Last Weekend
Last weekend, I went to Longbridge, which is an English camp modeled after CLV in Switzerland. The experience was great, and was a lot of fun. On top of that, Melanie managed to stop by and work the weekend on her trip through Europe. The kids, especially the boys, but some girls too, loved baseball and American football, and since I was one of two Americans there, I ended up playing a lot of sports that weekend with Swiss kids. It was a blast!
Wednesday, September 9
On Wednesday night, I took the train down to St. Gallen for our orientation the next day. It was my first night in my new apartment, albeit in the living room and not my own. Luckily, I was able to bring 3 suitcases full of clothes and other miscellaneous things to lighten the load for the weekend. My apartment isn't too close to city center, but since St. Gallen is a relatively small city where nearly everything is in walking range, that's perfectly OK.
Here's where my new apartment is located:
As you can see, my address is:
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Sonnenstrasse 34
CH-9000 St. Gallen
If anyone ever wants to come visit, just let me know a bit in advance, and I'll let you know how my schedule looks!
Thursday, September 10
Before orientation, I opened up a bank account (yes, a real Swiss account) and got some things with my half-fare-and-free-after-7-PM train card sorted out. I still don't have a Swiss cell phone, since they're pretty expensive and I'm still scoping the market out. I took a few pictures of the city while I was out and about.
Orientation was pretty straightforward, got some information booklets, got my university account activated, got a tour of the library, etc. Part of campus is under construction, but I don't think it wil bother me too much.
Saturday, September 12
Saturday was, for those of you who don't know, my official move in day. This day was full of life changing experiences for me. As you may know, I've been staying with Lindsey in Freiburg for the past couple weeks, which is about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) away. After some research, we decided that the cheapest and best way to get my things (clothes, and things that I got from her like a bed, desk, closet, etc) from Freiburg to St. Gallen was by renting a car, which I had reserved a week or two ago. I called in on Saturday morning, admittedly way too late, to ask if they had any cars with an automatic transmission. The two that they had were rented out. At this point, keep in mind that I could probably count the number of times I had driven a manual on both hands. I was a little nervous, but quite confident.
Originally I had reserved a station wagon, but when we expressed concern that it might not be big enough, we were offered a moving truck for the exact same price. We couldn't turn down such a good deal, so we took it. My stuff probably wouldn't have fit into the station wagon, but the transporter was definitely bigger than what we needed, regarding both storage space and sheer vehicle size. While I was adjusting to the feel of the truck and getting used to shifting its gears, Lindsey seemed to be on the brink of a heart attack due to fear and nervousness. I, however, did manage to navigate it back to her apartment.
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After packing everything up, but before leaving, I ran into the city to pick up my new glasses, which I had ordered the week before. It turns out my eyes are great, but I have a slight stigmatism, taking some of the clarity out of my vision and making similar looking symbols like "8" and "9" and "B" and "O" all look quite similar. After accepting glasses-insurance (10€ per year, but giving a deep discount on the lenses), and after forking over 11€ for the lenses (the glasses, eye exam, fitting, etc was all free), I walked away with my new glasses. Just for the people who don't know, the exchange rate makes 1€ ~ $1.45 ± 1¢ right now. So, all in all, it was a really really good deal.
The drive from Freiburg to St. Gallen started out pretty rough, since almost immediately after exiting Freiburg, the Autobahn goes winding through a mountain. After managing to squeeze through that, I had started to get better adjusted to the manual transmission and the boat of a car that I was driving. Lindsey slowly became less worried. The Autobahn was a little bit treacherous with that thing, since in 5th gear it would comfortably go 100 km/h (~65 mph), and at that point I didn't want to try 6th gear, while Germans were whizzing by at probably up to 200 km/h (~130 mph).
After safely reaching St. Gallen and finding the way to my apartment, we began unloading the van, piece by piece. After countless trips up and down the stairs (I live on the 4th floor), we managed to find a parking spot pretty close by. Lindsey dozed off a bit while I went about unpacking and putting my closet together.
Sunday, September 13
Today was filled with lots of unpacking, furniture construction, organizing, and sorting. I have now met Sämi (Swiss) and Katharina (German), and only have Jérôme (Swiss) left to meet, although we spoke on the phone before I officially "got the apartment". After a long day's work, Lindsey and I (mostly Lindsey, since she's way better at organizing and at handiwork) got my room into pretty good condition.
The drive back went much better than the drive there, since I had actually figured out how to drive a manual correctly and had figured out how to control the van. After giving 6th gear a try to keep up with traffic (we barely even hit 120 km/h, ~75 mph), I could definitely see how it would be fun to drive on the Autobahn with a real car, and not the clunky sloth that we had. Even leaving automobile velocity out of the question, it was a gorgeous drive with some really impressive German and Swiss landscapes and scenery.
After dropping off the van and saying by to Lindsey at the train station, I caught the last train to St. Gallen from Freiburg. Luckily, with my Gleis7 card (free train travel in Switzerland after 7 PM), I can travel this stretch as much as I want.
I still have a few things with my visa to take care of, mostly regarding money and showing them that I have enough to survive living in Switzerland while I'm studying, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Just takes time. Luckily, Brian Holmes, a friend from high school who I ran into in Freiburg a couple of years ago, is working in Munich, where I have to go to pick up my visa. We're planning on climbing Zugspitze sometime soon, but we're not sure when we'll both have time...
I've got a few other things to worry about, like buying a proper lighting fixture for my room, getting an octopus plug, maybe getting one or two more adapters from the US plug to the Swiss or German plug, etc, but I should have it all under control.
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