Warning, this post contains content that some may consider whining.
Having not gotten comfortable in our apartment in Bülach, after thirty days there, it was time to move into a new place. Friday morning, we packed up our things (pretty quick work) and packed them into the Biotronik company car for the quick trip to Kloten, about halfway between Bülach and Zürich. The new place is smaller than the old one, CONSIDERABLY. Christine went to work and I stayed at the apartment to unpack and get some work done.
Unpacking actually took considerably more time, as it required my long forgotten Tetris skills to get everything a home. Satisfied with my organizing, I started some work while listening to music. After some time, the music mysteriously stopped. The computer was still on, so what had happened? Another clue should have been that I hadn’t received a response to a text I sent Christine in an abnormally long time. It turns out that the WiFi is somewhat patchy in the apartment, and goes out, reliably every 25-45 minutes, just long enough to make all of my devices burp. Oh well, First World problems. On the upside, we now have a washer, AND a drier, and they both work just fine! Also, there is an honest to goodness, Cold War era bomb shelter in the basement near the laundry room. It is currently used for storage lockers.
By the time Christine got home I had found an Ethernet cable, so at least the laptop had a reliable connection (when you were careful not to apply any force to the cable, since both tabs had been broken off). We had dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant in town and bought some food and other small items that the new place was missing. Then came the night.
It turns out that the apartment came equipped, for no added cost, with das Bett zum Tuefel, we got hardly any sleep and by morning, we were both unsure of how we were going to make this place work for another 1-2 months. Enter the hardest hitting bout of homesickness yet. Not yet to the level of Hummingbird Music Camp (ask my dad about the first time they dropped me off there, I bet he might share), but it was getting there. We needed a plan STAT.
Like the good Americans that we are, we decided that some retail therapy might help. Where better to go to make a tiny apartment feel like home than IKEA?! IKEA here is pretty much like back home. Only they don’t have all of the surface area available, so it is about 5 stories tall. We got lunch (the restaurant was sort of hidden, so that was an adventure in and of itself), and then bought some things. By the time we got them back to the apartment and together, the place was a lot more promising. We also took apart Diablo’s bed and just put the mattress on the floor. Saturday, after some great Italian food and wine, we slept like happy little babies!
Sunday, it was time for a little adventure. After breakfast at our local bakery, we took the bus back to Bülach and then got on the train to Schaffhausen. Just before you get to Schaffhausen, you come out of a tunnel and are rewarded with an excellent view of the Rheinfall (or Rhine Falls in English) – the waterfalls are spectacular! Upon our arrival in Schaffhausen, we headed for the fortress on the top of the hill. It was simple but really quite impressive. We had lunch on top of the fortress, hiding from the sudden rainstorm that let us there.
After lunch, we walked along the river, down to the Rheinfall. There is an old castle that overlooks the falls. For a nominal fee, you can take the trail done to the falls and get to see them up close. It was a pretty awesome experience! We got lost on the way back up (most people take the 30 minute boat ride out, but we opted to walk), but eventually found our way across the pedestrian and heavy rail bridge to the train station and back to the apartment.
We ended the weekend on a much higher note than we began. The apartment is still a bit of a pain, but it will work out for us. I am sure that we will continue to utter little curses in reference to it, especially when I get all days’ iMessages in one big burp at the end of the day. We have yet to have the stereotypical couple’s fight in IKEA, so we have that achievement under our belts as well. Ultimately, life is pretty awesome!