Week 2: Work in Luzern

Working here is fantastic! I love it. Everyone here works VERY hard and I really enjoy always having lots to do. From the moment I start at 8:30am (yes, everyone is here promptly at 8:30am, myself and a few others even come at 8:00 to check email or just get a head start) until I leave at 17:30 (5:30pm) there is non-stop action. During my time here I will be doing many different things including but not limited to; filing, manually entering applications, forwarding inquires from an online service to the country recruiters, weekly compiling stats of Au Pair recruitment by country, creating promotions e-mails, updating promotions on country websites (for these last two I get to learn a bit of HTML) and more! This week I’ve had introductions to all those things and entered many applications.
My first day I had the grand tour. This office in Luzern is located in a hotel right along the water. My first flat (an apartment but everyone here calls it a “flat”. I’ll be at this one for 3 weeks then I move into a small house for 5 weeks. I’m renting them while the owners are on vacation or “Holiday”), is located about 2 streets over, a whole 3 minutes walk from the office. To get to work we walk through the hotel and take a private elevator up to the EF zone. It makes me feel like I’m part of a secret society. The Cultural Care staff in Luzern is only 8 people, 9 with me, and there is one other girl who comes in 1.5 days a week to help enter apps, but there are about 200 EF people here total.
The first day after learning how to enter apps and do a few other things one of the girls took me to lunch. I had älplermagrone with apfelmus which is essentially Swiss Mac ‘n Cheese but it’s made with white Swiss cheeses not cheddar and you usually get it with apple sauce which you spoon over it. Surprisingly the apple sauce is a nice touch, especially at the beginning when it helps to cool it down so you can eat it. I didn’t end up leaving the first day until 6:45 or so because I didn’t yet know we’re done at 17:30 and I wanted to check some email. Everything here closes at 18:30 so I just went home. I think that night was the most difficult because after meeting tons of new people I had to go home to an empty house and still was not used to living alone. Since then it’s been better and better.

Tuesday and Wednesday were just work days, a trip to Migros, the supermarket, much like those in the US but it’s 3 stories I think. I bought butter, which I found to be sweeter and creamier than that in the US. I had my first Skype chat with my family 7:45am my time 10:45pm their time. I also got to go for my first jog along the lake. It was early in the morning and was breathtakingly beautiful. I just had to make sure I blew out my nose and closed my mouth when I jogged through the clouds of bugs.
Tuesday night was really fun because the president of Cultural Care was in town so he took us all out to dinner. He is a very charismatic man and loved by everyone in EF. He’s Swedish but has raised his family in the US. He was a diplomat before coming to EF so he’s used to the travel, good thing because he travels 3 weeks of every month. He’s the one who offered me this internship when I was at the National meeting in Germany with Mom in November. By the way, for dessert we had strawberries mixed with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, raspberry liquor and guess what… fresh ground black pepper! Yes. As it turns out, fresh ground black pepper is a nice addition of many fresh fruits (grapes, melons, strawberries…) so you’ll have to try it.

Thursday was far more exciting. I didn’t have work because it was a Catholic holiday, Corpus Christi. The bells of the church tower next to my flat woke me at 7 am on my day off. At first I thought it was so cute, when they were still going at 7:20 they had lost their cuteness. At 10:30 I had another surprise when a little marching band, costumes and all passed under my window followed by many eager church-goers. They played again at around 11:00.
I went into work to do email and have lunch with those who were working, which ended up being most of the EF staff (they can trade the holiday and get a long weekend later). I had my first Panini ever and was pleased, then went with a coworker to meet friends at, I’m ashamed to say, starbucks. She later went home and I went for a walk with the other two girls for 2 hours during that beautiful Luzern afternoon.
Later my Danish friend from Church met me for dinner. It was very encouraging to be able to talk with her about how things had been going and how I felt.

Friday is casual so I enjoyed wearing jeans to work. I also got a SIM card today! One of the girls had an extra cell phone so now I can be reached and I’ll know what time it is! I also had my first visit to Heini one of the Swiss bakeries. They have very nice whole wheat rolls that have bits of shredded veggies and cheese. Very nice. And a very small croissant, made with that fantastic Swiss butter so it was fantastic! If you go to their website (http://www.heini.ch/) you will see a very nice picture of Luzern. After work I took a few pictures out some of the office windows. You can see just what I mean when I say we're right next to the water. As I left I stopped to listen to the band that was playing in a little out door theatere along the water. There was a really cute old man dancing to the traditional Swiss music all by himself (I saw him the next day at Migros! ). Then I went for a nice long night walk around Luzern, enjoyed the pleasant weather and started to figure out my way around.





Saturday I got to explore Luzern a bit. Saturdays there is a market along the water so there were many stands all selling cheese and fresh fruits, veggies and baked goods. I bought some breakfast and then just decided to walk up the hill. I walked for about an hour in one direction just to see where I ended up and that happened to be in another little town similar to Luzern’s residential areas. I also got to walk through an amazing graveyard. I know that’s weird but it was just so beautiful I had to walk through. I walked back to town, picked up a few things (having never lived on my own I’m amazed by all the expenses, dishwashing soap, toilet paper, cleaning products, and food… all rather pricey), made some lunch and sat down to read. I read my bible in English and Spanish for a few hours which was very peaceful, especially because I had a cup of tea and by 16:00 (4pm) it had started pouring.

Sunday got up early to go for a jog and it was the most beautiful day yet. The rain had totally cleared the area around the mountains and you could see everything. I spend the first few moments of my jog laughing, actually laughing because I couldn’t believe I was going for a jog in such a beautiful place. I took the train into Zurich for church and met two other Americans who had come for church, one who’s a choreographer from NYC who travels all over the world to do shows and another who’s an Au Pair in the French speaking part of Switzerland (Luzern is the German speaking part, well, Swiss German). She’s only 19 and has been her since March I believe, speaking just French! One of the couples had Sam and I (the au pair) over for lunch (delicious by the way) then Sam had to go but the mom, Nina, and I got to talk for 2 hours which was wonderful and helped me a lot.
That night I had been invited to join some other EF employees at a cookout on the amazing balcony we have here at the office. It was a very nice time and I was glad to meet a few more people. And this was not like hamburgers and things. Let me tell you, when international 20somthings have a cookout, they make nice food, and desserts. Yum.

So, it appears I’ve survived my first week in Luzern. Definitely full of many ups and downs but I feel I’m growing up a lot, which is not always fun but seems to be necessary. I promise no more play-by-plays of the week, I’ll be more brief about the day to day and save some room to describe the places I go. I just want you all to be able to experience things with me. Anyway, as always, I send you my love. You are all on my heart, and in my mind and prayers!

~Wildy