Arriving in Switerland!

We're here!! Our flights went smoothly, but with little sleep as usual. We had one stop in Dubai for three hours. Arriving on Zurich airport we had to wait a while for our luggage and then made our way to the train station. It took a while to figure out which tickets to buy and we missed our train with a few seconds! We had to wait for the next train which arrived an hour later. In the meantime Andre went in search of a sim card for his phone which he found at Swisscom. We later found out that this is one of the more expensive places to get a sim. The first of many expensive lessons we are learning! Anyway we had communication and internet :-)

We arrived at B & B Villa Felice, our home for the next month. It's very nice. We have a good room a lovely view of the forest. The house is up on a hill a bit out of town. Oh yes we had to take a bus from the train station here in Baden and then pull our heavy luggage up the hill! We'll have to make a different plan when the time comes to move out here... We also have our own bathroom (some B&B's you have to share) and the use of the balcony outside our room and the kitchen, a shelf in the fridge and the laundry room. So we're quite comfortable here for now!

Yesterday (Monday and public holiday) we walked into Baden to the train station instead of taking the bus. A nice walk, I think it took us about 25 min or so. When we got there I remembered that I wanted to bring along ID photo's which I had in the room so Andre could get his monthly train ticket and a discount year ticket for me (I can get 50% discount when I buy any public transport tickets). Anyway I forgot the photo's so I convinced Andre that we had to take the bus back to the B&B after we just walked all the way into town!

Took the train in to Zurich and walked south along the west side of Zurich See (a huge lake). It is absolutely beautiful!! There are beautiful parks, green with big trees, where people have picnics, braai, play badminton, frisbee or tan in the spring sun which was surprisingly hot. There are also little beaches (with sand!) where kids build sandcastles.

For lunch we each had Bratwürst in a baguette on the grass by the water. We carried on walking in the direction of Horgen where I have an interview at a school on Thursday. When our feet got too tired we sat by the water and watched some people and a labrador swimming in what must have been very cold water! At Kilchberg we got onto the train and rode the rest of the way to Horgen. Found the school, then went to buy tickets to go back to Zurich by boat.

The boat to Zurich was scheduled to arrive at 15:15. At 15:11 a boat arrives and we decide it must be a little early and will probably wait a few minutes and then leave at 15:15. So we get on and the boat doesn't waste any time departing again. In the wrong direction! The 'conductor' (what do you call the person who checks tickets on a boat?) checks our tickets and tells us we are on the wrong boat! Argh! We got off at the next stop, had to climb a hill and then down the steps on the other side to the train station to get a supplement ticket since we now traveled to another zone. Then back up what felt like a hundred steps (see photo's on facebook) and back down the hill on the other side to wait for the next boat. It actually said Zurich on the boat. Now we know! 

We sat outside on the boat and the guy next to Andre started talking to us in very broken English. He had already had a couple of beers and was very funny! He kindly told Andre that he paid WAY too much for our drinks on the boat. You would expect it to be more but I'm not even going to tell how much more it was! Well we didn't know. He showed us his packet with beers bought at the supermarket... One of Andre's favourite German sentences are "Das ist güt!" This guy's favourite sentence was also (in English) "That is good!" He said it all the time and we had a good laugh at him. He told us that he was in trouble with his wife because he has to go barbeque and is late!

So that was our day yesterday. It really felt like holiday; a warm evening when we got off the boat in Zurich with people out everywhere along the water.

Today I walked into Baden again and managed to open a bank account. It was surprisingly quick and easy. A young guy who looked a bit like Owen Wilson patiently helped me in his best English. In a couple of days I will get my card and account details in the post.

Ok, that's more than enough blogging for one day! I'm going to put pictures on facebook now so go have a look there if you haven't yet.

xx