El Andalous - Aida

Aida in the Backdrop of Hatshepsut's Temple

In my head, my return to Egypt signaled a year of sitting back, relaxing and taking stock of how my finances would last. It’s been a while since I’ve had the luxury of not working and I thought I’d not do much at first and wait until I got a bit bored before I started to plan anything.

However, it turned out that my life had other ideas in store for me.

I was excited to hear that Aida was showing in Luxor with orchestra and singers coming in from abroad to perform it in the setting of Hatshepsut’s temple. Wow. How often in your life do you get to see something like that?

Tickets were expensive (cheapest was 150 USD), but it turned out that this included your return travel to Luxor from Hurghada, a night and breakfast in a 5-star hotel, and transport to the opera and back from the hotel. Suddenly, it didn’t seem quite so bad.

I tried to persuade some friends to come over and see it with me, but I didn’t get anyone taking me up on the idea. In the end, I decided I’d just go on my own, although fortunately, it transpired that Horst and Hilde were also planning on going, so I wasn’t alone after all.

Fox Travel, who were organizing it, at first seemed very efficient. They came to Sahl Hasheesh to collect our payment since for some reason they couldn’t supply an IBAN number for us to transfer money directly. Well, they tried, but it didn’t work as my bank wouldn’t recognize it as a valid code. Nothing is straightforward over here.

However, they came to collect the money and to give us our tickets, so it all went well. Nevertheless, after that, it was much more of a struggle. I emailed them to ask when they’d be picking us up and whether they could give us a full itinerary (eg, time of arrival, time of departure to opera, end of opera, time of departure to return, etc). They said they’d pick us up at 8am (but didn’t say where) and didn’t answer any of the other questions.

We waited at 8am on the day in question at El Andalous, assuming pick up must be from our residence. The bus was a little late, but not too badly so, considering this is Egypt. It was just a small minibus and we picked up other people from Sahl Hasheesh who were also going (Azzurra, Palm Beach, and Ocean Breeze buildings). We were then informed that we would change bus just on the border of Sahl Hasheesh. This was a bit surprising and we assumed we were joining a larger crowd in a larger bus that had come from Hurghada. But no, we transferred to another minibus with a different driver and our guide left us.

At around 2pm, we arrived in Luxor. We were staying in the Steigenberger, which was a wonderful hotel, and a band of men played to us as we arrived and entered the building. There was some kind of confusion over our booking when we arrived and the Steigenberger had to phone the agency to clarify. Consequently, we had to sit round and wait. We still didn’t have an itinerary, so we asked at what time we needed to meet for the bus to take us to Aida, but nobody was able to give us any information.

Eventually, we made it to our lovely rooms, but we still didn’t know what time we were going to be picked up. We all sat round for an hour while the agency tried to find out. The view was lovely and the bar was open, but it was still very frustrating.

In the end, they said we needed to meet at 16:30. By this time, there was only an hour left, so any plans of going out somewhere in Luxor were now scuppered. Horst, Hilde and I had lunch – I was wondering if we’d be given something to eat at the opera, but Horst and Hilde were sceptical (and, it turns out, were right to be so). After this, Mohamed, who used to work in El Andalous but had since become a teacher in Luxor, came to meet us in the hotel, so it was good to see how he was doing and to see photos of his new baby girl.

Soon it was time to change for the performance. We all sat round in our glamorous garments for 30 minutes and then were told that they’d got the time wrong and actually we wouldn’t be picked up until 17:30. Grrrr.

It still seemed quite early to be going to the opera if we weren’t going to be fed, but the journey there took longer than we were expecting. I think they’d laid out a specific route for all buses to the opera to take; every 500m or so there were police along the wayside. The security was amazing.

Once there, there were hundreds of people. We had to queue a bit, but really it wasn’t too bad. The seats were well spaced with plenty of legroom; there was a section for the people who had paid 750USD and who were provided with food and drink. Hatshepsut’s temple was lit up and it was amazing to see it at night in the backdrop of the mountains.

The performance was good, but was hindered by the wind which howled over the speakers. The choreographer was apparently someone famous but controversial in Germany and we’d been promised special light effects using modern technology, but all that happened was that they highlighted Hatshepsut’s temple in different colors and sometimes the mountains, too. The costumes and staging were a bit lacking with the characters mainly coming on stage and singing and not doing much else; the chorus merely stood in the background. I’d been expecting to see them marching down the temple and bringing the ancient setting to life. The orchestra remained largely hidden.

Nevertheless, I don’t regret going. Seeing it in the backdrop of such an iconic monument was incredible and it was hard to believe I was actually there and experiencing it. I can also appreciate that it took a huge amount of organization.

It must have been about midnight when we got back and at this point we still didn’t know what time we were being picked up the next day. In the end, they finally told us it would be 8am. We all complained, asking why we had to leave so early, but they would not budge, claiming that this was what the Opera had specified. Really? Why not benefit from all the extra tourists in Luxor who might spend money if they could stay a few hours longer? It didn’t make sense, but there was nothing we could do.

So, all in all, the organization was lacking, but it was still an amazing experience. And the benefit of leaving early was that by the afternoon I was swimming in the sea again.

El Andalous - Visa Problems

Life's Not Always a Beach!

This is Egypt (TIE), so of course not everything went smoothly. Moving back always starts with a pile of admin to do, not the least being getting a visa. This time, I wanted a year’s visa, since my intent is to live here for most of the year.

I always feel nervous going to the visa office because there are so many tales about the randomness of it all. Anyway, it had to be done, so off I went. Stephen and Kathryn were getting their visas at the same time and they have rented a car, so I was able to go with them rather than having to pay for a taxi. That was a good thing.

The visa system has vastly improved in my absence. Previously, you had to queue to collect a form before you could even start and the queues were disorderly with people pushing in. Actually pushing in is even factored into the process as you keep on having to go away to do things (pay money, get a photocopy, etc) and you are allowed to push back in, although it results in people shouting at you and complaining. That’s how it used to be.

At last, they’ve decided to hand out visa forms as you enter the building and, even better, you get a number and you are called to the window when it’s your turn. I can’t explain how much better this is. They even have an electronic voice in English and a display up announcing each number as it comes up. It is brilliant.

I’d spent the previous evening photocopying the 32 pages of the purchase contract for my flat as that was required for the visa; I’d got my photographs, I’d remembered to bring a pen (or two), I’d sorted out which was the most recent entry visa in my passport (helped by me being able to read Arabic, I’m proud to say!) and also photocopied that and my main passport page. I was fully prepared.

However, when I was called up to the desk, the woman refused to accept my application. She said I needed an extra document (the “tawkil”, which is confusing, because this means “power of attorney” but in terms of your property purchase, it’s a document saying that the property has been paid for and the previous owners have relinquished it). I pointed out that my contract was stamped and stickered, which means that it has gone through court and been approved and registered, but apparently this wasn’t enough. I wasn’t at all sure I had the extra document she demanded; I knew I had one sheet of paper with stamps on it and a load of handwriting on one side, but it didn’t really look like an official document and it was all in Arabic.

Anyway, I had to leave the visa office without even having applied. What a waste of time! I got a taxi back, which also didn’t go too smoothly as the guy didn’t come for a long time and decided afterwards he was my friend and kept on sending me pictures of where he was via WhatsApp.

I dug out the other piece of paper that I had, scanned it, and emailed my lawyer to ask him if he had my tawkil or if what I attached was the tawkil. It turned out that he was on vacation and wouldn’t be back until after my current visa had expired. Help! I asked if he could just take a quick look at the attached document and say if it was the tawkil. He responded it wasn’t; it was the court judgment. I wasn’t too sure if that court judgment was the same as the tawkil required by the visa office. I was confused, but no help was forthcoming.

In the end, there was nothing I could do other than to return to the visa office with the additional piece of paper and hope that another person would not be so stringent or that the piece of paper would be sufficient. This time, I also took my original documents, just in case that would help. On this occasion I was able to get a lift to the visa office from Horst and Hilde who took pity on me in my plight and were in any case going themselves.

I got the same woman serving me again. She recognized me (I don’t know how the Egyptians do it!) and immediately looked for the tawkil among my documents. To my relief, she pounced on the new bit of paper, and nodded that it was the tawkil. Phew. She looked at my original documents and then said that my photocopy wasn’t good enough as although the stickers of the contract were showing, the photocopy hadn’t picked up the stamps. I had to go to their copying counter (which they never used to have when I first came to Egypt) and have it all copied again.

Finally, everything was handed over, I went to the bank in the visa office to pay. I’d got my phone with me so that I could photograph the receipt rather than queue again at the photocopy counter as you have to give the receipt to the person at the visa counter. However, they’d now also improved this and give you two copies, one for you and one for the visa office.

The visa office captain signed my application, which he only has to do for those wishing to stay a year, the lady wrote something on the form and also in a large ledger. I ensured I had my original documents safe and sound and went away happy; we were due to collect our visas the next day.

Once home, I realized that I’d left my mobile phone in the visa office; I’d spent so much time worrying about losing my original contract documents that I’d forgotten to check that I had my phone. I wasn’t too concerned as we were going back to the visa office the next day.

And so we returned the following day to collect our visas. The staff remembered Horst very well. He’s quite memorable in and of himself, but apparently they’d originally thought his name was “Horse” and found this hilarious. The whole hilarity was repeated all over again on his return as they recalled the error and the entire office was laughing.

However, alas, it turned out that my phone was not there. This was a disaster on several levels – it was the first phone I’d actually liked (it was wonderfully thin and had this amazing metallic blue color which was an object of beauty, it had also been easy even for me to set up), I’d just spent 600 LE (which is a lot of money over here!) on the phone package, and it had my Swiss SIM in it that I use for all my banking / credit card identification verification codes.

I was so preoccupied with my phone not being found and all the implications, that I didn’t think to check my visa. When Horst asked me before we got into the car, I looked, and found they had granted me only 6 months and not a year.

After all that! A 6 month visa costs the same as a year’s visa; although I can renew the 6-month visa, it means it costs me twice as much for a year and, worse, I have to go through all this hassle again. With that and my lost phone, it was not a good start to my new start in Egypt!

El Andalous - The Return

El Andalous - Old and New

I’d been so busy in my final week in Switzerland that I hadn’t even gone swimming for an entire week. The weather had been extraordinarily good even though some trees were starting to turn into their autumn colours. All this transpired to make me feel, for the first time, not yet ready to go back to Egypt. I think if I'd have stayed one more week in Switzerland, I would probably have wanted to leave as the weather was just starting to turn as I left and the film festival had just finished. Still, it’s maybe nice to depart with the feeling of wanting to stay.

My flight back was fine and I was picked up at Hurghada airport by ABC taxis with no problem; indeed the fare was very cheap (125 LE – around 6 GPB or 8 CHF). I wondered what my flat would be like, since Ahmed had expressed concern over email that I hadn’t given him enough time to get the flat sorted before I arrived back. I was a bit surprised, but on my return realized that since they were currently renovating the entire building, getting my flat ready also meant repainting my balcony.

I arrived in darkness, so I didn’t have the full effect of arriving and seeing El Andalous in its newly-painted state. My first task was to unpack and, perhaps predictably, this was when I discovered that I’d made a few wrong decisions in my packing prioritization (after all that!).

I decided my curtains wouldn’t really go with the rest of the furniture (so I’ll use them in my Edinburgh flats, I guess), the seat covers that I’d bought for my sofas didn’t really fit properly, although I’m still using them; they just look a bit messy as they’re always coming off. I’d brought back a bedspread as I’ve got a bit fed up with looking at the one I’ve had for over 10 years, but actually it isn’t really usable as it’s too thick for the hot nights over here. That too will have to go over to Edinburgh at some point.

I’d brought over some rice flour with me, but it turned out that Spinney’s now stocks this; I wish I’d brought chickpea flour across with me instead (to make bhajis and falafel) as it’s been difficult to get that and when I found it in my very own local BestWay, it turned out to be very expensive (although I was delighted to find it and felt renewed amazement at just how good that small supermarket is).

I went outside the next morning to have a look at how the painting of El Andalous was progressing; Ahmed caught me looking and asked my opinion, so I gave him the deserved praise he was seeking. He came round to my flat to check that I thought the cleaning had been OK and even got me to turn on my TV to check that my reception had been recovered. As the new manager, he’s doing a great job.

Every time I go to Egypt, I assume that nobody much will be there and it’ll be quiet. And, almost always, to my surprise, it’s a hotbed of social activity. This time when I returned I discovered that Stephen and Kathryn, Horst and Hilde, Jason, Janice and Chris, Karl-Heinz, Adi, Essam, quite a few Ukrainians, and the Russian Abbas family were all already over. Thus, my beach visits were full of catching up with people. But I’m not complaining.

I’d collected my old internet SIM from Nicole to see me through until I went to Spinney’s. Unfortunately, the free bus wasn’t running on the day I wanted to go, but I got a taxi, so it wasn’t much of a problem (just a bit of extra expense). Anyway, it appeared that my usual guy at the kiosk must have left his job as he wasn’t there and I haven’t seen him since, either. Thus, I didn’t get the promised extra special deal on renewal. In fact, there weren’t any special deals at all and I had to renew my bundle without getting two for the price of one. The good thing was that it was all done really quickly as I didn’t have to sign a new contract. It was slightly cheaper than before but maybe that’s because I didn’t need to get a new sim card.

The things I’d managed to forget this time in the intervening period were that Fridays are often busy on the beach due to Egyptians having the day off and also that it’s not easy to ask for things to be done on that day. I’d also forgotten that while I can’t get European / UK breakfast cereal at a reasonable price over here, they do have Nesquick cereal at a good price (no idea why!). I never eat this when I'm in Europe, but over here I have it as a weekend treat and as a change from Spinney’s Cornflakes (which are perfectly OK, but still not as good as Kellogg’s). My breakfasts are important to me.

So, all in all, it was a fairly smooth return to Egypt. I had to ask for one dead mouse to be retrieved from above my kitchen as it was smelling, but everything else was fine!

Zurich - Final Week

Goodbye Zurich!

I was hoping I could just relax for my final week, since theoretically all my packing was already done and the flat should have been handed over. I’d moved into a studio flat on Saturday for my final week so that I’d still have my own space and could cook for myself rather than having to eat out (which I’d have had to do if I were in a hotel). Even at this stage, I discovered that I still had too much stuff, so put aside yet another rucksack for Lena to store for me. Slowly, I thought, everything was finally coming together.

However, this being Switzerland, I went for my flat check on the Monday to hand over the keys and for the letting agency to check the cleaning. They have a whole check list for you to work through when cleaning, which includes things like “dismantle the double glazing and clean between the windows” and “treat everything with limescale remover”. In addition, when you originally move in, you sign a form which has every flaw listed when you take the flat (they walk you through it when you move in) and they compare the condition of the flat when you leave with the condition of the flat as noted on the form. It takes at least an hour, so it’s not like you can ever just collect or hand back the keys.

Unfortunately, the agency did not accept the professional cleaning as to an acceptable standard. The cleaning manager was there and he phoned the cleaner responsible to come back and do it, since the cleaning was under guarantee. However, foolishly, I guess, I paid him the money there and then since it was otherwise going to be difficult for me to pay. Even now, I’m not sure if the cleaning was completed as I’m still awaiting my deposit back. Moving in Switzerland is a right faff, although it does mean that when you move in to a new place to live, it’s always spotless.

In addition to the cleaning failing the test, I was asked to remove two sets of shelving that I’d taken over with the flat and a brick from the balcony that had been left there before. You always have to restore the flat to original condition.

All this meant that my final week ended up being not quite so stress free! The agency said they would come on Friday to check it again, so I went to the flat for the next three days to check on whether the cleaner had turned up (she hadn’t). I tried to dismantle the shelves, but could only do one of them, as I couldn’t get the other one to budge. As it was, the one I’d taken off the wall was too large for the rubbish bins and too heavy for me to carry to the dump. In the end, I decided the agency could deal with it and charge me, if need be. But it was quite a few days wasted as I went backwards and forwards between my studio and my old flat trying to sort things out.

Once I’d given up with my old flat, I devoted myself pretty thoroughly to the Zurich Film Festival. I bought myself a day pass that allowed me to go to any film that started before 6pm. I must have seen about 8 films altogether. Two of them ended up with Commendations. One was an Icelandic film called White, White, Day and had been my favorite, even though it was very slow moving. It was basically about a man coming to terms (or not) with the death of his wife. The other one was a documentary about a private ambulance service in Brazil (I think it was Brazil) where there is a chronic shortage of state ambulances. Thus people in accidents have to agree to accept the help of a (more expensive) private ambulance or not have help at all. Having said that, the film portrayed the private ambulance as often helping and getting no payment.

I enjoyed staying in the studio flat; I’d forgotten how nice it is to be that much closer to town. The flat was also very nicely laid out with a bed area, a walk-in wardrobe area, and plenty of space for the lounge. The kitchen was small but perfectly adequate; it took me a while to get used to the bathroom being so near to the bed. It was fairly quirky as the owner seemed to like to collect things. He had a collection of hats, a whole cupboard of towels, a great big box of slippers (taken from hotel rooms?), a whole jar of pens, and a similar container of scissors. Cushions abounded everywhere. It had an arty feel and I could quite easily have lived there permanently, particularly since it had a balcony. Even though it was October, the weather was still good enough for me to sit outside at times.

It was on the same bus line to go to the airport as from my previous flat, so taking my luggage to the airport was also easy. All in all, it was perfect. I just wished I’d had more of the week as pure relaxation rather than the added stress.

Zurich - Preparing to Leave My Flat

Bye, Bye, Dear Flat!

I managed to get rid of all my furniture, but somehow disposing of all the small stuff can sometimes be the most problematic. This isn’t helped by my reluctance to throw things away.

It’s at times like this that you realize just how odd some of your behaviors can be. I thought I’d been quite restrained over the last few years, but somehow I ended up with a huge plastic bag full of shampoos, conditioners, soaps, creams, body lotions, shower gels etc that I’d received either as free giveaways or had taken from hotels. Faced with them all en masse, it suddenly seemed bizarre. And it seemed even more bizarre that I should now be packing them when my space was so limited, as I can easily buy these items in Egypt. However, it seemed really stupid to end up throwing away items that I’d diligently taken from hotel rooms. So, I packed them, while thinking I was a little bit nuts as I did so.

I’d also developed a bizarre attachment to the free towel I’d received for completing the Sempachersee crossing earlier in the summer. It was a little smaller than the towels I usually take swimming and so made packing my rucksack to go swimming less of a hassle and this had caused me to get quite fond of it. However, I have plenty of towels in Egypt and I was storing 4 matching towels from Switzerland in case I set up a flat in Edinburgh as a holiday let, so I really didn’t need that Sempachersee one at all. But it was an enormous struggle to let go of it. I kept on telling myself it was only a towel, but my heart just couldn't understand.

I completely overestimated how much I could fit into my suitcases and was continually packing and unpacking. Fortunately, my Bosnian neighbor from upstairs wandered in each day to have a look at how I was getting on and each time she’d take loads of things away with her. It was a bit unpredictable as to what she’d take. She was happy to take any fabrics (which were currently going to recycling anyway), but she had no interest in a very nice picnic basket that I had, complete with contents. Nor did she have any interest in the plates that I tried hard to take with me to Egypt, but just couldn't fit them in, not even into my storage bags. I dithered for ages about whether I should offer my toilet brush and holder (ugh!), which was only a month old but I had to buy it as the other one broke. In the end, she asked if she could take it, which saved me the embarrassment.

I have kept my curtains as they are expensive to buy and I may need them if I want to do a holiday let, but they were very bulky. I could even put them up in Egypt. I’d also bought myself some Nescafe when it had been on special offer to take back with me, which, by the time I came to pack, I rather wish I hadn’t done. Having said that, I’m drinking it now and am grateful to have spared myself the cost for another few weeks since expenditure on first returning is always a bit scary! 

I can't remember what it was now, but there was another thing that I was struggling to let go of, and the Bosnian neighbour also didn't want it. She said, very matter-of-factly, that I should just throw it out and somehow that really helped.

From previous experience, I already knew that sorting out my papers takes a long time, so I'd done that some time back; this was one thing that wasn't a problem this time round, apart from finding the room to pack them (but at least I knew it was all essential stuff).

One day, someone rang my doorbell. I was expecting it to be my Bosnian neighbor, but it was actually someone who had come to one of the flat viewings who wanted to know if my flat had been rented yet! I was completely shocked and told him that the agents hadn’t managed to find a tenant. We both stood and moaned about this; he was annoyed because he could pay and really wanted the flat; I was silently thinking that if they’d let him have the flat, he could have taken some of my stuff off me and spared me the cost of having all my electric lights shut off. I really don’t know what the agency is doing!

In the end, I managed to choose what to fit in my suitcases and I ended up having to give 2 bags and a fold-up chair to Lena to store for me. Everything else had to be thrown out, although around 95% of it was taken by my Bosnian neighbor, so at least it was going to be used or recycled. I was completely exhausted by the end of it.

For my final 6 days in Switzerland, I was moving into a studio flat, so that will be next week’s topic!

Zurich – Swim from Eich to Nottwil

Swimmers Warming Up

The weather improved again towards the end of August and, to my surprise, I was able to fit in one final lake crossing on 31st August. This happened to be the grand finale of the Swiss Open Water Cup that I mentioned previously. It was the event where they would hand out all the cups and medals, plus there would be events held in and around the lake for a general day of fun. They were lucky that it happened on a really hot day, so around 200 people turned up for the swim, I believe. This was the longest swim I would do all season (2.5km).

I had registered to take part, but I hadn’t paid online as for some reason my payment wouldn’t go through. I queued to get my starting number etc and saw all the medals and cups starting to be lined out on the table. I heard the person in front of me commenting on how many cups and medals there were but still there was no way she was going to qualify for any of them. Those were exactly my thoughts!

I finally got to the front of the queue; to my surprise, they didn’t seem to have a record of who had paid and who had not paid. I volunteered the information that I hadn’t paid and they happily took my money, but this is very Swiss – so much is done on trust. It’s both admirable and puzzling.

Since it was the grand finale, we got an astonishing number of freebies. On registering, I got not only my starting tag, but also a rucksack, four little packs of Haribo sweets, herbal shampoo, a swimming buoy, discount off the local gym, and I can’t remember what else. We all had to wear a swimming buoy for the swim (this is becoming more and more common); usually you have to rent a swimming buoy for 50 CHF (refundable?) if you don’t have your own, but here we got one for free.

I couldn’t work out how to put on the electronic tag on my ankle, which would time my swim, but someone in the changing rooms helped me. She’d obviously seen me staring at everyone else, because she volunteered the information that it didn’t matter which ankle it went on.

We were given the normal introductory talk and to my dismay there were two lanes, one for the swimmers, and one for stand up paddles (SUPs). They stressed that it was very important to keep in the correct lane and not to end up at the wrong exit point since the timer would only record your arrival once. I could smell disaster in the air! In the end, I decided it didn’t matter too much, since I wouldn’t be in the front and thus could just follow everyone else. There are advantages to being below average!

They interviewed some people before the swim took place, which made me feel a bit out of place at first since some seemed to have expectations of time that seemed impossible to me. Finally, the interviewer found one person willing to say that anything under an hour would be an achievement (I was expecting to do it in about 1 hour 10 minutes), and another person saying that he didn’t care because he was just there for fun. That’s more like it!

The swim itself went well and started at the civilized time of noon. My plan was to keep near the back to avoid the rush at the start, but we were all asked to start at the same time, so this wasn’t really possible. However, I was able to follow other people and I didn’t lose my way. I had to psych myself up for swimming for just over an hour so that I wouldn’t have expectations of being able to stop any time soon, and also had to tell myself to relax on the initial push and shove at the start.

I finally reached the buoys marking the end of the swim and could feel the ground under my feet. I stood to stop my watch (which has GPS to time and record the swim), while someone yelled at me to continue running as I had to reach the mat first. I began to run, being the obedient person that I am, but then realized that actually I wasn’t racing, so I slowed down to a walk and took my time. I’m proud to say that to my surprise I managed to do the swim in just under an hour (59 minutes!). As I stepped onto the finishing mat, I received a finisher’s medal, which I proudly wore for the next hour or so.

I came in 54th out of 85 women, which I don’t think is too shabby a performance! The fastest person did the swim in 30 minutes (male, 19 years); the fastest woman (18 years old) did it in 33 minutes! I can only dream of swimming at 5km per hour, let alone sustaining it over 2.5km. It was the swim where I felt the most tired at the end, but not exhausted.

Sadly, the organizers of the Swiss Open Water Cup made a loss, despite sponsorship, and it’s no longer going to continue as far as I know. I feel lucky to have been able to take part in it and sad that it won’t happen next year. One year isn’t really long enough for such an event to gain sufficient traction to get people to take part, so I wish it could have tried to keep going for at least one more year. Life is tough, sometimes!

Zurich - Disposing of Furniture

Wardrobes For Sale! (Sold)

Once my flat viewings were over and Geraldine had left, it was time to start getting rid of my furniture. This was easier said than done. I’d had the furniture in my flat from Stephanie and Nicolas in Basel, so I needed to liaise with them about how to remove it again. My work stuff had to be sent by UPS to Germany. And then there was the furniture I’d bought myself that I now needed to dispose of.

I hate shipping things by UPS. Last time I did this, there was something wrong with how it was billed and I ended up paying a fine for non-payment of the shipment. I should probably have charged this back to the company (since they were supposed to be paying), but it all got rather complicated and more and more overdue. It wasn’t helped by me ignoring the first few demands because I thought they were emails from UPC (my internet provider, where my bills are paid automatically) rather than UPS. Since my bank is UBS, it all gets rather confusing!

Anyway, I packed up the laptop/printer/screen etc into the boxes (but not terribly well, I must admit, since I’m not much good at this kind of thing), but had a problem because there was supposed to be a billing label, but there wasn’t. I queried to my work place, but unfortunately the person seeing to it was on holiday and the person deputizing basically told me I needed to sort the problem out myself. I had already set up a collection date, so I decided just to make up my own billing labels. Surprisingly, when the UPS guys picked the items up, they didn’t seem to think I was completely mad; instead they just forced me to put a value and weight to each item packed in the boxes. I really had no idea, but I made my best guess and they took them away. I haven’t heard anything since, so I assume it was all OK (let’s hope I’m not forced to write another blog about that!).

Nicolas tried to give away / sell their furniture in Basel and I tried the same in Zurich. It was easier once there was a blank sheet regarding the pricing, where it was even OK to let items go for free. With some trepidation, I tried selling the wardrobes on facebook. I’d heard the site is a bit of a nightmare and indeed I was inundated with dozens of requests, everyone wanting to bargain down on the price, even though the initial price was already cheap. Then Nicolas thought he had someone, so I had to close the item for sale, and then the person fell through, but by then I’d lost all the contacts and when I advertised again, no-one replied. I eventually discovered that there was a way to re-open the offer and then you get to see the old conversations, but it was a bit late by the time I’d worked this out. 

For a long time, I'd hoped that my letting agency would let the pregnant woman rent my flat who wanted to buy all the furniture, but the first two people fell through (they were taking up references and then they'd moved onto the next person who, it turned out, had already found somewhere else) and then I gave up hope that my replacement would take anything.

I tried the local Brockenhaus (second hand store), but they already had too much stuff and refused to come round. This is what happens when you force everyone to move house on the same day of the year. As it is, the second hand stores over here have a reputation of being quite fussy as to what they will take. 

Anyway, I did find someone in the end for the wardrobes, I offered him a really cheap deal just to take them off me, since he’d been haggling and I’d kept him hanging for at least two weeks. I didn’t want to lose him as now he was he only person left who was still interested!

When he came (from quite some distance, actually), I was a bit astonished at just how long it took him to dismantle them (several hours), so then I didn’t feel so bad about the lack of money for them; just to have them gone was a huge relief.

After that experience, I decided to offer reasonable, but higher prices than I was really expecting, because people obviously wanted to bargain. Indeed, I was shocked when I saw how much other people were charging for some items; it seems that somewhere the rationale for selling second-hand has been lost in Switzerland (the rationale being that you sell at a lower price because the article has been used, but at least you get some money for it and someone else gets to pick it up for quite a bit cheaper than new). There seems to be a fixation on high prices; on the other hand, if it’s second hand, the mentality seems to be that you should get it almost for free.

Nevertheless, to my surprise, a few items went for the asking price with no argument (what a relief!). I also sold a few things on Ricardo (the Swiss ebay equivalent), which is a bit more civilized since it’s either an automized auction or people buy it straight away for a given price. Consequently, there’s no need for me to do back-and-forth emails and arrangements and deal with multiple people asking about the same item at the same time.

Although all this meant that much of my final time in Switzerland was spent putting out advertisements, measuring furniture, answering questions, and waiting for people to collect things, it was also interesting to see such a cross-section of society (although, obviously, it’s only a cross-section of the types of people who are willing to buy second-hand, which is a small population in Switzerland, it seems).

Fortunately, people collecting items generally seemed happy and everything was cordial. I was a bit disconcerted by one man giving me Euros instead of Swiss Francs (he’d come from Germany to collect) and by another man who had come without any help and was expecting me to help him carry (when he was paying a mere 10 CHF for a sofa!); however, the Euros were fine and the sofa guy also ended up taking, and paying for, my second sofa, which at the time was the last thing not yet sold. So, no complaints, really! People coming round ranged from the super-enthusiastic, to a woman who was clearly used to being the boss, to those exhibiting pure delight on seeing the item, to those who looked initially skeptical but then accepting. I probably spoke more German than I have all year. When Nicolas next came round, I automatically held out my hand to do a hand shake because I’d got so used to doing it!

The really good news was that I did manage to get rid of all my furniture without having to throw any of it away. Last time I left Switzerland, I had to pay for it to be disposed of, which seemed like a crime. At least this time, everything found a new home – even my sofas, which themselves were now third-hand. So, all in all, a good result.