Theory of Expatriation, Pt. 2

Continuing to develop thoughts regarding big moves and subsequent adoption or not of a new home, we left off at the "homesickness gap," that is, the perceived loss of a mixture of loved characteristics, both anticipated and unanticipated, of one's home (applicable to moving from Chicago to Zürich, yes, or possibly applicable to moving from, say, rural Vermont to Dallas/Ft.Worth). Attempting to quantify the unquantifiable, I'll break the homesickness gap into two portions, a smaller short-term portion (say 30% of the total) of simple daily missed items and a larger long-term portion (say 70%) of fundamental items such as family and friends. The short-term portion is synonymous with the common, acute "homesick feeling" from being away from home for several weeks or months.

So how does one bridge the short-term homesickness gap? By searching for replacement items, of course. Somewhat akin to being on vacation, when immersed in a foreign culture one tries all the new offerings hoping to find some new loves. Because the Theory says it's not sustainable long-term to replace things one loves with things one likes. That's when homesickness drags on or never quite leaves. But here it gets tricky, because instinctually one seeks out direct replacements for lost items to the same degree. Instead of unsweet iced tea, try Rivella (Switzerland's beloved answer to ginger ale, made from milk syrup). Doner kebops instead of burritos. Schoggigipfels instead of bagels. Vaunted streetcar transportation instead of el & BMW. Try every restaurant in town (expecially Swiss-Mexican restaurants). Etcetera.

The scorecard will show some wins but almost certainly more losses. But it's time to whip out your Mont Blanc, because here comes the non-intuitve cornerstone of the entire Theory: the short- and long-term homesickness gap can only be bridged by indirect replacement. That is, one must learn to love completely different things than those missed and of course, one doesn't immediately recognize what those are. In the short-term, the home loves can be offset by new diverse likes and acute homesickness will dissipate. But after a year or two or five, if the total gap hasn't been bridged by an equivalent "amount" of newly developed different loves, one returns to the original home. If the total gap has been bridged, one remains in the newly-adopted home.

Early on, it's difficult to determine which likes might develop into new loves. In our situation, the grocery store food is blow-your-mind fresh if you don't mind cooking every night. The Uetliberg hike and comprehensive trail system are a 25-minute tram journey away. A mere 20-minute walk affords different forested trails and great city views. We found another 8-minute tram journey to a different series of great running trails and panoramas (totally unexpected). If you love trails, this could be the start of something good. We'll try skiing this winter, perhaps that will be awesome. We've found one good wine bar so far and an excellent feels-like-Spain tapas bar this weekend (unexpected!). Thus the short-term homesickness felt keenly in early January has mostly dissipated because we're liking these things and they add up.

As a "proof" of my cockamamie theory, I (and I'm probably not alone) felt a completely foreign emotion in mid-January--not exactly homesickness but without a better name--where I wasn't longing to return home but illogically wanted my friends and family in Switzerland to experience these new things together. I now equate that emotion to the short-term gap being bridged and thus feeling the long-term gap more acutely.

So the $64,000 question asked by U.S. colleagues in equal measure either wishing for our eventual return or never wanting to see us again is: so are you staying in Europe or what? My cop-out answer is that it's too early to tell. We've talked to ex-pats who hated the first two years but now would never return "home"; we've talked to ex-pats that adored the first year but were ready to leave Europe after the second year; and we've talked to ex-pats who returned home and now miss Europe.

Ours like all the others will be an ongoing tale. But if you really want my prediction at any given moment--or if you want to hear some additional theories--you'll need to visit Zürich and we'll discuss it over schnitzel with fried egg and a Rivella.

Quick ITYS

[I must interrupt my theorizing momentarily. Like everyone, I simply hate to say I Told You So, however the timing is too perfect. Not fourteen hours after posting the Theory's initial tenant--Expats are Like Dog Owners--I scored a major coup in my own mind about which Stephanie is already weary of hearing.

It's Sunday today and like everyone with insufficient foostuffs on a Sunday, the family visited Bahnhof Stadelhofen for the only open grocery store. While Hobbes and I waited outside, a woman and her son approached to pet His Hairiness. She started complementing Hobbes and asking his name in German, when I recognized perfect Midwestern American English spoken with her son and we started chatting.

Their family was also originally from Illinois but has lived in various locations in Switzerland and Germany for 15 years. We then talked for 20 minutes about cultural differences between Switzerland and America, food purchasing tips, experiences adjusting to a new culture, and some Swiss history regarding reasons for current lifestyle practices. A fairly in-depth conversation with a complete stranger, no doubt? And the brilliant part was its actually being predicated by dog ownership. Yes, my arm is broken from the self-back-patting and I'll be checking into the Klinik now, thanks very much...]

Theory of Expatriation, Pt. 1

Most friends know that I enjoying baking in my spare time, things such as pastries and rustic breads. Many friends also know that I also enjoy half-baking, mostly grandiose theories born from inadequate study in numerous areas, such as 'Physiological Relationship of Exercise and the Common Cold', 'Economic Incentives for the Organic Food Movement', 'A Practical Amalgamation of World Religion', 'Underying Psychology of World Politicians', 'Role of Special Interest Groups in Modern Capitalism' and 'Environmental Ramifications of the Social Dilemma.' Luckily, our move to Switzerland has provided fuel for development of several new theories (quarter-baked?), including 'Sociological Roots of Astronomic Swiss Prices for Everything' and 'Theories of Expatriation.' I'll dare to develop that last one a bit in black & white (the others are available only verbally after a minimum of eight alcoholic drinks)...

Working and living as an expatriate is like owning a dog--it instantly creates a common thread and thus spontaneously opens a mutually engaging dialogue between people. For example, Steph and I lived in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood for seven years before owning a dog, never speaking a word to "neighbors" on the street. Two weeks after first parading around with Hobbes, we recognized and conversed with a dozen dog-owning neighbors whom doubtlessly passed us mutually unnoticed for years. So my evolving theory is based on a host of recent conversations with current- and ex-ex-pats, some happier than others, some longtime friends and some new acquaintances, some with short term assignments and some longer term, some fixed-term, e.g., two years only, and some open-ended (like ours), and some habitual globetrotters moving families across continents every few years. In fact, that's Tenant #1 of the Theory--moving overseas is like owning a dog. Deep start, eh?

My theory is self-absorbed in that it's more applicable to open-ended assignments; I've also already expanded it, viewing expatriation as merely a microcosm (albeit an extreme version) of the more common situation of relocating from any one home to another. The question probed is, "When one moves away from home, what factors determine either eventual adoption of the new location as 'home' or--even after years of an enjoyable relocation--spur one's return to the original or 'true' home?"

The theory goes that one loves certain aspects of home to a greater or lesser degree, and that one must grow to love new but different aspects as much or more in the new location to stay. So I enjoy breaking it into pieces. In our downtown Chicago, U.S.A. home of 14 years (how Chicago became home after growing up in WI/MN and attending college in IN would test the theory again), among other things we loved (consciously) the world-class restaurant scene, working downtown, Mexican food, the cultural diversity, our Roscoe Village house and kitchen and patio and entertaining for groups, our car, and (for me) club sandwiches for lunch and unsweetened iced tea everywhere. Most of all we loved our Midwest relationships with so many longtime friends and our proximity (say, within 400 miles) to many family members. We loved (unconsciously) the low cost of living. Other people might love living in the same town as their parents/grandparents, the local golf course, the Friday VFW fish fry or whatever. You have attachments to home spanning from at least a few years to perhaps your entire conscious life.

(Thus the building blocks for Tenant #2, which is that many people around the world never leave home because of the risk and cost of leaving so many things--or virtually everything--that they love and Tenant #3, which is that people who move around a lot have fewer years to develop deep attachments, a self-perpetuating cycle.)

So now that we're in Switzerland, ALL those things we love are gone. One has already painfully prepared oneself mentally for all the biggies, of course, like leaving family and friends and selling the beloved house and car for an apartment and no car. There's the known struggle with language and communication. Then there are things where you hold out unrealistic hope, like for good Mexican food. So disappointment in those areas is planned. But it's really the small and unconscious things that can kill you psychologically (of course, I'm using our Chicago/Swiss experience as an example, but the theory is built on numerous other ex-pat reports).

To extend our example, the vast majority restaurants here serve Swiss-German food all the time and the big meal is lunch; while certainly delicious, wienerschnitzel topped with a fried egg and a mound of fries or spaetzle or hash browns at midday grows slightly tiresome when you crave a modest club sandwich. ALL the iced tea is pre-bottled and sweet which I can't stand. Everything you buy, from daily groceries to furniture, is wallet-numbingly expensive (even by European standards). And even though you prepared mentally for everything possible, these types of things hit you every day and seep in and there's not much changing them. Thus you miss those things from home, a.k.a., homesickness. You think they don't matter but they do.

So that part is obvious, because really even the homesickness is expected yet always subsides in time with adjustment to the new reality; homesickness is short-term. The big issue is long-term, i.e., what determines the depth and length of dis/satisfaction and ultimately (over the next several years) whether you stay or go? That's the next piece and it deals with what I believe is a non-intuitive shift in psychology. But I'll need to address that in Part 2 because it's past my bedtime on a wild Saturday night.

The Uetliberg Cure

As briefly mentioned before, the first several days of 2008 found us slightly out of sorts and a bit dour, feeling uprooted from our relocation from Kloten to Zurich and struggling to reestablish our living patterns a second time. Also for whatever reason, a New Year always brings some feelings of introspection, a pause to look backwards and then consider the upcoming future. I daresay we weren't second-guessing our decision to come to Europe, but our return to Zurich from Paris and the subsequent second apartment move in two months, coupled with all the down time in the city between Christmas and New Year's, had conjured feelings of treading water, being truly unsettled and vaguely homesick for the first time.

In this case, we couldn't eat and drink our way out of the doldrums because we'd just done that in Paris. So what's the backup cure? An excursion, of course!

Living in the top unit on the sixth floor affords us some fair views (most buildings in the city aren't over four stories) and at night, on the very top of the hillside on the other side of Lake Zurich, significantly above any residential lights, glows an interesting stand-alone tower. There's also a tiny Argentinean wine bar a mere two blocks from home, and during our second visit there (already) and conversation with the very genial manager Hans, a native Zuricher, we'd asked about the tower. Hans said it was called the Uetliberg, the highest point in Zurich, and a good hike in the spring. As our first weekend in the new apartment rolled around, we quickly agreed spring was too long to wait.

That Saturday morning, we hit the local cafe for wireless Internet access to research (mostly in German) transportation options for attacking the Uetliberg. Armed with some vague initial directions, we donned our hiking attire, geared up and recruited additional support from our four-legged anti-Sherpa. Right outside our building we grabbed Tram #11--running down Lake Zurich's east side--rode it to the city center in about 8 minutes and transferred to the tram running down the lake's west side, lucky Tram #13. We reached the line's end about 15 minutes later at a stop called Albisgutli, kick-off point for the trail to the Uetliberg. As any seasoned hiker knows, the biggest challenge of any backcountry excursion is simply locating the trailhead. Luckily, Switzerland makes screw-ups difficult through an unbelievably well-marked trail system (across the entire country) with abundant signposts, trail names, destinations and distances--gotta love that Swiss attention to detail.

Leaving the tram tracks, we ascended two more street blocks on foot at quite a steep angle, following trail markers on lampposts, to reach the beginnings of forest and the trailhead map indicating a short jaunt to the Uetliberg summit. More interesting, the map detailed a network of additional dayhiking trails stretching for dozens of miles over Lake Zurich's western forested hillside. With a last glance up at the two neighboring towers (a la J.R.R. Tolkien, except these were our nighttime glowing tower looking now like a scaled-down Eiffel and the other a monstrous red cell phone tower) looming on the hilltop visible above, we plunged into the trees and up the trail.

The going was immediately slow. The trail's grade was fairly extreme, every step above the last like stairs, with a slippery surface of wet dirt and half-melted snow thanks to Zurich's recent run of 30-to-35 degree weather. Progress seemed a bit difficult until, after gaining a bit of altitude, the surface changed to half-melted ice and snow, at which point real progress became wishful thinking and just staying upright became difficult. That is unless you're the canine traveling companion, whose low center of gravity and crampon-like claws afforded total control, and when coupled with his zeal for ice and snow had him running circles around and laughing at his parents. We picked our way slowly upward.

After 40 minutes or so, ever nearer the hilltop and without anyone plunging over the side or headlong backwards, the trail opened up into a series of plateaus with incredible views of Lake Zurich, the entire city and the distant majestic Alps. Anyone familiar with the folly of trying to reproduce view panoramas with a single snapshot will understand that this picture only begins to capture the scene:

During our trek and at the viewpoints, we encountered a few additional couples or groups descending our direction, including one group with a baby "protected" in her father's arms as he picked his way treacherously down the icy slope while his companion descended behind wrestling with a mega-sized stroller (all strollers are mega-sized these days not only in the U.S., as we've learned, but also Switzerland and probably all of Europe). Hello, nutsos?!? But it begged the question, how did they get up there? And as we climbed nearer the peak and the trail widened and cleared of ice and snow and intersected with new wide trails, and new signposts appeared, and the groups became larger and less athletic-looking, and appeared to have been strolling rather than cramponing for dear life, our pipe dream of summiting in solitude evaporated and something else became obvious--there's a lot easier way up here.

Finally reaching the top, we should not have been surprised by the inevitable prize we knew (from previous trips to Interlaken and Lucerne) exists at the summit of every Swiss peak--a viewing area with countless benches and a fancy restaurant and hotel and several coffee and food stands. Our glowing mini-Eiffel is an observation deck reachable by climbing several stories of stairs. After ogling the magnificent views of the city and far down Lake Zurich and distant jagged Alpine peaks (over two hours away by train), we followed the signs a five-minute walk back down the other side of the hill to--you guessed it--the train that winds its way down (or up!) the entire hillside back to northwest Zurich city. Slightly worn and windswept and numb, we opted for discretion over valor, bought three train tickets back to Zurich and watched our once-elated-now-exhausted muddy mountaineering companion pass out on the train ride home.

Nothing visible had changed in the apartment--no elves had installed any track lighting or organized our clothes during those three hours--but believe it or not, that Uetliberg excursion somehow permanently shook away our doldrums. Of course the feelings of impatience with the apartment and homesickness didn't disappear completely, but that one little difficult icy trek a mere 25 minutes from our front door somehow supplanted the perception and promise of as-yet-undiscovered and awesome things in 2008.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Sincerest apologies. My blogging frequency of late resembles the Zürich paper & carton pickup schedule (one big dump every two weeks) instead of the glass & plastic schedule (a sensible bit every day). The silence does not reflect a lack of content. On the contrary, there's content coming out my ears (it's not pretty). Hmm, so how to recount the details from two action-packed weeks of 2008..?

At last telling, we had just moved from wonderfully rural Kloten to the wonderful "big" city of Zürich (with its 350,000 inhabitants about 1/10th the size of Chicago), the "little metropolis" as a local called it. Zürich city is divided into twelve districts or Kreise, literally "circles," perhaps akin to Paris's arrondisements but with considerably less notoriety. As tons of luck would have it, we landed in Kreis 7, about halfway up Lake Zürich's eastern hillside. The Kreise are subdivided into neighborhoods, ours is Hirslanden (click the map above to enlarge Hirslanden), analogous to our Roscoe Village neighborhood in Chicago but again 1/10th the size. From there (particularly without a car), life's convenience or lack thereof is determined by the nearest Platz.

Of course, the Platz is a familiar Old World Europe concept [Platz is German, plaza is Spanish, piazza is Italian (not pizza, although that's also Italian), place is French, etc.] meaning the very local town square. As a tourist, the average European Platz (not the magnificent ones like Paris's Place Madeleine or Venice's Piazza San Marco) holds marginal interest. As an inhabitant, I'll say the Platz will make or break you. In Zürich the Plätze (that's plural)--like so many other Swissisms we're learning--are magnificently consistent and provide at minimum the daily staples--always a drugstore, bakery, butcher, café, and small traditional Swiss restaurant, all Mom & Pop places. By my new measure, the individual character of these staples PLUS public transportation connectivity PLUS any "embellishment establishments" determine the all-important overall quality of the Platz. So why are we so lucky with our new apartment? Because our Platz is Kreuzplatz, and Kreuzplatz rocks!

Truthfully we're equidistant from two Plätze, a five minute walk uphill to Hegibachplatz or five minute walk downhill to Kreuzplatz (which would you adopt)? But actually Hegibachplatz is weak, whereas Kreuzplatz has two full grocery stores, an excellent café/nightclub, Swisscom Mobile phone store, post office, wine store, bakery (admittedly not the best), two trams and a bus and (dare I say it??) a Starbucks (although I'm a Starbucks fan, I haven't gone in).

But the good news doesn't stop there. Both a tram and a bus stop not thirty feet from our front door and run like clockwork every few minutes. And continuing five minutes on foot past Kreuzplatz you'll hit the train station Bahnhof Stadelhofen which is HUGE!! Good proximity to a city train station here is like a gold mine inside an oil well, or maybe the other way around. Why? I'm glad you asked...

There are only about six train stations in the main city. They all feed the Hauptbahnhof or main station, from there you can go anywhere in Zürich or Switzerland or Europe. Stadelhofen to the Hauptbahnhof takes 4 minutes. A train line actually runs through Stadelhofen to Stephanie's office building, thus making her commute from the city's south to far north side only 35 minutes door-to-door, including walking and waiting time. The next tram stop past Stadelhofen is Bellevueplatz which not only features the best bratwurst stand in Zürich and Globus gourmet foods but also serves as one of three major transportation hubs in the city, with trams going everywhere. Without a car, I can't tell you how HUGE that connectivity is! It nearly makes me sob with emotion. OK, maybe not quite, but it sure is nice.

And here's the icing on the cake. Everything shuts down here on weekdays by about 6:30pm, Saturdays at 5:00pm and all-day Sunday. That's crazy by U.S. standards--come home just a little late after work one night or after a weekend trip without food waiting in the fridge and you're out of luck. Everything shuts down, that is, except the train station stores which stay open late, even on Sunday. So our Stadelhofen, like all the train stations here, contains a full grocery store. Of course, heaven help you shopping there on Sunday, you'd have better luck surviving a Korn mosh pit or piranha attack. But that's not the point.

So Hobbes (and Stephanie of course, when available) and I are exploring the neighborhood in an ever-growing radius, critically evaluating every Platz and other local feature. We have a nearby homemade pasta factory (makes fresh pastas and sauces every day for take-home), homemade sorbetto factory (slow biz in winter), Argentina-themed wine bar (we're already on a first-name basis with the manager and owner), two large parks, a cheapo local pub with greasy-good schnitzel and better beer, a shop specializing in Hungarian goods (including--hold on to your underpants if you know this reference--Unicum bitters, a black herbal Hungarian liquor akin to Jägermeister but significantly funkier, responsible for dropping an early haze over many a poker contest), a pet store (hooray for Hobbes!), a hiking/camping store (hooray for me!), a large café with great espresso during the day that turns into a salsa dancing bar on Saturday nights (remember an old reference to Bohemia?), and several pizza restaurants, including a take-out outlet of Sam's Pizza, an Americana-themed chain serving relatively authentic deep-dish U.S. pizza.

So that's just a description of our surroundings. Now that I'm replugged in, stay tuned for ad nauseam reports on actual activities..!

Warten Sie (Hold, please) !

Egads! Nearly a week without a post! You may have guessed it's due to our settling into a boring routine with nothing new or interesting to recount, but fortunately the opposite is true--too busy to fit a blog in edgewise. So this entry is merely a bookmark, a temporary placeholder until the melodrama continues unfolding very soon (practically speaking, part of the problem was lacking Internet access all last week awaiting reinstallation in the new apartment).

Soon to be revealed: sordid details of the new neighborhood, mysterious new Swiss "friends" with links to Argentina and Hungary, Herculean physical achievements scaling icy mountains on two legs and two wheels and four paws, and late-night salsa dancing extravaganzas a mere block from home, perhaps all peppered with some new half-baked philosophies on the emotional phases of expatriation. If that doesn't keep you tuned in, I don't know what will (ha!). Oh yeah, and did I mention the riveting ongoing quest for furniture, lamps, adaptors, cables, light bulbs, etc.?

One Step Back, Two Forward

Conventional wisdom maintains that moving is stressful. Moving overseas is somewhat tougher. But moving twice in two months is a real bummer. Advance warning: I'm labeling this blog entry not as complaining, simply venting a bit. One can almost settle oneself two months after a move, and we were fairly settled (for better or worse) in our tiny Kloten apartment. Just in time to pull up those delicate roots and move them to Zürich.

After returning from Paris and spending one last night in Kloten, we moved most of our temporary living items to the new digs in Zürich to join the newly arrived Chicago stuff. Actually, moving most of our Kloten items required three trips because we were aided by two dogs (we watched Dave & Heather's dog Vera while they traveled to Amsterdam over New Year's). Logistically, that was one large suitcase and one dog apiece for 45 minutes on the bus, train and tram for two trips, followed by an easy third trip with merely two large suitcases apiece (no dogs). I really credit Zürich public transportation, though. I coined the phrase, "Well, that couldn't have been any easier...without a car!" and used it after each trip. Of course, there was a fourth and final trip requiring our relocation company's van for Hobbes's enormous airplane crate and a new Euro-compatible TV we purchased on a discount through Hyatt, but that didn't happen until yesterday, 1/9.

That first week living in Zürich, from about Fri, Dec 28 to Fri, Jan 4, introduced the strangest emotions yet on this overall adventure. And not strange good (because so many strange good feelings exist, eh?). Strange like fundamentally unsettled for the first time. Partially an incongruous feeling because our Chicago possessions are here now, but missing key things we sold. Partially because we had just returned from a Paris vacation to Swiss real-life, not the usual U.S. life. And probably mostly because of the enormous pain in the ass of reestablishing life's every little detail.

For example, we started again with no Internet connection, no cable connection, no TV; a new public transportation schema, new grocery and convenience store locations, new bank locations, and new commuting connections for Steph; for Hobbes, new Robidog trashbin locations (not immediately obvious) and a new concrete neighborhood to navigate. There are new recycling locations and trash pickup calendar and different disposal rules; new washer, drier, dishwasher, and oven operations (not intuitive, but with helpful instructions in German, French and Italian--take your pick). The other psychological kicker was previously selling things we now need--vacuum cleaner, bedside lamps, office desk & chair, TV stand, TV area couch & chair.

Other general "apartment culture" challenges in Europe vs. the U.S. are a pronounced lack of overhead lighting and a complete absence of closets. In virtually all apartments, overhead lights are scarce and dim by U.S. standards (fixtures allow max 60W), usually compensated by a preponderance of floor and table lamps, which we never owned or sold because of voltage incompatibilities, respectively. Our first three nights in Zürich were just plain dark, the next two nights (including New Year's Eve) we fared much better by candlelight before finally purchasing our first of what will be several floor lamps. The challenge is that most Swiss floor lamps, while stylish, are still relatively dim for lighting large areas and outrageously expensive. So we needed to search out enough department and lighting stores to facilitate comparison shopping before making a purchase--our ultimate selection was fairly stylish, bright (3x100W) and outrageously expensive. But the norms do help illuminate (sorry, I couldn't help it!) why the U.S. uses twice as much energy per capita than Europe.

Now, please imagine something for me. First stop and count the closets in your house. Maybe there's an entry closet for coats, a sizable closet in each bedroom, an office closet, perhaps a kitchen closet, probably bathroom closets and maybe a closet near your laundry or in the basement. OK, now imagine your house with zero closets. Where would all that stuff go? I'll bet most Americans could build a 20-foot-tall pyre of closeted goods. Steph and I traveled to Europe much leaner of course, our pyre is currently only 10 feet (actually 3.05 meters). Instead of closets, the European system is buying separate wardrobes and bureaus and cabinets and drawers for every room. You wonder how IKEA (Swedish) became a €13 billion ($18 billion) company? Yep, lamps and wardrobes. So we're spending our "spare" time furniture shopping (boring!) and steadily purchasing, but finding the right items and arranging delivery and assembly doesn't happen overnight. Or even over a fortnight, in many cases.

So enough complaining (I changed my mind, I was complaining not venting). Where are the two steps forward?? Never fear, coming right up...

Christmas Eve of the Year

We dressed down for Christmas Eve evening, jean & boot fashion, hoping to find one of Paris's ubiquitous casual corner cafes open for a simple croque monsieur, or French grilled ham & cheese sandwich. Before departing the hotel, we paused for a glass of great Champagne in the lovely lobby lounge. Braving the 9pm chill, we began exploring the city blocks around the enormous and usually active Madeleine church plaza. Everything had shut down, like a ghost town. Hungrier now and cold after two laps, we returned to the only lit small restaurant, not exactly what we'd had in mind--La Maison de la Truffe, or the "Truffle House."

As you probably know, truffles are a type of rare mushroom, super-rich and earthy, a prized delicacy in grande cuisine. A quick glance through the window into the dim interior showed about half the tables occupied, and prices on the posted menu while high were not outrageous (by Zürich standards!). We decided perhaps we could find something simple and ducked in. Instantly we knew we were in trouble.

In the improved light, most of the clientele were dressed in suits and similar fancy dinner attire and had almost certainly made reservations for Christmas Eve--it just felt like that kind of place. The suited maitre d' approached from the back of the restaurant.

Sensing a train wreck, Steph turned on the charm with the happiest bare-requisite-ability French greeting you've ever heard. The maitre d', who had appeared stuffy at a distance but turned out extremely friendly and welcoming, laughed and appeared suitably charmed and said of course he had an open table for two tonight. He took our ludicrously out-of-place coats, puffy-down stuffing and rain-jacket fleece, and led us to a table. I know that Steph and I were thinking the same thing--in our opinion, the worst thing you can do once accidentally seated in jeans in a suit-packed Paris restaurant wanting a simple cafe sandwich instead of grande cuisine, is to order like you feel. Therefore, once seated, when the maitre d' asked if we'd like glasses of Champagne to begin, we said yes before even opening the menus and the game was afoot!

Virtually everything on the menu featured either truffles or foie gras, both incredibly rich, with a wine list to complement. No ham-and-cheese-with-truffle sandwiches, either. Our young and almost shy waiter spoke no English, testing Steph's French a little further, which I think the maitre d' arranged for a little fun. I learned my lesson early after pouring about a half-dollar sized pool of the truffle-infused olive oil from the table bottle onto my bread plate--the bottle opening was like a pin-prick, pouring just that bit of oil took forever. A few seconds later, the earthy mushroom aroma nearly knocked me backwards off of my chair.

We ordered to the hilt--a starter of foie gras with its soulmate, a Sauternes dessert wine, main course of black truffle risotto with and without mussels (exquisite!) accompanied by a bottle of Premier Cru Chablis, and finally dessert of truffled goat cheese. We ended with espresso (as we've learned it's insulting to leave any restaurant in Europe and especially France without one). Now nearly midnight and with only two other tables occupied, the maitre d' returned to ask if we'd like another glass of Champagne. After a moment of laughingly confused translation, Stephanie verified the offer was free of charge, a Christmas gift from the restaurant. How nice is that??

Completely saturated by too much Champagne, wine, dessert wine, duck liver, fungi, enriched goat milk and concentrated coffee, we paid the bill, reclaimed our hobo coats and staggered back to the hotel thanking La Maison de la Truffe for undoubtedly Meal of the Year for us both, an unexpected Christmas gift to ourselves and just under the wire for Steph!

[As an unfortunate epilogue, I apparently over-truffled myself because I woke on Christmas aching with the flu and a fever, managed to drag myself as Steph's very unpleasant lunch companion to Joel Robuchon's super-high end L'Atelier restaurant for our reservation, where we ordered several exquisite small dishes to share but I could barely stomach the bread and a club soda. The food was phenomenally prepared and the experience (despite stuffy decor and staid service as feared) may have qualified as Meal of the Year moreover again if I hadn't ruined it. My condition worsened later in the day, improved somewhat after 17 hours of sleep, but I remained fairly ill well past packing and departing for Zürich the next morning.]

Gray Mollusks and Black Pigs

Sunday, Dec 23rd started with wanna-be celebrities excited to eat a Hotel Vendôme continental breakfast near us. We shopped, Steph self-bought some leather accessory Christmas presents, we hit our favorite salon called Dallayou for tea, an almond croissant and an assortment of exquisite & expensive macaroons. Can I mention that while the Swiss undoubtedly achieve 9.5 on a 10 scale in the pastry and bread department, the French always manage a perfect 10; their skill and dedication to fine food is unparalleled. We ate a random cafe lunch, then hit a Scottish bar to down a few beers and to enjoy straining to understand the Scottish regulars' English for a while, instead of the French spoken everywhere else.

We dined later at a "renowned" neighborhood restaurant in the Marais district, packed late on a Sunday, a good sign. The wine was solid; the table baguette was world class; shared appetizers of Normandy oysters and country-style pork terrine were phenomenal and voila!, we were off and running! We learned the different French words for "rabbit" vs. "hare" (important subtleties when MOY is at stake). For the all-important main course, Steph ordered her best bet with the house specialty "black pork" chop (the meat isn't black, it comes from a special black-patterned pig raised specifically for this restaurant) and...disastrously, it was merely very good; likewise my entrecôte steak was good but not great. We threw out the lifeline and ordered the cheese plate dessert but it wasn't memorable. Lamentably, the most surefire formula for MOY implosion is "appetizer envy," and we were left wondering what might have been. After dinner, we enjoyed one of those spectacular unplanned Old World Europe moments, walking back to the hotel through the majestic Place Vendôme, a floodlit monument at midnight radiating history, toil and achievement.

We graced more pseudo-celebrities at breakfast on Christmas Eve, then checked out of the Vendôme and into the nearby Hyatt Regency Paris-Madeleine, a more classily understated yet equally wonderful boutique; we stayed there in 2003 and therefore know the area near the Madeleine church. We shopped at nearby favorite super-gourmet shops Hediard, Fouchon and Maille to stock up on fruit pavé confections, preserves and Dijon mustard, respectively. On a tip from Steph's work colleague, a former Paris denizen, we ate a congruently fancy lunch at a fancy wine shop with an unadvertised but large restaurant upstairs, full of real Parisians (and us). We then wandered through the enormous Tuileries gardens, stopped for espresso, and continued with an impromptu tour of the Invalides neighborhood, strolling on a local shopping street watching locals scurry for very-last-minute Christmas purchases under the sunset silhouette of a distant but imposing Eiffel Tower.

With no big dinner plans for a shut-down Paris Christmas Eve, all Steph's proverbial eggs for MOY rested with our Christmas Day lunch reservation at a more upscale and stuffy restaurant by world-renowned French chef Joel Robuchon, a risky proposition.

Some pictures from the trip here:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.6abi4vkn&x=0&y=-3t8kd7

City of Christmas Lights

Since we've lived in Europe only two months, Christmas came too early to revisit the U.S., family and friends. And our method for averting potential depression and homesickness in such situations? You guessed it again: travel, food and wine. Weeks prior, we debated several options including Austria, Italy or Italian Switzerland, but ultimately pulled out the elephant gun--Paris.

This made Steph's and my fourth trip to Paris, so we know our way around a bit, but our first trip in several years; our first was 1998 when France hosted the World Cup, then two "long weekend" trips in February of 2002 and 2003 when both the Euro exchange and airline fares were kinder. With our resume of vacation travel on five continents, Paris remains probably our favorite city for its architecture and preeminently, its gastronomy.

I'll say our views on France are admittedly skewed because, after years of study and practice in high school and college, Stephanie retains just a fragment of her French-speaking ability. Of course, when traveling anywhere in Western Europe the "trick" to exponentially improving interactions with people is, in my opinion, not quite the ability to "say a few words" (which really doesn't get you anywhere), but actually to be oh-so-marginally, no-mumbled-pronunciation, truncated-simple-sentence conversational. And nowhere is this more important than in France (we're learning Switzerland might be #2). Stephanie achieves it, and I'm always impressed by the key behavioral differences I perceive in the service we receive; I don't speak a word of French.

Also the primary goal of this vacation was not relaxation, but instead Steph's attempt to achieve her Meal of the Year, an obsessive self-contested search among her, myself and our excellent Chicago "dinner club" friends Sasha and Moises (not their real names) for one's absolute best, phenomenal dinner of the entire year. Everything needs to click, from the appetizer to main course, dessert, wine, service, company, mood and other je ne sais quoi. Individual menu item selection is critical, as one person among four may attain his/her Meal of the Year as others are held helplessly to a mere "top notch" meal. As attaining this yearly goal is best not left to chance, Steph had previously researched a range of highly regarded potential dinner destinations throughout Paris (Todd achieved his 2007 MOY earlier in the year, by a fortuitous manipulation arriving for a repeat performance at the unassuming La Montée de Lait in Montréal, the location of Todd & Steph's joint MOY in 2006. Coincidentally French? I think not).

After my glimpse Friday, Dec 21st inside the new apartment (Steph never stepped inside Friday), we dropped Mr. Clean with friends Dave & Heather on Saturday morning the 22nd and hit the airport; somewhat surprisingly, last-minute airfare cost less than the high-speed train. On the busiest travel day of the year, we wrestled our way out of Zurich, into Paris's far-flung CDG airport and finally to the city by late afternoon.

We checked into the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, an opulent boutique hotel infamous for its celebrity count, receiving a nice room (reservations for the days preceding Christmas are slow) with a balcony view of the nearby, awesome Place Vendôme, a majestic plaza framing an enormous decorated spire. We started our pilgrimage with Champagne and a cheese plate at a nearby hip bar and, because half our fun in Paris is meandering through its various neighborhoods or arrondisements to observe the city's character transform, then walked 1-1/2 hours through the Louvre courtyard and over the Seine to our late dinner reservation at La Ferrandise bistro, specializing in veal and beef. After our excellent wine selection, Todd accidentally out-ordered Stephanie with a smoked salmon appetizer yet Steph rebounded with fantastic steak frites (grilled steak with fries), however dessert fell a bit flat for both. A disappointing "A" grade.

With two additional big restaurant meals planned, hopes remained high for Steph's MOY and, tired from travel, we hit the sack to dream about Round 2.

Thanks for 114 Gifts

Good news! Our 114 gifts from the United States arrived on Friday, Dec 21, just before Christmas. Of course, warmest thanks to everyone for sending them! No, wait, actually never mind the thanks, we packaged and sent these to ourselves back on Oct 26, exactly eight weeks to the day--all our furniture and belongings from Chicago!

Yes, our Christmas arrived slightly early as six nice Swiss men (call them Elves) moved our long-since-forgotten Chicago possessions into our new Zürich apartment. And the logistics culminating at that moment are impressive. Everything not sold or given away in Chicago was wrapped up & boxed, loaded on a moving van on Fri, Oct 26, trucked somewhere, transferred to an ocean freight container, loaded onto a boat called the "California Luna" at Norfolk, floated east for six weeks, eventually arrived in Rotterdam, was reloaded onto a truck, driven through most of Germany to Switzerland, unloaded into a warehouse somewhere near Zürich for two weeks, then finally reloaded into a moving van which I met outside the new apartment at 8am on Fri, Dec 21. By 2pm the Elves had delivered every last furnishing and box to the sixth floor, which although sounds brutal really only amounted to a day of abuse for the building elevator. The sixth floor provides quite a view, though (picture above is northerly from our patio).

The feeling was initially quite bizarre to see furniture and the beginnings (not many boxes were actually unpacked) of clothes, dishes, sheets, books, etc., that we'd forgotten we owned.
The funniest part about finally not living from suitcases after eight weeks was that actually, we didn't. That is, Steph returned from work that Friday evening and I returned from the new Zürich apartment to Kloten, where we immediately packed those same suitcases for a four day trip to Paris beginning the next morning; we wouldn't actually move in and start unpacking for nearly a week more. Oh well, no rest (and in this case, no new travel clothes) for the weary...