We've arrived!

Greetings to all our friends and family from Switzerland! We arrived last Friday morning (Jan 14). Just to warn you, this is going to be a long one and to help us keep track of the days, I'll post dates.

Jan 12: day before we get on the plane!
We had a great 2 weeks in Orange City with my side of the family and we got to see a few friends and extended relatives, which was great! We found it more and more difficult to say our good byes to grandparents and immediate family as our moving day was more imminent. But we also were grateful to have time to say goodbyes, which is not always a guarantee when moving. Also, we planned in a few extra days to pack, which we were very grateful for since it took us all of those days to get ready. We were also blessed by having two extra days with my mom since she had snow days at school :).

Here's a picture of my parents' living room as we were packing - can you find us? :)

Jan 13-14: Flying out!
My parents generously took off Thursday to take us to the airport, which was very helpful because we needed their van and new car (a shiny Pontiac Vibe :) ) to transport us and all our belongings to the airport. We got to fly out of Sioux Falls, which was nice and close to their house. We ended up having 15 checked bags (I know, it's a lot, but considering that's all we took, not that much for a family of 3). We had our most difficult goodbye with my parents because it was REALLY the final goodbye and the last time we'd see family for a while. My mom held on to Carsten until the security guy cleared our passport and tickets, and I was a little worried we wouldn't get him back... :). We definitely miss our families and our friends already :(.

Carsten did amazingly well with the flights, and for the record, if you really want  babies to be quiet, perhaps you shouldn't be so loud as to wake them up from their nap (i.e. talking LOUD, slamming lavatory doors, etc.)... Additionally, we never realized how loud flight announcements were, but they are SO loud! We actually asked the flight attendant to turn them down, but apparently there are only a few announcements they are allowed to adjust the volume for. From Sioux Falls to Chicago, Carsten slept the entire way & we got a seat for him, which was an amazing way to start off our travels! Then from Chicago to Philly, he slept part of the way, and would have slept more, but the girl behind us was obnoxiously loud and kept waking him up :(. In the Philly airport, we had to almost run to make our connection, which, in retrospect we probably looked pretty funny. I had Carsten in our Baby Bjorn, our stroller/carseat was full of stuff and Andy was pulling our two carryon suitcases. They were boarding, so we didn't get a chance to see if we could have an extra seat for Carsten, but the lady who took our tickets was super nice and told us which seats to sit in to have bulkhead seats and a seat for Carsten (SO NICE!). Carsten was awake for the first part of this flight, which was fine since it was evening, and then he fell asleep during turbulence (gotta love it!) for the last 3-4 hrs of the flight, which was amazing. Andy and I had some trouble sleeping due to the giant screen about 3 feet in front of us, but we did manage to get some sleep as well. When we got to Zurich, our bags/boxes were the first ones off the plane! We were afraid that they wouldn't have made it since our connection was so short in Philly, but all 15 made it! The arrival of all our bags was such a blessing for us. I felt very conspicuous taking bag after bag off of the baggage carousel, especially since we had all our bags before 75% of the plane :). Andy managed to hire a porter, and we were waved through customs, which was very nice. Two of Andy's new coworkers, Beiping and Uli, met us with their vehicles, and small SUV and a station wagon. The porters we hired were amazing - they fit all our luggage in the cars and we were still able to ride! It was about a 25 minute ride to our flat, and they helped us move the boxes up to our place on the third floor :). Beiping (we took over the partially furnished flat from him) then stayed with us in town and pointed out the various grocery stores, and then helped us register and get a bank account (this was a life saver since he spoke German!). And to top all these blessings off, Carsten, our amazing child, slept through all of it (landing, getting bags, getting in and out of the car for errands, and lunch). After Beiping left, we started unpacking and Andy got a few groceries so we could have supper. Our evening was a bit rough because Carsten didn't go to bed until 3 am, which was to be expected since he slept until 1 pm that day. All in all though, a smooth move and Carsten is a trooper.

Jan 15: Ikea!
Andy's coworker, Uli, lent us his station wagon so we could set up our house more easily; this has been such a blessing! However, his car is a stick (I've never drove one and Andy has only done it a couple of times), so between not really knowing how to drive a stick and not knowing the area, our trip to Ikea was fairly stressful. There are MANY roundabouts, which are terrifying because most of them you can't see across the way, so all you see is a car coming at amazing speeds AND since we're driving a stick, stopping is not our favorite option :). Additionally, I was the navigator and couldn't seem to find our way back to the highway, which would have made it much easier and faster to get to Ikea. However, we did finally make it :). Once there we found out that it was the last day of a sale and a Saturday, which meant TONS and TONS of people were at Ikea. This made it a little difficult to get things done (we don't read German, so we picked things out by how they looked), but we did manage to get a bed ordered (we had been sleeping on couches in our flat) and we got dishes, which were both crucial to making our flat a home. Carsten was amazing throughout the store and even took some naps. I felt a little bad for him since at the end we were rushing to try to get out of the store and he started falling asleep facing out in the baby bjorn. I did manage to get him turned around so he could nap though :). Carsten only took until 2 am to fall alseep, which was still waaay too late in our minds :).

Jan 16: Be careful what you eat...
Andy made a very quick visit to the grocery store on Saturday where he picked up some apple juice (nothing is open on Sundays here). I poured a glass of the apple juice for breakfast on Sunday morning, and proceeded to drink a few swallows. Much to my surprise, it was NOT apple juice. In fact, it was apple cider vinegar. Note to self: make sure what you think you are drinking is ACTUALLY what you are drinking. Needless to say, I was ill for a while... but no worries, I felt better in the afternoon. We went over to Andy's coworker's (Uli) house for brunch with his family. The food & company were great, but I definitely did not drink the apple juice... Also, they carbonate apple juice here.

Jan 17: We got our bed!
We slept in this morning, and then made our way over to Ikea to get a few more items that we were not able to get on Saturday (some book cases and a diaper changing station/dresser for Carsten). Carsten again was great - he really seems to love watching people and therefore couldn't be happier than when facing out in the Baby Bjorn. The Ikea people were delivering the bed we bought on Saturday at 3 pm, and we barely made it back in time to meet them. We spent the evening putting together our Ikea bed, which let's just say it took 5+ hrs to assemble. Andy was so great putting everything together (I helped some) and I think we were both motivated to finish so we didn't have to sleep on the couches again :). We finished the bed around 11:30 pm and celebrated by having some Italian wine and Swiss chocolate!  I would like to note that both of us are impressed with the Ikea packaging (so amazing!) and the pictoral directions are surprisingly great. And, the bed was comfy :). Carsten finally starting going to bed earlier, well, earlier meaning 12 am. His timing is still somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, but we'll keep working on it slowly. Each day we run errands, we can't believe how great Carsten is. He's so happy and adjusts to our lifestyle very well, which is such a blessing.

Here's a photo of us putting together our bed - we did have to assemble EACH of those slats...

Jan 18: Grocery stock up!
This was the last day that Andy was scheduled to be home to help set up the house, so we took the opportunity to take Uli's car to the grocery store to try to stock up on basics like flour, sugar, olive oil, etc. The store was small, but surprisingly nice. We were able to figure out where (& what!) most things were. We think we were careful to avoid another apple cider episode. Again, Carsten was fantastic in his Baby Bjorn - I think we'll be using this a lot in the next few months! We were so focused on getting groceries and he was so good, that we forgot he was there :). When we got home I put away groceries and made a pasta bake (btw, a 9x13 inch pan barely fits in our small oven!), and Andy put together the changing station/dresser from Ikea. It took him about 3 hrs to assemble it, and I think we'll both be happy to be done assembling Ikea furniture (we have 2 shelves left). We're very happy to be done changing him on the floor, and we're also excited to get his clothes moved out of a suitcase. We were able to talk to a few family members on Skype tonight, which was very nice. We've been feeling a little isolated (no one from Andy's work lives nearby and very few people seem to speak English in Egg), so it was nice to see familiar faces :). Hopefully, once we get our internet hooked up, which is soon, hopefully, we'll be able to talk more. Carsten went to bed at 11:30 pm, so his bed-time is improving! :)

Jan 19: Andy's off to work!
Andy headed off to work this morning, which was sad because I've enjoyed having him at home. He'll get to work using the train system, so hopefully he made it! It's a little strange to have him gone and in addition, we only have one cell phone, which he took, so the only way I can reach him is via skype. This is a weird adjustment because ever since we started dating, we've both had cell phones, so reaching each other has always been easy. I think we're both going to get phones eventually, but that is not a high priority right now. I'll let you know how things go for Andy sometime soon! Also, we got to see our first snow in Switzerland!

Here's pictures of the snow, Carsten sleeping on his playmat, and Carsten helping me with laundry!

So, here's a list of things we have learned about Switzerland:
- the doors don't have deadbolts (the doors actually seal differently, so I don't think you need them), and you have to lock the lock from the inside to lock your door when you're in the house.
- the windows have no screens and actually have two ways of opening (swing out fully or just pop the top out 4 inches)
- the winter seems much milder than IA, WI, or MI - we came to 50 degrees F and sunshine :)
- Egg, the city of 5,000 we live in, means 'Edge' in the local dialect and is located on the top of a hill. We can see the Alps if we walk down the street and in addition, the weather is clearer here than in Zurich. Zurich gets a lot of fog in the winter because of the lake, and since we're on a hill, we see sunshine :). However, since we are living in a smaller town, it seems that less people speak English, which is a definite downside right now, but I think it will motivate us to work on our German. :)
- The bathtubs are taller, don't trip!
- Also, the door handles are taller. I can't believe how many times I've hit my hands on them because they are at a different height
- There are no closets in the bedrooms. Our place only has one closet in the hallway, so in the bedrooms we have to put 'wardrobes'. I always wondered why C.S. Lewis was talking about wardrobes... :)
- Almost all houses have shutters, and people use them. Our place has a metal grate that goes over the outside. I think it's used to help regulate temperatures in the houses, so in the summer, it will be a good thing.
- Light fixtures don't belong to the house. We currently don't have a lot of lights because apparently people own their fixtures, so we have to buy and install them ourselves.
- kitchen appliances are MUCH smaller. We joke that we now have an 'easy bake oven' and a 'dorm fridge' and we're not actually too far off...
- you have to label your trash and pay by the bag, which actually makes sense, you pay for what you actually make
- roundabouts are terrifying and hard to give directions (i.e., take a left?!).
- apparently the Swiss are very strict about speed limits - they have lasers everywhere
- groceries, with the exception of meat, dont' seem to be as expensive as we were led to believe, which is nice. Actually, cheese, bread, wine, and chocolate are frequently cheaper than the states :)
- Kellogs cereals make an appearance in our grocery store, but have different names and are usually chocolate
- get the Europe GPS maps before you go to Europe, you'll appreciate it :)
- washing machines are free, but once again, they are tiny! One load in the states is 2-3 loads here. Note to self: do laundry more often :) You also have to use a 'key' to use the washers to indicate that they are being used.
- there was a cat hanging out in our stairwell. We've seen it outside before - don't know how it got in!

I know there's more to add to the list, but that's all I can think of now! We miss all of you and hope you're all doing well.