Ferris Wheeless

December Redux - Mürren

2012-01-13T22:00:00.004+01:00

Right before Brian and I headed off to NC, we spent the weekend in Mürren, a small town above the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Bernese Oberland. The Bernese Oberland is, by some accounts, the most beautiful part of Switzerland and where the most famous peaks of the Alps are: the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau.

To get to Mürren, a car-free town on the edge of a mountain, we took a train from Zurich to Bern, from Bern to Interlaken, and then from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen. From Lauterbrunnen, we hopped on a gondola up the side of a mountain and then took a cogwheel train to Mürren. We arrived in the middle of what some might call a blizzard, and walked through that mess for about 1/2 mile to find our hotel. Half the fun is the journey, right?

Mürren is known for its views of the three famous peaks and as the launching point to the Schilthorn, another peak in the Alps, famous for the revolving restaurant on top that was featured in the James Bond movie, Her Majesty's Secret Service. Due to the blizzard-y weather, we spent most of Saturday on a snowy walk down the mountain (pro-tip: you can take cable cars back up the mountain), reading books, and eating tasty food at our hotel's restaurant.

On Sunday, the weather cleared a little bit for us to get some nice views before we headed back down the mountain to Zurich. I loved our hotel, the Hotel Bellevue, and we definitely want to go back on a clear day to see all the mountains!

December Redux - Cheese and Castles

2012-01-13T21:00:00.004+01:00

In December, we had our first visitors - Kari, Brian's research partner from UW, and Eric and Morgan from California.

Kari, along with her friends Rike and Heinz, shared lots of meals with us while she was here, including fondue and raclette, the two cheesy traditional dishes of Switzerland. I'm sure that most people here are familiar with fondue- in Switzerland, it is pretty much only served with cubed bread and it's traditional to have shots of kirsch (brandy made with cherries), supposedly to make sure the cheese doesn't clump together in your stomach.

Raclette is both the dish and a type of cheese. In the traditional method, a big block of raclette cheese is heated under a special grill under the top layer of the cheese gets all melty. The top melty layer is then scraped onto boiled potatoes (usually) and served with cornichons and pickled onions and perhaps pickled mushrooms and baby corn. Raclette is sometimes also prepared in a mini grill pan for those who don't want to buy the giant block of cheese. Warning: raclette cheese is moderately stinky so your kitchen will smell like it for a few days.

In addition to eating cheesy dishes, Kari got a tour of Google and some shopping and tourist days as well as a talk at ETH, the technical university in Zurich.

Only a day later, Eric and Morgan strolled into town on their European tour. For the day, we went down to Bellinzona, a small city in the southern Italian part of Switzerland. Bellinzona is known for the three castles that dominate the town and is a UNESCO heritage site. (That night, we made them eat raclette, to continue the cheese theme).

The following week, Brian and I had booked a table on the Fonduetram. As it sounds, it's a tram that serves you fondue while driving you around the city. It's a little kitschy, but the fondue was tasty and included a nice appetizer and light dessert. The best part is probably seeing people and views out the window - however, with the fondue, the windows steam up a bit. To help out with this, they provide each table with a squeegee to clean the windows.

December Redux - Christmas Markets

2012-01-13T20:28:00.005+01:00

I am taking an intensive German class, but it was canceled for December, so I had some extra time on my hands. When Brian headed to the US for work, I went up to Frankfurt and Dresden in Germany with my friend Dana. Germany is famous for their Christmas markets, which fill town squares for a few days or weeks. At the markets, vendors sell Christmas gifts and ornaments, often homemade, as well as steaming mugs of gluhwein and traditional foods. Switzerland and Austria also have Christmas markets, but even they will tell you that Germany's are best.

On Wednesday night, we grabbed the train from Zurich to Frankfurt, about a four hour ride. Frankfurt and its market was fine - not too exciting, but it got our palates ready for the Dresden market. Frankfurt does have the European Central Bank and the giant Euro statue, where the Occupy Frankfurt movement had set up camp.

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After Frankfurt, we jumped on a train to Dresden, about a five hour ride away in East Germany. Dresden was destroyed during World War II as a result of Allied fire bombing and it has rebuilt significantly in the last decade. I thought it was an amazing city and look forward to going back with Brian soon! The Dresden Christmas market was actually a series of markets that stretched through the city, and had tons of delicious food and interesting ornaments.

After a day exploring Dresden, Dana and I jumped on a night train back to Zurich. If we had ridden during the day, we could have gotten back to Zurich in 8-9 hours, but the CityNightLine takes about 12 hours as there are more extended stops along the way. Dana and I got a sleeper car - of which I have no pictures. When you walk into the compartment, there are three beds on either side. The middle bed on either side can be lowered to turn the bottom bunk into a seating area, and there is extended storage next to the top bunk. We had signed up for a four person car, meaning that two other women could have been assigned to our compartment, but we ended up with the coach to ourselves, all the better to eat our snacks, watch bad movies, and claim the bottom bunks. We rolled back into Zurich Hauptbahnhof (main station) at 8:30am on Saturday - lots of fun!

Bern

2011-12-01T13:04:00.002+01:00

In the past two weeks, I've been to Bern twice. Bern is the de facto capital of Switzerland and about an hour by train from Zurich. It is known for its bears... and I think that's maybe all. But it was a nice and cute little city!

Two weeks ago, Brian and I had a little Sunday trip to the west. We did a whole walking tour of the city... which was pretty empty since it was (a) Sunday and (b) November.

Our main intention of heading to Bern was to see the Rendez Vous Bundesplatz light show. In October and November, it was a twice nightly light show projected on the Swiss Parliament building. It was really cool! Here's a video of some of the best parts. Funnily, though it was completely empty in Bern that day, at 7pm, EVERYONE in Bern was apparently in the square.

About a week later, I headed back to Bern with my friend Linda for the Zibile-Märit, or Onion Market. The Zibile-Märit is an annual festival in Bern celebrating the noble onion. Farmers and other vendors set up stalls throughout the old town, and starting at 4am sell onions, wreaths and ribbons made of onions, and little figurines made of... yes, onions. You can buy onion pies and onion soup all over town... as well as big bags of confetti. When walking around, little kids throw confetti at you and at each other, as well as bop people on the head with plastic squeaky hammers. Because why not?

Pilatus

2011-12-01T12:37:00.005+01:00

The first out-of-Zurich trip that Brian and I took when we moved here in July was to Luzern and Mt. Pilatus. Luzern, about 45 minutes south of Zurich, is a tourist mecca, with a beautiful lake and boat trips, access to three major mountains, and lots of pretty and historic buildings and bridges. A popular activity in the summer is to do the "Golden Roundtrip", which takes you from Luzern by boat to Alpnachstad, up to Pilatus on the Pilatus Bahn (the steepest cogwheel train in the world), down Pilatus on the other side by cable car and gondola to Kriens, and then back to Luzern by bus. While we enjoyed our multi-modal trip, the view from Pilatus that day was clouded in, so we couldn't see much of the view from the top.

This past weekend, we took a trip back, after first checking the webcam on the top of Pilatus to make sure we'd get a good view. The Pilatus Bahn closes at the end of October, so we could only make our way up from Kriens. At the top, it was much less crowded than in July, much windier, and much clearer. We had a great view of Central Switzerland, including all the surrounding peaks and of Luzernsee (Lake Luzern).

With the addition of a sausage and roesti for lunch and some raclette and glühwein that we picked up at the Luzern HB Christmas market, we successfully negated any hiking we might have accidentally done on the mountain. A lovely Sunday!

Zurich Apartment

2011-11-19T18:41:00.001+01:00

We've been in our new apartment for more than two months now, but didn't finish decorating until we finally had some people over for dinner. Sometimes it just takes a little pressure! Here are pictures of our place.

We had heard a number of horror stories of new residents to Zurich viewing hundreds of apartments, applying to dozens, and coming up empty. While we did go to a few very busy apartment viewings, in the end, we got the first apartment we applied for, so it was a lot less trouble than we were expecting (your mileage may vary). We have a great 3 room apartment (more on how the Swiss count rooms later) in Zurich - it's close to a grocery store, restaurants, and trams/buses. In addition, it's about a 15 minute walk to work for Brian and a 5 minute tram ride to the Zurich main train station.

As you would expect, apartments in Zurich generally differ from those in the US:

Light fixtures and window treatments are generally not included. When Brian moved in to the apartment (I was in the US), the only lights in the apartment were in the bathroom and over the oven - he went around with one desk lamp and his head lamp until I could help make those important design decisions. For the windows, all the windows have outdoor shutters, so we've only put curtains up in the bedroom for now.

Built-in closets are not the norm. We did see a few apartments with built-in closets, but for the most part, your wardrobe (likely from IKEA) comes with you. This makes it harder to hide messes!
Apartments and houses are counted by the number of rooms they have. In the US, we would call our apartment a 1 bedroom apartment. Here, we have a 3 room apartment - not counting the bathroom or the kitchen, there is a dining area/entry way, a den, and a bedroom. However, if we arranged it a bit differently, there could be two bedrooms and a small living area. The math on counting rooms is a bit fuzzy to me, though- when is an area 1.5 rooms versus 1?
Payments are different. Checks are not done at all in Switzerland - instead, the preferred way is to do direct payments from one bank account to another. In addition, apartment deposits are secured in a bank account that is both in our name and our landlord's name - and deposits range from 1 to 3 months rent (3 months in our case).
Kitchens are smaller and rather sleek. In most newer places we saw, the kitchens were very IKEA-fied. The fridges and dishwashers are hiding behind the cabinetry and the stove/oven is well-integrated. In our case, we have a "large" oven for Switzerland, but it is small by American standards. It also has strange racks that are the bane of Brian's existence.

Cleaning seems to take a lot longer. Dishwasher and washing machine cycles are a lot longer than I'm used to. The oven doesn't have a self-clean mode (and oh, we make it quite messy). Zurich has rather hard water, so fixtures have to be decalcified regularly. Recycling is a whole other story. And no closets to hide messes in! Good thing I'm such a good hausfrau.

All in all, we like our little apartment a lot! Nice kitchen, high ceilings, well-insulated (well... I hope. winter comes!), and two porches. Can't wait until spring so I can make our decks nice and green!

US Travels

2011-10-03T15:53:00.001+02:00

Now that it's almost two months past, perhaps it's time to post about my trip to the US? After only a month in Switzerland, I took off back for the US for about three weeks - to Seattle, the Bay Area, Raleigh, and Orlando. On this trip, I got to see lots of friends, my family, attend three fan-tas-tic weddings, and stock up on all the America-things that I learned I couldn't find easily in Schweiz. Brian joined me for the last wedding in Orlando, since he was a kickin' groomsmen.

In Seattle, I attended both Athena's & Brent's wedding and Sarah's and Jesse's wedding, both of which were in Woodinville, north of Seattle. Despite my jetlag, I had a great time dancing at Athena and Brent's wedding...

...and then next week at Sarah and Jesse's!

In addition, I got to hang out with lots of my Seattle friends and did such exciting things as a taco truck crawl through South Seattle with Ethan, Micah, and Leslie (and others) and attending the bachelorette party of the lovely Sarah. Thanks to Kristen and CC for letting me crash at their places while I was in Seattle! I enjoyed eating the jam that I had left in your apartments when we moved in July.

After Seattle, I headed down to the Bay Area to hang out with my California-formerly-North-Carolina-friends. Melanie was a lovely hostess and took me around to fun things! On Thursday, I got a tour of Meebo from Mark, followed by a delicious dinner with the South Bay people. Friday, Melanie and I drove up to Hog Island Oyster Farm near Reyes Point and ate tons of oysters by the sea. Next time, we will bring a lovely picnic and just buy oysters there, but they had great food, too! Saturday, after a trip to the Farmer's Market, Melanie and Emily and I drove to Harley Goat Farm and took a little tour, petted some goats and llamas, wore some hot hair nets, and then ate a ton of goat cheese. After frolicking on the beach with Toro, we headed back to the Bay Area for dinner with Tara and Arun! On Sunday, Melanie and I drove to Oakland and hung out with Ben, Rebecca, Wendy, and John... and ate lots of things. Eating, by the way, was the theme of my American tour.

This all before I took a lovely September-11-red-eye-in-first-class-flight to... Raleigh! This (USAir) first class flight was my first and seemed worth the Star Alliance airline miles I used on it, if only for the blanket (that I stole). While in Raleigh, I did mostly nothing, but did have a lovely meal with Rachel, Mike, Lora, and Marc, and hung out with my parents and the various pets. From there to...

Orlando! Chethan and Tara got married in mid-September at the Orlando Science Museum by the water. After three long weeks, I finally saw Brian, who came to Orlando as a groomsman. The whole weekend was great - saw lots of people, enjoyed the humidity (that was maybe just me), swam in the hotel pool, ate great food (including: Bojangles), and got down on the dance floor.

From there, Brian and I headed back to Zurich, where fall had arrived while I was away.

Third Anniversary!

2011-09-14T04:09:00.000+02:00

We have hit a little blogging lull - I am on a three week tour of the US (Seattle, Bay Area, Raleigh, Orlando) and Brian is in Zurich, working hard. We'll be meeting up on Thursday in Orlando for a wedding, but today is our third anniversary! Last year, we were apart as well - Brian was in Vienna for a conference and then for some vacation with his parents, and I was working hard. This was also about the time that Brian mentioned the slim possibility of working in Zurich and about the time that I dug up my first "how to move to Switzerland" document. And now look at us, all Swiss-like... except for the American shirts.

Andermatt / Gemsstock

2011-08-21T20:29:00.001+02:00

Another weekend, another Swiss adventure for team Ferris-Wheeless. I'm sure you are getting sick of our jet-setting ways, but remember: no jets yet, just lots and lots of trains. In fact, we rode four different trains on our way to today's destination: Andermatt and Gemsstock.

Andermatt is a small town in southern Switzerland right in the heart of the Alps. It doesn't get as much traffic these days after the Gotthard rail and car tunnels (some of the longest in the world) bypassed it under the Alps. However, it's a good jumping off point to Gemsstock, a 2961m peak that has a handy gondola ride straight to the top. That's a good thing, since hiking to the top would probably kill us. Just walking around at the summit was enough to give me a headache. And this isn't even one of the tallest peaks in the Swiss Alps (that'd be Monte Rosa at 4634m!).

After taking some great photos at the summit, we retreated back down the mountain to the mid-way gondola stop to grab a snack and fool around on the slack line (mostly falling off the slack line, that is). From there, we hiked back down the mountain (way easier than hiking up) and caught our trains back to Zürich. Another successful weekend! Click below to see all our photos from the trip.

Rhine Falls and Schaffhausen

2011-08-18T20:44:00.001+02:00

One of the best things about living in Zurich is the easy access to other cities and natural beauty, all by public transport. So far, taking a little day trip on the weekend has required almost no advance planning.

Step 1: Get your transit pass(es). The Sunday before last, Brian and I got our half-fare cards, which give you half off of all public transportation travel within Switzerland, as well as discounts on private transport (e.g., mountain gondolas) and travel to Germany and Austria. In addition, we can get daily and monthly add-ons that provide unlimited travel throughout Switzerland. I also got a 9 o'clock pass, which gives me free rides around Zurich after 9am (Brian has been walking to and from work, so hasn't needed a pass).

Step 2: Figure out where you're going. Last Sunday, this took the form of "it's a nice day, we should go somewhere, or else we'll play on the internet all day" around 10am. So, off we went to Zurich HB, the main train station. We decided on Rhine Falls, about 50 minutes to the north of Zurich. It was just barely within the Zurich transportation network limits, so I just needed to buy an add-on to my pass, while Brian got a day ticket.

Step 3: Profit. Rhine Falls is a total tourist destination, but fun. We rode a train (S-Bahn) to Winterthur, a largish city to the north of Zurich, and then transferred to a train that passed by Rhine Falls. After getting off at the almost non-existent train station, we walked down the hill to the falls.

Rhine Falls is the largest waterfall in mainland Europe, by width. As it was a beautiful Sunday, it was chock full of tourists. There is a walkway from the train station to a platform directly on top of the falls, but we opted for the boat tour, which gets you close enough to the falls for it to splash on you. We also took the boat that lands you on the little rock that lies in the middle of the falls; from there, you can climb to the top and took over the falls.

After our boat ride, Brian and I had some ice cream and walked along the Rhine River for 45 minutes to Schaffhausen. Schaffhausen is a small town to the north of Zurich in a canton (like a state) of the same name. It is dominated by a old fortress, the Munot, which was built in the 16th century. We walked up to the fortress and then up to the top to take in the view of the town.

Step 4: Return to your home. At Schaffhausen, we went to the main train station for the town, grabbed a train back to Winterthur and then back to Zurich HB (there are direct trains to Zurich HB, but it was quicker for us to do the transfer). Once there, we ran the gauntlet of the main station grocery store for some milk (it is one of the few groceries open on Sunday) and then took the tram and bus back to our apartment, just in time to make some dinner.

We plan on using trains, buses, trams, gondolas, cable cars, funiculars, and boats lots more in our future travel around Switzerland. So far, in addition to Rhine Falls, we've been up to Uetliberg and Felsenegg, both hiking and overlook points near Zurich, as well as to Luzern and Mount Pilatus, to the south of Zurich.

Summer!

2011-08-15T21:17:00.000+02:00

So far, we've had more thunderstorms while in Switzerland than in all of six years in Seattle. Include humidity and a fair degree of sunshine, and despite claims that this is the coldest and wettest summer in Zurich on record, I still say Zurich has Seattle beat in the Summer Department.

Zurich Summer

Grocery Store Adventures

2011-08-13T09:26:00.000+02:00

You move to a new country. At some point, you can't avoid it: you have to go to the grocery store. You must stare at a wide variety of food products and only sort of get what you're looking at. You must interact with your fellow man at the checkout.

Zurich has two main grocery stores: Migros and Coop. They are fairly standard stores, and within themselves, have a range of sizes - from the baby Migrolino and Coop Pronto to the big MMM and Coop City. In addition, there is Denner, which strikes me as a Trader Joe's without the cool products, but with the limited selection, cheap prices, pre-packaged produce, and warm beer. There is also your variety of ethnic stores and little kiosks around town.

While in our temporary apartment, I've limited myself to the large Coop near us, as well as the smaller Migros and the nearby Denner. I've gotten my Migros and Coop store cards - they only provide limited benefit in the way of coupons or other benefits, but they prevent additional question/answer at the end of the checkout line [Them: "Haben eine Supercard?" Me: "Eh? Oh, nein, danke"]

Generally, grocery shopping has taken me about an hour per trip, mostly because I spend a lot of time wandering around lost and staring at things. As you would expect, grocery shopping is different from the US in innumerable ways, but here are the main ones I can think of:

1. Everything is not in English
This is sort of a duh. But when you're wandering around looking for the lemon juice or trying to differentiate between types of beans or rice, you remember it much more fully. In Switzerland, most things are labeled in German, French, and Italian - since I speak only bad French, this has been helpful, as then I can at least get a gist of what I'm buying.

2. You weigh the produce, not the cashier
In the US, you take your produce to the cashier and the cashier weighs it as part of the checkout process. In Switzerland, and in much of Europe, you weigh your produce at a scale, poke the number corresponding to your produce, and stick the given sticker on the bag or fruit/vegetable. We had read about this, but of course, forgot the first time we went to a grocery store for a banana. And were, of course, judged.

3. The produce, for the most part, looks great and is local
Almost all produce I have bought (except lemons and avocados) has been really good quality and from Schweiz - so from pretty close by. I feel like we've been eating a lot of fresh produce - could it be that it's so pretty? Or could it be that I have a lot of time for cooking. Who knows.

4. You're not going to find everything you want
Also maybe a "duh", but there are lots of things that you're expecting to find that are not on the shelves of common grocery stores or are hard to find. For example: skim milk is not a super common item in Switzerland (and Brian drinks a lot). Other things somewhat difficult to find that you (or I) may want: chicken stock (or any kind of stock that's not in bouillon form), peanut butter (such an American thing), American cereals (Cheerios, Crispix, etc.), cheddar cheese (what? in this land of cheese? it's true), most "ethnic" foods (Mexican/Tex-Mex, Asian), brown sugar, anything larger than a small packet of baking soda/baking powder/vanilla, and bulk food bins. On the flip side, there are tons of products I've never heard of and lots of great, cheap cheese. I love cheese!

5. Variety of brands? Not so much.
You want some chickpeas (I always want some chickpeas)? In a typical US grocery store, there are like, at least 5 varieties or brands to choose from on the shelf. In Switzerland, maybe (if you're lucky and there are some at all) two.

6. Things you think you should be refrigerated? They're not.
Milk? Eggs? Mostly on the shelf, rather than in the refrigerated section.

7. Sales are less common
Before coming, I thought sales were totally not-at-all common, but I'm glad to see that sales do happen. They're usually on the perishable items, though, like meat and dairy - you're not going to see sales on canned goods or wine. Also - usually in the US when you buy something in bulk, you get a discount. Not so much in Switzerland. This does keep me from buying anymore of something than I need right now.

8. Empty your cart/basket (it won't empty itself)
You approach the register. You should empty your basket onto the conveyor, rather than just plopping your basket on top. Since most cashier here sit while checking people out, this is more convenient for them. Also, have your cash (preferred) or card ready, as well as your Migros Cumulus or Coop Supercard ready. Checks? Not done in Switzerland. Ever.

9. You bag your groceries
There are no bag boys and I have gotten very good at bagging my own groceries. Perhaps this is why people come for their daily shopping instead of weekly or monthly trips - the chore of bagging one's groceries (and being rushed along) overtakes the chore of going to the grocery store daily.

Oh, you thought I was going to do ten things? I'm not.

So You Want to Move to Switzerland

2011-08-12T22:05:00.000+02:00

When Brian first mentioned the slim and distant possibility of a job in Switzerland, I was all over it like cheese on grits. For those who know me, I like to know everything about everything, so I did some research on what's involved with working and living in Switzerland and, more specifically, the experience of being a foreigner living in Switzerland. Here are the various resources I have used, for anyone else considering a move to Switzerland, or just curious.

My first resource was a PDF document put together by the Swiss government on working and living in Switzerland. My favorite sentence: "...health expenditure is highest worldwide with the exception of the United States." Touché.
I read a number of blogs of people who moved to Switzerland from other countries (generally the US, but also the UK and Australia). It has been really useful to hear about others' experiences and try to learn from them. Some, such as Swisstory, have ended as the author has moved onto another country, but are still good resources. Others are still active and interesting, including One Big Yodel and TwoFools in Zürich.
There are a variety of discussion forums and mailing lists geared toward English-speaking expats. I subscribe to the Expats-in-Zurich and Expats-in-Switzerland yahoo mailing lists and there is (very) occasionally something of interest there. I also read and reference English Forum Switzerland often. I've found that almost all of my questions have been asked and answered there at sometime, and if it hasn't been, I can ask and get responses quickly, albeit occasionally snarky (it is the Internet, after all).
As soon as we decided for sure that we were moving, I plunked down for Living and Working in Switzerland. I read it cover to cover and it's a great reference guide. There's also a book, Zurich for Newcomers - I flipped through it in a bookstore, and it didn't seem to be worth buying. The American Women's Club of Zurich has published a book, Living in Zurich, that sounds pretty comprehensive, but I haven't checked it out yet.
I also picked up a few guidebooks: A Rough Guide to Switzerland and Rick Steves' Switzerland. Usually, I'm a Lonely Planet fan, but their most recent Swiss guidebook is from 2009 - it'll be updated in 2012. For the other two, I think having both is useful - the Rough Guide gives a lot of context and talks about more places, while the Rick Steves book gets into the specifics of how to actually do something (like go up that there mountain!).
Finally, we talked to people! Through friends, we met a few people who already live in Zurich. I have also met a number of spouses of Googlers, and it's been great to ask them the dumb questions that come to my head (e.g., "what is that thing sticking to the wall of that building", "how do you pronounce MIGRO and COOP [the two main grocery stores]").

While I don't know everything about everything yet, the above have all been great resources to help get there.

Switzerland: The Prologue

2011-08-12T21:10:00.000+02:00

So. Switzerland. Brian and I have been here for more than two weeks now. But let's back up a little. Why Switzerland? Brian got offered a job with Google and they gave him the choice of staying in Seattle or going to their office in Zurich, Switzerland. After talking to the different groups, it seemed that the Zurich office was a better fit for what Brian is interested in, and I was (more than) willing to take the steps necessary to move to Europe.

We also figured: hey, we don't own a house or a car and don't have kids or pets to worry about moving. This is not to say that moving to Switzerland was all cheese and chocolate. Luckily, Google took care of a lot of the details in terms of getting the entry visas in process. He also has a relocation package that has taken care of moving our things from Seattle to Zurich, setting us up with a temporary apartment in Zurich, and helping us find a permanent apartment in the tough Zurich rental market. However, we still had to deal with paring down our things, moving out of our old apartment, finishing up our respective job/graduate school, saying goodbye to our friends in Seattle, and leaving Seattle and specifically Ballard, our lovely neighborhood in Seattle for the last two years. In addition, moving to another country comes with its own challenges: different cultural norms and different language being foremost among them. I'm sure we will expound more on those challenges and our experiences in the future.

But let's just talk the facts for now. Switzerland. What's up with Switzerland?

Switzerland is about the size of West Virginia, but with more than four times the population.
Switzerland is officially the "Swiss Confederation" or Confoederatio Helvetica, so the country is often abbreviated to CH (and its domain extension is .ch).
Switzerland is a federal republic made up of 26 cantons; we are in the Zurich canton. Each canton has its own constitution, government, and parliament. Sort of like a state, but smaller.
Zurich is not the capital of Switzerland. To be specific, Switzerland does not have a capital - Bern is the de facto capital, as it is the federal seat of all the cantons.
There is not an individual head of state like in other countries - instead, there is a federal council made up of seven people that are elected by the legislative body. The federal council members rotate the presidency of the council between themselves, but they, as a body, are the head of state. Confusing, huh?
Switzerland has four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. Romansh is a Latin-based language spoken by approximately 70,000 people in southwestern Switzerland. The NYTimes had an interesting article on the language and its speakers last year.
German is the most common language, spoken by about 70% of the country, generally in the northern and eastern parts. However, Swiss German is what is spoken in common usage, while standard German, or high German, is what is written and what is spoken in formal settings. Swiss German is a fairly different language that is mostly not intelligible to those who just speak standard German - there are different pronunciations and different words. In addition, the Swiss German dialect varies across cantons.
You can watch all of Rick Steves's episodes on Switzerland on hulu.com, which is pretty much all the exposure Brian and I had to Switzerland before we landed a few weeks ago. :)

Alright, enough knowledge for now. We'll get to the "omg, why is this like that" in future posts, I'm sure.

Hawai'i

2011-08-12T17:40:00.001+02:00

Once Brian had worked out a date for his PhD defense, we decided it was time to plan a trip somewhere, with that somewhere being Hawai'i. In 2009, we had a great trip to the island of Kauai with Martin and Melanie, and we'd heard that we should check out the Big Island next, so we flew off to Kona at the beginning of July.

We spent our first two nights in Volcano, a town just next to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Unfortunately, while we were there, there was no lava flowing into the ocean. However, the lava lake within Halema'uma'u Crater was visible at night as a bright orange glow. During the day, it was a little steamy. Both were pretty neat. (neat!)

While at the park, we did some great (and some boring) hikes and enjoyed our hotel, which seemed to have been dropped into the jungle-y set of Jurassic Park. We also took a trip up to the Visitor's Center at Mauna Kea, high above the clouds, and took a look through their high-powered telescopes to check out the moon and Saturn.

For the other four days on the island, we spent it Kona-side. On the drive over to the west-side, we stopped at South Point, the southern-most point in the United States (clever name, right?). While there, Brian took the opportunity to climb into the ocean (quickly). Sketchy part was apparently getting out on the rusty ladder.

We stayed south of Kona, in a partly-open-air cottage on the property of a coffee farm. The owners gave us papayas, pineapple, coffee, and macadamia nuts straight from the farm, and it was a great affordable place. We would recommend it for those who don't mind some geckos and bugs in your room or macadamia nuts falling on your roof :)

While on the Kona side, we saw lots of beaches, did some hikes, kayaked and snorkeled to Captain Cook monument, watched sunsets, and ate great food. I mean, can you not have a great time in Hawai'i? I think not.

In the end, our trip took place just a few days before our stuff got hauled onto a ship to go to Switzerland, so we had to do a little bit of preparation while on vacation, but hey, it all worked out! For the rest of our pictures, see here.

Congratulations Brian!

2011-08-12T17:17:00.001+02:00

After seven (7!) years of graduate school, Brian received his PhD this summer. While he did not receive the actual piece of paper saying that he is a doctor until mid-July (a mere three days before we left for Switzerland), the pomp and circumstance took place in June with the rest of the graduates.

For graduation, his entire family came into Seattle for a weekend of celebration. While his mom and grandmother had flight troubles that prevented them from attending the actual departmental graduation, they got to campus before Brian turned in his very-purple robe and hat.

Unsurprisingly, it was a weekend of great food. On Friday night, while Brian was on his way back from DC after being nominated as a Champion of Change, his sisters, dad, and brothers-in-law had delicious meals at Tamarind Tree and Third Place Pub. On graduation day, Brian and I got a big load of treats from Cafe Besalu for the family, and followed up the ceremony at Shultzy's, Brian's source for sweet tea, German sausage, and soccer throughout graduate school. That night, we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle, Pair, with Ethan's family, and had the fun of ordering one of everything on the menu for our party of 13.

Finally, on Sunday, after a morning of family portraits and a trip to the Ballard Farmer's Market, we had a more formal party at Licorous to celebrate Brian's and Ethan's graduation with family and close friends. The staff there were great, and helped us create three signature drinks that were served, along with a great selection of appetizers. With a souvenir menu, what's not to love?

Unfortunately, Licorous closed shortly after our party, but we would still recommend their parent restaurant, Lark, to anyone looking for a great meal in Seattle.

Finally, after the weekend, many of the family headed up to the Methow Valley for a week of family and food! For more graduation weekend photos, see here.

Revival

2011-08-10T18:39:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago, I saw a blog (that I can no longer find) that was made up entirely of other people's blog posts apologizing for the lack of updates. You know the type: "Sorry for not posting..." We have no apologies. We've been doing things, meeting people, seeing places. But in the interest of accounting for our time and appeasing friends and relatives, we are back. Revived.

In fast-paced summary since September 2009, much like the beginning of a West Wing episode, here are the highlights, with a surplus of exclamations and without many events that are worthy of inclusion:

Rest of 2009

Melanie and Martin get married!
Girl's weekend with Katie in Chicago
Leavenworth Birthday Weekend!
Mount Baker New Year's!

2010

Fun weddings
Sweden and Denmark
Couch racing and surprise sisters for Brian's 30th
CC and Amy go to DC!

2011... so far

Camping in Arizona and Utah
Brian graduates!
We go to Hawai'i! (the Big Island this time)
We move to Zurich, Switzerland

Oh, perhaps we should expound on a few of those. Next time.

So, this is cool.

2009-09-13T17:00:00.000+02:00

Today is Day 365 of the Ferris-Wheeless adventure. So, far? Marriage is pretty cool. We do lots of fun things and things are generally awesome.

Let's recap!

Of course, we got married (as you may recall)

And then we went to Iceland and had a fantastic time

Immediately after getting home, we went to Lake Chelan and celebrated CC's birthday.

And a visit from Dawn and Eli.

Of course, there were holidays: Canadian Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Christmas...

A trip to DC to visit Dawn and Jessie...

Spring in Seattle...

Off the Kauai with Martin and Melanie...

Who could forget the Fremont Summer Solstice Parade?

Moving out of our old place, with a little help from our friends

And a roadtrip to Idaho and Montana!

And of course, all the fun everyday things in between: morning hair, silly emails, dinner shenanigans, BBQs with friends... here's to many more of this crazy journey with one Mr. Ferris.

Montana!

2009-08-16T01:34:00.000+02:00

Amy and I did a week-long road trip to Montana a few weeks back. Highlights include Glacier National Park, rodeo in Helena with Mel, and lots of random stuff in-between. We took lots of photos:

and even some video:

Day 0-n: Photos of Iceland

2008-10-02T19:28:00.000+02:00

See the full set here

Day -1: Why Iceland?

2008-09-27T00:34:00.000+02:00

In reaction to where we went went on our honeymoon we get one or a mixture of the following reactions?

Where's Iceland?
THAT'S COOL!
Huh... that's interesting.
I've never heard of anyone doing that.

It wasn't our intention, when we were planning the honeymoon, to go somewhere completely strange, but I think it's a nice side effect. When Brian and I sat down at the kitchen table to decide where we should go, we drew up a list of a bunch of places, and, through a series of rigorous criteria (not so much), we landed on Iceland and Alaska. We decided that, as West Coast residents, we could go to Alaska just about anytime, and that we should check this Iceland place out. As it turned out, there were some good and cheap flights there, and a friend of mine mentioned the Icelandic Farm Holiday program, which sounded like an awesome way to get things taken care of.

Before this, I knew the following things about Iceland: Bjork, Sigur Ros and volcanos exist there, Reykjavik is the capitol, Vikings are somehow associated. Sometime in the early spring, I purchased the Lonely Planet's guide to Iceland, and tried to learn some more. Some interesting facts:

Iceland only has a bit over 300,000 people, but is the size of Kentucky. About 60% of people live in the capitol of Reykjavik.
Icelandic is the language, and is the oldest European language. It is as close to what Vikings spoke as you can get. Most people speak English, though.
Icelanders still follow the patronymic naming convention that used to be common in much of Scandinavia, rather than having surnames. For example, Brian's name would be Brian Harveyson, and I would be Amy Markdotter. No one changes their name after they get married.
Hot dogs are the national snack food. Maybe not officially, but still. Icelanders enjoy their hot dogs with fresh chopped onions, fried onions, ketchup, a sweet mustard and remoulade sauce.
Sheep, puffins, Icelandic horses, whales, and cows are common sites around Iceland. People are not.
Most of their energy is supplied by geothermal power, as the island is a "hot zone", due to being a place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates collide.
Summer mostly ends at the end of August - September is the start of lower tourist season.
Rain is common. Like Seattle, umbrellas are less common - people just wear raincoats.

We booked the South Explorer tour with the Iceland Farm Holidays company, which starts you in Southwest Iceland with a rental car, and then send you to different farms on the South Coast before a night in Reykjavik. Since we still had a few additional days to work with, we booked a few more nights in Reykjavik. I'll be honest - before we left, I had done only limited research on what we were doing. Wedding to plan and show up to, you know?

View Larger Map

Now a word from our sponsors...

2008-09-24T23:06:00.000+02:00

Brian and I are back from the honeymoon, and yes, we had a great time. We will be posting pictures and blog entries about each of our days in Iceland so that you can hear, in excruciating detail about all of our funtimes! Happily, we had almost no travel snafus, and we arrived back in Seattle yesterday, greeted by flowers, decorations and treats from some awesome friends, and a pile of gifts that had been delivered while we were away. Yahoo!

In addition to all our great friends and family who helped make our day special, here is a list of the vendors and people we used for the wedding, in case you were wondering:

Caterer: Square Rabbit, who also arranged table and chair rental
Photographer: Lindsey Marla Lynch, and sidekick Joe
Florist: John Watkins of John's Flowers
Cellist: Douglass Little
Venue: Artspace with art by Louis St. Lewis
Rings: Green Lake Jewelry Works
Cake: Brian's mom, Kelli Ferris
Invitations and Thank you Cards: My matron of honor, Joy Jones
Dress: Cicada Bridal
Bridesmaids Dresses: Dessy Group
Honeymoon: Iceland Farm Holidays

Also, a special thanks to Andrew for lending speakers, setting them up and helping us rock out, to Rachel and Emily for decorating and delegating decorating responsibilities, and to Matt for letting us crash his conveniently located condo before the wedding to eat pizza and escape the heat and for securing more chairs at Artspace.

We will have some wedding pictures up soon from our photographer, but if anyone is jonesin' for some pictures now, here are some lovely pictures from Joy & Lindel and from Michele.

The aftermath

2008-09-14T22:18:00.000+02:00

Thanks to everyone who was able to come to our wedding last night! We had a great time, and we are so happy that so many of you were able to come. For those that weren't there, we missed you! I'm sure there will be pictures soon, but Brian and I will not be able to post any until we get back to Seattle, since we're not taking our computers to Iceland (I know, SHOCKER!). So, if anyone has links to some photos online that they want to share, put them in the comments!

Wedding Cake

2008-09-11T02:14:00.001+02:00

So my mom and I are making the wedding cake. Those of you who know me and my baking tendencies probably aren't too surprised. Those of you who don't should know that my mom has made a ton of wedding cakes in her life. She paid her way through college working as a caterer. I've always been partial to my mom's cakes, so when she asked if that could be her gift to me, I said yes. The catch is that I would be doing half the work.

As you may recall, Amy and I are going with coconut cake. We wanted something Southern, so we orginally pushed for red velvet. My mom balked at the thought of that much red food coloring, so coconut it is. Unfortunately, Amy has sworn off coconut cake forever after I made her try the fifteen different varieties, but hopefull the rest of you will enjoy it.

So we started with this:

That's 9 boxes of Duncan Hines (don't go Betty Crocker!). Add in 27 eggs, 9 cans of light coconut milk, water, and oil, and you start to get some actual cakes:

At this point, we are going to fill them tomorrow morning, do a crumb coat of frosting and toss them in the freezer before we move on to later steps. If you're going to be at the wedding, you'll get to enjoy the results first hand.

omg freakout

2008-09-09T06:49:00.001+02:00

It's less than a week away. Brian and I are getting on the plane tomorrow. We're flying through Nashville - do you need any country music schwag? I think you do. We demand Bojangles and/or Waffle House treats as soon as we land. Who's the welcoming committee?

However - what's up with this rain in Raleigh? I love a good thunderstorm, but none of this drizzle, thank you! Also, why is it always beautiful weather whenever I leave Seattle? 72 and sunny all week! Also, for the record, Iceland is 50 degrees and raining. Who planned this honeymoon anyway?

For those around in Raleigh on Thursday night, I think there might be something going on. You know, Mitch's style.

I have no questions for you today, except to ask: are you ready? Brian has a kickin' dance mix.