{"id":264,"date":"2009-10-03T09:51:34","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T14:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2009-10-03T11:51:46","modified_gmt":"2009-10-03T16:51:46","slug":"first-week-in-winterthur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/?p=264","title":{"rendered":"First week in Winterthur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I’ve been in Winterthur for about four days now and am ready to pass judgment! Okay, not quite ready, but since first impressions are so important I thought I would share some of what I have seen.<\/p>\n

First impressions start from the moment you walk off the airplane…\u00a0 I arrived in Z\u00fcrich at about 8 in the morning and the airport was surprisingly small.\u00a0 I went through immigration and was surprised to have my passport looked at, but not checked!\u00a0 The guard simply flipped to the first empty page, hit it with a stamp and said “bye”.\u00a0 Then I arrived at customs, which consisted of two unmanned doors.\u00a0 One was green and said “Nothing to declare” and the other was normal looking and said…nothing at all.\u00a0 So I walked through the green door and into the airport lobby.<\/p>\n

Frau F\u00fcrst, my contact here, was waiting for me and took me in her car to my new home, the so called “Africana” student hostel.\u00a0 Africana is in the old town (here is the map<\/a> – new window) surrounded mostly by a kind of pseudo-pedestrian area.\u00a0 There are cars allowed, but you would have to drive at about 1 kmh since there are people and bikes everywhere<\/em>.\u00a0 The location of the hostel is great, but the first thing that really strikes you as you look at it is the fact that it is covered in scaffolding…\u00a0 It is currently under external renovation and you can’t actually even see it.<\/p>\n

Upon entering Africana, you realize why deposits for apartments are a good thing!\u00a0 This is a no-deposit, pay as you go accommodation, and it shows.\u00a0 The floors are dirty, the paint is peeling, and the bathrooms smell like mold.\u00a0 My room is actually okay, it’s large and has a window facing the front street, but the rest of the place leaves a bit to be desired.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a> My room in Africana<\/p>\n

\"Going<\/a> Going to the kitchen… \"Kitchen<\/a> A kitchen for 10!<\/em> Note the hole in the ceiling…<\/p>\n

My first couple of days were spent in kind of a shock.\u00a0 There seemed to be no life in the building, student’s don’t really cook much and all of the doors were shut and unmarked.\u00a0 However, I’ve started to meet people here and am finding that I work with about half of them and the other half are graduate students in Z\u00fcrich, three or four of which are studying music – and you know it from anywhere in the building.\u00a0 People are now starting to come out of the woodwork, a guy named Simon from Wales, a girl named Nadege from France and Daniel from Germany are just a few.<\/p>\n

The nationalities represented here are diverse.\u00a0 Conversations are in French, Italian, Spanish, German, and rarely English. Just about everyone knows some English and those that I have met are very courteous ans switch when I come in the room, although it is often with a sigh.\u00a0 Motivating me to at least try and understand the German that everyone also speaks.<\/p>\n

Now that I’m starting to get my bearings and get out of the house, I have started to discover my surroundings.\u00a0 The neighborhood here is really great.\u00a0 All the shops I need are within about 5 minutes walk, work is only 20 minutes away by foot, and the train\/bus station is about 5 minutes away too.\u00a0 There are restaurants and coffee shops everywhere and it’s always a hub of activity.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a> My neighborhood at night.<\/p>\n

\"Shopping<\/a> Shopping in central Winterthur.<\/p>\n

\"Central<\/a> Parking in central Winterthur.<\/p>\n

I have only had two days at work, but will fill you all in on that soon.\u00a0 For now, auf Wiedersehen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I’ve been in Winterthur for about four days now and am ready to pass judgment! Okay, not quite ready, but since first impressions are so important I thought I would share some of what I have seen. First impressions start from the moment you walk off the airplane…\u00a0 I arrived in Z\u00fcrich at about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}