Lost the Day

Blog

We made it back on schedule which essentially means we lost a day. Leave on Saturday afternoon, sit in the strange world of airplane time for a while, make your way to the apartment, and immediately go to sleep on a Sunday night. Flying in on a rainy Sunday night then having to ride on trains and trams with a ton of luggage isn’t the best way to be introduced to a new city. This is the second time now we have brought visitors into Zurich under non-ideal conditions. The first was when Chizzy’s coworker came in on May Day to see deserted streets and boarded up windows. Now the folks come in on a rainy day of the week that is usually dead to begin with.

I’m not truly complaining. We are going to get to see some great stuff and a bit of rain isn’t going to slow us down. Everybody is now sleeping and I am barely able to keep my eyes open while waiting for a load of laundry to finish drying. Tolsty really couldn’t have cared less to see us (doesn’t that make more sense than saying “could have cared less”?).

It's Been Real

News

We’re heading back to Zurich on Saturday. There are still a couple events left on the calendar before we leave, but we haven’t found much time to actually post on the site so I thought it was a good time for a quick recap. It has been great to be home and see the sights. Witnessed the M’s win one in Safeco, saw Coldplay in Auburn, won money at the Drift On Inn, went to a wedding, went to an engagement party, Chiz got a cavity filled, saw a couple movies, ate at Taco Del Mar three times, sat for well over 4 hours in traffic, did a product release at work, had respective guys/girls nights out, had dim sum, got new clothes, sat around a campfire in 80 degree weather in a driveway, paid $40 for a tank of gas, and (most importantly) saw a lot of friends and family. A special thanks to Nick and Shelby who let us take over their bedroom while we were here and share in the benefits of apartment living where no doors are ever locked. It was reassuring how we were able to fall right back into the routine from the moment we got here and I think that is why we will always consider the Seattle area our home.

It will be good to get back to Switzerland though too. We really do like it there and there is still so much to see and do during the next couple years. My folks are heading back with us on Saturday for their first European visit and we are going to hit Paris, Rome, Vienna, and a bunch of Switzerland while they are there. Stories and pictures to follow. And it sounds like several others are starting to plan visits as well. We are really looking forward to those too.

And I still plan on posting more often when we get back and get settled. Stay tuned.

Happy to see you

Blog

It turned out to be dumb timing to state I was moving to more of a blog format only to disappear for a week. Actually, I haven’t disappeared as much as we have A-peered. It’s been great being back in Washington and seeing people. Of course, nothing has changed at all and that is just the way we like it. We really love it here and there is still no question we will return here when our ex-pat adventures are over. I guess we never really made it common knowledge that the initial 2 year commitment somehow got changed to 3 years during one of the contract revisions. We are already 8 months in though and time is screaming by.

Except for the super-fun weekend in Port Townsend for the wedding this has been more of a working vacation than anything else. Never really got bad jet lag in the sense of being completely out of sorts but we haven’t actually been very awake either. In bed by 10 almost every night is not exactly what we had in mind, but when somebody makes you get up at 5:30 in the morning I don’t feel like I have a lot of choice. We still hope to make everybody sick and tired of us before leaving though. Going to have to step it up a bit over the next week.

The Office

Me, Keith, and Gareth