T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
Of course we did more than visit Christmas markets in Berlin in our four days there. Not that we can remember much after all that Glühwein… kidding, kidding. I remember a lot of stuff. Well, some. To start off our second Berlin trip of the year, we first went to the ever-fascinating Checkpoint Charlie museum. … Read more
From Berlin, we took a train down to Dresden for a day in the deep east. Dresden is a beautiful city even when it’s not decked out in its Christmas finery, and it drew us in with its promise of the Oldest Christmas Market in Europe, which is in its 572nd year. That’s a lot … Read more
The last couple days of Glühwein tourism brought us back to Germany – specifically, Berlin and Dresden. I’m pleased to report we had great success in both cities, which offered up a variety of hot, seasonal beverages in a variety of Christmas markets. First we headed to the ‘nostalgia market’ at Gendarmenmarkt, a relatively new … Read more
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
OK, so I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of traffic from people searching the web for how to say things such as “Merry Christmas” in Swiss German. I thought I’d help you out by posting this little nugget of information, but then I realized that I didn’t know the answer. So I had … Read more
We spent the weekend Christmas-market-hopping around our little corner of Europe. On Friday I introduced fellow blogger Ali and my mother-in-law to that most delicious of Christmas treats, Glühwein (hot spiced wine, for those who haven’t been following along). This took place in the courtyard of the Landesmuseum, a large castle right next to the … Read more
We went to a second Swiss Christmas party last week, thrown by my husband’s company. The owner of this company loves to force his employees to endure spring surprises on his employees, even though the Swiss ones (ie, everyone except my husband) seem to not be too fond of being surprised. I, on the other … 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