am truly very glad to be back.

This first weekend I took things slower to try to get caught up a little with my sleep and such. Since I know I'm going to be here for a while, the sight-seeing pressure is off, and I felt like I could take a lazy weekend. Friday evening I went for happy hour with a bunch of coworkers to bQm, the student bar at the union. There are two students visiting our lab from UW Madison, so it was like American happy hour at ETH. It was lovely to get caught up with with my coworkers.

Saturday I cleaned some around the flat (I've been assigned to the bathroom) and cooked my first meal since arriving. I also visited Paul and Jessica Erickson, who just had a baby (Jakob Ragnar) in early January. It was so nice to have some baby snuggle time. Jakob is a super relaxed baby and just slept in my arms most of the time I was there.

On Sunday I visited St. Andrews, which is an English-speaking Anglican congregation in Zürich. The location is pretty great, and the building is beautiful, with vibrant stained glass windows. The church seems to be a mix of families with young-ish children and people 55+. There might have been one person my age there, but it was hard to tell. The service was much more tradition Church of the Cross, my Anglican church back in Minnesota, but it was still nice. The organist was fantastic! I wasn't in love with the church after my first visit, but I didn't rule it out, either.

This afternoon I re-visited one of the flats that I saw on my first night here, where I was offered the room. I am so excited to have a place to live permanently and to exit the room-search process at the earliest possible time, because it takes a lot of energy. I feel very blessed- some of my coworkers literally looked for months before finding a place, and I found one within 4 hours of landing in Zürich! I am really excited about this flat. I really like the people who live there, the flat itself is really nice and spacious, the room is furnished, and the neighborhood is quiet and has great public transportation connections. Two thumbs up! Thus, as of the 6th or 7th of February I will have a new address: Heerenwiesen 23, 8051 Zürich. Pictures will be coming once I move in...

As this week has gone on, I have gotten to know my current flat-mates a little more. Robert is an opera singer from Vienna (Austria) who is currently working on two shows with the Zürich opera. He frequently wanders around the flat singing, which is enjoyable. Carlos is a businessman from Brazil. I don't think I've ever seen him with a shirt on. Is that a Brazilian thing? Then there is Frank the Turtle. He summers in a garden in the country and winters in the flat here. He's in this huge aquarium in the hall right outside of my door, and he's really good at making loud human-ish sounds as he swims around and bumps into the aquarium walls. He's totally freaked me out when I thought I was alone in the flat, but kept on hearing noises like knocking or footsteps. If I have my room door open, he sits at the corner of the aquarium and watches me, and then he follows me if I walk down the hall. He's a creeper, I think. Oh, roommates.

WG Hunt.

Since I arrived in Zürich on Tuesday (and even before), I have been looking for a permanent place to live, as I only have my current sublet through the end of February. While that may sound like a lot of time (6 weeks is forever, right?), it's actually not, especially given the whopping 0.1% apartment vacancy rate that one finds in Zürich.

My last week in Minnesota I invested a bunch of time on websites such as Marketplatz, wgzimmer, Google Translate and Google Maps to find and respond to posts for flats. While it is occasionally possible to find a studio or 1-bedroom flat to rent, most people in my situation look for a WG (pronounced vay-gay; short for Wohngemeinschaft in German). A WG is a shared living community in which (mostly) strangers agree to live together and share a flat as a way to make living a little more affordable and a little less lonely. Anyways, as a result of many hours of work, I had 6 appointments to see flats the week that I arrived, with more scheduled for later in the month.

Looking for a WG is tiring for an introvert like me, but, as a connoisseur of people, it is always interesting. Every flat that I visited had a different way of organizing their search and meeting with people. In one flat, I had beer and baklava with only one of the four current tenants, who pontificated on anything and everything remotely related to WG life, including money, kitchen appliances, mold, immigration, local micro-brews, languages and cooking. In another, I met with two of the four tenants and just talked about life and such. A third flat involved meeting with the three tenants and 6 other possible flat-mates to have one big, happy meet-and-greet. Since I was the only monoglot in the whole bunch, they tried to speak English, but ended up talking mostly in Swiss German. Luckily, there was another candidate who was kind enough to translate some for me. The whole ordeal felt a little like a beauty pageant in which we were all sizing up the competition and vying for the favor of the judges. Not my favorite. Another flat scheduled individual appointments with at least 13 candidates (via Doodle) over two evenings. Other ads require you to respond by filling out a form detailing your interests and hobbies, as well as sending a head shot and references. And these are all for WGs, which are less stringent and much more relaxed than actual flat renting! Housing in Zürich is intense!

Swiss Time Does Not Round.

When I was back in Minnesota, I forgot just how legitimately precise Swiss people tend to be about public transportation. The following is an actual exchange about the tram time from a flat I was looking at to the ETH campus:

Me: "So it would take 20 minutes to get in to campus?"
They: "No."
Me: "Oh, how long, then?"
They: "It will take 17 minutes."

The funny thing is that they were (of course) precisely correct, both theoretically and actually, since the train is scheduled to do this route in 17 minutes and, in fact, does the route in 17 minutes 99% of the time.

Lesson learned: rounding time is not done here, it seems. If something takes 17 minutes, you say it takes 17 minutes, not 15 and not 20.

Beginnings Are Exciting.

I have arrived in Zürich all in one piece! The trip was probably the smoothest international travel experience I've ever had. At MSP, I was checked in and through security in about 10 minutes and never had to wait in a line! My flight to Amsterdam was really empty, so I got to spread out in a row of 4 seats and actually lay down to sleep, which meant that I arrived in Amsterdam feeling almost ready to start the day. There were no disasters going through Amsterdam security this time (unlike in August), so my baggage and I made the connection with plenty of time to spare, which was used for the essential task of obtaining coffee. My flight to Zürich actually arrived early, I got my luggage and picked up my GA train pass from the train station (where I had put it on hold to get a credit to my account for the time I didn't use it), and then was whisked in to Zürich by a delightfully fast train. I literally was at the doorstep of my flat in less than an hour from the time of landing.

Of course, then I had to haul my 100+ lbs. of luggage up 5 flights of steep stairs, but I made it! I met one of my fellow sub-lessors, Roberto, who is from Austria. He's involved in the opera here for a couple of months, which is why he's subletting. I got settled in my room (pictures below) and ran to the Coop right below my flat for some groceries.

My room.

Flat kitchen.

Bathroom.

Front hall. My room door is in front of Frank the turtle's tank to the right.

Once fortified, I went to my first two flat-seeing appointments. On the way, I saw someone I recognized from riding the tram every morning when I was here in the fall! It's apparently a small world here in Zürich. As far as the flats went, the first one wasn't my favorite, but I really liked the second one. The funny thing is that these two flats are literally a block apart (small world, yet again)- and the two different flats set up their appointments with me before I knew how close together they were. Anyways, I'll hear eventually if either of them wish to take me. I'm really hoping for the second one! I've included a map with the tram stop, which is close to both flats.


View Larger Map

It's incredible how much easier this first day is if I have gotten some sleep and a goodly amount of coffee! I'm looking forward to going in to work tomorrow, but now it's time for some serious sleep. Gueten abig!

Destination: Zürich!

I leave for the airport in a couple hours, and hopefully by Tuesday afternoon will be safely in Zürich! I am subletting a room in a flat for about a month, and you can see the area in the map below. I am super thankful to have a place to go when I arrive.


View Larger Map


As I'm looking for something more permanent, of course, I've been emailing with several people who have rooms in their WG (flat-share) available, and I already have appointments to see 5(!) flats this week, including 2 flats the night I arrive (hello, jetlag!)! I think it will be really interesting to meet the people in these flats and to see if I can find something that will work well for me. It's an adventure, at any rate!
 

Goodbye Comes Before Hello.

My last few days here in Minnesota have been full of goodbyes to family, friends and my darling puppy Riley. A highlight was a goodbye happy hour at Prohibition, the bar at the (almost) top of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis. It was snowing, and it felt like we were in a magical snow globe of Downtown Minneapolis.

I am really thankful for the time I've gotten to spend with friends and family these past few days!

Visa = check!

My work visa arrived yesterday, for which I am very thankful! It always makes me nervous to FedEx my passport off to Chicago, so I was very happy to get it back!

I leave for Switzerland in less than a week! Cue massive freak-out!