day six/seven. adventures in bureaucracy.

moving has had its ups and downs. most of you have already heard about the 5 month visa process that ended with me overnight mailing my passport to chicago and receiving it with the visa stamp just 3 days before we left. luckily we took care of all that before we left because it allowed me to apply immediately for residency which is necessary for opening a bank account and having a phone. actually, the residency card (which cost us 220 CHF) takes ~4 weeks to come in the mail. in the meantime, we had to purchase a 12 CHF piece of paper that states that we applied for the residency card, which then allowed us to open a bank account and to get phones.

difficult? no. complicated? yes. time consuming? yes. expensive? yes. but... we did learn our way around town pretty quickly. this is also why we came so early- all of the govt offices are closed from 24 Dec-3 Jan!

luckily most of the b.s. is done and we can spend money, talk on the phone, and surf the net! doesn't make for exciting blogging, but gives you an idea of what we have to go through to be here. :)

on a lighter note, we also accomplished a major ikea trip! major because we had to bring all of our purchases back on the train and metro. still a bit more to do, but the apartment is feeling more like home.

a glimpse of the alps and some sweet industrial architecture from the train ride to ikea.