How to create and print your own album with Blurb

When we left Switzerland I decided I wanted to make an album so we can remember all the experiences we had there. Both Andre and I love photos. He really enjoys taking the photos and improving his photography. I don't have the patience for that, but I enjoy the editing and everything else that comes after pressing the shutter button.

So imagine how many photos I had after 11 months in Switzerland. And also with it being such a beautiful country. You can't help taking so many photos! There's the mountains, lakes with crystal clear water... Now I'm missing all that a bit!

So anyway, I was going to tell you about Blurb.

It's very easy to use. You download their software called Booksmart. I usually watch all the tutorials I can find before starting anything new as it just helps you to use it to it's maximum and not miss out on any nice editing tools.

Import your photos to Booksmart by either dragging it there, searching for it on your computer or getting it straight from iPhoto if you use this, which is what I did and found the easiest.

Then you just drag photos onto the pages of your album and that's it basically!

You can change page layouts by clicking on 'edit page' if you cannot find the exact layout you want in the templates. I used this for most of my pages. Changing the layout slightly to get it the way I want it. This way you can add text boxes where you want in the size you want and can have a mixture of portrait and landscape layouts on one page.

When you're done, upload your album to Blurb and order it!

The only only thing I missed in Booksmart was being able to rotate picture frames. Sometimes you want a more informal look and have pictures stacked at angles to each other on the page. That you can't do with this program.


Before starting my Switzerland album I made a small album of our wedding (both of them!) and our honeymoom (again, both honeymoons!). I also added some pictures of the bachelor(ette) parties. Since we already have a beautiful big album of our January wedding day and reception taken by our photographer, this time I used pictures taken by guests at our wedding so it's a more informal fun wedding album. Oh yes, I even have some engagement photos in there as well, so it really tells the whole story!

I did this to check what Blurb's printing and colour and quality would be like. I chose the smallest and cheapest album they had, which was only around £7, as a test. Their prices are reasonable. The printing turned out very good and I am very impressed and happy with my albums. I eventually (after more than 6 months!) finished my Switzerland album too which I ordered in hardcover.

Here is the link to my book on Blurb: A Year in Switzerland. If you click on the book you should be able to view the inside pages.

So yes, I would recommend using Blurb. Good quality, good prices and user friendly! And it is possible to create an album in 30 minutes instead of the 6 months I took!

One last Swiss issue

Leaving Switzerland went very smoothly. As long as you followed the rules of course and did everything the correct way. I found out that a month before you leave you can get a "Webzugsmeldung" from your Gemeinde. This piece of paper says that you are leaving Switzerland on the date you tell them you will be leaving and it states where you are moving to, in our case England. Very simple.

Then you can send copies of this piece of paper to end all services like household and medical insurance and internet subscription, etc. You then don't have to give the usual three month notice because they will not charge you if you are no longer going to be in the country. And they even return any extra money you have paid in advance very quickly into your account. 

Cablecom (internet) and Winterthur (where we had our household insurance) quickly got back to us confirming the cancelations. Sana24, our medical insurance, didn't get back to us. Silly of us, we assumed they got our letter of cancelation and everything will be fine. We should have phoned them to confirm and I kept saying we must but we never did. Now I just noticed they have debited Andre's account for another month's subscription. Annoying! 

I have to now try and fix it from here. I don't have any of our insurance papers with me as the file is packed in a box and the website does not give an email address so I have filled out the contact sheet and hope they will reply. Luckily I still have a copy of the original letter I sent them. 

Let's hope this gets sorted out quickly and easily.

Back in England...

I have just registered with a website called mysupermarket. Here you can shop for groceries online and compare prices of different grocery stores. So that's what I'm doing now, seeing which store will be the best to shop at. Exciting stuff!

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 :-)

Zürich Kunsthaus

Some time ago Andre and I went to the Kunsthaus in Zürich. The art gallery. We went on a Wednesday because on Wednesdays you can see the main collection for free. Why pay when we are not working and able to go on a Wednesday. We only had to pay to see the special Bührle exhibition. These paintings belonged to Mr Bührle. He bought many many painting including paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and Cézanne. You might have heard about four of these painting that were stolen in February 2008, one of Europe's biggest art heists. Two were later found but the other two are still missing. 

My favourites were the three very big Monet paintings of water lilies. I saw paintings like these, I'm not sure but maybe it could have actually been these exact ones, in books when I was studying art history at school. I wish I could have taken pictures of these paintings, but you're not allowed to take any of the Bührle collection. Only in the main exhibition. So hurry and go see the Bührle collection. It only runs until the 16th May.

The main collection has some well known artists too.

As well as some weird artists who like to display blank canvasses.

The place is huge and I don't think we even saw everything there was to see. The wife got tired..

Oh and get an audio guide. It's free. And in English too!

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!

Saying good byes

André has now got a 6 months entry clearance visa to the UK. It came much sooner than we expected. They said minimum 5 working days and it took only 3! Once we're there we have to apply for the actual 5 year EEA family permit.

On Tuesday I went out for drinks with the girls I've worked with at the play school. It's sad to have to say good bye to all of them. I had such a great time working with them all. I got this cute cute card which they helped the kids make for me.

They drew around the kids' hands and then the kids stuck bits on to decorate it.

Very special. I have already packed it in a box to take with to the UK.

And flower seeds! Pink ones! I love that it's called 'Cupid Pink'. I'm looking forward to starting a bit of a garden once we're settled in our new home. (And this card makes me look forward to spring!) I will miss these little ones.

Then yesterday was the first week back after the holiday for my English class. The new teacher took over yesterday and I was there to introduce everyone and help the kids get to know their new teacher. We did some fun songs together which we all love doing. Not only them. I love doing really funny silly action songs! But after that I had to leave... The new teacher showed me all the lovely and exciting things she had planned for them for the lesson. I just wanted to stay. And join in and watch them. But I had to go. I had to allow her to now teach them. It was quite sad to have to get onto the train and come home while they were all still there having fun. I knew they were having fun so that was one good thing!

A sweet sweet boy gave me these flowers.

Aren't they just beautiful? So colourful! And each one different.

I love this pink one.

And this big white one.

While I now have colourful flowers in my kitchen, this is what it looks like upstairs. Very much the same as it looked a year ago before leaving South Africa! The removal company should be here on the 16th to pick up our things and then we're planning to fly to the UK very soon after that. Can't wait!

Last working day in Switzerland

Yesterday I had my last day at the playschool where I've been working. I will miss the cute little kiddies and also my colleagues. I really enjoyed working there. How many people can say they can go to work in jeans and pink fluffy slippers every day?

For now I am enjoying a little bit of holiday. We're spending a long weekend in Germany. For the first time we managed to leave early and I was excited to arrive in Germany in day light. But that did not happen... Just over an hour into our journey, right by the Austrian border, I suddenly realised with a shock that I left my passport and Euros at home!! Stupid stupid stupid. We turned around. Drove all the way back home. Got my passport and then tried again. It made our trip an extra 2 1/2 hours longer. Ergh. But we're here now and enjoying it :-) They now probably won't ask to see our passports, but had we not gone back to fetch it they probably would have!

Sushi

A while ago André had a work function and they got to go on a sushi course at this restaurant, Ishi, in Zürich. Even though we've made sushi many times at home, he came back with lots of interesting facts about sushi and tips on making different kinds. Click here to see us making sushi for new years eve in Germany.

Here the guys are on the course at Ishi.

And Andre even thought of his wife at home and brought me left over sushi which he made himself!

Andre's favourite is salmon roses, but we haven't seen it on any sushi menus here. It's a bit of rice, wrapped in salmon with mayo and caviar on top. So the sushi chef at Ishi said he would make Andre salmon roses. This is the chef:

A few weekends ago Andre took me to this restaurant. We started with... guess... cocktails! And of course I had a pina colada! What else!

Ok after that we went on to the sushi. We started with a surprise platter, which consisted of a mix of about four different kinds of sushi. Then Andre went and asked the chef if he could make those salmon roses he promised. He asked if we would like small or large salmon roses. And of course Andre said LARGE! Maybe if I were with him when he spoke to the chef I could have said small, but I didn't know there was this choice...

Well. They were huge. Eight of them. There was no way you could get the whole piece in your mouth in one go. It was more like a three bite piece of sushi! But is was good, just very rich. I can recommend the sushi at Ishi. Just ask for small salmon roses!

Valentine's dinner

Last weekend we went for a Valentine's dinner with friends. Andre and I spend all our time together so we didn't feel the need to have a romantic dinner, just the two of us. We do that every night at home. (He even lights candles! Lucky me :-)

A friend recommended the White Elephant to us. A Thai restaurant in the Marriott Hotel in Zürich. Before dinner we had cocktails at the hotel bar. A good bar with good cocktails. I liked the decor - leather couches etc. We could start rating cocktails with the amount we've been drinking since coming to Switzerland. Now I don't mean we've been drinking a lot. Actually we're not used to having much alcohol anymore since we don't have many friends to party with here! But when the guys drink beer, it's either wine for me or something nice like a cocktail. Pina Colada is my favourite by far so I've been comparing pina coladas all over Zurich!

The restaurant was lovely. We ordered a mixture of starters to share which was just amazing. Spicy papaya salad, spicy beef salad, spring rolls, fish cakes and prawns wrapped and fried with potato noodles. Absolutely divine. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures at the table. I really wanted to. It was hard not to. But I thought I should control myself for a change and not take so many pictures of everything. Just enjoy it. And we had friends. They might think I'm weird. I don't want that!

After that great starter we expected more of the same kind of food. The curries were good, because we like any curry, but it was not spectacular like the starter. And I was particularly sad when I ordered duck and got chicken... You know how I am. When I see duck on a menu I don't have to read any further. I didn't want to send it back and have to wait so I ate the chicken.

I decided to have dessert to make up for missing out on the duck. I had a scoop of green tea ice cream and a scoop vanilla. And it came with some traditional Thai ice cream toppings in separate bowls: sticky rice and two sweet fruity things. I think one was orange pieces in a syrup.

Next time I will order the starter for two as my main course!

Flammeküche

I've heard about Flammeküche and thought I can't leave Switzerland without trying this. So on Wednesday Andre met me for lunch in Zürich and we went to Café Balthazar where we've seen this on the menu before.

Translated it literally means "flaming kitchen". It's a specialty of the Alsace region in France. I have also heard it being called Flammkuchen.

It's like a pizza, but with a very thin base, crispy around the edges. Then instead of a tomato base it has crème fraiche. I had the classic one with onions and bacon bits. It was perfect. André had his with chorizo and olives.

Maybe some day I will try to make it myself. I've already found a recipe here.

On a couple of previous visits to Café Balthazar, this is what we had:

Apfelstrudel with Vanillasoße (thin custard) and hot chocolate!

What I've been doing with my mornings

I've been teaching at a playschool most mornings, working with children 18 months - 4 years old. Quite different from what I was used to- teaching grade one (age 6-7 year old children), but I've really enjoyed it. Above is the older group during circle time practicing numbers. You're wondering where the circle is? We're working on that too!

We do crafts every day and celebrate all the English and American holidays. These turkeys were for Thanksgiving. (It is an English playschool.) 

The entrance hall with a picture of each child on the wall. 

Toy room. 

Soft play room. (The kids' favourite!!)

Library

And the outside play area, mostly for summer time. As you can see it is now covered with snow...

Lost seagulls?

Andre and I both grew up by the beach. We were used to seeing seagulls all around us back in Melkbosstrand. Seagulls live by the sea. That's why they're called seagulls. Right?

We have seagulls here in Switzerland too though. 

It's bit confusing since we're not close to the sea anymore. Are these birds confused too? What do they think they're doing here? Especially now that's it's winter they look really out of place here. More like snowgulls than seagulls I think.

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.

My Tuesday and Wednesday classes

Yesterday I told you about my Thursday class. Today I'll tell you about my other two afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I'm looking for someone to take over these two classes from me, so if you're interested please let me know. It would of course help if you're a primary school teacher, but if not and you think you'd like to do this and like working with kids, let me know asap. I'll send you more details.

So on these two days I teach at Kidee, a learning centre for children. They offer all kinds of classes here and this is also where I did the Jungle book and Water theme summer camps. I teach English first language kids. So they speak mostly English at home, but attend a local school where they learn/ speak German. Their parents want them to still be able to read and write in their home language and so I teach them that.

I have two hours on a Tuesday, but at the moment I have only filled one hour. In this hour I have two 8 year old children. They are fairly fluent readers and able to write and spell quite well already. I give them reading exercises on topics they have chosen, comprehension tests, creative writing, spelling tests and we play word games. Lovely kids, hard working and eager to learn.

On a Wednesday I have a group of six children age 5-7. So they're between first year kindergarten and first year at school. We have now just finished learning all the sounds of the alphabet and next they'll start on double sounds like wh-, sh- etc. They have a book in which at first I gave them printed sentences with high frequency words to which they then drew pictures. Now they are able to write their own sentences and draw a picture with each sentence to remind them what it says. From not being able to read and spell 6 months ago they are now able to read and spell short words like cat, bed, and even longer ones like cave and love. These they know because we learnt that v cannot stand on it's own at the end of words. You see the letter v is Vicky Violet's vase and if it doesn't have an e after it at the end of words it will fall over and spill all the water and flowers. So always remember to put an e to make sure your vase won't fall over at the end of a word!

I love these kiddies, they are all really great children, well behaved, polite and so eager and excited to learn more. I will miss them when we have to leave.

My Thursday Class

I just got home from my "Thursday Class". And before I tell you about that I must just say that I noticed it was not completely dark yet when I left at 6pm. It did help that there weren't any clouds. It was a beautifully sunny day today. But I'm sure winter is slowly moving along south. Yippee! I can't wait for the longer days!

So I've been meaning for a long time to tell you what I do when I'm not at home writing blogs. And today I'll tell you about my Thursdays since thats what it is today. On Thursday afternoons I teach English to a small group of Swiss children. They're learning English as a second language and they've been in this class for two or three years now. They're six years old. And although most of them can't yet really have a conversation with me in English, they're doing really well and learning a lot of vocabulary. 

The picture above was taken in June. We did a lesson on kitchen vocab- table, knife, fork, etc so I brought sweets and we had a little picnic. A few of the kids have moved away after the summer when they started their first year in school. I now only have four kids in the class but tonight two was absent. It was so much calmer! They are real little busy bodies. And chatterboxes. My most difficult customer in the group was such an angel tonight and I guess that is why I now felt like writing about this class. It feels so good when a really difficult child is being so good for a change and participating. Hopefully it will be like that next week too when I have my last lesson with them.

Now another story about teaching here: We rent a classroom at an old age home. They like seeing the kiddies around. Tonight when I walked in, the door to the classroom was closed and a "Besetz" (occupied) sign was on the door. I knew what this meant. I've seen that sign a couple of weeks before. So I open the door, knock, say hello, say hello again, and again as I'm walking closer and right up to the old lady sitting at a table. She sees me, gets up, shakes my hand, asks me how I am etc all in Swiss German so I can't tell you exactly what she said. I ask her if she has a course on here tonight? There are two mattresses rolled out on the ground and some towels on the table. She says, what? I can't hear you. I repeat myself and she still can't hear me. I see her hearing aid lying on the table and it takes her another moment to realise that too. Because, I continue then, I have kids for an English lesson here from 5-6. No no she says, impossible, she has been here for years at this time for her class. Right, I think, you weren't here last week. And I know from a previous experience that you have got the days muddled up. (I don't say this to her.) I say instead: On a Thursday?  Yes, yes, for years, she says. On a Thursday from 5-6? Every Thursday, I ask. Hang on, she says and checks her diary lying open on the table. I look over her shoulder and see stuff written in at Fridays date. Nothing for Thursday. Oh dear, she says, it's Thursday today? I had the days mixed up. And she packs her things and leaves.

Now if I didn't have a class there on a Thursday, it would have been the second time she would have sat there waiting for her people. She teaches a breathing class she told me the previous time.

Good thing I showed up to tell her it's not quite Friday yet. But she made me speak an awful lot of poor German to make her understand that.

We're leaving Switzerland

Yes that's right, we're moving to the UK at the end of March. We'll be sad to leave some things behind in Switzerland, like new friends we've made and the snow, but we're excited to see many of our old friends who now live in the UK and to be able to speak English to everybody!! That is so exciting! I will be able to understand  people in the grocery store and the post office. Yay!

Andre will finish work next Friday. He still has some leave due which they're not paying out so he has to take the leave. I will be working until the end of March. I am still looking for someone to take over my two afternoon English lessons, so if any of the Swiss readers here know of a teacher who might be interested let me know!

It sounds as thought our apartment is also sorted out for renting. That went really well and really quickly. Much better than I thought. Apparently the couple is coming to sign the contract this evening and once it's signed we can tick that off the list. They're also interested in buying our furniture so then we might end up taking only what we came here with. Then I get to go shopping all over again :-) And Andre will get to build furniture all over again!

We'll be staying with some very kind friends when we get there, then hopefully we'll find a place of our own soon. (Thank you kind friends!) That makes it a lot easier than trying to find an apartment from way over here. I have NO idea which are nice areas over there. I'm actually looking forward to house hunting and starting all over again.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is going for interviews again... I'll miss my work here. I had some great kids in my English classes and I'll miss the little ones at the play school too.

So let me go and check my list to see what else needs to be done!

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.