Four Years...

...and still counting.

Time...keeps flowing like a river...to the seaaaaaaaa.

That song kills me, I think I'll download it.

It's been four years, people! That's right. We moved into this apartment four years ago today. It seems like just yesterday that I was looking at our lease agreement and asking Mrs. TBF:

This is a two-year lease. Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE that we're going to live in Switzerland for at least two more years?!?!?!?!

We signed the lease, and FOUR YEARS LATER we're still here. Hmmmm... How did she know?

The people in our building must be thinking that we're due to move because a couple who lives two floors below us saw me walking out of the building last week as they were walking in and told me:

Please let us know in advance when you're going to move because we would like your apartment.

I told them that it wouldn't happen for at least another year, but that I'd let them know as soon as I knew. Our apartment has always been rented to expats who have never lived here for more than five or six years, so I guess the neighbors think it's only a matter of time before we're gone.

We'll see.

I wrote about our move, and posted some pictures, two years ago. But here are a couple of new photos, never before seen on this blog, from that cold time in January, 2005. We had a lot of boxes to unpack, but Dominique absolutely refused to help. King was in hiding because he didn't want to help either. And judging by my size, Mrs. TBF was probably in the kitchen cooking the copious amounts of food I required back then.

It's hard to believe that this May we'll have lived in this apartment for longer than we lived in our first apartment in Reinach.

Who woulda thunk it?

Friday Flashback: Moving On Up...

...to that dee-luxe apartment, in the sky-y-y....

With very little fanfare, we just passed the two-year anniversary of moving into our apartment. We actually spent the first night in our apartment on January 22, 2005, but our lease began on February 1st (complicated partial monthly rent back-payment to previous tenants...don't ask). What that means is that since we signed a two-year lease, we are now free to move whenever we wish without penalty.

During the first two years of our lease, if we had wanted to move, the onus would have been on us to find new tenants to lease. Of course, the landlord would have to approve the new tenants, and...well...let's just say that it's a situation best avoided.

So now the state of things is such that all we have to do is give a three-month notice if we want to move. Not that we're looking to move in the immediate future, mind you, but it's nice to know that the option exists should the situation warrant.

To the flashback:


I went to the extensive TBF photo archives and blew the dust off of these pictures from moving week/January, 2005.

We woke up the first morning (with stiff backs) after sleeping on the trusty, old futon mattress; that space is now taken up by the "puzzle table". The waterbed was set up a few hours after that picture was taken because there was nooooo way I was sleeping on that mattress for a second night.

A few days later (on the coldest day of the year), I threw on my work gloves and helped (we were paying by the hour) the moving crew make the 7 km./4 mile move to the new apartment. My God! Look at how red my cheeks are. It kind of makes me wonder who was doing all the work. Well, apparently the pets were, because they were exhausted!

The picture with the moving crew makes me sad because this was when our dog - Dominique - began her quick spiral downward and began to have bouts of confusion (as you can obviously tell). We had to put her down less than two months later. King, on the other hand, is still terrorizing us with his toys during the night and feels the need to tap my nose every morning around 5:00 a.m. when he feels I should be getting up to feed him.

I wonder if this apartment is the last place King will ever live...