We’re moving to Switzerland!

So, this is my blog.

Because we’re moving to Switzerland!

I thought it would be fun to keep a blog of all our adventures throughout this process and our time in Switzerland – both for our own benefit and to keep anyone who’s interested updated. We’ve also found through all of our moving research, the personal blogs written by everyday people who had similar experiences have been the most helpful. Maybe we can help some future expats out along the way!

For the first post, I thought it would be fitting to answer a lot of the questions we’ve gotten from people when we tell them we’re moving.

What’s in Switzerland?

Ohhh so much! But most specifically, a job. I was contacted by a recruiter in December 2014 about a position that immediately piqued my interest and was the beginning of a LOOONG interview process that eventually resulted in a job offer.

What’s the job?

It’s exactly what I’ve been doing, which is transfer pricing consulting – just with a different company.

What’s Andy doing?

To be determined. He’s applying for jobs in Geneva as well, and also considering working remotely for a non-Swiss company.

What language do they speak there?

Switzerland has four official languages that are largely regional – French is spoken in Geneva.

Nope, we don’t know any French.

Geneva has a lot of unique characteristics that made it appealing to us, but a big one is the fact that English is widely spoken (…at least that’s what we’ve been told. We’ll keep you posted on that.) It’s an international hub where a whole bunch of large international organizations are headquartered; so at least professionally, we don’t expect the language barrier to be too much of a problem. In fact, one of the reasons I was recruited for my new job is that I’m a native English speaker.

That said, we plan on learning as much French as possible – if nothing else, it’s part of the experience!

Didn’t y’all like, JUST move to Colorado?

We moved to Colorado December 1, 2012, so we’ve been here about 2.5 years. It hasn’t been that long, but we didn’t JUST move here.

Okay…but you really did JUST buy a house.

We did. And as most of you know, our house has been…an adventure. While we do love the house, we are EXTREMELY relieved to be going back to renting for a while. We spent a lot of time, blood, sweat & tears on our house – which has fortunately paid off. And now I look forward to taking a break from DIY’ing and calling a landlord for every little thing possible.

What about the dogs?

If you couldn’t tell by the title of the blog, they’re coming with us. DUH. This was never a question for us; if we couldn’t bring the dogs with us, we wouldn’t have considered it. From what we can tell, Switzerland looks to be very dog-friendly…and Sam and Trevor are PUMPED. Trevor heard about Swiss fondue and was immediately sold.

What about all your stuff?

We’re moving some of it, not moving a lot of it. Not only will we be downsizing from a 2,000 square foot house to a roughly 700 square foot apartment, but it isn’t super cost-efficient to move a ton of furniture. We’re selling both cars, and we’ll see how it goes in Geneva without one for a while; it would be ideal to just use public transportation, so that’s the plan for now.

Okay, I guess y’all have thought this through…but why?

This question is funny to us – our natural, immediate response is “Why wouldn’t we?” I think this is best answered by a list (and I love lists):

1.      Adventure. Andy has a need for it, and the longer I’m married to him, the more I need it too. We live life once, and we don’t ever want to wonder what could have happened or what life would have looked like if we had just taken a risk.

2.      Travel. Traveling is one of the great loves of my life, and it’s something that Andy and I always agreed we would try to prioritize as much as possible. For both of us, studying abroad was one of the best things we’ve ever done; we loved experiencing new cultures, and we want to see as much of the world as possible. But, since graduating college, getting jobs, and getting married, we realized something pretty fundamental about travel – it’s EXPENSIVE. That is, traveling from the US to other continents is expensive…within Europe, or from Europe to other places? Not so expensive.

3.      It’s an awesome opportunity. Those of you that I talk to regularly know that there were a few other potential locations in the running before we settled on Geneva. Did I mention that the interview process took forever? Well, during that time, we also looked into other opportunities throughout Europe. One of the awesome things about a career in transfer pricing is that it is extremely international – I quickly realized that there were a lot of places I could potentially work. I had conversations with both external recruiters and HR at my current company and evaluated a lot of different possibilities: Luxembourg, Budapest, Oslo, Aberdeen, and Amsterdam were all on the list at one point or another. Geneva was an easy first choice for us, for a few different reasons (I also love lists WITHIN lists):

a.       My job. My new company is a market leader in Europe in transfer pricing, and it will be a great professional experience to work with them. Also, the work that they do and clients they serve are very much in line with my experience and strengths, so I think it will be an easy transition. Scratch that – easier than it might be elsewhere.

b.       Quality of life. Switzerland tops every list out there in this category. See?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/23/travel/feat-world-happiest-countries-2015/index.html

http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp

http://www.businessinsider.com/top-countries-on-oecd-better-life-index-2013-5#5-switzerland-11

c.       Language. Already mentioned this a bit, but the combination of i) widespread use of English, and ii) French being the primary language was a big plus for us. French is way easier to pick up on than Hungarian, Norwegian, or Dutch. 

d.       Location. Pretty central location within Europe = ease of travel.

e.       Activities. So much room for them! Geneva is within an hour or two of some of the best skiing IN THE WORLD. Yes please.

f.        Chocolate and cheese. Obviously.

So, there you go. We’re SO excited, and a little scared – there are a lot of changes in store for us, to say the least. The plan for this blog is to write about all the adventures, speed bumps, highs and lows, both as we make the move and obviously once we’re there. If that sounds interesting to you, stick around!

And for good measure, a picture of Sam and Trevor: