I remember you...in the mountains

After about a week and a half of living in Zurich, my wife and I decided to see what the big deal about the Swiss Alps was about. So we looked into it and we found out that the closest ski resort was only an hour and a half away by train and it had a twenty minute cable car ride from the train station. Clearly this was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up!

So we woke up early on a Saturday morning and headed to the train station where we missed the tram stop we were supposed to get off on. Thankfully the next stop left us within walking distance of the train station and we headed over to the station to find our train. We asked a few people where we were supposed to go and a nice gentleman confirmed that we were standing in the right place for the train.

Adventuring around town

From the moment we settled in to our new apartment I began taking pictures of EVERYTHING. Here's a quick photo filled blog post for you fine readers. We are under 10 minutes walk from the lakefront which is pretty cool. There are two supermarkets within 3 minutes walk of us and the train station is 10 minutes walk. There will be a lot of walking during these six months. Well here's some the pictures for you to enjoy!

The view from our apartment.

Google maps got us lost

We had to head over to an office for immigration paperwork set up and get an appointment for fingerprinting/photos. My wife's office sent her an email with the address and so I put that info into Google maps because that was the best way to find out where anything is here. So I put in the address and it says that the office is only a 30 minute walk away. We figured that we could do that super quick and head out in the afternoon.

We get 10 minutes into the voyage when the street we are supposed to be on veers off to the left but the walking directions never mention this. We figure that we're probably going the right direction and so we keep on the road until we walk what seems farther than the time/distance google maps says we should be walking on that road. We walk into a store and ask for directions to one of the streets, the first two employees had no clue where the street was but the third employe walk out of the store and tell us that we need to make a left at the second block and that we'd find it. We thanked her and headed out once again when we realize that we are like a block from the lake and that can't be right.

The flight out

We were supposed to fly out of Chicago's O'Hare airport on Monday January 6th around 7pm. When we booked our flight for this day we had no clue that 1) it was going to snow all day the day before and 2) that the temperature was going to be in the negatives all day Monday. Hindsight and all that. When we got to the airport we found out that most flights were going to be running a little late due to the freezing cold. We got some drinks at a restaurant and when we finished we walked over to our gate. When we got there we found out that our flight had changed gates and was a little further away from us. When we got to the right gate the board showed us still leaving on time. If only that had been true.

Our original gate.

And so it begins

"Hey my job would like me to spend six months in Switzerland. Would you like to come with?"

A little over seven months ago my wife asked me this question. My initial thoughts were a bit scattered. What would I do about work? What would we do about our house and our dogs? How expensive would it be? Would she want to go alone? We talked about it for a few days and eventually we decided to throw caution to the wind and say yes to the offer. Six months apart seemed to be too much for either of us to go through so we made the decision that it would be for the best if I quit my job and took care of the house/apartment in Switzerland while my wife was at work. (No joke, my wife actually agreed to let me be a stay at home husband! What a sucker! What a caring and loving woman I married.)

We figured out all the details and her job set us up with an apartment in Zurich. After talking about it, we both thought I should start this blog so that 1) I would have something creative to do while in Zurich and 2) people back home could browse through this blog and read about all the cool stuff that we are up to.

So that's my story and here's my blog. I don't know how regularly I will be able to update it but chances are I'll try at least once a week to write something and failing that, I'll definitely post pictures of cool stuff I see here for people to look at. Enjoy and beware for you'll probably see/read about some weird stuff.