Of all the pictures I could post...

Greetings All!

This week has been an extension of the chaos of week one, kicked somehow into an even higher gear. For those of you who have been in touch with us, you know that the housing situation here is less than ideal. The people we are staying with at the moment are wonderful, but it is a temporary situation that has to end by October 1st. Their landlord has issues with us staying in the living room. So as of October 1st we need to be out, and at the moment we have nowhere to go. It will likely have to be another temporary living arrangement of sorts, because finding a long-term apartment here in under a month would be a record. Seriously. They would either egg us out of jealousy or present us with medals for accomplishment. Or both.

In the past five days we have visited ten apartments, applied to seven, and already been rejected from one. For nice apartments there are easily 20-30 applications for each spot. That collection of numbers has proven to be both exhausting and frustrating. We have two more visits arranged for Monday.

In addition to all of the apartments, we have spent a fair amount of time in the waiting rooms of government agencies. The most interesting was probably the debt office, which provides statements of no outstanding debt. This document (which basically states that we are not being pursued by any past landlords) is required for any apartment application. Thankfully the office was nearby, so Kris and I once again took all of our personal information for a walk.

Finding the building on the first try and making our way to third floor, Kris and I felt like we were finally getting a handle on things. This feeling ended the moment we entered the waiting room. The waiting room had white walls, seven white chairs, a grey floor, and nine grey doors. Next to each door was a small panel with a buzzer and red, yellow, and green lights. After pacing around the unnervingly asymmetrical room and not receiving any indication as to a course of action from anyone waiting in the white chairs, we pushed the buzzer for the door labeled "Reception." With the flash of the green light we shrugged and went through the door. The "room" on the other side of the door was about 3ft by 3ft with a chest-high counter at the far side overlooking a large room filled with desks. Once Kris had managed to both fit into the room wearing a backpack and close the door, one of the women at a desk across the room asked how she could help. We fumbled through explaining the document we needed and were sent back into the waiting room to wait for a green light on one of the four doors on the left-hand wall.

We went back to the waiting room, saw that all of the lights were red, and took seats in two of the white chairs. We then spent the next ten minutes trying to ignore that fact that none of the walls in the rooms met at right angles. Eventually one of the doors opened and a young man left, letting the door swing closed behind him. No one moved. Kris shrugged in silent question of whether he should go press the buzzer when it went off and the old man to our left shot out of his chair and through the door. Gradually the waiting room emptied out, buzzers and lights flashing, people appearing and disappearing through the grey doors. Kris felt like we had stepped into some set piece from The Matrix. Finally, the green light flashed and we were called into an equally tiny room/counter/closet/thing. A few minutes and 34 francs later we had our letters and headed back into the world where walls were perpendicular and waiting rooms had a receptionist.

Though this process has been trying (and we don't yet have somewhere to live) Kris and I have already become quite fond of the city. We have gone on numerous walks. We have taken pictures of mountains and lakes, grand buildings and cobbled plazas. But today I am going to post only one. This picture, for me, represents a piece of Switzerland: the organization and control of a highly efficient society reaching into places that just seem excessive. Today, I give you the dog toilet.

Thank you for all of you who have been reading. For those of you who have had issues commenting, I have fixed the settings. You should have no problems now. Thanks again. I promise to post other pictures soon. 

Au revoir. 

Amanda and Kris