After a month of visiting family and friends from Virginia to Florida in the U.S.; handling visa business at the consulate in Atlanta; attending the school residency week for Syracuse University in New York City; and re-packing from summer to winter clothes, we’ve both made it to Switzerland with Chris arriving about a week before me.
This trip has been the epitome of polar opposites. We’ve gone from the sunny beaches of Brazil to the snow-covered mountains of our new home outside of Zurich. When I went to apply for my immigration status in Brazil, I wore flip-flops, a pair of shorts, and a tanktop. Monday when I went to the Office of Population Control (Chris’ says it sounds like something out of George Orwell’s 1984), I wore my heavy-duty snow boots, two pairs of socks, a pair of long john pants and shirt, a sweater, jeans, two coats (one with a faux fur lining), a pair of gloves, a scarf, and a toboggan (yes, this is what I call a skull cap, tuke, winter hat, or whatever you prefer). Thank goodness for my Canadian friends who told me to dress in layers, but I was still cold!
After only being here a few days, we’ve noticed some differences other than the weather. Though the people will say guten morgen (we’re in the part of the country that speaks German), they’re not as open-armed as Brazilians or Americans, at least Americans from the south of the States. There isn’t much smiling going on in the streets here. There are a lot more people here who know English than we found in Brazil. This is a great help for a traveler who doesn’t have an affinity for languages, like me.
In the coming months, we’ll be posting about all things Swiss we experience, like grocery shopping (where mustard and mayonnaise come in tubes instead of bottles), public transportation, food, codes of conduct, and more.
Do you want to know anything about Switzerland? Let us know, and we’ll see if we can dedicate a post to it.
-Monica