It’s two on a Sunday morning, and I’m coming up on the last twenty-four hours of my first six months in Switzerland. I’ve just rotated the flat (i.e. moved nearly all the furniture a hundred eighty degrees along the outside wall of the living room) on the suggestion of a friend about a month ago and I have to say she was right, it’s much better this way. ...
The last month or so has been a bit of a whirlwind. There’s the travel: I finally used the Halbtax card I bought to escape the rain in June and hopped a train to Neuchâtel, then back for a day before business in Valbonne (via Nice, dinner in Cannes), after which I was back in town for a long weekend before flying back out to Vienna, then back here for a week and a bit before flying next Tuesday to San Diego for my stepsister’s wedding. There’s the work: a document I’ve been working on since I started here went out Friday, and I spent the weekend mostly clearing the Things I Said I’d Do Before Going To San Diego deck. There’s the sport: Mel showed me a nice short loop around the lake easily doable in two and a half hours with a relaxing three-franc boat ride in the middle, and I’m a wall climber again, this time for real because I’m in better shape and frankly, it’s a better wall. There’s the learning: classes started Thursday, and I’ve been meeting with a couple of native Swiss Germans relatively frequently to speak German poorly. (By which I mean I speak German poorly. I’m pretty sure they know what they’re doing. I can’t tell, of course, because I speak German poorly.) There’s the furniture shopping: three trips to Dietlikon in the past month, with at least one coming up next, and the apartment’s about 50% done (next up: art). And there’s the fun: the month-long I Live Here Now and Finally party which is just now starting to slow down, exploring Zurich with friends new and old, finding cheap(ish) good Indian food, good Swiss food, good South African food (mmmm that’s good gnu), freaky good vegetarian everything, bars with good live Swiss rock, bars with tweaky DJs, and the old favorite biweekly expat drink-a-thon at the Talacker (always highly recommended before a 6am flight to a 9am meeting). ...
The east-southeast view from the balcony, 10 August 2008, showing (bottom to top) the Hardturmbrücke railway bridge over the Limmat, most of Züri-West, the old city (clustered mainly behind the big smokestack), the Zürichberg (green hill on the left), the Albis and the southwestern shore of the lake (that’s Horgen or Thalwil in the right-center distance, I think), and the Alps.
I had about half an hour to kill this afternoon in the neighborhood of the university, so I decided to take this week’s Economist out to the Polyterrasse, a giant balcony behind the main building of ETH with a great, close-up view of the center of the city. I went out to one of the benches toward the corner (the better for the view though perhaps not for the glare of the sun). These benches are large wooden constructions, about four meters long and a meter and a half wide, with a rounded wooden back sticking up out of one side of the seat for two meters. This has the effect of dividing each bench into three sections: a couple of seats facing one direction, a couple of seats facing the opposite direction, back-to-back, and to the side a large flat space for laying down and reading, indeed, even sunning oneself if the weather is cooperative. ...
The apartment is coming together, slowly. While shedding the cloud of stuff that had orbited me in Pittsburgh was an almost religiously therapeutic experience which I would recommend wholeheartedly to all, it turns out that clothes irons, cooking pots, and mops are all kind of useful. So I’m picking up needful things one tramload and Saturday afternoon shopping trip at a time. Next up: Sihlcity. Again. ...
I was sitting on the balcony last night, my ears recovering from the quite loud, somewhat interesting, yet ultimately disappointingly clubby beats of my brief Bellerive-to-Mythenquai flirtation with Streetparade, registering to vote in the November U.S. presidential election, when I noticed a spider scurrying along my right leg, building a web over the folds in the fabric of my still-slightly-too-baggy jeans. ...
From the twenty-third of March, two thousand five to the fifth of August, two thousand eight: my one thousand, two hundred thirty-one day tenure as a homeowner ended yesterday with a wire transfer, a HUD-1 form via fax, and a closing in Erie, Pennsylvania. The new owners got an amazing deal, as they should in the current market. I’m happy with my end of it as I’m no longer holding onto a debt denominated in a currency I want nothing to do with for a while yet secured by an asset in a city I have no particular desire to ever return to. So it’s what we call a win-win, then. ...
Have just returned from Ireland. I had a chance to see a little of the city of Dublin, wandering about a bit through the Temple Bar – Trinity College – Grafton Street triangle last Sunday afternoon, and again on Tuesday; the weather, I take it from every cabbie who drove me around here that we really, really lucked out on the weather. Summers there are generally… wet. ...
I moved into the flat yesterday. By “moved in”, I mean most of my stuff is there, I have a motley and assorted collection of furniture, much of which is still boxed and flatpacked in the hallway, and I slept in the new bed last night. Maybe I’m really tired, maybe I’m finally home, or maybe [redacted] francs just buys you a damn good bed, but last night marked the first time I’ve ever slept through my first night in a new place. ...
I went by my new flat Monday morning to pick up the keys and do the walkthrough. It was a good Bastille Day. First off, it was much bigger than I’d remembered, and in somewhat nicer shape. The kitchen will need less work than I’d remembered. There is no counter space, but a giant, very 1950’s cabinet on the wall opposite the refrigerator so I don’t need any under-counter storage, and I’ll probably just get a table or butcher’s block to stick in the 120cm between the refrigerator and the oven to act as a counter. No need to bother with trying to have a breakfast nook in there, though I have the space, because while the kitchen has a balcony (which I’d not noticed before) and a very nice view of the street, it’s not nearly the view I have out the living (and dining) room windows. Pictures still to follow. I took a camera yesterday, but the fog was in. ...