We have arrived!
Hello from Switzerland! For those of you that don't know, Matt and I are off to Switzerland for about 2 and a half years for post-doc positions (Matt's at EPFL and mine at the CHUV/UNIL).
Welcome to our update blog. We'll post here periodically to update you on life in Switzerland and beyond! We are entering life as expats and plan to do as much exploring around Europe as we can (hence the name "Explorateurs Expatriérs").
We took off on Wednesday, January 9, at 9:15 PM full of a "cocktail of emotions"; we were experiencing excitement, sadness, anxiety, and apprehension all at once! Matt strategically assigned us to too seats D and F with E in between us, to deter another passenger from taking that spot. His scheme worked, and we were very thankful to have an extra seat for the 7.5 hour flight. We managed to get a few hours of sleep before arriving in Paris at ~10:30 AM. The border was a breeze (no issues with our Visas). At baggage claim, all four checked bags (three marked "heavy"!) corralled their way to us (phew!), and we went to get our car rental for the next four days. After the Hertz employee's took one look at our luggage, they upgraded us to a cross-over sized vehicle at no extra charge to make us more "comfortable" (amazing!). Now, we were off! We quickly grabbed the quintessential American breakfast for a taste of home from McDonalds, and the largest coffee possible. After only a few wrong turns, we arrived at an Airbnb we had booked just on the France side of the Swiss/France border around 7 PM. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we had booked an Airbnb in a ski town and the roads were very steep and snowy, so we couldn't make it up to the parking lot! Just what we needed... We hiked up the driveway and parked down the hill and crashed until about 5 AM (11 PM EST). The "no jet lag" pills may or may not have worked! Only Mr. Placebo knows...
Friday we woke up early, packed up, and headed to Switzerland! We arrived at our temporary studio apartment (the European lingo for TINY apartment) at 8 AM to meet our landlord. After getting shown around our new digs (which will work well, but temporarily), we satisfied our growling stomachs with another McDonalds stop. (Yes - the most McDonald's we have had in the last few years, but I think we can all agree there is something very nostalgic and American about this giant fast food chain, also we weren't quite ready for the European style breakfast of cheese and meat.) Matt then took me to meet my supervisor and colleagues at 10:30, while Matt did errands. Everyone was nice, and the work looks exciting! Matt picked me up, and we spent the rest of the afternoon doing more errands.
There is a long, overwhelming, and elusive checklist of things to do when a foreigner comes to Switzerland to live (residence permit, health insure, personal insurance, renters insurance, bank account, fees for using radio/tv/internet - even if you don't use it, it's a mandatory tax, cell phone, etc., etc.). We attempted to tackle some of our long list and managed to get a Swiss bank account! Although we were forthcoming about my American citizenship, the bank manager kept saying "to me, you're just Canadian... I didn't see your American passport" (La Suisse and the IRS are not good friends)! This was also slightly challenging because you need a Swiss phone # to open a bank acct. but you need a bank account to get a Swiss phone number! The classic chicken/egg problem. (This was eventually resolved revolutionary idea to put a dummy phone number at the bank, which will later be changed to a real number.) Next, we somewhat successfully navigated the grocery store with our minimal French. We spent the evening at IKEA getting some essentials that were too bulky to take on the plane... and now we are finally relaxing! Although we should go to bed - it's past midnight here, but we aren't quite adjusted (points against the homeopathic "no jet leg" pills)!
- Jenny
Welcome to our update blog. We'll post here periodically to update you on life in Switzerland and beyond! We are entering life as expats and plan to do as much exploring around Europe as we can (hence the name "Explorateurs Expatriérs").
We took off on Wednesday, January 9, at 9:15 PM full of a "cocktail of emotions"; we were experiencing excitement, sadness, anxiety, and apprehension all at once! Matt strategically assigned us to too seats D and F with E in between us, to deter another passenger from taking that spot. His scheme worked, and we were very thankful to have an extra seat for the 7.5 hour flight. We managed to get a few hours of sleep before arriving in Paris at ~10:30 AM. The border was a breeze (no issues with our Visas). At baggage claim, all four checked bags (three marked "heavy"!) corralled their way to us (phew!), and we went to get our car rental for the next four days. After the Hertz employee's took one look at our luggage, they upgraded us to a cross-over sized vehicle at no extra charge to make us more "comfortable" (amazing!). Now, we were off! We quickly grabbed the quintessential American breakfast for a taste of home from McDonalds, and the largest coffee possible. After only a few wrong turns, we arrived at an Airbnb we had booked just on the France side of the Swiss/France border around 7 PM. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we had booked an Airbnb in a ski town and the roads were very steep and snowy, so we couldn't make it up to the parking lot! Just what we needed... We hiked up the driveway and parked down the hill and crashed until about 5 AM (11 PM EST). The "no jet lag" pills may or may not have worked! Only Mr. Placebo knows...
Friday we woke up early, packed up, and headed to Switzerland! We arrived at our temporary studio apartment (the European lingo for TINY apartment) at 8 AM to meet our landlord. After getting shown around our new digs (which will work well, but temporarily), we satisfied our growling stomachs with another McDonalds stop. (Yes - the most McDonald's we have had in the last few years, but I think we can all agree there is something very nostalgic and American about this giant fast food chain, also we weren't quite ready for the European style breakfast of cheese and meat.) Matt then took me to meet my supervisor and colleagues at 10:30, while Matt did errands. Everyone was nice, and the work looks exciting! Matt picked me up, and we spent the rest of the afternoon doing more errands.
There is a long, overwhelming, and elusive checklist of things to do when a foreigner comes to Switzerland to live (residence permit, health insure, personal insurance, renters insurance, bank account, fees for using radio/tv/internet - even if you don't use it, it's a mandatory tax, cell phone, etc., etc.). We attempted to tackle some of our long list and managed to get a Swiss bank account! Although we were forthcoming about my American citizenship, the bank manager kept saying "to me, you're just Canadian... I didn't see your American passport" (La Suisse and the IRS are not good friends)! This was also slightly challenging because you need a Swiss phone # to open a bank acct. but you need a bank account to get a Swiss phone number! The classic chicken/egg problem. (This was eventually resolved revolutionary idea to put a dummy phone number at the bank, which will later be changed to a real number.) Next, we somewhat successfully navigated the grocery store with our minimal French. We spent the evening at IKEA getting some essentials that were too bulky to take on the plane... and now we are finally relaxing! Although we should go to bed - it's past midnight here, but we aren't quite adjusted (points against the homeopathic "no jet leg" pills)!
- Jenny
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