Rainy day update

Life continues apace here in Zurich! B and I sat in our darkened apartment with all our fans on this past weekend in an attempt to survive 36C highs (that's well over 90F - Europe does not believe in air conditioning). However, today the predicted high is 20C, and there is a lovely cool rain that's been falling since late last night. Given how much rain we had this past spring, I never thought I'd be this excited to hear the pitter pat of the drops on our windows.

Last Monday morning, in an attempt to organize, I created a weekly schedule for myself. One week later, I have yet to follow it exactly on any given day. Despite this failure, however, I've found that I have been satisfied with how productive I've been - I'm back into daily German vocabulary cards, I managed to write almost 7000 words on my current story, worked out regularly, prepped several awesome dinners, and actually finished the baby blanket for my grad school friend. Just in time, since her baby is almost 2 weeks old! I'm currently working on a little hat to accompany the blanket before sending it off (I'm using this pattern - so adorable!).

How cute it this!? And yes, it's small on purpose. You can admire my color coding, but if you actually read what I'm doing, that's just dorky (well - it's dorky of you, but of more concern is that it reveals what a dork I am, as well). Ok, fine - if you read it, then the point is that I put most of my 'fun' stuff (eg, baking and crafting) later in the afternoon - so if I am running behind, I don't get my fun reward. It's been surprisingly effective.

I've learned that I am about 6000x more productive with writing and editing if I am not in our apartment (especially since I am currently addicted to Murder, She Wrote, and all eight seasons are available on Netflix), so I have been frequenting a large Starbucks almost daily. I appreciate that it allows one-hour of high-speed internet access and then reduces bandwidth, but doesn't cut me off entirely (is this how the US stores work? I can't recall). Definitely smart. I focus better in coffee shops - my dissertation was largely written in ones around Boston - but it also gets me out of the house regularly (important for my sanity). Another bonus is that I get to people-watch and eavesdrop. I hear a surprising amount of English, although usually not American (or native-speaking). But I also have lots of opportunities to practice my German comprehension (and without any pressure to actually speak it).

I was quite happy with how the baby blanket turned out; I think it looks much better in person than any picture I managed to take (maybe it's time I started trying out those DSLR camera tutorials on DVD...that can be part of my 'craft time'). It's a little knobbly around some of the edge, but the border greatly helped to 'normalize' the blanket - definitely a useful trick to remember in the future. However, as much as I was satisfied with the design, I will never, ever make it again. It was the SLOWEST progress I have ever made on any crochet project (hence why I'm sending it as a post-birth gift).

The blanket, folded in fourths. It's quite a good size (exactly how big are baby blankets supposed to be, anyway?). The shell design is from this blog, but I didn't follow the number of rows or the border part of the pattern.

Also, I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of our living room since Ikea shipment #2 arrived. There are still a couple sets of shelves to be assembled, but, overall, voila! We have a living room!

Yayy, a place to lounge! It needs some throw pillows and maybe a second chair, but it's enough to host!

And it even LOOKS like a living room! A side table! Places to sit! A coffee table! A rug! Yes, in case it's not apparent, I'm excited to finally feel that we are living in our apartment, and not just squatting. We still have some lingering boxes (see the right of the above photo), but their numbers are dwindling. And a former college classmate came to stay with us last weekend (she found herself in Luzern for work), so we are officially hosting visitors, if anybody is interested (hint, hint).

This upcoming Thursday, August 1, is a national holiday in Switzerland (think 4th of July in the US or 14th of July in France - complete with the fireworks). B will be taking the Friday off as well, allowing for a long weekend. We wanted to travel somewhere, but we are officially the world's worst trip planners - we only started looking at destinations last night around 11 pm. HOWEVER - we are still hoping to snag a train to somewhere fun, and I have sworn up and down that we will buy some cheap tickets from Easy Jet for future weekend getaways. Swiss blog people - where were some of your favorite weekend trips? I'm taking suggestions!

Baking/cooking post due soon! I'm way behind on sharing what I've been up to in the kitchen.

NB: I think I may have broken my own record on asides and parenthetical comments in this post. I've used up all my 'good' writing on my story, apparently.

6 months in pictures

Today is my 6 month anniversary of arriving in Zurich! I'm busy prepping for our first visitor, working on our second Ikea delivery (the opposite experience of our first one - we went Saturday, selected express delivery, pulled the boxes from the self-service area ourselves, and they were delivered this morning), and playing catch up on my story for Camp Nanowrimo.

In contrast to my usual loquacious style, I've decided to make this post mainly pictures. Pictures that make me happy and remind me of the progress I've made in my time here. Some are new, some will look familiar if you've been following my blog. With B's support and help, I've been focusing this month on letting go of impatience and feeling that I "should" be at a certain point in - well, anything: language progress, job, settling into our new apartment, extracurricular activities, travel, etc. Instead, I acknowledge that I have made progress, and I am working to make more.

Hiking the Uetliberg during the winter.

Cupcake decorating at Workshop week at the American Women's Club.

Exploring my new home city. Especially on days like this one. No photoshopping that sky.

Finding side streets in the city.

Scoping out our new place, the day we picked up the keys.

Baking tasty treats (these are apple pie bites, made in a mini muffin tin with from-scratch crust. B and I demolished 20 of them in < 4 hours).

 

Completing DIY projects (Ikea bookshelf - it won't win any awards for detail paint work, but I love how it turned out). 

Preparing (and experimenting with) tasty, healthy meals. 

Doing (and finishing!) craft projects.

Organizing and finding places for things (I love my yarn stash!).

Gardening - especially when it results in promising little veggies like this one...

...and this one.

Unexpected gifts from friends. Especially totally awesome ones like this.

It's about the journey, not the destination, and I am focusing on reminding myself of that.

Related note - Friday is the 2 year anniversary of when B and I stopped by the town hall in Brookline, Massachusetts and made it official. He is my partner, my best friend, and I count myself lucky every day that we found each other. We are only at the beginning of our journey, and it's been more wonderful than I could've imagined!

Furniture day!

I may have mentioned previously on this blog that we have no furniture. And that I was very, very tired of having no furniture. Well, I am happy to report that I can no longer complain about this sad situation. Our Ikea order was supposed to be delivered by last Monday (which was 23 days after ordering), and we hadn't heard anything by then, so B sent several emails and placed several annoyed phone calls to see what the issue was. Apparently our order slipped through the cracks, but once B started making noise, Ikea pushed our order to the top of the priority list and it was handed over to the delivery company on Wednesday. We had been told that the delivery company usually calls about a week beforehand, so I was super excited when B called me on Thursday morning and said he had just received a call for delivery Saturday morning!

So I was definitely excited. Then I got more excited when my wonderful in-laws said they would come down and help assemble things that same day. I prepped the day before by baking snacks (all previously done: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies - with chopped crystal ginger added, nutella brownies - with sea salt added, and stuffed bacon onion rolls - with some pancetta and parmesan added to the filling). 

Some of the tasties!

The delivery went smoothly - the man called 20 minutes before, so I had time to empty out the living room in preparation. The total delivery weight was 369 kg, which means delivery was a good way to go, rather than rent a car/do it ourselves. It also meant that both B and I were a bit in awe of the one man who hauled it all up and from the elevator (he may have had a partner down at the truck, but it was still quite impressive). We also had time to head to the mall and pick up a vacuum cleaner (lonnnng overdue) before B's family arrived. We splurged and got a Dyson, which is super fancy and, thus far, has proven to be a wee too complicated for me (this is why I shouldn't own nice things).

Pre-delivery living room!

20 minutes after delivery! That's a lot of boxes...

369 kg of boxes, to be exact.

The afternoon was spent assembling a total of 16 pieces, ranging from various chairs to an enormous TV/entertainment system. We then had well-deserved rest and birthday celebration (both B's brother and father have birthdays in June) at Lola's restaurant, the only - as far as I know - Peruvian restaurant in Zurich. 

The entertainment system all set up!

Some action shots - the Dyson is hidden behind the box. So many boxes.

Desks/chairs all set up, B and his father working on a big red cabinet.

My wonderful mother-in-law organizing the stacks and stacks of cardboard. New green patio table and chairs  to the right!

Ugly Betty on a Monday morning. Half-complete bookshelf to the right - it's top of my DIY paint list, so we didn't mount it on the wall yet.

Desks and chairs! Mine is in the forefront, B's is the behemoth in the corner. He picked it out himself, it has space for four screens/monitors...

So yayyy! Now B and I both have desks, which means our dining room table is finally clear of laptop computers. As a bonus, my computer chair arrived in Dietikon, and my in-laws picked it up on their way from Basel, so I now have a comfy chair to hang out in and a space that feels like my own. 

As an additional bonus, we met our neighbors! Well, neighbor, singular. The family that I've seen around, with a young son and daughter. It was the daughter's birthday (apparently a costume party), so the children were running around on the hill, and the mother came over in the mid-afternoon with some leftover cake. She was very sweet and nice, and spoke fluent Spanish with B's family and English to me, although apparently German is her mother tongue (ahhhhh, so jealous). I sent her back with some of my brownies as a thank you, and it was wonderful to finally make contact (especially with someone outside the context of laundry).

So, basically, B's family is wonderful and awesome, Saturday was great, and I've already made a mile-long list of additional items that we now need and DIY projects that I now plan to do. We are still awaiting word on when our couch will be delivered, but the apartment is now (almost) ready for visitors!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!