Whew!

Needless to say, it was a rough morning after a night of not much sleep.  Thank goodness for the N’espresso machine in our hotel  room!  We took the boys down to a café for some breakfast and got ready for a crazy day…

10am – Dave and Nathan went to pick up our rental car.  We got a VW Sharan which is perfect since it’s the car we’re thinking we’ll get to have here (Euro minivan)

10:45 – Meeting at the apartment for a walk through and to get the keys.  We were late since we hadn't figured on Dave needing to stay downstairs with the car and me needing to get down to him with two car seats, a busy 3 year old, and a baby in a stroller.  We made it, but it wasn't pretty!  The walk through went well and the boys were very excited about the new apartment!  After the way the previous night went, we decided we would absolutely go ahead and get moved in so we could all sleep in our own rooms tonight.

Here's our new house - we are renting the first and second floors, which have a yard off to the side.  The basement has a studio apartment, and the third floor is another apartment.  We're thrilled to have such a great place and are excited to get settled.

12pm – Registration appointment.  We all had to go with our Realtor/Relo specialist Nicola to get registered.  This involved some paperwork, showing our birth certificates, marriage certificate, passports, visas, lease, etc.  Nicola took care of it all, we just had to be there, thank goodness!  But, of course, this isn't the end of the registration process…next we are given an appointment time where they will take bio-metrics of all of us, and then they’ll send us our registration cards.  This wouldn't be a big deal except that there are a number of things you cannot do here until you have your registration card – you can’t open a bank account (although Merck has a work around for this), get a cell phone plan, etc.

1:30 – Furniture delivery.  We grabbed quick sandwiches to eat on the floor of our empty apartment, and the rental furniture that Merck provides (until our shipment arrives) was loaded in.  It’s great, basic furniture that will get us through for the 6-8 weeks – kitchen dishes, pans, utensils, etc; dining room table & chairs; sofa, coffee table, TV & DVD player; beds, dressers, hanging rods for bedrooms; and a crib, changing table, and high chair for the baby. 

4:00 – Appointment at the bank to open our account.  Merck has a relationship with UBS that allowed us to bring a piece of paper from the morning’s registration (letting them know we've registered but haven’t received our cards yet) and open up bank accounts.  We were running late (again, NOT good here in Switzerland where everything runs ON TIME), but aside from antsy kids who were done sitting through appointments (can you blame them?), everything went smoothly.  We had told the furniture people that we’d be back in about an hour, but by the time the appointment was done and we got back it was 6:30.  Thankfully they had finished up and left rather than sitting waiting for us.

And then we had our first “DOH” moment.  We had NOTHING at the apartment – no food, no toilet paper, nothing – and now it was past 6:30 so all of the grocery stores except for the one at the train station had closed.  Here in Luzern, everything closes at 6:30 during the week and 4:00 on Saturdays, except for on Thursdays, which are “late shopping nights” when stores stay open until 8:00.  There is almost nothing open on Sundays.

So exhausted and hungry, we made our way back to the train station, and gave into Burger King for dinner (ack!).  Then a quick trip through the Coop (grocery store) for some basics and we were headed home. 

We got back, got all the beds made, and finally were ready to get the kids to bed.  It was almost 10:00 and was a school night for Nathan – the night before his first day of Kindergarten!!!

Whew!  Glad that day is done!