News Flash: Switzerland is nice!

Switzerland has just been named the top country in which to be born in 2013! I can't say that I'm surprised...

Christmas on Bahnhofstrasse.

Just a reminder that Switzerland is gob-smackingly beautiful.

A friend forwarded this time-lapse video of places in the mountains around Switzerland at night. It's really stunning! (As a bonus, at the end of the movie, there's another suggested time-lapse video of Zürich, which is also super cool!)

Funny set of articles on being German.

Here's a link to the first of a set of three articles on being German. While not all of these things apply to being Swiss, I feel that actually quite a few do. I especially appreciated the point about insurance (#4). We've had multiple lunch–time debates about the various types of insurances and what you should have. (But that's it's own post, I think!) Now, if you ever meet a German, this will make everything just a little more clear!

Getting ready for Christmas!

Hiking last weekend in Appenzell.

Last weekend, it looked like the sun might actually come out for a little bit, so Paul and I schemed up a hike at work on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning, the Ericksons and I met at the train station to head out to Appenzell, which is a region in the eastern part of Switzerland. This area of Switzerland is actually quite close by train to Zürich, but none of us had ever been there. A lot of the higher mountains areas are not accessible right now because they're either under snow or the lifts to access them aren't running during the between–season (as they call it). Also, in Appenzell, 8 hours of sunshine were promised for Saturday! So we were quite excited to see what this area was like.

Although I have to admit I was a little nervous, given that Appenzell has a reputation for being a great place to hike in the nude. Luckily, we saw no nude hikers. Unluckily, we pretty much saw nothing at all. The 8 hours of sunshine never materialized, and we ended up hiking entirely in a very dense fog that made everything look rather bizarre and mysterious. It was actually kind of cool and beautiful in its own way, but a little disappointing not to see the sun.

One funny part about the hike was that it was a joke hike, so every 10 meters (or so it seemed) there was a placard with a joke (there were 80 jokes in total!). Unfortunately, the jokes were all written in Swiss German, so the most we could understand was that a joke was about a doctor and water, or something else about that level. We thought it was a very interesting idea for a hike theme, though.

What is this?

The Erickson family.

The fog was pretty thick.

Lunchtime!

Weitblick means literally "far view". Not so much...

Walking through the foggy forest.

Weird playground with a beer cask and pitcher for hard apple cider.

Apparently this place has something to do with burning witches at the stake. Not creepy at all...

Sheepies!

A happy hiker!

It was really fun to hike with Paul and Jessica and Jakob, and overall we had a nice day, in spite of the weather. Then, on the train ride home, we came out of the fog and saw the sunset, so we did get to see the sun, at least! Hopefully the next time hiking in Appenzell we will have better luck with the weather!

All set for Thanksgiving #2!

The stuffing and green bean hotdish just came out of the oven!

Preparing for a second Thanksgiving.

The pecan pie is done! Now it's time to make stuffing and green bean hotdish!

Thanksgiving #1, 2012.

Last year, I celebrated Thanksgiving actually on Thanksgiving with my group at my old flat. This year, since we could no longer have it at my old flat, and because of the difficulty of preparing a feast for 25 while working during the day, our group decided to do Thanksgiving on the weekend. (Which we'll celebrate tomorrow!)

I still wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, so I decided to invite some of my non-work Swiss friends over for a mini-Thanksgiving. Stefanie, my former flatmate, helped do a lot of the cooking. Jasmine and Stefano, who also were flatmates at one point, and Petra, my tandem partner, were the others who came to Thanksgiving. For all of them except Stefanie, this was their first Thanksgiving!

I made a pecan pie and prepared the sweet potatoes the night before, and then the day of, I roasted a chicken, made mashed potatoes and gravy (the first time I've made gravy on my own!), and baked the sweet potatoes. Stefanie brought the stuffing and green bean hotdish, as well as a French Silk pie.

Side note: I went to my local Coop to get a chicken, and the biggest one I could find was just under 1 kg! It was such a small chicken! I love how hard it is here to find big meat...

Anyways, we had a truly lovely meal. (I was having such a good time I totally forgot to take pictures, so sorry for the dearth of photos...) If I can't be home with my family, I'm really happy to spend Thanksgiving with friends, especially if I can introduce them to the wonder of sweet potatoes, which are a novelty here. In fact, in the grocery stores, sweet potatoes are not located by the potatoes, but in the exotics section by avocados, passion fruits, and fresh ginger!

The little chicken!

Prepped for roasting!

The feast!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I really appreciate the time to think about what I am thankful for and to spend time with people that I care about. I have so much to be thankful for, and I am happy for the reminder to celebrate this! I hope that you all (at least those who celebrate Thanksgiving) had a special day as well!

Prepping for Thanksgiving #1.

This year, I'm celebrating Thanksgiving twice! Tonight I baked a pecan pie and prepared sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving #1, which I'm hosting at my place tomorrow night. This will be my first Thanksgiving working, so it will be exciting to pull things together after work! I've tried to get a bunch of the prep work done tonight, and thankfully Stefanie is helping a lot with the cooking! (She's already delivered a French silk pie.)

The end of Ruth's visit.

I guess since Ruth left Switzerland almost two weeks ago, it's high time I finish blogging about her visit. In my defense, it's been a little busy over here, but still...

On Ruth's last full day, which happened to be a Saturday, we spent the morning and early afternoon sleeping in, having brunch, putting together furniture, and unpacking. Finally, we had enough and decided to walk around Zürich and enjoy the beautiful weather. We walked down Bahnhofstrasse and had a quick visit to Sprüngli to pick up some of their famous Luxemburgerli before heading to the lake. It was really clear, so you could see the mountains at the end of the lake- beautiful! We sat by the lake and enjoyed eating our sweet treat and watching the boats and people.

We also wandered around the Niederdorfli, where we randomly ran into a parade of piccolo players and drummers. Not sure what this was for, but it was interesting. We followed the parade through the streets until we could get a good view, although we were a little nervous that this was some sort of Pied-Piper situation where we'd end up drowning in the river or something. However, we escaped!

Zürich is a beautiful city, especially at sunset, and we had a really lovely time on Saturday wandering around. Yay for sunsets and sisters!

Moving day recap and my new flat.

I moved into my new flat on November 1st, and I think it went about as smoothly as it could've. I was mostly packed up by the weekend before the move, and only had a (relatively) few things to pack the day of the move. The night before, Ruth and I went over to pick up the keys, and then trotted over to IKEA to order my furniture (which we had delivered, thank goodness!) and to pick up a bunch of things for the flat.

On November 1st, we got up bright and early to finish packing. We squeezed a trip to Coop to pick up things like toilet paper and cleaning supplies before we went to pick up the car.

I had reserved a Swiss Mobility car, which is a car-sharing program here in Switzerland that is quite inexpensive if you aren't driving very far. Since my new flat is about 1 km from my old one, I knew that I wouldn't be driving that many kilometers. However, I reserved the car late enough that all of the transport vans were taken, so we ended up with a Renault Megane, which was not exactly ideal. While I don't have a massive excess of things here, I do have enough that we ended up making about 5 or 6 trips between the two flats to get everything over. And, the slats of my bed frame were just too large to fit into the car, so we ended up recruiting my flatmate Stefanie later in the day to help us take them on the tram and the bus to the new flat. I love how it's totally normal to see people moving large things (eg. mattresses, tables, slats to bedframes, etc.) on public transportation. As long as you don't go during peak hours, it's normally just fine.

Anyways, driving in this city is not something I really ever desire to do again. Between the pedestrians, the skinny roads, the trams, the buses, and bikes, I was really a little stressed out. Add the fact that half of the roads I normally travel on are bus and bike only or one-way roads, and it was really overwhelming. Thank goodness the car was an automatic!

Once we got everything over to the new flat, we set to unpacking and putting stuff away. (And making a second list for things that we needed to get at IKEA.) Mid-afternoon, the IKEA delivery people came by with the furniture, and then we had our hands full with putting things together and sorting and organizing. I am so thankful to have had Ruth's help for all of this! She was really a trooper, and there's no way I could've done it without her!

After that first day, I have been back to IKEA another two times to get missing parts for things, as well as other important things, like a kitchen garbage can. Now it has been over a week, and I'm feeling pretty settled. I really like being on my own and having my own little nest. The place I have is a 1.5 room which means that you can eat in the kitchen, but it's basically a studio. It's still in my old neighborhood, so I don't have to change grocery stores or learn new running paths. The building is ever quieter than my old place. I just met a neighbor yesterday that has lived in this building for 44 years! Suffice it to say that I am probably the youngest person in my building by 30 or 40 years...

And, the best part in, I live on Tulpenstrasse, which translates to tulip street! It was meant to be!

Here's a little photo tour:

My entry way.

View back into my entryway from the main room.

Bathroom, which is to the right from the door.

Main room.

This couch is also fold out to be a guest bed!

I'm so happy to finally have a comfy couch to sit on!

Into the kitchen.

My 70's-tastic kitchen!

Balcony.

My back yard, including Morris, the gnome.

I do like having the wall of windows, and, since they face south, I get a lot of sun (when there is sun)! I'm so thankful to have made this move and to have a cosy place of my own. And I now have a real guest bed for visitors, hint, hint!