Finally got through all the photos!
Playing with the miniature function and looking around the viaduct in Zurich, and miniature bears in Wildpark Langenberg!
Monday, 30 August 2010
Happy birthday to me!
Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes! And a huge thanks to Bill & Austa for the amazing handwoven blue silk wrap (currently adorning the sofa in the "office" as a runner) and to himself for my new toy - a Canon Powershot SX210 IS!
It has 14x optical zoom - even more than my old Sony - and a fake "miniature mode" which seems to involve not only blurring the top and bottom of the shot to make it look like it was taken on a macro setting but also intensifies the colours. We've both been having a play with it and have got some really good shots (well, his more than mine). I'll post some pictures soon!
Other than that, the cakes went down well although most of my German class didn't show up and I made myself popular with strangers by giving them out in one of himself's office break rooms. We had a nice evening out, eating at Okara where they had tables set up outside.
On Friday I took the (late) afternoon off and headed into Zurich to get some photos. The initial plan was to go to Grossmunster and get some views down onto the city from there (particularly for the miniature mode) but I was distracted by Tram 4 which runs to Dammweg, near a viaduct I'd been reading about. So, I hopped onto that and ended up walking around an under-construction shopping arcade, getting some nice miniature shots of tram stops and generally having fun.
Saturday was a lazy at home day, but we did get out to the nearby Wildpark Langenberg, which houses deer, wolves, Alpine wildcats, wild pigs and more, although some animals didn't seem to be viewable as they're rebuilding part of the park. Photos to follow from there too!
On Sunday our washing was slightly disrupted by the dryer in the building being broken, but I headed to the Swiss-Japanese Friendship Society's softball tournament and managed to give away some more cake - this time matcha muffins and chocolate-chip blondies. The blondies are incredibly nice and stupidly calorific, so himself was given them to dispose of in the office today.
And someone in that same office had three tickets for Yamato in concert - their last night in Zurich - and was unable to go, and himself snapped up the tickets! We went with Sachiko and barely got there on time after missing a train and getting confused about where to go after coming out of the nearest train station. A car shunting another one onto the tram tracks didn't help the situation, but it turned out we were just around the corner and were able to run up to the seats in the balcony area.
Although I've seen Kodo in concert several times, their tour schedule is a bit strange this year - several cities in Israel, nothing in London although doing one night in a few other places in the UK, nothing in Ireland and nothing in Switzerland either although they're doing several dates in Germany. Yamato were full of energy, very performance oriented a bit more modern/fusion than Kodo, but all immensely strong and superb musicians. There were drums of every size, flutes, cymbals, koto and even rock shamisen. One act involved three heavily muscled men, three sets of cymbals and a "ball of sound" being thrown between them, and it had the audience in stitches. They do the same as Kodo in that they also play clapping games with the audience and involve them in various ways. Would definitely go to see them again!
It has 14x optical zoom - even more than my old Sony - and a fake "miniature mode" which seems to involve not only blurring the top and bottom of the shot to make it look like it was taken on a macro setting but also intensifies the colours. We've both been having a play with it and have got some really good shots (well, his more than mine). I'll post some pictures soon!
Other than that, the cakes went down well although most of my German class didn't show up and I made myself popular with strangers by giving them out in one of himself's office break rooms. We had a nice evening out, eating at Okara where they had tables set up outside.
On Friday I took the (late) afternoon off and headed into Zurich to get some photos. The initial plan was to go to Grossmunster and get some views down onto the city from there (particularly for the miniature mode) but I was distracted by Tram 4 which runs to Dammweg, near a viaduct I'd been reading about. So, I hopped onto that and ended up walking around an under-construction shopping arcade, getting some nice miniature shots of tram stops and generally having fun.
Saturday was a lazy at home day, but we did get out to the nearby Wildpark Langenberg, which houses deer, wolves, Alpine wildcats, wild pigs and more, although some animals didn't seem to be viewable as they're rebuilding part of the park. Photos to follow from there too!
On Sunday our washing was slightly disrupted by the dryer in the building being broken, but I headed to the Swiss-Japanese Friendship Society's softball tournament and managed to give away some more cake - this time matcha muffins and chocolate-chip blondies. The blondies are incredibly nice and stupidly calorific, so himself was given them to dispose of in the office today.
And someone in that same office had three tickets for Yamato in concert - their last night in Zurich - and was unable to go, and himself snapped up the tickets! We went with Sachiko and barely got there on time after missing a train and getting confused about where to go after coming out of the nearest train station. A car shunting another one onto the tram tracks didn't help the situation, but it turned out we were just around the corner and were able to run up to the seats in the balcony area.
Although I've seen Kodo in concert several times, their tour schedule is a bit strange this year - several cities in Israel, nothing in London although doing one night in a few other places in the UK, nothing in Ireland and nothing in Switzerland either although they're doing several dates in Germany. Yamato were full of energy, very performance oriented a bit more modern/fusion than Kodo, but all immensely strong and superb musicians. There were drums of every size, flutes, cymbals, koto and even rock shamisen. One act involved three heavily muscled men, three sets of cymbals and a "ball of sound" being thrown between them, and it had the audience in stitches. They do the same as Kodo in that they also play clapping games with the audience and involve them in various ways. Would definitely go to see them again!
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Hey there, good-lookin'
My first attempt at a "blondie"! I know you should always follow the original recipe the first time, but I used dried apple instead of walnuts and added lots of cinnamon. Smells good!
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
And on and on
Monday brought - surprise surprise - nothing from the AHV. So, it was back to calling, finding out that the woman handling my case wasn't there, and being passed to an English speaker. He told me that I needed to submit a signed copy of one of the contracts (yes, I had posted it to them last Monday and had no response, that's why I'm calling) - and that I must have Swiss clients. Now, I did translate the letter online, so it's not exactly a high quality rendition, but there are two words in brackets after the bit about Swiss clients which come out as "if available". So, the letter doesn't suggest this is a requirement.
He put me through to someone else who had even more interesting things to say. For a start, she contradicted him and said I don't need Swiss clients. (I wish there was some kind of instant penalty button for when public servant contradict each other, especially in such a short time frame.) But she also said that agency contracts don't count. The reason for this is that under Swiss law, agencies must pay the social insurance contributions of freelancers who do work for them. I've seen this before in Germany and it's a good candidate for the root cause of why all freelancers at a previous place of work there were forced to work via agencies.
(So... if this contract doesn't even count, why did you write to me - when you had already promised I would get a decision - asking for a signed copy?)
That certainly presents a small problem. Most of my clients are agencies. It's not unusual for someone like me, a relatively new and non-specialised translator. But according to this person, only direct clients qualify, and I must have at least two. I do have two (although I was so fixated on the disqualification of agency contracts that I forgot about one of them until after the call) but I don't have contracts with them. A lot of work is done quite informally - I did the work, and invoiced for it and was paid, but don't have anything you could call a contract. She also said that using my UK website/email address on my business cards counted against me. (Well, I am kind of waiting for my permit before I change everything. You could force me to create a GmbH, or not let me into the country. I'd really like to know the outcome of this first.)
Anyway, I followed up with an email to the woman handling my case expressing my gentle surprise at this news, emphasising that UK agencies do not pay my National Insurance, and pointing out that there are invoices for two direct clients in the pack I sent in (I was told invoices would be enough). Hopefully someone will get back to me about it, although my accountant was quite exasperated when I told her what had happened and suggested that we "really should insist" on my self-employment soon otherwise Migrationsamt might start taking a dim view of the whole thing.
Let's just say that my illusions of Switzerland have taken a good kicking. I'm sick of even telling people about it now.
In other news, himself was working on his tax return over the weekend and so, left partially to my own devices other than supplying tea and moral support, I finished my archiving in my pretty Ikea boxes and all my filing and accounting too. I have invested in two applications, iBank (chosen at least in part for multi-currency support) and Cashculator, to help me out with this - the former is a bookkeeping tool, the latter a forecasting/budgeting one. My main concern is am I earning enough to cover rent, internet, insurance, travel and food costs here. I am still building up my business, and it hasn't been helped by the state of limbo I'm currently in, but I need to know where I stand.
Our networked storage is offline today for some reason so, deprived of the ability to sort out backups and get at all of my past jobs to do calculate word counts for the CIoL, I accomplished my goal of clearing all my stuff off the couch in the second bedroom/office (we can actually use it as a guest bed now) and have also binned a good deal of beading magazine cutouts that I had been hoarding. There are always these stubborn little piles of things that you can't bring yourself to throw out but that have no place to live.
Himself was home sick yesterday, we had a massive thunderstorm last night and it kept threatening today, but no rain or storm so far. I'm meeting a fellow translator for lunch at a Japanese restaurant tomorrow, and will have to whip up some cake to bring to German on Thursday, as the birthday person has to supply the cake. (Maybe this tells me a lot about Germanic cultures.) We ate up some sweet potatoes as mashed potatoes last night, and that persuaded me to look at some sweet potato muffin recipes. Himself has also offered to take me out to dinner, but not sure where we'll go yet.
He put me through to someone else who had even more interesting things to say. For a start, she contradicted him and said I don't need Swiss clients. (I wish there was some kind of instant penalty button for when public servant contradict each other, especially in such a short time frame.) But she also said that agency contracts don't count. The reason for this is that under Swiss law, agencies must pay the social insurance contributions of freelancers who do work for them. I've seen this before in Germany and it's a good candidate for the root cause of why all freelancers at a previous place of work there were forced to work via agencies.
(So... if this contract doesn't even count, why did you write to me - when you had already promised I would get a decision - asking for a signed copy?)
That certainly presents a small problem. Most of my clients are agencies. It's not unusual for someone like me, a relatively new and non-specialised translator. But according to this person, only direct clients qualify, and I must have at least two. I do have two (although I was so fixated on the disqualification of agency contracts that I forgot about one of them until after the call) but I don't have contracts with them. A lot of work is done quite informally - I did the work, and invoiced for it and was paid, but don't have anything you could call a contract. She also said that using my UK website/email address on my business cards counted against me. (Well, I am kind of waiting for my permit before I change everything. You could force me to create a GmbH, or not let me into the country. I'd really like to know the outcome of this first.)
Anyway, I followed up with an email to the woman handling my case expressing my gentle surprise at this news, emphasising that UK agencies do not pay my National Insurance, and pointing out that there are invoices for two direct clients in the pack I sent in (I was told invoices would be enough). Hopefully someone will get back to me about it, although my accountant was quite exasperated when I told her what had happened and suggested that we "really should insist" on my self-employment soon otherwise Migrationsamt might start taking a dim view of the whole thing.
Let's just say that my illusions of Switzerland have taken a good kicking. I'm sick of even telling people about it now.
In other news, himself was working on his tax return over the weekend and so, left partially to my own devices other than supplying tea and moral support, I finished my archiving in my pretty Ikea boxes and all my filing and accounting too. I have invested in two applications, iBank (chosen at least in part for multi-currency support) and Cashculator, to help me out with this - the former is a bookkeeping tool, the latter a forecasting/budgeting one. My main concern is am I earning enough to cover rent, internet, insurance, travel and food costs here. I am still building up my business, and it hasn't been helped by the state of limbo I'm currently in, but I need to know where I stand.
Our networked storage is offline today for some reason so, deprived of the ability to sort out backups and get at all of my past jobs to do calculate word counts for the CIoL, I accomplished my goal of clearing all my stuff off the couch in the second bedroom/office (we can actually use it as a guest bed now) and have also binned a good deal of beading magazine cutouts that I had been hoarding. There are always these stubborn little piles of things that you can't bring yourself to throw out but that have no place to live.
Himself was home sick yesterday, we had a massive thunderstorm last night and it kept threatening today, but no rain or storm so far. I'm meeting a fellow translator for lunch at a Japanese restaurant tomorrow, and will have to whip up some cake to bring to German on Thursday, as the birthday person has to supply the cake. (Maybe this tells me a lot about Germanic cultures.) We ate up some sweet potatoes as mashed potatoes last night, and that persuaded me to look at some sweet potato muffin recipes. Himself has also offered to take me out to dinner, but not sure where we'll go yet.
Not something I normally say
I need an iron for my furoshiki! I think I got at least one of them and the two holders in Kanazawa... which was in 2008. The post-move rediscovery of stuff continues!
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Froth me!
This is what happens when you froth milk in a small saucepan. And this is the refill. Green tea latte time, while himself plays the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World game.
Morning green tea!
Himself was on a flying visit to London and stopped in at the Japan Centre food shop in Regent Street to pick up some green tea powder! This is a 100g can and a 30g ziplock packet.
No prizes for guessing what we're having for breakfast this morning - getting the steamer out now...
Monday, 16 August 2010
Stars of different varieties
On Friday night, himself decided that he really wanted to see if he could see the Perseids. So, after a cursory search online to check what direction to look in around what time, we set off up the Uetliberg to see what we could see. There was far more light pollution than we thought, with Zurich casting a dirty orange glow up quite far into the sky. It also didn't help that we were looking towards the airport, but thankfully planes and Perseids are reasonably different. We were hanging out in front of the fancy Uto Kulm hotel and restaurant, which kept its lights on quite late, and the flashing red warning lights on the telecoms tower also hampered star watching. We did see quite a few though, 10 or so, streaking across the sky. One of himself's colleagues come out to meet us, we drank our tea and coffee from our thermoses, ate the chocolate chili brownies I'd just made, and had a fun night doing not very much. We hiked down from Uetliberg with torches as the trains were only running from several stations further down where there were normal houses. It was a bit nerve-wracking in places, where the road surface gave way to gravel trails, but it wasn't too cold and the torchlight disguised gradients that we might otherwise have balked at. We got home and into bed around 3:00am thanks to Zurich's excellent night transport system.
The other source of very noticeable non-natural light was testing of the lighting rigs for Street Party, which was on on Saturday. After the expected sleep in, I went into town to see Fedde le Grand, a DJ I own a few tracks by, who was playing in Burkliplatz from 2:30 - 4:00pm. Most public transport stopped well before the city centre so I walked the rest of the way in and found a good crowd assembled just before his set was about to begin. There were plenty of people in normal jeans and t-shirts, but also a good number in wings, fishnets, cat or rabbit ears, body paint and one woman in what looked like peacock feathers and a beaded curtain. The police, who were standing around in groups of four in sedate dark blue combats and shirts with orange hi-vis jackets, were constantly being latched onto by party-goers who wanted a photo. Fedde le Grand's set was good, although I couldn't understand why ear protection was being touted so strongly. The Swiss are not, by and large, a very health and safety conscious nation (you just have to see roadworks here to figure it out - very little signage, no protection and equipment left at the side of the road over the weekend). I had problems hearing anything but the bass until someone seemed to turn up the volume partway through his slot.
It was only later that I realised why you needed ear protection - the floats, or "Love Mobiles" as they were called. Being pulled at a snail's pace through the crowd by what looked like standard hauliers, the extra-long flatbeds held anything from full R&B dance crews to scaffolding inhabited by black men in white tuxedoes and white women poledancing, to "pirate ships" with smoke cannons and dancing Jack Sparrows, to the "Dutch Invasion" truck with as many people in orange shirts as could fit, jumping up and down hard enough to shake the truck with just a sex doll in traditional costume as their gimmick. These were loud. And the bass speakers in the back were powerful enough to make you feel like you were being throttled.
I broke away from the crowds and passed by the stalls selling glittery cowboy hats, coloured wigs, silly glasses and plastic lais - I gave the food stalls a wide berth (too many tv shows about the ones in London) and instead headed to the permanent Sterner Grill near Bellevue to grab a sausage and hard roll. Then I wandered around the old town, which was almost deserted with most of the shops shut. I must remember that in case I want some nice photos next year. I hid out in Starbucks and ate the brownies I'd brought with me and waited to see if anyone else was coming in to town - the weather was going from spitting rain to starting to rain in earnest, so in the end I headed home for dinner and a check on the rain radar. I also wanted to see Eric Prydz play from 10-12pm, but decided that the state of both the weather and the crowds would make it less than enjoyable. The atmosphere was great - very friendly - but if there was an element of crushing at 3:00pm and people were drinking steadily, I wasn't sure I'd like it seven hours later. I have to face the fact that I listen to this music in my room on a pair of nice headphones. I don't necessarily do the lifestyle as well.
Sunday was quiet but reasonably productive - washing, tidying up and a really nice Mexican dinner. Well, what passes for Mexican for us.
Monday brought the letter from the AHV. I printed out the contract that had not been signed by the client and put it in an envelope to them. I wrote a cover letter, in English. I pointed out in no uncertain terms that they had known I needed a decision from them by Monday in order to supply documents to the Migrationsamt, and although they knew that was not going to arrive they did not even have the courtesy to contact me, this after leaving my application sitting around for nearly two months.
Then I deleted it and just put the standard this is the enclosure, let me know if you need anything else. My faith is sufficiently dented that I am not going to risk provoking them and having something else happen.
Monday brought a rather nasty shock in the afternoon. I was trying to get a widget to work on my Gmail page when I noticed that it had failed to download email from one of my addresses... since the middle of July. After correcting the password, I had nearly 80 emails, two of which were from potential clients. I may pay for this dearly. But I really wish that Gmail had warned me somehow, without me having to go into the Settings and see that it was failing to collect mail.
I suppose that's my lesson from all of this. Never assume that anyone else is going to tell you if something is going wrong.
After that, I headed out to Ikea. I didn't fancy anything in the fridge and needed some more hanging files and a box to keep them in. I got all that and a half-price plate of Kottbular meatballs and then headed home to file some of the huge amounts of paperwork that moving here has generated, and putting some of the paperwork that came from Reading into storage again. I appreciate that Ikea have reasonable build quality, but 12 nuts and bolts on each file box was a bit much. My fingers hurt now.
The other source of very noticeable non-natural light was testing of the lighting rigs for Street Party, which was on on Saturday. After the expected sleep in, I went into town to see Fedde le Grand, a DJ I own a few tracks by, who was playing in Burkliplatz from 2:30 - 4:00pm. Most public transport stopped well before the city centre so I walked the rest of the way in and found a good crowd assembled just before his set was about to begin. There were plenty of people in normal jeans and t-shirts, but also a good number in wings, fishnets, cat or rabbit ears, body paint and one woman in what looked like peacock feathers and a beaded curtain. The police, who were standing around in groups of four in sedate dark blue combats and shirts with orange hi-vis jackets, were constantly being latched onto by party-goers who wanted a photo. Fedde le Grand's set was good, although I couldn't understand why ear protection was being touted so strongly. The Swiss are not, by and large, a very health and safety conscious nation (you just have to see roadworks here to figure it out - very little signage, no protection and equipment left at the side of the road over the weekend). I had problems hearing anything but the bass until someone seemed to turn up the volume partway through his slot.
It was only later that I realised why you needed ear protection - the floats, or "Love Mobiles" as they were called. Being pulled at a snail's pace through the crowd by what looked like standard hauliers, the extra-long flatbeds held anything from full R&B dance crews to scaffolding inhabited by black men in white tuxedoes and white women poledancing, to "pirate ships" with smoke cannons and dancing Jack Sparrows, to the "Dutch Invasion" truck with as many people in orange shirts as could fit, jumping up and down hard enough to shake the truck with just a sex doll in traditional costume as their gimmick. These were loud. And the bass speakers in the back were powerful enough to make you feel like you were being throttled.
I broke away from the crowds and passed by the stalls selling glittery cowboy hats, coloured wigs, silly glasses and plastic lais - I gave the food stalls a wide berth (too many tv shows about the ones in London) and instead headed to the permanent Sterner Grill near Bellevue to grab a sausage and hard roll. Then I wandered around the old town, which was almost deserted with most of the shops shut. I must remember that in case I want some nice photos next year. I hid out in Starbucks and ate the brownies I'd brought with me and waited to see if anyone else was coming in to town - the weather was going from spitting rain to starting to rain in earnest, so in the end I headed home for dinner and a check on the rain radar. I also wanted to see Eric Prydz play from 10-12pm, but decided that the state of both the weather and the crowds would make it less than enjoyable. The atmosphere was great - very friendly - but if there was an element of crushing at 3:00pm and people were drinking steadily, I wasn't sure I'd like it seven hours later. I have to face the fact that I listen to this music in my room on a pair of nice headphones. I don't necessarily do the lifestyle as well.
Sunday was quiet but reasonably productive - washing, tidying up and a really nice Mexican dinner. Well, what passes for Mexican for us.
Monday brought the letter from the AHV. I printed out the contract that had not been signed by the client and put it in an envelope to them. I wrote a cover letter, in English. I pointed out in no uncertain terms that they had known I needed a decision from them by Monday in order to supply documents to the Migrationsamt, and although they knew that was not going to arrive they did not even have the courtesy to contact me, this after leaving my application sitting around for nearly two months.
Then I deleted it and just put the standard this is the enclosure, let me know if you need anything else. My faith is sufficiently dented that I am not going to risk provoking them and having something else happen.
Monday brought a rather nasty shock in the afternoon. I was trying to get a widget to work on my Gmail page when I noticed that it had failed to download email from one of my addresses... since the middle of July. After correcting the password, I had nearly 80 emails, two of which were from potential clients. I may pay for this dearly. But I really wish that Gmail had warned me somehow, without me having to go into the Settings and see that it was failing to collect mail.
I suppose that's my lesson from all of this. Never assume that anyone else is going to tell you if something is going wrong.
After that, I headed out to Ikea. I didn't fancy anything in the fridge and needed some more hanging files and a box to keep them in. I got all that and a half-price plate of Kottbular meatballs and then headed home to file some of the huge amounts of paperwork that moving here has generated, and putting some of the paperwork that came from Reading into storage again. I appreciate that Ikea have reasonable build quality, but 12 nuts and bolts on each file box was a bit much. My fingers hurt now.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Friday, 13 August 2010
Gotcha!
I thought we were going to have a good old-fashioned Friday the 13th this morning when I opened the fridge and no light came on and the contents were suspiciously covered in condensation and not that cold, but it seems to be working now. Personally, I've usually found Friday 13ths to be a little better than other days, but that may be because you start out with such low expectations for it.
One thing that has not gone right is that the promised letter from the AHV confirming my freelance status has not arrived in the post, so I will now have to apply to the Immigrationsamt for an extension to submit the documents for my residence application, which will further delay my permit. Although I did get my new PostFinance card (with my middle name spelled correctly) and my PIN number, so I can now access my online banking and use my card - himself put the remaining money from the amount I transferred to him last year in the account, so I do have something in it!
The highlight of the whole process - other than the very nice French-speaking member of staff with the same birthday as me who helped me open the account - was a letter to me-the-business, sent by registered post, informing me that I was to pay me-the-self-employed's wages into my personal account.
Other than that, PostFinance have been excellent and I now have everything including my card reader after opening the account on Saturday, and they sent a new card within 2 days after I noticed the spelling mistake. It's normally my first name people get wrong, so that was amusing in and of itself. It was a bit strange that it was only the card and the letter it came attached to though - everything else for the personal account and business account was fine.
Not much else. Weather has been very mixed, some nice sun but some massive downpours. We had a nice BBQ on Friday and the chocolate chili cake turned out very nice. The leftovers were cut into cubes and sent into himself's office where they were rapidly disposed of. I think I'll try a brownie recipe with chili next.
I've almost got my health insurance sorted. It boils down to whether insurer A will give me a rebate on gym membership, which will make them cheaper than insurer B, although A operate a phone-us-before-you-do-anything policy and B operate a family GP system - I prefer the latter, but would really like the gym rebate. Whichever way it goes, it will cost about 160 CHF a month for the compulsory basic insurance (the health service, basically) and 40 for the supplementary (treatment outside of your canton of residence, ambulance transport, search and rescue, and whatever else you'd like).
This weekend is Street Parade in Zurich, so I'm going to try to get out to Burkliplatz to see two DJs playing there. Annoyingly, one is playing at 1pm and the other at 10pm, but it should be interesting to get out and see it anyway. Assuming it doesn't tip it down again.
One thing that has not gone right is that the promised letter from the AHV confirming my freelance status has not arrived in the post, so I will now have to apply to the Immigrationsamt for an extension to submit the documents for my residence application, which will further delay my permit. Although I did get my new PostFinance card (with my middle name spelled correctly) and my PIN number, so I can now access my online banking and use my card - himself put the remaining money from the amount I transferred to him last year in the account, so I do have something in it!
The highlight of the whole process - other than the very nice French-speaking member of staff with the same birthday as me who helped me open the account - was a letter to me-the-business, sent by registered post, informing me that I was to pay me-the-self-employed's wages into my personal account.
Other than that, PostFinance have been excellent and I now have everything including my card reader after opening the account on Saturday, and they sent a new card within 2 days after I noticed the spelling mistake. It's normally my first name people get wrong, so that was amusing in and of itself. It was a bit strange that it was only the card and the letter it came attached to though - everything else for the personal account and business account was fine.
Not much else. Weather has been very mixed, some nice sun but some massive downpours. We had a nice BBQ on Friday and the chocolate chili cake turned out very nice. The leftovers were cut into cubes and sent into himself's office where they were rapidly disposed of. I think I'll try a brownie recipe with chili next.
I've almost got my health insurance sorted. It boils down to whether insurer A will give me a rebate on gym membership, which will make them cheaper than insurer B, although A operate a phone-us-before-you-do-anything policy and B operate a family GP system - I prefer the latter, but would really like the gym rebate. Whichever way it goes, it will cost about 160 CHF a month for the compulsory basic insurance (the health service, basically) and 40 for the supplementary (treatment outside of your canton of residence, ambulance transport, search and rescue, and whatever else you'd like).
This weekend is Street Parade in Zurich, so I'm going to try to get out to Burkliplatz to see two DJs playing there. Annoyingly, one is playing at 1pm and the other at 10pm, but it should be interesting to get out and see it anyway. Assuming it doesn't tip it down again.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Green tea Sunday!
In between putting on washes and getting ready for BBQ guests arriving soon, I put on a batch of green tea steamed breads and tried my first homemade green tea latte! Worked very nicely, even if I say so myself, and nothing like Starbucks'. Not sweet even with two sweeteners and an amazing taste.
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Son of Failcake
Just out of the oven, the traditional cake version with a little more chili and darker chocolate. Need to let it cool and then refridgerate it before we can see what it tastes like.
Hallelujah!
Not only are the photos of St. Gallen up, I have a bank account! Or to be precise, two Postfinance accounts, one for me and one for me as a business. Definitely one of the most productive Saturday mornings I've had in a while. Many thanks to the French-speaking member of staff at the Postfinance office in the middle of town, who did everything for me and turns out to have the same birthday! She was happy with my proof of registration in the commercial registry and the letter from the Immigrationsamt implying that my permit is being processed. When I asked if they needed a deposit, she laughed and replied "Ici, on n'est pas une banque!"
Sunday, 1 August 2010
St. Gallen!
On my way back from St. Gallen after a half day seeing the Textile Museum and the 4th European Triennialle quilt exhibition. Nicer photos to follow!
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