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From Big Apple to Big Cheese

It’s only been a little over a week. it feels like it’s been much, much longer. A long time, filled with boxes, lots and lots of boxes. Aaaargh!

The house has been a complete mess all week.

Last Monday we moved into our apartment from the temp flat we had been living in, and the place was already full of boxes. The movers had unloaded everything on Friday and then left, ready to do the rest on Monday. They did a bunch of stuff, but also made more of a mess in some cases. One of them kept taking stuff out of boxes and just putting it wherever – what sense does it make to take stuff out unless you know where to put it???
So I found myself repeating: “don’t take out the clothes, we have no closets to put them in” over and over.

Result:

- half the content of my wardrobe in a pile on the living room sofa

- all of my toiletries, makeup and bathroom stuff on the drawer chest in the master bedroom

- piles of books pretty much everywhere in the house

To be fair, they did do a good job on a lot of things though, like assembling the furniture we had bought before leaving the states: the girl’s bunk bed and our dining room table and chairs (I’m going to miss Pottery Barn!). Which left me with this image to end off last Monday:

The table cloth is wrinkled, because I don’t have a 220 voltage iron yet. Oh, who am I kidding, I never iron table cloths. The flowers are in the blender’s pitcher, because I haven’t found my vases yet. But at least there’s a table. And chairs. It’s starting to look more  like home.

The whole week we have been running around getting the missing pieces of furniture, lamps and so on. And I have tried to organize the bookshelves and not go nuts having to put together outfits for the girls based on what boxes I could access. Fun! Not.

On top of it, I have had no internet access until today, save for my iPhone. And while I could joke about it the first two days, then I started getting really quite annoyed.

Until on Saturday my husband called the phone company and the electrician trying to get it handled over the weekend, probably fearing for his life, because apparently no internet changes me into the Elisa version of Mr. Hyde, and since I’m not exactly all flowers and pixie dust to start with, he probably feared for his life. Which he should. Since he decided to set up the TV long before he even looked into setting up our DSL. I was starting to think it was a subtle hint to move out, damn it. Turns out it was just clulessness on his part of just how bitchy I can get when I have no access to my e-mail, my blog or my Twitter account. Be afraid, darling. Be very afraid.

Anyway, I managed to organize the kitchen. And now one room is done.

The rest are mostly half-done or almost done, or not even there, more on the lines of OMG I put away 5 giant boxes of stuff but it still looks pretty much the same kind of thing. Which is almost as annoying as having no internet connection. So the kitchen being done gives me hope that I will, in fact, be able to actually get my stuff organized and put away and actually get settled.

And then my life here can actually begin.

Until that happens, I still feel in limbo, and that only makes me miss NY more. And the fact that NYFW and all the sales and NY Fashion’s Night Out all happened and I wasn’t there…. Man, I’m missing out on all the fun!

Damn it. I need to get to a big city. My husband wants to go to the Engadin on the Fall holidays – he missed Switzerland, my mountain boy. I, on the other hand, feel like I have had just as much bucolic as I can tolerate right now, and I need some crowds and some decent shopping. “But it’s so pretty there!”  he said, when I proposed that we maybe go to London or something instead. Pretty won’t cut it for me right now, love. Not unless it refers to something I see in a shopping window in a street filled with people.

I know, I sound like a spoiled, bitchy, shallow Princess and the Pea kind of woman, never happy, possibly only content when spending large amounts of money on mostly useless purchases.

But the truth is, I don’t even need to shop. I just need to feel like I’m not in the middle of nowhere and totally out of the loop. Like I’m not  alone, not isolated, not lost somewhere where I don’t matter and I don’t fit in. I need to not feel like this, because this is going to be home for a while and it just needs to work. It needs to not feel like it’s stealing my soul and crashing my personality by whispering in my ear that I’m strange and just like a piece of another puzzle, that cannot be included in the picture because, well, the shape is all wrong and stuff.

I don’t know if a trip to London will handle that, but it can’t hurt. As an alternative… anyone want to come visit? We have a really comfortable futon.

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Zurich HauptBahnhof (Main Station)

Zurich HauptBahnhof (Main Station)

Or should I say Hoi?

Finally, after two days of pouring rain and major jet lag, today we had a sunny day, which inspired us to ignore the jet lag and come see you, Zurich.

I have to admit, I was feeling a little resentful to be here, extremely unappreciative even – because alas, I couldn’t enjoy the prettyness. It was rainy, and we spent most of our time indoors, either sleeping, hanging out with friends and family, having weirdly-timed meals, grocery shopping, and so forth. Or in the car, to go from one place to the other. Staying indoors, especially in the tiny apartment that constitutes, for the time being, “corporate housing” until our things arrive and we can move to our own, much lovelier, flat.

The jet lag, the short buildings, the narrow streets, the rain, it all contributed to my feeling kind of miserable about being here, only two days in.

Then today, glorious sunny day. Finally the right weather to walk around and get reacquainted with you, Zurich. A few errands to run, walking around the Bahnhofstrasse, and I felt a little better, but not yet at home. Until the errands were done, and we got coffee on the Rennweg, then walked down Uraniastrasse and finally I saw it, Zurich. The lake. Your lake. It was just a peek, really, and not really the lake, strictly speaking, only the Limmat river. But  knew I was close to my favorite area, and that alone made me jump for joy.

a view of the Limmat, a peek of the lake behind the bridge, further down

a view of the Limmat, a peek of the lake behind the bridge, further down

And suddenly, I was happy to be here. To be back. To have left New York, with its great buildings and busy streets, and its fabulous fashion, and even Central Park. I loved it there. But now, to my surprise, I realize I love it here, too.

Ah, Zurich, you tease. You were saving the best for last. I was walking down the Limmatquai, and enjoying the familiar views, the stores, the restaurants.

outside eating on the Limmat-Quai

outside eating on the Limmat-Quai

And then I started feeling excited, ’cause I knew what was coming. We got to Bellevue, walked through the traffic of bodies, trams, bicycles, and crossed to the other side of the street. To the Quaibrücke. And there it was.

the first peek of the lake, from the corner of the Bellevueplatz

the first peek of the lake, from the corner of the Bellevueplatz

the end of the Quaibruecke, the trees from one corner of Buerliplatz

the Quaibrücke

And I said to Sascha “If I was Julie Andrews, I would probably break into song right about now.” And I so felt it, Zurich. You little b*tch. You totally got back at me. And I felt silly about not wanting to come back to you – how could I not miss this?

Uto-Quai, with the Zurich opera house and other lovely buildings

Uto-Quai, with the Zurich opera house and other lovely buildings

But I was too lost in the elation, the emotion of being there, of being here again, in the place where you can always see the beauty beyond the beauty, like now, the mountains beyond the lake, and the opposite coast of the lake, with the fountains, and the gorgeous Arboretum park, the park I walked in so many times with Sarah when she was a baby.

Ah, Zurich. You got back at me. But I won’t hold it against you. You are too lovely. And only now I realized, I missed you.

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Copyright Elisa Bieg, 2008-2009.