Monday we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow, the largest yet of our time here in Lausanne.  Melissa took a few photos on her way to work and told me to get out of bed and head outside before it melts.  I grabbed the camera and decided to take a long walk through the … Continue reading 8 February 2015 Update →

On Saturday February 7th Melissa and I woke up bright and early to catch a train at 6:45AM.  We made a transfer in Basel, Switzerland, then another in Karlsruhe, Germany, and then finally arrived in Heidelberg Germany at 11:45AM.  The purpose of our voyage was to meet up with Alex Marvin, a friend from Melissa’s … Continue reading Heidelberg and Mannheim →

Part of my new job of being phunemployed includes taking care of all of the grocery shopping, so I thought I would give you all a little tour of my part time ‘office.’  Since we’ve been in Switzerland I’ve only gone to two grocery stores, one called Coop City, which is right across the street … Continue reading A Walk Through A Swiss Grocery Store →

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 … Continue reading 1 February 2015 Update →

This last week we’ve been busy searching for apartments.  We looked at five apartments, each with lines out the door of people waiting for the showings.  For three of these we sent in applications.  The process reminds me of job seeking out of college.  I’m not sure if I’m filling everything out correctly, I’m not sure … Continue reading 25 January 2015 Update →

This week, we still have not received our residence permits… My routine is to check the mail everyday at 9AM, look in the box, then return disappointed up the stairs to our apartment.  We are still within the 1 to 2 month window we were told when we emailed the office, so hopefully this next week … Continue reading 19 January 2015 Update →

The single biggest culture shock in moving to Switzerland is the French language.  It’s everywhere you look in day to day life from the grocery store, to street signs, to looking up information on the internet, to public transport, to restaurants, to people on the street…to everywhere!  We knew before coming here it would go … Continue reading Le français →

This last week we took it easy after our German vacation and we didn’t do much that’s interesting to blog about.  There was of course the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris.  It’s been front page news every day, and there was a peace demonstration a few blocks from our house Wednesday, which the paper said … Continue reading 11 January 2015 Update →

On Saturday, January 3rd the only site-seeing we did was go inside Cologne’s cathedral.   We may have saved the best for last out of all the cathedrals we saw.  The cathedral has two huge towers out front that must be very close to the size of the one at Ulm.  The detail everywhere is … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 9 – Coming Home →

Friday, January 2nd we boarded a train from Potsdam to Hannover to meet up with Britt Sieber; she was a foreign exchange student hosted by Melissa’s aunt and uncle a few years ago. We arrived around 11:30, saw a little of downtown Hannover, then stopped into an American style restaurant for hamburgers. It was such … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 8 – Potsdam, Hannover, Cologne →