Amateur Electrician at your service

When we moved into our apartment, I quickly noticed one very odd feature. There were no lights. I understand if you're like 'what do you mean there were no lights?' Yeah, there were just bulbs hanging from the celling with exposed wiring. Is this to fire code? We don't know.

We inquired as to what the situation was on lights with other expat we know. They confirmed that typically light fixtures do not come with an apartment (even those that are rented). So then I expected there to be a large second hand market for light fixtures if you have to swap them out ever time you move. I was told there was not - people don't move that often, even those who rent are typically in the place for 10-15 years so the fixtures would wear out or be out of style when they move and therefore they're discarded usually.

So we went to our favorite Swedish retailer ... Ikea ... I feel like I lived there the first couple of months we were here. Sure enough, there were hundreds of options. After settling on some, I then had the task of figuring out how to install these newly acquired fixtures.

I again inquired of the expat community, all of whom told me that you just hang the fixture on the hook then unclip the bulb and reclip the new bulb.

Um...Sure.

So I figured out how to unclip the old bulb, but despite the Ikea instructions, several German YouTube clips, and multiple discussions with coworkers and friends, the whole "hang it on the hook" part still alluded me. With the help of a coat hanger, two key chains, and some electrical tape, I eventually got there.

Now on to the other 6 lights in our apartment...

Celebrating my favorite 5 year old

I have to admit I was a bit nervous on expectations for Charlotte's birthday this year. Charlotte had high expectations that all her friends would join her for her "Rainbow Unicorn Party" and there would be cake and a piñata. I tried to ground a bit more in reality that we've only been here for about six weeks and maybe her friends already had plans because her birthday was during the summer vacation but we would definitely have a rainbow unicorn cake. So in the last week of school, we sent out invitations.

Having a party in the park (or spielplatz in German) is a great way to have a party with minimal planning. I did snacks and the REQUIRED cake (from a bakery because I still don't have any of my baking pans that are S.L.O.W.L.Y. floating their way across the ocean). Then in a stroke of pure luck, I was wandering through a store the week before her party and came across a rainbow unicorn piñata. Y'all, I nearly jumped in the store itself.

All told we had 9 kids show up from her class + a couple of their siblings to bring us up to 14. It was the perfect amount for her to feel 120% loved.

A side note, many of the Swiss parents brought their children then left and came back a couple hours later. In a public park! International parents are much more relaxed than US parents, I'm learning.

Tour de Suisse

Sometimes, the magical part of living abroad is the things that just happen around you. Where a lazy Sunday turns into something pretty exciting.

We got a letter in the mail.

Side story: Have you ever thought about how long the mail takes to read? Probably not. You can pretty easily figure out if something is junk mail, a bill, or some piece of vital information. You know why you can do that? Because you can read it. And by skimming it in 20 seconds you know if you toss it out or if you need to do something. I can no longer do that. Reading the mail has become a significant chunk of my time every day. Oh, and EVERYTHING comes in the mail. You send an email to try to get a doctor's appointment, a week later you get a physical letter back saying they’re not accepting new patients. Google Translate’s hover picture feature is my new bff.

I’m back from my detour.

We got a letter in mail from the city we live in. It said (based on Google Translate) “due to important events in your area, you may not use your road by car from 6:30am to 4:30pm on June 19th”. No other info. Just that. So again, Google.

Eventually we figured out that the Tour de Suisse bike race (think Tour de France, only the Swiss version) was coming through our city and they were closing all the roads around us.

So we decided that since we couldn’t leave the house by car, we’d just walk out onto the street & watch the race. The day they came through our area was a time trial, so riders were sent off from the starting line at 90 second increments meaning that we had a nice steady flow of bikers to watch.

Each rider was preceded by a police officer on a motorcycle and followed by a chase car most of the time carrying 2-3 other bikes.

Charlotte & Olivia got really into cheering for the bikes. Also the thin air.

Olivia even cheered for several people who were just out for a Sunday bike ride and not affiliated with the race. It’s hard to tell if this was appreciated or shunned…still learning my German body language cues.

Apparently, Remco Evenepoel from Belgium won the stage the day we watched and Geraint Thomas from Great Britain went on to be the overall winner of the Tour. Neilson Powless, the lone American in the race finished 4th place.

Take a Hike!

I’m not a ski person. Skier? Ski bunny? I don’t even know the term, apparently. So when Adam got his crazy idea to move us to the alps, one of my first thoughts was ‘but they have winter there!’ Thankfully I pushed through that and discovered that they also have summer there too.

The alps in the summer are great. There is hiking everywhere.

Now with a 5 year old and an almost 2 year old, hiking is more like walking on a large hill. Or carrying 22 - 55 lbs while walking on a large hill. But we are determined to make the most of it and to stretch their legs and their love of nature while we can.

We’ve discovered a few favorite places so far.

Steg. Steg is a small village in Liechtenstein, located in the municipality of Triesenberg. It is very much “on the mountain” but has a beautiful lake with about a two mile path in a loop. One one side of the path is an electric fence to keep the sheep on the upper hill, on the other side is a lake…this makes it perfect to contain wild humans (right??)

When Mom won't let you pet the sheep on the other side of the electric fence...

Schellenberg. Schellenberg is probably my favorite of the favorites. It’s only about a 10-15 min drive for us to get there. There are some old castle ruins that you can climb around on and awesome paths that take you along the mountain ridge between Liechtenstein and Austria.

Forstweg. Over the border in Austria, it takes a bit longer to get there, but the views are worth it. Plus there's a playground on the mountain. If you’re 5 or 2 or 40, does life get better than that?

The Dawn of the Sheep

Liechtenstein is a small country. I mean really small! Geographically it’s smaller than Washington DC. Its largest city has a population of roughly 6,000 people. In 2016 there were only 406 unemployed people in the entire country - which also may be inflated, because if you’re on maternity leave you’re considered unemployed & we see about 15 birth announcements a week in the local paper. Liechtenstein hasn’t had an army in 150 years. There’s no airport and only one trainline that runs through the northern portion of the country and has a total of three stops as trains make their way from Switzerland into Austria.

But one thing Liechtenstein has an abundance of is farm animals, and in particular sheep.

So this morning when we woke to the sound of bells in the field next to our apartment we were only moderately surprised to find this.

We have no idea how long our new neighbors will be staying with us, what their general habits are or the answers to any of the hundreds of questions Charlotte has been bombarding us with since they arrived but I’m sure we’ll have lots to tell very soon and in the mean time I’m going to try and keep Charlotte from hugging them.

Bringing home the bacon

When Adam went off and got a wild hair about moving back to Europe, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do. I love my kiddos and the thought of spending more time with them was really exciting. I do know myself well enough though to know that I really like working outside the home. I like getting dressed (though the last two years have been more yoga pants and a blouse for Teams Calls than a skirt with heels for the Board Room…); I like having adult conversations about complicated things; I like the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing a project.

Then we had to make some grown up decisions. Adam has talked extensively about our visa arrangement. We are super lucky to get to live in Liechtenstein for a number of reasons - the commute is better for him, the school options we have for both girls are easier, and the taxes are better than in Switzerland or Austria. The thing we gave up in the decision to go with the Liechtenstein visa is that I could only work in Liechtenstein. So that ruled out a lot of potential jobs for me.

I had started looking in January or early February when everything became official that we were moving, but between busy season at PwC and organizing a move and life in general, I hadn’t quite committed to the search. One evening Adam looked on the internal job posting boards for Hilti and found something I would be qualified for and would be a good transition role between public accounting and whatever my next step in the corporate world would be. He contacted HR through his network and they allowed me to apply (even though I’m an outsider!). I did a couple of video interviews and mentioned to the recruiter that we were coming over to do our house hunting trip in a few weeks. Things rather took off from there, by the time I got to Liechtenstein, I had an interview set up, a tour of the campus arranged and unbeknownst to me, they’d already written up a draft contract. We did a little negotiating on terms; the biggest being that they agreed to push back my start date to June 1st so that I had time to get the girls settled in before I started work.

So in our trip over for house hunting, I became the newest Hilti employee:

Fast forward to today. When for the first time in the history of there being 4 Powells, we all went somewhere for our day - Adam to his office, me to mine (coincidentally despite the fact we work for the same company in the same country; one the size of a postage stamp; we are on two different campuses about two miles apart), Charlotte to school in Switzerland, Olivia to daycare.

Hope Hilti is ready for this many Powells to deal with!