Monday, March 21, 2011

Signs of Integration

Well it has been a while since my last post. I could attribute that to any variety of things (one, namely, is that I wrote a very big and very long post at a cafe, forgetting I wasn't plugged in. Computer runs out of battery. When resuscitated, my very big and very long post was not there), and it has been the cause of quite a bit of introspection.

Why, I ask myself, am I not writing? Well, I am writing. I'm just writing my novel! Which is what I should be doing. Also, I started this blog by discussing my 'new life' in Switzerland, and now I feel like this life is just my life! I am integrating, I am developing my routine, I am just doing what I do. Which is not particularly thrilling to the outside world, I would imagine. I just stopped myself - I was about to point out that not many people have blogs that document their daily life routines, but then I realised that that is entirely a falsehood...

In summary, I suppose I am feeling quite settled and do not really have the need to vent! Which is really a very lovely way to be.

Instead of filling everyone in on my life of the past month-and-a-bit, I'm just going to kick it off right from where I am now.

Current points of interest:

  • SWITZERLAND: I met a girl from Belarus the other day, and we went for a lovely walk through Enge Park (pronounced 'Eng-a), which skirts Lake Zurich, and admired all the new blossoms that are poking through as the weather gets a little warmer. We discussed life in Zurich, and the fact that we are both living in Switzerland when it was never something that we had ever dreamt of (she's the wife of a googler too. We are called 'spooglers', and you can consider that the last time I will ever write that word). To both of us, Switzerland is still some kind of a fantasy destination, and by that, I mean one that doesn't really exist. A place that you see photos of, a place that you know is home to the Toblerone Mountain (but that really just emphasises the fantastical element of the place), and definitely not this place. We aren't living here. Surely not. And so, while I now have my daily routines, and I know (intellectually) that I am living in Zurich, it is still very unreal to me that I live in Switzerland. For example, Dunc and I, on a whim, went to a little festival in a neighbouring town that ended up looking like this (can you imagine anything like this in Australia???):


  • APARTMENT: We have an apartment. It's not ours, as in, we don't own it, but we own it as much as any average person in Zurich will ever own an apartment. Our name is on a lease, we are organising the engraving of our names on the doorbell, we even talked about buying a rug last night. I even have planted some little herbs and popped them in little flower boxes attached to the kitchen. If that isn't 'having our own apartment', I don't know what is. It's one bedroom (with a sofabed) and I very much feel like it's ours. I love that feeling.
  • MUSIC: There is an open mic night every Sunday at the Irish Pub situated just a stone's throw from our front door. My incredibly, incredibly beautiful new guitar (did I emphasise that enough? It is incredibly beautiful!) is inspiring me, as is a bunch of the music that my sister gave me when I was in Australia for a short jaunt a couple of weeks ago. Tangent: I recently realised that Dunc now has three bikes, and I have three instruments = a real home :)
  • FRIENDS: If ever there was a town to move to where making new friends from scratch is not all that difficult, it seems this is it. It is very rare to meet someone who is actually from Zurich, which means that pretty much everyone sympathises with the feeling of isolation that can come with being a new expat. So there is a lot of support out there, a lot of invitations, and a lot of lovely people that are just sitting there, waiting for me to meet. This is, at times, quite daunting, but mostly very exciting. If I had a photo of the shenanigans that were St Patrick's Day, I would put it here. But I don't, and I think that is probably the best for everyone. :)
  • NETBALL: (haha, I just pressed 'Ctrl V' by accident and pasted the whole next chapter of my novel here. Too bad people, you're going to have to wait for that one!) Things are choofing along quite nicely in that area of my life! I am going to the two hour training sessions every Wednesday evening and making some good friends there. Hopefully these friendships will be cemented on our trip to Paris this weekend! Ah... I can't believe I just said that! We finally just got some real posts, which was a massive event! As such, photos were taken. Spot the crazily tall, boofy-haired idiot in the back:
  • HAIR: Still a disaster. Still don't know what to do with it. But at least I can begin to pin it up now!

So that's it for this post, team. Signing off, from my lovely couch in my lovely apartment, the sun shining in through the window, Laura Marling blasting from the stereo, a glass of white wine to my left, my banjo to my right. Life's pretty shiny right now. :)