Sitting here at 2am in the morning in Zurich, it would be too easy to start this one way dialogue with the story of how my wife managed to choose the most expensive flat (i'm slowly converting to european lingo) in the most expensive part of town in the most expensive city in Europe. Far too easy, so I'll save that for Part Zwei...for now let's go back to last Thursday, the day we received the visa email.
When I'm anxious, nervous, excited or in general thinking too much about something I tend to stay up late and search the world for answers to questions that I didn't even know existed. The world being the internet or reading The Economist. For example, I'll start reading an article about British Parliament, then i'll stumble upon House of Commons and House of Lords, then I'll ask myself what's the difference, and then i'll read something obscure about Britain's first Civil War, and then I'll read about the Monarchy fleeing to Ireland, and then I'll find Oliver Cromwell, then Cromwell's impact on English - Irish tensions, then i'll read the difference between Britain, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. You get the picture, about two hours later I have all this worthless knowledge and developed some opinion on it all. Worthless unless I make it to Jeopardy and football, basketball, and British Parliament are categories.
On this particular Thursday, this process ended with me trying to understand Quantitative Easing and U.S Monetary Policy AND around 230am. The next thing I remember is hearing the bedroom door open. Because my wife was entering the bedroom, I thought she just made the mistake of opening the door too loudly because that's what she usually did when I stayed up too late (now that I think about it, she probably does it intentionally) and I absolutely wasn't expecting her to say, "Good news, bad news!" So at 815 am, with only 6 hours of sleep, I responded very alertly with "Huh, ok, wait huh..." And then she dropped it on me. She had received her visa and I had been left on the sidelines like Chris Farley in a game of Dodgeball. Speaking of Dodgeball, did you know that grade school's are anti-Dodgeball, something about not being inclusive. Being the supportive husband that I am, I was, how do I say this, supportive. Although I was groggy I could pick up on the nonverbal signals that something was amiss. There was an unsettled look and then all the emotions that had been building up over the past 3 months just came flowing out like Niagara Falls.
I tried to buy myself some time by getting up and brushing my teeth and walking to the kitchen to get some cereal but that just ended with me placing acne ointment on my toothbrush and getting two bowls stuck together. Pretty much got into a fight with two bowls and lost. But in that 5 minute period, I figured out what my first Zurich mission would be, to settle the wife down and be supportive.
What I quickly gathered was that her visa came as they put a rush on it because she is the primary reason for our relocating to Zurich. The Swiss have a very nice way of letting me know what my role will be for the next 12 months. My visa was still in process but should be ready in two weeks, I quickly remembered that two weeks ago, they said my wife's visa would only take 1 more week. A long story even longer, she would be able to travel to Zurich and I would have to wait for my visa to travel to Zurich. This was the answer to my question of the unsettled look. In typical me fashion, I started going through options; 1. she goes and I stay until the visas arrive, 2. We both go, I get her settled in and in 9 or days I return to the U.S to get my visa, 3. We storm the consulate and demand visas while quoting George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. #2 is tough because flying is a serious adventure for me. It's actually pretty weird, but if I fly once every week or two, then I'm fine, but if it's been say... 2.5 weeks then I'm Mr. Sweaty Nervous Palms and all I do is focus on the sound of the airplane engine and what those sounds could mean for an abrupt landing. Case in point, flew directly from Hawai'i and never closed an eye but I could tell you that flying over the Great Plains in severe turbulence makes the engines sound pretty scary.
As of 245am Zurich Standard time, I'm in Zurich, so you know what option we chose. But the whole process was a lesson in just being there for someone. For some reason in my wife's eyes, I just deposited about 1.5MM love points into the love bank which equates to pre-approval for guy's nights out and late night knowledge hunting without the law coming down on me. Now I'll just need to find some friends in Zurich to spend those love points.
Seeing the wife happy and more at ease more than offsets the pain of my pending 17 hours flying over the Atlantic, listening to the sweet sounds of a Swiss Air engine.
Part Zwei sneak peak
"You can't smile in official Swiss Photographs, you'll need to come back with different photos"
A new member of the family arrives, our NEPHEW.
Lost and Found flat in Seefeld
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