This whole process started back in October and we're finally here. It always felt like it was so far away but now we're here and I have to be an adult now. I have to find a job. I need to start saving money instead of completely draining my bank account every few months. This will be good, I'll experience real life as a normal expat and not just some fantasy life. Who knows how long we'll stay here but its time to have a normal life. I actually don't want to go on anymore big trips for a while. Its exhausting. Not to mention the world is getting scarier every day. I just want to explore the region around us and relax. We're buying this pass that gives you unlimited access to all forms of transportation everywhere in Switzerland. We can take it to the borders and then explore Germany, Austria and Italy too.
We went looking for apartments in June, we have an agency helping us, the system here is different than in the US. Its also very difficult to find something, it seems there are more people looking than there are available apartments. When you like an apartment you submit your application/file for it. The owner gets several applications for each apt so you just have to wait and see if they will choose you or not. So far we haven't been chosen for any of the apts we've applied for. So we are in an apart-hotel for anywhere between 1 and 6 weeks until we find something. Its a studio with the basic necessities. Our belongings are packed away in storage somewhere. Since this is a corporate move, a moving company came and packed everything away for us. But its hard to get into the groove of living here if we're still living out of suitcases.
Switzerland, as you may know, is extremely expensive. We will be paying close to triple for an apartment that will be smaller than what we had in France. Groceries are close to double the price. So Adam went to the big grocery store before we left and bought mass quantities of any non-perishable item he could think of. I don't think we'll need cleaning products, toothpaste, pasta or mustard for 2 years.
We won't be eating out much in Switzerland, we did once last month when we were apartment hunting. We went to a mid-priced restaurant and ordered middle-priced items on the menu, and got dessert, and it was $108. You have to pay for water, and the 750ml bottle we got cost $8. We also plan to become semi-vegetarians because the cost of meat here is ridiculous. Chicken is like $35/lb ($17/kilo) even at Aldi.
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The Euro Football tournament was in France for all of June and July so every time France played people would riot. Cars honked their horns incessantly for a good 2 hours. It was obnoxious. Our friend lives at the main rioting intersection and he said it would get violent, they even attacked the cops. For the last few playoff games this happened. Then the final, France vs Portugal, Portugal won, we expected craziness, but it surprisingly didn't happen, the police patrolled well enough to prevent it that night.
I don't know what it is about rioting and protesting but given any opportunity, I've noticed, the French will do it, and it usually turns violent. You should have seen them in May and June protesting this new labor law. I disagree with it too, but this is France so they marched the streets regularly, always new graffiti in their wake, the tram lines would shut down, they'd gather at the parks. French people I know always told me to stay away if I ever saw them gathered to protest because by the end, when the civilized people have gone home, there are usually people who get crazy, break windows, stuff like that. It got so bad that truck drivers blocked entrances to gas stations and oil refineries across France and eventually a good part of France didn't have gas. Some guys near Paris set a police car on fire with cops still in it. The trains striked, so did the the Air France pilots and the air traffic controllers. It was crazy.
Our last week in France was busy. I had some sort of virus and one of those days I could barely get off the couch with a fever and body aches. I packed our clothes and organized what we would need for the temporary housing. I tried to get a reservation at our favorite restaurants, one of them I called and they guy said he had closed the restaurant down for a few weeks because it didn't have air conditioning and it was too hot inside. So we went to our other favorite, where we order an iron spiked stick, with chunks of duck meat on the spikes, that is set on fire, and hangs over a pot of fries and the juices just drip into the fries. Its amazing. We said goodbyes to all our friends, who we will really miss.
So far Lausanne is very nice. We've just been walking around and learning the streets. Its on Lake Geneva (Lac Leman) and its extremely hilly. Navigating is difficult because you look on the map and you need to turn right but the street you need is 200 feet below you and you have to figure out how to get down there, its a good workout.
Its much prettier than Grenoble. Grenoble is surrounded by mountains which is beautiful and great for outdoor people like us, and honestly we will miss the close proximity to them, I'm not sure there's anywhere else where you can literally live right in the mountains while still living at sea level and having normal weather. But as a city Grenoble was not the nicest. The buildings were pretty dirty and ugly and not usually the classic french style. And nobody picked up their dog poop. Which is just gross. Here in Lausanne the buildings are classic small town french/swiss architecture and its very clean and even ritzy in spots. And it feels like more of a major city, even though its just as small as Grenoble. Its the smallest city in the world to have a Metro. They get tourists. And there's even a few Starbucks.
About 30-40% of the people living in Lausanne are expats. I think that goes for most of Switzerland. Just walking through the park or the store you hear a variety of languages. This is a huge plus because we've heard the Swiss are hard to make friends with. 99% of our friends in France were not French so hopefully we'll find other expat friends here easily too.
I think we're going to like it here.
