Author: mondale

I love a deal, I love getting used stuff, so it filled me with joy when I found the for sale page for Zurich Googlers. There’s tons of new stuff everyday that allows me to be materialistic without the guilt of getting something new. I found an Ikea Kallax shelf with 16 squares to store tons of things. I thought this could act as a good first bookshelf in the dining room that now mostly looks like a place where we store cardboard..

I haggled the offer (the internal tool is like ebay) and got it! Oh the endorphin rush!! Shit, now the hard part – how do I get it from Weidikon to our house in Wollishofferplatz?

Queue Dima, an energetic, kind Googler who has worked with Rich for almost 10 years. He’s been checking in on me a lot while we’re settling, and it feels so nice to have someone looking out for me and Fred. He’s also got a stick shift Subaru Forester that he offered me to use to pick up the shelving unit. You know he’s nice since he’s a Subaru person!

I got in the Forester and it felt like home! No one loved my 2006 light blue stick shift Outback with many dings so no one wanted to park near me as much as I did. The clutch is easy, the controls are all the same – I was ready to take on my first time driving in Zurich! I drove incredibly slowly, as I couldn’t always tell the speed limit, and I really didn’t want to be pulled over. It’s a bit confusing to drive in the city because as a car you weave in and out of sharing a lane with the street trams, which always have right of way. I made it to Weidikon, and my stomach dropped realizing I would need to parallel park. Summoning courage (and using the back up cam), I wedged myself into a spot only needing to go back and forth 3 times!

Though this story has triumph, it also has troughs. I walked into the seller’s apartment and knew this unit was not right. On top of not loving the Pax fake-wood vibe, it was short for a shelf and the thing wasn’t going to fit in the car. Oh why didn’t I turn around at this point?? The seller and I spent 45 minutes disassembling and couldn’t get all the wooden pegs out of the holes. In my chaotic state, I rushed and started shoving things in the car. Wooden pegs snapping everywhere!

I picked up Freddy, tale between my legs, knowing my addiction for a deal had gotten in front of how we actually want our home to look like. We’ll get back to this as the car was parked illegally in front of our apartment..

We jumped in the car and drove to Dima’s in Horgen. After some navigational challenges (but no stalls!), we found his family’s house. We walked into a flurry of young children in a small apartment. All the kids who lived in the apartment building were in the flat! He welcomed us in, and gave us a great dinner of meat pie and rice, topped with family tea, sweet bread, and chocolate. It was this incredible multilingual household where Dima was speaking Russian to his family and English to us, his wife, Olga, speaking German and Russian, and his kids chattering in Russian while drinking earl grey tea at 8 pm. No wonder everyone was wired!

We learned about the Swiss school system, where there are two forms of high school, one for those hoping to attend Uni and the other for those going to apprenticeship programs (btw med school is free). It really was a chaotic delight!

Dima drove us home, and the wave of a fun dinner was about to crash. We now needed to put together this worthless piece of Scandinavian Design. Stacking one row at a time, the contraption got flimsier and flimsier the more we built up. I had stripped some screws making it so some of the doors on each shelf-box would not work. I was trying to laugh at the absurdity but this thing was pathetic – as always the last piece was very hard to align, so we were banging on the side of the shelves to get it in place. Good thing our upstairs neighbor has a crying child, so we’re both noisy..

It is now complete and in the dining room, and Freddy and I can’t look at the damn thing because of its mediocrity. 

I think the lesson I learned is, don’t get wrapped up in a deal!! Buy things that give you joy forever, not just during shopping!!

We’ve gotten very lucky on the moving front. A lot of folks that have moved here have told us it took 20 apartment viewings to get an apartment. With this warning in mind, when my coworker David (and his super awesome partner Adrienn) asked if we were interested in taking over their lease when they moved, we literally jumped at the opportunity. 

The apartment is located by Wollishofenplatz, at the end of the 7 tram line. It is about ~20 minute tram or bus to downtown and reminds me a lot of where I lived in the Richmond district of SF. 3-5 story apartment buildings, small shops and restos, replace the 38 with the T7 tram. If we walk half a kilometer up the hill, it turns to gravel paths and we can get to the Uetliberg trail network. We can walk directly down from Wollishofenplatz and in ~10 minute you hit the lake.

The apartment itself has 2 bedrooms with lots of windows, an ikea kitchen with limited counter space, a salmon tiled bathroom, and two balconies. We’re on the second floor and can hear the neighbors upstairs as well as the T7 storming by every 10 minutes. I think we landed in a great spot for our needs (commute and trail running) and price range.

We had an airbnb for 2 weeks before moving into Albisstrasse (the street we’re on). Sans voiture, we did trips on our bikes, shuttling bag after bag about a mile to the new place. We looked quite ridiculous, and I wish I got a pic of Freddy biking with our ski bag!!

On Saturday, we made the pilgrimage to IKEA. Again I must remind myself moving sucks no matter what, but Saturday was certainly a low.

Mistake #1: The day started off rough as we were trying to go to IKEA in DietLikon, but I navigated us to Dietikon. Oops! We went to the Spreichbach location instead, only wasting about 30 min.

Mistake #2: We did not eat a big enough breakfast, felt deep ennui as we got lost in the IKEA corn maze, having to do the loop twice after somehow skipping the Küchen section at first. By the time we got to choosing kitchenware, Freddy had lost all motivation and was willing to purchase colored plates (a line in the sand he had deeply drawn the night before). I still got white plates because I knew it was the funk talking. After another bout of malaise in the lamp section (“just pick a fucking lamp I don’t care”), we stormed off to check out, where we realized we had picked up another persons cart!! We skulked back to the lamps where we dropped the cart off sheepishly, then spent another ten minutes searching for our cart. Mind you, if we had lost this bounty, it would have been three hours wasted. Me, laugh-crying, and Freddy fuming from his ears, we finally found the damn cart 3 sections back from there. Because of the kerfuffle, we forgot to buy a bulb, so our apartment only has built in light for the kitchen and bathroom. We’re working with headlamps on until we get any lighting.

Mistake #3: We did not sign up for the IKEA family app. Do that!! Good deals and you can return for free.

By the end of this endeavor, we were able to obtain Swedish meatballs, so that was a win.

There’s a lot more interior design to do, so please stay tuned!

In the end, this is why we are able to be in Switzerland. For a long background, I told Freddy very early in our relationship (actually driving home from the first Dogsgiving) that I wanted to move to Switzerland. Mostly because these mountains are real. On a clear day from the office, you can see them rise from nothing. It’s never clear during the winter though!! Second, I knew working for Google, it was actually a real possibility. Third, since my life has fully revolved around Silicon Valley and Lake Tahoe, this felt like a big change while staying grounded in my passions and strengths (tech and skiing).

I had perused the internal job board for a while looking for positions at my level in Zurich, found one that sounded like something I was capable of and reached out to the hiring manager. I met with Rebecca a few times, and the job didn’t work out. This was in late 2020, and not getting a job just stinks!! After that, I let my dream lie dormant. 

After coming back from our ski trip in the North cascades, I had vowed to myself it was time for a change in the work I was doing. Lucky for me, Rebecca (who continues to amaze me!) had already slid into my inbox about a job. Within a month I had a job offer, Freddy and Conor got into a terrible car accident, reframing both of our perspectives on life, risk, and gratitude. I took the job, and we got married on my second day of work.

It’s been a really steep ramp up at work. I did not have experience working on a consumer facing product but am continuing to learn. I also dove in on helping launch features on the pixel 6 (that has been reviewed really well in the press!). This is mostly to say that I have learned a ton very quickly and remotely, I am so grateful for my coworkers patience, and I feel deep imposter syndrome working with incredibly sharp and kind people. 

While I started the job remotely in June, I finally arrived in Zurich on November 9th. Obtaining a visa took a while (it arrived in mid-September). We had to get married, which slowed down the process, but in addition there was a backlog from covid that made the process drawn out. There was also back and forth if Google would provide moving assistance. We found their team not very helpful, so we ended up just moving ourselves and taking a cash-out option.

So what I actually wanted to talk about in this post: I’ve worked everyday in the office this week. The Zurich Brandchenkestrasse campus has been around for a while. It’s a tetris looking building that has a lot of old Google charm: nap room with a bathtub, tons of pingpong, slides, fireman poles, gondolas for meeting rooms etc… It has two towers that you can’t access from each other, making it hard for a newbie to get around! There’s regional train tracks that follow two sides of the building. You have to book a desk right now, and it’s relatively full, though only half the desks are useable so it’s still easy to get a conference room. On Wednesday, I met the whole TPGM team in Zurich, and everyone was so kind. Again I felt deep imposter syndrome looking through peoples’ backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses, but then you meet folks in person and realize everyone is so kind and supportive and don’t care where you come from, just that you’re here and part of the team. Close to the office are the thermal baths, which is high on my list. I found the laundry room, shower, and the pressed OJ machine.

I feel more productive already just being in this timezone, looking folks in the eye, and knowing more about them. The confidence I need as I continue to learn this space!

I feel really hesitant speaking German. It’s not that I feel a deep need to be correct or perfect, it’s mostly when someone asks me something in German, my mind goes blank and I can’t think of any syllables to string together in a coherent manner. Needless to say, I need some chutzpah..In addition, I accidentally bought soy yogurt at the store this weekend and we can’t make that fake dairy mistake again!

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about taking a language class with Freddy. It somewhat pains me that I took 10 years of French class and he is leaps and bounds ahead of my comprehension. I really try to not be competitive with my husband given we work for the same company, got promoted in the same cycle, see ourselves as competent mountain athletes..it just wouldn’t be healthy and I see our common path as an asset most of the time. But I could really envision myself becoming a brat if Freddy naturally picks up German and my skill level remains 0. In the end, we decided to take the same class, so we’re learning at the same speed and have someone to practice with. We also thought it would be fun to take a group class in person to be able to practice with more folks. 

We walked into our first class today at Inlingua, it felt weird to be in a dingey classroom again. Peggy walks in and says “it’s just you two!” Quel horror! How can I not compare myself to him!! It’s like you get to sit next to the cute boy in math class, and you want to act cool but you legitimately can’t count to ten!!

Peggy assuaged most of my fears by introducing herself in English and giving us the lay of the land, then it was all German from there. We went back and forth for 2 hours.. “Hello, I’m Frau Lacampagne” .. “Are you Roger Federer?” .. “Nein! Ich bin Herr Mondale” We learned the present conjugation of “to be,” asking someone their name and how they are doing. I can only be “guht” because I don’t know how to say “I’m not good.” And I have homework!! By end of January, I will be certified at the A1 level of German. Guten Abend tout le monde!