The Mosquitoes Have Found Us

I think I posted earlier in this blog that I noticed there weren't as many mosquitoes here in Switzerland... I think that was because we were close to the city, because now that we are closer to nature... We are being attacked!

I understand we live right next to a brook, we have a farm in our back yard, and we leave the windows wide open all day (no screens), but still it's hard to believe that this wasn't a bigger problem just 20 minutes into the city. I have read so many places that the mosquitoes here are smaller and slower. I will agree with some of that, because they are definitely a lot smaller here than at home, however, they are only slower once they are already filled with your blood. They are also incredible hiders. They like to buzz in your ear the second before you are about to pass out. You know that if you don't kill him, you will wake up the next morning covered in bites on the parts of your body that weren't completely covered by a blanket. This has been an issue the last couple of nights.

Just a few nights ago, Brett and I were pretty fed up with the biting and the buzzing. They had been bothering me for a while, but Brett thought I was making it into a bigger deal than it was... until he started to get bit up. Ha! We took a few precautionary steps... First, we made sure the doors and windows were closed when night came. Second, we made sure to keep our bedroom door closed so mosquitoes that may be hiding around the other rooms, didn't make their way into ours. Third, we had a good ol' fashion mosquito hunt right before we went to bed.

Brett and I both grabbed something to smack them with. We stood in our room and swung at anything that moved. Of course, because they are a good amount smaller than what we are used to, it's amazing how much harder they are to see. They hide on the walls, the ceiling and of course the curtains. We killed 6 mosquitoes. We stood for a couple more minutes waiting to see if we could hear anything else buzzing... silence. Perfect. We got our PJ's on and went to bed.

Buzzzzzz! Buzzzzzz! You have got to be kidding me?! We killed 6 of these horrible insects and they were still some alive. This was insane. We couldn't believe it. We tried to swat them away as we were pretty tired, but finally we had it. We didn't want to wake up an itchy mess again... We turned the light back on and of course they hide.

Now, I know we have a farm in our backyard and not many other people are up at midnight killing mosquitoes, but if anybody was up and could see our window from their window... they must have had a good laugh. There aren't many street lights where we live and when it's dark outside, it's pitch black. So, I'm sure everyone could clearly see us going nuts on the mosquitoes because our light was the brightest thing in the neighborhood.

Anyways, back to the mosquito hunt. We stood still in awkward positions every time we heard a buzz, because we knew if we moved they would hide again. The more they hid, the longer we would have to stay up doing this mosquito hunt. Ready for it? 10 more! We killed 10 more mosquitoes! Where were they coming from? How did they find us? Why...

Brett and I began to think that there was some kind of secret passage they were taking into our room. At this point, I realize we started going a bit crazy. However, I'm sure you would too if you were already covered in mosquito bites and they were threatening to bite you even more.

Brett thought it would be a good idea to leave a few of the dead bodies on the window and the wall to send a warning to the rest of the mosquitoes that dared to enter our room. We don't know how to say "Tell all your friends!" in German, but I think squashed mosquito knows no language barriers.

We go to bed finally to the sound of silence and enjoy a bite free night.... until two nights later!

So, that was last night. We couldn't find this thing to save our lives. We went to bed, heard the buzzing, got up saw nothing. Shook the curtains, carefully looked on the walls and ceiling. Nothing. There wasn't a mosquito in sight. We tried to go back to bed. Buzzed again! Alright, he's in here, we have to find him. This time, I got up and turned the light on, Brett stayed in bed to lure him back. Nothing. So, then I stood at the light switch, with the lights off, waiting for Brett to tell me he heard buzzing. I would then turn on the lights and run for the mosquito. This didn't work either. I know... I said we started to go crazy. Finally, we just decided that the literal markings on the wall would scare the jerk away from biting us that night. We went to bed and covered up as much of our bodies as we could with the blankets to ensure we didn't get bit. I'm pretty sure we didn't hear from that crazy mosquito again, but there's always tonight...

Appenzeller, Emmentaler, Forsterkase... Oh my!

Yes, those are all types of cheeses. I just returned from a trip to Migros to pick up a few grocery items. While I was there, I ventured into the cheese isle... Oh yeah, they have one whole isle dedicated to cheeses. You have your soft cheese, hard cheese, shredded cheese, sliced cheese, semi-soft cheese, sheep cheese, goat cheese, cheese spread, cheese from France, cheese from Germany, cheese from the Alps... and the list goes on.

So, I stand there gazing at this array of cheese and realize just how impossible this is. Sure, my first stares are at the Migros brand and the cheese that's on Action, but I don't even know what I'm buying. I know it's cheese and by analyzing the texture I can come up with a good guess whether it's hard or semi-soft. My best bet is to look at the Italian labeling, because at least that's pretty close to Spanish and with the very little Italian I know, I can get some words translated, or at least enough that I feel comfortable buying it.

There's just so many different kinds! To think, that in the States, we categorize that cheese with the holes in it as Swiss cheese and that's it. I also noticed that most of the cheeses are white, with not many yellow cheese options. The fact that everything is the same color, doesn't help me much either.

I stood there, for probably about 15 minutes, just reading... or trying to. Other people passing by, grabbing the exact kind of cheese they want. Out of all the people that passed by (and there were a lot because it's a Friday evening) only one person stopped to analyze the difference between two difference cheeses. Two!? I'm trying to take this whole isle and figure out what to put in my little basket!

Sure, once you get some idea of what type of cheese you want, then there's the price. So, now I'm trying to compare prices with types and sort of mixing in the equation of the cheese that's on Action. The problem is, the Action cheese isn't always going to be your best bet, so then you got to figure out the amounts of cheese that's in the package. Alright, so this is where I started going crazy because since I went to school in the US, we were only taught pounds and ounces... Everything here is in metrics! Ah!

I understand most of you are thinking, why is this one trip to Migros so difficult. 1) I was buy myself and didn't have Leve to ask to translate and 2) I wanted to buy a different cheese than what we had been buying before.

It's amazing the little things you take for granted when you are living in a country that speaks your first language. How easy would it be to go to the nearest Copps or Pick n' Save and say "I'd like a quarter-pound of cheddar please"? Oh yeah, too easy! Anyways, the cheese that I ended up getting is...

And I still don't really have a clue as to what it is... I could Google it, but I'm too hungry to do that now. I'll let you know how it tastes later. Dinner time!

Love Me Some Quiet Sunday

Not that we didn't do enough relaxing on Saturday, but Sunday is beginning to be one of my favorite days of the week. However, I am missing our usual Sundays in the fall, where it's football, football, football. However, we were lucky enough to catch the Philadelphia Eagles vs. the St. Louis Rams game since it was an afternoon game. It was definitely comforting to watch a little football on a Sunday night, even though it wasn't the Sunday night football game, but it was night time for us!

Anyways, most of the day was spent relaxing and hanging out with Leve. We talk about culture, history and differences between different countries. Luckily for us, he has experience in more than one country, unlike Brett and I. It's a lot of fun listening to stories. Just talking is an experience, because sometimes Leve can't think of the word he's trying to say in English and it turns into a guessing game, until we all figure it out. This works in our favor as well, because then we learn what the German word is, and sometimes the Hungarian one as well! A lot of our discussions stem from these guessing games. It's more fun than you would think!

In other news, the cows are getting closer! I don't know why we are so obsessed with these cows. I think it's because I've never had cows living in my backyard before and the fact that they wear bells around their necks is frosting on the cake!

Then, the sky started to get dark and we heard thunder in the distance. Could it be? Another thunderstorm!? It blew in very fast. You know when a storm is coming because other than that, we don't get much wind where we live... I think the mountains block it. I'm not sure though.

First it was a small drizzle, but then it was like a torrential downpour. Luckily, some time in our earlier conversations when we first moved here, we asked if there were tornadoes here. Leve said no. It sounds silly, because usually wherever you go in the States, you have an idea about what their weather is like in different states. When you go to a different country, you have no idea... so you ask. So, we were able to just enjoy the storm. Then, to our surprise, it started to hail! I was not expecting this. Leve was pretty shocked about the hail, because I guess it doesn't happen too often. This is when we told him about the hail that Wisconsin gets... he couldn't believe it!

You couldn't even see the mountains in the back! The clouds were so low and the rain was so heavy. It was great!

After the rain had stopped, we walked out on the back balcony. The rain was so heavy and rushing down the mountain so fast, you could hear the brook next to our apartment. Usually you can't hear it because the water travels so gentle, but after this rain, it sounded like the ocean, or a large waterfall.

Later that night, we had salad and dinner like usual with Leve. We watch the football game and taught Leve a little bit more about American football. Right now he says his favorite team is the New England Patriots, but we are pretty sure we can convert him to a Packers fan. They are only the best team in the world! So, far we have only seen one person in Switzerland wearing a Packers sweatshirt. Not sure if he was a fan or not, but it still counts anyways.

Another enjoyable quiet Sunday has passed... on to the next day!

Warm Sun, Cold Lake

Today was hot. I don't know why, but 80°F feels a lot hotter here than it does in the States. Also, so far my experience has been, it's not the air that is warm, it is the sun. As long as the sun was beating on you, you were sweating, but if you got into the slightest bit of shade, you felt relief. This was great, because at least when walking around on a hot day, you could walk on the side of the street that was in the shade.

Anyways, back to it being really hot. We didn't have much to do except the usual Saturday grocery shopping. We got that done pretty early, enjoyed some lunch together with Leve, then decided to all go to the beach. Back by where our hostel was, there was a big open grassy area and a beach for people to sun bath. Beaches are full of ping pong tables and there is plenty of space to lounge. We set up our stuff on the grass and enjoyed the view.

It was getting warm in the sun, so we decided to get go for a dip in the lake. Leve checked the lake temperature before we left. He said it was 20°C, (68°F) which was pretty good for mid-September because it usually doesn't get much warmer than that. Lake Luzern is known for being a colder lake. I went in to about my shins before I almost screamed it was so cold. Leve of course just ran in and then swam away. Brett and I were standing there... shivering... as Leve was already probably 25ft. out. By the time he swam back, we still hadn't moved. He said we needed to just go completely underwater and then we would feel great. Yeah, I've heard that before. I took the plunge... when I came back up, I didn't feel much different. That water was just plain freezing. Now that we were really cooled down, we went to go back and lay in the sun. 


In previous posts I mentioned a bridge that we saw other people jumping off of. I told myself that I needed to do this. The bridge, at its tallest point, was 12ft. above the water. We told Leve about this bridge, and he said he would jump off of it too! So, we left our stuff on the grass and took a short walk to the bridge. There were a few other people on it jumping or discussing whether they wanted to jump or not. Leve happily did it first!

That was Leve's splash! Now, Brett's turn! I obviously made him go before me. Just because I said I wanted to do it, didn't mean I wasn't scared!

Brett climbing over the railing and getting ready to jump.

Woo! It looks like he is flying. Leve is waiting patiently in the water for him. 

Now, it was my turn. Oh boy... Have I mentioned I'm not a huge fan of heights? So, I asked Brett how I should jump in. He told me to just do a canon ball. So, I did a canon ball.

There we go! That was the longest drop into water I have ever done. I remember thinking, as I tightly held my legs up making the perfect canon ball, "Why haven't I hit the water yet? It's been like a minu...." Boom! Wow, that was cold! And oh, did that hurt! My butt stung so bad. Apparently, when Brett said do a canon ball, he didn't mean to do one all the way to the water, but to release half way down. I broke the water with my butt, and only my butt. That's a hard hit from 12ft. up!

 Yay! We survived! That was so much fun, but I still could hardly feel my butt. Here is proof that I'm a canon ball pro! 

Yeah, see that slightly purple spot... that was already a bruise forming; totally worth it!

We went back to our towels and laid down to soak up more sun. The bridge jumping must have tuckered me  out because Brett caught a picture of me dozing off...

We enjoyed the rest of our day in the sun. Hung out with Leve and played some beach ball. It was a good Saturday with plenty of fun.

Brett and Leve.

Brett and Leve off to go take one more dip into the Lake. I was fine staying nice and warm in the sun.

On to the next day!

Forgetful Friday

To be completely honest, I don't remember what we did on Friday. Probably the usual... Migros, food, visiting with Leve... However, neither of us can remember any specifics. So, I'm going to take advantage of this post to explain about Switzerland recycling.

I have never see recycling like I have seen it here. Not only was I shocked that they had to pay for the bags to through their trash out, but that there are special recycling sites near every neighborhood. People who live near by bring a wagon or carry their recyclables over, the people who live farther away bring trunk fulls of stuff. At these special areas, they have large bins for all different types of recycling. There was a bin for green glass, clear glass, brown class, hard cardboard, light cardboard, plastic, etc.

The first day we spent at our new flat Leve gave us the run down on how we had to split up our garbage. There is a small bin in the kitchen for all food scraps. This gets dumped into the compost. So, egg shells, fruit peels, potato skins, bread crumbs... all go into this little bin. It fills up in about a week and a half. Then we have to dump the small bin in the large compost. The large compost is located near the garage entrance of our flat.

Next to the small bin, is a little plastic bag full of aluminum and glass. The glass can easily be separated from the aluminum, so it's okay to keep everything in one bag. We haven't had to throw this out yet, but if we had to, we would take a walk down the block to one of those large recycling areas.

Then, there are three shelves in the kitchen. We separate paper, like magazines and newspapers into this pile. There's a separate pile for light weight cardboard and then another shelve for heavier weight cardboard.

We got used to this method pretty quick, but the rule of thumb was, try to use everything you could. If you had to throw something out, try to make sure it doesn't belong in one of the other piles before you put it in one of the blue trash bags. I still can't believe they make them back 4chf for garbage bags.

Anyways, that was my Forgetful Friday run down of how recycle friendly Switzerland is!

Apartment Tour Thursday

I thought today would be a good day to show you around our new flat. First, let's start with the entrance. In previous posts, I mentioned that everyone kept their shoes outside of their door. Leve had a cabinet for us to keep all our shoes in so that they don't lay in a big messy pile in front of the door.

We also bought an air freshener because after Brett and I added our shoes in there, it didn't smell so good when you opened up the doors. We didn't want Leve to regret letting us use the cabinet... Now, it smells like raspberries... and feet.

Here is the view from the front door....

That leads into our little area. To the right of the curtains, is the bathroom. Brett is busy playing some game on his computer in our bedroom.

Our room with the windows wide open. If you look on the far right of the picture, it's the light button to turn on the lights in our little hallway. All the lights are like this, they don't have the up-and-down switches. This takes some getting used to. 

Our bathroom. And below, a view from the other side of the bathroom.

Here is a picture of one side of the kitchen. The farthest left door is the refrigerator. The bottom part is the refrigerator as well, except fruit and beverages belong in there. The top part of the main door is the freezer, which is not pictured very well. 

The other side of the kitchen. Some nice tiling... a stove and an oven... the usual kitchen stuff.

Oh yeah, almost forgot... off-brand Nutella! Who would have thought they made it?!

This jar brings me to another point. Notice there are three separate lines of text. The first line is German, second is French and the third is Italian. It's so neat to see three languages on every single package or food label. Anyways, off-brand Nutella tastes exactly like Nutella. It's great!

Next, is the eating area. I think the pub style bench is awesome! The benches lift up for storage as well. Right next to the table is a small balcony.

This is the view from the small balcony.

 

Then, down below us, there is a little swing-set and some benches to sit on. Oh, and a neighbor kitty. 

On the the living room... Directly behind the eating area is the entrance into the living room. Below is a picture of the nice fireplace and door to the large balcony.

This is the other side of the living room. 

 

On to the balcony.

The large balcony views out the same side as our bedroom window. Below is a view of the left side from the balcony.

Well, I hope you enjoyed our tour. Welcome to our flat!

Relaxing Wednesday

Like I said, we didn't have much going on this week... We were able to finally relax now that we knew we had a roof over our heads. We have been hanging out with Leve a lot. It's been fun getting to know him and his Switzerland experience thus far.

The first night we stayed at our flat was last Friday night. That day, Leve was gone earlier in the day because he was giving blood. I forgot to mention this in the earlier posts, and I think it's interesting enough to bring it up again. When we sat down that evening with Leve, he offered us some wine. Brett and I happily accepted. Then Leve said something along the lines of the reason why he is drinking wine is because he got his blood taken that day. Brett and I laughed, thinking it was a joke. Like, oh yeah, drinking wine is a creative way of bringing your blood sugar back up to where it needs to be. Leve looked confused as to why we were laughing. We tried to then understand exactly what he meant. After some back and forth, we realized that he got the bottle of wine from giving blood. Yes. That was his gift for giving blood; a nice bottle of Italian wine. We still laughed and told him that in the States you get a juice box and some stale cookies when you give blood. Can you imagine how many more people would want to give blood if they gave booze away with it?! What an idea.

We took another trip to Migros to pick up food for the next couple of days. Pretty much every night so far, Leve makes a salad for us to all share before dinner, and then one of us makes dinner for everyone. It's been nice to have someone else to share dinner with. Brett finally found hot sauce at Migros, so now he is a happy camper. Leve has tried to eat at the same hot level as Brett... not quite successful, but at least he tried. He now only has "8 drops" of hot sauce instead of Brett's 25 or more!

It was raining on and off throughout the day, so we stayed inside for most of it. Like I said, it's been comforting to just have a place where we can lounge and relax. There was no place to do this at the hostel.

Tonight, Brett cooked dinner. It was so good. Pasta with butter and cheese and potatoes with a mixture of seasonings. I don't know what Brett used, but they were delicious.

Brett cooking dinner.

My dinner. Brett and leve'e dishes had meat in it. 

Brett relaxing as I do the dishes. That's the trade. One cooks, the other cleans it up. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Well, that was our day in a nutshell. In other news, the cows are getting closer and closer to our building. The farmer must come out in the early morning and moves this barbed wire line to keep the cows in one area. It's fun to watch them.

And now I even know how to say cow in German... Kuh. Well, that's all for today... on to the next! 

Lazy Tuesday

We didn't have much planned for this week because most of the exciting stuff that we have been waiting for is next week.... Brett's German exam (Monday) and Brett's meeting with Migration for fingerprinting (Tuesday).

We decided for today we were going to explore downtown Kriens a little bit. We also had to make a stop at the bank to take our some cash for Leve. Since our debit card has a limit as to how much cash we can take out a day, we have been trying to pay Leve for rent for days. Also, the limit is in US Dollars, not Francs, which with the exchange rate, is pretty low. Thankfully, I think it's on the way back up, at least compared to the Franc. Luckily, we have a flatmate that understands, so we don't have to worry about not having a place to live because we don't have all of the month's rent on one day. This is just for this month, for the next month's payment, we'll make sure to start withdrawing early enough so that we can give him all the money at once. Also, we are waiting for Brett's student visa, because then with that, he can open up a Swiss bank account.

It was pretty cold. And my foot was hurting. I don't think my feet were used to all the walking and the tendon right behind my ankle was super tight and slightly swollen. Oh well, just walk slower, which is kind of already hard when you are walking with someone whose legs are twice as long as yours. Anyways, we headed back home shortly after. Downtown Kriens isn't big at all, it's quite small compared to downtown Luzern.

We spent the day hanging out with Leve and waiting for Dani to get home. We were going to get to meet our other flatmate today! He had already started to move stuff in, but he was still working his summer job and that was all the way up in Basel. He was a bartender and worked very late. Switzerland's bar close is at 4am. and for parties and special events, 6am. He stayed in town those nights, which is why we haven't seen him yet.

Dani was born in Switzerland, and is half Brazilian. He speaks 6 different languages. He speaks Portuguese, which is nice for Brett because now he has someone outside of school to practice his Portuguese with. He also speaks English very well. It's amazing to know people who know so many different languages. I wish I would have had the opportunity in grade school to take more foreign languages. In Switzerland, they are required to take the Swiss-German of their canton, English and depending which region you were in; for example, if you lived in Bern (the German part) you had to take French, if you living in Geneva (the French part) you had to take German.

We spent the rest of the day talking. Dani had to finish unpacking some stuff, but then had to leave for work again. The rest of the night was spent talking about movies with Leve. He's seen like every single movie. He told us to watch the movie Limitless. He had it, so Brett and I watched it. It was really good! Watch it!

On to the next day!

Run Around Monday

Monday was the day Leve was going to help us do all the in-between stuff that we have been needing to do.

First, since we mainly only buy groceries for two days worth of eating, it was time to go to the grocery store. It's always nice to see the different Actions (sales) that go on through out the week. Sometimes it's totally random, and sometimes it's because they are in season. Migros doesn't just have Actions because the first expiration (needs to be sold by date) is nearing. This comes in handy a lot. The more I look at the prices, the more I realize how cheap food really is in the States. Meat in Switzerland is ridiculously priced. Ground beef was the biggest shocker because in the US you can usually get ground beef very cheap. Brett wanted to see how much some ground beef was because it was on Action.... ready for this? $11.00 a pound! And that was on sale. It was just insane. So, we passed over that quickly. We got some bananas, lettuce, tomatoes, bread and some cheese. We also found some mustard, but not in a tube. Most of their condiments don't come in jars, but in tubes... like toothpaste. It's bizarre at first, but the concept makes sense... you can get everything out of the tube a lot easier compared to trying to get everything out of the bottom of a glass jar.

Next, we had to go register Brett in the city of Kriens. Even though we are still in the Canton of Luzern, we are no longer considered in the downtown city anymore, therefore, he must re-register. This was pretty confusing, because the address Brett registered in the city of Luzern with was the address of the hostel. You would think that they would understand that this was only temporary. Nope. We had to pay 35chf to register in Luzern, and now pay another 35chf to register in Kriens... Mind you that the first time Brett registered was about 3 days ago. It's pretty frustrating. Good thing we had Leve, because he knew exactly where the Kriens office was. Since where we live now is a bit outside downtown, less and less people speak English. So, it was a good thing Leve was there, because the people at this office didn't speak English. Leve was nice enough to be Brett's translator.

The reason why Monday was so crazy was because it seems like the offices within the country don't share a computer network. When Brett went to register with the city of Luzern, we had to bring in all this stuff saying that he was going to be studying at the school in Luzern, proof that his visa was in process and various other bits of information. Well, when we showed up to the Kriens office at first, we thought all they had to do was change the address. Well no, that would be too easy. He had to have all the paperwork with him again, this office had to make their own copies of it, and so on. So, before all was finalized, we had to go back to the apartment, pick up the paperwork, back to office, show them everything, prove that he was going to be a student, then pay. In the meantime, Leve had shown them his visa, which didn't have his new address on it, in which case, they made him do the same stuff to get it changed.

Leve has said time and time again, in Switzerland, you have to pay for everything. You have to pay to change your address, you have to pay the office of the city, and you have to pay the post office... two separate fees just because you moved. You have to pay for the garbage bags that you have in your garbage because those are the only ones that will be picked up by the garbage trucks. They are about 3-4chf each.

By the time this was all figured out, we had a moment to stop home and check our email. Brett got an email from the hostel saying he had received a letter in the mail and that he needed to go pick it up. Knowing that this was something about his visa, we wanted to go pick it up right away. The reason why it got mailed to the hostel is because that's the address he signed up with the Migration office in Luzern. Since we were changing the address today, it still wouldn't take affect for a few days. Good thing we got that email!

We took a 20 minute bus ride into Luzern, walked to the hostel and the letter. It essentially was a bill for his student visa. We took this as a good sign, because usually when they bill you for something, it means it's happening. He had his meeting with Migration set for Tuesday Sept. 13th, where they would take his picture and finger print him and then his student ID would be mailed. We brought the letter home to show Leve so he could make sure Brett understood the letter correctly; the letter was in German.

Now all we had to do was wait for the 13th. He needed his ID, because his registration with the city of Kriens wasn't completely official until Brett went back in there again and showed him his student ID. The constant back and forth, back and forth becomes a little annoying after a while. After a full day of that, we pretty much were done. We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Leve back home, eating dinner together and relaxing. At least today, Brett's student visa had progressed a bit and we finally have a new address at our new flat. Successful Monday.

Another Quiet Sunday

Saturday was definitely a long day. I was looking forward to a relaxing, quiet Sunday. No one does anything on these days. It's great. It's so quiet and peaceful. With all the shops and stores closed, it's like you are forced to actually sit down and relax. It's pretty nice.

We still had some things to get done. Brett and I finished unpacking our suitcases and putting our clothes away in the little dresser Leve had given us. We put all our bathroom stuff in our bathroom and put the luggage in the storage area downstairs. It was nice to open up the room a little bit rather than having everything spread out everywhere. We organized a bit and finished cleaning up our room.

Next task was laundry. We had quiet a bit of laundry saved up since it cost 9.50chf to do wash at the hostel. We decided to wait, in hope we would find an apartment soon with laundry. Good thing we did... because that could have gotten stinky. We did about three loads of laundry today.

Here are a couple of pictures of the laundry room. The first picture is this device that measures how much energy or electricity is used by you while you are doing your laundry. Every flat gets one. So, that way, the utility companies can keep track of how much we use in stead of using coins or a card, this is how we get charged for doing laundry. It is added into the utilities bill per month.

So, this is a picture of what it looks like inside our elevator. To get to the basement to do laundry, you guess it... -1. To get to ground level, it's 0. It was sort of confusing at first, because I have never been to a negative level before.

This is a picture of our side of the laundry room. We always use the right side. Right behind me, there is the exact same thing, but half of the building uses the left side, and the other half uses the right. On the left side of this picture is the washer and on the right side is a tumbler. I think it's a dryer, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't get hot, it only spins the clothes if they are still too wet when they come out of the washer. Leve told us we didn't need to use it.

This is where we hang up our clothes. They have two sides to do this. On each side there is that grey box on the wall, which blows our warm, dry air and it also absorbs the moisture in the air. It condenses in the machine and drips out water into the small little bucket below it. 

The other side...

And this was just another view...

When we finally finished laundry, the day had already ended. It was okay because there was no reason to go outside that day. It had gently been raining all day. There was never a break in the clouds. It's this gentle relaxing rain. Not a mist, or light rain, but the best work I can come up with to describe it is gentle. There was quite a bit of rain coming down, but it never poured. It was different. I took some pictures out our bedroom window because the clouds looked to be caught in the trees.

Well, that was pretty much our Sunday. Later in the evening, we sat down and enjoyed a salad with Leve and then we all had dinner together. I think we also showed Leve PeopleofWalmart.com that night. He had never seen it before... I think we were laughing for a straight hour. It was great.

Sleepy time. We have a busy day planned out for Monday with lots of office things to do for Brett's student visa. Good thing we have Leve to show us where we need to go.

Grocery Shopping and Red Bull Flugtag

Our first morning waking up in our new flat... Surprisingly, we slept very well. The inflatable mattress is pretty comfortable! Also, it was relaxing to wake up and hear cows moo and their bells ring. We got showered and dressed quickly to start the day.

Leve had told us the night before about the Red Bull Flugtag going on downtown Luzern, around Lake Luzern. Brett had seen these this even on YouTube videos before, but I had not even heard about it. Apparently, people create these large objects and run them off a platform over the water and hope that they fly. The object that flies the most meters over the water is the winner. Sounded like a good time to me! First, Leve wanted to take us to the big Migros not too far away from our flat. We had to get a few groceries, and he wanted to be able to show us around. We were looking forward to it, because even though it's a grocery store, not being able to read the labels of what you are eating is kind of confusing. At least this way, we could ask him where something was and he would be able to point us in the right direction.

The large Migros is as close to a department store that I've seen. They have mainly food, but they also have bedding, bathroom things, kitchen things, a small pharmacy, make-up and odd-end stuff. Leve first showed us where the bedding stuff was. We got one large pillow, a pillow case, and a flex sheet. We asked him where the regular sheets were. It took awhile to explain because I guess in Switzerland, they don't use sheets. They use the first flex sheet to cover up the mattress, and then a blanket; nothing else in-between. Oh well. We'll get by. Leve said we could keep using his blanket because it was extra and he didn't need it, so that was good.

On to the food. In Migros, the food is upstairs and the juice, water, soda, make-up etc. was all on the first floor. They have escalators going up and down that are just a moving ramp, no stairs. This way people could bring their carts up them. They also are designed to not roll backwards. Once on the ramp, you can let go of them and they will not move going either up or down. It was really cool. Upstairs it looked like any other grocery store... Fruit, veggies, samples of fruit, a bakery, cereal, jelly, Nutella, cans, meat, dried meat, milk, unrefrigerated eggs... Wait, what? Then we began to notice. Most things that would normally be refrigerated in the States, was not refrigerated over here. Some of the milk was refrigerated, but most wasn't. We asked Leve what the deal was. He said that they get shipments of food in daily and that just like in nature, eggs are not refrigerated right away, so they aren't here either. When you get home from buying them at the store, then you put them in the fridge so they last longer. Also, the milk is all ultra-pasteurized, so again, it can be refrigerated once brought home for taste preference. Another example was that a lot of the meat, like deli meat was not kept cold. The raw un-cooked or un-cured meat was refrigerated though. It was really interesting to see all the differences.

Now, the question I have been waiting to ask someone since we got here. Why does all the food have two dates on them? Which was the expiration date? Why did it matter to have two? I took the opportunity to ask our grocery tour guide, Leve, these exact questions. There are two dates on their because the first date is the last possible day the grocery store is allowed to sell the food and the second date is the date it goes bad. These dates weren't very far apart... maybe about a week, depending on the type of food. As I began to study the food packages now because I now understood what the two different dates meant, I noticed that a lot of the food doesn't last for weeks, or months. Leve said because they don't use preservatives. Wow, this was a crazy eye-opener.

On to our next lesson, Actions. Actions are sales. Usually, really good sales. They have to put something on Action when the first date on the product is that day or sometimes the day before. So, that way people will buy it, use it in a week and no food goes wasted. Leve taught us how to look for Actions and told us about certain Actions that happen once a month. When those specific things are on Action you want to grab as much as you can store, because usually the food without the Actions is very expensive. This would be a lot easier if the freezer wasn't the size of a tailgating cooler.

He showed us around the rest of the grocery store and we were off with our items. We wanted to get out as soon as we could because the Red Bull Flugtag started at 1:15pm. We took the bus home, Leve road his bike, and as soon as we got home, put all the groceries away, sat down for a quick lunch and took off again. We headed down town together on the bus.

This place was so crowded! I had no idea it was going to bring in such a crowd. We got some free beach balls, we found a good spot and then we enjoyed the show.

 

Leve and I getting ready for the next float to fly off! 

They would play their song of choice before they started pushing their float across the platform. Some would dance, some would do flips and other put their game faces on. After they crashed into the water, they would measure how many meters it traveled. They had a large projections screen up that would show them crashing in the water in slow motion. It was hilarious. Some floats flew a little bit, others just took a crazy noise dive into the water.

 

Example of one that took a straight nose dive. 

This one did really good! I can't believe how far it went. The judges loved this one. Also, it was funny because most of the songs that the participants chose to dance to before they "lifted off" were American pop songs. We only heard a few German songs played. 

This one didn't last that long, but it was hilarious to watch. 

Clearly, I was very excited. 

The judging deck. Right in front of them was the Lake. 

This one was a complete fail. Still fun to watch it just smash straight into the water. 

We were starting to get hot, so we moved into the lake. We finished watching the show about knee deep in the cool lake. It was very refreshing. There were actually quiet a few people doing the same. They had a front row view of the floats smashing into the water. 

After they were almost over, we thought we would get a head-start out of there so that it wasn't too crowded. On the walk back, we were all startled by a surprise show from the Swiss Air Force. They made two laps around the lake. We caught some pictures of them their second round around because the first round, we didn't even hear from coming until they were right next to us and then, oh yeah, we could definitely hear them. 

Then, they came up right next to us....

It was so loud, but great to see so close.

Then, after we got our hearing back, we continued our walk. I saw a horse statue in one of the parks. I asked Leve if it was okay to climb on it, and he said no one would care. Yay!

 

First, I needed Brett's help to get on the horse. I tried jumping onto it, but fell off. The people sun bathing in the park I'm sure got a good laugh. Then, once I got one the horse, realized that it was extremely hot. I burnt my butt! This is why you see me with my legs on top of the horse and not at the sides. I was trying to sit still for the picture, but it was pretty difficult as this metal-type horse had been in the sun all day and was waiting just for me. 

Well, that was our very busy Saturday. Tomorrow, I look forward to enjoying yet another quiet Sunday.