Episode 3: July 2005
Most of our free time in the month of July was spent doing one of two things: 1) spending time with friends and family who visited us in Switzerland and 2) looking for a *&$?% apartment. We’ll begin with the most frustrating (and yet vitally important) job of finding an apartment in Switzerland.
For the last two years that Deb has been in Switzerland (and also since I arrived in May), we have been living in a furnished apartment provided by Dow. As part of our agreement to be localized in Switzerland, we were asked to find our own apartment and move out of the Dow-provided unit by the end of August. Truth be told, as fabulous as the free living deal has been, we cannot wait to move into a place that feels a little less temporary and a little more like home. Moreover, we look forward to seeing our furniture, clothes, and other belongings taken out of storage (Deb moreso than me as her stuff has been cooped up in storage for two years).
The idea of searching for an apartment sounds simple enough. On top of it all, Dow provided us with a real estate agent to help us find the perfect home. Easy, right? Ha! For those wondering what it is like to move to and within Switzerland, here are three important points that we learned during our apartment search:
1. For the most part, apartment in Zurich are not cheap. With interest rates hovering around 2%, the housing market is booming in the area, yet the apartment situation is still fairly tight. Why? The main reason is that owning a house is a huge step in peoples’ lives here. When someone buys a house, it is a sign that they intend to live and work in the same city for the rest of their life. Consequently, you find a lot of people who prefer to rent an apartment because a) they don’t intend on living in Zurich forever and b) they aren’t interested in forking over the CHF 1 million or more that it takes to buy a property. With decent demand for apartments and a relatively small supply, the rental prices are bound to be high. We extended our search options to cover six different suburbs and widened our price range to anything between CHF 2000-4500 per month (roughly $1600-3600 per month!). Despite these wide criteria, we had a tough time finding a decent-sized, modern apartment in our price range.
2. Timing can make all the difference. There are two major moving days in Switzerland – the end of March and the end of September – because rental contracts frequently expire on one of these two days. Thus, the market can work in your favor if you’re looking to move in around, say, the end of March, but it can be a hassle if you’re not. Unfortunately for us, we were looking for an apartment in between these two dates, which made the search that much more difficult.
3. Landlords can be (and are) picky. To express one’s interest in an apartment, a person must submit an application with his details (name, employer, position, etc.). The landlord then has the power to accept or deny that person’s application based on whatever criteria he sees fit. People have been denied an apartment on the basis of their marital status, nationality, having kids, etc. Don’t think you’re a shoe-in just because you show interest in an apartment.
We must have seen about 15 different apartments during our search, an excessive number in my mind regardless of where you live. But why did we have such a hard time? Was it because we were picky? No, not really. Our apartment criteria were quite simple. We wanted a place that was close to the stellar Swiss public transportation system (especially in light of gasoline prices here being roughly CHF 1.70 per litre, or nearly $5.50 per gallon). We wanted to have our own washing machine and dryer in the apartment. This sounds like a trivial request, but it’s an important point in Switzerland. It’s not uncommon to find apartment buildings here that have a common laundry room, with tenants assigned a particular day and time on which they can use the facilities. Deb’s stepmother, for example, stays home every Tuesday morning so that she can finish the laundry at her assigned time! We also wanted a place closer to the city so that we could enjoy the social scene that Zurich offers.
Despite our relatively wide criteria, we still had a tough time finding a place. Some places were far too expensive – we saw a couple in the CHF 5000 range. Some were too far from the city and not near the train system. Some places were too small – the Swiss are terrific at making the most of small spaces but we both come from countries where more is better. For some reason, we just had a tough time finding the right place.
In the end, like most things, our search for an apartment ended up being more about who we know. A friend of Deb’s, Daphne, found out that a friend of hers was moving out of his apartment in a highly-prized suburb of Zurich called Enge. Enge is located alongside Zurich proper and is a very nice place to live. So, on Daphne’s advice, we called the current tenant, Jean Pierre, and asked him if we could see the place. From the moment we stepped into the apartment, we fell in love with the place. The apartment has a great location – a 15-minute walk into Zurich and a 5-minute walk to both the tram and train system. The building’s exterior has a 1910 façade, but the apartments themselves are modern and well-appointed. And, to top it off, the apartment has its very own washer and dryer!
Luckily for us, Dow gave us the services of an agent to help us find an apartment. The agents were not very helpful when it came to searching for a property, but they were extremely good in assisting us with the application process for the place we found in Enge. Once we got the agents on our case, we learned that the landlord was not too positive on our application because we are foreigners and had no rental references in Switzerland. (We found out later that he once had foreigners as tenants who made a mess of one of his apartments, hence his hesitation with our “kind”.) Given our landlord’s uneasiness, we embarked on a pro-Shorg campaign. We made a few trips to the council to collect forms verifying that we have no debts to the community and no criminal charges, and we asked Jean-Pierre to put in a good word for us with the landlord. In the end, it worked! We secured the apartment after a grueling four-week application process. Grueling…yes…but successful.
As you can imagine, with our apartment saga in the background, July was a very busy month. Luckily, we had some guests to relax our minds. Our first visitor was Deb’s little sister, Candace, who arrived on July 3 in Geneva airport (the airport closer to Deb’s dad). Candace came to Switzerland for a two-week visit, taking advantage of a mid-semester break in her natural medicine studies. We met half-way in Bern to have lunch with her and Deb’s dad (Tony) and stepmom (Julie). Bern – Switzerland’s capitol -- is the epicenter of politics and administration. The highlight of the city is its open bearpit which houses three full-sized brown bears. Why bears? Bears are the mascot of the city – we haven’t figured out why yet. We enjoyed the sights of Bern and then headed back home. Over the next few days, Candace kept herself occupied as one of her friends currently living in London took the opportunity to come and spend four days with her.
The following weekend, Deb’s friend Jenni arrived from Australia. I had to go into work on Saturday to experience my first quarter close, so Deb picked Jenni up, and I caught up with them later that evening to catch up and wait for Jenni’s luggage to arrive. (Unfortunately, her bags took a later flight from Frankfurt than she did!) The next day, we all took a trip to the Rhine Falls – a picturesque waterfall on the border of Germany and Switzerland that is the largest waterfall in Europe. We met Candace, Tony and Julie there, and spent the day looking around the area and taking a million photos (almost quite literally) before all of us headed back to our place in Zurich for a home-cooked meal and a late-night chat.
On Monday, our guests started to leave. Jenni was picked up by some friends who live in Basel, and Tony and Julie headed back to Vevey. Candace, however, stayed with us to spend some quality time with Deb. In typical Borg sister fashion, the two of them took to the streets of Zurich for some shopping, sightseeing (including the fabulous teddy bears along the streets of Zurich -- groan), and sunbathing by the lake.
We bid farewell to Candace on Thursday when she took the train back to Vevey, in preparation for her flight back to Australia on Friday. The next day we took Jenni (now back from Basel) to Zurich’s old town for a feast of cheese fondue, made in the classic Swiss style. (As someone who was a little uneasy about the whole fondue experience, I must say that it was quite nice.) The next day, we drove back to Vevey to spend the night with Tony and Julie because Jenni’s flight left the next morning from Geneva. We took advantage of the fabulous weather and spent that night at the nearby Montreaux jazz festival. The next morning, Jenni left to continue her travels to the U.S.
The last weekend of July was a three-day weekend for us. August 1 marks the creation of the Confederation Helvetic (which explains why Switzerland uses CH as its abbreviation). We decided to take advantage of the moment by extending our weekend to four days and heading off to Naples, Italy and the famous Amalfi Coast. After taking our first-ever flight on Easyjet (which was great), we arrived in a very hot and polluted Naples, a far cry (and a bit of a shock) from the sterile streets of Zurich. We decided to rent a car for the weekend so that we could not only get around but also experience first-hand the breathtaking drives along the winding Amalfi Coast. The car rental seemed like a good idea until we saw the traffic conditions in southern Italy! There are no marked lanes (except on the highways), street signs are virtually non-existent and unhelpful, and on what appears to be a road wide enough for two cars, there are at least three and a half lanes of traffic, including suicidal mopeds weaving in between the cars.
Our first two hours in Italy were spent driving the 15-minute trip from the airport to the hotel. After stopping a few times to see if we were on the right track, we missed a turn and ended up in the very narrow, cobblestoned streets of the town’s Spanish Quarter and the famous Spaccanapoli district (one of the area’s attractions that is in our book of 1,000 places to see). We stopped to ask a shopkeeper if he could help us find our way, but he didn’t speak English. Fortunately, the only customer in the store knew enough English to help us. Without hesitating, he grabbed his things, jumped in our car, and showed us the way. It was a little unnerving to have a complete stranger in our back seat, but he was nice enough to show us the way to the hotel.
After dumping our things, we walked to the city port and took a boat to the island of Capri (another stop in our book of 1,000 places). The island, true to its reputation, was filled with all things glamorous, from the people to the stores to the views. The streets were filled with shops carrying trendy designer names, and the gorgeous Mediterranean was always nearby. Naturally, as soon as we got there, we had a swim and soaked up the Italian sun. After drying off, we walked and bused our way across the island. We spent the rest of the day sightseeing, had a nice dinner, and then caught the last boat back to Naples.
The next day, we headed for the ruins of Pompeii, a town that was destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD (and is also listed in our book). The ruins were fascinating, and they appealed to the sixth grade archaeologist in me. From there, we hit the road, before the real heat of the day began, and started driving toward the coastal town of Sorrento. To get to Sorrento, we had to drive along the Amalfi Coast. The roads along the coast are literally cut into the cliff face, which makes for a stomach-churning, but stunning, drive. (I have to mention that the drive along the Amalfi Coast is also in our book.) Along the way, we stopped in the quaint, beautiful town of Positano, a small fishing village along the Amalfi Coast that literally carved into the rocks along the coast. In our opinion, Positano presented one of the most picturesque settings for a refreshing swim in the sea, which is exactly what we did once we got there. After a nice sun bathe, we returned to the road, this time with Sorrento in our sights. We found Sorrento to be lovely but a little more touristy than Positano. Nonetheless, we had a nice dinner in Sorrento overlooking the sea and watching the sun set (and I ate some of the best calamari I have ever had).
On our last full day in the area, we headed back to the Amalfi Coast. This time we visited the town of Ravello (on the advice of our book and a friend). Ravello is a gorgeous gothic town that towers about 400 meters above the coast line. Although Ravello does not allow for swims in the Mediterranean, it does have some of the best views of the coast line and sea. We had an excellent seafood lunch at a restaurant that sat at the edge of a cliff overlooking the coast. Our last stop of the day was the crowded town of Amalfi, where we had a look around and a cooling swim. The next day, we took a look at some of Naples’ historic buildings, stopped for a quick breakfast, and then headed back to the airport (while getting lost twice along the way). The Amalfi Coast was absolutely stunning, but we were quite fine with dropping off the rental car and leaving the crazy polluted city of Naples behind to head back to the sterile, clean and safe Zurich.
In short, we had a terrific July in spite of our apartment headaches, thanks to our visitors and travels. In total, we saw another eight places from our book of 1,000 places to see. We’re still working on a running total of the number of places we’ve seen…stay tuned. Take care and ciao for now!
