We were definitely missing our family and friends this Christmas, but we made the best of our time here together by taking a trip to Zermatt.

We arrived on the afternoon of the 23rd and took a 30-minute alpine train up to Gonergrat.  The train itself was spectacular – winding through snow-covered mountains much like the Polar Express (sadly without Santa and hot chocolate).  While cold, the weather was perfect for fantastic views of the Matterhorn.

We spent the next two full days skiing, exploring all of the runs on the Swiss side of the mountain.  Snow in Switzerland has been lackluster this season. Fortunately for us, the slopes in Zermatt are all maintained on top of a glacier and all of the runs were open on our first day. The runs here were very wide, long, and plentiful.  We were both impressed with how expansive of an operation the mountain is – there are 34 lifts across the mountain, with five separate ski areas amongst the Swiss and Italian sides of the mountain.  The majority of the runs were ‘medium’ (red), but Chris successfully convinced Sarah to go down a few ‘difficult’ (black) runs despite her protests.

The food in Zermatt was also excellent.  We had lots of yummy fondue (both cheese and meat) and a 5-course Italian dinner, but the real highlight was on our first day of skiing at a restaurant called Chez Vrony.  We had a little difficulty finding it, but the fact that we were able to ski into a Michelin Star restaurant was pretty awesome.  We found the food to be fabulous, the ambiance to be relaxing (our server came and wrapped us in blankets), and the views to be breath-taking.  It was a much-needed mid-day break and a must-visit for anyone traveling to Zermatt.

Finally, one of our other favorite finds was a bar called Papperla Pub which had a fantastic live band every night.  We had a ton of fun tearing it up on the dance floor and bonding with other ex-pats. Washington D.C. got its fair share of shout-outs from the band, as we showed off our Weitzel/Klinke/Bacon inspired dance moves.

Skiing for two days was a great but exhausting way to spend Christmas. Though it was not a traditional Christmas for either of us, Santa still stuffed our stockings, we were still able to FaceTime with our loved ones back home, and we made some unforgettable memories together.

This past week, we spent 5 days in Austria palling around with our fellow ex-pat friends, Mike and Mary.  Our first stop, Salzburg, was about 8 hours by train, but we were well prepared –  Mary brought snacks and wine, and in typical Milne fashion, we brought activities to help pass the time.

After checking into our Airbnb, we stumbled into a small, locals-only type restaurant and turned some heads with our arrival. Four of these things were clearly not like the others.  In the end, we had a ton of fun chatting (or at least trying to chat) with a party of older couples, but especially with a slightly tipsy, older gentleman.  Between his broken English and our poor German, we were able to gain an understanding of an Austrian’s perspective regarding politics, immigration, and current events.  Later that evening, we had a low-key dinner at a typical Tyrolean restaurant for some stick-to-your-ribs food (think Goulash, dumplings, braised meats, and liters of beer).

The next day, we toured the Hohensalzburg Fortress with the help of an audio guide.  To be honest, the audio guide was a little disappointing; however, the fortress is the highest point of the city and therefore provides an excellent view of the town and the alps.  In the end, it was totally worth it.  No matter how many times I see the alps, they are always impressive.  That afternoon, we wandered around the Salzburg Christmas markets (similar to those everywhere else but still fun) and went to check out the Red Bull Hangar.  This experience was actually a pleasant surprise.  Not only was it totally free, but the space itself was very cool and it housed some pretty neat Red Bull artifacts, the coolest of which was definitely the Red Bull Stratos Project.

In the evening, we headed to the Augustiner Beer House (one of our favorite German beers) for a pre-dinner drink.  This place was very similar to a brewery back home – people come in big groups, bring food and games, and truly make an afternoon or evening of it.  We were actually playing Euchre and it turns out that the family next to us was from Iowa and also knew the game.  Pretty small world.  That evening, it started snowing, so the walk to dinner was beautiful (though cold).  Dinner on our second night was at a slightly more upscale place, Immlauer Sky, and had a great view of the city and absolutely delicious food. The next day, we just meandered through the city and took a short but steep walk up Kapuzinerberg for our last glimpse of the beautiful city before heading to Innsbruck.

Petersfiendhof Cemetary

View from Hohensalzburg Fortress

Kapuzinerberg

Kapuzinerberg

Stratos Project

Though Innsbruck is only an hour and a half away from Salzburg, it has a very different feel.  Where Salzburg can be described by its muted colors and reserved people, Innsbruck was much more bright and lively.

On our first full day in Innsbruck, we hiked for about an hour up Nordkette Mountain and then took the Hungerburg Funicular to the top where the four of us had a TON of fun playing in the snow and riding the snow-bikes and sleds down the hills.  That afternoon, we rented bikes (Sarah is finally starting to get over her bike-anxiety) and rode a little outside of the city to see Schloss Ambras.  Though the castle itself was closed, we had a nice time walking through the gardens and exploring the grounds.  On our last morning, we went to Bergisel ski jump hoping to see some crazy skiers practicing.  Unfortunately, they were still preparing the grounds, but it was pretty cool to see the Olympic rings from 1964 and to see them blowing snow on the jump in preparation for their big event in January.

Wednesday afternoon, we hopped on a train back to Switzerland. There was significantly less wine on this train and the primary activity was napping. We dropped Mike and Mary off in Zurich and wearily made our way back to Basel, where we could recharge for 1.5 days [read: do all the laundry] before hitting the rails again, out to our next adventure in Zermatt.

Schloss Ambras

Seegrube

Bergisel Ski Jump

Snow frolicking

Drinks at Segrube

Hiking Nordkette

In an attempt to keep everyone back home posted, we’ve finally decided to create a blog.  Hopefully, the posts moving forward won’t be as long, but seeing as we’ve been here for around 2.5 months, we have a lot to cover.  That being said, we’ll try to keep it as short as possible.

Settling In:

When we first arrived, we were set up with temporary housing.  It was honestly fantastic to land and immediately settle in.  We had furniture, internet, sheets, towels, pots and pans, and really all the necessities.  Even though we only came with 6 suitcases in total, the apartment was just shy of 300 square feet – so we had to get pretty creative with storage.

On October 31st, we moved into our permanent apartment, and we have settled in nicely. We are located in the heart of the city right off Marktplatz (which has a farmers market and adorable stalls every day except Sunday).  Furnishing an entire apartment from scratch was definitely an adventure.  Sarah has now been to IKEA 7 times, but we think we are finally done.  We are both incredibly satisfied with our new place, and can happily report that it is big enough to host a Foosball table and large sectional couch for anyone who wants a free place to crash!

Pretty much everyone here speaks English, but we are both working on our German.  Chris is finding that much of his high school and college German is coming back, and Sarah works on her language every day.  At this point, she can get by with broken German and a little bit of charades – a method that is successful until you need to ask for a zucchini …

Travel:

Traveling the world was one of the big incentives of this adventure, and we have had a strong start.  Below is an all too brief account of our travel adventures so far:

• Amsterdam – after a mere two weeks in Basel, we visited Amsterdam to celebrate Chris’s birthday.  We did a lot of touristy things including the Anne Frank House, a walking tour of the city, and The Rijksmuseum, but thanks to our dear friends, Eric and Jess who are former residents of Amsterdam, we found a lot of really cool, local restaurants and bars.  Eric and Jess  were actually in town that weekend, and we had a ton of fun catching up with them.  Our absolute favorite part of this trip was renting a boat and driving through the canals.  Good friends on a boat with a bottle of wine … what could possibly go wrong? (Swans and crashing into other boats – that’s what can go wrong).

• Paris – The last time the two of us visited Paris was in 2007, and it was a bit of a cluster.  We were poor college students and couldn’t justify spending money on much, Sarah’s flight was delayed an entire day, and the Italian train strikes made Chris’s trip back to Vienna rather challenging.  Thankfully, this trip was much more successful.  We trained into Paris from Basel late on a Friday, so the first night there was pretty well shot.  On Saturday, we got up early and visited the Louvre (something we didn’t have time or money for last time).  The artwork was obviously both beautiful and impressive, but we were most inspired by the history and architecture of the building.  In the afternoon, we just wandered the streets and had an absolutely FANTASTIC lunch at Le Relais de l’entrecote (which only serves rare steak atop french fries).  That evening, we sat down for a pre-dinner wine tasting in an old cellar at O’Cheateu.  There were maybe 25 people there in total, and of them … another Wake grad (class of ’91)!  The world is really starting to feel much smaller than it once did.  We also met a nice couple from northern Ireland, and because this “wine tasting” gave us each six, full glasses of wine – we were immediate friends and ending up having dinner together.

• Monaco/Nice/Antibes – Even though Chris is still technically a US employee, he follows Swiss holidays, and guess what?  Thanksgiving is not one of them.  He had to (got to?) spend about a week and a half on a client based out of Monaco.  Not wanting to spend the holiday alone, Sarah joined him for a long weekend, and my oh my is Monaco beautiful!  The city is literally built into the side of a cliff and describing the water as turquoise doesn’t do it justice.  We celebrated Thanksgiving day in the most unconventional way possible – “gambling” at Casino Royale.  Shockingly, the casino itself is pretty small, very quiet, and honestly a little haughty for our tastes (though we did enjoy getting dolled up and pretending to be the type of people who park our Bentley on the street).  Chris was busy working most of the time, but on Saturday, we took a bus to Nice.  Typically, the bus is my last choice for public transportation – having lived in DC, it brings up images of homeless people and smells of urine –  but this bus ride was incredible.  The hour long and mere 1.5 euro bus ride, hugs the shoreline up and down cliffs.  It was the sort of beauty where you put away your camera because you know that no angle or Instagram filter will ever do it justice.  We spent the day walking around the city and climbing up Le Cheateau to take in the beautiful views of the ocean and city.  That evening, we took a quick train ride to Antibes where we went to the Picasso museum and had a lovely duck dinner at Le Brulot.  Sunday was a simpler day – we stuck around Monaco to see the changing of the guards, visit the Prince’s Vintage Car Collection, and explore the Oceanographic Museum.

Dnalreztiws (Switzerland is backwards):

Switzerland is amazing – it is clean, safe, and everyone has been very friendly and helpful. Overall, it has been as smooth of a transition as we could have asked for, but there are some things that we have found to be pretty wild:

• To pay bills, you have to go to the post office
• To buy trash bags, you have to ask the grocery store clerks.  Trash bags are a hot commodity, so naturally, they are kept beside the hard liquor and cigarettes.
• Sunday is a quiet day – there is to be no vacuuming, laundry, loud music, etc.
• Most people put actual candles on their Christmas trees – yes, like the kind with fire!
• The church bells here ring every 15 minutes (great for telling time), but they also ring for the following reasons: avalanches, weddings, civic duties, civic meetings, the start of festivals, the start of fairs, general testing, and I think when the tower operator just wants to have a good laugh.  The sound is lovely … and constant.

Work:

Part of the reason why EY Basel wanted Chris to join their team was for his expertise in US accounting regulations, and consequently, he has been working hard to get his engagements up to US standards.  Unfortunately, he has been required to travel for work more than expected.  One of his clients is in Zug (an hour and a half away), one is Allschwill (a half hour away), and he has a lot of meetings in Zurich (50 minutes away).  Even though he spends a fair amount of time commuting, he is able to make the most of it by getting work done on the train.  Thus the commute in Switzerland is much more bearable than the commute back in DC.

Sarah had a feeling that when she left Fairfax County (and more specifically Kilmer), she was leaving the best behind.  Now she works for a company called 51Talk  (an English Education platform based out of the Phillippines) and knows that those thoughts were absolutely true.  All of the students are located in China, and it is her job is to teach one on one sessions for English language acquisition.  There are quite a few negatives to this type of work (pay, teacher support, training, and communication  to name a few), but it suits her needs perfectly.  She has the freedom to schedule as few or as many lessons as she wants, and her work day is entirely flexible.  Having this experience has certainly been eye-opening for her as an educator.