Where do we live again?

According to our visas, our bank statements, and our Facebook pages we currently live in Zürich, Switzerland.  I thought when we moved here, that I would feel different somehow now that we live in Europe, but really, life is pretty normal.  It's kind of like when you turn a certain age, like 16, 18, or 21 and you think you are going to feel different because you reached some milestone, but you feel pretty much the same, unfortunately.  Now, there are things that are very different and breathtaking, like when I was walking around downtown last Friday and tucked in with all the other buildings is a 12th-century church.

Grossmünster

You know, no big deal, it's just a church that's been around for 800 years (!) that you pass by on your way to the grocery store or to work, etc.  Or you know, as you are on your way to meet someone for lunch you might pass by this amazing view.

Not the view of the crane, I'm talking about those Swiss Alps

So yes, there are things that are very different.  The Swiss do like to think of themselves as rule followers and they do have strict rules when it comes to some things.  But people still cross the street wherever and whenever they feel like.  They still push people out of the way to try and get free chocolate.  And even though there was a four-page document about all the rules when you live in an apartment (don't take a bath between 10 pm and 6 am?  The noise might wake people up?), our relocation agent specifically said to ignore them.

But most other things are pretty close to what we are used to in the US. Darren goes to work and speaks English all day and gets free food, which I then covet.  I go to the grocery store, stalk people on Facebook, talk to my mother mostly every day, and learn German.  Everyone around us is speaking a different language, but well, in California our apartment complex was 70% Indian, so we never heard people speak English there anyways.  We go to Asian grocery stores, buy ramen, I attempt to remember any of the Chinese I supposedly learned in college, and Darren tries to get me to buy kimchi.

We go to Ikea where everything is in Swedish and wander around and about halfway through we are so tired, we just want to get out of there, but have to just walk through the whole thing because there is no escaping.

Good old Poång

All of this is to say that with today's global economy, we still buy our clothes and our furniture from Swedish companies, we still drool over German cars, we watch American movies with all British actors, we want the latest Taiwanese cell phones, and I still need soap from a Swiss company that my dermatologist recommended, but now we just do it from Switzerland. :)

At a much higher price. :(