T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
2006 stands out to me for a lot of reasons: my first full year of unemployment, our first whole year living in Switzerland, my first calendar year without stepping foot inside my home country (in 7 years of expat life, I’ve almost always gone home once or twice a year before this), my first year … Read more
The Big Finn, Sara and I have organized a blogger meet-up in Basel for January 14th. Bloggers in and around Switzerland are welcome to join us and bring spouses, family, friends, etc. More details can be found in this post on TBF’s BB. If you’re interested in coming, let us know (by, say, leaving a … Read more
Today we dug our skates out of the closet and went ice skating at Oerlikon, one of Zurich’s three public outdoor rinks. It wasn’t quite as picturesque as skating on a frozen lake (as we were able to do last year in Pfäffikon), but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At least it felt like winter.I … Read more
As I’ve mentioned before, I am a winter person. Every year I patiently wait out summer, reminding myself that the weather isn’t going to always be so sucky and warm. My reward is especially worth it now that we live in Switzerland, where winter is so gosh darn glorious: pointy snow-capped Alps, outdoor ice skating … Read more
What do you think they are trying to communicate to us, the consumers, with this particular packaging design? In my next life, I want to be a graphic designer in Japan. But really I made this post to let you know that I’ve finally uploaded a bunch of photos from our trip.
I’m proud to announce that I am an official winner of NaNoWriMo 2006. That means that I wrote a 50,000 word novel entirely within the month of November. As a prize, I got this nifty ‘winner’ graphic, so of course I had to make a blog post to show it off. Before this experience, I … Read more
Today fellow blogger Jill and I headed to Bern for the Bern Onion Market (or Zibelemärit in the ridiculous local language). This is a festival that happens once a year in the Swiss capital to celebrate onions and the silly things you can do with them. From what we saw, little old ladies and men … Read more
I’ve spent at least a half-dozen Thanksgivings outside of the US, most of which have been celebrated in one form or another in the company of other expats. There’s usually a scramble to find cranberries, or canned pumpkin, or even sweet potatoes, depending on what country we’re in. Whole turkeys are also not always easy … Read more
In the great Milan v. Zurich smackdown, Milan has a lot of important victories in its corner: food, architecture, food, gelato, food, Sunday shopping, food, reasonably-priced wine and water, food… But, Zurich does take a few points hands-down, namely: cleanliness, efficiency of public transportation, and bodies of water. I offer you exhibits A and B, … Read more