This week started out all about the apartment search. The entire day Monday I researched, emailed, and called apartments to set up viewings for each day of the week. It was so much work I forgot for a while I was fun-employed. It felt like a full-time job!
Monday’s viewing was an apartment in Bussigny, a second ring suburb of Lausanne. The area around it is much less developed, with wider roads, and newer buildings. If I didn’t know better, and was brought there blind-folded, I would just as soon guess it was a suburb of Minneapolis as a suburb of Lausanne. We decided not to apply because the commute was longer than we thought it would be, and it didn’t have that European je ne sais quoi.
Tuesday’s viewing was at 11AM in the suburb of Renens. We arrived a minute or two after the hour and saw the longest line yet for a viewing. It was an OK apartment, but Melissa and I couldn’t decide if it was worth applying for, given our chances with the huge group of applicants. As luck would have it before we decided whether or not to apply, Melissa received a phone call from a Swiss number. It was a different rental company! They said they accepted us and would send us a contract for an apartment we viewed last Saturday in Renens!
Everything I’ve read and heard says apartment searching here can be a nightmare, so I think we got pretty lucky to find one so quickly. It’s nice to have that stress of not knowing where we’re going to live taken care of. Although, as of yet, the contract has not arrived; I now have two things to wait for and worry about arriving in the mail.
After the apartment news Melissa and I celebrated by having lunch in Renens. The special of the day was ragnon de veau. I knew the word veau meant veal, so I thought maybe it would be something similar to wiener schnitzel. We both ordered it and were surprised with the dish of bloodly cut up pieces of meat in a gravy sauce that was served. The taste was earthy and similar to liver, except it was chewy-er, with little veins in it. We used Google translate to discover ragnon means kidney, and then I couldn’t help thinking those little veins were the urinary tract. Yuck! Melissa only tried one bite, then gave me all her’s. I did the best I could but couldn’t clean my plate, I started to gag after 10 or 12 pieces.
We went on another exploration of local cuisine Tuesday night, when we went out for fondue with Melissa’s group. The restaurant we went to specializes in fondue and I was taken back a little by the smell when we first walked through the doors. The whole restaurant smelled like a fart. I joked with Melissa that someone must have cut the cheese in there, but she just rolled her eyes at me.
For me fondue wasn’t anything special, it’s just bread and cheese. I don’t know why we went to a restaurant for it, its so simple even I could make it. The first few bits tasted good enough, but they served us so much I started to get sick of all the cheese by the end. It’s similar when to when you buy a giant chocolate bar and the first few bites are good, but by the end you’re wondering why you’re still eating it.
Other news this week, Melissa started French lessons. They are two and a half hours each day, and she says they are so much mental exercise it drains her out from concentrating on science afterward.
Tomorrow will be Superbowl Monday (the Superbowl doesn’t start until 12:30AM Monday here); I don’t think we’ll watch it. It’s too late, and we haven’t done the research to figure out how to watch it over the internet.
Even though the stress of finding an apartment is gone our next few weeks will still be busy. We still have to research and buy furniture and dishes for the new apartment. If we have to pick stuff up, we have to figure out renting a van and how to drive on Swiss roads. My parents are coming for a visit in March, so we also have to figure out if they can bring any home goods for us.
Even so I should have more time to write posts now with the end of the apartment search. Near the top of my list is to write more about Melissa’s work. I haven’t been able to convince her to write a post yet, so I have to think of the best way to write that second hand. In the mean time check out the link below for her group’s website. It shows the group research goals along with pictures of everyone in the group.
http://limno.epfl.ch/page-74129-en.html
P.S. I haven’t been putting many pictures up lately, so today Melissa and I went for a walk through the Roman ruins, and along the lake and took a few photos for the album below.
