Second Revolution

Time flies, eh? Late October brings us several celebratory dates each year, the first being Steph’s birthday (Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag! is one of my favorite German sayings, quite a mouthful and literally translated as “Heartfelt happy wish on the birthday!”), a second being my mom’s birthday and finally a third being October 31, not just Halloween but also the anniversary date of our arrival in Switzerland! And indeed the Earth has completed exactly two full revolutions around that gigantic plasma ball we call the sun since that fateful day, cause for celebration without doubt.

So what did Year Two bring us? A much-improved sense of being settled, for one significant thing. Two jobs (read: two incomes), an awesome dog-sitter, growing friendships within a relatively large group of ex-pat colleagues, some greater comfort navigating life in a foreign language, and a generally improved tolerance for annoying differences in social norms (they make it really tough sometimes though).

Year Two brought us ski equipment, discovery of world-class ski destinations a mere two hours from home and improved downhill skills last winter. It brought us to the U.S. east coast for Christmas, to Chi-town in the summertime (the best time) and a pilgrimage to good ol’ Green Bay, WI for my 20-year high school reunion. It brought us an awesome little nephew! For kicks, we followed Bruce Springsteen on his European tour for two shows in two countries in five days and watched the Tour de France peloton whiz by for all of 45 seconds. We unfortunately saw scant few visitors in Year Two compared to Year One, only two in fact. Mirroring the economy, however, we’re predicting a visitor rebound in 2010 (hint).

Have I mentioned yet that Year Two brought you 60% fewer blog posts? Sorry about that.

On the travel front, work sent us each to new coordinates. Top prize for “Uh, Where Again?” goes to Steph for her journey to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In a quirky career turn, Steph’s travel outpaced mine by more than two-to-one including breaking in both ends of a new continent--Africa--from Casablanca, Morocco to George, South Africa. I edged her for longest trip however, from Zürich to Singapore at 6,410 miles, with her measly flight to George ticking off a mere 5,950 miles (incidentally the farthest inhabited location from Switzerland is Auckland, New Zealand at over 11,400 miles--couldn’t help looking it up--meaning we can only crow about flying a quarter way around the world).

Most entertainingly, Year Two brought us each the standard five weeks of vacation time (“holiday time” as they say in Europe) for our favorite pastime: leisure travel and attempts to eat and drink like the locals. Top cool new city honors go to Barcelona; Meal of the Year honors to the wine and Belgian beer pairings (at lunch no less) at Den Dijver in Bruges; best trip goes to our sailing tour of the British Virgin Islands on the simply awesome charter boat Free Ingwe in March. We experienced the lowlands of Netherlands and Belgium, the coastlands of Cataluña and Valencia, and “Badlands” in Vienna all for the first time. Paris, Alsace, Munich Oktoberfest and London were lovely repeats.

Few legitimate complaints these days from either the two- or four-legged variety in our household, feeling fortunate and occupied and looking forward to what the future holds. That’s the way we envisioned it, it just took eighteen months longer than expected…

[Travel map below. Blue is joint travel, yellow is Steph's work, green is my work. You have to zoom out to see South Africa and Asia.]

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