O Christmas Tree

Last time we lived in Switzerland, we only had a small, artificial tree used every year that we affectionally called the "Charlie Brown Christmas tree".  This year, we decided we wanted to get our apartment more in the Christmas spirit, but had questions about how to dispose of old trees when the holiday is over, and were not even necessarily sure where to buy a tree.

During these discussions, I happened to see a post on an Expat Facebook group about a company that ships potted Christmas trees to you to be used during the holiday.  When the holiday is over, they will pick up the tree and will actually replant it for future Christmases.  We thought this sounded like the perfect solution for us!

The company is called EcoSapin and we were able to pick a size of tree and our delivery date.  It arrived - by Post - on December 1st, looking incredibly like a body bag.

I had picked the biggest one available...which is just my height about 5' 8" tall.  Our cat, Monkey, is in the picture to provide scale.  I untied the bag and got the tree out and in place.  No annoying tree stands to contend with!  

Ironically after I had ordered the tree, we found out that many of our local stores sell trees starting around the first week of December.   And the trees seem to be about the same size of our potted tree.  I'm still not sure how disposal works for those trees after the season.

Here's the tree right after I unwrapped it from it's body bag.  And then after it was decorated!

Our New Neighbors

Having lived in Zürich city during our last time in Switzerland, we didn't get all the character involved with living in a town outside of the city.  The thing that has impressed all of us this time while living in Wädenswil is that there are random outcroppings of animals in amongst the houses.  Not just the occasional outdoor pet cat...but goats, sheep, and cows.

I went swimming at our local indoor pool the other day and took this picture - this is directly across from our pool. GOATS!  And there are sheep too, but they were hiding when I took this picture.

One of our bus stops had about 10 sheep across from it for about a month.  Then one day they were gone.  I can only assume they were being used to tend to the grass (by keeping the grass short) between two apartment buildings.

The other day on our way to a different bus stop, Brady and I heard bells by a house in our immediate neighborhood.  I didn't see what had the bells until on my way home.

More goats.  New goats!  These are tending to the grass yard behind someone's house.  It's so crazy!  But I love hearing the bells and saying hi to these little guys on our way to the store or bus stop!  I'm not sure how long they'll be there.  :)

More Cat-astrophes

As many of you know, our cat, Monkey made a second trip with us to Switzerland.  Last time in Zürich we lived in a ground-floor apartment, and we had to deal with Monkey escapes all of the time.  First of all, Monkey has only been an indoor cat.  Secondly, windows here don't have screens...and with no air conditioning, we needed to open our windows to cool the apartment.  This potentially allowed for a cat escape.  We documented this whole issue last time on the blog - check it out here!

This time around, we don't live in a ground-floor apartment, but we do have lovely balconies on both sides of the apartment.  They are all at least 3 stories high, so we are pretty sure that Monkey wouldn't be stupid enough to jump up on the ledge.  He has figured out how to exploit the one flaw of the balcony design - which allowed him to jump up on the one section of ledge that borders our neighbors balcony (that is definitely at least 2-3 cats wide).  They have a large palm tree that Monkey was very interested in checking out.  (He loves plants and drinking water from unlikely sources (i.e. the base at the bottom of the plant.)  One morning after searching for about 30 minutes, we noticed that Monkey was on our neighbor's deck and got him back from them.  (They seemed amused by the whole situation and didn't realize that we had been worried!)

So, in order to keep him from jumping in this corner, we, too, have put a large plant in that corner.  We started with a hanging mum - but Monkey had still been creeping into the corner and giving the balcony edge daring looks.

This meant in order to have our windows open (letting air in), I would have to keep my eye on him constantly.  (Well, I feel this way...Bill says I should just let him do what he will and that if he can figure out how to get over, he'll figure out how to get back.)

Today, we bought a larger, wider plant.  Now, unless he wants to get entangled in the plant, he won't be able to jump into the abutting section of balcony ledge.  (Our plant below is the shorter of the 2 - with a pink flower at the very top.)

Needless to say, the cat has made life in Switzerland exciting once again!

Jam & the Honor System

All over our area there are many instances of the "honor system" at work.  For example, there are flower patches that are "pick your own" where you cut your own flowers and pay by placing cash in a can stationed by the flower field.  There are produce/flower stands where you buy cut flower arrangements and produce and place your money in a can at the booth.  In our neighborhood, daily we walk past a little stand on the exterior wall of a home, where homemade jams and syrups (for adding to seltzer water, etc.) are sold  I had been intrigued as we walked by many times, but was not tempted to buy until they offered homemade plum preserves.  One of my favorites.  So, we made our purchases (plum and also a jar of strawberry preserves) and put the money in the piggy bank.  I love that they even have a little visitor book.  And the preserves are totally delicious too!  We will certainly be repeat customers.  I love that the fruit they are using to make these products are all grown in Wädenswil - where we live!

A picture of their advertisement  - along with their family cat.  The gate is not always open for sales.

The sign says "open".  You can see the piggy bank on the left.  The guest book is hanging on the right side of the wooden crate.

My jar of plum preserves!

The First Day of School

Although Brady had an orientation yesterday, today marked his first official day at Zürich International School (ZIS) - and his first day of 4th grade!  While he claimed to have no nerves, Mommy on the other hand had quite a few and even had a bout of insomnia last night.

While we live in the town with Brady's school, it is up a big hill and is over 2 miles away.  I still don't have a car yet, and I'm not planning to drive Bill's large vehicle while living over here.  I do have a GA card (General Abonnement -will blog about this later) and Brady has a Junior Card - which makes our use of public transportation free (after paying for the cards...ha ha!).  So, we walked up to the Rötiboden bus stop which is very close to us and took the bus for about 5 stops to his school.

We had some concerns yesterday when we saw a sign like this at the bus stop:

Never like seeing the red signs on public transport!

The "Ersatzhaltestelle" - substitute bus stop

I was able to figure out that the bus stop was being relocated temporarily due to construction.  After getting through this hurdle and finding the temporary stop - we were good to go.  It was a smooth drop off - and if the cars/traffic are any indication, I'm not sure I'll want to drive Brady to school.  It was crazy and hectic.  We'll see how things progress as the school year gets underway.  Maybe my mind will change once I get my car.

"Mom!  Stop taking pictures of me!" Eye roll

Getting on the public transportation bus to school

We have a Swiss 5th grader at our bus stop who also attends ZIS.  After her Dad showed her the ropes yesterday, she was on her own for public transportation today.  While I love the safety that Switzerland provides and the responsibility the kids have for getting to school - I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to let Brady do the bus on his own.  For now, I will be accompanying him to/from school each day.

The other strange thing about the first day of school was that Brady didn't have to take in any school supplies...everything is provided by the school.  I actually missed this rite of passage and felt strange not providing Brady even a pen/pencil to take with him.

It also sounds like he will not have homework (at least in the conventional sense).  I'm not sure what exactly this means - esp with projects, etc.  More on this as we head into the school year.

Overall, it was a great start to the school year and we are all excited about Brady's new school!

Strandbad Wädenswil

Today Brady and I ventured over to the Wädenswil Strandbad.  A Strandbad is a piece of land right along the lake that is meant for swimming in the lake.  There are many of these along Lake Zürich - some that just have a lake swimming area and some that have a standard swimming pool alongside the lake swimming.  Lake Zurich is notoriously clean and you can always see people swimming on nice days.

Given Brady's age last time we were in Switzerland, we had tried several swimming pools, but had never tried swimming in the lake.  So, this was a first for both of us.

This particular Badi was 3 Francs for adult entrance - while children under 14 could enter free.  The Strandbads generally post the water temperature at the entrance.   Today's water temperature was 25 degrees C...about 80 degrees F.

This Strandbad has a piece of grassy area where you can set up your towels/blankets.  We found a spot under a tree for a little shade.  The lake area had a cordoned off section in the shallows for little kids to play.  There was a shaded sand box area as well. (see in the photo below)

There were two platforms out in the middle of the water - as you can see in the above photo.  The left most was a pontoon type float perfect for laying out.  I, in particular, liked that platform the most.  The second platform that you can see on the right, had a diving board and a high dive section as well.

It was truly gorgeous swimming with the mountains in the background!  This Badi also has some floating trampolines and toys out in the deeper sections - we'll definitely be trying those out next time.

And what day at the Strandbad can end without ice cream!?  We enjoyed some cones when we got home!

We have arrived in Switzerland!!!

I know we are a few weeks late with this post, but we wanted to let everyone know that we arrived in Switzerland safely and are settling in nicely to our apartment in Wädenswil...just 15 minutes from Zürich.

We are loving our apartment!!!!  We have received our first shipment of goods and are waiting to receive our second lot later this week.  Once we have all of the items, we will pretty much be at home!

While we get settled, check out some photos of our place and our views!

The outside view of our building.  The wooden pieces are part of the garages - where we can park the cars.  And for those of you wondering...Bill's car arrived safely!

The kitchen seems to have more cabinet space than our place in the US!

View from the dining room!

Master bed/bath

Bill's grill view!

Still Many Things to Be Blogged...But That Will Happen On the Other Side of the Pond

I still have so many items on my list to blog about: our last few vacations where we saw Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Russia, Finland and Sweden. My improvements in German. Brady's new infatuation with cars and their logos. However, our time in Europe grows very short and for now, I just wanted to provide a quick update to everyone.

The Coyles are moving back to the US! I know for many of you, this is not new news...however the time is now here. Tomorrow our packers come. Brady and I get on a plane Saturday morning and will move into our new home in NJ, and Bill will follow a few weeks later. Although things have seemed incredibly slow as of late (and most likely because I hate packing), our last few months have sped by and now here we are.

We've had an amazing time living here in Zurich. We've traveled to tons of places and met some amazing folks! However, quite simply, we are VERY excited to be heading back to the US. We are moving back to NJ in the area around Princeton - the place from which we moved to Zurich. So, the other exciting part is that we are moving back to a place where we have friends, our family is close, and we know our doctors, dentists, grocery store, etc.

We had lived in a townhome before moving to Zurich. We recently purchased a house not far from where we lived before. And so we are all very excited about having space again! (European city living has made for some cramped quarters!) And our return will be marked by another exciting event - Brady's 3rd birthday at the end of June. For all relatives but Bill's Mom, who was able to join us for a few summers here in Zurich, this will be the first birthday party that they have been able to participate in!

So, we are very excited and nervous (for the actual move process and flight), but a bit sad as well. We have really enjoyed our time in Europe. I'm sure all the wonderful things we leave behind will hit us as soon as we get back into the US and get settled. But in the meantime, get ready U.S. of A. The Coyles are coming back!!!!!