Happy Halloween

As a tradition, the Partner Matt works for hosts a Halloween party each year. Since Halloween is a very American holiday, putting together a costume here is a little trickier than in the US. LUCKILY all the back and forth I have been doing between Zürich and New York paid off in this respect. Matt and I decided to be the two sides of the character from the movie (and of course the famous Ballet) Black Swan. We won best couple costume and Matt won best male costume.

Matt's victory dance:

New Apartment

We had been told the rental market in Zurich is very tight- particularly in the areas where everyone wants to live. It just so happens that our favorite part of town is just one of those areas. It's funny because I have always gotten frustrated by the show 'House Hunters International' - I can never understand how people are able to make a decision on a place with only three choices!! Well my Zurich house hunting trip was pretty much an episode of house hunters international. Our relocation agent brought me around to see a variety of apartments she had selected based on our criteria, and then we had to apply. Generally I think we were pretty lucky- we applied for four apartments and got turned down by two. They can turn you down for any reason here- there is no 'first come first serve if qualified' rule. We were competing against Swiss applicants who had other landlords here and a credit history (US credit doesn't count), and apparently our permit type makes us a bit 'undesirable'. We had heard some horror stories, so we felt quite lucky that we got acceptance from our second favorite apartment (which we took). Our landlady is very 'Swiss' (ie. they love to complain about EVERYTHING), but she is also very nice, so things could be much worse. Initially Matt had some problems with her (she actually called his employer to complain about the tidiness of the apartment- talk about embarrassing!), but now things have settled down. Luckily the landlords own a business downstairs so we dont really have to worry about being too loud most of the time, and our upstairs neighbor (though raised in Switzerland) does not have the 'Swiss' mentality and is super sweet.

Here are some pics of the apartment:

Living Room

Living Room part 2

The view from our balcony (and the living room)

Guest Room

Kitchen

More kitchen (that crazy looking thing is the hood for the stovetop)

Our Bedroom

...more of our bedroom (sorry for the clutter)

The office/dining room

Entry way

Half bathroom

Foyer

Full bathroom

Full bathroom- part 2

Indian Summer...

It was a gorgeous day today, so we brought Boston out for a nice little paddle boat ride around Lake Zürich.

View north toward Zürich center

Dad, note the rowers!

Temporary Housing Explosion!

Boston and I took a long walk to meet up with Matt today, and when we got back, I noticed the building next door was black as if there had been a giant fire! Turns out they were doing some work and some tank in the ground exploded!  Luckily no one was hurt.

This is our building and is exactly what the building next door USED to look like.

This is the building next door, post explosion.

To sum up the past 3 weeks...

So, in the last 4 weeks a lot has happened. Matt came to Zürich with Boston,

I stayed behind and finished up business and took care of moving out of the apartment,

and I have since arrived, and we are enjoying our short time together before I have to go back to NY for work.