Moving

On Friday, we completed the entrance inspection of our permanent apartment and the keys were handed over to us.  Finally, we were about to begin the process of settling in.  This had been a long time coming.

Inspection finished, we brought a car full of our belongings over to the new apartment and began moving in.  Finally!

Early Saturday morning, we took Claire to our friend's house where she would spend the day.  While Claire played with our friend's kids, we went to IKEA and bought 3 armoires (there are no closets in most Swiss apartments) and then we rented an IKEA truck with which to transport the armoires and some other furniture.  We picked up a dining room table and chairs as well as a sofa that we found on the Swiss version of Craigslist.  Thank goodness for IKEA trucks!  It was so convenient and so inexpensive.  After lugging everything up to our apartment, which is on the 6th floor (thank goodness for elevators!), we returned to pick up Claire.  This was the very first time that Claire has been watched by anyone but Gordon or me since we moved to Switzerland and I was very nervous about how she would react.  But she did great!  She started playing as soon as we arrived and didn't cry at all when we left her.  She played hard all day and even took a nap there.  It was very nice to be alone with Gordon, even though we were doing some hard work and it was really great to know that Claire is still fine without one of us at her side.  On Sunday morning, we had planned to take our bed over to the new apartment.

This was a job that Claire could not be present for, so we took her to meet up with one of our friends at the park so they could play while we moved the bed.  As I put Claire into her carseat, I put the keys on top of the car.  Then I got into the car and we drove off.  It wasn't until we had dropped Claire off and returned to the apartment that I realized that I never took the keys off of the roof of the car.  We scoured the streets all along the path we drove, but the keys were nowhere to be found.  I felt sick.  I could not believe I had been so stupid.  Nearly everything in Switzerland is closed on Sunday, so we were unable to get into the new apartment all day.  Because of my stupidity, we lost an entire day of moving.  On Monday morning, I was able to get in touch with our building's concierge and he was able to give me our third key.  I have been checking the police station daily, but our keys have not shown up.  By the end of this week, if the keys don't show up, we are going to have to pay 500 francs (about 700 dollars) to have the locks changed on the apartment.  What a terribly expensive mistake I made, monetarily and time-wise.  Fortunately, we have until this coming Monday to get everything out of the temporary apartment.  I have been working like a crazy woman this week to get everything done so that we are ready to go this weekend.  I have been putting together our armoires, taking car loads of our things over to the apartment, buying the necessities for the apartment, and sneaking in some play time with friends for Claire.  I am so tired, but it will all be worth it in the end.

On Tuesday, I took Claire over to Gordon's boss's house for the day.  His boss's wife offered to watch Claire so I could work at the apartment.  I was nervous because this was a new person for Claire and there weren't going to be any children there.  Nevertheless, I brought her over there, hoping for the best, and to my surprise, she did great!  She immediately wanted to explore the house and play with their cat.  I quietly exited the house and I was able to do so much work at the apartment that I could never have gotten done with Claire there.  When I picked her up, the baby-sitter told me that Claire did great and had a lot of fun.  They live out in the country and they have a lot of fun things to do out there.  They went raspberry picking and Claire ate every single ripe raspberry that they picked!  The baby-sitter took Claire to see the cows that live across the street from their house and Claire enjoyed mooing back and forth to the cows.  Claire even took a nap at their house!  I was so happy to have such a great report when I picked her up.  So happy, in fact, that I'm bringing her back there tomorrow.

Hopefully, by Monday, I will have some pictures of our new apartment to share on here.  I can not wait to be living there.  It really is a great place and I think that we will be happy there.