Bachelor Pad

Checking back in, it’s a bit hard to keep up with the pace of change lately. What else is new, eh? So just after four weeks of finally comfortably establishing my work week routine based from the same Lausanne hotel, driving to and from the office, health club, etc., we encounter one additional--and presumably the final--change. The office apartment was more or less ready this week for inhabitants. Namely, me.

Recall the apartment is literally next door to the office, an office that also houses a production facility in an industrial park, which by the geometric Transitive Property of Equality means that my new apartment is in an industrial park. The building is old, better not to ask how old (this is Europe after all), but safely sometime post-Renaissance. From what I gather, the apartment’s recent history was near-abandonment, yet inspired primarily dare I say by me and my new marketing counterpart, who lives in San Jose, CA, but will be visiting the office for extended stays, the apartment’s interior has been completely redone. All new furniture, new double-paned windows to keep the winter breeze at bay, even a new Nespresso coffee machine. We’re only still lacking a new TV, couch, and DSL connection for television programming and soon-to-be wireless Internet. So I moved in Monday afternoon.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, quite helpful to my acclimation was the fact that over Sunday evening to Monday morning, I rapidly became sick as a dog. These European germs still really knock me for a loop (the main contributor to my sickness is also an interesting story, maybe I’ll try to recount it next). Nonetheless my suitcase was already loaded, so as the diligent still-new employee trying to make a good impression I simply swapped out my workout gear for an arsenal of cold medication and caught the 7:30am train Monday morning. Turns out I misjudged the early symptoms and was instead racked by alternating hot and cold spells and intense full-body aches during the two-hour packed train ride--aha, the Euro flu, no doubt! As a funny twist of fate, my new commute again forsakes the car for the bus, and thus includes a 25 minute layover at a Lausanne-satellite train station outside in cold rain (under a shelter of course). I’m sure it’s nicer in the summer and there’s a pleasant bakery there if you have an appetite.

The good news is after trouping through that Monday work day (good American work ethic!), I was in no shape to question the comfort of the new pad. When I finally pleaded uncle around 5pm, my boss graciously drove me to the nearest grocery, since there’s no other way to get there, for the week’s supplies. This was also supposed to be my first week of 3 office-days instead of a full 5, so fewer supplies needed. I baked a pizza, hit the sack a little before 7pm and slept over 13 hours. Tuesday was better, although I felt unable to form a coherent sentence through the haze of cold medicine, yet gave my first formal presentation to coworkers that afternoon. I slept only 8pm to 8am that night. Today, Wednesday, I’m about 80% of normal, thanks very much. That’s one superior thing about the flu--no long, drawn-out relationship like with a cold.

Sorry, have to end here. I’ll have to describe the remainder at next opportunity. It’s 9:40pm on Wednesday night and guess what?! I’m in the apartment again, so much for sticking to the 3-day week (special circumstances, customer crisis, etc., etc.). Although today I watched several guys argue in Italian while other guys were arguing in French--an argument finally settled by espresso--and at the end, they asked me to write the meeting minutes in English. You can't pay admission to an event like that.

Gotta go. Feeling guilty. To post this whole account, I’m “borrowing” Internet from the very nice neighbor downstairs. I haven’t even introduced myself yet. How rude.

The United States of...

The United States of Awesome. That phrase was coined by one of our (American) Zürich friends during his recent Thanksgiving U.S. holiday. Not only did I just shamelessly pilfer it, I turned it into the theme for recounting Steph's and my return for Christmas 2008. And we generated ample variations to amuse ourselves throughout the week of our stateside return between Christmas and New Year's.

It's no secret that a trans-Atlantic journey via frequent-flier miles at holiday time is an exercise in compromise. Compound that with some unavoidable, relatively last-minute changes to our internal travel plans, plus some relatives in slightly hard-to-reach places, and a crazy itinerary results.

We left Zürich on Tuesday morning, 12/23, for a four-hour train ride to Milan, spent the night at the Park Hyatt (very nice), took a loooong flying day to JFK airport followed by a connection to BWI (Baltimore) airport, drove 45 min. to Washington DC (spending 2 nights with Steph’s sister’s family, one night at the Park Hyatt DC, awesome restaurant), back to BWI via Amtrak and wow! it’s different than the Swiss rail system, flew to Charlotte NC (1 night at the new Hyatt Place), drove to Aiken SC (2 nights with my parents), drove to Atlanta GA (1 night at the Grand Hyatt), then flew back to JFK and—well airborne when the Times Square ball dropped--on to Milan, and a four-hour train ride back to Zürich to arrive home the afternoon of 1/1. Mostly traveling free of charge, if not totally relaxed.

The weather treated us right, with temps ranging from the forties in DC to low sixties in Aiken (!), much better than what either the Midwest or Switzerland have dished out lately (although Zürich has certainly been more comfortable than Chicago or Minneapolis, but then so has Siberia). Christmas day was wonderful, there’s nothing like watching nieces and nephews tear into the present pile.

Without further adieu, here are a handful of rejiggered acronyms for the homeland after now 14 months living abroad…

United States of Affordable. Thank God for U.S. consumerism. Virtually everything costs 50-70% less than in Switzerland, no lie (have I mentioned that before?). True to form, we brought large suitcases nested in gigantic suitcases in order to each lug 75 lbs. of goods back to Zürich. Tiring work when you move around as much as we did. But we haven’t forced ourselves yet to bite the bullet and pay 17 Francs for a $5 bottle of shampoo, or 300 Francs for a $120 GPS, etc., etc.

United States of A, B, C, D… The selection of products in the U.S. is also vastly superior, by the way. Flavors, colors, sizes, styles, and on and on. Not just something for everybody, something for everybody and their mood.

United States of Aktion. Aktion is a German term for “Sale”. Although it was just after Christmas, it was hard to find an item not marked down. There were still lots of shoppers, but things did appear a bit subdued from the outright shopping mayhem of the past, say, five years (although it galls me to acknowledge even one iota the ceaseless slew of economic doomsday media reports).

United States of Automobiles. If after the summer’s fuel price scare and recently increased environmental consciousness Americans are driving smaller vehicles or driving less frequently, good lord I couldn’t tell. Big cars, cars everywhere, everyone driving big cars everywhere. Although there's so much more wide open space to cover in the U.S. Much to the horror and extreme financial detriment of Detroit, we took Atlanta public transportation from Buckhead to the airport and it was surprisingly clean, fast and convenient.

United States of Adobo. We ate Mexican food three times. Muy delicioso. And lots of great bagels, too, but unfortunately 'bagel' doesn't start with an 'A'. And most importantly…

United States of Angus. When we weren’t eating Mexican food (and when we were), we ate beef. A steak the size of my head in Washington DC. A burger the size of Stephanie’s head at JFK. Christmas ornaments made from meatballs. American beef is hands down the best in the world. If you haven’t tried beef outside the U.S., don’t. You’ll only disappoint your palate and/or damage your jaws and always insult your wallet. In Europe order pig or chicken instead—it’s often noticeably better than in the U.S., the flipside of beef. So since my return I’m eating all meals with a side of flax seed oil until my cholesterol returns to normal.

So there you have it! A whirlwind trip, but one we really enjoyed. It always makes us appreciate the good parts of both continents. Our next planned trip stateside isn’t until June, so if you want to see us before then you’ll have to find or forge a cheap ticket to Europe. Good luck!

Also some pics: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=2hd8fyj.6mpvp243&x=0&y=fb0zz6&localeid=en_US