Last blog post in Switzerland!

Yesterday the removal company came to collect our things. They said they'd be with us in the afternoon and that the guys in the truck will phone to let us know when they're on their way. So we took our time getting ready in the morning thinking we still had hours to get the last few things in boxes. Well, at 8:30am Andre tells me they're here. I thought he was joking because this is exactly what happened when we left Cape Town, but he wasn't joking and I could hear the truck pulling up next to our building. 

So you can imagine how I ran around trying to get everything done! I squished our duvet and pillows in boxes and damp towels which didn't have time to dry completely after the morning shower. I was not impressed being rushed like that, but at least it was over early in the day. 

This morning we went back to the flat to finish the cleaning. We'd already done about half of what needed to be done but still spent about four hours cleaning. It's hard work. I have never cleaned like this in my life!! The owners came to check at 2pm and I was a bit nervous that they would find something not clean enough, but they were very happy and said we did a very good job. Phew! We got our deposit back :-)

Now I'm trying to recover a bit after all this physical work and then we're leaving early tomorrow morning for our flight to the UK.

I will write again soon from the UK next time! Bye bye Switzerland!

Packing continued

I was going to pack the kitchen things tomorrow so we can at least still have breakfast tomorrow morning, but then I started wrapping some things this morning and just kept going! We worked so hard all day today packing and cleaning and I am exhausted. My feet hurt. I'm so not used to being on my feet anymore. When I taught older kids I used to be standing in the classroom most of the day, but with the littlies at the play school I did more crawling around on the floor than standing.

So we have basically packed up the WHOLE house today! All that's left is the bedding and towels. We have 17 boxes plus some things like the microwave and other big things that went back in their original boxes and will just have to go like that. The company was unable to supply us with boxes. It seems they don't actually have an office here, only in the UK, and could only bring boxes when they come to collect which would be a bit pointless. Tomorrow we have to go buy a couple more boxes to fit the duvets and pillows in.

We had our last dinner in the flat tonight (I kept one pot which will be packed with the bedding tomorrow!). We have some odd plates and mugs still out which we bought when we arrived. Will see if there's space to pack them otherwise I don't know. They stay here or go to the bin. It's only 3 plates and were the cheapest at Ikea when we got here. I'll try have my yoghurt and muesli out of a mug in the morning. I have to have breakfast and yoghurt and muesli's my favourite. Then we'll have our last dinner out in Zurich tomorrow night. Well that's the plan. Hopefully there won't be any last minute things to do tomorrow night. Our last two nights here in Switzerland we will be staying with friends who were so kind to help us out. It will be hard having to stay here after our stuff is all gone. If we had bedding and towels we could do it, but I just know we wont have space in our luggage to pack that when we leave.

Oh and the cleaning!! I have been vacuuming the ceiling, washing the bathroom tiles. I have never done so much intense cleaning ever. Here in Switzerland when you move out of your flat you either pay a huge amount of money to have a cleaning company come clean your flat (and I have heard people having to pay over a thousand francs) or you do it yourself. Well I can now see why they charge so much. It's hard work. You've probably figured out which one we chose. We're doing it ourselves. And you have to do it properly or you don't get all your deposit back. Andre has been a huge help. He is actually so much better at cleaning than I am. I guess anyone can clean but when he does something he does it properly. I don't. I actually have to ask him to come and check if I'm doing ok because I know I get lazy and then do a half*** job. And then he will come and re-do it and then I get upset. So I just let him come stand behind me and check up! Andre already washed all the windows and shutters and the Wintergarten which is the enclosed balcony.

Did I tell you the new tenants have bought our bed and the two sets of drawers? That helps so we don't have to take all that apart for the move. But they didn't want the wardrobe :-( Andre is not keen on dismantling that. I mailed them again tonight to ask if they wont take it. Andre is now even happy to give it away. It's just too big and heavy to move. And apparently has loads of little screws to take out. There is no way anyone can carry this thing down three flights of stairs in one piece.

Ok, I'm going to try go to sleep now. Sorry no pictures today, we were too busy! I'm probably going to dream about packing and about boxes! On Tuesday this will all be over! Oh we're flying Thursday morning :-)

Settling in with the British soon

I've been trying to come up with a new name for my blog. I want to carry on blogging right here, but then I can't really keep calling it "Settling in with the Swiss" anymore, can I. I have less than a week to come up with a new name. In a week's time we'll be in the UK! I'm very excited! Well hopefully we'll be there then. We still haven't booked flights yet. This is the way Andre likes to do things: last minute. Not my way of doing things, but I can't organise everything so once in a while I try to just go with the way he wants to do things. And he's the one with the credit card. Anyway,  I'm trying hard to be creative  and come up with a new name, but please excuse me if it sounds like I'm still trying to settle in with the Swiss for a while when we're in England. I think I actually need to be there to come up with a good name.

We have filled about seven boxes now but I've put the packing on hold for a bit. I'm itching to start packing up the kitchen but we still have to eat. I'm happy with yoghurt or ice cream for dinner but I don't think Andre will be.

The removal company will be here on Tuesday. I hope the date won't change. First it was Monday, then Wednesday and now they have promised me it will be Tuesday. We'll see. That's sort of why we're not sure about booking flights yet. Obviously it will be a bit hard staying on in the flat with no furniture, but we need a day to get the flat spotless before we can move out.

Andre and I both went to the hairdresser this morning. Me to stay blond and Andre for a cut. He ended up getting some highlights too when there were some of my bleach left.

We'll have a last day in Zürich tomorrow with maybe a dinner there too. And after that it's packing up the rest of the house, cleaning up and getting out of here!

Zebra Box

We were lucky to have lots of storage space here at our apartment and kept all the boxes from when we moved here from South Africa. But over the past 11 months we've obviously accumulated quite a bit more.

A friend told me about Zebra Box. It's a self storage place where you can store anything from your bicycle in a small storage locker to all your furniture in a bigger storage room. They also sell boxes and packing materials and can organise your move for you. We didn't know about this part and already booked another company to do our move but we needed more boxes. We went to their offices where they have a display of all the boxes they sell. We got what we needed as well as one very big one for my yukka plant and a small one for my orchid. I hope they will survive the trip! We got some packing tape, bubble wrap and tissue paper too. 

Then we started chatting to the owner who was there. I've hardly said two words wen he asked me if we're from South Africa. It turns out he lived there for a while (he's Swiss) and still has family there. That's where he got the name "Zebra Box" for his company from. Him and the other lady who works there speaks perfect English and were very friendly and helpful. 

Now I just need to fill those new boxes we bought... I'm sitting around waiting for it to get a bit closer to the moving date before I can pack the rest like the kitchen things. I've already worked out a menu of things to make with only a pot and a pan which I'll then pack after dinner the night before the movers come!

How to meet people in Switzerland: Advertise your apartment!

Let me start by explaining something about rental contracts here in Switzerland. It's not that easy to get out of. You get two chances per year to get out. That's it. That's the general contract. It varies, sometimes you might have three dates a year when you may give up your apartment and some contracts will only allow it once a year. Some are so lucky that they may give three months notice any time of the year.

We had the "twice a year" contract. That means we can either give 3 months notice end of December to move out end of March or end of June to move out end of September. We've heard about this. We read our contract as best we could (it's in German obviously). But did miss this point.

So when we decided towards the end of January that we want to leave our apartment we thought we could just give three months notice and that would be it. No. We had just missed the official date to give notice so we had to find someone to take over the apartment from us if we wanted to move out. Now as I've mentioned in a previous post, the owners of our apartment are really nice people. And they said that we need to just do our best to find someone but if we don't then we'll make a plan together. Luckily the plan wasn't necessary.

I put an ad on homegate.ch on Monday as well as ads on any other expat sites I could think of. About six others. Monday night we received the first call for a viewing. And we had people all week coming to see the flat and all of them interested and handing in their application forms to the owners. On Thursday the owners said that's enough now! It sounds like tonight they're seeing the final couple and then will make their decision. That only took a week! What a relief.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about meeting people in Switzerland. We've had so many nice people coming to view the flat. Many expats from all over. If we were only moving to the next town instead of leaving the country we could have started some good friendships this way!

PS If you need to advertise your apartment here in Switzerland I would recommend homegate.ch instead of immoscout24.ch. On homegate you pay a basic fee plus CHF2.50 per day. When your apartment is taken then you remove your add and you won't pay any more. On immoscout you choose one, two or three months to post your ad for. I was going to choose two months because it works out cheaper than having to do it for one month and then another month. Luckily I then first checked out homegate. They worked out cheaper for a whole month than immoscout and now it will cost us even less because we only needed the ad for a week.

A snowy two days

This was the view from our bedroom window this morning. Everything is covered in white after all the snow we had on Sunday. After this bedroom window weather check I walked to the grocery store to go buy the groceries for the week. Andre discovered the car keys in his pocket when he got to work so I couldn't drive. It was nice to get out and get some (very) fresh air.

A few hours later it started snowing. 

It's dark now but it looks like it's still snowing.

I think this is the most snow we've had since we've been here. It looks like it might last a few days this time.

This is the view from our kitchen window. I love looking out the kitchen window. 

I walk across that little bridge every day to go to work. I saw Andre coming home across that bridge this evening. I was staring out the window again.

I have snow boots for days like these. I'll be wearing them tomorrow. That way I don't have to worry about messing up my nice boots. These ones aren't so pretty. They're not girly really. They're just waterproof and warm and don't mind the snow.

I am having a pajama day today

The great thing about living in a country where no shops are open on a Sunday is that unless you are going to go out and see some place you haven't seen or just stroll around, there's no reason why not to just enjoy a bed day.

That's what I've been doing today. At 3pm I did finally get dressed and tried convincing my husband to take a walk with me down to the Limmat river, but he was unable to leave his online computer game, World of Warcraft, so I am now back in bed.

I have finished watching both seasons of the new Beverly Hills 90210, one episode after the other. Blogged a bit, read some blogs, posted more ads for our flat and of course had a look at facebook every now and again to see what everybody else is up to. Next I'm going to start reading the manual for my camera.

If it's cold outside and you've got nowhere you have to be, enjoy a pajama day once in a while. It's great!


Update: We did in the end manage to get that walk in before it got dark!

Looking for a lovely spacious apartment?

We will be moving out of our apartment soon. It is a lovely apartment and we are sad to have to leave it. It has LOTS of space!

Here is a bit of a description, but please contact me to come and have a look if you are interested.

Three room Maisonette apartment in Dietikon right next to the Reppisch river. Quiet neighborhood, minutes walk to centre of town, bus and train.

First floor: Large living room (32m2) with fireplace, tiled floor with underfloor heating, glass enclosed balcony, separate kitchen, bath/WC.

Second floor: Large living area which we are using as a study/ TV room (37.5m2) with sloped ceiling on the one side, tiled floor with underfloor heating, big balcony, spacious bedroom (22.5m2) with laminated flooring, shower/WC, storage closet.

There is also a storage room as well as another double built in closet for storage. (Lots of storage space!!)

Since there are only 3 apartments in the building there is no washing machine schedule. You can wash ANY TIME you need to!!

Click here to view photos on Flickr.

Rent: CHF 2150 (including Nebenkosten)
Underground parking available if needed at an additional CHF130

Please email me if you're interested or pass on if you know of someone who might be interested!

Dinner with friends

Friday night we had a great dinner with friends at our house. I mean flat. I'm still used to saying house. We drank wine and chatted until the early hours of the morning. Here they are:

But what I really want to show you is the biscuits I received from these good friends.

Aren't they beautiful?

And they are just so delicious.

Each made up of many different layers and each one different.

I think I'll go have another one now!

We have fire

I haven't been blogging this week because my dad and stepmom came to visit. We had a great time and I'll tell you all about that this weekend still. As soon as I'm done going through all the photos.

Sneak peak: can you guess where we had dinner? Not too difficult with that big beer!

Here's last night, our first fire in our fireplace!

We must still find the best place for buying wood. (Any tips, Swiss readers?) We bought this box at Coop Bau&Hobby yesterday but it won't last more than two fires. We want lots of wood. We like fire!

See that lovely plant over there? It's a yuka. Bought for our new home by my dad and stepmom. I love it! It makes our living room feel more homely now. Thank you Pa and Colleen!

Last night was the first night we actually spent in our living room (after living in our flat for 5 months now!) It was nice. We ate pizza in front of the fire. Good food and a warm fire on a rainy evening... Ok let me get on with those photos.

Today

I haven't done any school work today. I usually do a bit of planning, preparing, making resources, reading or researching for my English classes every day, but not today. Yesterday I was reading the UK curriculum for KS 2 & 3 after reading and making notes from the South African RNCS document for grade 4-6. I've got two older kids starting English first language with me soon. I'm looking forward to it, something different to cutting and colouring with the littlies!

I don't feel too bad for not working today. I did clean the house. Then I went to Ikea, firstly to get away from the chocolate cake in our fridge (I don't trust myself alone with a chocolate) and secondly because I know the way to Ikea and can drive there myself. I know where to park too. And I can do it without the GPS. AND I didn't knock my left hand against the door to change gears today! Ha! I'm getting good. I even had the radio on loud and the window down!

But sometime I had to come back home and the chocolate cake attacked me after lunch and forced me to eat a piece. Oh I went for a walk this morning too along the river so I feel slightly better about the cake. Or was the walking for yesterday's cake?

What else... did the washing, should do the ironing next, painted my nails for the weekend :-) We're going away for the night tomorrow. Not telling you where, you'll have to wait till after the weekend!

Oh we got new neighbours this week. Looks like a young couple. We should invite them over. Maybe we can be friends. First need to invite the landlord and his family over though. They hinted when we moved in, but we didn't have any wine glasses then! They are really nice people.

We're STILL waiting for our permits. It's been 3 1/2 months now.

Ok, I'm going to see what's on TV. Enjoy your weekend!

xx

and another one

I'm a bit bored today. I should go for a walk but here's a few random things instead.

Tuesday night, last week, I made the most delicious potato soup. Only when I was ready to dish it up did I realize we don't have any bowls to eat it out of!! We just bought the necessary bits while we're waiting for our things to arrive from Cape Town. So we had the soup in coffee mugs and then ice-cream dessert (which I also bought without thinking about what to eat it out of) in glasses. Red wine is also being served in these cooldrink glasses at the moment!

Did I mention how long I had to wait for a vacuum cleaner? A few days feels like forever when you really need to vacuum a new flat. So on Wednesday last week I went to... take a guess... yes you're right! IKEA again! And I bought a broom and a mop. Not just any broom. A pink one of course. Sadly they didn't have the mops in pink so I got the blue and green one. I thought the green goes well with the bits of green in the broom. André just smiled when he saw it.

Oh isn't it cute? It even has a stand.

Of course then the next day my Baby Dyson arrived on my door step. 

It's a really great vacuum cleaner. André unpacked it while I was cooking dinner. 

And he didn't stop at the unpacking. He vacuumed the whole flat!! I think at first he was just trying it out in the lounge. Then he thought he might as well finish downstairs. And then he went on to do the whole upstairs as well! 

The vacuum cleaner really makes me think of a baby. It follows you around your ankles wherever you go. Ok, only while you're vacuuming of course. 

Then on Friday we got another surprise. Ok not quite since we ordered and paid for it, but it wasn't due to arrive for another two weeks. Oh, I'm talking about our new couch. It's sooo nice. I really like it. So visitors, come and visit and try out our new couch!

Our welcome flowers

I must show you this:

On Thursday I came to the flat a little earlier to unpack and clean up. The owners wanted to do the hand over at 6pm that evening and check that everything in the flat is ok and so on. So I was busy in the kitchen, making lunch actually when the doorbell rang. I was confused, wondering who this could be. I don't know anyone here. Anyway I open the door and give Herr F, the owner, a bit of a fright! He is such a dear man. Well it turned out his wife sent him to put flowers and a card in our apartment and told him to do it before we arrive. Unfortunately I was there already! Isn't it just so sweet of them. I never expected something like this. 

Here's some close ups of our flowers and card.

They have also insisted that we call them on their first names. We were very honoured as this doesn't happen often here and they are MUCH older than us. Like they could be our grandparents. We call their son on his first name and they use our first names which I like but I'm not so sure if I feel comfortable using their first names... I think I'll stick to Herr & Frau F for now.

We've now finally and permanently moved into our flat in Dietikon. On Friday afternoon we went to get the last of our things at the B&B in Baden. Clever me of course left my key to the B&B at the flat. Luckily André had his so we could get in but this morning we had to go back there again to drop the key off. Now we've had enough of the train trip between Baden and Dietikon for a while!

I came here on Thursday with the intention of going to buy a vacuum cleaner. Didn't happen though... I found a place online with a really good price for the one we want. It's in Dietikon so I walked all the way there, about 20 minutes there. I prefer the walking so I can at least get some exercise. I'm afraid sometime I'm going to become lazy and just start taking the bus everywhere... Anyway, I got there and they said no, I have to first order it online and then I can come and pick it up. They don't charge for postage and deliver it the next day if you pay before 12 so I decided to get it delivered instead. It should be here Monday or Tuesday cos I only payed this morning. I'm going to stay home until they deliver it so I can make full use of this delivery to my door and not have to go fetch it at the post office! Can you believe how I'm looking forward to getting a vacuum cleaner? I don't like the dusty feel on the tiles after all the ikea furniture building last weekend!

Oh and of course we got our internet at the flat! I was so worried cos they said it could take up to 4 weeks. Thursday afternoon our landlord put our names up by the postbox and our doorbell and brought my mail in. And there was a slip to go and fetch a parcel at the post office... from Cablecom! I walked there as fast as I could. It was late afternoon and I was afraid that they might be closed already. Luckily not. But then we couldn't get it connected Thursday evening. After some phone calls to cablecom we discovered we still have the old plugs in the wall and need to get the new ones. No problem. Next day they send a guy out to come and change the wall  plug and we've got super fast internet! It's instant! I can watch videos and don't have to wait for it to load first. I can look at photos on facebook and just click away and see one photo after the other. It's so good :-)

Friday morning we also did some grocery shopping to fill our new cupboards. Luckily I now have my trolley for shopping. Didn't mean to copy you Jessica, but saw it at Ikea and just can't carry all that heavy groceries home anymore. I can't buy bananas milk and juice cos I know it would get too heavy. But now I can! So yesterday morning we tested this trolley to it's full capacity. 

Today we went car shopping. We had a look at some nice cars and drove two of them. Still shopping around...

That's our weekend so far. I'm off to bed now and looking forward to a relaxing Sunday at home tomorrow.

Here's the video I took this weekend of the two hardworking furniture builders

Enjoy! ;-)

Moving into our new flat. from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

3 weeks in Switzerland

Today is the first day that I'm actually a little bored at home and don't know what to do with myself. Maybe it's because there's no more flat hunting or furniture shopping and we're half way moved in.

Next on my list was to find health insurance for us here. That I did last night and we're now waiting for two quotes. The price is actually not that bad, similar to what we paid in South Africa if not less. The only difference is that we will have to pay up to a certain amount which we decide on. For the one quote we chose CHF 1500 and for the other CHF 2000. That means that we have to pay all medical bills up to that amount and only then when we go over that amount per year will the insurance start paying. (Make sense? Took me a while to understand.) In that way our insurance in SA was better because for the same monthly price they also payed for just about any little bits of meds or dr's appointments. Dentists are not paid for by the basic insurance here apparently, which is a pity because André's got toothache again. Which reminds me I must get him something for the pain. It's still where his wisdom tooth got extracted that's giving him problems...

Anyway, what I actually wanted to tell you about was our move into our flat this weekend. On Friday we went to IKEA and made final decisions about what we're going to buy on Saturday. They give you little shopping list cards and a pencil and measuring tape if you need one. Then you go around writing down what you want with it's price and some things also tell you on a card on the piece of furniture on display in which row and on which shelf you'll find it in the self service area downstairs. You write that down too. Here's a picture of my shopping lists or Einkaufsliste - everything German of course.

Then the we went to someone at one of the many information desks who was wearing a badge with a UK flag on it (meaning they can speak English). They printed a list of everything we want with the rows and shelf numbers all in order which really helped otherwise we would have been running around from one end to the other. André and I each took a trolley. We loaded as much as we could. It felt like a treasure hunt, following my list and looking for the correct row, shelf and then product number to make sure we got all the things we need. 

When our trolleys were full we went to get the keys to the van we hired. Luckily someone came to help André load the boxes which were quite heavy. Then back in again to get the rest. Five trolleys later we had everything in the van.

I was very proud of André's driving skills. First time driving on the other side (I won't say wrong side!) of the road and with a big van full of furniture. He did so well, while I was just about a nervous wreck!! Luckily we didn't have far to drive. It was just in the next town, about 5 minutes drive.

When we arrived at the flat, Jürgen was there waiting for us. I don't know what we would have done without his help this weekend. Actually, I know there would have been lots of tears (from me) and arguments (also from me) and André would be patiently putting up with it all while at the same time trying to build our furniture. 

So instead, while I kept myself busy in my new kitchen, the guys worked extremely hard. They were building on Saturday from about 4 - 9pm. They did the sleeper couch, desks and chairs, and our bed and two sets of drawers for our room. Then on Sunday morning they worked from about 9am-2pm building our cupboard, headboard and the kitchen table.

And I prepared them their well deserved meals!

Unfortunately my camera's battery died halfway through the weekend so I will post some more pics of the rest of our apartment later. I'm back at the B&B today since we don't yet have internet at the flat. This is something that's making me very nervous. We applied online last week Wednesday and it said that it could take up to 4 weeks... We've already got cable there (we're getting internet through cable) so I don't know what they have to do... Press the start button for us or something? Maybe they have many people wanting them to press the start button for them? But this is sounding like the waiting period in South Africa. Hopefully we will get it soon. Let's stay positive and not panic.

Oh I almost forgot! I also got some presents!

An ironing board and iron to keep me busy!

And here's two pictures Jürgen took of what our room looked like at the end of Sunday. I like it! :-)

I love the headboard part. It has a cupboard/ drawer/ shelf that pulls out on both sides with shelves. Smart!

I'm going to edit the video I took this weekend and will post that later too. 

We have a flat!!

Last night we signed the contract and paid the deposit for the flat. Our move in date is 1st May but we already have a key and the owners said we can even move in now already if we want.(They are super nice and so helpful.) We'd love to but we don't want to sleep on the hard, cold floor so we'll wait until we (hopefully soon) have a bed.

Today I'm going to Ikea to find out how soon they can deliver. I can get 50% discount on the delivery fee if I travel there with public transport, which I will and I want to get all the details about that too. Don't want to get anything wrong and lose out on that discount! I need to start making a list of all the essentials we need, e.g. toilet paper and dishwashing liquid! And of course bed, cupboard and couch. 

Today I'm also going to de-register us here in Baden so that we can register in Dietikon. 

So that's my plan for today.

Yesterday I went for a second interview at TAZ-Horgen school. It went well and I had a good morning there. I spent the morning in the pre-kindergarten class and then a bit in the kindergarten class. Both were great but I'm thinking I'd enjoy the kindergarten kids more. So everyone please hope and pray for me that I will get the job there. I will hear from them by end of next week...

Ok, here's some more pictures from the apartment last night. I still want to put up pics Andre took of our forest walk last Sunday but he hasn't downloaded them yet..

This is the view down the street, taken from our Wintergarten.

Another view from the Wintergarten.

André checking out the fire place. Wonder where one buys wood here...

We were impressed with the cupboards!

View from the kitchen windows.