Family and Friends

This page is dedicated to family and friends, or the few people we saw before we quickly left the States. Thanks for all the help, love and support and even if your photo doesn't appear...we love you too & wish we could have seen you prior to our departure!

Ann, Christa, Tricia & Melinda

Melinda & Sean

Mom & Sean

Michelle, Sean & Matthew

Lou, Dom, Robert, Frank and Matt

Visa’s in Strasbourg - 4/17/07

Work Day #2
Another day trip… yeah! (unfortunatly, this time it's business) As we made our way to France to obtain our Visas before they closed at 11:30 a.m., we had to stop for gas, get lost in the city, until we found our way to the Embassy at 10:30. We actually left the apartment at 7am too! After navigating the streets in Strasbourg, at a rapid pace (we felt almost like we are on the Amazing Race – needing to check – into our designated location before the other teams!) we arrived at the Swiss Embassy to take care of the necessary paperwork.

Once complete, we meandered through the town to see (once again) the amazing sights of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The photos are on the web site, however, they truly cannot capture the intense beauty or size of this incredible structure. You absolutely cannot capture any part of this Cathedral in one picture frame! Amazing! Here are some photos of it...

This photo was taken almost 2 blocks away!

A view from the side...

Inside when you first walk in...

A view of the pulpit with stained glass in the background...

Now – back to Switzerland to register with the local Police and obtain our Resident Cards. (shell out more cash, 'cause everything costs money here...)

When I returned to work the next day, my colleges asked me if out trip to Strasbourg went well. I said the only problem was driving around Strasbourg, since the name of the street change names after each intersection!
They asked, "is your car alright?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Oh, because they burn about 1,000 cars a year in Strasbourg. For no reason!"
...I guess that's sort of like Philly, except they'll steal the car, perhaps use it in a felony, and then burn it...

Back to Reality: Work Day 4/16/07

Robert’s alarm went off at a staggering 5:30am – for us, that feels like 11:00pm. Quickly dressed, ate and headed down to the street to purchase some gepheli brot for some colleagues. Melinda is still in search of a job, however, with no Internet connectivity, or a phone, searching is nearly impossible.

Kind of strange to go to work without a work permit or visa... I guess I am just visiting.

Day Trip #2 - Freiburg - 4/15/07

Day Trip #2 – I think we’re going to like this day trip thing... As long as we have the rental car!!

With the Rick Steve’s guide book in hand, we decided to drive through Wine Road (Badische Weinstrasse) Wow! If ever there is a country with incredible eye candy, this had to be it! Spring in Europe is amazing! The trees are all in full bloom, the grass is a velvety green, the daffodils are all smiling and the vineyards are meticulously groomed. We went through the town of Staufen, hiked through vineyards to an old ruined castle and then ended up in Frieburg. Frieburg is a nice little city close to a University, eclectic in nature with a bit of a grungy feel. Oh, and did we mention the weather has been about 80 and sunny!

Highlights in Staufen:
The Castle... a view from on top...


The Vineyards


Freiburg:
A little history – the town was almost completely destroyed by bombs in 1944 – one of the only remaining buildings was the Munster Cathedral, which took over three centuries to build and was completed in 1513.


Bachle – tiny streams that run through the town

Day Trip to the Capital! - 4/13/07

Roof Tops in Bern

Day Trip #1
Bern – the Capital of Switzerland
We decided what better way to spend a Friday than to take a day trip to the capital – Bern. The city is beautiful and you will see some highlights on our blog. The river is amazingly clean, the streets are all incredibly uniform and they have some fantastic bakeries.

Highlights from the trip:
The Munster – Cathedral built in 1421

The Cathedral in Bern

Clock Tower – Zytglogge turm (no image)

The Bears

Einstein’s House... (This is where some of his best work was said to have occured...)

The Aare River – beautifully clean

The Bike Swap - 4/14/07

The Swap!

My Velo!

The Bike Swap
Basel is an incredibly bike friendly city. We believe there are more bikes than cars, but don’t put that into a travel book! So, to fit in, we decided Melinda needed a cheesy beater bike to get around the town on. The bike swap took place in an old skating rink and was filled with new, old and incredibly unique rides. We ended up with a kinder velo (kid’s bike) for Melinda (hey, I love to ride the BMX and this was the closest thing we could find.) My sweet ride cost CHF 120. I’ve got chrome fenders, dazzling lights for night riding, three gears and hand brakes – what more could a girl ask for?

We Are Officially Here...

We Are Officially Here…
So, now that the months of preparation are almost behind us and we are now officially (we’ll not officially – we don’t have Visas or work permits yet) living in Switzerland, what do we do now?

Day 1 – Get the Swiss Bank Account
With some franks in our pockets, bills to pay and the thought of running out of money soon, we decided to open our Swiss bank account. So, dressed as if we were attending an interview, we made our appointment to open our account. The meeting went well, the service was impeccable and within an hour’s time, we were granted the account. Now we just wait for the info to arrive in the mail so we can begin to buy all of those expensive and nice Swiss things…like driver’s licenses, city maps, “free” library cards, groceries, chocolate, visas, resident permits and of course, gas!

Grocery Shopping – An experience of its own
In Switzerland, most people go to the store once a day. This is much more frequently than our once a week trip. In addition, we have realized some of our favorite staples are non-existent in CH so if anyone is up for sending us a care package…this is what we can’t find – Tom’s of Maine toothpaste – crazy as it sounds, we love the natural stuff, almond butter (unless you want to spend CHF44 per container), pancake mix, Goji Berries, Blue Corn Tortilla Chips, Salsa.

Salsa in Switzerland means spaghetti sauce – makes for a nice fusion of Mexican/Italian meals!

Wine is plentiful and cheap – stock up!

The Swiss don’t really do peanut butter – what do children eat for lunch?

Bring your own bag – the Swiss are amazing when it comes to preservation of the environment. You are expected to recycle almost everything and excess is not their specialty. This is a refreshing change for both of us!

The Move - 4/11/07

Arrived!


Us not looking so "fresh" after our arrival!


The Rathaus in Basel & Open Air Market

The Move

April 10th came like the blink of an eye. Before we knew it, we were throwing all of our belongings together and leaving our temporary housing. With five large pieces of luggage, and two hysterical cats in the car, we couldn’t help but look at one another with doubt in our eyes, wondering if we had done the right thing. After all, there was no need to leave a perfectly comfortable life where we understood the language, loved our home, were close to family and friends – what are we doing came to mind more than once! But life is an adventure – so we decided to press on!

Having never traveled with pets before, it is quite the experience. As many of you know, Robert and I really love our cats (we often refer to them as our fuzzy children) and had prepared for months to get them ready for the 7.5 hour international flight. We crate trained them, we took them to the vet (several times) we played loud flight sounds for them and we even read story after story on ways to minimize their stress levels for this journey.

Checking in for our flight took over an hour – and I didn’t feel overly confident about leaving Josie with complete strangers, especially as the airline kept referring to Josie as “it.” “Just put “it” with the baggage or “I don’t know where to put “it”, or can you just stuff some of your luggage in its’ crate so you won’t have to pay the extra fee?” What????? So needless to say, the tears feel as I handed over Josie to be loaded as cargo.

Toby, on the other hand – had the privilege of flying in the cabin with us. We know what some of you are thinking – they must like Toby better – no, it simply came down to size. Josie is a whopping 16.8 lbs. and Toby weighs only 8lbs. For the sake of comfort and airline regulations, Toby was our only choice. Robert and I said if ever there were a reward for the best flying cat – Toby would receive it hands down. We “stowed” him under our seat or on our lap for most of the flight and he never made a sound.

Claiming our Baggage…
We had no idea where we would claim Josie – so after asking several people, we determined that she would be waiting with the luggage. Once we turned the corner to enter the baggage claim, there was no doubt where she was. Josie was crying so loud that you could hear her across the room. She made it through the flight – but was certainly traumatized. After cleaning out her cage, we loaded both cats into the rental and drove from Zurich to Basel. From our temporary housing in Eagleville, PA to Basel, CH took over 14 hours.
Once in Basel we met with our relocation specialist who handed us the keys to our apartment, showed us a few things and left us to take the rest of the afternoon to unwind. That evening,exhausted from the move, we slept almost 11 hours. The best rest we have had in over three months!

Life is a Series of "Hello's" and "Goodbyes"

Wow.. a lot has happened in the last few days. We have officially moved out of our home (April 1) - a bitter sweet feeling! Thrilled that the house rented so quickly - sad to close the door to two and a half years of wonderful memories. After a day filled with packing our remaining belongings for storage, intense cleaning (thanks Mom!) and extreme exhaustion, we moved into our temporary housing until we depart for CH on the 10th.

Our temporary home in Eagleville.

We have come to realize that life is a series of "Hello's and Goodbyes." Throughout this process, we have met some wonderful people - Herr Carllson, our German teacher, all of our movers, we have become quite friendly with all of the H.R. people at work, and too many others to mention. So as we begin this new chapter in our lives, we realize we must temporarily say good-bye to family and friends (this is truly the hardest part!) - but we do hope to say, "hello" as you make your way over to our place in Switzerland.

We are on the official countdown now...only 4 more days.

Thanks for the support everyone!

"We only part to meet again." - John Gay