Farewell Switzerland
3/31/11Hi there, Fei! It's been a while. Blogging has kind of slowed down to minimum these days as work is taking much of my time and you and Yuer do everything you can to keep me busy.
Our life is actually quite crazy now and I want to share a little story with you. This is real, it just happened, but even I have a hard time realizing it really happened. I guess you might still be too young to remember these days when you are older, so I better I write it down.
This week was the last week for us in Switzerland, and as I'm writing this you are in Finland with your mom, Yuer and your grandparents. I am in the US, but I will be back next week.
moving
By all accounts this would have left us a whole six months to prepare for it. However, that's not how I, or you mom, operate. I've been very busy with the work, traveling a lot and building the business. By the time you're old enough to read this you will know if it was worth it and if the company ended up being successful.
Your mom has been busy with you guys, while trying to help me however she can. As a result we didn't really pay attention to the relocation. We spent most of February in Mauritius and right after returning from there I had to fly out to San Francisco. The plan was that I return from the US at the beginning of March and then we have one month to prepare, so we didn't do anything before that.
As it turned out, my trip was a little longer than anticipated so I returned closer to the middle of the month. At the same time the landlord asked us to vacate the apartment one week before the end of the month so they can repaint it, refurbish the floor and get it in a perfect shape for the people who move there after us.
All in all we had a little over week to pack and move everything out of the apartment. It turned out using a moving company would be very expensive, so I opted to rent a van and a storage room and move everything by myself. Somehow you and Yuer started feeling something is going on when we tried to pack away your toys and other stuff, and you guys became just very difficult to handle! Since I was busy preparing for my next trip (the one I am taking right now), and you guys did everything you could to keep you mom busy, there was nobody left to pack anything.
So, along comes Monday evening, the eve of the move. After you guys finally passed out we spent the whole night frantically packaging things in boxes, realizing there's a lot more stuff than we thought. In the morning you and I took the train to Zürich to pick up the rental van. It was a very cool zebra-van, and you were very excited, but the time was running out.
A friend of ours, David, was helping out with another van, carrying out furniture and other stuff we wanted to give away. David and I spent the evening figuring out out to move pieces of furniture that were seemingly impossible to move. The toughest piece was a huge wooden bookshelf that could not be taken into pieces. This bookshelf was already in the apartment when we moved in, but person renting the apartment after us wanted everything removed.
I asked how it got there in the first place - the person living there before us owned a crane company so he used a crane to lift everything in through the balcony! We had no such luxury. All we had was an elevator that was way too small, so the only way out seemed to be the stairs. Our apartment was on the fifth floor, so it was quite a challenge and many times we felt like giving up.
last play time in Fei's toy shop
I showed up at the airport with 6 large pieces of luggage at 12:15, but couldn't see you guys anywhere. We had already disconnected our Swiss mobile phones so there was no way to reach your mom. It was quite a feeling to be standing alone at the airport, with a huge pile of luggage and no idea where you are.
I was already trying to figure out if our tickets can be changed or do we need to buy new ones, when the three of you appeared! It was just 30 minutes to the scheduled departure time and I thought there's no way to make it anymore. Fortunately your mom insisted we still try. The personel at Blue1 were extremely helpful and they speeded us through the process at a record speed.
We had booked business class tickets because we needed to carry so many pieces of luggage, so we were able to speed past the security lines and run to the gate. The bus that takes passengers to the plane had already left, but they called a minivan to come and pick us up. Three minutes before the departure we were all sitting in the plane!
Two pieces of our luggages were lost on the way, but they were delivered the next day so everything turned out great. Our plans are currently wide open. I guess I haven't quite realized we have no home anymore, and I'm sure you and Yuer still think we're just on a holiday trip. I've done this many times in my life - moving to another country, which means giving up a lot of the things you own, but it's never an easy thing to do. We plan on spending the summer in Finland now, and move to the US in the fall, but things could happen faster than that too. It's too early to tell!
Antonio: Good you manage after all the stress! 
And seems that Blue1 is worthy to fly with!
And seems that Blue1 is worthy to fly with!
4/8/11
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Wen: The 2 people at the Blue 1 for check in was one Chinese speaking girl and one swiss guy but speaks perfect Chinese! Don't know if that helped? The girl was helped us for 2 over weight luggages, I guess she couldn't catch the plane that's why those 2 came the next day, but that also helped us didn't have to carry so many at once. Jani's blog missed lots of unbelievable details...
4/9/11
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William: Nice article thanks
5/11/11
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Emily: great topic, i like it so much
6/6/11
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