Swiss Bank Account - 04.26.07

We now officially have a Swiss Bank account! After all the media they get in action/spy movies, I never expected to have my very own Swiss bank account. We have a device that we enter our pin into and then it generates a number with which we log into our online account. It changes every time, so I guess there is something to all you hear about secure how secure they are over here.

I’ve also been getting mail! Thanks to everyone who has written. However, I discovered today that you have to go to the post office to mail anything (it isn’t like the states where you put the flag up on your box), so I’ve been doing that. Fortunately the post office (or La Poste) is only a 5 minute walk from our home.

The cats are doing great. They dispose of every poor bug that manages to get inside which is quite a few since we have no screens and no AC. Maggie goes berserk and you can hear her climbing the walls to get the fly she’s spotted.

Weekend Adventures - 04.23.07

What a weekend we had! Friday our housemates invited us to hang out with them at a local joint, so we went with them and spent 3 hours just hanging out and talking. They speak very good English, so communication wasn’t a problem. It was a lot of fun to get to know them a little better. Saturday we ventured to Ikea. It wasn’t all that exciting since all the furniture we have seen over here looks like Ikea, but the prices are a bit better than some of the stuff we have in town. We didn’t get anything, though. It’s hard to decide what we really need with an empty house. Sunday we ventured to a Swiss church that we had heard about through a contact at our church back in Atlanta. It’s an evangelical-free church in Düdingen which is about 10 mintues away on the German side. Everyone was very welcoming and spoke to us in English (which is good because our French is very limited and our German non-existant!) and even had someone translate the service for us. We were also privileged to enjoy the special music they had that week featuring the Alpenhorn! (Like from the Ricola commercials) I really felt as though I were in Switzerland then. After church we were invited to an English speaking Bible study in downtown Fribourg as well as to a family’s house for lunch. There were 5 of us (Tom and myself as well as one of Tom’s coworkers and his family) and we went to a Swiss family’s house for lunch! We were introduced to the Swiss Sunday culture as lunch took four hours. However, hardly anything is open on Sunday and you aren’t supposed to do any work (laundry, yard work, house cleaning, etc) so we were all free to take as much time as we liked. It was exciting to meet some Christians that are close to us and so willing to take care of us. The body of Christ is an amazing and wonderful thing! Since we would really like to attend a French speaking church, since that is our language of choice, they gave us some information on French speaking churches in the area. We plan to check them out, but if they don’t work out, I believe we have found a place we could call home. Even if it means learning some Swiss German!

After our eventful morning, we decided that there we still time in the day for the 5 of us to take a drive up into the mountains. So we took the little 5 seater pugeot through the Jung pass and saw some beautiful sights. One thing about Switzerland is that just about everywhere you go is simply breathtaking. We stopped at a creek to let two and a half year old Kacey get out and play. She really enjoyed it even though the water was pretty cold. After that we stopped in Thun for dinner and had some very good traditional Swiss food. We were beat when we got home but it was worth it. We want to take advantage of the time we have here!

The Burgess Family - Dave, Lu and little Kacey by the stream.

Official Residents - 04.17.07

We’re starting to settle in. Our mailbox now has our name on it – so we are official residents of Switzerland and can receive mail here! We also had our first dinner party last night. One of the other couples flew in yesterday, so we made a spaghetti dinner for them and the other guy who is over here from Tom’s work. It was slightly ghetto but fun. Dave, Lu, and their 2-year-old pulled the coffee table up to the table and used it for a bench and since we only have 4 place settings, the dish situation was a little haphazard.

It’s nice to be in this with some other people. Lu and I went grocery shopping together this morning and plan to go to the Swiss second-hand store sometime soon. It’s a good thing she can drive a stick-shift because I’m not good enough to be let loose in Fribourg yet, so she’s the designated driver. I’m hoping to get some practice in the weekend on our rental car.

Sleeping In - 04.15.07

We meant to visit a church this morning, but with the time change we slept through our alarm. Next week! We did take a short venture out to Romont (about 35km away). It’s a pretty little town on a rather large hill. We went on a walking tour of an old castle, church and ramparts. The castle had a vantage point with a 180 degree view of the mountains. It also has a stained glass museum and workshop which we hope to go back and visit. It’s amazing to think how long those structures have been there – some since the 1200s. We forgot the camera, so no pictures…

Day 2 in Switzerland - 04.14.07

We survived our trip over as well as our first day here! Things went pretty smoothly. We got to the Atlanta airport in plenty of time (this time) and got ourselves and the cats checked in and through security. We discovered that lots of people talk to you when you are carrying animals through the airport. I have never talked to that many strangers at the airport – ever. It was kinda fun though; we learned about everyone else’s cats and heard all about the pet food recall.

The plane trip was uneventful. We could tell that the cats weren’t very excited, but they didn’t really have a choice. Velcro managed to wiggle his way out of his carrier at one point and jumped up into my lap. Fortunately he just wanted to cuddle and not escape so we didn’t lose him. Once in Zürich we hauled our 300 lbs of luggage onto a train, into a cab, into a rental car and then, finally, into our new apartment!

Once here we crashed for a few hours and the cats explored – they seem to like it. We like it too, although things are a little sparse at the moment. Over here you bring your own light fixtures, so we have light in the bathroom, a single bulb hanging from a wire in the dining room and a few lights in the kitchen. There is also no carpet, and since we don’t have anything here yet, the whole place echoes. We have just what was rented for us: a bed, table & 3 chairs, dishes, loveseat and coffee table. It’s interesting, though, to see on how little you can survive.

Here's a picture of our new home. We're the next level down from the top floor.

A Sea of Boxes - 04.05.07

The movers came Tuesday and spent all day packing up our apartment, so we were living in box land for a night. We had so much stuff crammed into the kitchen that it took one guy 4 hours to pack everything in it. The next day it took three men 4.5 hours to get everything out of our place and into the truck. It was strange to see all of our Earthly possessions driven off by complete strangers. We should see it all again in 6-8 weeks. We’re now living out of suitcases at Tom’s parent’s house in Kennesaw until our flight on April 11^th.

Updates Coming

I know you all are looking for updates and they will come as soon as I can get extended access to a computer. I've been blogging in a word file and will upload them all soon. Thanks for taking interest in our adventures!