Our move to Switzerland

Ted's contract in Hamburg was to end. We were given 2 opportunities- Olympus and ABB. Olympus would have kept us in Hamburg but we would have been making 5,000 Euro less than we had been before and the work/life balance issue would not be good. We decided on ABB in Zurich, Switzerland. Ted negotiated what we thought would be a good salary knowing that the cost of living in Switzerland is extremely high. The company even offered a moving package and movers packed up all our stuff and then unpacked it for us. Still, the stress level of moving to a foreign country was extremely high. We loved Hamburg and our friends and didn't want to leave. We had to do loads of paper work, sale furniture, end contracts, paint the house and worst of all say good bye to everyone and everything that we had grown to love in just 2 short years. Ted and I flew to Zurich to look for a new place to live. We saw 13 places in one day with the help of our relocation lady. More than 75 percent of Swiss people live in apartments so even though we were hoping for a house as nice as the one we had in Hamburg it just wasn't possible. We choose an apartment with direct access to the garden and playground, an eat in kitchen, big windows, and beautiful granite flooring and counter tops. It is only 30 minutes from Ted's work by bus and train. One down side- we are occasionally in the flight path of the nearby airport. Also rent is 3 times more than our home in Utah and it's hard to digress back to apartment living but we decided the adventure was worth it. We watched as the movers drove away with all of our belongings in their truck and hoped that we would see it again. Less than a weak later we flew to Zurich and met our relocation lady once more along with our new Landlords. One hour later the movers arrived with our things (thank goodness!). We began to reorganize. Unfortunatley on the evening of our second day we returned home from Ikea only to find our home had been broken into. I don't know why we have such bad luck. 2 times in 2 years. Luckily all of our expensive jewlery was stolen previously and the bandits only got away with my cheap jewlery and young woman's medallions. We are still surprised they didn't grab our new camera or ipod sitting out. The police think maybe we came home while they were still in the house and didn't have time. Switzerland is much more different from Germany than I had imagined. The language does infact sound harsher. We are in the German speaking part of the country so Aubrie is continuing her High German in school but at the recess the kids speak Swiss German and Aubrie can't understand quite as well. Her school is up an enormous hill and twice a week she has to go back to school after coming home for a short lunch break. I hated treking up and down that hill 4 times a day but she has now met friends to go with, hurray! As for church, the church house was built in the 70's (I think) it is starkly different from the mansion we were meeting in along the Elbchasse in Hamburg. It's nice to have a gym though. Everyone is very friendly and there are 2 families with kids from America. The cost of food is atronomical. A swiss franc is one to one with the US dollar only everything is 2-3 times more expensive. Butter (1 cup) 3 francs, a loaf of bread 4 francs, a pound of hamburger or chicken breasts 15-20 francs! I'm still in shock. Both Ted and I are not sure if we made the right choice. Hopefully things will get easier with time.