Swiss Life

I follow a page on Facebook called NewInZurich. Yesterday the page touted a newly-published book called Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I'd Known by Chantal Panozzo. She moved to Switzerland in 2006 to follow her husband's job. That made her a "trailing spouse."  I will be a trailing spouse in Switzerland in a few months, and I know there are things I will have wished that I had known. 

I bought the Kindle version of the book yesterday (ain't instant gratification great?) and finished reading it today. If you go to the Amazon page and click the "look inside" link, you can read quite a bit of the book to get a feel for what's in store for us this coming year.

I found myself thinking, "That won't really apply to me," and "Hoo boy, I will need to be prepared for THAT!" The main differences between Chantal and me are that we will only be there for a year, I won't be looking for work, and I won't be having any babies. However, I will still need to learn how to run the shared washing machines, push and shove in line, navigate a German that will sound very strange to me, and figure out how to have a conversation that contains no small talk. 

Now if we could find a renter for our house....