Mission accomplished

We have a new freezer! As I said earlier the Swiss freezers are VERY small and can hardly have enough space for weekly necessities. I was searching for a freezer for a while now here in Switzerland as well as in Germany and I am shamed to admit but we ended up getting it from Germany again. Not only the price is almost the half what we would pay here but also I have not found a decent one that would be suitable.
After checking it online I found a couple I liked in Germany, however the problem was that they did not carry them in an actual shop only online. This is a problem when you want to get the VAT back as well as ordering it to a German address (which is possible) and end up paying for that service as well. Finally after spending some time searching, I found a store called FLÖSCH which has several shops even close to the Swiss border. Since the freezer is 'only' 65 l we were able to put it in the back of the car and carry it with ourselves. Now I am one happy person. No more food falling out on my leg.

I desperately need....

... a small freezer. Here is the thing. The average flat in Switzerland comes with a small fridge and a built in freezer (around 5 liter!!), which is ridiculously small even if you are alone but if you consider this space for a family it's even more ridiculous. Until now there were other household items that needed to be purchased so I did not pay too much attention to this subject. Lately however as our flat started to turn into a real flat with furniture there is more time to figure out what else we need. And not only that. We lately started to pop left over fruit in the freezer to save it for smoothies or ice cream and our tiny little freezer filled up quickly and I cannot take anymore the small frozen packages landing on my feet every time I open the freezer. It's so annoying! Even more if you consider that supermarkets close at 6:30 pm (and 4 pm on Sat, everything is closed on Sun) which means you cannot just run down and buy what you need. I am not sure how the Swiss do it, probably they go out every other day to buy what they need but we are in a serious need for a freezer. That's gonna be on my list for the upcoming weeks that's for sure.

HUG factory

And here we go again. After visiting the Kambly cookie factory back in November we decided to check out another one. One of the factories of HUG is maybe a half an hour drive from us which made it an ideal destination for a rainy afternoon visit. Compared to the Kambly one it's definitely much smaller but they still have a good variety. You can try out all the products and buy bigger packages of goodies than in a supermarket. You can also try out and purchase a few test product, which is also fun. While Kambly is a place to spend almost a day, this HUG factory store is mainly to have a quick overview of their products, try them and leave. It offers a different experience than the Kambly one but definitely worth a visit.
Sorry, no pictures this time.

Around Central Switzerland

We have been on a mission to check out places in Central Switzerland. We visited a couple of small towns/villages around Luzern. Here are a couple of pictures how they look like.

It's still cherry time

A couple of weeks ago we picked up some cherries in Zug. Afterwards we went on a holiday and was busy with daily life but I was longing for some more cherries. During the weekend we went to the same farm to see whether the season is still on. And it was on! Best cherries ever...

The seller told us though that that's the last weekend they are selling because the cherry season is over in a day or two. Until next year then!

Treat of the day

Treat of the season to be precise. Since tomatoes are in and they actually have taste, we got into the habit of making some kind of gazpacho almost daily. Some kind of gazpacho because I omit the bread and not measuring the ingredients to achieve the real Spanish taste.
After blending the ingredients it is poured into small jars and can be kept in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.

The recipe is simple: 5 tomatoes (I cut them into chunks), a quarter of green bell pepper, a half of a small onion, some cucumber peeled, salt, pepper and some olive oil. Blend everything together using a mixer. You can use less/more tomatoes, cucumbers or anything. Add them slowly and work out the taste you like the most. We usually like having a more tomato flavor with less olive oil.

Surprising stuffs in Switzerland - flyers 2

I mentioned some time ago that there are a few very strange flyers are circulating in the country and gets into our mailbox from time to time. Last week it was one about the Swiss Airforce.

Treat of the day

It's cherry time in Switzerland! Although the weather is not mediterranean in Switzerland, there are plenty of fruits available during summer and believe me it's worth waiting for them. At the beginning of summer they come from Italy or Spain. Canton Zug is famous of its cherries, cherry liquor and cake. We bought some cherries over the weekend and it was AMAZING. Probably the best I have ever eaten. Ripe, crunchy, sweet.

Food lately

This is how life look like food vise lately.

We put our hands on some very fresh ink fish that we cut into strips and fry it in a pan with olive oil. When it was done we added a mixture of garlic, parsley and olive oil plus some lemon juice.

These are two trouts (forelle in German) baked in the oven with lemon and thyme. The trouts were actually from the Black Forest (Schwarzwald).

A super easy and yummy cherry pie.

Results of the last vote

A couple of weeks ago there was a nationwide voting, which I already mentioned in one of my previous posts. The outcome for the mentioned topic got an overwhelmingly large amount of support.
Other topics included the introduction of a minimum wage of 4000 Chf (around 4400 USD), which is failed to over win the majority. As did the one for purchasing new air force planes for defense. And why would not it? Buying new planes when the country is defended only during office hours? It seems that would not make sense for the Swiss.

View lately

Spring arrived to Central Switzerland maybe two weeks ago. It was pretty cold before but suddenly the weather turned into sunny with a 20-25 degrees although there is getting cold and rainy some days with a storm here and there. The snow melted in most of the mountains and suddenly in one of the mornings they were covered again.
Here are a couple of pics of the view recently.

Shopping in Switzerland

I have to admit we regularly do grocery shopping in Germany and/or if we go to Italy or France for a weekend trip we do some grocery shopping there. Most of the products, to be precise, everything is much more expensive here than at the other side of the border but there are certain things we only buy Swiss mainly because the quality. We do buy Swiss meat, milk and locally grown vegetables and fruits whenever it's possible. We do not eat a lot of meat but since we moved here the amount certainly went up compared to the Netherlands. Although prices are INSANE here, we mostly would prefer the Swiss one.
One of the other expensive products include ice cream and creme fraiche.

As a comparison:
Chicken breast 1 kg:
CH: 33 Chf, which is about 27 EUR
Germany: 7 EUR


Haagen Dazs ice cream 500 ml:
CH: 9.95 Chf, which is about 8 EUR
Germany: 4.99 EUR

Creme fraiche 200 ml:
CH: 2.20 Chf, which is about 2 EUR
Germany: 59 cents

There are branded products we would only buy in Germany and that would include toiletries and other household items. Here is an example:

Nive sunscreen 200 ml:
CH: 25.40 Chf, which is about 20 EUR
Germany: 8.45 EUR

A treat

This was my first Easter in Switzerland and as such I was curious what kind of specialties hold this country. One of them was this pastry formed into a bunny holding a stick of Swiss chocolate. The flavor and texture is close to the French brioche but a bit heavier in texture and probably sweeter. The chocolate stick is way too much though, but luckily it's not baked into the bunny, so stays optional to eat it or not. Overall, it's a nice breakfast pastry but would rather indulge in strictly occasionally otherwise it can easily become a staple for breakfast, which we all know not a healthy option.
I bought it in Migros, one of the Swiss supermarket chains.

Weekend trip

Last weekend we got ourselves together and went down to Lugano and Como. It's about a 2-2,5 hour drive from central Switzerland, which makes it an ideal short weekend gateway. The weather is getting warmer here around Luzern but still there are days when although there is some sun, it's not yet warm enough. We really wanted to have some nice sunny and warm weather and turned out we can get it by traveling only a couple of hours by car. It sounds funny, but that's true. As you are driving down and you cross the Gotthard Tunnel (which requires a separate blog post), the climate instantly changes. It's not the mountain air anymore but more mediterranean with palm trees. Yes, it's possible...palm trees in Switzerland. Here is a short 'you need to know about Switzerland': the country has more than one official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh. The latter is mainly spoken in one canton but the rest is dominating in different regions of the country. The West side is mainly French, the middle/north/east part is German, the South is Italian. The different languages bring different traditions, food and culture too. For example in the Italian part there is Italian gelato (yumm), while in the French side you can get things more close to the French traditions. 

So, first, we stopped at Lake Lugano, which is still in Switzerland; got there around 11 am, had breakfast/lunch by the lake under the Sun, ate plenty of ice cream and were hanging around by the lake during the afternoon. I would recommend trying out a couple of ice cream (gelato) places in the city to decide which one is your favorite;-)

In the evening we went to find our hotel, which located up in the hills near the lake, with a lovely garden and view.

Defending the country

Switzerland takes many things seriously, including defending itself and its people. They not only testing the sirens once in a while but they regularly monitoring their airspace. Well, to be honest, they actually kind of do it during office hours and weekdays only. Yes, that's right. Twice a day the planes of the Swiss Air Force take off and go around above the country but finish their work when everyone else does and obviously (?) they are off during the weekends.
The first time I heard the planes I thought there is a plane that was actually crushing into our apartment. It's unbelievably loud as they prepare for landing.
Of course they monitor the country out of office hours from the ground but they do not have planes ready to take off in case something happens.
The next nationwide voting in May includes a question about whether or not Switzerland should buy 22 new fighter jets from Sweden costing billions of franks.

Recycling update

Shortly after we moved to Switzerland, I faced with the question of recycling basically everything. I wrote about this before. Since then I figured out how to create a corner, which looks good. Now, obviously I am not there yet as I could not manage to put my hands on the baskets I want but we made some small progress. There are a couple of IKEA bins in the same size for carton, paper and metal tins, and I still collect the plastic ones in a bag. Besides, there are two small baskets for batteries, small electrical things, wood, and milk bottles.
This is how the small progress look like and hoping to get a nice big basket shortly; something like this or that, in which I can partially place some of the IKEA holders.

Another nationwide vote

After the nationwide vote in February (topics included immigration cap), another vote is coming up in May. This time one of the topics is whether or not ban convicted child abusers from working with kids. Apparently now that's not the case and there were precedents in the past, where convicted abusers cold go back teaching after their sentence was over. I am just hoping this initiative will pass. There has to be some common sense...

A treat

As I previously mentioned I am not into bar chocolates but since I am in Switzerland I feel I am obliged to try those out. I more into a nice pastry than a chocolate bar but I decided to try out the bars so I can show you what's on offer here.
This time I tried 'Japonais' from Frey. Actually, I really liked this one although it's a milk chocolate. If it comes to chocolate my choice is dark chocolate but this Japonais one might make me eat milk chocolate more often.
It has small pieces of japoinais pastry, hence the name. Japonais is a French word for meringues that contain nut and apparently nothing to do with the fact that the word means Japanese in French. You can read more about japonais here.
Back to the point: the chocolate is great, not too sweet although it's milk chocolate and contains small pieces of crunchy nutty meringues. I really liked it.

(picture is from here)

 This is how the actual chocolate looks like.

Zugersee

As we are settling down slowly and purchasing almost all furniture we have some time to discover the country.
On Sunday we visited Zugersee (Lake Zug). It was sunny and relatively warm and we had a great time. The lake is gorgeous and crystal clear as almost all lakes and rivers in Switzerland. Besides the lake there is a small castle, which worth a visit too.

Eating out

During the weekend we went to Konstanz, Germany to do some shopping and meet some of our friends. It's a common practice (mainly among non-Swiss) doing some shopping, going to the hairdresser etc in Germany, France or Italy depending on which country you live close by. As grocery prices and services being half or third of the Swiss price it's not surprise. As I mentioned before, Swiss in general are very patriotic and prefer Swiss products but non-Swiss tend to be more price conscious and seek more variety.
So, on Saturday besides running some errands, we met some of our friends there and ate out in a Greek restaurant. The place called Taverne Pan and it is in the centre of the city. Great place! The food was very nice and fresh. The Taverne was a bit crowded but we still managed to get a table as we arrived around 5 pm. Make reservations in advance or arrive early though during the weekend.

 
  (picture is from here)


I had calamari with rice and lemon sauce, tzatziki, salad, while my husband had lamb with veggies and salad, all is very tasty. We will be back soon to try out some more things. The price is great too, we paid about 30 Eur including drinks and coffee.
I did not find the website of the place but here is the menu in case you speak some German.

The ultimate problem

 Before I moved to Switzerland I had thought that the country is super clean and its people are super duper health conscious ones. This theory failed when I came to Switzerland for a visit a year and a half ago and realized that a LOT of people are smoking in the streets, stations and basically everywhere. I was previously in Switzerland maybe 15 years ago so I did not remember too much and definitely did not remember about the smoke.
Living in the Netherlands spoil me from this point of view. Not so many people were smoking (minus the weed obviously) and on the stations there are designated areas where it's allowed. To be fair, there were a couple of occasions when I run into someone who was smoking when biking which was pretty annoying but other than that it was OK.
Here it's a different story. Apparently smoking is not allowed in most of the bars, although there are still a few where it is and the smoking areas in general are not very designated. When I first landed in Zurich and got out of the terminal, I almost got a shock when I smelt the smoke.
Before anyone would think it's the usual whining about the smokers vs non-smokers, I think it's fair to say that I am basically allergic to tobacco smoke (among others such as perfumes) and without judgement it's only my opinion.

A treat

Before Christmas we visited the Lindt Chocolate factory outlet and picked up a lot of things mainly for presents. We only got one chocolate bar for us to try though. A couple of days ago I found it in the cupboard and decided it was time to open it.

As I mentioned before I am not a huge fan of Lindt chocolate in general but this seemed interesting enough to buy it.
Well, it turned out to be interesting enough. Do not expect any chocolate favor you know since it's missing sugar and many other additives that 'normal' chocolate bars include consequently it's not sweet but has a rather intense cocoa bean flavor. My husband loved, me, not too much but worth trying once.

Today's view

Sirene testing season

Any kind of defense is taken seriously in Switzerland. Among others there are sirens for water and general alert signals and they are tested regularly.
It happened last week when I heard the sirens outside. They were not the regular police, ambulance or any kind of sirens so I figured there must be something else going on. As I looked outside and no one is running anywhere I figured I would just stay where I am and wait. It was over in a minute or two. Afterwards I googled what was going on and indeed, that was a test. Apparently there were TV and radio announcements about that but as we do not own a TV nor listen to the radio we missed the announcements. I usually read the local newspaper to stay informed but obviously I missed this one. Oh, and there is another test coming this Wed.
More information about the testing can be found here and here.

Cornbread

It started months ago when I laid my eye on a cornbread recipe. I have never made a cornbread before for some reason nor I tasted any but I always wanted to try. Last week I decided to make one and I remembered there is some corn flour in the cupboard. Well, I was wrong. When I was all set up to start it turned out the cornflour was in fact semolina. I did not give up, so when I went to the store I grabbed some and was all ready.

I made one yesterday using the following recipe and adapted slightly.
112 g butter
200 g cornmeal
130 g all purpose flour
2 tablespoon cane sugar
1 and a half teaspoon baking powder
2,4 dl cream
3 eggs
pinch of salt

The preparation is the same as described in the recipe.

It turned out to be moist and delicious. I wanted to take a few pictures pictures but my husband liked it so much there is almost nothing left and believe me it was not a small pan. That's the last piece basically I managed to save for the picture.

Cost of living 1

I have not touched one of the most important questions when it comes to Switzerland. Prices and the cost of living in the country. Well, as for a start, let me just say it's crazy expensive. Wherever you live you think that Switzerland is expensive think twice. Switzerland in reality is probably two times more expensive what you think.
I will post more on this topic in the future but let me just start with a slight mistake we made without us knowing about. We got a mail from one of the cantonal offices about our insurance and since we have a new address which they did not know about they charged us extra 30 CHF (30$ or 25 EUR) for 'finding' it out. Obviously we forgot to tell that specific dept. that we have a new address but that's a cantonal office that should have our address since it's registered there.. confusing.

Current topic - Immigration

Although it's winter time things are heating up in Switzerland. The hottest topic right now is immigration of course. This is a topic that is always around but this year it's going to be even more important. One way or another it's a very sensitive one to everyone. Immigrants along with a group of Swiss obviously defend their position why immigration is good while the other group basically wants to put an end of it. The latter group says that immigration in the form as it exists now needs to be ended because it's ruining the country.
Roads are overcrowded, rent is rocket high and the country is loosing land to new developments.
As I mentioned in my previous post there will be a voting in a couple of weeks whether or not Switzerland should restrict immigration and introduce quota for every country including the European Union countries.
Moreover, this topic is even more interesting if we consider that if Switzerland restricts free movement of people it would mean to an end to many bilateral agreements between the EU and them. 
I am curious to see how it turns out.

Understanding the Swiss

To understand what Swiss people are about one of the most important things is to understand how their country (and political system) operates.
Switzerland is not an ordinary country. Swiss people like deciding about their own future and their country's. In practice this means that they actually decide what would happen in their country. That's part of the direct democracy, the system they are running over here. Basically citizens directly vote on anything that would affect their country. Does anyone (and that does not mean the government!) want to increase the yearly highway fee? They cannot unless the citizens vote with yes. And that's about every single thing.. Anyone who has enough signature collected (not sure about the number exactly but want to raise it in the future) for an initiative  can put it up for a vote and citizens do have to vote about it nationwide. Consequently, there are a LOT of voting going around here but maximum 'only' four nationwide each year.
The next one is coming up in February on several topics including immigration and who is paying for the bill in case of an abortion. Yes, that's a unique country indeed.

Rent in Switzerland

A couple of weeks ago we got a letter from our 'landlord' (which is not a private person but an association) that the rent is changing from 2014. I did not write 'increase' on purpose because it will actually decrease. Hm..strange country, isn't it? (To be fair, the decrease is about 20 CHF but still.)

Happy 2014!