Rollercoaster

Well, I can't keep titling the posts "I'm not dead".

Had a blissful Easter weekend in Zurich, arriving late on Thursday night to meet up with himself at the apartment he's subletting while a colleague is seconded to the US. On Friday we walked down to the lake and around the old town, through some beautiful gardens and down the west side of the lake. Saturday was spent in Horgen, where himself is flat-hunting, and we saw one possible place - the ground floor of a 3 storey house, gorgeous but out of our price range. I swear the current tenants were a German/Swiss version of a certain couple we know in north Wales.

Sunday was spent at the zoo, with an additional adventure on the way there as we had a ticket check on the tram and after we'd happily handed over out tickets were told they were the wrong ones. The inspector warned us there is a 80 CHF fine, then took us off at the next stop to buy the correct tickets instead of charging us. The ticket machine didn't take notes. We didn't have change. He didn't have change. His colleague didn't have change. He told us to keep going on our wrong tickets, break notes at the zoo and get the right ones back.

The zoo is quite large, but did suffer from a bit of that "animals in a cage" feeling. The elephant keepers had batons, which I haven't seen before. Mind you, one of the elephants took it off the keeper while he was hosing them down and he just put his hand out and they gave it back. There's also a huge tropical dome, which is amazing but very uncomfortable with the high humidity. We had coffee and cake and wandered home.

Monday wasn't quite as hot as the other near-sunburn days, so we went out on the lake. It was billed as a cruise, but was more like a modified ferry journey. This suited us, as we wanted to look at potential neighbourhoods from the water. Some were added to the list as a result of being able to see how built-up or not they were.

Got back into work on Tuesday glowing (mentally and physically). I knew there would be some kind of comedown, but was not expecting to be called into a room with a number of other people to be told that our end client was terminating our agency. The rest of the week was spent in a blind panic and deep uncertainty about whether we could - let alone would - continue beyond the end of April when the termination took effect. Many hours were lost meeting new potential agencies and discussing our situation, during which some unsettling facts were discovered.

The weekend was spent checking on tax and residency laws, reading sample contracts and constantly on phone and messenger to each other. This week was more of the same, although I started skipping the agency meetings and tried to concentrate on getting some work done. Old rumours ran riot, new ones abounded and as the week dragged on with no information from the end client, people started to make plans.

In a wonderful demonstration of their unique modus operandi, an email with a request to speak to all of us individually went around at 5:50pm on Friday, when most people had gone home. I was in work until 8:00pm waiting to talk to HR and did get some questions answered, but not all of them and now, with four days to go, I still have no contract to sign. But it looks like there can be one, although all this was worked out by my good self, instead of the end client who caused the problem.

After talking to himself about the expenses involved in moving to Zurich, I've decided to stay on if possible. A few things will need to be worked out, but hopefully it will be possible. The other option would be just not taking the return flight after the May bank holiday weekend (which is on Friday 1 May here). Looking forward to going back for a few days for a break, even if it is to close up the flat for decoration.

Other good news: himself has had an offer on a flat - in one of the new areas we started looking in after Easter, excellent to get to work, smaller than he really wants, but about the same size as our current one and renting is incredibly expensive - and I got written confirmation from the Finanzamt that they don't want any money from me.

Reality check: I am applying for an extension for my MA. I'm just nowhere near far enough with my translation to be ready in 6 weeks, even with 2 weeks off. I keep putting off sending in the form, which I think shows how much I hate doing it. But this is one thing I can't afford to get wrong, especially after the poor mark on my last essay.

So, one more (short) week of uncertainty, and then hopefully back to business as usual.