Finding a paediatrician!

What a challenge its been to find a paediatrician for the kids. The week I landed here I asked a friend for her paediatrician's number as I was warned that they take a couple of weeks to give an appointment, and I wanted to establish contact with a pd before the kids fall sick and it becomes an emergency. I must have tried the number some 10 times, on different days at different times, and I kept getting a recorded message in German which i just couldn't undertand.

Then the hubby got a local pd number from his GP and when I tried that number i was delighted to get a person who spoke English. When I explained that i was looking for a doctor for the kids she asked me to hold a minute and then got back saying that they are full and can't take any more patients!!!! Can you imagine, never in Mumbai did any doctor say they were too full, ever willing to work harder, make people wait for longer, but never no to new business!

She gave me a number of another nearby pd. I tried that, again some recorded message in German. I was really frustrated by now. I called the earlier doctor again hoping they would change their mind, but she just gave me another three numbers. The first two had messages in German, and the third kept ringing. I tried again and this time the third number picked up and I actually got an appointment. Hallelujah!

Anyway, with the help of google maps, the kids and I set out for the pd this morning. The kids were delighted to see a separate toy room there and kept themselves entertained while I filled out the registration forms. Later S actually left the doctors room and went off to the toy room alone while the doctor was giving A her vaccines. The doctor was extremely friendly with the kids and put them easily at ease and took interest in their individual requirements- asked about S speech (she still cant say "rr") and A's feeding habits/overall growth. I was quite happy overall and relieved to have finally fixed up the pd.

Now on to other things...

My major achievement

Nope I did not climb any mountains, or swim in any lake. I went to the Bahnoffstrasse and bought a pair of chappals. And that was a major achievement for me!

Am not exaggerating, the effort involved made it seems like a major outing for me, and S was also exhausted after and slept till 6:30 pm! The first thing is the timing. We have to wait till A finishes her nap and then time it so that we are back for the kids lunch. Lunch has got stretched till 2:30 pm these days, since all outings end up happening only around 12 pm after A's nap. I put A down for an early nap in the morning, quickly prepared the kids lunch and got S and myself ready by the time A woke up, and we were out of the house by 11:30.

Its a ten minutes walk to the nearest tram station- Klusplatz. There's a bus stop just outside the flat connecting to Klusplatz but the bus is not stroller friendly- you have to climb steps to enter the bus, so someone usually has to help you to get the stroller in. And combine that with a 3 year old whom you're trying to ensure also climbs into the bus safely, and its going to be somewhat of a struggle if you're alone. So we decided to just walk it down to the tram station.

The tram is also not stroller friendly (some of the newer ones are, but this one was not) but people are quite helpful and even without me asking, a guy got up from his seat and helped me lift the stroller into the tram. The Bahnoffstrasse is like the main shopping street in Zurich, comparable to say Connaught Place in Delhi or Oxford Street in London. Distance wise it must be about 2-3 kms from Klusplatz, but all the trams and buses stop every 1 -2 mins (the stops are very close by) and it took about 15 mins to reach the Bahnoff stop. A was happy in her pram, and S was standing next to her and holding the pram so that it does not roll off.

We managed to do quite a bit of shopping in the Bahnoffstrasse- slippers for me, clothes for the kids and some sundry stuff. A was on best behaviour throughout, happy in her pram ,but S started getting bored by the time we reached the clothes shop and ran all over the shop while I was looking at the kids clothes. Half the time I did not understand what was written and had to ask someone for help and that took even longer. Finally after a shouting from me- she'd run out of sight , we left the shop and I promised her fries from MCDonalds if she would behave herself. We ate the fries in the park on the Bahnoff and A was let out of her pram and ran all around the park while S stuffed herself with fries. The weather was nice and it was better than sitting in the stuffy restaurant.

Fortified, we set out for grocery shopping in the shop in the Bahnoff railway station (which is the main railway station in the city). There's a very big grocery shop- Migros two flights below in the railway station which is also the only grocery shop open on Sundays in Zurich, but I didn't have the energy to find the lift and drag the children there so we went to the smaller pronto one on the ground floor. The effect of the fries wore off and S was quite restless to go home. She started running around the shop and at one point, while i was looking for something a lady pointed out that she'd taken a rope hanging from the shelf and was putting it around her neck! I quickly paid up and we went back to the tram station for the journey home.

There was a market inside the railway station- they have these once in a while where people come to sell fresh vegetables, bread, cheeses, sauces and many varied things but S was really restless and would not allow me to browse. Some other time I guess. But good we left then, on the way back S started troubling A in the tram by poking her and A got really irritable and wanted to get out of the pram. A couple more minutes and I would have had two wailing children on the tram. I somehow managed to make S walk back home from the tram station (sometimes she insists on sitting in the stroller but today she somehow realised that I would not have been able to manage carrying A and pushing her).

After we reached home, it took another hour to prepare lunch, feed A, urge S to eat and finally gobble down my lunch.

Quite a contrast to Bombay, where I would typically have left A with the maid, either gone when S was in school or taken her along with me, got driven in a car to the shop doorstep, driven back home and had lunch waiting on the table for me, and maids to feed the children!

That was more convenient for me, but I guess this way is more fun for the children.

Settling in

The last 2 weeks have been overwhelming- exciting, challenging and exhausting.

The flight to Zurich was better than I expected. Both kids were asleep before the flight took off and slept through a large part of the flight. I cheated and gave a sedative to A- I was in two minds but two things made me decide on it. Mainly I didn't want A to keep crying and wake up S as well (and lately she had started waking up in the night and crying for a couple of hours on and off), and then I'll have two crying kids and one lap only, and also some of my friends and my husband warned me that co passengers in business may not look too kindly on having their expensive nights sleep ruined by wailing children. Looks like i was needlessly worried, business was full of infants and many co passengers stepped up to help me out when they saw me struggling- once when I had to get both sleeping children to the seats after giving the pram at the aeroplane gate..I couldn't carry both with me at the same time alongwith the hand luggage. So I left S sleeping in the pram at the gate, took A in, left her on the seat while a helpful lady watched over her and then went back picked up S and gave up the pram. Another was at baggage claim, I was able to lift the suitcases on my own from the pickup, but the silly trolley here had a belt on top so you need to lift up the suitcases and slide them into the trolley and they were far too heavy for me. Luckily a guy with a young kid saw me struggling and helped me even without me asking for it.

The hubby was waiting at the exit and S was terribly happy to see him. A was confused by all the changes and clung to me.

Overall the travel was better than I expected. My dad had come to Bombay to drop me off and that was really helpful, could not have managed without him. Really grandparents are such gems.

We stayed at the hotel for the first two days as our shipment was delayed and our bed was arriving only the next day from the shop. But we went to and fro the flat quite a few times. The first day itself we went home, boiled the milk, watched it spill over and then fretted about whether the stain would ever go from the induction heating top. I managed to make rasam rice for the kids with the pressure cooker and rice cooker I had carried with me, and was quite proud of my achievement!!! The first day being a Sunday we didn't do much, just got back to the hotel after the kids lunch, slept, I took the kids to the downstairs park while the hubby worked on a presentation for work (its so strange usually I'm the one working on the weekends while he chills out :)) and we had a nice dinner overlooking the Zurich lake.

Monday was hectic, we went early to the flat as the furniture guys and light guys were coming. They don't provide lights in the flats here, you need to buy the lights/lamp shades yourselves and get it fitted!! And people charge a bomb to fit the lights and assemble furniture - I should have taken a electric/carpentry course before coming here. The air freight also arrived on Monday which included some of the provisions (though I had smartly packed all the vessels in the shipment) and so by Tuesday we were set to move into our flat with the bare neccesities in place.

And so we slowly started settling in, and its so different here I don't know where to begin...

Firstly having to do everything yourself. In Bombay I was completely spoilt with a battery of help for the cooking, cleaning, driving, laundry, looking after the children and with the amazing home delivery there I could sit in the house the whole week/month and not have to step out for a single thing be it milk/medicine/fruits/vegetables/groceries/movies/wine. And its just absolutely the opposite here. I've already had to run to the grocery shop nearly every other day as either the milk is running out or the bread or the diapers! I need to be much more efficient here. But it is also difficult doing the grocery shopping alone with two kids and using public transport as I have to carry all the groceries back in the bus, while carrying A and making sure S gets on and off the bus safely. And then there's the two sets of staircases to climb before collapsing into the house. So its usually the bulk shopping in the weekends where either the hubby comes with the car, or else I can leave one of the kids at home and manage it a bit easier. This is still supplemented by trips to the grocery shop in between/calls to the hubby to pick up something or the other.

And other than the groceries, there is the cooking. For me even the simplest of things take time, and luckily the kids are obliging. So its the same fare for them everyday for breakfast and lunch, and dinner time I try to make something new- aloo paratha, biryani, chole puri, sambhar rice, bisibelebath and the saviour-mixes to which you only need to add vegetables! But overall its the thought that after you've gone out, done shopping/some sightseeing you still have to come home and cook and feed the children which is tiring. Especially when contrasted with food set at the table for us, and someone else to feed the children! But really I should not crib too much, the kids have been very obliging (keeping fingers crossed that they don't change as soon as I post this) so its not difficult to cook for them, and for our dinner we get a variety of pastas, sauces, frozen stuff here so if I don't want to cook a particular day if I don't want to. The bread is just amazing here, and many days I just have bread and cheese for lunch. I'm a big bread fan, and though I haven't been able to step into a bakery yet, even the large retail shops have an entire bread section where you can pick up freshly baked bread.

And then we come to the cleaning. Things do get dirty here (I was under the misguided impression that they don't)- ok not as much as Bombay, but you need to sweep/vacuum the place at least once in two days especially with two young kids who keep dropping crumbs all over the place. The weekly cleaners started yesterday, and I had signed up for four hours for the appartment which seemed quite a long time for just an appartment. But after four hours the mopping was still not done and the lady ran away like Cinderalla for her next appointment. I spent the next hour finishing off the cleaning and am pretty sure the house is going to be dirty again in a couple of weeks. Sigh...

And then the language of course. Everything is in German from the road signs to the ingredients in the shops to the signs in the park. Today i went to a new park near the house and there was a big sign outside which mentioned some restaurant and some park. There was a slide and sandpit next to a restaurant but I couldn't figure out whether the play area was only for customers of the restaurant or for everyone. I just took the kids and went since we had come all the way. Then in the shops i don't know what is half the stuff I am buying. The other i bought some frozen quiches where the cover looked vegetarian since there was some green stuffing on the cover. Before cooking I asked te hubby to check the ingredients on the iphone application for languages and it was spinach and bacon! Sigh again, at least one of us is non-veg in the house and the food wont be wasted. The hubby's solution is that i keep checking the iphone application in the shop which is what he does, but he doesn't have two children -one wriggling in the trolley and the other running around the shop searching for lolliops/snacks to tie him down. I just want to get in , buy the stuff and get out asap. And its also very difficult to ask for directions. People are quite helpful, but sometimes they just don't know English so you can get pretty stuck. And even in the large shops most of the cashiers dont speak English and are very surprised if you don't speak German, so its very tough if you have some query (we were trying to figure out home delivery in a furniture shop and had to wait for an English speaking customer to translate for us!)

On the positive side, and there are many but its so much more fun to crib, the public transport is great. There's a bus stop just outside the house and the city is extremely well connected. I can get to the city centre in 15 mins using the bus and the tram, and the frequency is also great. Its not usually crowded during the day and the kids quite enjoy going in the bus/tram/furnicular etc. The parks are also very nice- there are many open gardens for children to play and the parks are uncrowded mostly. There are so many activities for children to do here, and I've just started reading up on a couple of them. If we wanted we could do something new every weekend! The drives are also nice- we drove to Rhine Falls last weekend (will write a separate post on that) and the roads were almost empty. The hubby is enjoying his car, an SUV which I practically don't think I will every be able to drive.

But I am missing company, especially friends and family. Being able to just call up someone you've known for ages, or make a plan to meet them for an hour somewhere, or go to Bangalore for a long weekend- well those are some luxuries which seem very remote. Hopefully I should settle in, mentally and as well as physically soon.

Even the google

Even the google and gmail is in German. Took me five mins to figure out what is the right option to sign into this blog!! All is well and kicking, we are settling in, will post soon about the last 10 crazy days!