the great apartment search

We have been here for a week already! Much of our time has been spent looking for apartments. The vacancy rate is less than 1% in the city of Zurich so you can imagine how difficult it is to find places. The saying here is that the apartment is already rented when it is just being imagined by the architect. We have seen about 8 places and applied for 3 so far. Most of the apartments have open houses from 5-7 p.m. and there are sometimes hundreds of people who view them during that time. There is no such thing as "fair housing" here so they take a look at your application and choose who looks the best on paper. We are hoping to get lucky so we can move into a place before Phil goes to Germany next week. Tomorrow we continue the search.

This past week we spent a lot of time walking around when we weren't touring apartments. We have made a habit of going into almost all of the stores in shopping centers so we can get a feel for the products that are available and what sort of prices they charge. Our favorite store so far is one called "Jumbo" that reminds us of the Home Depot or Lowe's. They have painting supplies, inflatable mattresses, grills, patio furniture, bikes, screens (woo-hoo!) and plants to name a few. I can't wait to get an apartment so we can go shopping there!

Today we went to the "Expat Expo." It consisted of vendors and organizations for expats from the U.S. and the UK mostly. We were able to find some good information about some social clubs, where to get American foods, and helpful info about language schools as well.

Some fun facts about Switzerland:
- You cannot get brown sugar, vanilla extract, baking powder or baking soda here? (Actually you can get one of the last two but it is very different and difficult to convert for american recipes)
- Maple syrup is also hard to get and is very expensive
- Everything shuts down on Sundays and if a business requires an employee to work they have to file a special form with the city
- They do not have screens on any windows - but - there are very few bugs compared to the U.S., which is fantastic
- The ski season goes from December until Easter
- On a clear day, you can see the Alps over the south end of Lake Zurich
- The Swiss speak Swiss-German but write high German
- November is supposed to be cold and rainy so don't plan to visit during that time!
- All Swiss men are required to serve in the military until they are 35 or so, and each of these men have a gun that they must keep at their houses "just in case"
- All Swiss residences have a nuclear bomb shelter in the cellar "just in case"
- Some of the mountains in Switzerland have been hollowed out for military installations and would be opened up if the country came under attack

I am sure we will learn more interesting facts as we spend more time here!

We have been very slow to take pictures so far since we have been busy looking for apartments. We will try to get some pictures up soon though!

Tomorrow we are heading to IKEA to scout out the different things we want for our place and we will be looking at more apartments.

-Alison & Phil