It has been a month since we arrived in Switzerland and the word 'Surreal' seems to ring in my head after Joyce mentioned it the other day. Switzerland is a place I have dreamt of the perfect holiday destination for as long as I can remember and now we are here - I am here working with the university, living here, residing just beside lac leman (or lake Geneva) that covers almost 80% of Singapore's land area.
We have been really busy looking around for apartments and getting all our administrative requirements sorted out - residence permits, declaring I'm not a bankrupt, 1/2 price cards for public transport, recommendation letters for housing etc etc. The fact that we got the very first apartment we applied for - Surreal - the horror stories we've heard of submitting 15 -20 applications and living in the lab for months was something I did not intend to experience.
Maybe it is because we were looking for apartment in Morges (aka Boon Lay). Yes, we're like village people as compared to those living in Lausanne. And it helps that we got recommendation letters from my boss as well as the current tenant of the place. I also heard being a "Dr." in EPFL does swing the vote in my favour.
Whatever the reasons may be, it has lead us to break all records in house hunting. It is a huge load off our shoulders and in Feb we will be moving in. Strange that 75% of Swiss do not own their own homes and would rather subject themselves to this hassle of renting. I cant really understand why since interest rates for housing loans are a mere 1%. Guess its the maintenance of the house that will be costly.
The Swiss system have their own quirks like trash in 'approved' trash bags, scheduled timings for using the laundry facilities, allowing each able bodied Swiss man who have done military service to bring their assault rifles home, closing of shops at 6 or 7pm and government offices having opening times from 10 to 12 and 2.30 to 4.30pm. Their knack for having very precise bus/train timings is something very pleasing though.
Swiss food is quite boring, as you can see I'm not missing home food yet as Joyce has been cooking up a storm. We also have had 2-3 gatherings with fellow S'poreans / M'sians in Lausanne. One of the guys is a PhD student and the other is a fellow postdoc at EPFL so we sure have a lot to talk about. Last weekend we had steamboat and reminded me so much of home with the slang / food / topics of conversation, but the moment we stepped out of their apartment, we're smacked with a view of the snowcapped alps and cobbled stone streets -SURREAL-
I'm slowly finding my place in the lab, with direction for research as well as getting used to the 'loose' environment as compared to the 'weird regime' I was subjected to back home. I took off early yesterday at 4pm to head home for a nice run and today I went for a 1.24hr bike ride with Dr. Jeffery Rice. Though it was only 30km but we scaled up to an elevation of almost 700M. Climbing was painful and the downhill was exhilarating. My nose, ears and feet were all numb when we got back to EPFL. The view during my ride and run was unbelievable, almost SURREAL and then it set in...here I am riding and running in one of the most scenic places in the world. I'll end this post with a picture that says it all. I can't wait till our friends and family visit.
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