Bienvenue en Suisse!

January 1st, 2008: The first day of the new year marked a major step in my life. I boarded a plane to Geneva and kicked off this grand adventure!

Or not. Due to a series of unfortunate events (nothing serious, though), I missed my flight. I fly frequently and am used to a timeliness policy that can best be described as "running down the jetway." This has always worked out very well, even for international flights. Apparently, though, for international flights on which I will be checking several very heavy bags, I need to build in more buffer time. Good to know.

So, as I was saying, January 2nd, 2008: The second day of the new year marked a major step in my life. Several hundred dollars poorer, I boarded a plane to Zurich and kicked off this grand adventure!

Bryan's Move to Lausanne v2.0 went much more smoothly. 3:10 to Yuma was showing on the flight to Newark and I received a First Class upgrade. The crew on the flight to Zurich was excellent and we arrived significantly ahead of schedule.

My FaceBook photo album (http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037965&l=d370c&id=3001361) begins upon my arrival in Zurich. I believe it is set up to be viewable by everyone, even those without FaceBook accounts. However, please let me know if you are unable to see these pics.

A three-hour train ride through some beautiful country and I was [at last!] at my apartment. Still a bit nervous for having signed a one-year lease sight unseen, I was relieved to find that it exceeded my expecations. The kitchen unit is straight out of the seventies, but the rest of the studio has just been renovated and is more than adequate. As soon as I have stored my luggage and cleaned up the apartment, I will post new pics. There is no sofa for guest visitors, but upon rearrangement of furniture, there is a big open are in the center of the room that will easily accommodate a double-sized air mattress.

Night 1 in the apartment was an . . . uneventful one. Naturally one of the first objectives on my move-in list was to set up my computers and their accessories. At ~8 PM, I blew the fuse in the apartment, which fortunately didn't affect anyone else in the building. With no light I decided just to call it an early night (really early!) and wait for the landlord, who was already scheduled to come by at 9 AM. He replaced my fuse with a larger one and was very nice.

Since then, things have been going smoothly. Due to my tardy arrival, I canceled plans to join the ski trip and have been focused on getting settled, completing assignments, and trying local restaurants. So far I am very impressed with the nice people here and their patience with my rusty French. How can you not love a country with this national sport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwingen???

I have wireless Internet access in my room now (thanks to a technician who spent most of his time cursing--I'm learning more French already!) and am starting to feel situated. I have stocked my small refrigerator with vanilla, chocolate, and ALOE yogurt. Now I am off for my next Swiss adventure: doing laundry in the basement. Let's hope I don't blow another fuse!