Knife Fights and Spilled Paint

Yesterday was supposed to be a good day. Kris was going to go to work, I was going to turn in a job application, and then we were going to go to the apartment and pick up our keys. That was the plan. Plans are linear. Plans are smooth. Switzerland is not linear; it is not smooth. In the words of my beloved husband, it is made up of rays of hope and pits of despair.

Yesterday's first pit came in the form of a paystub that did not list the amount we thought it would. As planners who budget down to the point of keeping receipts for every loaf of bread we buy, this presented a problem. Budgeting is especially important when you are paid monthly, spreading things a little thin at the beginning of your time in a new country. Apparently, in addition to being paid monthly, Kris is paid 1/13 of his salary each month, not 1/12. The extra 13th is paid in December, but only for the number of full months you have worked in the previous calendar year. That means that this December Kris will receive 1/3 of the 1/13 that would make up his whole salary. Eventually the math evens out, but it meant some creative budgeting to start the day.

This pit was followed by a welcome ray of hope in the form of EPFL's Human Resources Department. After waiting patiently while another international employee fought with the HR rep about taxes and paystubs, and ultimately insulting the HR rep's country to his face, I had my chance to smile and turn in a job application that was two months past due. Thankfully, even though applications were supposed to be in by August 10th and the job started on October 1st, the position was actually still open. I handed over my application and felt a little better about the day.

Then we went to the apartment.

In retrospect, things really aren't that bad. But after a month of floating between residences and ultimately visiting 28 apartments around Lausanne in 22 days, we were ready for a win. We got to the apartment early, as us planning-budgeting-types do, and found a foyer filled with bags of trash, dirt smeared on the front door, and two men traipsing fresh paint all over the hardwood floors. My immediate reaction was denial. I became convinced that I was once again confused by the strange, European floor-numbering system, and decided that our apartment was one floor down. I refused to even wait in the apartment and went back into the stairwell. Kris tells me that that decision deprived me of the pleasure of watching the men peel the thin plastic tarp on the floor for painting the living room and hearing it tear off of all of the sections of paint that had dried to the floor underneath. After that, Kris joined me in the stairwell.

After a few minutes, the smartly dressed man from the agency arrived with his leather briefcase and polite smile and introduced himself to us in the stairwell. Sadly I followed him up the stairs to what, apparently, was our apartment. Stepping over the trash and glancing into the living room, the man from the agency managed to contain his noise of disgust. The look, however, came right through. He went into the kitchen and began to put out his neat little stacks of papers and his neat little clipboard, talking all the while in rapid French and gesturing around. He stopped after noticing the lost expressions on our faces. We asked if he spoke any English, he said no, and we started farther into our pit of despair.

Resigned Kris and I began our systematic testing of everything in the apartment. The man from the agency watched us for a while, then grabbed his neat little clipboard and headed into the rest of the apartment. The porch was full of trash bags. The tub was filled with paint. White footprints tracked all the way form the front entrance to the back bedroom. The doors were dirty and light switches were just missing. By the time we ran into the agent again, his demeanor had shifted significantly and he was in the middle of a rather animated phone call in the bedroom. He hung up, gently told us his English-speaking colleague was on his way, and then went to tear into the guys in the living room. Kris and I had no desire or ability to interfere, so we retreated to the bedrooms.

At this point I had no idea what to do, but I wanted the apartment to feel like ours. We haven't had a home since July, and I needed to do something. So I grabbed a sponge and started washing the dirt and stains off of the doors. I didn't care that it wasn't my dirt or that someone else was supposed to clean it, that was my bedroom door. I didn't even notice when the agent walked up and started watching me. When I finally did, he had a confused and kind of sad look on his face. I put down the sponge and he told me again that the man who spoke English was on his way.

When we came back out of the bedrooms, the men who had been painting (the younger of whom was apparently the previous tenant) were frantically removing the trash from the apartment and stashing it at the top of the stairwell. I ignored the liquid that had leaked from the trash bags and went out on the porch to take this picture. Everything was going to be ok.

After that Greg, the English-speaking rep from the agency arrived and met us on the porch. The original rep introduced us and started firing off in a stream of French that Greg did his best to translate. He apologized that we would not be able to move in today, but it was clear that the apartment was not ready. They needed to do a "deep cleaning" and would like to meet us again on Friday. At that point, we would also have access to a contractor for all of the little things that were clearly wrong, but would not be ready by Friday. Greg explained that he would be there with us to make the list. I asked if we would be responsible for paying the contractor, Greg passed the question along, and after a scathing look back into the apartment, the original agent said no. After a longer discussion of terms and exchanging information, we set up a time for Friday and went on our way.

Here are a few pictures before the story continues.

 Tub full of wet and dry paint.

Trash-filled porch

After the trash was removed

A reenactment of first arriving at the apartment

Some of the paint from under the tarp

The only picture I have of the angry man from the agency who rescued us.

Also shows damage to the doorframe...

And now for some of the good ones (ignore any paint and such)

Entry way after all of the trash was removed. 

Kitchen

Living room and balcony

View out from the living room

Bedroom

Second bedroom (actually taekwondo room...)

I plan on being excited on Friday. We will see what Switzerland does to those plans. 

After grasping on to the Friday ray of hope as a response to the spilled-paint pit of despair, we came home and readied ourselves for the next adventure: taekwondo. For any of you who know us well, you know that finding a new dojang is almost as important to us as finding a new home. Numerous internet searches and phone calls had led us to the one we thought was the best bet. It had programs for multiple age groups, photos of both men and women in their classes, poomsae and sparring, additional curriculum in self defense, and a mission statement about the non-profit status of the program. 

Our initial contact with Bruno, the head of the school, was promising. His English, while leagues better than our French, was still in the realm of adorable. Statements like "It is with pleasure!" and "We have places to change you." hinted that communication would be exciting. 

Though the story is exciting, and involves the knife fighting mentioned in the title, I am going to call it a night and leave most of the telling for tomorrow. I will leave you with the knowledge that our time there was an enormous ray of hope, and I hope will continue to be one throughout our time in this notably un-smooth country. 

Au revoir.