Waving goodbye to Zurich in style
My last week in Switzerland
Wednesday:
I no longer have a bed… My last week in Switzerland I’ll be sleeping on my own couch. I already got rid of my wardrobe so my bedroom is now completely empty. I’ve been selling and giving away a lot of my stuff the last few months. Every time friends come over for dinner or a beer, they leave with some books, games or (empty) beer glasses. The goal is to reduce everything I own to one 35 litre backpack to take on the trip and one box with other stuff to leave at my parents place. Arielle and Reda will take over my apartment next week and are taking most of my furniture so that saves me loads of work and means I don’t have to spend my last week in a completely empty apartment.
Thursday:
Last time water polo practice. I definitely need to do something to stay in shape the next year now I’ll be missing four hours a week of Flinking Around (neither floating nor sinking, my favourite position in water polo). On the plus side I’ll be smelling a lot less chlorine all day.
Friday:
My last day in the office is only half a day. Unfortunately quite some people are on holidays so it’s a bit empty in the office. I already took everyone for goodbye beers two weeks ago at “the golden place” (not actually the name of the bar, but we were never very good remembering the real names). It was a great evening with loads of beer and ridiculous discussions like we have had so many the last 4,5 years over lunch. (But at least we now know where to go when the zombie apocalypse hits.) Anyway, the last half day was for writing some last e-mails, handing in keys and laptop and a fancy lunch at the Spanish place (see the pattern here?) which includes a compulsory glass of wine.
Saturday:
Over the last few weeks I already had quite some goodbye dinners/drinks, because a surprising amount of people are not in Zurich or even Switzerland today for my goodbye party (weddings, birthdays, holidays, job interviews). I already had my last CLA roof visit overlooking the city with Mark; Vincent and Lydia made me some great pulled pork with freshly imported good Australian wine; English pub and Asian food with Pauline and Richard; Asian dinner and Swiss beers with Onno; Ernst and Katharina bribed me into dinner at their place with their beer collection; Marc and Lizzie convinced me for dinner by helping me start this website; Felix came for dinner at my place and many more. But now it was time for the final big party at my place. Loads of people showed up with loads of food and beer. It was a great evening and when everybody left, my whisky collection (eight bottles in various states of fullness) was empty. This made it easier to convince people to take some of the last stuff I needed to get rid off. With my friends gone my house really looked empty.
Sunday:
Time to start the cleaning of the apartment for the infamous Swiss landlords. Stories are told about handovers where the landlord shows up with white gloves to check if the top of your doors are clean. So much fun…
Monday:
Daniel did not have time to come to my goodbye party. Daniel did have time on Monday and Daniel does have a piloting license. Time to say goodbye to Zurich in style. Early morning we took the train to Buttwil Airport to take a 70+ year old Pipercup for a flight. As the passenger I had to sit up front which makes you feel like you are the pilot. We flew from the airport, over the Zugersee, towards the Rigi and back over Einsiedeln, lake Zurich with a perfect view over the city. I could almost see my house from up here!
Tuesday:
More cleaning! More packing! Run to the recycling dump! Run to the second hand store to dump stuff!
Wednesday:
Flat handover at 08:00. Luckily the landlord was very friendly and everything went pretty smooth. I did save out 30 CHF by just giving one screw one extra turn (my towel rack was loose). The rest of the day was spend hanging on the couch with Katharina and officially starting the hunt for a van in the Netherlands. The final-final-last goodbye party was at the airport where the bar turned out to have a pretty good beer collection. Katharina, Ernst, Elena, Marc, Lizzie, Sabine and Vincent all were there for my last Swiss beers and to wave me goodbye while I walked through security. An hour later I had left Switzerland after living there for six and a half years. Time to start a new adventure!
Song
I’m going to try to add some good music with every post that slightly relates to the topic of the post. This time: Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters.
