As I was running today I started to think about what to write next in my blog. I was staring out at the gorgeous ocean-like lake and rolling hills with the sunshine beating down and I honestly thought I would write for an hour about it. I was going to write about the half-timber medieval Tudor houses and how they have inspired me entirely to build our house just like that (I have a collection of inspiring pictures going) but with better, more modern insulation. I spent an hour reading about how to construct these houses and the cost of building a half-timber house versus building a traditional vinyl sided American home. I could write about canoeing in the sunshine and getting a tan while watching the swans swim beside. I was going to write about the cheese shop and the 100 different kinds of sheep and cow cheese in the markets. I could also write about the effects of the cheese and very little running has had on my body! ha! I had a lot of interesting things in mind to write about the beauty and about how it tops everywhere else we have been by far and why, but then tonight at dinner I changed my mind so I will have to keep the talk of beauty and dream Swiss houses to a minimum.
Switzerland certainly is the most clean and peaceful place we have been to yet. It also may be the most interesting because from the house we see a lake, and on the other side of the lake is Germany. When we are on the lake we are technically in both countries. When we drove to Basel on Friday we wove in and out of the two countries. Both are equally beautiful in the Lake Constance region. The big differences are the euro versus the Swiss franc and the more expensive prices for everything on the Swiss side. The cost of living in Switzerland is extremely high, but the minimum wage is somewhere around 16 Swiss francs an hour. That is like making $20/hr minimum wage. Thomas told us that a server in Switzerland makes a salary of somewhere between 70 and 90 thousand Swiss francs a year. Can you imagine? Every work place is required to give a minimum of 4 week vacation to all of their employees. The lifestyle here is extremely luxurious in comparison to the lifestyle we have in the US. The funny thing is, the Swiss tend to stereotype Americans as lazy (Thomas told us they could bad mouth us for a half-hour). A decent house here will cost a minimum of 500,000 francs. Looks like we won’t be coming back! We are really LOVING the scenery and spending so much time with Thomas, but we are still recovering from the tax phenomenon and we are learning very quickly that Switzerland is absolutely not the place for it. I bought a bell pepper today for 3 euro ($5). That should give you an idea.
So, considering the stress that comes with our financial state it is an extreme blessing that Thomas is housing us. I want to tell you the whole story starting from the beginning. Jared and I were looking for housing in Switzerland for the week we had planned, but we were starting to find that it was outrageous given the cost of things here. They must think everyone in the world has a minimum wage like theirs. We contacted Thomas because his house was the cheapest decent looking listing on airbnb.com. He responded, we booked it, and then the day we made the offer we noticed that he changed his prices to per person which was much too expensive for us. We could hardly afford the original price, and his change was doubling the price! We brainstormed about what we were going to do to afford Switzerland. We considered renting a car for two days (shortening our planned stay), sleeping in it, and using it to get us to the border of Italy where we would drop it off at Lugano airport and stare at the Alps for a few hours and then catch a train to Italy. That was our backup plan. Crazy, right? Well, because God is good Thomas accepted the way-too-low offer even though he had raised his prices and didn’t complain or anything. He even offered to pick us up at the airport to save us a wad of cash (public transportation here is very expensive, just like everything else). We ditched the car idea and embraced the idea of a lake-front house on the border of Germany far away from the Alps (which was a bummer for us).
Thomas has been living alone for quite some time. He was born in Switzerland, moved to NYC for over 20 years, and then just came back to Switzerland recently. He is in his late fifties and has two children living in the US. He has pancreatitis and a huge side-effect of the life-threatening disease is extreme depression which he has been battling for quite some time. We can tell that he is lonely in a lot of ways, and that having us here brightens up his life. He is on medical leave from work because of his condition (here in Switzerland they get full pay for 1.5 years) so he has lots of time on his hands. He buys all of our groceries and cooks for us at least 2 meals a day. He is an awesome cook, let me tell you. He goes to the bakery each day and buys us fresh bread and healthy, fresh veg and fruit at the farmer’s market. He cooks on the grill about every other night. Tonight we had asparagus and turkey on the grill with fresh bread and white wine. He also let us know that we do not need to pay him for our food. Food here is very expensive (I bet you could have guessed that) and it is basically like he is paying for us to come visit him. The food itself will cost more than we paid for the week here. He is also letting us stay an extra night because train tickets to Italy were cheaper on a different day, and he drives us everywhere always eager to share information on the different places that we go. We have seen so much of Switzerland and the border cities of Germany and we have not paid a cent for public transportation thanks to Thomas. What a huge blessing. We could have never afforded this place without him.
Today Thomas took us to Konstanz for shopping and souvenirs. He drove us because we had to admit to him that we could not afford the ferry (30 per person!), which was very hard for me. I learned a good lesson in pride today. He was so understanding and we just took the car instead! We had a wonderful time. I went to a kitchen store to pick out my standard kitchen accessory that I choose in each country and I chose a cutting board that is made in a town just 15 minutes away. It is beautiful with dark stained wood. On the way out I saw a set of three cutting boards for a lower price but that weren’t as pretty and then I was torn on what to get. I put away the single one and decided on buying the three instead to save money even though I wanted the other one when Thomas grabbed up all four cutting boards and placed them on the counter and told me that no matter what I had picked, had it been a 200 euro coffee grinder (which I was eying), he was planning on buying it for me. He made a joke about how it was too bad for me that I picked the cutting boards. Anyway, the point IS, we have been here for not even 5 whole days and this man is blessing us in overwhelming, hard-to accept ways. He doesn’t even know us, yet he wants to gift us over and over again. All I have to say is that I am almost in tears thinking about the financial stress that I could have and then about the goodness of God coming in and providing for us over and over again.
In just 5 days I feel as if I know Thomas well. He has shared with us about his son and daughter and how much he misses them. We talk about the split that he and his ex had and where they went wrong. We talk about our marriage and the foundation that we have built and how Jared and I both believe we can withstand anything. I think Thomas is starting to believe us as he watches us. Tonight over dinner he let us know that he would miss us when we left, which is something that we really love to hear. Sometimes we feel like people are ready to get rid of us! It is wonderful to know that we are blessing to a person rather than a burden. It turns out that Thomas probably needs us as much as we need him.
The last thing I really want to write about is something that I never thought about until tonight when we were eating dinner and staring over the lake at Germany. I was thinking about WW2 and about what that must have looked like from over here on this side of the lake. Thomas told us that his grandmother was Jewish and paid for citizenship in Switzerland right before things get terrible for the Jews. He has kind of an interesting connection to the event. We were looking over the border and talking about how the Jews would swim across the lake at night, hundreds of them, and the Swiss would find them in the morning and send them back over to die. Even though Switzerland was neutral in the event, they played a great role. Thomas said that his father has memories of when the Germany was bombed and the ashes and soot would cover the lake and float over and cover part of Switzerland – the part we are staying in now that looks so entirely beautiful. It’s hard to imagine it otherwise. Crossing into Germany and being in Konstanz there are hardly any signs of the war or of the wreckage. Most German people aren’t proud of their history at all so they have tried to restore every building and hide the traces. It is interesting to me, because it wasn’t so long ago that this all happened. I could watch an 80 year old German man and daydream about the role he may have played as a German soldier. Anyway, sitting there, looking at the border of Germany and being so close to the place where Hitler manipulated and destroyed was really interesting to me. It also made me proud of my heritage and proud that America put a firm stop to the devastation. We sat outside tonight and talked about all sorts of things from the time the sun was high in the sky until it was completely dark outside and we had to go in because we could hardly see each other.
We have spent basically all of our time here with Thomas (except for when we lock ourselves away in our cave to work and write blogs and sleep) and it has been extremely enjoyable. It seems with each city or country we make some sort of a bond. The whole experience has totally opened my eyes to the beauty people all over the world and has allowed me to think outside of my little box. I believe everywhere we go we can give to the people and also take something from them to enrich ourselves. I had personal goals for this trip. One was to gain knowledge and to become more aware of myself and more confident in who I am without trying to be anyone else. This experience has made me see that I also have something to offer. I have Jesus living within me which is appealing to anyone if I just let it show. I have a God who will take care of me in every situation. If that doesn’t make a person feel confident, I don’t know what will.
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