The eagle has landed

We arrived safely on Wednesday afternoon after an uneventful flight and went straight to 'work'. Helen, our relocation agent, met us at our temporary, furnished apartment and took us out for lunch, helped us start the process of getting a B permit, establish our Swiss bank account, and sign up for tram passes (so that we can get to work). She also showed us the location of the up-coming Christmas market, the beautiful Christmas tree in the city's town hall, and took us to the tourist office to get information about restaurants, transportation, and things to do around town. We were both tired and fell into bed around 8pm.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, our air shipment arrived with more clothes - thankfully as it is quite cold here - after unpacking everything and putting it away we tried to plug in our alarm clock from home but after about 10 seconds it was no longer blinking the time and smelled like smoke - it is now on the list of things to buy. Next we ventured out to the grocery - it's only about a 7 minute walk from the apartment and it is very small. We spent over 15 minutes just trying to figure out the fabric softener from the laundry detergent, but got by with our handy translation dictionary. Peter, our landlord, showed us the exact route to walk to catch the tram for work - we work at different locations so he had to show us two routes. We asked if he could recommend a place to buy an alarm clock and showed us how to get there walking or via the tram (both take about 20 minutes). We walked over to the mall which is also apartments and the soccer stadium to buy our new alarm clock - we found one with no problem. Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Italian food at a local restaurant which was quite tasty.