All Settled In

Almost a two-week drought in blog posts, we are so ashamed! :)  As you can probably imagine it’s been a busy week and a half of settling in with our sea freight delivery.  Yes, it does feel nice as we sit here in our living room/dining room (did we mention our place was small?) sipping wine, but it took several long nights and trips to different department stores to make it happen.

Our sea freight arrived in the morning as planned on Wednesday (the 4th).  The movers were actually from Germany, which is where our stuff passed the customs process, so they knew about as much French as we did.  The lead mover spoke a fair amount of English so he did most of the interacting with us, like asking which room certain boxes went in, etc.  Surprisingly it only took about 3 hours and everything was unloaded, but not necessarily unpacked.  The movers hung around until all the furniture was put back together and everything was unwrapped (all that excessive paper that the U.S. crew used to pack our things had to go somewhere).  A couple dozen boxes remained-- this was the fun we would have over the next several days.  You can see from the video below, what the place looked like right after they left. 

Long story short, everything is now organized, put away, hung, stored, clean, etc. (except our ceiling light fixtures which will be another adventure) and it feels great!  We’ve now lived in 3 different homes during our 3 years of marriage, and each time we move we improve our time trial for unpacking and getting settled.  Probably helps that we seem to downsize the square footage each time we move. :)  Below is a video walk-through tour of our new home and several pictures…

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Guest Bedroom

Kitchen

Kitchen

Living Room

Living Room

Back in Geneva

We’ve been living in our new home for over a week now (!) and the jet lag is only now starting to wear off. :)  Regardless, we’ve really enjoyed getting to know our new city—the old architecture is fantastic and the area is just beautiful.  Below are a few photos of what we see everyday as we walk to and from work.  Also, for anyone who comes to visit—have no fear, there is a McDonald's within a block of our apartment. :)  Although don’t be shocked when you fork over nearly $13 for a “Cheeseburger Royal” (basically a quarter-pounder) with fries & a soda.

 
One night we were walking home at about 11:30 and it was surprisingly dead quiet as we walked through Old Town.  As we turned the corner toward the Cathedral of Saint Pierre (photo on left), we were astounded to hear an organ playing quite loudly.  Someone inside the cathedral was going crazy on what sounded like an immense pipe organ—at 11:30 at night!  Ang convinced Dave to stop and sit on the steps to listen.  We sat there nearly dumbfounded at the serenity—there was not a sound around us other than the organ playing rapidly and beautifully; the only light to be seen was that of the cathedral steps and the moon.  It was great.

Luckily we were able to wrap up the rest of our move activities in just a few days last week.  On Wednesday we finally figured out how to rent a Mobility car and we were off, driving for the first time in Europe!  Driving in Switzerland is challenging, the only saving grace is that we kind of knew where we were going.  The Swiss don’t see a need to post large street signs (or at times any street signs at all) in their intersections like we do in the states.  Most street signs are a small blue plaque on the corner of a building, which is impossible to see from the intersection.  Regardless, we carefully made our way down to Jaime’s place to retrieve our things.

We also scored a TV from a nice couple in France who posted an ad on a local Craigslist-like site (they are about to move to New York and couldn’t take the TV with them due to voltage & signal differences, so we got a great deal).  By the time we got back to Geneva, our car reservation was up, so we returned the car and walked the TV home (about a mile).  :)

On Friday we were invited to go out to the town of Nyon (20 minute train ride from Geneva) to watch a rugby match—our first ever rugby match.  We were somewhat familiar with the basic concept of rugby, but the extra knowledge we derived from the movie "Invictus" helped, too (who says Hollywood isn’t informative?).  One surprise to both of us was the size of the players – practically monsters!  A couple of guys had arms that were nearly the size of Dave’s legs (only pure muscle).  It was an exhibition match (basically a scrimmage) but that didn’t really matter to us.  We enjoyed some cold beer and delicious sausages while watching large men beat the living crap out of each other. (a little glimpse below)

Back to the jet lag.  We did far too much sleeping-in this weekend, getting out of bed at the crack of 11am on Saturday and Sunday.  It really puts a cramp in exploring the area!  Fortunately we did drag ourselves out of the house on Sunday to enjoy the 85 degree weather on Lake Geneva at Bains des Paquis.  This park, which is essentially a lake front water area, is probably the cheapest activity in Geneva at $2 per person.  The highlight of the park is a large three-tiered structure, which has jumping areas off of three different heights.  The first at about 10 ft, second at about 25 ft and the third at about 35 ft.  It took a little courage but Dave eventually made it off all three, while Ang did the first two and vowed to tackle the highest jump next time (yeah right).  She made a deal with a 10-year-old girl that she’d jump off the middle tier if the little girl would, too.  (Yep, the girl ended up having to jump first). 

It’s our last night with temporary furniture before the movers come tomorrow morning to deliver our sea shipment!  Hopefully by the end of the week (and after a large IKEA run this weekend) we will be settled in.  Next time we’ll post some pictures and videos of all the excitement.

Back to the USA!

Monday, July 12 - Saturday, July 24 2010 


Like true Americans, we used our first few days of our Swiss vacation allotment while we were in America-- how cultured!

We headed back to the U.S. because Dave had a work event to attend in Bellevue.  We decided to buy a ticket for Ang as well so that we could spend a little more time with our family before the long haul in Geneva.  It was a whirlwind trip as usual, but definitely worth it.  A couple of highlights were going to the Steve Miller Band concert with Dave’s folks and spending a few days at the Baumann cabin on Priest Lake (right).  But of course our favorite highlight was spending time with our niece, Kamryn.  I think you’ll agree she is extremely cute (below).

At the end of our trip, we were met with a wonderful surprise while checking in for our flight back to Geneva.  We were standing behind a young couple at the British Airways desk at SeaTac and when they turned around we discovered it was Forrest and Elli Oswald!  (Dave has known Forrest since grade school.)  Elli was on her way to Tanzania for work and happened to be flying through London (just like us!).  To make the world even smaller, her seat on the plane was one row behind us AND she also had a 7+ hour layover in London (as we did).  It was such a pleasant coincidence to be able to kill time together at Heathrow.  At about 5am Seattle-time, we all started to crash a bit and set up a sleep area on some of the airport furniture (left).  Thanks, Elli-- glad we could endure the LONG layover together!  About 22 hours after we arrived at SeaTac, we reached our hotel in Geneva.  We look forward to getting the keys to our new home tomorrow morning and settling in.

Tour de France Flyby & 3D World Cup

Sunday, July 11 2010 


After all the chaos of moving our stuff out to Jaime’s, we were ready for the fun.  We were able to enjoy two great events on Sunday, (which is why there was so much urgency to move on Saturday).  1) The Tour de France was riding through just a few miles from Geneva.  2) We were invited by a Dutch co-worker to watch the World Cup Final in 3D.

The tour was quite the spectacle.  About 1.5 hours before the riders came through, the “carivane” drove by.  Just picture an American parade, only ten times faster and stranger.  It was a different approach to a parade but had the same result-– spectators standing on the side of the road watching decorated vehicles go by and avoiding items thrown at their face.  You can watch the video (below) to get an idea (if you listen closely you'll hear Dave and a friend from work both get hit by laundry detergent).  After all the anticipation and waiting, the riders finally came…and went in about 15 seconds (video below).  The experience cemented our initial thoughts that we would never vacation to France primarily to see the Tour, but it was worth the few hours on a Sunday to check out.

After the tour, we made our way to the Balexert movie theater to watch the World Cup.  We were told this was the first time that soccer (or perhaps any sports match) was broadcasted live in 3D.  The experience was extremely unique.  The camerawork was great, complete with close-ups and slow motion, and the ambiance was very real because there was only the sound of the stadium (no TV commentary).  Someone even brought, and unfortunately used, a vuvuzela (the red, plastic, medieval-looking trumpets).  Sadly the Dutch were defeated in a somewhat controversial game, but it was still fun to watch.  On our trip back home we witnessed much celebration by the Spanish (video below), which lasted all night (we didn’t sleep very well)… all part of the experience of living in an international city.  

The Adventure of a Simple Move

Unfortunately, the reality of our busy schedule is playing catch-up with our efforts to maintain a blog.  So here are a few posts to get caught up…

Our last weekend in Geneva (prior to being back in the States for 11 days) was quite the interesting experience.  We found out Friday afternoon that we needed to move all of our belongings out of temp housing prior to flying out Monday morning.  This posed a slight challenge because of two reasons:  1) We had already received our air shipment from home (which contained several boxes, about 400 pounds worth of household items) plus we had 5 suitcases from the flight over.  2) Because we were leaving on Monday, there was no time to set up an easy storage solution.  Our good friend Jaime offered his home for storage space— which was awesome.  The only problem?  We needed to find a way to move all of our stuff a few miles away.

What turned out to be our first major reality check in a new culture, we attempted a small move…

It’s Saturday morning and our first thought was to rent a car.  Sounds fairly easy, right?  We learned of a website, mobility.ch, that offers inexpensive car rentals for short periods of time.  We wanted to book a larger vehicle so we only needed to make one trip out to Jaime’s.  Although we didn’t immediately recognize this as a problem, the earliest time a large vehicle was available that day was 7pm.

Little did we know, we needed a Mobility card (basically a membership card) to pick up a reserved Mobility car.  Apparently we needed to pick up the card at an office in the Geneva train station, about 30 minutes away from our temp housing (the ridiculous part is that we had already been at the train station earlier in the day for an unrelated reason).  Online, the office hours said it closed at 9pm.  We arrived at the station at 5:30pm only to discover the office actually closes at 5:15 and isn’t open on Sundays. 

So we have a car reserved for 7pm, which we can’t actually pick up.  We race home to cancel the reservation only to learn the joys of dialing a Swiss phone number.  After four (unsuccessful) different number combination attempts on Dave’s U.S. cell phone and a few tries from the landline in our apartment (which apparently needed to be preloaded with cash) we remembered the miracle known as “Skype”!  With a few minutes to spare we were able to cancel the reservation and were happy to get at least half of our money back.

Plan B.  It’s now around 7pm and we need to get moving.  On Friday Dave had joked about taking multiple trips on the bus out to Jaime’s place.  It’s funny how jokes become reality when options are limited.  After five bus trips over the course of several hours and loads of sweat, all of our stuff was moved (stuff shown on right).  Jaime graciously offered to help us out which saved us an extra trip or two.  We’re pretty sure we each lost about five lbs during the “five loads workout”.  We are going to attempt the Mobility car rental again to get the stuff to our own apartment this week (we’re content with not losing five more pounds).

We Have a Home!

Good news arrived today-- our application was accepted on our favorite apartment which we saw last week!  Since we arrived we've seen 7 units and applied for 3 of them.  The unit we ended up getting is one that we mentioned on the blog last week, in Plainpalais.  Now we just need to sign the lease, which is scheduled for tomorrow.  By the time we arrive back in Geneva after our two weeks in the states, we will have the keys and the apartment will have some temporary furniture already moved in.  We'll be responsible for moving all of our belongings from our temp unit to our permanent one.  Pretty simple, really.  Then our sea shipment should arrive the first week of August.

More about the unit-- it's 61 sq. meters, which is roughly 650 square feet (pretty small).  The building was constructed in the early 1900's so the unit has tall ceilings and a lot of the old character that one would expect in Europe.  Ang just melts over the little details that date the apartment.  The door & window handles, the built in storage, the crown molding on the ceiling, there's even original ceiling decor above where a chandelier would hang-- it is all so incredible.  The kitchen was recently renovated and we were pleased to discover that it comes equipped with both a dish washer and a washing machine (each alone are uncommon in Geneva and having both is a true rarity).  The location is especially nice as well.  The unit is just a couple minutes from tram lines to anywhere in Geneva and only a 20 minute walk to the office.

We visited the unit again today to take measurements and pictures to share.  Dave has already drawn out the floor plan on his computer and arranged our furniture to see how it all would fit (nerd).  So far it appears that everything coming over will fit.  The best news is that the guest room (7'9" x 6'8") should fit our guest bed (we were a little worried)...but nothing else-- haha.  We're happy to say that our promise to have a guest room available for friends and family worked out just fine...barely. :)

Here are pictures of the unit.  Most are self explanatory, but just in case-- in order from left to right, top to bottom:  #1. Street entrance (with happy tenant)  #2. Front door into entry room  #3. Living Room (with small balcony)  #4. "Master" Bedroom (with small balcony-- and a bunch of paint/maintenance supplies because they're still finishing the place)  #5. Closer look at the Bedroom balcony (sorry, pretty dark photo)  #6. View from outside the bedroom balcony  #7. Kitchen  #8. Bathroom  #9. Guest Bedroom  #10. Door handle (for all of the interior doors)  #11. Window lock (for all interior windows)  #12. Crown molding & original ceiling detail

There you have it.  An answer to prayer to say the least.  We can't wait to move in at the end of the month.  Hopefully the next pictures you see should show us moved in, unpacked and relaxed!

Geneva Living

Greetings from Geneva!  One week down, we thought it would be fun to share our first impressions of living in a new city.  

The weather is still amazing, bordering on unbearably hot at times.  It's around 28-30 C each day (mid to high 80's) and surprisingly a bit muggy.  Our decision to bypass the public transportation for now and walk everywhere we go also compounds on the heat, usually leaving our skin with a nice glow (sweat) by the end of each day.

We are settling in at work.  We each share an office with 3 other people-- Ang is blessed with a window but a smaller and warmer office (left), while Dave has no window but the office has been nicknamed "the refrigerator".  There are always tradeoffs.  It's taking a little getting used to the fact that around 5:00pm Geneva time, people are just starting their work days in Bellevue.  The jury is still out on whether we prefer this timezone vs. Bellevue, but for now it's working just fine.

We visited four potential homes last week.  If you get out your Geneva maps (we'll wait...), two of the units were in the Carouge area (about 25-30 min walk from the office), while two were closer to the office in the Plainpalais area (about 15-20 min walk from the office).  We applied for two of the four units (waiting to hear back still), but unfortunately lack pictures of either to show.  Expedia is now sending us on group housing visits with others from the office that don't have homes yet.  For now, it's still fun for us to see new potential homes every other day and it's also turned into a bit of a social event with 10 of our co-workers.  As you can see (right), there is still competition from the general public as well, waiting to see one of the units.

As for daily life, we are enjoying ourselves very much and love to discover and experience new things each day.  We average one baguette every other day.  We have a running cheese and beer list where we purchase new kinds and give ratings in order to discover what our favorites are (surprisingly the beer is not very good thus far, although the cheese is fantastic).  We discovered a 50-foot long olive bar outside of our office building that will be there every Wednesday-- soon the vendor will know us by name, I'm sure.  We tried fresh Iranian pistachios and almonds in a farmers market.  We have a great Panini truck (exactly like a taco truck, only with paninis) outside the office but we are still trying to translate the whole menu (left).  It's delicious so that's all we care about for now.  We tried sushi for the first time (in Geneva) on our 3rd year wedding anniversary(!) :) on Wednesday.  It wasn't the best sushi we've ever had but we didn't hesitate to consume 42 little pieces between the two of us.  

In general, it's very laid back here.  Yesterday afternoon Dave joined a couple friends at the local English pub, "Mr. Pickwick," to watch Holland take on Brazil.  It's a great atmosphere in which to watch the World Cup games because the large international community comes and roots for their teams in full force.  Fortunately the Dutch were victorious and it was a great match to watch.  Later in the evening we joined some Expedia friends for an outdoor gathering (right) put on by "Glocals", which is a social organization in Geneva.  It was sooo European-- the flier included sayings like: "Dinner with chill out vibes" and a "Chill out party" later in the evening.  You just have to smile at the languages differences.

We'll leave you with a picture of the Jet d'Eau that we took last night because Dave is a little obsessed with it right now.  It's surprising that it hasn't lost it's charm yet (and it's fun to say: "zhe de ooo")-- but I guess ask us in a couple years and we'll see...