Switzerland is the land of Edelweiss, the Alp Horn, chocolate and money. Personally - I vote for the chocolate.

An excerpt from an email that went out to friends and family after our second week in Switzerland...

The most wonderful thing happened today - we got kicked out of our apartment. The lady who handles the renting met Blue as she came home from walking me to work and freaked out when she saw the dog. Apparently we're not supposed to have a dog in hospital-owned buildings.

After an animated confrontation in which Blue horribly insulted her by calling her "Herr Fischer" instead of "Frau Fischer" (Blue's working hard on her German!) she told us to be out by morning. We've only met two people here who weren't overly nice and she's one of them. Anyway, Blue got me from work and we took the apartment we spoke of in my last message. At least I'll come back to the US skinny from all that walking! The town where we will now be, Gebenstorf (or Gebensdorf), literally means the "Giving Village" or "Giving Peat/Land", and it's quite quaint. I think we will like it there.

What an auspicious beginning! We really enjoy our place now, and Herr Hänni, the landlord upstairs, was kind enough to be a little flexible with our first months rent. See, we had this Catch 22 kind of problem - can't open a bank account without any money, and can't get paid without a bank account. It seems that everyone here gets paid electronically. No checks. NO ONE uses them. Most have never heard of them.

It's also a pain that it takes over a month to get your first check. So a month and a half later here is another email that went out to a friend...

. . .you are the first to know! John just walked through the door with a fist full of cash!!! You know what that means. . .A PHONE!!! Tomorrow I will go to Brugg and get us a much coveted phone!!!! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

It's strange how the little things can make you feel so happy isn't it? I'm not sure if we'll ever take phones for granted now.

Want to see a video of our sheep?