The Zugerland Experience

People who have been here a little longer than us told us that the place to go for shopping is Zugerland. You can pay your bills, do your recycling (which is not an easy task because everything is recycled), shop, and eat. It is only eight minutes away and is the closest thing to a mall that you will find. Coretta, Geno, and I jumped into the audi and made it there all by ourselves. One thing that I knew I needed to try and find is a mop. I have not been able to find one anywhere. I picked up something that looked similar to the Swiffer wet Jet called The Twist, but it did not work at all. Thank goodness I found one at Migros for 28 francs. Coretta picked out a few things for her bathroom and we bought some icecream. Coretta and I both love these icecream bars called Magnum. They are sooo good. Here are some pictures that I took this morning on our patio. Tomorrow our air shipment comes in and we cannot wait!! We will be able to go biking tomorrow!!

Our first grocery shopping experience

Coretta, Geno, and I ventured down to the Coop to do our grocery shopping for a couple of days. We brought bags so that we could carry our groceries home. It was not too intimidating and overall we are really enjoying the food. The packaging is a little different however. Pop comes in plastic bottles that look like pinesol bottles and mayonaise comes in a tube. Portion size here is definitely smaller as well. They have some of the best fruit, vegatables, and yogurt I have ever tasted.

Once we brought the groceries home, ate luch, we decided to walk around more of the town of Huenenberg, and we stumbled upon the most beautiful view of three neighboring villages and a vineyard. We also noticed that we have bike trails and wooded trails right by our house that lead right into town. They also have a fire pit there with firewood you can use.

We then ventured to the local public library. It does not open until 3 pm, but they do carry English books. Not too many for Coretta to choose from, but many adult books.

Here are some pictures from our adventure!

Our day at the beach

Over the weekend, we decided that we would dedicate one day to the beach. We have done research on these Switzerland beaches and heard they were amazing. They did not dissapoint. The one we chose to explore was only 8 minutes from our home, and when we walked in, I think all of our mouths dropped. It was like a Vallefair of beaches! There was a swimming pool, volleyball courts, basketball courts, playgrounds, beachfront swimming, and a food court. Nick even swam out to the diving platform and dropped 30 feet down into the lake. He told Coretta that he didn't even touch bottom it was so deep. Needless to say, Coretta was very impressed. Here are some photos from the day!

Our walk into Cham

We decided to venture out on foot to get a sense of what was around the place in which we would be living for the next three years. As we are walking down the street, Coretta was enamored by the cows with bells around their necks and asked me to take as many pictures as possible of them. We then get to the town center, by the train station, and we see the most beautiful lake and woods area with beautiful walking paths. There were exotic birds in cages, ducks, and swans. Coretta was most impressed with how the ducks would dunk their head under the water in such a way that their butts were in the air.

Once down there, we also saw a wooden fort for kids as well as this tree that you could go under that resembled this secret fort. Coretta loved that the best. We decided to sit down by the lake, take in the music playing (Swiss men singing Ben Harper), and the mountains as we ate an icecream treat. Words cannot describe the beauty that this place has.

The Train Station Experience

The second day that we are in Switzerland, Nick decides that we should go into Zug in the morning so that we can get the downloads he needs to hook up his work computer so we can be wired to the outside world. He is definitely in need of technology, including American television. We thought that once we arrived and the computer was set up, we could watch the shows we taped via slingbox, but that is still a work in progess. For some reason, we cannot get the slingbox to work.

Once in Zug, the kids and I ate authentic Italian pizza and went shopping while Nick got what he needed from work. We decided to meet back around 1:15 pm and then we would get our pictures taken in the photo booth, since we needed these for our rail passes as well as our immigration records. In this photo booth, you need to position your head just perfectly in this oval circle. Nick really struggled with this (he blames it on his big head) but his picture made him look like some creepy pedophile. Coretta was next to take her photo. She positioned her head within the oval circle just fine. Her problem was that she didn't know when it would take the picture so she has a sad frown on her face. Being almost nine, she was mortified by this and the fact that people would be seeing it. I jokingly pointed at Nick's picture and said,"Don't worry about that honey, look at your Dad's!!" which she then proceeded to laugh. Next, I went in for my photo, and it went fine. No weird facial expressions at all, but Geno would truly be the biggest challenge yet. We put Geno on my lap to take his photo and imagine trying to position a toddler's face in an oval circle on a screen. It is nearly impossible. I end up holding his head back, accidentally pulling his hair, and the result was a picture of him wincing in pain and crying. We all had a real good laugh at this, but didn't realize how bad our pictures were until the train station attendant laughed out loud at them as well. I hope that we will not be deported!!

Our first night in Zug

Our first night in Zug was just a slight bit better than our plane experience. It is hard traveling with children especially when there is a time change involved and it is humid and hot. Did I mention there was no air-conditioning?? Because of this Coretta was up most of the night and seemed to always wake up at midnight and had trouble falling back to sleep.

When we woke up, we decided to venture out into the city of Zug and spend some time down by the lake. I have never seen Geno so excited then when he was chasing the pigeons. He actually jumped up and down!!

The next morning, we are told that we will finally be able to get into our new flat around noon and are anxious to finally be in a home and not a hotel, and longing for some creature comfort. We find out that our car is not ready because the navigation system that they put into our new car is a German translation, so they would need extra time to install the English version. After much trepidation, we make it to our new place around 2 or 3 o'clock and are pleasantly surprised at the place. It was absolutely beautiful!!

Our first International Flight with the Family

August 5th, 2008 willl forever be remembered as the day that the Bieter family moved to Europe. Our plane was scheduled to leave the MSP airport at 12:00 pm, so we made sure to arrive around 9 am. We decided that we didn't really want to have to carry all of our bags and the kids through the process of checking our luggage, so we chose curbside. The checking of the luggage went great and we went through security and made it quite effortlessly through the airport to wait for our flight.

Overall, Geno was very well behaved on this part of the Bieter Family Adventure, until we entered the plane and took our seats. First of all, none of us were sitting by each other. Not good. Considering Geno is a toddler and needs a parental guardian at all times. There were these two nice people that offered to give up their seats so that Geno, Nick, and I could sit together, and Coretta was positioned right in front of us. This is where the real fun begins. Geno decides that he has anxiety because he does not know what is going on, and to add to this has been up since 6 am without a nap. The next thing that happens is that Geno begins to cry and before we know it, he is in a full blown tantrum flailing his body this way and that way, making it nearly impossible to hold him. This is when I see two twenty somethings looking at us and whispering and glaring at us from their seats. I finally, fed up, speak to one of them and give her quite the verbal lashing. Needless to say, she never looked at us again. Meanwhile Geno is clawing and scratching both my and Nick's face to the point that he is actually drawing blood. This was supposed to be the easy flight. Just 2 hours. It turned out to be 2 hours of hell.

We then are able to get off this flight and must scramble through the Atlanta airport to catch our 9 hour flight to Zurich. We finally make it, get situated, and the plane is off. This flight was a little less hectic because Geno was not screaming bloody murder the whole time, but he just wouldn't go to sleep. So much for our theory that if we travel during the day, as supposed to the red eye flight it would be easier.

We then find our driver and he tells us that he mistakenly booked two people, and that we may have to leave in two different cars at different times to Zug. Luckily we crammed all of our luggage in and can ride all together. Ten minutes into our twenty minute car ride, Geno starts screaming at the top of his lungs and Coretta tells us that she feels like she has to puke...and yes we are stuck in rush hour. I simultaneously look for a bag for Coretta to puke in as I am feeding Geno two bananas and trying to satiate him. We finally arrive at the Park Hotel in Zug to spend the night thanking God that we finally arrived at our destination.