Thursday, March 17, 2011

Home

(click on the images to see bigger versions of them)
Greetings from Lucerne, Switzerland! Since the 24th of February, Martin and I are living in a beautiful flat in the old part of the town, by the lake Vierwaldstätter, in the central area of Switzerland. I have left Vienna for good and moved out of my flat there. Though I live here now, I am still a student of Vienna University, finishing in the months to come the thing left to do for my studies: writing my diploma thesis.


the picturesque old town of Lucerne

inside of which we live


the red circle marks our flat

After the time of exploring, furnishing and settling into the flat, it has become a beautiful and comfortable place both Martin and I call home. The old house, tiny in comparison to Viennese houses, is composed of a Thai restaurant on the ground floor (very yummy, very handy), led by two charming sisters who also own the flat on the first floor. The second floor's flat is owned by our only "real" neighbour, a German man of roughly our age, who is both friendly and polite (and keeps 5 bikes, 4 of which are his). The third and fourth floors, the house's upper portion, make up our flat, which is a maisonette composed of the regular third floor plus a completely renovated big attic. What a change from living in a house of 40 flats to this! And what a change to live in an area of town, where no cars are on the (tiny tiny) streets.

The first real adventure and challenge here was, without a doubt, Swiss Carnevale. Living right at the centre of it proved quite a challenge on the nerves, all around the clock, but also interesting and fascinating. After that, the silence and peace that surrounds the house (especially for me, after my Vienna flat) is astonishing.

Our living room, which is separated by a half-wall from the kitchen.

Kitchen and living room are connected to the hallway, which has the entrance door and bathroom door on one side, and that to the study on the other. At the end of the hallway, as seen in the picture above, is the door to the balcony, and the stairs winding up to the top floor.

The top floor is a huge room with pitched walls on three sides and lovely dark wooden beams under the (low) ceiling. We’ve separated it into two parts by means of a shelf, one side for the bed, the other for all kinds of other things. Sitting on the ground with pillows, blankets and sheepskins, it is a cosy place to have tea or play board games. At the far end, there is a particularly sunny window with an armchair by it, where I very much enjoy sitting in the open window and reading, in the sun, when the weather is fine.

Our balcony, the last picture, is still rather dire as of now, apart from the Tibetan prayer flags already giving a hint of colour. But flower seeds are already bought, and pots standing in waiting to be filled and put out. As the weather is getting warmer and warmer, I’ll soon start raising my seedlings.