Fall is descending upon Switzerland. The leaves are changing color, the temperatures have settled into mild 50’s and 60’s, and the grapes are being harvested. On Wednesday September 23rd we even woke up to see the first snowfall of the year on the Alps across the lake. The snow is visible in the cover photo above, but a side effect of the snow is the haze it creates when it melts, which is also visible in the cover photo.
Fall is also the time for us to renew our resident’s permits. Even though March, when we received our initial permits, doesn’t seem so long ago, the permits expire one year from when we entered Switzerland (November 30th) not from when we received them. To apply for new permits Melissa had to have her work contract extended one year, and a government form filled out by the university. Then we delivered the forms to our commune office, where we had to show our current permits, and passports, and as always, we had to pay a fee of 204 francs. We hope the new permits won’t take as long as the old ones did to arrive.
When I sat down to write this update post, I was a little disappointed by how little we’ve done over the past few weeks. But when I thought about it some more, it’s because we are now to the point where not everything is strange, and new or exciting; we are finally living a normal European life. Sure we can’t quite understand everything strangers say in public, and some of the bureaucracy here is still frustrating and strange, but for the most part we are settled into a comfortable routine. It’s a great feeling to know that we can just cozy in for the upcoming Winter.
I started getting the yard ready for winter today. Cut off the annuals, raked leaves, cut the bushes…have a lot to bring to the compost. It was a gorgeous day, as the last few days have been wonderful. NO SNOW – YET. The joy of being a homeowner.
I thought the same thing – didn’t you recently get your resident’s permits? 😉 Yes, hope you do not have to wait as long.
How is your French language coming along?
My parents said it was 80 back in Minnesota today, so it might still be a while before there is snow there.
Our French seems to be stalled. We both are still using software to learn, Duolingo for Melissa and Rosetta stone for me, but it’s hard to see results. We are both at the point where we can say enough and ask people to speak slowly and repeat themselves enough that we can get by in French, but we are both far from fluent. We’ve been thinking about speaking more French at home, and even setting aside an hour where we only speak French together, but its hard to do. The times we’ve tried we only make it about 5 minutes before we just revert to English.
You haven’t taken to striking up random conversations with people in the park then yet 😉
Not random people in the park, but I did find a new method of learning French that is similar that I need to blog about soon: meeting strangers on the internet. There is a website to set up conversation exchanges with local people and I’ve so far talked with two people through it.