Welcome, 2013! I Already Know You Will Be Awesome

Guys, it’s 2013. Two thousand and thirteen!! Every year I am slightly boggled by the fact that I remember the year 2000 like it was last year and that so much and so little changes over the years simultaneously.

Amazing Things That Occurred in 2012:

I traveled the world. This year alone I visited: France, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Croatia and Greece, plus of course the US and Switzerland. Not too shabby! Next year is looking like it will include at least England and some beach town somewhere (maybe France? Maybe Italy?). I’m trying to talk Florian into a Spain visit so if anyone can help me talk it up, that’d be great.

Basically everyone I know I had a baby/got pregnant. Obviously this is a slight exaggeration, but only slight. My niece was born and my other sister is pregnant with my future nephew. My other “niece” was born (my best friend’s baby) and I had 5 girlfriends here in Zurich that had babies this year. Plus like 80% of my Facebook friends seem to be pregnant even if I haven’t spoken to those people in like 5 years.

I finally speak German!: It took long enough! But my German is finally at the point where I can function on my own without having to ask people to speak English or asking Florian to call somewhere on my behalf. This was soooo important to helping me feel like I could finally start to integrate myself into my new life here.

I started my consulting business: I know I don’t talk much about my work on this blog but 2012 was awesome n helping me jumpstart my own strategic marketing consulting business here in Switz. I laid some foundations that are making 2013’s business outlook really good and I actually had paying customers. Yay!

Florian took over his family company: Many people ask why I moved to Switzerland and why Flo didn’t just move to America. I always want to answer because that would have made life too easy but instead I respond with the truth; Florian runs a 4th-generation family business. This year Florian officially took over majority share from his dad and is now the CEO! Well, as much as anyone can be a CEO of a small 20-ish person business, I just think it sounds so cool to say that. Anyway, I’m so proud of how amazingly well he did! And how can you not love the adorable old-skool picture of him that’s still on the company website??

We bought a house: Just in the last minutes of 2012, Florian and I bought our very first home! We spent over a year looking and I was pretty much convinced we would never find a house that met all of our (my) requirements. Then we stumbled upon something in an area we weren’t even looking at and BAM!  just weeks later we were giving away all of our money.

It was my first full year being married: I had so much fun being married this year that I can’t wait to spend the next 50 years doing it! Flo and I have so much fun together and have so many similar interests and a stupid sense of humor. We can discuss economic policy one minute, football the next, and then watch Jackass the next minute. We also bonded over our love of the dog, the adorably sweet Mrs. Bella Pumpkin Pants. I honestly never thought it would be possible to find someone that is this much of a perfect match for me but I never gave up searching! I only had to travel across the world to find it but you know, I’ve never regretted it for a minute. To my best, best friend and husband, and the love of my life, here’s to 50 more amazing married years!

So 2013, it’s gonna be pretty tough to beat this awesome year, but I have a lot of faith that 2013 will bring its own special gifts 🙂

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I’m Finally On My Honeymoon!!!!

Hey guys, as promised I am gonna do my best to post blogs and pics as I can WHILE I’M ON MY HONEYMOON! That’s right, Florian and I are FINALLY taking our long-overdue honeymoon (only, like, a year after we got married… not terrible).

We are doing a month-long driving tour of Scandinavia and I’m basically planning on this being the coolest trip I’ve ever been on in my entire life (no pressure, Florian). Check out this map to see exactly where we’re headed and to maybe copy the idea for your future travels.

Anyway, since I kinda want to be out enjoying our vacation and not just slaving away writing blogs, I decided to try something new here and post some video blogs. Maybe you’re not interested in seeing our ugly faces, I don’t know. But hey, I’m a fan of trying everything once*.

So, here’s my first time driving on the autobahn in Germany!! You know, the one with no speed limit…. And my husband Mr. I Used To Race Cars On Racetracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXinCwciJJM

Update: apparently I can’t upload a video from my phone to blogger or embed the URL. Annoying! Anyway, sorry for having to use the lame link above and not being able to have the video ready for you here and now!

*not everything, everything. I mean like the cool everything that makes you eat snails and go swimming in freezing water at midnight. Not so much on the creepy everything like spying on your neighbors or hiring a hooker.

I’m Finally On My Honeymoon!!!!

Hey guys, as promised I am gonna do my best to post blogs and pics as I can WHILE I’M ON MY HONEYMOON! That’s right, Florian and I are FINALLY taking our long-overdue honeymoon (only, like, a year after we got married… not terrible).

We are doing a month-long driving tour of Scandinavia and I’m basically planning on this being the coolest trip I’ve ever been on in my entire life (no pressure, Florian). Check out this map to see exactly where we’re headed and to maybe copy the idea for your future travels.

Just getting to Scandinavia with our car was an adventure. See if you can follow: we had to drive to Germany to take an overnight car train up to Northern Germany…

… To get the ferry to Oslo. And we spent the first night of our honeymoon in bunk beds 🙂

But, since I kinda want to be out enjoying our vacation and not just slaving away writing blogs, I decided to try something new here and post some video blogs. Maybe you’re not interested in seeing our ugly faces, I don’t know. But hey, I’m a fan of trying everything once*.

So, here’s my first time driving on the autobahn in Germany!! You know, the one with no speed limit…. And my husband Mr. I Used To Race Cars On Racetracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXinCwciJJM

Update: apparently I can’t upload a video from my phone to blogger or embed the URL. Annoying! Anyway, sorry for having to use the lame link above and not being able to have the video ready for you here and now! I also can’t put the pictures in the right place in the blog, so see if you can test your IQ and figure out which picture belongs to which story.

*not everything, everything. I mean like the cool everything that makes you eat snails and go swimming in freezing water at midnight. Not so much on the creepy everything like spying on your neighbors or hiring a hooker.

Planning a Wedding is Miserable… Especially When You’re Already Married

I’m definitely a walking cliché. Since I was 5 years old, I dreamed of the day when I would walk down the aisle in a beautiful white wedding gown and a tall and handsome man would be waiting to give me a magnificent sparkling ring and tell me he’d love me forever. 

Reality hit me last spring when I started to plan my wedding, which was supposed to be in NY in June. It was my first time navigating the tacit social etiquette that exist for a wedding – who has to be invited, who can’t be invited, who can’t sit next to whom, what is the correct wording for an invitation, what food people can and can’t eat, yada, yada, yada. The one good thing I did learn from the experience is that when people say “you should do whatever you want, it’s your wedding” the real translation of what they’re saying is “you will do what I think is proper social etiquette, but I’m going to pretend like you have a say in this to be polite since it’s your wedding”.  Once you know what they mean, you can stop fighting the uphill battle that you’re going to lose anyway and save yourself the energy. I had the epiphany that becoming a Bridezillas isn’t so much about being crazy about your wedding, it’s more about keeping control of everyone else who becomes crazy about your wedding. Since my dad had his heart attack right before this wedding, all those hours of planning were thrown out the window as we had to cancel and never saw it come to fruition.

For the next wedding in September (second attempt, first actual!), I was so consumed with all of my visa issues and being kicked out of Switzerland and filing all the correct paperwork that I didn’t even have time to think about planning a wedding. I guess I chose the right family to marry into because Florian arranged for my sister Rachel to come and witness the ceremony while his mom planned all of the appetizer and dinner events to celebrate. All I had to do was show up and bring the rings with me! Hilarious story sidenote: Since I hate when people ask me questions that I feel are insulting to my intelligence, I feel it is my obligation to make them suffer a little with me. When Florian called me to ask if I had the rings for the ceremony, I told him “no” and pretended to panic with him for a few minutes until he turned his car around to go back to the apartment and I finally admitted that (of course) I really did have them. And he still wanted to marry me after that!

So now I’m here, in the midst of planning my third wedding, but hello, I’M ALREADY MARRIED. It’s a bit of a sham, really. Hello friends and family, please pay $2,000 to fly to Switzerland to watch me walk down the aisle as my father gives me away to this handsome gentleman. You know, the guy who has been my husband for the last 9 months. Yep, that’s the one.

Don’t get me wrong – I seriously couldn’t be more excited to finally have my dream fancy-schmancy wedding in my beautiful European castle with all my closest family and friends! The venue we picked is gorgeous (check it out!) and I just got my wedding dress 2 weeks ago with my mom and my sister Elana!!! The thing is this: now I’m kinda lazy about the hard work and planning for the wedding because, you know, we’ve already done this twice before. It’s much like how my parents raised me – I’m the 4th child in the family and I could basically do whatever I wanted because they were well past the point of being overbearing and scared that something bad was always just about to happen. See, laissez-faire attitudes can pan out!

And it’s not that I mind hard work, it’s just that wedding planning is miserable for the sole reason that nothing ever goes smoothly and nothing can ever just be done quickly. Take, for example, the menu for the dinner portion. In my mind, I’m thinking a chicken option, a beef option, a vegetarian option. Done. But last night Florian and I spent an hour poring over the 17 pages of menu options (after getting it translated into English) because we weren’t sure if people would prefer the filet steak or the filet of beef as an entree option. Just out of curiosity, does anyone even know the difference or care?? Thought so…   So now we have to call the Grandhotel (it’s so much cooler calling it that than just calling it a regular hotel!) to get a sampling of their food items but they’re closed in the winter so we may not be able to sample until spring. Of course, obviously that is impossible because we can’t order the invitations without knowing the menu options for guests to select. And we need to get the invitation proofs in time to leave two months for printing and arrival of the invites  before the wedding, meaning we need to have the tasting this winter. What a fun conundrum.

Did I mention that my travel agent just simply stopped calling me back? I never imagined a travel agent would so blatantly give up 30 customers traveling to Europe – seems like a lot of profits to be made with the hotels and the tours and the flights, etc. But apparently Tracy from Liberty Travel isn’t all that interested in our business since she last called a week and a half ago to say that she didn’t have any new information for us. Oh wait, no, I called her so she could say she didn’t have any new information for us. And I haven’t heard a peep from her since. Now, I would be understanding if she had a lot of research to do for the trip, but the ONLY thing I asked her to do was recommend a hotel in the town of Brienz (where the wedding will be held). Here’s a dirty little secret – there are a total of about 4 hotels in the entire town. The research should take all of 7 minutes so her ROI on the time she spends researching should be astronomical! Tracy from Liberty Travel’s boss, you should investigate!!

I really, really, really can’t wait for this day that will be by far one of the most memorable in my lifetime, I’m just trying to avoid all the un-fun parts about it. Anyone find stress fun and want to plan for me?? Or at least know a good travel agent, or the difference between filet steak and filet of beef?

Planning a Wedding is Miserable… Especially When You’re Already Married

#FirstWorldProblems

I’m definitely a walking cliché. Since I was 5 years old, I dreamed of the day when I would walk down the aisle in a beautiful white wedding gown and a tall and handsome man would be waiting to give me a magnificent sparkling ring and tell me he’d love me forever. 

Reality hit me last spring when I started to plan my wedding, which was supposed to be in NY in June. It was my first time navigating the tacit social etiquette that exist for a wedding – who has to be invited, who can’t be invited, who can’t sit next to whom, what is the correct wording for an invitation, what food people can and can’t eat, yada, yada, yada. The one good thing I did learn from the experience is that when people say “you should do whatever you want, it’s your wedding” the real translation of what they’re saying is “you will do what I think is proper social etiquette, but I’m going to pretend like you have a say in this to be polite since it’s your wedding”.  Once you know what they mean, you can stop fighting the uphill battle that you’re going to lose anyway and save yourself the energy. I had the epiphany that becoming a Bridezillas isn’t so much about being crazy about your wedding, it’s more about keeping control of everyone else who becomes crazy about your wedding. Since my dad had his heart attack right before this wedding, all those hours of planning were thrown out the window as we had to cancel and never saw it come to fruition.

For the next wedding in September (second attempt, first actual!), I was so consumed with all of my visa issues and being kicked out of Switzerland and filing all the correct paperwork that I didn’t even have time to think about planning a wedding. I guess I chose the right family to marry into because Florian arranged for my sister Rachel to come and witness the ceremony while his mom planned all of the appetizer and dinner events to celebrate. All I had to do was show up and bring the rings with me! Hilarious story sidenote: Since I hate when people ask me questions that I feel are insulting to my intelligence, I feel it is my obligation to make them suffer a little with me. When Florian called me to ask if I had the rings for the ceremony, I told him “no” and pretended to panic with him for a few minutes until he turned his car around to go back to the apartment and I finally admitted that (of course) I really did have them. And he still wanted to marry me after that!

So now I’m here, in the midst of planning my third wedding, but hello, I’M ALREADY MARRIED. It’s a bit of a sham, really. Hello friends and family, please pay $2,000 to fly to Switzerland to watch me walk down the aisle as my father gives me away to this handsome gentleman. You know, the guy who has been my husband for the last 9 months. Yep, that’s the one.

Don’t get me wrong – I seriously couldn’t be more excited to finally have my dream fancy-schmancy wedding in my beautiful European castle with all my closest family and friends! The venue we picked is gorgeous (see the pic below and check out the website!) and I just got my wedding dress 2 weeks ago with my mom and my sister Elana!!! The thing is this: now I’m kinda lazy about the hard work and planning for the wedding because, you know, we’ve already done this twice before. It’s much like how my parents raised me – I’m the 4th child in the family and I could basically do whatever I wanted because they were well past the point of being overbearing and scared that something bad was always just about to happen. See, laissez-faire attitudes can pan out!

And it’s not that I mind hard work, it’s just that wedding planning is miserable for the sole reason that nothing ever goes smoothly and nothing can ever just be done quickly. Take, for example, the menu for the dinner portion. In my mind, I’m thinking a chicken option, a beef option, a vegetarian option. Done. But last night Florian and I spent an hour poring over the 17 pages of menu options (after getting it translated into English) because we weren’t sure if people would prefer the filet steak or the filet of beef as an entree option. Just out of curiosity, does anyone even know the difference or care?? Thought so…   So now we have to call the Grandhotel (it’s so much cooler calling it that than just calling it a regular hotel!) to get a sampling of their food items but they’re closed in the winter so we may not be able to sample until spring. Of course, obviously that is impossible because we can’t order the invitations without knowing the menu options for guests to select. And we need to get the invitation proofs in time to leave two months for printing and arrival of the invites  before the wedding, meaning we need to have the tasting this winter. What a fun conundrum.

Did I mention that my travel agent just simply stopped calling me back? I never imagined a travel agent would so blatantly give up 30 customers traveling to Europe – seems like a lot of profits to be made with the hotels and the tours and the flights, etc. But apparently Tracy from Liberty Travel isn’t all that interested in our business since she last called a week and a half ago to say that she didn’t have any new information for us. Oh wait, no, I called her so she could say she didn’t have any new information for us. And I haven’t heard a peep from her since. Now, I would be understanding if she had a lot of research to do for the trip, but the ONLY thing I asked her to do was recommend a hotel in the town of Brienz (where the wedding will be held). Here’s a dirty little secret – there are a total of about 4 hotels in the entire town. The research should take all of 7 minutes so her ROI on the time she spends researching should be astronomical! Tracy from Liberty Travel’s boss, you should investigate!!

I really, really, really can’t wait for this day that will be by far one of the most memorable in my lifetime, I’m just trying to avoid all the un-fun parts about it. Anyone find stress fun and want to plan for me?? Or at least know a good travel agent, or the difference between filet steak and filet of beef?

I’m About to Take a Really Big First Step

I’m about to take a really big first step. Forget the fact that I’m getting married in less than a month, that I’m quitting my job, traveling through Asia with no set plan, and then permanently moving to Switzerland – No, my big first step is creating this blog! I admit, I’m a blogging virgin, but I’m doing this for all of you!!

Since the many other life-altering changes are imminently approaching, I’ve come to find people are treating me like I’m dying. Remember when we did this… oh my God, I’m going to miss you so much! I’m never going to see you again! Oh, I also get the You know we’re not really going to stay in touch when you move a lot too. And while it boggles my mind as to why people think either of these things are actually true, I’ve decided to prove them all wrong (I did always like being right!) and stay in touch through this blog. See, I am neither a) dead to you or b) doing a bad job of staying in touch.

Okay, okay, twist my arm and I’ll admit that I do have a selfish motive too. I’m about to embark on a really fun and weird and embarrassing and mind opening journey that I wish I could take you all on with me! I need you there with me when I accidentally tell someone in German I like to eat feet instead of I like to eat ice cream or when they ask what I like to do for fun and I respond with I have long brown hair (which is my default sentence and almost the extent of what I can currently say in German).  I also want you to cheer me on as I go on job interviews and to ohh and ahh over some wedding planning pictures. You’re important to me, and I want you here in my life!

XOXO,

The (Future) Mrs. Florian Christen aka The (Future) Real Housewife of Zurich

I’m About to Take a Really Big First Step

I’m about to take a really big first step. Forget the fact that I’m getting married in less than a month, that I’m quitting my job, traveling through Asia with no set plan, and then permanently moving to Switzerland – No, my big first step is creating this blog! I admit, I’m a blogging virgin, but I’m doing this for all of you!!

Since the many other life-altering changes are imminently approaching, I’ve come to find people are treating me like I’m dying. Remember when we did this… oh my God, I’m going to miss you so much! I’m never going to see you again! Oh, I also get the You know we’re not really going to stay in touch when you move a lot too. And while it boggles my mind as to why people think either of these things are actually true, I’ve decided to prove them all wrong (I did always like being right!) and stay in touch through this blog. See, I am neither a) dead to you or b) doing a bad job of staying in touch.

Okay, okay, twist my arm and I’ll admit that I do have a selfish motive too. I’m about to embark on a really fun and weird and embarrassing and mind opening journey that I wish I could take you all on with me! I need you there with me when I accidentally tell someone in German I like to eat feet instead of I like to eat ice cream or when they ask what I like to do for fun and I respond with I have long brown hair (which is my default sentence and almost the extent of what I can currently say in German).  I also want you to cheer me on as I go on job interviews and to ohh and ahh over some wedding planning pictures. You’re important to me, and I want you here in my life!

XOXO,

The (Future) Mrs. Florian Christen aka The (Future) Real Housewife of Zurich