Spot the Frustrated Expat

Living in Switzerland obviously has its perks. In fact, I can say without a doubt that I absolutely love it here. If I haven't raved enough about the state of my life at the moment (and for the past year), then trust me when I say that I am living a dream. Living both among the mountains and on the shores of a lake, spending my time writing my novel and learning a new language, having a wonderfully loving and supportive husband, and now adding a teeny weeny baby to the mix... well, like I said, life is pretty darned good.

But.

MAN some things are annoying! A lot of them, not surprisingly, revolve around issues with the language barrier. Yes, I am learning German, and yes, I think I'm actually doing pretty well, considering the fact that very little of the German I hear in my day-to-day life is the German that I am learning. Ah, yes, the age-old issue of learning high-German while living in a place that speaks only Swiss-German. I am now able to (awkwardly, and with a ridiculous amount of mistakes) hold a reasonably meaningful conversation, but I'm definitely not anywhere near the level to be able to comprehend the ins and outs of a variety of important documents... and this is annoying!

TELL ME, JOHANNA, WHAT IS ANNOYING?

- I received a package in the mail today from the hospital that we are planning on using in order to bring Beanie into this world. I was so excited - I have been keeping an eye out for this little package of goodies! And so (you know what's coming) I open it, and out pours a bunch of gorgeous glossy booklets about pregnancy, birth, alternative options, midwives, the hospital itself, as well as all the forms and such that we need to check and fill out. And I can't understand any of it. So annoying! I am so excited about this, and it frustrates the hell out of me to not be able to just sit down with a big grin on my face and absorb all this new and exciting information!

- Bin collection! Instead of paying for this service in our taxes, we pay for it when we buy the bin bags (hence bin bags are stupidly expensive). After spending nine months figuring out the recycling system in the centre of town (and only the one time managing to actually get our stack of papers -- tied up with specific recycling string, not exceeding X cm in height -- collected and recycled!), we are now in a new place with a new system, a new timetable, and more secret, unspoken-about places where we need to take our cans, glass, plastic, cartons, cardboard, paper. I'm still yet to really figure out where everything goes, and when it should go there.

- Knowing where to buy things. For example: I need a new pillow! Where on earth does someone go to get this? Or a toilet brush? Or some wood-glue? Or some egg beaters? or Blu-tac? Or to get photos printed? Or a key cut? Or to find some salted butter? Or some moisturiser for stretch marks? Where is the Target equivalent where pretty much everything is there, and it's cheap-ish? Answer? There is none. Everything has a specialty store. Or else you have to go to Ikea. And we've gone this long without going (something I'm stupidly proud of), so I'm holding out as long as I can.

- The health insurance issue is, quite simply, the biggest pain in the butt. Ever. I could easily write a 5000 word rant on this issue, but let me just provide one small example: We paid for private health insurance and have waited the necessary length of time for it to kick in, and then we discover that there is actually a *secret list* of private hospitals and clinics that our health insurance company accepts. And none of them exist in our canton (state). Seriously? So public hospital it is (though the publics here are still absolutely top-notch)... but what exactly is included, what is upgraded for free, and what is not covered at all, remains entirely unclear, no matter how many times we ask. So it would not surprise me in the least if, as a little 'congratulations' present from our insurance company, we get a whopping great bill at the end of this, when we've been careful to ensure everything is covered.

- Not being able to talk to old people. This has really become apparent to me lately, what with my newly rotund belly. Elderly people are always smiling at me and starting up conversations on the train or the bus, or in the waiting room... but the Swiss German they speak is so completely foreign to me. I have tried, a number of times, to continue the conversation in high German (the language I'm learning) but it becomes stilted and the smiles soon fade. *sigh*

... etc. etc

So it would seen that there are a bunch of things that are annoying. I'm certain that all of these are things that anyone would have to deal with when moving somewhere so different, particularly to a place where they do not speak the language. I can only be thankful that so many people speak my language, and I can often (though definitely not always) turn to this to help me out. Occasionally I find myself thinking about what it would be like to be a Vietnamese immigrant in Australia, for example, where you look different, your alphabet is different, your qualifications are perhaps not accepted, and no one speaks your language.

And now we're back to me feeling lucky again. :)

My January Goals

So I know that it's already the 8th (almost 9th) of January, but I've come across this great blog (catelinden.com) and have decided to steal her idea of writing down monthly goals. They can be overwhelmingly huge or utterly trivial, but I want them to be achievable. If there's one thing I've learnt about myself in recent years, it's that I need to reduce times when I might judge myself as a failure. So it's all about setting achievable goals. If, for example, I was to write on here that I plan to put my clothes away or in the laundry each night before I go to bed, you should all reply and tell me that I am being an idiot, and such a goal for a messy (some call it 'creative') person such as myself is simply unachievable. You get the idea.

My totally achievable goals for January

1. Work on my novel every day. Enough said.

2. Go for walks around Horgen. We are still new to this little village, and I haven't explored it enough. I want to discover the little nooks and crannies, the secret little waterfall in the forest I've heard about, find cute little shops here and there.

3. Eat healthily. I know that 'healthy eating' is often in the eye of the beholder, but for me, it means eating 2 fruit and 5 veg every day, eating a wholesome breakfast, and not snacking on junk. Hopefully this will also result in me gaining weight in a healthy manner.

4. Read Hypnobirthing and do a little yoga every second day, depending on how my pelvis holds up.

5. Contact Horgan Seespital and organise to meet with a midwife for a tour of the hospital at some point.

6. Keep track of finances. Pay the medical bills and write up a spreadsheet to keep track of all this. Keep track of how much I'm spending on groceries, and alter it where need be!

7. Unpack the spare room. This is difficult because we have nowhere to PUT stuff yet, until our things from Australia arrive (probably around the end of Feb), but I can make the first move and get it organised.

8. Research baby items and decide what we need to buy, and where and how we will get it. I already know some of this, but not enough. We've talked about a lot of it, but we need to make some concrete decisions.

9. Get properly stuck into my German when my intensive lessons kick in half way through this month. Do my homework, study, write up vocab lists and grammar charts and stick them on the fridge.

10. Use dinner-time twice a week to speak to my lovely husband in German. He's so much more advanced for me, so I shouldn't ask too many questions and let him babble away too - make it good practice for him AND me. Also, try to get the guts to speak German more with our German friends, and don't be so afraid of ridicule.

2011 - The year of embracing Switzerland

It's December 31st.

Again.

Okay, so it was when I began writing this post...

It seems like a moment ago when I was writing my 2010 run-down back in our little studio apartment in Boll, summarising our leap into married life, our big cycling bonanza (one may say that these are in fact one and the same thing), and the subsequent decision of where we should choose to live for a year. I doubt there will ever be a year with more crammed into it than 2010 (well... 2012 just might!), but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't attempt a summary of 2011 anyhow!

2011: The Year of Embracing Switzerland

Number of apartments we called home: 4 (our teeny studio apartment in Boll, Google's temporary apartment in Zurich, our one-bedroom furnished sublet in Wiedikon, and our current 2 storey, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, dream bathtub, dream view apartment in Horgen.)

Number of countries visited: 8 (Scotland, Australia, France, Belgium, Italy, Lichtenstein, USA, Canada... surely there's more?)

Number of attempts at snowboarding: 1 (No comment. No photo. No evidence.)

Number of visiting Aussies that slept in our living room: 9 (Mark, my parents, Dunc's parents, Sammy, Tom, Clare, Alex... I am SURE I forgot some!)

Number of international sporting tournaments participated in: 2 (weehoo for discovering Zurich Netball and Netball Switzerland!)

Number of enormous life-changing decisions made: 2 (Firstly, that we will make Switzerland our permanent home and not return to Australia in the foreseeable future, and secondly, that we are ready to start a family!)

Number of amazing new friends made: COUNTLESS! I forget how many until we cram them all into the one room for a housewarming party!

(I have surprisingly few friend photos! Need to get onto that...)

Number of books I finished reading: not enough

Number of books I finished writing: not enough

...I could keep going... number of times I threw up, number of physio appointments I attended for my ankle (bruised bones take a year to heal, people. Just say no.), number of bicycles we now own, number of musical instruments we now own, number of new cheeses I have tried, number of cafes that I will need to acknowledge once my book gets published...

It has been a great year, that is for certain. I have been reading people's posts about how 2011 was awful ('bring on 2012'), and I remember the same kind of comments from last year. And probably from 2009 too. This got me thinking (uh-oh, Dunc would say). It has been a very very long time since I looked back at a year and thought 'Gee, that sucked, let's start a-fresh'. My days of utter contentedness continue to grow with each passing year, and I consider each and every day how lucky I am. This must be the very definition of happiness.

Meanwhile, my New Year fortune cookie has something important to tell me: