Mia´s world

Time to say Goodbye

2006-12-31T21:18:00.000+01:00

I feel it is time now to say goodbye to my blog. Though, I hope not to all the special people I met through this blog!

My life was more like a roller coaster this past 16 months and I am glad I documented it, I am thankful for all the helpful, wise and supporting comments I got from my readers and I feel it was the best place for me to keep a diary and to "vent".

But now I finally settled down, bought an apartment in my new home country and feel it is the right time to start a calmer life.

Thanks for accompanying me during the last 16 months!

Have a happy 2007, filled with happiness and health!

Hungary update

2006-12-29T15:13:00.000+01:00

The past 5 days in Hungary were dreadfull! We are just glad to be out of this country with unfriendly, unhelpful, ugly and complicated people. I don´t think I will ever again set foot in Hungary - well, at least I feel this way right now.

I don´t want to go into details now, as this would mean to re-live everything again.

If you ever want to visit Hungary, here a few tips:

book a 4 or 5 star hotel, don´t use public transport, don´t rent a car and try in any possible way to stay away from the locals! Never ever think of moving there! and if you do, never ever move anywhere else than Budapest. As all other towns and villages are pure hell!

We packed and sorted our stuff, we sent 17 boxes, 211 kilos by mail (and hope they will arrive) and took 5 suitcases, 100 kilos with us on the plane (we only paid for 10 kilos overweight.... I am Israeli at the end of the day :)

That´s it, never again Hungary, we are so glad to be home now. Although it is weird that Stockholm is my new home. I love it here and am so exited to live here, but this is my third country this year and I guess it will take some time to adjust and not to call Zurich home :)

Now we are in our apartment, putting up furniture and lamps, shopping some more stuff for the apartment and hopefully move before the new year! I feels great!

Have a good Shabbes everyone!

How´s it going?

2006-12-20T06:54:00.000+01:00

I am posting here a few of the pictures that were in the online-ad when we bought the apartment, none of the furniture is ours!

Last Friday we got the keys to the new apartment and since then we are shopping furniture and renovating. On Sunday we went to IKEA and made a big shopping of the basic furniture, then we went to the electronic shop and bought a TV, we bought a laundry machine online and found the perfect sofa in another furniture shop! We also bought paint and painted all the ceilings on Sunday night. The new floor (wooden) for the hall, the office and the kitchen will hopefully also arrive this week but I am not sure when we will do the floors. (did I tell you that we will do everything ourself? It is like a dream come true for my handyman-husband, he loves it!!!)

It´s a mix of a crazy and scary and fantastic time right now. I never in my life spent so much money on a weekend. On the other side it is nice to put together a new apartment from scratch. Maybe some of you remember when I moved from Switzerland to Hungary I sold and gave away all my furniture as it would not be worth to send them around Europe. So this means we have nothing, besides our clothes and some schmonzes. We started to put together some of the IKEA furniture last night and the sofa was delivered yesterday but it feels very weird, I am not home yet, nothing personal is in the apartment yet. But I guess this will change soon.

On Sunday we are flying to Hungary to get our stuff that we left there. It will be weird to go back, it feels like a lifetime ago that we lived in Hungary, although it is only 4 months ago.

Beginning of February we hope to get all our stuff from Switzerland, which I can´t wait for. Finally to get all my kitchen stuff and all my shoes and pictures and shmonzes!

Hope you all have a great Channuka! With my MIL living just around the corner we light candles every night there and eat sufganiot and latkes. (On the first night of Channuka she couldn´t find sufganiot, so she made them herself - they were yammy, and it is so sweet of her to do that!)

on a side note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HoH!!!!!! Hope you are having a fantastic time in Israel and are enjoying your birthday in the sun!!!!!

Happy Channuka!!!

Just a quick update

2006-12-12T18:09:00.000+01:00

Over all the exitment with the apartment I totally forgot to write that my mom is coming for a visit :D.

She planned this trip before we new if we are staying. So she came for the weekend and left today. We had a great time together, I think she really enjoyed seeing Stockholm (last time she came we got civil married and there was no time to see anything). We went to the Jewish Museum, which was disappointing as it was basically just one room, we want to the synagogue which they opened specially for us, we went to the King´s palace (I am driving out there again, next time our guests have to take the boat...) and we walked a lot in town. On Sunday evening we went to the Icebar, maybe some of you saw it at Amazing Race a couple of seasons ago. The bar is made out of ice, like everything is out of ice, the bar, the bench, the tables, the walls, the drinks are even served in ice....

A pretty busy time is coming up now and I am not sure how much I will be able to blog and comment on your blogs. I will try to take the time but apartment renovation and furnishing comes first :D

On 24th December we are flying to Hungary for 4 days to pack and ship our stuff from there. We hope to get our stuff from Switzerland in early January by truck.... lots of things to organize and figure out ahead of us, but at the same time purely exiting !

Have a wonderful Channuka, eat a lot of Sufganiot and sing many songs....

WE WON!!!

2006-12-06T22:36:00.000+01:00

so,we won the bidding last night! at 9:15pm the real estate agent called and told us that the apartment is ours!

We are on cloud 7 since then!

Today we went to the bank, to apply for the mortgage, we got the OK. Then we met the real estate agent and the seller. We went through the contract details and SIGNED!

I can´t believe that everything went so fast. On Sunday we saw the apartment and today (Tuesday) we have a signed contract! Once again we were lucky. Stockholm really brings us luck!

Just before we went to the bank my husband was informed that they appreciate him so much that they decided to give him a raise in salary even though the trial period is not over yet!!!

Now we have to wait for the residence association (all the apartment owners of the house and some houses next door) to agree to us and once this is settled we can move in. The date is set for next Friday, 8:30am!

We are still overwhelmed. We started to plan how to furnish the apartment and thought about what we want to renovate. We can start from next Friday, as the apartment is already empty! We got no furniture at all, so it is pretty cool to plan and shop matching furniture, we laugh and feel like "grown-ups" :D

Since we moved here in September somehow everything is working out so smoothly, almost scary. I hope our luck will not stop for a while. It feels so good when things just magically work out!!!

Thanks for keeping your fingers crossed!

Update of the apartment bidding

2006-12-05T19:52:00.000+01:00

Today was one of the most nerv-racking days!!!

Around 10am the bidding started, many people were interested, the price went up in small steps. Then it was only us and 3 other people/couples. The price started to go up in bigger steps.

2 stopped bidding around 5pm. Now it is us and another young couple. We gave the last bidding at 5:45pm and haven´t heard anything from our real estate agent.

At 19:00 we sent a text message to ask how our opponents are doing and got the answer, that it looks good for us!!! He will try to call us again tonight, otherwise it will be tomorrow morning!

We really want this apartment, we are slightly over our budget with the last bid, but we really hope to win it tonight!!!

So, please keep your fingers crossed!!

Decision taken

2006-12-04T20:38:00.000+01:00

Glämsta was fantastic for all the reasons that I blogged about and I think the pictures speak for themselves. But while being at Glämsta we also took a big decision.

We decided to decide in Glämsta about our future or at least our short term future. It is the perfect place, out in the nature, where we can have fresh thoughts and a great scenery to discuss what we want to do next year.

My regular readers know that the he decision that we had to take wasn´t easy. We had to decide if we want to go back to Hungary next year or stay in Sweden or move to Switzerland.

So the decision is to stay in Sweden and try our luck here for a few years.

So last weekend we went to see some apartments. As I wrote in a previous blog, renting is impossible in Stockholm, and the only option we have is to buy an apartment. We saw 9 apartments and liked one out them. But the one we like, we love, we both immediately "clicked" with the apartment and would like to move in immediately.

Tomorrow starts the bidding and we hope that we will in and hopefully get it for a reasonable price!

update about the bidding will follow tomorrow!!!

Glämsta update

2006-11-29T21:31:00.000+01:00

Ok, so finally I am taking the time to write my Glämsta-Weekend update.

It was simply great, a weekend back to the basics!

Glämsta is about an hour and a half drive out of Stockholm, the last 10 minutes you drive in the middle of nowhere through the forest. Glämsta is actually the name of the area and it completely belongs to the Jewish community. It was given to them in 1903 by a rich Jewish man, the actual purpose back then was to give poor Jewish children the opportunity to go to camp and for poor Jewish families to go on vacation. Since after the WW2 people pay to go to Glämsta and it is no longer only for poor families (if a family doesn´t have enough money to go to Glämsta the Jewish Community is covering the costs).

These days Glämsta is mainly used for the Jewish summer camps during school break from June – September. During 9 weeks (divided in 3 periods of each 3 weeks) children from 9 – 15 and pensioners are enjoying 3 (pensioners 4) weeks of camp. There are maybe 25 houses of different sizes, a huge kitchen, a chadar ochel (dining room), a moadon (a community room) and a synagogue. It even has an eruv around it! Glämsta is kept kosher, with two kitchens, different refrigerators and kitchen tools.

When I walked around in Glämsta I had 3 main thoughts in my head:
1) I wish I was nine again and could start my Glämsta career NOW
2) I wish my kids will one day be able to go to Glämsta and enjoy camp
3) How lucky and blessed the Jewish kids of Sweden are to have Glämsta
4) And the fourth one was of course: When can I come back????

It was very special to experience a weekend among secular Jewish teenagers. On Friday night they made Kiddush, sang all the Zmirot and said the Birkat ha Mazon, they all know it by heart, even though very few of them keep Shabbes in this way at home, many of them have only one parent who is Jewish, etc. On Mozei Shabbes they all went outside, made a magen david with candles, stood around it in a circle hugging each other and sang the Havdala – I head tears in my eyes, it was just too beautiful!!!

Ok, here some pictures of Glämsta, unfortunately the weather was a bit rainy so the pictures didn´t come out amazing, but they should give a snapshot of the place.

some houses of Glämsta

Storage house at the water (Baltic Sea not a lake as I mistakenly said in my last blog....)

The synagogue of Glämsta

Fireplace at the Baltic Sea

some more houses of Glämsta

Havdala

Glämsta

2006-11-23T13:46:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow we will go to the country side for the weekend. We are accompanying a group of teenagers (age 15 – 17) for a weekend. The Jewish community of Stockholm has an area about 1.5 hours away from Stockholm, where there are some houses and bungalows and they even put an Eruv around the whole area. In the summer Jewish camps are organized and young people from all over Sweden come for a 3 week vacation. There is a lake nearby and of course a forest.

Daniels brother is a member of the Jewish Youth organizations and as part of his job he is organizing such weekends in Glämsta (that´s the name of the place). Whenever they go there they need an adult to be around in case something happens. And this time we are going to be the lucky volunteers. Our “job” is just to be there, no cooking, no cleaning, no leading a program, no organizing of any activity.

I am really looking forward to this weekend with 40 teenagers. First of all it is just nice to get out of the city and enjoy some nature and secondly I finally get to see the “famous” Glämsta. I heard so much about this place for the last four years that it is about time for me to go out there and check it out myself!

Of course I will take pictures!!!

On a total different topic, here some really weird eating and drinking habits of the Swedes:
For lunch they drink milk to their meal. So we have a water dispenser and next to it cartons of milk. I couldn´t trust my eyes at first when I saw people actually drinking the milk and not just adding it to the coffee.

Swedes have no manners when it comes lunch time. We usually go for lunch together, maybe 3-4 people, we queue together, get the food and then comes the weird thing, once they get there food they sit down and start to eat, not caring that not everybody sits at the table. They can’t wait the 30 seconds for everybody to sit down….. very irritating!

Since this week we have Mazzah in our bistro! No clue why. Maybe they got a good bargain on the leftovers from last Pessach…..??? And people love it, it’s a big hit! They probably think it is low on calories and are not aware of the opposite? It is just too weird!

A weekend with friends in Stockholm

2006-11-21T21:24:00.000+01:00

Last weekend we had friends over from Switzerland. It was lots of fun to enjoy Stockholm as a tourist again.

Here some pictures from our weekend:

The Royal Palace in Drottningholm (where the Royal family lives)

Lake Mälaren (next to the palace)

Strandvägen (one of the most beautiful streets in town)

An old, original public phone (in the old town)

The "town" palace of the Royal Family (where they "work" and it´s also a museum)

Pippi Lonstocking is great medicine....

2006-11-16T21:57:00.000+01:00

So I stayed home for 3 days, watched Pippi and ate soup. Now I am almost as new, still coughing a bit and sneezing around but feeling much much better.

Tomorrow I will go to work, it´s Friday, so hopefully it will be a short day. I will have my first private Swedish lesson tomorrow. My boss approved that I can get 16 lessons (1 month) private lessons paid by the company. This combined with my twice a week evening class should make me achieve my goal: to be fluent in Swedish in 3 months - until end of the year!!! I might even take a language exam in one month - but first I will talk with my teacher tomorrow. She is the same that I had my first evening class with, she is great and knows my weaknesses and strengths very well. My strength is definitely the talking part :D I am just babbling....

This weekend we have friends from Switzerland visiting, it will be nice to hang out with old friends and enjoy Stockholm together. Hope the weather will not be too rainy, unfortunately that´s the forecast.... But this just means that we will be more inside the shops and restaurants :D

Hope you had a better week than me - although Pippi and One Tree Hill is not all that bad.

Have a nice Shabbes and a nice weekend!!!

Sick again

2006-11-14T22:40:00.000+01:00

Yep, that´s right, the cold is back! Actually it never completely cured and being surrounded by sick people didn´t help it go away either.
So since last night, I am having fever, throat-pain, stomach-pain and I am just feeling weak.

As you know I have asthma and when I have a cold it hits me even more as I get much more asthma attacks. This morning I could hardly breath, even though I took my medication. I got showered and dressed and went out the door with Daniel, but as I said, I could hardly breath.... that was enough for my dear husband, he forced me to stay home! (I didn´t do that the last time I had a cold and I guess that´s also a reason why it never fully cured).

So I spent the day in bed, sleeping and watching old episodes of "one tree hill".

In the evening Daniel came home and he brought PRESENTS!!!

First of all, loads of throat-pain-killers, but then he continued to unpack his backpack and I got a little soft-toy turtle (sooooo cute and cuddly) and then I also got the original DVD pack of Pippi Longstocking in Swedish with Swedish subtitles!!!! How sweet is he? I felt like 5 years old again and for the first time of the day I could smile :)

So, depending on how the night goes and how the fever and asthma will be in the morning I might spend tomorrow in bed watching 6 DVD´s of Pippi with my new cute turtle!

PS. I warned you last time that I get a bit childish when I am sick..... :D

Real Estate market in Stockholm

2006-11-12T23:21:00.000+01:00

Since I am here, 8 weeks now, I am trying to figure out the real estate market in Stockholm. It is pretty complicated.

First of all there are no rental apartments. So how do people live?

Either they buy an apartment or they buy a black contract (illegal contract for a rental apartment) or the sub-rent (second hand) from somebody who was lucky enough to get a rental apartment!

If you buy an apartment you are allowed to rent your apartment out for a year (if you are lucky - two) BUT the house committee must agree for you to rent out, you can only rent out if you are going abroad for a pre-agreed time (max 2 years) or if you are trying to live with somebody.

If you are the lucky person to have a first-hand-contract of a rental apartment and you want to move away from this apartment you can sub-rent it (with the agreement of the landlord) again for a year IF you are going abroad or trying to move in with somebody. NOW if you have used up the year but you don’t want to loose the contract as you want to continue to get money out of it you can SELL your contract on the black market! Yes, you can buy and sell rental contracts in Stockholm.

The only thing you are allowed to do - is to change to a smaller or bigger apartment/house . This is why all the rental apartments are occupied. The only time a rental will become free is when people die, or if they are stupid enough that they broke one of the rules I described in the beginning.

We are currently living in a second-hand sub-rent apartment. We were lucky as the girl who owns it is a friend of the family and never sub-let before. So, we are allowed to stay until end of January, that’s when she comes back from her trip around the world.

We were lucky as the market here is crazy and to find an apartment to rent is usually extremely expensive.

I never heard of any other city where the real estate market is so crazy and corrupted. In Switzerland you can almost only rent from companies. Of course it is not easy to get the perfect apartment but in general there are enough apartments. The same goes for Israel, at least when I lived there, apartments are expensive and mostly rented from private people but there are enough apartments.

How does it work in the States, Australia or in the UK or in the country you live in?

My struggle with speaking Swedish in Sweden

2006-11-05T12:07:00.000+01:00

I thought a lot about this, this past few weeks. In Sweden one does not really need to be able to speak Swedish. Everybody speaks quite good English and you can actually get away with English pretty good.

And that´s exactly the twist or temptation that I am trying to avoid. Since coming to Sweden 7 weeks ago I tried to speak Swedish wherever I could. Daniel´s family only speaks Swedish to me, I try to speak Swedish in shops, restaurants and on the phone. I had job interviews in Swedish and at work I try to speak as often Swedish as I can, last week I even attended an internal course about the company in Swedish. So during the last 7 weeks I made huge progress and my actual language skill is fairly good. I speak with a lot of mistakes and I often miss words in my vocabulary, but I get around.

And here come´s the struggle, even though I can talk and keep a conversation, I can´t be myself. I am a very open and communicative person, easy to talk to, comfortable to engage with anybody in a conversation. But my level of Swedish just isn´t there yet. It still takes me time to formulate a sentence in my head. If many people are talking I can follow the discussion, but I have a hard time to jump in and make a comment. I could very easily do it in English and everybody would understand me.

I think that me only speaking Swedish is also keeping me away of making friends at work, as I can´t be myself, I am rather quite (still smiley and friendly) and maybe seem a bit boring to others, while in truth I am just shy.

I am afraid that if I swap to English now I will have a hard time to swap back to Swedish once my language skills are proficient and I am loosing a big training possibility hence it will take me much longer to become proficient in the first place. On the other side I could probably make friends faster and easier and people would know what a funny and opinionated person I am.

So what is more important? To learn the language or to be able to speak my mind? What pays out more at the end?

I definitely don´t want to sit in the same Swedish class again in 5 years. Many of my class mates have been in Sweden for many years (some over 9) but don´t speak the language as it was never really necessary for them......

The first snow

2006-11-02T09:17:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we got the first snow of the season here in Stockholm. It started to snow lightly and slightly in the morning and got stronger and heavier throughout the day. Above picture I took yesterday around noon, today the balcony is covered with about 3 times as much snow.

Snow just has something magic to me. The world lightens up even though it is dark. Everything gets so quite and calm. I love to walk on snow, to hear the sound of every step…I love to when everything is covered in white!

But then there is the bad side to it. Traffic chaos, accidents, slippery pavements etc.

Somehow the first snow surprised Stockholm yesterday. It feels a bit weird as they warned about it for over a week. Every day in the news they said it will snow and yet when it finally did, people were surprised. The didn´t change their car tires to winter tires, they didn´t wear appropriate clothing and shoes and it almost felt like they were surprised that it snows at all in the winter….

Well I went out after work to my Swedish class and I loved the fresh snow (of course I was wearing my new duffle coat which was perfect for this weather and made me smile anyhow….) I took the bus to town (instead of the subway) and it was funny to watch how at every station people came in covered in snow, like little snowmen.

While I was waiting for the bus there was an older woman with a child of maybe 2 years. The child was so scared of the snow, he would´t stop crying every time a snowflake would come close to him. The grandma (it must have been the grandma) tried to show him that snow is fun and not dangerous but he wouldn´t even stand on the pavement (which was covered in snow)… It was cute and reminded me of some childhood pictures. I was so scared of snow and there are pictures where I am fighting to be kept on my mom´s arms as I was scared to touch or stand on snow….. Well, shortly after I started skiing :D

So this morning I took the subway to work as traffic is just chaotic, the streets were pure ice and I almost fell like a hundred times. But I made it safe and sound to work. On top of it, it is a sunny day, the sun is sparkling in the snow and all looks like magic!!! Hope it will stay for the weekend, and then we can go for a long walk among the sea and lakes of Stockholm and take some pictures.

A year older

2006-10-31T21:22:00.000+01:00

I had a wonderful birthday today!

We celebrated last night already, that´s our tradition, we always celebrate alone the night before. It used to be at midnight, but with every birthday it got earlier as we were so tired. Some people say you shouldn´t congratulate or celebrate before the actual day but we think that as every Jewish holiday also a birthday should begin the night before :D

Today I went to work, everybody knew that it was my birthday, eventhough it is only my fourth week at work and I didn´t tell anybody. Guess it was the other assistant who spread the word. I got beautiful flowers from my boss and lots of well wishes from my office colleagues.

Daniel sent me emails throughout the day "singing" happy birthday in different languages (from English to Polish via Swedish and Hebrew). It is my first birthday as a wife....

The whole day family and friends called and emailed to wish me a wonderful birthday.....

In the evening we had dinner at Daniel´s moms home, it was great to celebrate with the family. I got wonderful presents which I really didn´t expect, there is one very special present which was a huge surprise! I always wanted a certain duffel coat, unfortunately it was way above my budget - but guess what today I got it from the whole family and my dearest husband organised this totally unexpected surprise. I literally jumped up and down - couldn´t help it!

My present from Daniel was a wallet that I wanted for a long time and I still can´t believe that I got it!!!

It was a wonderful day with lots of positive surprises!!!

PS above picture I took yesterday from the balcony at work.... and today it really started snowing...

Wintertime

2006-10-29T07:51:00.000+01:00

This night we changed our clocks from summertime to wintertime, well what does this mean for Stockholm? It is dark at 7:30 in the morning when we leave the house and it is getting dark at 4pm in the afternoon before we leave the office, basically whenever we are outside it is dark - and this in OCTOBER!!! In Switzerland these long dark days would only come in December and also not stay for too long.

You can really feel the winter coming here. It was a beautiful autumn day yesterday and we went for a long long walk, BUT for the first time of the season I used gloves, again in OCTOBER!! ok, it is soon November....

I love those beautiful autumn days, when it is sunny and cold (we had 5 degrees celcius, 41F yesterday) and we are wrapped in winter coats, gloves, hats and scarves.... I wish I had my camera with me to take pictures!

Up north it snowed already half a meter of snow and they said that it will also snow here this weekend, so far it didn´t and I don´t think it will. But it will not take much longer and than we are covered with a white blanket. They said that we will have minus temperatures here this week....

Wishing you all a good start into the new week and hope you are not cold!!!

New TV shows season

2006-10-26T12:22:00.000+02:00

The new TV shows season has now also started in Sweden. I was very surprised to see in what high speed American TV shows are being brought to the Swedish spectators.

Yesterday the new season of Lost started, which means that Sweden is only 3 episodes/weeks behind the US!! Today or tomorrow the new show “ugly Betty” is starting here, which means again only 4 weeks behind the original in the US.

In Switzerland, Germany and Austria the shows are coming at least one season later, sometimes it even takes longer.

I wonder how Sweden can get the shows directly without any waiting time. My suspicion is that they have to as Swedes are big downloaders and otherwise they would just loose all the viewers.

Of course I love it! No more waiting time, no more reading on the net about news that you don’t want to know YET, etc.

Funnily most of the American reality shows are being re-produced in a Swedish format, which is a great language learning tool for me and pretty funny as the Swedish culture is different for the American. So we have “Farmer seeks wife”, “The Bachelor”, “Big Brother”, “The Idol” and many more. I guess this is the case for most of Europe, but Switzerland.

Well, what would we do in those cold and snowy winter evenings without TV shows??? I really wonder what people that don’t watch TV do. I mean I am not watching every evening or weekend for hours and hours, but I would honestly say that I watch everyday a little, maybe a show, maybe the news, maybe some MTV. Of course among other things like, cooking, reading or surfing. But what are people doing in the evening when they come home from work and once the kids are asleep. What are YOU doing this evening?

Which Language to choose???

2006-10-24T16:23:00.000+02:00

A girl in my Swedish class is originally from Austria. Yesterday during the break we started to talk a bit about languages etc. Her husband is from Finland and they have a 7 months old son, she learnt Finnish when they lived in Finland and her husband learnt German when they lived in Germany, but their common language was always English. Until she got pregnant, from the moment they found out about the pregnancy they switched their habits and now they are only speaking German and Finnish at home, no more English. So this child will learn Swedish in kindergarten, school and Finish and German at home.

It made me think a bit what language we should talk to our children when they g-d willing will come one day. My mother-tongue is Swiss German, which is not just an accent of German, it is quite different, especially the way how to build a sentence is a whole lot different, but also the times, vocabulary etc. Daniel´s mother tongue is Swedish. Our shared language, what we speak daily, is English. And my second mother tongue is Hebrew.

So how the heck shall we do this? I want my children to speak Swiss German, Hebrew and Swedish, they should be able to speak to the whole family in a native language. But how will I do to speak 3 different languages? And of course they should be able to speak English…..

Well, I guess the language of the country we will be living in will come automatically; they will learn it in kindergarten and school. And so will English as this is mandatory from 2nd grade. And in Switzerland they would also learn French……

I think that it will be most naturally for me to speak Swiss German with them as this is my first language, the language I count and dream in. But then again what use is Swiss German to our kids? But I can definitely not talk German to them that would be just weird. And if we don´t live in Sweden, shall I talk Swedish to them? They will learn all my mistakes…..

So, we have Hebrew left and I want our kids to speak Ivrith. If we will live in Switzerland this is no problem as our kids would certainly go to the Jewish school and the school in Switzerland is amazing, the kids are fluent after six years even if they don’t speak it at home. The Jewish school in Sweden is quite the opposite; the kids learn Hebrew for 9 years and can hardly say Shalom!

But what if we don´t live in either Switzerland or Sweden, what if we live in a country where we don´t speak the language, like Japan??? What a balagan of languages!!! At the end they will just not talk at all – OY!!!!

Ok, this is confusing, I better stop thinking about it until I am pregnant or having children :D

Irritating Swedish Dinner

2006-10-22T00:43:00.000+02:00

Today I went to my first purely Swedish dinner. So far I only went to Jewish Swedish families for dinner, mostly Daniel´s family and those dinners were just as any dinner we know.

So tonight we were invited at Daniel´s study friend (from Hungary) home. She was really nice and asked about my eating rules (as they call it) as she (the study friend) knows I am eating partly kosher.

Now I have some funny kosher rules, mostly made up by my family, but I stick to them. It must sound weird to any kosher eating person and even to me sometimes when I have a pragmatic moment but I can´t switch to fully kosher or to fully unkosher as both feels wrong.

So here is how I eat kosher:
- I don´t mix milchig and fleischig
- I don´t eat seafood
- I don´t eat pork
- I don´t eat milchig after fleishig, but I don´t wait more than 1 hour

My dear husband sweet as he is gave this rules to his friend. I on the other side usually just say that I eat vegetarian which makes life simple.

But anyhow that was not the irritating thing about the dinner. I just thought it might be interesting for my bloggers to read a bit more about me as a person and I hope all my religious bloggers don´t resent me for my honesty about my kosher habits

Anyhow, we arrived and had drinks and then the irritating thing came. We were only 6 people for dinner, but our friend´s mom took about 10 minutes to figure out how we should sit. There was an actual seating plan for our small dinner! AND married couples don´t sit next to each other! So I was placed between the parents, Daniel at the other corner of the table (I could barely make eye-contact with him) and another friend of our study friend across from me.

I heard before that you do that at Swedish dinners, I thought this is only done for weddings, which I find even more irritating. My husband is the one person I will always have something to talk about, there will not be any weird quite moments and I will always feel comfortable having him next to me.

Now since I am sooooo proficient in Swedish, the whole dinner and before and after, everybody only spoke Swedish. This is still a little intimidating for me, but I was brave and after a glass or two of wine I babbled around in Swedish and stopped caring about my mistakes..... It was just weird to have my hubby so far away and yet so close, no re-assuring hand-squeeze under the table and no asking for translations if I didn´t understand a word. I didn´t like it in the beginning but being me I just decided to make the best out of the evening and to throw myself into the water - in Swedish.

And how did the food rules work you may wonder? They did at first, everybody got shrimps with salad, we got mozzarella with salad, but then they served milchig and fleishig and I felt very uncomfortable.... well, that´s life and I just ate the veggies on my plate. Dessert was a delicious home-made apple cake, which I of course ate :D

Don´t you think that it is weird and irritating to separate married couples at a dinner or a wedding?

Oy, candle lighting!

2006-10-19T11:32:00.000+02:00

I went to the Chabad page to check out what time I should light candles tomorrow. (I am not keeping Shabbat, but I do light candles and like to have all the cooking and cleaning done when Shabbos enters).

So tomorrow the time is 5.11pm, its early but its ok. I then decided to check out the upcoming weeks and put them in my calendar. I was shocked about how rapidly the time is getting earlier and earlier. In only 3 weeks the time will be 3.17pm! And on 15th December it will be at 2.29pm!!! In Switzerland the earliest time is 4.17pm, which is almost a 2 hours difference!!!

Oy, this will be a cold and DARK winter!!!

I mean I have been here in November, December, January, February and March in different years – but how will it be to be here continuously?

Oy, and now I looked how it will be in summertime, it is crazy! On June 29th, 2007 Shabbos enters at 9:50pm and finishes at 12:51am on Sunday!!!!!

Swedish summers are fantastic!

George would be proud of me!

2006-10-19T10:55:00.000+02:00

I started my new job last week Tuesday. Since Thursday last week I am basically doing nothing. My boss came down with a very persistent flue and has not been back to the office for the whole week! I didn’t get any project or work before he got sick and apparently there is nobody who could take care of me!!!

And here comes why George would be so proud of me. I look busy the whole day!!!!

In the beginning I surfed through the intranet, but there are only so many hours or days to be filled doing that. Then I started to study Swedish at work, which is nice as I can have a clear conscience since it is definitely also in the company’s interest that I learn the local language….

Anyhooo, I am not here to complain and very few people are getting paid to study at work and I am just happy I don’t have to touch any more of my savings for the time being…..

Other than that nothing much is happening right now, life is finally a bit calmer. We are enjoying our evenings at home, I am taking Swedish class twice a week in the evening, and I am finally getting over my cold. On the weekend a study friend of Daniel from Pecs, Hungary is gonna be in town and we are invited for dinner at her family’s home. The weather is pretty cold now, below 50 Fahrenheit (10 Celsius) but if it is not raining on Sunday we might put on our warm clothes and go for a last round of golf for the season :)

Mystery

2006-10-18T09:55:00.000+02:00

Sometimes mysteries happen in everyday life and all of the sudden you find out that it is no mystery at all…..

Since I arrived in Sweden I realized that every now and then I would get orange hands. As in my hands had a colour shade of orange. First I got worried that I have some sort of dangerous decease, but the orange colour would just disappear after a few days. Then I thought that I must be allergic to something I ate or touched, but I just couldn’t find out to what. Then I went to Zurich and I didn’t get any orange hands in Switzerland…. What is going on??? Am I allergic to Stockholm???

This morning I woke again up with orange hands and I started thinking again. What can it be? I ate a lot of potatoes and minced meat lately, could it be that that is causing my hands to get orange??? Very unlikely. And all of the sudden I knew what it was and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Daniel had neck problems for some weeks and I used to massage his neck with my body lotion as I didn’t have any proper massage lotion or oil. The funny thing is that my body lotion gives you a small tan of brown (apparently to keep the vacation sun tan, who would anyhow have believed that it is working…). So when massaging Daniel I would use a lot of the body lotion and that made my hands turn orange!!!

We both couldn’t stop laughing and one thing is sure; I will not use this body lotion again to massage my dear husbands sore neck!!!

Just a calm weekend at home....

2006-10-15T12:52:00.000+02:00

First of all: I am feeling much better and am almost back on my feet. My last post was somewhat silly and childish, but keep in mind that I wrote it with a fever..... I have a tendency to feel sorry for myself when I am sick (I guess!!). The worst is to have asthma AND a cold, it feels like your lungs are exploding and are filled with water.... anyhow, now it is almost over, I had lots of chicken soup over the weekend and tried to rest as much as possible.

In fact I only left the house yesterday to have lunch at my MIL (yup soup again for me...). We´ve spent the weekend making our home cosy and clean. It was in a terrible state when we got it and I can´t understand how a person can live like that, let alone rent out an apartment in such a disgustingly state. We bought a TV last week as the one in the apartment was like 14" small and it was impossible to watch anything on it. Buying a used TV in Sweden is kind of easy, there is a great online-market place which gets updated the whole time and you can sell/buy almost everything there. The problem is that TV´s are going away faster than you can read the ad. You basically have to sit next to the computer and press re-fresh all the time, the moment a new tv is published call immediately and be the first to call..... We called 12 places before we managed to catch a TV.....

It is a funny thought to have my stuff distributed in 3 countries (Switzerland, Hungary and now Sweden). It goes pretty well and I am carrying around all that we need. The only problem where you realise that you don´t have a complete set is the kitchen! My salad bowls are in Zurich, my mixers in Hungary, my knives in Sweden, etc etc. But I am getting used to it pretty quickly and after a few weeks I stop thinking about it. The most annoying thing is only that I can´t really re-buy stuff as I feel like I have already at least one or two in other countries, like toasters or hairdryers (ok thats not a kitchen tool, but I forgot mine in Hungary....)

We really like our small (very small) 1.5 room apartment, especially now that we cleaned it :D

Hope you had a nice Simchas Tora and a good weekend!

Not feeling so well...

2006-10-12T19:56:00.000+02:00

After everything going so smoothly I had to spoil it and write it out to the world..... and now I got a terrible cold!!!

I can´t remember when I felt this awful, it must have been years ago.

First day at work was great, but also very cold. I was freezing the whole day and apparently something is wrong with their heating-aircon system.

Well, the next morning I woke up with throat pain and sneezing. By the hour it would get worse. Last night I came home at 7pm and by 8pm I was in bed with fever, hot-cold showers, coughing and sneezing. Great start at a new job.....

Well, of course I didn´t call in sick on my third day at work, instead I shlepped myself to the office, tried to smile and be positive. But I feel awful!

Why now???? I didn´t work for 5 months! Do I have to get sick the first day at work??? Thankfully it is soon weekend and I plan to spend that in bed and cure my terrible cold!

Hope you all feel very good and will not get a cold EVER AGAIN!!!

Everything at once

2006-10-10T21:51:00.000+02:00

Isn´t it typical, either I have nothing to do or all at once.

Yesterday I started my new Swedish course, it is again a level higher and twice per week in the evening. The level seems to be good now and my classmates are really friendly and nice. I have been in 3 different classes so far and there is such a big difference between the people in the classes. The first class was an afternoon class, most of the people were young guys and girls around the age of 17 -21. The second class was a morning class, most students were in Sweden looking for jobs or being married to a Swede, everybody was super-open and already the first week we were invited for a Greek dinner at the Greek apartment. The third class, my current class, is an evening course, people are business people who are in Stockholm for work reasons. Anyhow I like my current course, specially the teacher, not only are the classes a whole lot different, also the teachers are almost not comparable. The first one was an older lady who would forget all the names (even though we had name tags) and would change subjects in the middle of the sentence. The second teacher was extremely bored and un-motivated, she left the classroom a lot. The third teacher is great, she is funny and motivated, which is even more important as it is an evening class and we are all tired after a day at work. Now I am I am even more looking forward to class on Monday and Wednesdays.

Today I started my job. I could not have asked for a better day. All the technical stuff was set up and ready when I arrived. I got a new blackberry and laptop immediately. My new boss gave me a quick overview of the company and his field and then I was picked up by the HR assistant who showed me the building and explained how everything works at our facility. I had lunch with the other assistant on our floor who is very friendly and helpful.

In the afternoon Daniel started to move our stuff to our new apartment. Finally, after almost one month at his mom´s house we got our own small apartment. It is just 1.5 rooms (meaning it has a living room and a small open bedroom, a very small kitchen and even smaller shower. But I love it! It was great staying with Daniel´s mom, her husband and Daniel´s little brother, but I am glad having our privacy now.

Tomorrow I will skip class, I don´t like to do that, but we have to do some basic shopping and continue to unpack and organize our stuff. That´s just more important right now.

The past three weeks have just been amazing! Sometimes I wonder how it can be that everything works out so smoothly in our life since we are in Sweden. First Daniel got a job, then we found the apartment, then we found a parking place next to our apartment (which is an impossible task, even worse than finding an apartment) and then I got my job. And all of this in just 3 weeks!!! Somebody is watching out for us :)

MEMORY MEME

2006-10-09T10:02:00.000+02:00

Been tagged (or shall I rather say I follow)) Emah_s Meme:

So here we go:

List at least 5 things that have happened in your life or your family's life this past year. They can be life changing moments, events, or simple moments. They can be easy experiences or traumatic times.

1) pretty obvious: I got married - twice - to the same guy. First time civil wedding in January in Stockholm and second time Chuppah in July in Zurich. (In Switzerland you have to get married civil and religious)

2) I moved to a new country - no 2 new countries. In April I moved to Hungary where Daniel (my husband) was studying, in September we moved to Daniel´s hometown Stockholm to try life here.

3) I started University and dropped out after 3 days ´cause I didn´t like it. It was the first time that I was studying at a University, in Switzerland the system is quite different and I obtained my degree from a "higher education institute".

4) I went to Israel in spring and for the first time in 5 years I had kind of a calm time there. It was just a happy spring for Israel and for me. Unfortunately things changed shortly after. But for me being "home" and simply enjoy Israel was amazing!

5) I don´t want to write anything bad here, things were also rough this past year. But this is not the right place to write about them for me. Instead I will give you a number 6!

6) A very special moment was to dance at our wedding with both my grandmothers. My Safta from Israel who made everybody meshugge to come to Switzerland and my grandmother from Zurich who has a hard time to walk and sit.

So much happend last year and I hope this year will be not less special, but please a little bit calmer!?!?!?

Now, it´s your turn. You have all been tagged!

Done with one bureaucracy

2006-10-06T17:46:00.000+02:00

I am done with the Swiss part. Paid all my taxes, got my confirmation that I am no longer a resident of Switzerland and am free to leave the country for as long as I wish!!

Other than that I met my sister today, went shopping and enjoyed a great sister-afternoon together, doing all the girly-staff I missed :). Last night I met my other sister, who is a sushi-lover just like me and we of course went to our favorite place.

I am trying to fit in as much 1-on-1 time with my siblings and each parent. It is important to me to meet them separately and enjoy quality time.

Tonight we have our Shabbos-Sukkot dinner at my brothers house (where I am staying) and my sis-in-law has been cooking since yesterday :) My whole family will come, including my grandmother and that is exactly what I was longing for for the past 2 months!!!

Have a nice Shabbos and a great Sukkos!

Welcome to the Swiss Bureaucracy

2006-10-05T23:53:00.000+02:00

yes, it is not over yet......

now I am dealing with the Swiss bureaucracy, which is much more efficient and disciplined and faster, but still annoying! Before being able to de-register from Switzerland and get a confirmation which will allow me to stop paying my health insurance of 300 dollars a month, I need to pay all my taxes.

I paid all the provisional ones already, now I only have to pay the difference to the actual tax. And as I learnt today this is about double of what I thought!!!

In Switzerland you pay tax once a year, they don't deduct it right away from your monthly salary. Instead you have to save it and every year hand in a complicated tax form and wait for them to calculate the exact amount to be paid. Hopefully you are saving enough to pay the taxes when they come.... So, it is advised to pay a provisional invoice upfront and then just add the missing difference, which in my case is a hell of a lot.

Otherwise it is fantastic to be here, see my family and friends and walk around town.

I wish you all a chag sameach, enjoy the Sukka, hope you will not be cold and enjoy the great food and hopefully some quality family time!

In the jungle of Swedish bureaucracy

2006-10-03T20:06:00.000+02:00

Picture: Flowermarket at Hötorget (next to my Swedish Ulpan)

Today I’ve spent a half day at different official offices. First I went to the immigration office, where I took a ticket with the no. 377, when I looked up to check how many numbers were to go, I saw that the current number was 331, not a good feeling. After 1 hour the numbers moved to 339, not much of a progress I thought and I asked the lady why there is only one booth open for EU members and like 15 for other countries, apparently the office clerks went to a two day education seminar and she was called in from the Gothenburg office, I felt so sorry for her. She then told me that I could also send all my papers in and don’t actually need to be there personally!

Great I thought as in that case I can make it in time to the national road administration office as they are closing at 3pm. I need to exchange my Swiss driving license to a Swedish one and as the Swedish driver’s license is an identification card at the same time it seemed the best thing to do it right away and not pay twice a fee for a new document. Unfortunately they process would be to send my current Swiss driving license back to Switzerland and wait about 2 – 3 months for the Swedish driving license. Which is a bit funny cause I can’t be for a couple of months without driving license, apparently I don’t necessarily need one in Sweden as I will be in the system and if the Police would stop me they would see that I have a valid driving license but that doesn’t work for outside Sweden……

Ok, next station was the bank. I had to open a bank account and connect it to Daniel’s accounts. I also needed to apply for a credit card and here’s another funny thing, for my identification card. In Sweden you can obtain your ID card at the bank, the police station or the tax authority. It took us 53min to make all of the above arrangements…..

I also got my work contract and negotiated my first Swedish salary :D. I will start my new job on Monday and will therefore fly to Switzerland tomorrow!!!!

It was a very spontaneous decision as I always thought that I will start my new job this week. But this is the perfect opportunity to see my family before I start to work again. I will also be able to get all my business clothes from Zurich and will not have to buy so much more. It is fun to buy a new wardrobe but it is also exhausting and I am glad to get some of my favorite pieces now and of course all my shoes and bags :D I will be back on Sunday in time to sign the apartment contract and to start packing our stuff for our move to our own apartment on Monday!

The crazy life of Mia, I have no words anymore, sometimes I feel like my life is a movie….

Catch 22

2006-09-29T13:07:00.000+02:00

so here we go again - I am in the middle of a bureaucratic mess!!!

In Sweden every person has personnummer, similar to the teudat zehut number in Israel. This number is containing ones birthday (eg 720514) plus four individual numbers. The numbers are generated by the skattemyndigheten (tax authorities). So far so good.

The migration office told us 2 weeks ago that we first have to go to the tax authorities to register my husband back and then come to the migrations office. so we went there 2 weeks ago exactly and registered D back to Sweden.

Yesterday when I got the job, the headhunter called me back to ask me if I got my personnummer, which I haven´t as the tax authority said it will take 2-3 weeks. This headhunter´s system is based on the personnummer, meaning without personnummer no contract, with no contract no work! And that´s how it is now!

This morning we called the tax authority to hurry up things a bit. Surprisingly they told us that we have to go to the migration office first.... yep, everybody sends us somewhere else.

Now this great headhunter computer system can´t put me in their system and I can´t work eventhough I went to all the offices they´ve sent me to and have a valid work permit!!!

We have found a specialist at the tax authority who is currently trying to find out, if and how we can hurry up the process!

All this for only 4 numbers! I truyly hope that I will not loose this job opportunity for this reason!

Good Shabbes and Zom kall!

UPDATE: I have a Personnummer, my best hubby in the world didn´t give up, until they generated one!! So on Tuesday I will sign the agreement and will probably start on Wednesday or Thursday! YAY!!!

UPDATE

2006-09-28T16:52:00.000+02:00

Just got a call from my headhunter that I GOT THE JOB!

Tomorrow I have to go the headhunters office to discuss my salary and sign an agreement. The headhunter will calculate a fee for the company based on my salary. And if they agree, I will start on Tuesday or Wednesday!!!

They said YES to me, that´s what´s most important! I don´t think the salary will be a problem.

Thank you all for thinking of me and keeping your fingers crossed! Let´s hope all will go fine tomorrow!

Now I have to research a bit to find out what salaries are common practice for my position, my skills and Stockholm!

I am overwhelmed and can´t believe it!!! What a start in the new year!!!

How wonderful is that?

2006-09-28T14:55:00.000+02:00

Yesterday my grandmother from Switzerland called me to tell me all about her Yomtov, where she was invited, what the menus were, etc.

She can´t sit for too long on a chair as her back starts to hurt and I know that Yomtov´s are always a pain for her. After sitting on Friday through a meal, Shabbes morning at Shul, Shabbes lunch at the rabbis house, Shabbes evening for a second yomtov dinner; she decided that she can´t go to shul on Sunday morning.

In the early afternoon her dog started to bark all of the sudden. She looked outside and there were the 6 kids of the local Chabad rabbi. She asked them to come inside and offered them something to drink.

They walked all the way up the hill (about 40 min) and she was wondering what brought them to her (the youngest girl is only 4 years old!!!). They told her, that as there was no Shofar yesterday (Shabbes) they have come to her to blow the Shofar for her, so she wouldn´t miss it!!!!

How wonderful is that???

Svenska Ulpan

2006-09-27T16:13:00.000+02:00

I changed class at the Swedish school (folksuniversitetet) yesterday. I just tried one level higher and it felt right. The teacher (who is a bit nasty) made me take a test after the lesson to see if it is the right level. I scored 74 out of 100 points..... It is a bit difficult to know my level as I have a very good comprehension level and am able to talk (I am not afraid or ashamed of making (a lot) of mistakes. But I don´t have any grammar, never learnt and always went by what felt right. So now I have to learn all the grammar, which is a lot, but better to be challenged than bored like in the other class.

Our class is a very interesting combination and it is interesting to hear why people learn Swedish. So there are two more Swiss girls, one is a law-student and has a Swedish mom, in order to keep her Swedish passport she needs to be able to speak, that´s her reason to be in class. Then there is the other Swiss girl, who has a Swedish father and chose to come to Sweden to find her roots and maybe stay for longer.

Then there are 4 Greek students, they are all medical doctors and couldn´t find a job in Greece, apparently Sweden is lacking of doctors and that was their chance to earn money, make their specialisation and get to know other cultures.

Then there is a dutch guy, who I haven´t found out what he is doing in Sweden :D

There is an Israeli guy who has a 2 year old daughter and wants to stay in her life even if she is living in Stockholm and he in Israel. He is learning Swedish to better communicate with his daughter.

Then there is a German girl who is here ´cause her boyfriend is on a job assignment for 2 years and she came along. Not sure what she is going to do here besides learning the language.

And then there is another new student to the class, she is Australian (and Jewish) and married to a Swede. The decided to give Sweden a shot and try to make a living here.

After class today we went to have coffee with some of my classmates, it was truly interesting to learn more about them and their plans. I then went around in town with the one Swiss girl (the law student), we had some lunch (Sushi of course) and it was nice to be able to speak in my mother tongue for a while.

Now I am home, waiting for the phone call to know if I got the job or not. It almost drives me crazy, my good feeling that I had after the interview is more and more going away and with every hour I am thinking more that I will not get the job.....

UPDATE
I will get the answer about the job tomorrow. My headhunter called and apparently his contact person in the company did not have a chance yet to speak to the boss I would work for. The headhunter never directly communicated with him, therefore we have to wait and go the orderly way! But my NERVES CAN`T TAKE IT!!!!!

Quik update

2006-09-26T08:39:00.000+02:00

Rosh Hashana was great, lots of family and lots (much too much) food!

The job interview went well, I have a good feeling, should get an answer on Wednesday, the good news is that Swedish is not a requirement for the daily business life!

Swedish course was good but wrong level, I am on my way in 5 min to try a higher level!

Will write more later, gotta run now :D

Shana Tova

2006-09-22T08:35:00.000+02:00

This is going to be my second Rosh Hashana here in Stockholm. The first time was three years ago and was quite different. Daniel and I just started dating when we drove all the way from Zurich up to Sweden (22 hours drive).

This year we will be on the first night at his mom´s place and the second night at his aunt´s (fathers side). Tomorrow we will go to the synagogue, which will be quite an experience for me I think. In Switzerland I always went to the orthodox synagogue, never ever to the reform. In Stockholm it is kind of a weird mix (at least to me) there are women and men sections but there is also a section in the middle where you can sit mixed. I guess where women will wear kippot and talliot. This is the main synagogue of Stockholm. I´ve been there once before to attend a wedding of a far cousin of my husband and that´s when I heard an organ play in a synagogue for the first time and I must say it was really weird. So I think we will go to the main synagogue on Shabbes and maybe to the Chabad center on Sunday....

Yesterday I got a call from my headhunter that the company that I was interviewed for would like to meet me and interview me themselves. As it is an American company I hope the interview will be in Enlgish and maybe only a small test of my Swedish ability. Well, keep your fingers crossed, this would be the absolutely best thing, if I could start to work in a week or so!

I wish you and your dear ones a shana tova u metuka ve gmar ve chatima tova. A healthy new year filled with Naches and joy. May all your dreams and wishes come true.

Chag Sameach,
Mia

Update

2006-09-19T14:45:00.000+02:00

Now we are almost 5 days here and it feels on one hand as if we just arrived and on the other hand as if we´ve been here much longer.

On Sunday we visited Daniel´s cousin who is soon going on a around the world trip with a friend, turns out this friend has an amazing apartment in town in a perfect location. And even better it turns out that she didn´t rent it out yet.... lucky us, we got it!!! It is in a better location and half the price of the one we saw on Friday morning!

Yesterday I entered my CV in one of these recruitment companies website and guess what, this morning a lady from this office already calls me! There is an opening at an international company which came in today and she saw my cv in their database.

Now, she only spoke Swedish to me, I tried to switch to English but she said that her English is really bad (funnily enough she is Hungarian and told me that she learnt English when she came here) and it is important to have our conversation in Swedish as I need Swedish knowledge for the job, I told her that my language skill in Swedish is not so good but she must have felt that it was good enough. So she invited me for an interview. I just came back from my first SWEDISH interview!! I can still not believe that I pulled that off!!! My Swedish is really not good, but for never ever attending even one lesson of Swedish I am pretty proud that I kept the conversation floating and could somehow express myself. Of course it is not comparable to have an interview in German, Hebrew or English, I could be as convincing, but I think it worked and she got a sense of who I am and what I am looking for!!! Tomorrow I will know more :)

Everything is going really fast now, I can´t believe that a week ago I was in Hungary and now I am here, have an apartment and an interview - somehow I can´t stop grinning and laughing!

Tonight I am in charge of dinner and everybody that knows me can guess what it will be: SUSHI!!! I think I ate sushi every single day since I am here. The lax here is uncomperable to any other lax, almost like butter, so soft!

Tomorrow I will go to town and shop some potential work & interview clothes, all my "work clothes" are in Switzerland, packed in boxes, as in June I thought I will be a student for the next 3 years and wont need any business dresses :D Life is crazy sometimes....

Pictures from our travel

2006-09-18T08:54:00.000+02:00

Last view of Hungary

Henrietta (our small red car) on the train

Our cabin

The shower of our cabin

On the ferry

On the bridge from Denmark to Sweden

Sunset over lake Vättern in Sweden

Hej från Sverige

2006-09-16T16:13:00.000+02:00

We arrived late Thursday night. The travel from Pecs was great and it didn´t feel like we were on the road for 2 days. On Wednesday we left around 11am and made our way to Vienna. At 19:25 we drove our car onto the train and went to our deluxe cabin, the cabin was really great (on my way to our cabine I looked into the other ones which were a bit cheaper but much more claustrophobic. Our suite was great, 3 leather seats and a small table, a door which lead to a toilet and shower and a cupboard. To sleep we pulled down a handle, two of the leather seats went into a closet and out came a bed, there was another bed on top it (pictures will come soon). In the morning we arrived in Hamburg and drove to Puttingarden at the border of Germany and Denmark, from there we took the ferry for over to Denmark and after only an hour or so we took the bridge over to Sweden. I think the travel felt much less as we had all these stops in the way and we were not only sitting in the car for 2 days. In Malmö (Sweden) we had our car controlled (not one single problem with our Henrietta who is 14 years old), we then drove the longest part of the trip, from Malmö to Stockholm, it took us 6.5 hours and we arrived at 11pm!

On Friday morning we went to Migrationsverket (Immigration Office) but after a waiting time of 2 hours we found out that Daniel first has to register back in Sweden before I can register. So we went to Skattemyndigheten (Tax Authority) and registered Daniel. Now we have to wait 3 weeks to get the official papers, but for me that is no problem, as I can stay and work without a residence permit (as Switzerland is treated as EU).

In the afternoon I went to visit Daniel´s grandmother in the hospital, unfortunately it starts to become a tradition that every time we come to Sweden she is in the hospital. All is fine with her, she fell down last week, but she is ok and will be going home on Tuesday.

It feels very good to be here in Stockholm, to spend time with Daniel´s family and just to walk around in the city. Daniel´s family is only speaking Swedish with me and I try my best to talk Swedish back. This way I will be talking in a much faster way (I think) then if we would speak English at home (as we did all the previous years). It is weird to speak Swedish ONLY and exhausting and tiring, BUT I can feel how good it is for me and that when I am in a shop or have to ask for directions I automaticaly only speak Swedish (I have to add here that most Swedes have an excellent English and it is no problem to get around in English, but I want to speak Swedish and be fully integrated).

We also went to look at an apartment on Friday morning. It is a one room apartment, meaning it has a separate kitchen and bathroom and one living/bed room. It is pretty small, but in a great area (8 min walk to Daniel´s mom) and we can afford it. So we hope to get it. The rental apartment situation in Stockholm is just crazy, but I will get more into detail about this another time.

On Thursday night the internet broke down at Daniel´s home and we are without internet since (I am at Daniel´s father´s now...), hopefully they will fix it on Monday so that I can continue searching for a job etc. I went to the library on Friday afternoon and made a library card, I also booked a 1 hour slot for the internet corner (your have to reserve it in advance and can book max 1 hour per day). So I will be online again of Monday :D

Daniel will start his job on Monday morning. My Swedish course starts only in a week, so I will take it easy, enjoy the city, meet Hannah (:D) and of course search a job.

Ok, that´s it for now, I hope you all had a nice Shabbes and a relaxing weekend. I hope to be back soon with pictures.

Välkommen till Stockholm

2006-09-15T00:12:00.000+02:00

We made it!!! Today at 11pm we arrived at Daniel´s mother´s house!

Tired but happy, we arrived after a two day travel!

All the details tomorrow - thanks for joining us on our trip through Europe :D

Laila tov!!!

Greetings from Vienna

2006-09-13T18:18:00.000+02:00

We made it to Vienna in 5 hours. We are much too early :D

Greetings from the West Trainstation in Vienna!

Soon our train to Hamburg is leaving :D

ready, steady - DRIVE!

2006-09-12T22:49:00.000+02:00

The last few days we´ve spent packing and organizing. Now we are almost ready, the suitcases are packed, the refrigerator emptied and all our subscriptions (TV, internet, phone, etc.) stopped.

I contacted some people regarding apartments in Stockholm and I even applied for a job which would be perfect for me (keep your fingers crossed).

Tomorrow morning around 11am we will leave Pecs, Hungary with our little car and drive about 6 hours to Vienna, Austria, there we will catch a night train to Hamburg, Germany. Our car will be on the train with us, but not in the same cabin :D I booked us a deluxe suite on the train with our private shower and toilet facilities. If I have to take the train I will certainly not share toilet and shower.... We will arrive in Hamburg at 8am on Thursday, make our way by car to the boarder of Germany (Rostock), from there we will take the ferry to Denmark, then take the bridge over to Malmö, Sweden. In Malmö we will have to stop to get our car examined. It should be done yearly in Sweden, but since the car wasn´t on Swedish ground since 2003 we have to take this test just across the border. I just hope they will not make us unload the whole car, but they probably will..... Well, from Malmö it is another 6 - 7 hours up to Stockholm, where we hopefully will arrive on Thursday night or early Friday morning.....

Daniel and me are used to long travels (we drove from Zurich to Stockholm in 2003, 22 hours straight each way). But this two day trip will be the longest so far. We filled our laptop with all the seasons of Seinfeld, the first season of Prison Break and some Fawlty tower´s - guess we will know how to kill the time in the train, oh right, we should also sleep a bit, almost forgot :D

My next post will come from Sweden, have a nice remaining of the week!!!

New plans for our future

2006-09-09T22:59:00.000+02:00

Thank you all so much for your great support on my last post, your comments were truly helpful and so appreciated!!!

The issues or discussions that we had the past two weeks and more intensly last week concerned our future. Where to live, what to do, what is best and what is the right move to do next.

I can´t go in to all the details, but during the past weeks we had to take some very difficult decisions. I am very glad that we have found a compromise that we think is best for both of us. It was amazing to experience the deep love and care we have for each other and how much we are dedicated to each other and our family. I am positively surprised by our way of discussing and solution finding.

So here we go, that´s the new plan! We will move to Stockholm, Sweden next week for a trial period of one semester (about 5 months). During the upcoming months we will find out how we like it there, how fast we will find jobs etc. It will be a chance for me to see if I can imagine a life in Stockholm and for Daniel to see if he could find his way back into the IT area. End of the year or during January, we will decide if we will stay or come back to Hungary where Daniel would continue his studies.

Everything is going very fast now. Daniel got a job in his mom´s husbands company as a start. And I will start a Swedish course end of September, one month intensive course. Simultanously I will look for a job and we have to find an apartment. In the beginning we will stay with Daniel´s family, but we hope to find our own place soon.

There are so many positive things about trying out a life in Stockholm, besides the above, we are both very much looking forward to spend time with Daniel´s family, specially his brother, grandparents, parents and cousins. I am very glad to be some sort of home on the high holidays and to have family around us.

I am exited and glad but also scared. There are so many "what if´s" spinning around my head now, I am just trying to shut them down and focus on what we have to do to be ready to leave next Wednesday morning!

Thanks again for all your supportive comments and please join me on my new adventure in STOCKHOLM :D

Difficult decision

2006-09-07T13:08:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately I had to take a very difficult decision today.

I really liked the University, the programme and my classmates. All our subjects are fine beside Quantitative Methods. My level of Math is just not high enough. First time I had the subject was Tuesday, I came home in tears. Daniel tried to calm me down and we went through the basics of math together. Today was my second lecture, after 10 minutes my eyes filled up with tears, I just couldn´t understand what she was talking about, it was like Chinese. I felt awful and devastated and sick.

As you know this studies are not my first choice. I decided to start as there was no other option. I gave it a shot, but I am just not interested in Math and Economics and I guess than I am really in the wrong programme. The only subject which interested me is Psychology and Sociology. I could probably study and pass Economics, Information Technology, Psychology & Sociology and Business English. But I just can´t see how I would ever manage Quantitative Methods (and this is the introductary level!!!). During the lecture I just wanted to leave and I couldn´t wait for it to be over, I felt sick to my stomach and knew that I can´t continue with this.

So, when I came home, I wrote an email to the Head of the programme giving him the reasons above and informing him that I wish to drop out.

I then called the Psychology department and asked if I could still start with them on Monday (they start a week later). And she said yes, she understands me and of course I can come and try it out for a week to see if I like it. She can understand why I decided to start the Busines Administration when they weren´t ready.

I still don´t feel too comfortable to start with them, but I hope for the best. Right now that is my best option.... Don´t know what I will do if that doesn´t work out either, but as my mom always says: "kol zara be shaata" or "we cross the bridge when we get there" (it´s not a one-to-one translation but the meaning is the same.

I am totally finito in my head, the past weeks have been mentally very hard, there are other things not working out the way they should in our life. I chose not to blog about the other issues, I hope you understand, it is just all a bit too much at the moment....(when I re-read this it sounds like something is wrong between me and Daniel, which is absolutely not the case, we are very happily married and lucky to have each other!!!)

Thanks for all your support, it helps me a lot to have this blog to vent and write my thoughts down.

Have a wonderful weekend and good Shabbes

School

2006-09-06T22:34:00.000+02:00

Thank you all for your positive support and good luck wishes! I appreciate it a lot, specially as I was kind of nervous! (and I think I got a new record with 14 comments, ok, some are mine, but who cares :D

School started pretty fine. I am totally exhausted and a bit shocked about the level and amount of math involved. I am trying to refresh my memory about math currently, last time I did math was about 14 years ago....

The people are nice, most of them Hungarians, I try to mingle a lot and get to know every one. We also have 4 Chinese guys, one guy from Holland and a girl from Finnland .

The level and pronounciation of the teacher´s English knowledge also came a bit as a shock. Their English is pretty bad. Daniel thinks that I will get used to it and will start to talk with a Hungarian accent soon.

Tomorrow we have an English test to see in which level we fit in. We would like to invite our teachers along as I think they would need some lessons too.

Funny thing is that the Hungarians complain the most about the English of our teachers... (they complain in a heavy Hungarian accent :D)

Soon the first week is over, we only have school from Mon to Thu, very Shabbes friendly university :D

Oh and by the way, I was selected "student representative" for our year. Not sure what I got myself into, but one has to do the job....

That´s about it in a nutshell. More soon. Thanks again for all your kind words.

Good night from Hungary, where it is time to sleep for a young student like me :D

Let school begin.....

2006-09-03T19:50:00.000+02:00

Everybody is writing these days how their kids are going back to school and how happy the parents are about it.....

well, I hope my parents are also happy and proud that I am going back to school! Tomorrow (finally!!) my new studies will start. I am very exited, but also a bit anxious. How will my fellow students perceive me? Will I be the grandmother in the classroom or worse will I be treated that way? The studies will be in English, so of course there´s the fear that my level of English might not be high enough, etc etc etc

Tomorrow is only registration day, where we will get our passwords to the computer system to see our timetable (for the first time!!) and other important things. On Tuesday real student life will start!!!

Good luck to me and all the other kids going back to school!

Happy Birthday Oma

2006-09-02T16:13:00.000+02:00

The first pictures is of my grandma on her wedding day. She gave it to me on my wedding day as a small present. The second picture was taken at our wedding.

My Oma (as we call grannies in Zurich) turned 84(!) last thursday! She is in a pretty good shape, crystal clear in her mind, she is still living in her own home, only having a cleaning lady coming in once a week to clean, she refuses to move to the nursing home and I totally understand her. I have loads of great memories about spending time together, being her first grandchild always put me in a special place in her heart (but of course she treats all her grandchildren the same). We traveled around together many times (mostly to Rome, Italy, her favorite city, but also to many other places) and she always came to visit me, wherever I lived in the world (be it Israel, or the Swiss alps).

Now she is determined to come and visit us here in Hungary. Since there is a direct flight to Pecs, this might actually happen next spring. My Oma is very vital, she was one of the first people to have a mobile phone and she is still wearing jeans! She is still working, she helps my uncle (her oldest son) out in his office, mostly answering phones and such, she is travelling to the office, which is in the industrial area of Zurich, by bus & tram. Her feet and hands are causing her lots of pain, but she doesn´t let this get in her way. She is knitting as a therapy for her hands and almost every newborn baby in our Jewish community get something new when they are born. She is knitting me winter hats and scarves every winter, the amazing thing is she is never using any sketch or drawing, she is doing everything out of her memory.

For her birthday, we, my mom and my siblings, got her a new TV as her old one is breaking down. They had a small party at her house and as usual the best gift for her was that the whole family, and all her grandchildren were there. She couldn´t believe her eyes when my mom and my brother walked in with the huge TV box. She didn´t sleep all night and called me up again (for the 3rd day in a row) to tell me how exited and happy she is about the TV.

I could go on and on to talk about her, she is one amazing woman! I was very sad and homesick that I couldn´t be there to see her on her birthday, but I guess I just have to get used to that too.

Here´s to my Oma, may she live many many more years and continue to bring us joy and simche! Mazel tov!!

My personal "just in Hungary" list

2006-08-31T08:41:00.000+02:00

Here some of my experiences with Hungarians and Hungary over the last couple of months. I guess these things also happen in other countries. But here is my "only in Hungary" list:

you almost need to apologize to the waiter if you would like to order

you never know what you get in a restaurant, even if you order from the menu

you get ignored when entering a shop

if you try to make yourself understandable, with hands and gestures and very limited Hungarian, they ignore you even more, they have no imagination or just don´t feel for it.

the immigration office doesn´t trust your photocopies and wants to see originals (of papers like: University acceptance letter, health insurance document, etc.)

when paying with your credit card you must enter your pincode AND sign the slip

people don´t know how to use the escalators (stand right, walk left), they stand every where and nobody is able to walk

when Hungarians shop they leave everything in their shoppingcart and don´t pack it into bags (guess they pack it directly into their cars...)

you get ingridients and explanations on products in 7 languages and can´t understand even one of them as we speak seven other languages (explanations are in: Hungarian, Slovenian, Czech, Romanian, Latvian, Russian, Croatian....)

when you get a call from a Hungarian (normally when they want to sell you something over the phone) and they realize you don´t speak Hungarian, they just hang up.

you can´t just buy stamps at the post office, they think you are crazy and don´t get why a person would do that. they insist that you have to tell them where you want to send the letter to or that you must mean something else. (after a long discussion I was able to get the stamps I needed for the immigration office)

official offices (like where you pay for your heating, water, gas, electricity, etc.) very seldom have an English speaking call center, you have no chance to get an answer if you have a question about an invoice

Hungarians don´t use garbage bags, they throw their garbage loose into the containers. (seconds later you see homeless people going through the garbage)

Of course I am very much generalizing and this is not fair. I met very nice and helpful Hungarians. Of course a lot is caused by language barrier, but we really try to speak Hungarian, walk around with dictionaries and try to use our hands and feet to express what we mean to say, but even if you say the right word and the pronounciation is wrong, you loose, they wont try to understand and even if an English or German speaking Hungarian is around they very seldom help!

What to do?

2006-08-29T18:33:00.000+02:00

Ok, I need help. Here´s the situation:

Our wedding took place almost two months ago. We had a wishlist on our wedding-website, where guests could choose a present. Some guests chose presents but never actually gave them to us, I mean in a very un-romantic way, they never transfered the money to our account. I know it is not the most romantic way to give presents, they had a second option, we also had a list at our local department shop.

Now what do I do? There is one friend, who I consider a pretty close friend, she didn´t give us a present, she was invited for the dinner party, where only 45 people were invited.

I think that I shouldn´t do anything. I mean it is embarassing, how could I remind somebody of such a thing! I wrote this friend an email a month after the wedding, just to say hello and give her the link to our picture gallery, I thought this would maybe remind her (I am sure if she knew that she forgot she would be embarassed herself), but nothing happend. It is very untypical for her I must add here. I am sure she just forgot. And in her case it is definitely not a money issue.

I am pretty disappointed at this one friend. The other guests (only Chuppah guests) I simply don´t understand, why choose a present if you don´t want to give us anything! I don´t expect a present from a Chuppah guest, so why bother?

(for my new readers: it is common in Switzerland to invite people for the Chuppah only and other guests for both the Chuppah and the dinner).

I know that I can´t expect presents from any guest and also not from dinner guests. But I think it is horrible to show up at a wedding without any present. I could never do that, even if I would get just something small, I wouldn´t come empty handed. I hope I don´t sound materialistic, as it is not about money, it is all about the thought.

Is it that wrong of me to be disappointed?

Blog-Anniversary

2006-08-28T08:32:00.000+02:00

I totally forgot my blog anniversary, yeah, it´s already a year!

I started this blog on Aug 13th and blogged at least once a week since then.

So much happend in one year! To have a diary to re-read some of it is just amazing. Here some of my milestones:

- got engaged on 16th August
- Daniel moved to Hungary in Sep 2005
- got civil married 20th Jan 2006
- quit my job and moved to Hungary in May 2006
- got married under the Chuppah on 9th July 2006
- will start to study at the University of Pecs, Hungary (next week!)

It was a great year, thanks to all of my readers for accompanying me on my journey. I appreciate your comments and your support, it is good to know that people out there are sharing my joy and are here to listen when I need to vent.

Thanks for a fantastic year!
Mia

I hate Hungarian bureaucracy

2006-08-25T09:34:00.000+02:00

So, I am in the middle of trying to settle my temporary residence here in Hungary. As I wrote last Friday, I am in the lucky position to have an easy process as I am treated as if I am coming from an EU country, even though I am Swiss. Unfortunately easy process in Hungarian terms is not what I understand as easy!

That´s how it should be in my eyes: I go to the Immigration office, tell them that I am here to study, they welcome me and make a copy of my passport to register me.

And this is how it works in reality: I go there and collect the forms that need to be filled in, I get a list of papers they need and off I go to organise my papers and come back. Yesterday I went back to hand in my papers, but when I arrived, there were 10 people ahead of me and when after the first half hour nothing moved, I decided to come back first thing this morning.

So this morning I went back, and lucky me, was 2nd in line. Pretty fast I discovered that the Hungarians are very suspecious people. She didn´t trust any of my photo copies, she wants to see all the originals! Original acceptance letter, original health insurance policy, original apartment contract. Which means I have to go back AGAIN!!!

First of all, why do they distrust people so much, secondly why can´t they make some phone calls to check up if I am cheating and thirdly, why the heck couldn´t they tell me on Friday that I need to bring all originals???? Additionally our landlord has to make a new contract as the current contract is on Daniel´s name and I need to be on it as well, they wouldn´t even accept our marriage certificate to believe that we are married and live in the same apartment. Her answers to my comments were like an automated voice: "we have our rules!"

Now here comes the joke of the day. She wrote a paper including all the papers I brought and all the papers that are missing. And guess what, this paper, which is like a multiple choice form, was in Hungarian!! And she seriously asked me to sign it, eventhough I had no clue whatsoever is written there. How ridiculous is that??? I told her that I also have my rules and I don´t sign anything I don´t understand! (Needless to say that at the end I signed).

So, here we go again. The worst will be to track down our landlord again to get a new contract. His wife is highly pregnant and they are building an additional level on their house, so I they are busy with their own life and it is always a struggle to make them come to give us a signature. The thing is that he can never come alone as he claims his English is not good enough, his wife is French which makes life much easier, but it also means that we need to coordinate with 2 people.....

Arrgh! that´s how I feel right now!

Kneidlach on a Wednesday

2006-08-24T17:01:00.001+02:00

This was our dinner last night!

Sometimes, all we want to eat are Kneidlach and yesterday was one of these nights. I don´t know any other people who eat Kneidlach on a regular day. When growing up Kneidlach and soup were saved for special occasions like Shabbes (seldom), Rosh Hashana or Pessach, and we all loved it. No clue why my mom would never cook them just like that on a regular day. So when Daniel and I met and we found out about our shared love for Kneidlechs we started preparing them also on regular days as a meal. Funnily the same goes for Latkes, we both love them and are also eating them on other days then Channuka.

I have to admit, that it does take away a bit of the magic, but then again and I guess that´s the reason my mom never prepared Kneidlach or Latkes on any regular day. BUT I am not a child anymore, now I can have Latkes and Kneidlech all year round, hehehe :)

Do you also have typical Jewish meals that you eat on regular days? Or are they all saved for Jom Tov?

Life in Pecs

2006-08-22T10:59:00.000+02:00

Life in Pecs is back to normal. Most students are back from the summerbreak, everybody is stressed about the upcoming exams and even the weather is hot again :D

And what is Mia up to?
After the turbulences of the first 3 weeks since we are back, I am now enjoying my last two weeks of vacation and am preparing for my studies. Tonight our landlord will come by to sign the forms for the immigration office and tomorrow I will spend a couple of hours there....

I am finally finishing our wedding dvd, it was a bit of a project as I did it for the first time (cutting etc.) and I want to have it perfect :D

Our wedding album arrived today, unfortunately with 4 print mistakes, so I have to make some changes, send it back and hope for the best...

I read an average of 3 books per weeks this past few weeks and am enjoying it tremendously to have time for that.

We started to watch LOST (1st season) and I am sooo scared most of the time (I know I am a baby). At night I dream about being lost myself and when Daniel woke me up this morning I almost freaked out :)

That´s about it, next to the regular house chores like laundry, dishes, cooking and shopping.

Life is good, but I can´t wait to start to study!!!

In the world of European buraucracy

2006-08-18T15:54:00.000+02:00

I got my acceptance letter for the Business Administration studies (BBA) yesterday and am now officially enrolled and accepted for my studies.

So the next step is to get a temporary residence permit for Hungary. Which is rather complicated..... so here we go:

I went to the Immigration office to get the application form which I have to fill in, additionally to that they asked me to bring:
- 1 passport sized photo
- a health insurance confirmation
- 1500 forints in stamps (about 7 USD)
- the acceptance letter from the university
- my apartment contract
- a form signed by my landlord, that I live in the apartment
- and a bank statement that I have enough money

and this is the easy procedure for members of the EU. I told them that Switzerland is not in the EU, but I guess as usual the mix up Sweden and Switzerland. I don´t want to know how the procedure for overseas students from Canada, the US or Asia looks like.

Then I also have to de-register myself from Switzerland and register here with the Swiss Embassy, not that easy of a procedure either but at least I don´t have to go to Switzerland especially for that.

I tried to contact the Faculty of Humanities to tell them that I will not start my studies in Psychology, but this seems to be an impossible mission. I called every day and left messages on the voice mail, none of my numerous calls was returned. So today I wrote them an email. I didn´t want to tell them in an email as I think it is rude and un-personal, but what can I do if they avoid my calls. I would be very surprised if she would replay to my email. Usually it took the assistant 1-2 weeks to replay to my emails, so no big hopes there..... I am glad I am not starting my studies in this faculty. The Business and Economy faculty is so much more professional and organised....

Good Shabbes to you all!

Good news

2006-08-14T19:12:00.000+02:00

Here some good news for a change!

I got accepted for Business Administration! The leader of the program called me this morning to give me the good news! Already that the leader called me was suprisingly positive, I am used in Hungary that nobody ever calls you back!!!

So as soon as I get my acceptance letter, I will write the faculty of humanities that I will not start to study Psychology and start the (probably chaotic and complicated) process of getting a studentvisa. (It will be complicated as I am Swiss and therefore not from an EU country...)

Ooooh this feels so good, for once not to worry and just to look forward to start to study!

and the drama goes on....

2006-08-11T12:25:00.000+02:00

since 8am this morning I am trying to reach people at the university. I tried different offices in different faculties. Just to figure out what I should do.

I couldn´t reach anybody in the "business & economics department" for hours (that´s where I should apply for the BA in BA). So I called the International Relations office, they didn´t even hear that the Psycholy studies might be cancelled, she gave me the number of a guy working in the Erasmus office which is in the same building as the Business and Economy. He was kind enough to help me, I went to his office, went through all my papers with him and he promised to give my application to the leader of the programme on Monday. He (the leader) will then evaluate my application and I should get an answer if I am accepted by Monday....

Just when I was back in the parking lot at home I got a phone call from the faculty of Humanities, they decided to start the study in any case, also if we are only four students.

Weird, but I wasn´t happy to hear the news, it was more, like a "do you try to make me meshuggeh"-feeling. I asked her to send me the acceptance letter, just in case. I didn´t tell her that I applied for other studies.

So, on Monday I will (hopefully) know if I am accepted to the BA studies and then take my time to decide what to do.

The department of Business and Economy is so much more organised and professional, every thing feels fresh and new. The English programme is established since 10 years. They have a great new building. And their website is composed in a clear and logical way. The faculty of Humanities is so unorganised and leaves me with a feeling of uncertainty, I fear that they can change their minds every day. And do I really want to study with only 3 more people? What if I don´t get in to BA and my former fellow student will decide not to study Psycholoy, shall I study with 2 more students??? Don´t think so!

I went from desparate to confused and then to being worried.....

I wish you all a good Shabbes!

Bad news

2006-08-10T17:43:00.000+02:00

Today I met with a fellow student or at least that´s what I thought. Well we both applied for the Psychology studies and we both got accepted, so this makes us fellow students. Unfortunately there is AGAIN a chance that the studies might not start.

She needed a paper for her government to get her student loan and asked for it by email, never got an answer. Today she called them and the answer was that they are AGAIN not sure if the studies will start as we are down to 4 (!) students and they need 5 to start!

When I left Hungary end of June, the administrative assistant said that the studies will for sure start and that we are about 15 students!

My luck that I met my almost fellow student and that she could inform me about the fact that maybe there will be no studies for us! Shouldn´t the University tell us if there is a problem and give us a chance to apply for other studies??????

So, tomorrow we will both apply for the "BA in Business Administration degree studies". Not at all what I wanted to study, it is more an act of desperation as I have no clue what else I should do! And tomorrow is the last day that we can apply, so I guess I will just try my luck and decide in the coming days what I will/can/should do......

I guess the tone of my posts gives you an idea how annoyed and angry and desperate I am AGAIN!!! Aaaargh, welcome to Hungary!!!!!!

Wedding pictures

2006-08-07T14:13:00.000+02:00

Before the Bedeken (covering of the bride with the veil)

Signing of the Ktubah

The Bedeken

Walking down the aisle with my father

Walking 7 times around Daniel

Under the Chuppah

Under the Chuppah

Drinking wine

Ring ceremony

Daniel getting wine from my father

Walking back the aisle to the Yichud room as a married couple

We did it!!

Back in Hungary

2006-08-03T09:58:00.000+02:00

Yesterday morning 8.04 we left Zurich and arrived in Pecs at 9.04pm - it only took us 13 hours instead of the expected 15.

All went smooth, there was not so much traffic and people drove pretty reasonable (of course not the Hungarians, they are just crazy!!) But there was one incident which I find very disturbing.

Shortly before Munich we saw a police car (a civil car) standing on the side of the highway, when we drove past him he started to follow us, we couldn´t think of anything we´ve done wrong, we are always keeping the speedlimits, the car is in good shape, we didn´t through anything out of the windows. So we figured it is because our car was very full packed. After following us a while they went in front of us and put on signs that we have to follow them, ok sure, even though it is very annoying as we had about 10 hours to go.

The police officer explained to us that this is not a usual streets control but a Schengen control meaning they want to check our identity and the cars identity. We had to open the hood, give him our passports and car papers, he first checked if the papers and the car combine and then he went off to check our passports. Another police officer was guarding us, I asked him why they took us out, for what reason. Honestly he responded, because I am so dark and it looked suspicious to them to see me in a car with Swedish licence plates!!!! They thought we were smuggeling or stole the car. I couldn´t believe what I heard, eventhough I told Daniel that this will be the reason, I was shocked to hear it from the police man!

I am half Israeli, my father is originally from Persia, I do look very Misrahi and after being 2 weeks on holidays in the sun I look very dark - but is this a reason to pick us out of the highway? Shouldn´t the toll people care about that, shouldn´t they check our passports?

It is not the first rassistic incident in my life but it shows me once again that some people are really stupid.

UPDATE: I must be very very brown, our neighbour, an older lady didn´t recognise me today. It took her a couple of minutes and then she said: oh you´re so brown - well at least she was cute and I guess her eyes and her memory aren´t on the top anymore.

Pictures.....

2006-07-31T00:15:00.000+02:00

Here´s a second pic of our wedding. I just got the photo cd from our photographer!

We have 987 pictures and 3.5 hours of raw film of the wedding. Another 600 or so pictures of the time around the wedding and our honeymoon (yes, I am a photo addict). As soon as I am back in Hungary I will start to sort and cut and upload everything. I´ve got one month time, before my studies start, to do all the photobooks (for our parents, grandparents and us), sort and upload the pictures to our webgallery and try to cut the movie (that is usually D´s job, but he needs to study, so I´ll give it a try). I can´t wait to start!!!!!!

Back in Switzerland

2006-07-28T17:18:00.000+02:00

We arrived safe and sound in Zurich this noon, after a fantastic honeymoon!

We left our car at my brothers office so he picked us up and the idea was to go directly to his office to get our car (his office is next to the airport). Unfortunately he forgot the keys so we had to drive home first, get the keys and drive all the way back to get the car. When we arrived our car wouldn´t open with the alarm and also the drivers door wouldn´t open. We managed to open the passenger door and D started the engine. And here it comes.... only Mia is able to do this..... I closed the door of the car! so now the car was locked and the key inside and the engine running!!!! Guess where the second key is???? of course in HUNGARY!!! Lucky me, my husband is a very patient man who is never freaking out and we even managed to laugh a bit while waiting for the car service to open the car for us....
Unfortunately the drivers door still doesn´t open and the alarm doesn´t work, either somebody tried to break in or some other mistery happend while we wer away....

Soon it is time for Shabbes dinner at my mom´s place. We will stay in Zurich until Tuesday and then hit the road to drive the 15 hours back to Hungary.

Have a nice Shabbes and a relaxing weekend!

Honeymoon

2006-07-19T20:59:00.000+02:00

We managed to hack in to the hotels wireless network :D

The honeymoon is amazing, we play golf almost every day, lay in the pool every afternoon, the food is fantastic and we are happily enjoying the sweet side of life!!!!

The situation in Israel is the only thing worrying us and is constantly on our minds. We check BBC World and online newspapers several times a day. We are worried about our family, especially my sister in laws family who is living in Shlomi and about our friends living spread out in the country.

Kisses and hugs,

the Newlyweds

Short Summary

2006-07-13T09:24:00.000+02:00

Here comes a short summary of the wedding weekend. More to follow when I have more time incl. more pictures.

The whole wedding weekend started on Thursday night, you can read all about the bachelorette night on HoH blog. It was a funny evening among our best friends and I think I entertained everyone with my housewife skills such as ironing, cooking etc.

On Friday Daniel’s family arrived and my mom invited the whole family (25 people) to her house for Shabbes. It was a very nice pre-wedding dinner with lots of excitement and a chance to meet before the dinner. Our families had so much fun in Stockholm in January, so everybody was looking forward to see each other.

On Shabbes morning we had the Shabbat Chatan at my father’s shul, which is Chabad. Daniel had Aliyah and the men sang and danced around the bima.

And then came the big day! At 8.30 the hairdresser came, it took him 2 hours and 70 barrettes (hair clips)!!!! But the outcome was amazing, stunning and I was the happiest Kalle on earth. I had many nightmares that the hairdresser wouldn’t show up, don’t ask me why only the hairdresser and all others not, but I was very relieved when he came and was on time. Then the make-up artist and the photographer came. HoH got her make up while I was getting my hairstyle, then we swapped. The photographer who is also my great-cousin took non-stop pictures, of every move, smile and situation. At noon I started to climb in to my dress and half an hour later I walked down the stairs to meet Daniel in the lobby. I felt like a princess walking down to meet my prince. He was stunned, loved the dress, the hair and the make-up. He couldn’t stop smiling….

In the synagogue I waited in the lobby on my chair surrounded with all the women of the family and my best friends while the witnesses (the two rabbis) signed the Ktuba with Daniel and the men of the family. Then they all came down, I got the blessings from my parents and so did Daniel. Daniel made the bedeken, checked again that it was me and off we went around the shul to the main entrance.

I can’t put into words how I felt watching Daniel walking down the aisle with his mom and even less how I felt walking down on my fathers arm. I walked 7 times around him, the music was playing klezmer in the background and my father and one rabbi counted :D The whole chuppah passed very quickly, it seemed to me that it only took a couple of minutes when in truth it was over 40 min. My brother sang the two middle brachot of the 7 blessings and we all had tears in our eyes and cried. It was just sooo emotional to have my brother sing under my chuppah – the best gift ever!

Then was the Kiddush and the “Mazel-tov´s”, it was hot and we had to kiss many people, but we were both so happy and smiley that we didn’t realize how quick time passed.

Back in the hotel it was time for picture taking, first only me and D for about an hour and then the whole family in different variations. The hotel’s location is on a hill in Zurich and the view was like a postcard (it was amazing weather), almost tacky….

At 6pm the reception started, the klezmer band played again and champagne and snacks were served on the terrace. An hour later we went inside and immediately started to dance hora. It was fantastic; they even lifted us on chairs. A friend of mine who specially came from Israel (she was my best friend in elementary school and we made Aliyah together in 1997) brought a wedding umbrella and all the guests danced around me and D. Later on we also rope-jumped with a rope made of napkins (this was my nephew’s favourite of the eve, but even my mom, D and everybody else jumped).

During the evening were some emotional speeches of family members, HoH and my sis did a fantastic job as toastmasters (they showed some awful pics of us though….), but most of the time we danced. It was amazing what a great atmosphere you can create even if the party is not with 200 people! It was unbelievable, we all and I mean all danced all the time. One of the most moving moments was when I was able to dance with both my grandmothers and Daniel; I felt soooo blessed to be able to have this moment.

Tomorrow we are going on our honeymoon; we will play golf almost every day, hang out on the beach and maybe make a trip or two.

I will get the pictures when we return and will probably post them once we are back in Hungary in August.

I am sure I forgot soooo much in this summary, but as I said it is only a short version. It was the best wedding ever and I still am on cloud 75 :D

Our Wedding

2006-07-10T18:50:00.000+02:00

It was fantastic, amazing, emotional, wonderful, happy, exiting, yammy, superb and unforgettable - all in one!!!

Pictures will follow soon!

- the newlyweds :D

Let the Wedding weekend begin....

2006-07-08T03:10:00.000+02:00

It was a crazy week with lots of last minute duties. But now we are (almost) set to get married.

The bachelorette and bachelor nights were on Thursday night - it was a fantastic evening, organised by my sis and HoH!

Daniel got sick and is still not feeling well. and so is HoH... I truly hope they will both feel GREAT tomorrow....

We booked our honeymoon (finally), we were soooo late, we could almost not find anything. On 14th July we will leave for 2 weeks of golf, adventures, relaxing at the beach and various trips - can´t wait to sit on that plane.

Living at my brother´s and SIL goes extremly well, as he put it last night: it is great living with you even though I never see you :D. (They are working and we are always coming home late at night...)

Daniel´s family from Sweden arrived tonight, just in time for the delicious Shabbes dinner at my mom´s house. My Safta and aunt arrived yesterday from Israe as a surprise for our wedding!!! We didn´t know (ok, we guessed it as to many people spilled the surprise) until we saw them tonight at the Shabbes dinner.

Daniel did the Kiddush for the first time in my family (he always refused before) and I know he only did it for me. I am sooooo proud of him!!

Getting married is really crazy, so many little details to organize and to think of!

So what is left to do is the seating plan (yes, it is still not done, sooo many discussion who wants to sit where, as if we are going to sit the whole evening..). We have to pick up my flowers, and then bring EVERYTHING to the hotel, meaning, our clothes, the table decoration, the car decoration, the flowers and I don´t know what more.

Tomorrow is Shabbat Chatan and on Sunday our big day!!!!

L´Chaim my dear readers and hope you will think of us!

Travel Report I

2006-07-03T10:26:00.000+02:00

On Friday morning we left Pecs and drove up to Budapest to spend 2 nights with Daniels grandparents. They are spending 3 weeks in a Thermal Hotel on the Margaret Island in Budapest, where they get health treatments every day. It was wonderful to spend 2 days and evenings with them, they are so sweet and funny. They only speak Swedish, Yiddish and Hungarian, when I met them in the beginning we spoke a mix of Yiddish-English but with the years my Swedish got better and better and this weekend I spoke ONLY Swedish with them! So, I am getting there, I have a terrible accent which will probably stay all my life and I have a lot of grammar mistakes, which I hope will soon go away. Swedish is now also the secret language of me and Daniel when we are around people we don’t want to understand us, like in shops, taxis or at home with my family :D

The stay in the thermal hotel really strengthened my wish and hopes not only to grow old with Daniel but also to BE old with him. It was so sweet to see how these old couples helped each other with every thing (getting food from the buffet, walking to the table, etc.); they care soooo much for each other. I think you know what I mean it’s this feeling you have when you see an old man holding his wife’s hand when she is walking up the stairs, just heart warming and I just hope I will be lucky and will experience the same thing when I am their age. Daniels grandparents will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary next year!!!

It was nice to stay in a hotel, enjoy the Jacuzzi and just to relax. A well needed rest before the wedding storm :D

Yesterday I had such a back pain that I decided to get a massage, since we were in a health spa already – why not? I booked one for me and on for Daniel at the same time. (it was soooo much fun to walk in the hotel in just a bathing robe!!!!) Either I am extremely sensitive or she was just brutal but I guess it was rather the first. It hurt me EXTREMELY much while she massaged and stretched me, I tried to relax and concentrate on my breathing but it was impossible. After the massage I felt even worse. But here comes the worst part: I was allergic to the massage crème she used – had pimples all over my upper back!!!! Can you see my horrified face when I detected this just a week before the wedding!!!!! It is much better already, we have cortisone crème with us and it will (hopefully) be gone until the wedding. But still – what good did the massage give me????

The travel to Zurich was fine, it took us 11 and a half hours. The heat in the car was bearable and we had no traffic jams. Now we will go to town and fix some more things for the wedding.

Updates on life in Pecs and what I have been up to:

2006-06-25T14:04:00.000+02:00

I am sorry I am not blogging so much at the time, well a lot is going on, but not so much that I think is blog-worthy. A lot of wedding stuff, a lot of Daniel´s exams and mostly it is just too hot to blog :D

So here some things about life in Hungary:

1) It has been so hot the last few weeks that it is almost unbearable. We have like 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheit) outside and a degree or two less inside. During the last 8 weeks I experienced no more than 2 days of rain. The problem is that here we don’t have air conditioners. The shopping mall is a bit cooler but never as cold as in the States or Israel. A week ago my dear hubby had it. It was just too hot to study, he couldn’t sleep at night, he was exhausted and hot every day – so he went to the mall and bought a portable air conditioner! But this thing is sooo loud that in the beginning I still couldn’t sleep at night and would still do my house duties (laundry, dishes, etc.) at 4am. Now I got used to it more and more and wouldn’t want to miss it.

2) Daniel passed 2 out of 5 exams! Yippee!! I am so proud and happy that he passed them (Biology, Biophysics). Now he has Anatomy, Chemistry and Histology/Embryology left. He will for sure that Histo/Embrio in August. The other he will try on his A-chance next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

3) Last week I spent mostly emailing and coordinating the last bits of the wedding. I had to coordinate between the chasan and the klezmer band, between the rabbis (we will have 3 rabbis at our wedding) between my brother and the chasan (my dear brother will sing (!) the 3 middle Brachot for us, he never did anything like that before and never sang since his Bar-Mitzwah, I am so proud and honored he is going to do it for us). I had to coordinate the whole day and the “who will be where when” parts; I emailed the make-up artist, the photographer and the hair stylist. Another project was to pick the songs for the dinner. We will have the Klezmer band in the beginning and to dance Hora but after 2x Hora and a little solo they will leave and we will have music play from the laptop. I will make different sections (slow, modern, oldies and background music for when we eat). We have a lot of songs on our computer and only to surf and sort through them took me a day. Now I have the different sections and only need to mix the music…… I feel very good about the wedding, seems like everything is working out. I still have a long to do list but I am getting there. I started with the table seating last week and hoping to get that finalized before we leave here on Friday.

4) I also had severe back pain last week. No clue why though. I cut Daniel´s hair (he hates to go to the hairdresser….. so his hair is really long now and needed a haircut, he agreed that I would do it, so seeing it as the only option I tried my best and it didn’t turn out all that bad hence we did not have to shave his head….. I did cut hair before but only to girls and you know that’s not such a big deal.) Anyhow while cutting his hair I felt the pain sneaking in on me and soon enough I could hardly lift my arm higher than my shoulder. I lay in bed for 2 days (thank g-d for the a/c!!) and as quickly as it came it disappeared – totally weird!

5) On Friday we will leave here. We will spend the weekend in Budapest with Daniel´s grandparents. They will arrive tomorrow and will stay for 3 weeks to cure and get health treatments. Especially Daniel´s grandma is not feeling very well. She had an accident a few weeks ago and is still recovering. Being a holocaust survivor (both of them) of course a lot of other things play a role in how fast she recovers. It is terrible to see her in this pain (a lot of it psychological) and we hope to be able to cheer her up a little bit. Her brother who is over 85 will come as well from Brooklyn and stay for a couple of weeks. This means she can´t come to our wedding. She is really feeling bad about it and guilty, but she first has to get healthy before anything else. They are going to Hungary every second year for health treatments, this is part of the German indemnification (is that the right word? For all the Nazi’s did in WWII, they were both in Auschwitz). They both lived in Hungary before they were deported (in a part which is now Rumania) and coming back here every second year, to speak their language (Hungarian) and to be with other survivors and families is a great thing for them. 2 years ago we’ve spent a week with them in Budapest while they were here and I am just so happy that 2 years later they are still able to come back!

6) On Sunday (a week from today) we will drive back to Zurich (in our nice little car without a/c) and I hope it will not take us more than 12 hours, but with the world cup going on in Germany I actually doubt it.

7) World cup: somehow almost nobody is writing about it. In Switzerland the whole nation is crazy about it, in Israel you apparently have to pay to even watch it (300 Shekels) and here in Hungary people watch but rather in silence as the Hungarians did not qualify. Switzerland is still on, being the group leader over France is great for our boys and we hope they will manage to stay in it a bit longer. Sweden got kicked out yesterday by the Germans, which was painful to watch.

8) I called my university last week to get some more details about the studies which start in September. But as usual in Hungary the answers were: I don’t know. This is really a crazy and very annoying side of this country. They just don’t seem to care; they just aren’t service oriented in any way. Be it in the shops, in restaurants or the worse at the university. One could expect that they have a booklist, a schedule a topic list ready and if not, the least they should now is the starting date. Yes that’s right, they couldn’t tell me the starting date yet. Beginning of September is all I know. So, I am gonna call again tomorrow and try to find out. But my hopes are kind of low.

9) The last thing is a bit a complaining one, I really come to realize how much I miss my family and friends. I feel very lonely, not having my own friends here, not having girl friends. I hang out with Daniel´s study friends, but now is exam period which means nobody has time for any thing, which is normal. So I am mostly alone or with D, and I really miss to have my own friends, my girl friends, just to go to the mall together or the pool or to have a coffee. I hope this will change once I start to study.

This is about all that has been going on lately.

I am not sure if I will continue with this blog. I find it a bit hard to write at the moment, especially since I am not anonymous, I can´t really write about my feelings, worries, what annoys me and how I truly feel. So maybe I will come back with another blog, where my readers will know it is me as my writing style and my grammatical mistakes, will probably not change. But hopefully my family and friends will not recognize or find it. I can´t keep a secret from D so he will also know if I will decide to do that.

As for now I will take a summer-wedding-honeymoon-break. I promise to post pictures of the wedding as I can imagine or I know some of you want to see them.

Have a wonderful summer!

Home sweet home

2006-06-15T17:08:00.000+02:00

After 10 great days in Switzerland with a lot of running around for our wedding, seeing all my best friends, attending the wedding of close friends and spending a lot of time with my family I am back home.

The past ten days I met the photographer, the makeup artist, the rabbi, the florist, the klezmer band, the event manager of the hotel, my shiur lady and I went for 2 dress trials….. We finished all 150 “confetti´s” as we say in Italian. Anyone know the English word for it? (look at the picture).

The world cup started and Zurich is totally crazy. At every corner is a flat screen, every restaurant, every shop and even in the train stations. There is a huge festival going on in the middle of town, when Switzerland played the first game on Tuesday, 5000 people went to watch the game from there. We (HoH and me) went to eat some sushi and got a small TV on our table to watch the game!!

I have only been away from Zurich for a month, but a whole lot can change in a month. There is a new daily newspaper for instance and the police is now rolling through town on brand new rollerblades!!! Another “just in Switzerland” moment!!

The next two weeks I have a lot of work to finish and details to arrange for the wedding. I can´t believe that it is actually only 3 weeks and a bit away now!!! And on 1st of July we will drive back to Switzerland in our car - not looking forward to a 15 hours drive with hot summer temperatures and no AC!!

Preparations, preparations, preparations...

2006-06-08T10:42:00.000+02:00

I am still running around all day finalizing stuff for the wedding.
In the meantime I met with the photographer & the make-up artist, I made a lot of phone calls to finalize dates for my manicure, hair style and the Mikweh and to talk to the rabbi and the cantor. Today I am going to the hotel to finalize the menu, I will meet with the Klezmer band for the Chuppah and finalize the songs, and will go for the final dress trial....

On Monday I will meet the head rabbi and finalize the exact program for the chuppah (things like, who will wittness the ktuba, where will the "bedeken" take place, how will we walk in, since we have 3 rabbis and a cantor and my brother who would like to sing one of the sheva brachot it all needs to be planned, who will do which part)

I changed my return flight now to Wednesday noon. AND I will take my bycicle back with me! I am so looking forward to be able to cruise around on my bike in Pecs :D

I am sorry that I can't comment on any blogs at the moment, but I am hardly ever home and even when I am I have to share one computer with my mom and my sister who both love to use it themselves.....

Back in Switzerland

2006-06-05T23:18:00.000+02:00

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments about the pics that I published. I think it is a great way to show you bits and parts of my world - as my blog name suggests. I will soon publish more pictures that I have taken in Hungary, Switzerland or other places that I have traveled or lived.

Since yesterday afternoon I am back in Switzerland, finalizing most of the wedding details. The daily program is very tight, but I will try to continue to blog. Today I went for lunch with one of my best friends who will get married next weekend, then I went with my mom to my grandmother and the three of us made the "almond-bags" for my wedding. It was such a fantastic feeling to sit together, 3 generations, and prepare something like this for our wedding, I felt so blessed and happy. Then I went to my second meeting to learn more about "taharat ha mishpacha", not sure how to translate it to English, but basically I am learning everything a Kalle (Bride) needs to know about getting/being Jewish married (Mikweh, Nidah, Bedikot, etc.) It was once again very interesting.

Tomorrow I have to go back to my old work and have a final meeting with my boss, as he was abroad when I left. I will also get my reference letters and I am very keen to know what they write about me :D Then I will have lunch with the girls at work... very much looking forward to that. In the afternoon I will go to my cousin, who is a professional photographer and will function as our photographer at the wedding to discuss the details and then I will meet my best friend in town for some chit chat :D In the evening I will meet my baby sister (16yrs) and we will go to look for a dress for her for our wedding, than we will treat ourselves with some home made sushi... oh, yes, we will first have to do the sushis before we can treat us with them :D

I will stop here as my program for the whole week is looking about the same busy and I rather right what happend than what I plan to do.

It is great to be back to Zurich and NOT to have to work. It is great to finalize all the things for our wedding and it feels so great seeing how every thing falls into place. This wedding will be so fantastic!!!

The Budapest Synagogue - the largest Synagogue in Europe

2006-06-02T18:21:00.000+02:00

Pecs II

2006-05-31T12:46:00.000+02:00

The city town hall building

Pecs

2006-05-30T16:06:00.000+02:00

Our pharmacy here in Hungary

Language misunderstanding or how you never know what you will get in a restaurant......

2006-05-28T13:09:00.000+02:00

Ordering food in Hungary can be very adventurous some times. As a general rule if the waiter doesn’t understand you, he will just nod and say ok ok ok. In the best case he will ask a colleague who speaks a bit of English to come and take the order again (which then of course leads to double confusions and usually ends up with getting twice the same food or worse no food). Once the order is done, you can´t relax and look forward to eat, as now comes the time of worrying what they might bring….

A couple of days ago we went to the Italian restaurant around the corner. We ordered drinks which is usually not a problem, unless you want coffee. So Daniel´s study friend ordered a regular coffee, what he got was a cappuccino. H, the other study friend got exited when she saw the nice coffee and ordered one for herself by pointing to the coffee J just received. Well, I must disappoint you, she got an espresso! Why? Only the waiter knows and he doesn’t speak any English. So then we ordered food. I took the penne with tomato and cheese, D took penne with 4 cheeses, J took penne of the house and H ordered meatballs. The menu in this restaurant is in German and English, the waiter speaks only Hungarian, so you see the problem, you can´t even read what you want in Hungarian to him to higher your chances of getting the right food. Here is what we got: me: Spaghetti with hot cottage cheese and tomato slices, D: he got the right food, J: got Penne with tomato sauce and H got Rigatoni with veggies and ham baked in the oven (not one single meatball and nothing that looked like meatballs).

Well, the thing is that this is not the exception, this is the rule. You never get your order right no matter how simple you do it. It might sound funny and we try to look at it in a funny way but it can be very annoying. At least so far I never got any meat in my food as this is my number one double check and I think one of my first words I learnt in Hungarian.

(PS. If you want to be sure you get your order right you have to go to Mc Donald or Burger King – yes we do have them here :D……)

Apartment hunt in Pecs

2006-05-23T20:33:00.000+02:00

Buying an apartment in Pecs is rather difficult as the real estate agents speak only Hungarian and we….. don’t. Through another guy from the university we found a girl who specialized in finding apartments in the internet, newspaper and other ads (all in Hungarian), she is arranging meetings to see apartments and is coming with us to all meetings for translations etc. She wants 30´000 forint (about 145 dollars) for 6 weeks for her services, which seemed reasonable and to be honest about the only chance we have to understand a word these people are talking.

I went to look at over 10 apartments so far but when you want to buy you have to look at so many more details then if you just want to rent. And I definitely don’t have the eye for detail. I can say if I like an apartment or not and maybe if there is a big crack in the wall I might see (or not). On Friday we saw this great apartment, 2 large bedrooms, a super large living room, huge kitchen, a bathroom with a jacuzzi, separate toilet…. I was overwhelmed as it seemed exactly what we were looking for. So the next day we went again and this time Daniel came along. I (proudly) showed him some (obvious) stuff on walls and floors that I saw and thought we might be able to push down the price. Well, let me tell you after Daniel had spent 10 minutes in their apartment didn’t look appealing to me anymore; it was in such a bad shape. Cracks everywhere, moist on the floor so that the parquet is lifting, you can´t use the bathtub as there will be water everywhere, etc etc etc….. I just don’t see these things!! Maybe if I continue to look at more apartments I will get the eye for it, but I doubt it.

The worst was that the guys living there now are students who rent and they were not informed that the apartment is up for sale, nor were they informed that people will start to come and look at the apartment un-announced (they didn’t know we were coming!!). I guess this says a lot about the owner too!!!

Tomorrow we will have a second look at another apartment that is very promising. Wish us luck!

Season finals

2006-05-22T22:43:00.000+02:00

I already wrote once about my TV series addiction. Well, unfortunately May is a very sad month as all my favorite series are ending and I will have to wait for over 3 months to know what will happen next.

If you for some reason haven’t watched the finales yet, stop reading here as I am going to post some of my thoughts :D

Amazing race:
I love that the Hippies won! Hated the “frats” from the beginning. I would have been happy for Ray and Yolanda too, but the Hippies totally deserved it. The show is such a set-up that it annoys me most of the time. Especially when flights are closed and then all of the sudden they can still get on….

Survivor:
Of course I would have liked Terry to win as I think he would have deserved it most. Aras was second best option for me. The last challenge was totally unfair, of course it is easier to balance the lighter you are, so that totally sucked!

Grey´s Anatomy:
What a totally crazy end, but of course we were all waiting for it the whole season to happen. But I liked the vet :( I wonder what will happen with Burk and Cristina, she is really something!!. Poor Izzy I cried with her. Alex showed his real face or what I hoped should be he is true personality…

O.C.:
I wonder if there will be another season, without Marissa…. The final episode was quite boring, sadly…

Gilmore Girls:
Poor Lorelai or maybe she is finally lucky and staying with Christopher? I would actually like that better. And Rory? Will she ever see Logan again? How could she oversleep such an important morning to say goodbye???

Unan1mous
What a stupid and boring show!! I regret to ever have started watching it. But once you start you wanna know the end….

Ok, I still have to watch the final of: Desperate Housewives, that 70´s show and Will & Grace.

As you can see I didn’t watch Lost, 24, American Idol, Prison Break and West Wing!!

In order not to get totally bored over the next couple of weeks I saved 6 seasons of Sopranos, 2 seasons of Lost and 1 season of Prison Break :D And of course I have the German TV series which don’t have a summer break :D

I hope I don’t disappoint you guys and please don’t think all I do is watch TV all day long as I am going to the gym sometimes and from time to time even clean the apartment :D

The wedding present revealed

2006-05-19T12:16:00.000+02:00

As promised I am going to post what my wedding present from D will be. The thing is it is that originally he wanted to give it to me long time ago but we were looking for a special occasion for a special gift.

For our 1 year anniversary in July 2004 he gave me this wonderful diamond heart. We designed it together and had it done in Israel. Since the day I got it I never took the necklace off again.

When we got engaged he gave me this wonderful engagement ring. And of course I never take it off either.

And here comes my wedding present:

A pair of matching diamond earrings. Something I always wished for and is completing my jewelry. I always wear the same jewelry, the same rings, same necklace, and same earrings. I even sleep with my jewelry except for the rings. With the earrings I have what I always wanted :D

The worst part now is to have them in the house and not be able to wear them....

I am sorry but I have not much time to blog today. Soon I am going to look at some apartments. We are looking for a place to buy in September and this is another of my tasks until the wedding – to find the best apartment in Pecs… Not an easy task let me tell you…. I will take pics and maybe post some of them here. I saw some really horrible and even scary apartments.

Have a good Shabbes and enjoy your weekend!

Home sweet home

2006-05-17T14:27:00.000+02:00

(hands of me and my friend S on the Kotel)

I arrived yesterday around noon, the flight left Ben Gurion at 6am, which meant for me a sleepless night before. On Monday I enjoyed my last day in Tel Aviv, walked around again, made some last shopping and had a last ice-fruit-juice in Sheinkin. In the afternoon I met my friend R in Yaffo. She gained some weight and her face was glowing, yes, you got it right, she is in week 14! We went shoe shopping as I wanted to find a pair of comfortable sandals to use after the Chuppah, depending on the weather in Zurich, my feet might hurt after walking in closed shoes a whole day, so I thought it might be wise to get some comfy shoes for when I sit down, nobody can see them anyhow, as the dress will cover my feet.

In the evening I went to my friend C. again who had the opening day of her new Maon Yom (pre-kindergarten, daycare) that day. It was a full success and almost all shifts are filled (10 kids per shift). Again, if anybody is looking for a good place for his/her child in Tel Aviv, that´s the best place to bring them.

Now I am home and it feels good. I missed Daniel a lot and couldn’t stop wishing that he would be there with me. This was my best Israel travel since I made my unplanned Yerida (opposite of Aliyah, move away from Israel). The last couple of times always something bad happened (2000 break up from my boyfriend at the time in Jerusalem, 2001 I can´t remember, 2002 terrible attacks during Pessach, Natanya etc., 2003 my grandfather passed away in Tel Aviv just when I arrived, 2004 Daniel got sick after a day and couldn’t get out of bed for over 2 weeks), so this time all was good and calm, I could just enjoy my time to the fullest. I did a lot of shopping, especially sandals and hair products as these are things I can´t find in Europe. I also bought my wedding present that Daniel will give me on my wedding day. I know it sounds very unromantic, but we discussed what it will be for more than a year, as he really wants to give it to me and it is exactly what I dream of. And Israel is the best place to buy it. Curious? Make a guess :D

I also bought 9 Israeli DVDs, all with English subtitles so that Daniel can watch them with me. I even found “Alex choleh Ahava” for the Israelis among you, with subtitles!! This is a typical Israeli Borekas movie from my childhood and I can´t believe that I’ve found it with subs!

Basically all I did was meeting friends & family, eat, and enjoy the weather and shop :) The conclusion of this travel was for me that Israel is really my home and it is great to go home and feel home from time to time. It is also great to talk Ivrith all day long and it is fantastic that everybody is able to pronounce my real name (But this is a topic for another post, coming very soon). I know why I was feeling home sick and it was the best thing for me to be able to go there, even if just for a couple of days. I am grateful to have a husband who understands me and supports me in going to Israel.

Now I am back in Pecs for 2.5 weeks and then I am heading to Zurich for some last wedding preparations and to attend the wedding of very close friends.

But for now I am here and fulfilling my duties as Mrs. Daniel which means that I have to go now and hang the second load of laundry and change the sheets in the bedroom :D

Israel part II

2006-05-14T18:42:00.000+02:00

I am still enjoying myself amazingly in Israel. I just wanted to give a quick sign of life. I don't have much access to computers and when I have it is only for short. But anyhow I am so busy running around meeting my friends and family.

I don't know where the days went, they are just flying by. The last few days I've spent walking around in Tel Aviv doing a lot of shopping (mainly shoes, it will be a flip flop summer for me hehehe)and eating and drinking all my favorite foods (bagele, bissi, borekas....), drinks (fresh juice mix) and of course I have spent a lot of time meeting my friends and family.

It is so great to be here, to go from one coffee shop to the next and just enjoy life. Today I met Yael and it was fantastic to see her in person and get to know her better. She is such a great girl and such an asset to the country (not sure if you can say that, but you know what I mean). It was wonderful meeting her.

I feel like being home, but with the big difference that I don't have to work, don't have the overdraft in my neck (the Israelis know what I mean) and don't get stressed out by the mentality of the people. I don't feel like I am on holidays, as I am not living in a hotel, not going to the beach every day and am not around tourists :D

Tomorrow is my last day, I decided not to prolong my vacation. I could stay here another month or two or three (as long as I don't need do work and once I will win the lottery) but two days more or less will not make a difference. So tomorrow I will go to the Shuk, to Allenby Street, sit in a coffee shop and read the papers and will eat as much as I can :D

Everybody who hasn't been here before or not in a long time, come here, and get some Israeli energy into your bodies. Just a few days and you feel like a new person.

I say bye from Israel now and wish you all a nice week. I will write again when I am back home in Hungary with my husband that I miss like crazy!

Israel

2006-05-12T08:25:00.000+02:00

Israel is simply fantastic. I love to be here. It is great to see all my friends and to travel around a bit. The weather is gorgous this time of the year, warm and sunny, but not hot and humid.

My first day I've spent with my childhood friend in her parents house in Herzelia. It is a great house with a pool and we sat there almost the whole day chatting. In the evening we went for dinner and ran into some other Swiss friends from our childhood. People I haven't seen in almost 10 years.

Yesterday we (the same friend from Herzelia and I) went to Jerushalajim (Jerusalem). I love Jerusalem, it is so special and holy and already when you climb up the mountain you can feel how you enter another world. We went to the Kotel (and yes I included all my blogfriends in my prayers), then went around in the Jewish quarter and took the way out throught the Arabic Shuk. We drove to Emek Refaim, had something small to eat at "caffit", some ice coffee at the "espresso bar" and then headed back to Tel Aviv. In the evening I met another childhood friend from Switzerland. She made Aliya together with me and we lived as roommates in Jerusalem. Today she is in Tel Aviv, married and has a one year cute daughter. She is just opening her own business, something in between a daycare and a kindergarten. I helped her setting up some stuff and unpacking some boxes. If you live in Tel Aviv and have small children this is a great place to bring them. Let me know if anyone wants details.

Today I will walk around Tel Aviv, I am staying with a friend who lives north on Dizzengof, so I will walk down Dizzengof, up King George, into Sheinkin, the Shuk, etc. Not sure yet, where I will spend Shabbes, plans are constantly changing....

The remaining 4 days are so filled with meeting people that I am thinking of maybe prolonging my stay here by a few days. We will see, as we say here: Yihije beseder (it will be fine).

Have a wonderful weekend,
Mia

Getting ready

2006-05-09T12:39:00.000+02:00

I cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom, did the laundry and soon will finish with the bedroom. Then I will pack my summer clothes, which is an easy task :D. I prepared my travel schedule, the invitations for our Israeli guests for the wedding and my passports.

At 6.15pm the minibus will pick me up and bring me to Budapest airport (3 hours drive). My flight is at 11:35pm and I will land in Ben Gurion Airport at 3:45am. I will take a taxi to my friend S. home where I will stay for the week.

YAY – I can´t wait to be there. Breathe the air. Meet my family and friends. Go to the shuk. Walk on the beach. Eat a bagel toast with Greek salad (nowhere as yummy as in Israel on the beach). Just be there. Finally.

I will try to blog from the holy land but my program is pretty tight as I am only there for 6 days.

Shalom u le hitraot!

Pecs Synagogue

2006-05-07T16:46:00.000+02:00

On 1st of May the synagogue here in Pecs opened again. Unfortunately it’s not in use anymore, Shabbat and Yom Tom davening are in a small betsaal around the corner. But the Synagogue is open for visitors from May to September.

It is an amazing Synagogue, very large for a small town like Pecs. The location is in the middle of the town, between the shopping center and the main shopping streets. Here is what I found out so far:

The Synagogue was built 1865, when the town counted approximately 4000 Jews. It is the 4th Synagogue built in Pecs, but the only one still existing. A Jewish school was opened in 1854 and by the end of the century 400 children were enrolled. In 1870 the first Jewish newspaper was printed. In 1930 the Jewish population in the area was numbered 4030. Then the Holocaust came, in 1940 males between 40 - 50 were taken for forced labor. In March 1944 (right after the German occupation) the old aged home was confiscated by the Gestapo for their quarters. In May of the same year a Ghetto was set up in the middle of town; on July 5th they were all transported to Auschwitz; only a couple of hundred returned to Pecs after the war.

It’s an extremely weird feeling to live in a town where such horrifying things happened. It’s weird to walk in the streets and imagine how all the Jews walked and rushed and chatted in those same streets. I am not sure where the Ghetto was, but I am sure that the Jewish life was around the synagogue, a place where many students live and where I spend a lot of time.

I went to the Synagogue on Tuesday, went inside and just sat down. While breathing the air, I looked around and what I saw was a wonderful, beautiful, old Synagogue. I sat there maybe for 45 minutes just thinking of the people who have been here before me and about the time when the town was full with Jewish life. How the women would sit on the galleries (which are two floors high) and how the men would stand and daven and how the cantor would sing. I was all alone there and yet I could feel so many people around. Maybe I am just having a big imagination. I felt sad and happy at the same time when I left the Synagogue.

The next day I was on my way to meet someone when I passed the Synagogue. I couldn’t resist and went inside. There is something that pulls me back there. I just had ten minutes so I quickly said “Schma” which I know by heart and just set there and looked around. I took some pictures with my mobile phone, they are pretty bad but better than nothing. I will bring my camera another time and take nicer pictures.

It almost feels a bit “Goyish” or Christian to go back and just sit there. I don’t know about other places but in Zurich the synagogue is only open during prayer times and if you want to visit during another time you need a reason. But here the Synagogue is always open and I can just go and sit. The place is filled with holiness. I like to just sit down and think who was sitting on this chair before me, I like to look at the Aron ha Kodesh, I imagine how a wedding would have taken place here, and all of this sitting, looking and imagining gives me something that I can´t put in words. But is it wrong? Is this not meant for Jews to do? Why is the Synagogue not open in other places? Is it for religious reasons or for security reasons?

I have been tagged.....

2006-05-04T20:04:00.000+02:00

Accent:
No clue, I think over the years I just developed my own accent. People can`t tell where I am from based upon my accent. As long as I don`t have a Swiss one I am happy :D

Booze:
Wodka lemon, Caipirinha, sweet and dry red wines, fruity cocktails

Chore I Hate:
Ironing! and cooking is still pretty high on the list

Dogs/Cats:
I am allergic to cats and afraid of dogs. but love both :D

Essential Electronics:
Laptop, cell phone, digital camera

Favorite Perfume/Cologne:
On me: Chanel Chance
On a guy: rather soap smell then perfume

Gold/Silver:
White gold, but preferrably platinum.

Hometown:
Guess that would be Zurich, but right now it`s, Pecs (Hungary)

Insomnia:
First night in a new place or hotel. But can`t sleep more than 6 hours a night

Job Title:
That`s a difficult one. Until 3 days ago, I was an Executive Board Assistant, my degree is in Marketing and Communication. Right now I am on vacation, retired and/or a housewife and in a few month I am going to be a student. So make your pick!

Kids:
Not yet, but hopefully in the future

Living Arrangements:
Rental apartment with Daniel in Pecs. Hopefully we`ll buy our own place in the fall

Most Admired Trait:
People say that I am a good listener, very loyal, caring and warm hearted

Number of Sexual Partners:
What a question! Of course only 1 - my husband :D!!!

Overnight Hospital Stays:
4 times, but I am a bad patient, stayed every time less then the minimum required time.

Phobia:
To get blind, hence my fear for darkness

Quote:
My own: "what goes around comes around" (it`s not really mine, but I say it a lot) Someone else's: "Life is a journey - not a destination"

Religion:
Jewish.

Siblings:
2 sisters, 1 brother, all younger than me

Time I usually wake up:
6.40am, and now that I am on vacation I am going back to bed after Daniel leaves the house and get up again around 9am - ah what a wonderful world!

Unusual Talent:
Hmmm. not sure, I speak 6 languages fluent and can get around in another 3. Does that count?

Vegetable I refuse to eat:
red salad leaves

Worst Habit:
To be worried a lot about other people, situations, circumstances especially in regards to my family.

X-Rays:
Too many

Yummy Foods I make:
Kneiidle soup and I can bake yammy cakes.

Zodiac Sign:
Scorpio (yes, I am dangerous!)

Ok, and now it is Head over Heel turn!

2006-05-03T16:44:00.000+02:00

Life is great in Hungary. Nothing much is happening. I am enjoying being lazy. My only appointments are facial treatment, manicure or pedicure. I have started to be a housewife, the laundry is done, the kitchen is clean and the clothes all fit in the wardrobe. No cooking though so far.

I´ll come back soon with some pictures of where we live now. (Above picture is of the tree in fron of our house.)

Farewell - let´s start a new chapter in life!!

2006-05-01T17:08:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was day X, the day of my move! After 12 months of traveling back and forth I am finally living in Hungary. It’s crazy, exiting, unbelievable, unrealistic, scary, wonderful and amazing all at the same time!

Last week was rather difficult as I had so much pain and I still needed to work shop and finish up things for the wedding. But on Saturday night I had a little farewell party at my mom´s house for closest friends and family. I think it was the best party ever that I hosted. All my close friends came and stayed until late. It wasn’t until yesterday that I felt how much I would miss them. HoH, my best friend, came over in the afternoon to help prepare the food and her delicious tiramisu. She is really hands-on and worked hand in hand with my mom, while I was taking care of her little son :) Thanks to them I could enjoy the party to the fullest, I didn´t have to worry for the food, the drinks, the door bell or anything else.

Some friends brought their kids along as I didn’t want them to pay for a babysitter to come to my house and it was so cute to have them around. My little sister (16 yrs) was the natural babysitter of the evening and took care of the kids whenever needed (needless to say that she got job offers throughout the whole evening, my friends from NY even wanted to fly her in….) The friends that were invited are about the same friends who are invited for the wedding. Not all of them met before and it was great to see how everybody got along great. Everybody was so talkative and included people they didn’t know in conversations. I think that’s great also for the wedding dinner as people will feel more comfortable.

A thought that crossed my mind yesterday when I was thinking about the party was that for the first time I could invite Jewish and non-Jewish people and there was no awkward feeling. I remember when I made parties for my 18th, 20th or 25th birthday and inviting both my Jewish, mostly childhood, friends together with my non-Jewish friends from School, there were always two groups, people wouldn’t mix. So, my farewell party was the first time where I didn’t even think about it until after the party. I guess it is an age thing.

Until the party I didn’t feel like I am leaving Switzerland. It felt more like going on one of my regular flights and I will be back in a month. I tried to keep the atmosphere of the party happy and relaxed and not sad. I didn’t want people to cry, nothing bad is happening, and nothing that deserves tears. But of course some friends cried when they said good-bye, my sister cried and of course this led me to cry as well. But all in all I achieved my goal and it was a happy gathering.

Yesterday morning my mom brought me to the airport. I had one huge suitcase, one smaller suitcase, a sports bag and my backpack – in total maybe 48 kg (106 lbs) – and they let me pass with it. I didn’t have to pay overweight!!! It was the first time that somebody accompanied me to the passport control and this made me feel like it is different this time. From that moment on everything felt different. Walking to the gate, sitting in the plane, getting off the plane into a busy airport, waiting for the minibus, driving down the 3 hours to Pecs, just different. I am not sure why it felt different but I just felt like this is it, a big move is happening. Thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning in my head. Thoughts that I didn’t have since my decision to resign my job. I turned my Swiss mobile phone off when I entered the plane and turned my Hungarian phone on when I left the plane. Usually I turn the Swiss phone on before the Hungarian, in case any work message would have been left and also to send text messages to my family. I will not turn the Swiss phone on until I am back in Switzerland as otherwise it will be much too costly.

When I arrived Daniel surprised me with flowers and a love letter. I would never have expected it as Daniel is not the flower person usually, which made the surprise even sweeter. It is the absolutely right decision to move here, but I would lie if I would say that I am not worried sometimes, thoughts are spinning in my mind constantly.

The most asked question at the party was: Are you exited to move to Hungary?
The honest answer is yes, I am. But I am mostly exited to live with my husband and not to be separated on a regular basis and I am happy not to sit in a airplane every week, I am happy not to have to go back to work again (although I will miss my friends at work terribly) and I am happy to start a new life together with the love of my life. I was close to a burn out the last few weeks and I never ever want to feel that way again. Am I exited that it is Hungary? Not really. It is a very interesting time to be in this country and we are trying to explore and enjoy it as much as possible, but if it would have been another country I couldn’t care less (ok as long as the country is not more east on the map than we are now).

The second most asked question was: so what are your plans now?
Ok here are the next steps:
…. On May 9th I am going for 1 week to Israel to meet my family, my friends and just enjoy life
…. On June 4th I am going to Zurich for 1 week to take care of last wedding preparations and to attend the wedding of one of my best friends
…. around June 30th Daniel & I will drive to Zurich by car, get married on July 9th, and go on honeymoon following the Chuppah
…. After the honeymoon we will spend another few days in Zurich and a few days in Stockholm with Daniel´s family before we return to Hungary around mid August

Now what am I doing when I am here and not traveling?
…. I hope to study enough to take the English proficiency exam in June (if not than in Dec)
…. I have to write all the thank-you cards for the wedding presents that we get
…. I need to take care of the open issues for our wedding (so many details…)
…. I have to find a wedding suit for Daniel (which isn’t easy in Hungary)
…. I will go to the gym everyday, no matter how much my muscles ache
…. I have to watch 5 seasons of Sopranos to be able to watch the current season
…. I wish to walk the streets of Pecs and take nice photo shots
…. I have to learn how to cook and be a good housewife
… I will catch up on all the blogs that I didn’t have time lately and hopefully find other interesting blogs to read

Any other suggestions? I am sure I will not be bored!

2006-04-28T16:05:00.000+02:00

What a week! I am trying to recover and to relax but it is a bit difficult since this is the last week here in Switzerland.

On Tuesday I was released from the hospital and went home for some hours of sleep. Then I went to work as this was the last day that I would see my boss and I needed to give him all his travel documents (he is travelling the next 2 weeks). My colleagues organised a small farewell reception for me in the late afternoon, my boss held a hilarious and very touching speech about me and I got some nice presents. I would love to go into details about the speech but I just don’t have the time now. One of the things he said, was that I was always so calm and nothing could shake me, not matter how last minute a change came or how complicated something was, I was always calm and this impressed him very much. I am the opposite in my private life; my family calls me “hysterical” to say the least. Oh, how I would have loved to tape what he said just to prove them wrong!!! When I came home, I was in great pain and just laid down for the rest of the evening!

On Wednesday I went to work only in the afternoon, I tried to relax in the morning, but instead I packed all my work cloths that I will leave here in Switzerland in boxes and went through all my paper work. At 3pm my successor came to meet me in the office and I had to give her a small introduction to the job, the organisation, the people and my boss. After an hour I was in so much pain that I could hardly sit and talk, I was sweating like crazy and almost fainted…. My mom picked me up the moment the girl went home and once again I spent the rest of the day/evening in bed.

Yesterday I had to go to work in the morning and make the handover to my immediate successor. She will work for the next 2 months and from July the girl I met Wednesday will take over….. anyhow, I felt better and it went pretty ok and fast, only an hour and we were through everything (I met her last week already for an hour, so she knew already a lot). Then I had my closing talk with HR and I was in pain again. It’s so mean, I really wanted to finish everything, so that I won’t have to go back there today but I just couldn’t stand the pain any longer, so I went home to my bed and laid down. In the evening I met with the woman who gives me the marriage lessons and I had a “sex” talk with her, she explained all the rules of nidah, bedikah, mikveh, etc. to me. It was very interesting but a bit too much intimate information, I am a rather prude person when it comes to talk about sex other than Daniel, so I felt a bit uncomfortable. Especially when she started telling me things about her sexlife (she is celebrating 40 years wedding anniversary this year!!!) But all in all it was very interesting and I will go back for more lessons in June when I am visiting Zurich.

I can not really believe that I am not going back to the office anymore. It was such a weird feeling to close my mobile phone (which belongs to the company) and shut down the computer for the last time. Walking out the door of the office and then of the building was sad and exiting at the same time. I liked my boss and my colleagues a lot but lately not the job anymore, so on one side I am happy that it is over and on the other side I am of course also a bit sad…..

Soon I am meeting my best friends from New York, who are visiting with their newborn boy for a week or so. And later the family will meet for Shabbes dinner.

Tomorrow evening I invited some friends for a small farewell gathering and on Sunday is the day when I am leaving to start a new chapter of my life. As Daniel wrote me in a text message today: Congratulations on being full time Mrs. Daniel now!!!

2006-04-25T13:32:00.000+02:00

All is fine and I am home at my mom’s. Not everything went as planned but all turned out fine in the end.

My plan of having the local anaesthesia was shaken a bit when the professor doctor came to see me yesterday morning. He asked me to think about it again and he would really prefer to give me spinal (similar to epidural) anaesthesia. Why have pains if it is not necessary? He told me that not only doing the local anaesthesia will hurt, but everywhere he will touch and he will just not be able to really search for more…… The downside with the spinal is that it would require me to stay in the hospital for the night and things can always go wrong (he can hit a nerve etc). After a discussion and weighing of positive and negative of both options, I decided to go with the professor’s recommendation. Now we had no time to loose if we wanted to keep the schedule. Immediately the assistant anaesthesia doc came to consult me and get my signature, the nurse came with all that she needed and already it was time to take the relaxing pill, change cloths and be rolled in bed down with the elevator (the worst part!!!)

The spinal anaesthesia hurt a bit, but from then on I couldn’t feel anything. All went well and quickly. I spent only about 20 minutes in the wake-up room and was brought back to my room. Spending the night was not as bad, and the pain now that the anaesthesia is gone is also much less than last time. It hurts to sit and walk, but I can stand the pain. Hopefully by end of this week I will be like new :)

It wasn’t a bad or terrible experience and I am glad I did now that I still have my luxurious private health insurance paid by my company. I am glad I did it before leaving the country and I am glad I could do it where I am surrounded by my family.

Only Daniel wasn’t there and that was actually the worst part of the whole surgery. I had the same surgery last year and then he was with me, every step of the way. He was there when I consulted with the doc, there when the doc made the surgery, there when I my anaesthesia went away and I made my first steps, there when I went to the bathroom for the first time and there to bring me a rose and my favourite gossip magazine. And this time I felt him around, we spoke on the phone so much, he text messaged me the whole time and even if he wasn’t there physically I could feel his love and strength every where I was…. I am so happy to go home to Daniel on Sunday!!!

Thank you all so much for your well wishes and your brachot! I really appreciate it a lot and it is nice to know that my blogfriends care when I am going through a not so funny time.

More about how I am going to spend my last week here, soon. Now I need to relax a bit :)

2006-04-21T09:43:00.000+02:00

The past few days since I came back from Hungary I was busy bringing all the remaining open issues in order before my final move end of this month.

I finally got my new passport, which I needed to change my bank accounts, which was necessary to get a new credit card. I also sent in my driving license to get my new one, which should arrive beginning of next week.

I went to the hairdresser for a trial for the wedding hairstyle. It looked great. Of course it was only a trial and I asked for some changes but it will look gorgeous. I put all the ribbons on the 200 invitations and packed them into the envelopes, I really love our invitation, its so special and of course to see our names on them is still breathtaking for me.

Last night I met with my sister and my best friend who will lead through the evening and organize my bachelorette party. (In Switzerland we don’t have bridesmaids). Everything starts to be so real now. Only two and half month to go!!

And as if this wouldn’t be enough on my plate, I got some bad news yesterday. Pretty exactly a year ago I had to undergo a small abdomen surgery. Nothing dangerous, just painful and inconvenient. I had a professor doing the surgery and Daniel was allowed to be in there with me, the professor even explained things to him while making the surgery as he liked Daniel and him being a medical student. I got a spinal anesthesia and was awake during the whole thing. The pain came after, for a whole week.

And now I have to do it again. It is not as bad as last time, so I convinced him that I don’t have to stay overnight in the hospital and I will get a local anesthesia instead of the spinal. A spinal anesthesia is a bit painful and the feeling after, or better to say the not feeling of the legs is the weirdest thing ever. I am pretty pain resistant and am a tough cookie when it comes to these things, but the worst will be not to have Daniel around. He is such a support, just to know that he is with me, taking care of me, looking after me when I am feeling bad, makes me feel better. But I have to be strong and I will be able to go through it alone, I know it, peace of cake for me (or so I try to convince myself).

The reason why I don’t want to stay overnight (it would be the night before, not the night after) is that first of all I of course hate to be in a hospital, but also I hate how the nurses treat you. Here in Switzerland they are very soft and caring and when I enter the hospital I already feel like I am having some bad deadly disease. I just prefer to be treated in a normal way, not in this “gentle voice” way the way. I don’t like to be sick, I don’t like to feel like something is wrong with me and I don’t like people to make a fuss about it.

Not sure if you guys understand me and I know a lot of people would see it as a treat. Through my work I am having a private health insurance which means having my own room and being really good taken care off. The moment you enter nurses and doctors come and go, they want to measure the blood pressure, give some relaxing pills, then the anesthesia doctor will come to talk and explain, then the assistant doctor will come and have a look at me and then the nurse will come again to give me a shot! and then at 5am they wake you up to get you ready for the surgery. Not to mention that you will be rolled to the surgery room on a bed, which is the absolutely worst feeling. That’s why being in a hospital makes me feel like I am terribly sick. So, NO WAY!

I want to go there at 7am, get the anesthesia, start the surgery at 8am and go home before lunch. And that’s what I will do and it will probably be the most painful experience, but I will just not stay overnight.

So that’s my plan for next week, my last week before leaving the country. And what are you up to :D ?

2006-04-18T16:22:00.000+02:00

The inevitable, that I always feared happened yesterday!

I missed my flight to Zurich for the first time! It would have been my 42nd flight to or from Budapest. I was able to be on time for 41 flights in 11 months!!! Since 11 months I am always taking the 7:40pm flight from Budapest to Zurich….

Yesterday at around 1:45pm I started to prepare for my departure to Budapest. The minibus was ordered and confirmed for 2:45pm and I decided to check myself in via the web-check in. I love it as this way I can choose my seat :D. But it didn’t work. I tried five times and always an error occurred, my reservation number didn’t exist! How is this possible??? Then I looked closely at the itinerary and realized that my flight would depart at 2:35pm!!! By then it was already short after 2pm. I freaked out, my pulse increased, my face turned red and I just said: Daniel, we have a problem!

I called Swiss Airlines to see if there is a possibility to reschedule to the later flight. The ticket was booked on miles and when I booked it I even had to take a business class ticket as it was Easter Monday and all flights were full, but I couldn’t remember that I chose the lunch flight….. of course the evening flight was full and so were the 3 flights on Tuesday (today), the next available flight would have been on Wednesday (tomorrow) afternoon. Way too late for me to get back to Zurich!

Our luck was/is that end of March an Airport opened in Pécs! Only Austrian Airways are flying from there so far, but it exists!!! So Daniel checked the flight schedule and there was a flight at 3:10pm (it was around 2:15pm then). I called, the price for one way was fairly reasonable (350 Euros) and loosing 2 days of work would mean loosing a lot more money! So off we went (lucky I have nothing to pack besides my laptop) and took a taxi to the Airport. What a cute little airport!

It took about 50 min to get to Vienna, about 1 hour waiting time (great duty free, I bought a swatch – yay!) and then another 1.5 hours flight to Zurich. I landed at 6:45pm, Almost an hour before my regular flight from Budapest would depart!!!!

At the end it was a great experience and I enjoyed to see 2 other airports and flew for the first time with Austrian Air. I am sure it will not be the last time as I saved almost 3 hours!!!

Pessach review

2006-04-16T12:26:00.000+02:00

Daniel´s family was here and we had some great quality time with them. Walked around in Pecs a lot went to Villany, a wine village about 50 min away and played cards in the evening. The seder was fine, the food delicious and besides the two black-outs all went smooth and perfect.

Here some pictures of Pecs and Villany:

Pessach thoughts

2006-04-10T17:30:00.000+02:00

Pessach is on its way and it made me think a lot about how our Seder will be. I am coming from a much more traditional, more observant background than Daniel. So far we celebrated two Seders with my family and this will be the first one with his.

For Daniel it is all about the food, for me it is all about reading the Haggadah. Usually my grandfather was leading the Seder, when he passed away it was my father and when my father was in Israel and we were in Switzerland, my brother was leading the Seder. We usually only read until the meal is served and then the men keep reading while the woman do the wash-up and the kids go playing.

Throughout my childhood years we’ve spent Pessach in Israel, then I moved to Israel and I think in 2001 I’ve spent my first Pessach in Zurich, there was no specific reason and even though my parents got divorced in 2000 we always spent the Chagim together. In all the years in Israel, food was a minor thing, my grandmother and my aunts cooked and it was always typical persian/mizrahi food (my father is originally from Iran and fled with his family when he was still a baby). The food was great but besides no bread but with charrosset no major change.

The food at the Seder in Switzerland was about the same as for every “yom tov” sometimes also on Shabbes. Gefillte fish, chopped liver, kneidle-soup, soup meat and chicken, potatoes and rice, salad and dessert. No difference from Rosh Hashana (besides the bread and charrosset)… this might explain why the food was never a big deal. (Don’t get me wrong I LOVE all of the above dishes)

For Daniel the Seder was all about the food. His grandmother stood for hours and hours in the kitchen and made the largest variety of Pessach food that I ever heard of. Not only gefillte fish, but also salmon, eggs, kneidle soup, extra kneidle-lokshen, egg noodles, leikach, chopped liver, egg salad, tzimmes and then of course the main dish with different meat, soup vegetables and more that I can´t remember.
She made the same for Rosh Hashana and the one Rosh Hashana that I’ve spent in her house was plain amazing. (I actually typed down all of her recipes ones and now we have little Pessach booklet with her original recipes).

Last year we decided to host the Seder for my family in Zurich and try to combine both out minhagim. We shopped and cooked for days. Everything was amazing, my father led the Seder, everybody was enjoying themselves and it was great. Then it was time for the meal and my family was just overwhelmed with the variety, not being used to so many different dishes, not used to use different plates, not used to have so many dishes before the main dish. For Daniel on the other side it was crazy to watch how my family is just mixing all the food together instead of eating course after course and how they didn’t see a point to change the plates. It was a big balagan, which is part of the Pessach Seder for our family but was a mess to watch for Daniel. At the end it was a great family Pessach and I think we achieved to combine both minhagim and everybody could enjoy themselves. We sang the birkat hamazon and as usual the Swedish and the Swiss melody is not the same but very close and it is fun to see who will dominate the singing….

Now we are planning this years Seder and I am already a bit worried. Not sure how much of the Haggadah we will read, not sure how much will be left out. We will try to cook as many of his grandmothers recipes as possible and with the great help of his mother I am sure it will be a success. As we don’t have our own Haggadot I have printed 3 copies from the internet. They are in both Hebrew and English (at home we only read in Hebrew…) and we will see how it will be. Some times I have to high expectations and have to let go. The most important thing is to be together and not how much of the Haggada we will read. Of course this will change once we have children :D

Guestblog 2

2006-04-07T21:12:00.000+02:00

Things are moving, literary. The semester is rushing towards the end. What happened with the winter??? Who stole it? Actually, I am not a winter person, so it’s kind of nice that the summer is here. The question is; what did I accomplish compare to Mia?

For me, the days look more or less the same…. Taking the car 2 km (1.5 mile) to school, coming home in the afternoon and then study late. I always look forward to every second weekend when Mia is coming.

It feels like Mia and I run an Iron Man, to finally reach the goal. The goal is a few hours away while I write this blog, since she just called that she landed, 3 hours away with a shuttle bus.

Life will take such a turn now when we finally got to live together again. I can’t even imagine it, to be honest. I think that many people forget to appreciate waking up every morning next to the beloved one. There is a reason why people get married. Oh, so emotional I got… but I guess this is my reaction of all the suffering not spending every day together the last year and a half.

Finally I have a break for 10 days. I will enjoy every second of it, but unfortunately I don’t have time being a veggie in the sofa, even though I would like to. Week 9 out of 14 weeks past at the Uni, but it feels like the semester just started. Soon my stress will start with 6 major subjects: Anatomy, Histology, Embryology, Molecular Cell Biology (final), Medical Chemistry (final) and BioPhysics (final). Does it sound attempting? I just hope I will be a smarter person and receive the Nobel price after all the exams, when they stop the last of August. I will have a 7 week break though in between, where we will squeeze in as much fun as possible. The number ONE will of course be our Chuppah, with all the events around it. The second will be our Honeymoon… and I am sure more stuff will come around. Ohhh, I even might have a possibility to dust off my golf bag. For golfers out there, I haven’t been able to play golf since August… it do suck, since I am a passionate golfer, and used to play 3 times a week.

Next week we will have my family over for Pessach. Since we can’t buy the ingredients here, they will be brought here by both Mia and my Mom. It will be so nice for us to have them over; especially since it was 2 years ago we spent Pessach in Sweden. I will though miss my Grandparents a lot, since they use to host the Seder. When speaking about my grandparents, Mia and I really hope that they will attend our Chuppah. You never know their medical condition, and lately, my grandmother has been sick (I spoke 2 days ago with her, and she is better!). It would be a great loss if they couldn’t come, since I really love them with the deepest of my heart. They have been like an extra pair of parents, without the responsibility, so they could treat me like a king. There is more to the story, but let it be undisclosed for now.

I was the first grandchild – second generation in Sweden. I guess that I was a proof that life could go on in life, despite of WWII. It was such a gift when my mom got married and I arrived. I have nothing to compare with, but I don’t think, any bond can be compared. Neither do I think that my children one day will have the same bond with their grandparents even though that would be my wish. The lost of relatives in my family was humongous. I don’t exactly know, but we lost all parents to my grandparents, as well as most siblings. That’s why I think the love was and is special. I don’t want to continue with the sad story, since this is not a history blog, but the most important thing is that we must not forget our history. One last scary thought is that we are the last generation that actually met a holocaust survivor. I actually think that the non Jewish young generation thinks about WWII as history. For me its not history at all, since I have been raised in an environment where I have been reminded more or less every day about it, if not direct, indirect.

A tiny confession
The truth is that I hardly ever shop in the between time Mia is not in Hungary. You must agree that grocery shopping is one of the most boring things you can do alone (a good reason to get married). 2 days before she arrives, I have to dig deep into the shelves and use the food that you normally forget about. One dish can be:
One can of tuna fish (I am not a big fan of it), red cabbage – grinded, mixed with a tomato, mayonnaise, balsamic vinegar, and frozen corn if I am lucky, or why not the delicious standard student meal with 2 bags of noodles with stock soup. Btw, I call this “Time Management” since I spend time in front of the books instead of going crazy, spending time in the store. Of course this will change now, and I and my beautiful wife can shop together now as often as we want.

Anyhow, I would like to wish you all a happy Pessach with a lot of happiness, wine and good food.

/Daniel

The joy of living at home and sharing room again!!!

2006-04-06T13:34:00.000+02:00

So, I moved to my mom’s for this last month here in Zurich. I was/am actually really looking forward to spend time with my mom and my little sister (16 yrs) before I leave the country.

Just a very small tiny bit about the past. I moved out when I was 18 being the oldest of 4 children. I lived for a year in Zurich with my best friend at the time, then moved to a mountain village and worked in a hotel for a year. Moved back home for 9 months to save money for my Aliyah, which happened in Jan 1997. Came back to Zurich in Oct 1999 and lived again at home for 3 months. That’s the last time I lived at home. My family is very close and we see each other at least once a week for Shabbos dinner. One of the many reasons why I came back to Zurich from Israel was because my parents got divorced and my siblings needed me (actually my brother called the day after they told them and said it is like hell you have to come and be with us now, enough for me to jump on a plane) (btw. I planned to stay for a few months, work while here and go back, I came with only 1 suitcase and sublet my apartment in Tel Aviv, so a “Yerida” was not planned at all!).

I don’t want to get into the whole divorce story of my parents here and actually it is also not too spectacular but my family needed me and I came home. After the few months I just stayed longer and longer, added another month and another month until I decided that maybe its better to stay here (there were other reasons why it was actually nice to leave Israel for a few months, an unhealthy relationship and no job are just the obvious one’s).

I grew up in a very intact family and had a great childhood. We grew up as 3 siblings until my mom decided that she wants to have another baby and had a serious discussion with us about it and asked if we would be happy to get another sibling. This was before she was pregnant! We were ok, but I was almost 16 and was of course afraid to become the “nanny”, “second-mom” or whatever you want to call it. And that’s what happened. But I loved my little baby sister. I had tears of joy in my eyes every time I gave her the bottle. It was the most overwhelming feeling!

Sometimes I just have to think how different my sister’s childhood is from ours. There were really sad moments when we looked at travel pictures or video’s where she wasn’t born and couldn’t join. She had too big of an age difference to really grow up with siblings, she had like 5 parents instead. And that’s the way it is a bit until today. If she has a problem she likes to tell all of us about it and loves to discuss it in length at the Shabbos table. (No matter what topic, school, friends, boys, everything!) Lately she started to complain that she didn’t grow up with other sisters and brothers and that she misses to fight with siblings!!!! I never thought about that! I thought one would miss to be together or to have the others on your side against the parents etc.

So I move home and the big question is where shall I sleep? They are living in a 2 bedroom apartment, my mom’s room, the larger one, my sisters room which is smaller, a large living room, the kitchen, the bathroom and a little hall by the entrance. The options were that I can sleep in the living room or in my sisters room with her. I am not complicated when it comes to those things and I would just sleep on a mattress on the floor. So my sister asks me where I want to sleep and I tell her that I will do whatever she prefers. I have to add here that she gets up at 5am and I only at 6am!

So I slept the first night in the living room. At 5am she wakes me up to tell me to go to her room now as she needs to get ready for school and wants to watch her favorite TV show NOW! I was drunken from sleep and just told her to go elsewhere and let me sleep :) So the second night comes and I ask her again what shall we do, how important is this TV stuff for you. So she asks me to sleep in her room, so she will be able to watch her show. Fine. At 5am she turns on the LIGHTS to gather all her stuff – boy I got mad! so mad that she woke up my mom at 6 to tell her that she forgot something in her room and is too afraid of me :) I started to think that this is her way of getting her missing childhood-sibling-fights back but that’s unfair to say, she is just not used to have somebody else around. 3rd night was perfect. She only got up at 6am with me and no fighting and this morning she got up (I slept in her room again) and was quite like a little mouse!

Tomorrow I am flying to Hungary and will stay fro 10 days! Daniel just wrote me a text message that he went home from school coughing and with a cold – I just hope he will get better quickly as his family is arriving on Tuesday!!!

Wedding update

2006-04-05T00:03:00.000+02:00

Now that the move is done and over, all I can think of is our wedding in July. So much to do and so much to look forward to!

Today I went to the travel agency to get information about our honeymoon. We are still unsure about where we want to go. California was our first choice, but is way above our budget, then we planned for Cuba, but it turns out that it is rainy season during the summer and how much fun is it to play golf in the rain???

So now the options are either Greece or Tenerife (Spain). We would love to go and play golf but also to make some day trips and see some cultural stuff. My preference right now is 1 week golfing in Crete, then about 4-5 days in Athens and back to Crete for another week of golfing and relaxation. Hopefully tomorrow I will receive the prices and some further details. Since we will not be able to play any golf this season as it is a) too expensive for two students like us and b) the golf course is still not ready in Pecs, we really would like to play as much as possible on our honeymoon. We are both not big beach-laying, sunbathing fans and after an hour of lying around we both get “spilkes” and have to do something before getting crazy :)

In Zurich we don’t have so many options for registries like in the US. Basically everybody is using the department store Jelmoli (www.jelmoli.ch), where you can create an online wish list. We decided to only put up our honeymoon travel and no other items. We feel we collected enough linen, vases and other home accessories and with no steady home and living in another country it would anyhow not make much sense. So instead of a vase our guests can get us a greenfee or a daytrip or part of the flight tickets :) The thing is that we have to do all ourselves. Find pictures, upload them, write descriptions and add articles. It’s a fun job to do IF the system would be working, but for some reason we can’t upload any pictures…… aaaargh! I have to call them again tomorrow.

Today I finished writing all addresses on our almost 200 invitations/envelopes for the Chuppah. Now only the ribbons for the invitations are missing and then they are ready to be sent out, but I guess this will have to wait until after Pessach.

(We are inviting a lot of people, the whole extended family, friends of my parents, friends from work and other not so close friends to our Chuppah, the dinner in the evening will only be for closest friends and family, about 45 people – it is common standard in Switzerland to invite people for the Chuppah but not for the dinner)

I am feeling a gazillion times better now than I did the last two weeks, it is almost incredible. As if somebody lifted a heavy weight from my chest – I can breathe again and enjoy my lost month in Zurich. The sun came out today and we can feel the spring weather is arriving; amazing how much the sun can change and influence our mood!

Update

2006-04-02T20:33:00.000+02:00

The move is finally done. I handed the apartment over to the next tenant on Friday morning. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week I moved the last bits to my mom and on Thursday night I slept my first night at my mom’s apartment.

Unfortunately the cleaning of the apartment was not clean enough by the Swiss standard and the hand over was pretty embarrassing, I never ever left an apartment so dirty. The cleaning woman is a friend of my mom and she is very short of money. When she heard that I am moving she asked my mom if she could do the cleaning of our apartment and out of goodwill I agreed. I pay her the regular fee per hour and knowing that she is not a cleaner by profession I didn’t feel too comfortable with it but agreed as she is my mom’s friend and really needed the money. On top of that I also gave her a bed, a cupboard and some other stuff. Cleaning for a hand over in Switzerland just isn’t the same like cleaning your own apartment. Every little bit gets checked and controlled. The controlling part took over 1 hour, so you can imagine how pedantic they are. When I told her that the cleaning was a problem and I have to go back and clean the things that weren’t to their satisfaction, she told me that it is all not true and she did clean this and that. She couldn’t take any criticism, which I found very annoying. She said, that she does not have a free day for the next 12 days and that’s when Pessach starts and anyhow we have to clean the parts she left out as soon as possible. So I guess I will just go there next week once on the evening after work….. Not really what I need right now but at least then it will be done!! It was more that embarrassing feeling that was awful and that she couldn’t take any criticism that annoyed me!

I had to think a lot about why this move was so hard for me. It really pulled me down and many times I felt really weak and stressed. What made this move so different from my last 16 moves? Yes! This is my 17th move since I moved out from home when I was 18 (13 years ago). I moved to a mountain village and back and to Israel and back. Alone in Israel I moved 6 times in 4 years! Starting in Jerusalem then to Tel Aviv then back to Jerusalem and at the end back to Tel Aviv. So here are some things that may have led to my much stressed feelings:
- I had to move a two-person household and not only my own stuff
- I didn’t pay a regular moving company but was depended on my family
- I didn’t have my own car to move things by myself
- I couldn’t do it my way but had to go with what my father decided as he would do the big move of all furniture and boxes
- While moving my apartment, I also had to move my office, work my normal 10-12 hours and travel once a week either to or from Hungary (8 hours door to door)
- I didn’t just move from one apartment to another

I am not looking for excuses but my reaction to the stress did scare me a bit. What most stressed me throughout the whole move was that people, mainly my family wouldn’t come and pick up their things that I prepared. They all wanted to pick it up in the end and my mom and my sister were the only one’s to understand that it drove me crazy to see all the things and not to be able to move them. It’s also a big difference if you move from one apartment to another or if you have to sort your entire household and are only able to keep a small part.

Anyhow now it is over and I am just happy to be in Hungary for the weekend. I finally could catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow I will go back to Zurich for 4 days and come back to Hungary next Friday and stay for 10 days! My in-laws will come in 8 days to visit us for four days. It will be great to have them here, it will be there second visit to Pecs, they came already in 2004 (October) and this time we’ll celebrate Pessach together. My mother-in-law will bring most ingredients from Sweden, I ordered the gefillte Fish and the rest will do from scratch.

Shavua Tov

The refrigerator

2006-03-29T14:01:00.000+02:00

here’s a little story about rules and principles in Switzerland.

History
In our old building every floor had a refrigerator with bottles of water. About 1 year ago it was decided to be more environment conscious and to remove them all and instead have water machines. Every person got a personal 0.5l that one can refill.

But my boss has a lot of external people and people from abroad who visit for meetings and it wouldn’t make sense to give them a paper cup with water, so after a little fighting we could keep our refrigerator on our floor.

Present
So here we go moving to a new building. I forgot about the refrigerator until I got a phone call from the move management, they asked if we wanted to move the refrigerator also. Of course, why not, since we fought for it. Ok, so in the afternoon they moved it into my new office (which is big enough, pictures to follow soon). 4 hours later I get an email from the corporate hotline, saying that it is not allowed by the company guidelines to have a refrigerator in an office and that the refrigerator belongs to the inventory of the old building and can’t be moved. If we want another refrigerator we have to apply for one. My boss had enough and it was decided to abstain from ordering a new one.

Future
I wrote back that they can move the refrigerator back to the old building, which they did, but not back to our old floor. No, they put it in storage!!! So the EB assistant from the old building calls me today and tells me that they told her that if she wants to have the refrigerator moved back up, she needs to apply for it and they will have to pay for it! (I would assume that move management should know the rules and this whole balagan could have been avoided!)

Welcome to Switzerland, the land of no flexibility and full of rules and principles!!!

First Impressions

2006-03-27T09:06:00.000+02:00

Today is my first real working day in my new office. On Thursday my old office has been moved to the new building, in the afternoon and on Friday morning I unpacked my and my bosses office, so this doesn’t count for real working days.

I work for the largest Reinsurance company of the world (now you can find out yourself which one it is….). Moving to a new building (the building itself is not new, but it is new for us) means almost to start a new job. I don’t know the people, don’t know where to find what (bathroom, color printer, coffee machine, stationary, printing material, etc.) When I went to the coffee corner this morning I noticed some differences:

1. they have a much larger tea selection (drinking apple/cinnamon right now)
2. they have a extremely much larger bread, croissants selection
(I have to get a picture, you should see it!)
3. even though there is a snack machine, you can’t use it with money, but have
to load your badge 3 floors down (at least there is diet coke – yay!)
4. when going to the coffee corner I almost need a GPS system to find my way
back. Too many corridors and all looks the same
5. I am sure more are to come

The biggest difference for me is not to know anyone, nobody to talk to and nobody who comes by my office. Everybody works here behind closed doors, normally 1-3 people per office. Before we worked in a glass-building, so even if the doors were closed you knew if somebody was in the room or you could just wave to say hi. Here are long corridors and almost all doors all closed…

It’s a weird situation, especially since I only have 4 weeks to go, I am not that keen of meeting more people and I miss my old friends. It’s kind of sad to leave the company after almost 4 years and nobody is here to say good-bye.

This has become some kind of pattern in my life. The last 3 jobs I left during or right after a reorganization. Every time I did not have a farewell party and never got a farewell present (I don’t mean the materialistic present, but the personal thought behind it, maybe a picture collage of al colleagues or something special for my journey ahead to remind me of my friends).

The only good thing about it is that you don’t miss the people so much as you get torn apart before you actually leave. (I never had to leave a company due to a reorganisation, always for personal reasons to take next steps). So here we go again, and I feel sad, I wish I would have left 6 months ago, just for once to leave in a normal situation and have a proper farewell.

The move is over and it went perfect!

2006-03-27T00:01:00.000+02:00

All my worries and my panicking was for nothing. Everything went as planned. All the furniture and boxes are in storage now and all that is left are things I either need this month when I live with my family or things I need to bring to Hungary and haven’t had the place yet. It’s actually pretty much, but I will not start to panic again :)

My brother-in-law and his friend (so great he could arrange for a friend to come and help) came at 2pm and brought all the furniture and boxes from our flat down to the garage, then brought more boxes up there from our cellar. 2 hours later my father came with the minibus of my brother’s company and they filled it 3 times!! They had to bring some stuff to my mom, most furniture to my fathers storage and all the boxes up 5 floors (no elevator) to my mother’s friends attic, where we can store our stuff….. it was all done in only 7 hours!!

Today Daniel flew back to Hungary taking with him my 19” screen and one of our two computers. The screen fitted just exactly into the small suitcase you’re allowed to bring to the cabin. But when it was time to board the plane, they started to trouble him and to tell him that the plane is full and he can’t bring it to the cabin…. he fighted and just told them that in that case he will take the screen out of the suitcase and they can put an empty bag in the freight of the plane. At a certain point they had enough of his discussion and just told him that if he finds place he can take it with him…… he of course found a place and all was fine. Then he passed the customs and they didn’t even look at him….. what a relief! Now I have to do the same on Friday. But I hope that the plane will not be full as I am taking the noon flight…. I will take the second computer, but no screen, so only to worry about the customs….

Tomorrow will be the first of two cleaning days. My mom arranged for somebody to come and clean, as I have to work fulltime and have absolutely no time to clean. Tomorrow and Tuesday evening I will pack the rest of my stuff and bring it to my mom. On Wednesday my father will come and take apart our bed & our last table and bring it also to storage. Maybe I’ll sleep on the sofa for a last night or maybe I’ll go to my mom’s already on Wed. On Thursday the remaining of the apartment will be cleaned and on Friday morning at 8.30am I have to hand over the apartment to the new tenant. In Switzerland the apartments need to be cleaned spotless and they are checking it always very thoroughly. Almost a bit exaggeratedly….

It was great that Daniel could be here and we got to hang out in our first apartment together for a last time. It was a bit emotional for me as we are leaving a time behind which will never come back and never be the same. A lot of memories are connected to our apartment (to be honest, I have tears coming up my eyes while I am writing this….).

PS. just in case you wonder how I can write this if I don’t have any computers connected and no screen left, I am writing on my work laptop :) thank G-d for that. That’s when you feel how much you are dependent and addicted to internet. Not to imagine a week without it :)

This is how my kitchen looks like right now.....

2006-03-24T16:36:00.000+01:00

random conversation

2006-03-24T07:56:00.000+01:00

Zurich is a very small town and I know a lot of people, so I always bump into 1 or 2 people I know per evening. Usually people I haven´t seen in ages. So here is how the conversation usually goes:

P (person): Hi, how are you?
M (Mia): fine how are you?
P: where do you work now?
M: well, I am only working for another month. Then I will move to Hungary and study Psychology, in English.
P: oh wow (having a shocked, crazy look, not really convinced she/he got it right)
P: how come Hungary, what´s your connection?
M: my Swedish husband is studying Medicine there.
P: (looking even more shocked): so how are you going to finance it?
M: (non of your business, maybe???? do I ask you how you finance your new car or your house and anyhow what do you want to hear??, but I only say calmly): with money.
M: and how are you doing?

Sometimes it works to end the part about me here sometimes people are too shocked and just go on and on with questions like: why would you do that? what about your job? why do you leave such a great company? aren´t you a bit too old to study? how old is your husband? oh, you´re married? when did you get married? (almost can´t believe that I got married!!) OR they start lecturing me: don´t forget to continue to pay your pension fund, you should keep your Swiss health insurance you are used to the standard now.

Remember these are people I am not in touch with and only met in the street after not talking for a few years.... Welcome to Switzerland! I always thought only in Israel people are asking straight forward questions.

I remember when I just made Aliya, how shocked I was when a person I just met (a friend of a friend) asked me: so how much is your salary? the next question was if my parents support financially my stay in Israel and the third was how much my refrigerater costed or something like that. In Switzerland people don´t talk about their salaries, it´s a BIG secret. Anyhow, besides the salary question, you can apparently ask or comment anything here......