Arrival

Our arrival in Switzerland two weeks ago seems like a decade ago. We have as been busy as little bees! We start work full time tomorrow. What happened to summer? Did it fly by or never arrive? I'm going with the latter.

We flew to Zurich July 30th on standby with my wonderful friend Andrea who works for a big airline company.  Miraculously we managed to check 8 huge, overweight pieces of baggage and boxes and got on all of our flights with no problems!  As far as Andrea's getting back to the US on time, that's another story...she had a longer than expected mini-vacation in Zurich.  Uh oh.

We were so surprised to see that our administrator had arranged our apartment so that it was all ready for us when we arrived.  

It was also a big surprise to see our names are on little engraved plaques all over the place - the entry intercom, next to our door, on our mailbox.  So official.  So Swiss.

Although Andrea was effectively stuck here, that meant we had plenty of time to sightsee in Zurich.  One of the funniest passages in our Rick Steves' Switzerland book is about the hypodermic needle machine in Central Zurich.  Rick notes that Switzerland has very progressive drug policies and that doing so has helped to clean up a bit of the drug problem in the country, making it safer for everyone.  He is very tongue in cheek when he writes, "Go ahead, buy a box [of needles] - it's about the cheapest souvenir you can purchase in Zurich."  We did not buy a box as we felt it was best to leave them for the heroin junkies.  But we did stop for a pic with the machine.  Probably the most offensive snapshot possible!

It never hurts to arrive on the eve of the National Day, so we were at a fabulous paella party within 48 hours of arrival, hosted by the brother-in-law of our administrator, Susanne.  To make it extra fun, we took a cable car up to Felsenegg and hiked to the party over two hills.

Walking along.

The patio all ready for the revelers.

Paella in progress.

After dessert, it started to rain, so a tarp was put up.  And when the tarp wasn't enough we grabbed the wine and made a run for it inside.

It was quite the storm!  The dragon downspouts put on quite a show.  As did the lightning!

Once it cleared up, we headed up the hill, watched the fireworks and then went to a big party in a barn!

Of course, that only covers the first two days.  I'll catch up.  Maybe this afternoon.  Maybe later.