Dear Family & Friends,
We hope this update finds you well. The past few months were filled with some surprises - some wonderful and others upsetting. On the morning of January 5, our last day in the US, we woke up early and found that we had an email from Chris’s parents. We were supposed to call them right away because Chris’s sister’s baby was on its way and it was 5 weeks early. Andrew Joseph Schneider arrived early that morning at 19.5 inches long and a healthy 5 lbs. 14 oz.!!! Just before boarding the plane to return to Zurich, Chris got to wish Laura well and hear that they were doing well. Living so far from family becomes very apparent at times like these. It was hard to still be in the US, but on our way to the airport and not have a chance to see the newborn. Luckily in this day and age, there are webcams, video cameras, and digital cameras that all allow us to see our families quite often.
Then, as many of you know, Chris’s dad was the bus driver in a school bus accident in Cottonwood in the middle of February. A van ran through a stop sign and barreled into the bus causing a terrible accident. There were many kids that were injured and four kids passed away in the accident. Two of the more seriously injured were students Matt and Derek. We are happy to report both of them are back in school full-time and doing very well. They are both still wearing their back braces, but only during school hours when they have to sit a lot. They have doctor appointments
within the next couple of weeks, when they will get the official word
on if they can participant in athletic activities next year. We want to thank you for all the prayers, love, and encouragement our family and we received during those days and weeks following the accident. Since Cottonwood is a town of only 1,100 residents, something like this really touches everyone in the community. Most people affected have had great strength and have made steps forward to recover and get back to daily life. It was uplifting to receive messages that many of you were thinking about our family and everybody impacted.
Chris has a Swiss colleague, Kathrin, who participated in a high school foreign exchange program to Iowa when she was younger. Since they met, they have compared stories about their perceptions of the differences in their country’s traditions. Kathrin could relate to Cottonwood’s tragedy because when she was on her exchange program, her host family was impacted by a loss in a hometown tragedy as well. Kathrin had never imagined that neighbors and people they didn’t know too well would show such support. In Switzerland, there is a lot more privacy and not much open communication about personal lives. She remembered from her time in Iowa that many people brought over food and “cookie-bars.” So many, in fact, that they couldn’t eat them all. This was very similar to the thousands of cupcakes that were made by the Cottonwood community and served after the funerals. It is times like these that Chris is very happy to have grown up in a small, supportive, and close-knit community.
Speaking of foreign exchanges, as concerns continue over the state of the US economy and the lingering credit crunch, the exchange rate between the Swiss Franc is now even with the US Dollar. Zurich has now become an extremely-super expensive place to live (up from just super expensive last year). Since we moved in January 2006, the exchange rate has fallen 30%, (it was 1.30 the day we moved to 1.00 today). While the math has become much easier, it has taken some time to get used to, as we have recently paid $60 for 3 small bottles of contact solution and $52.50 for one pound of US beef* – at a grocery store! On the positive side, Chris keeps reminding Steve, that since she is paid in Swiss Francs, she therefore receives a raise every week! However, Steve states that is only the case if we have any Francs left at the end of the month to convert into greenbacks! Regardless, we will be taking advantage of the cheap dollar on our next trip back by cramming our suitcases full of US goods. Hopefully, this will help to stimulate the US economy!
When we can no longer handle listening to Swiss German, we occasionally go to the movies. The nice thing about movies in Zurich is the theaters play the movies in the original language, which is almost always in English (proof that people do understand English and learning German is not necessary!), with German and French subtitles. (The not so nice thing is a ticket now costs $18, if you are keeping track at home)! A friend of ours recommended the movie Juno, a Minnesota-based film about a high school student (Juno) who discovers she is pregnant. We decided to go watch it and we must say it was a really good and funny movie. We highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it yet. The title character is a sharp-tongued teenager and there are lots of English slang and references to Minnesota. We were laughing a lot, but no one else was. However, at intermission (yes, a 15-minute break in order to sell more concessions – just wait, we are sure it will be coming to the US before too long), we were discussing that we were the only ones laughing and realized that the non-native English speakers probably didn’t understand all the slang, humor, and MN references. (Plus, from Steve’s experience in the humorous speech contests, it takes a lot to make the Swiss laugh!) After the intermission, the humor and our laughter continued and the Swiss were silent, except for one part where Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), a good-hearted career woman longing for a baby to adopt, is tired of waiting until her husband Mark (Jason Bateman) outgrows his youthful rock-star fantasy and says; “If I have to wait for you to be Kurt Cobain, I’m never gonna be a mother.” Well, we didn’t think that was appropriate to laugh at, but a Swiss person yelled out in laughter and says “Ha-ha, Kurt Cobain, ha-ha!”
Even though we have media these days to allow news and entertainment to reach all corners of the earth, technology still has its limits. There is nothing like giving a hug or spending time together with loved ones. That is why we are really looking forward to taking a trip home to Minnesota and North Dakota to see our families and friends at the end of April. We are also looking forward to having some visitors in Zurich over the summer months.
For now the springtime is really beautiful in Zurich; enjoy some pictures of the new life sprouting up! We hope your spring is filled with love, good health and happiness as well!
With love from Switzerland,
Steve & Chris
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* Chris now realizes the steak is priced per 100 grams instead of per pound. Swiss beef is cheaper, but not as good and less than half the cost! Steve can’t complain – he continues to feel great as the diet continues to go well and Chris has been amazing at creating tasty new meals.
