From A to Z

Does the new place make you forget the pain?  When you hear it laugh for the first time, does your heart swell?  Is your love for it unconditional?

FRACK NO...

I will never forget the pain of moving, my flat doesn't laugh and if it made me angry, there is a good chance I would't forgive it...I may even kick it.  So while moving is not like giving birth to a child, the end result still rocks.

When we were dreaming of what our flat would be, we thought it would be in an old building, in the middle of the city, near tragically hip coffee shops where people muse about life and and thank God for Barack Obama...all of the rumors about finding a flat in Zurich city centre being impossible didn't scare us.  We are the Remicks, who wouldn't give us an awesome flat on a chocolate platter (I use chocolate instead of silver or gold now, just an FYI).

The day we arrived we were sat down by our relocation agent who gave us a dose of reality.  Two dogs meant no flat in Zurich city centre.  Not to get all dramatic, but the news crushed my soul.  I didn't want to move to the burbs, burbs meant failure, burbs meant boring, burbs meant saying burbs which is a really annoying word...

The following day we visited 3 flats, the first in a town called Kilchberg.  Kilchberg is the first town south of Zurich city centre on the west side of the lake. The flat itself was open, airy, bright, huge by European standards and very clean.  It also had a spacious balcony with an incredible view of the lake, washer/dryer (which is like discovering an underground river of chocolate) and a wood burning stove that you can actually cook with.  We loved it...BUT, it wasn't Zurich city centre.

The other two flats were in Zurich but both had long lists of negatives like being located over a bar and one washer/dryer for 10 units to share.  When we asked the tenant if the bar was noisy he said all English style "yeah it can get noisy but when it does, I just go there and have a drink mate"...uhhh, you go with your bad self.

We saw a couple more flats in the city, which keep in mind were the only ones that would entertain more than two dogs,  but none of them could compare to the flat  in Kilchberg.  We applied for it and got it.  Here are some pics of the new pad:


Yes, that is a flat screen TV you see.  If you know the Remicks, you know they would rather get hand me down tube TV's from friends and family so they could afford their annual trips.  I admit, the new fancy TV doesn't suck.


This is the view we see from our living room window.  Even on a cloudy day it is beautiful.


Another view of the family room.  Everything you see here, except for the mutts, is from IKEA...I mean everything.  Does anyone else think the couch looks strangely tiny in this picture?


Dining room with wood burning stove...how fracking cool is that?


The very grey kitchen.  This was probably the room that gave me the most heart palpitations.  I like grey as an accent, but not as the main color.  It is slowly growing on me...like a fog in a Stephen King novel.


Master bedroom complete with one eyed Teddy Bear accent.


The very 1970's style European master bathroom...


And finally, the reason why we fell in love.  This pic was snapped during dusk and it just never gets old.  It has been a dream of mine to live on a lake and it all happened because of our two dogs.  What at first seemed  like a bone crushing defeat now seems like a gift...wrapped in cheese, on a big chocolate platter.