April 26

We met up in Boston to start our European adventure! We left in the early evening and set our sights on London. We had ambitious plans of forcing ourselves to sleep the entire flight to get a head start on the 9 hour time change in Zurich, but it was too early, we were too excited, and British Airways has tiny “media centers” for each passenger and two free meals! So much food, so many movies, and so little time. We arrived in London wide awake and just in time to see the sunrise from the airport windows (with the aid from some treats from Starbucks! Yes, American gift cards work at British Starbucks. Phew.)

After a short wait, we boarded our morning flight to Zurich. It seemed that we were the only non-business people on the flight. We felt somewhat underdressed without briefcases and fancy overcoats, but we pulled through.

We arrived in Zurich quite tired and looking forward to naps. But there is no rest for the weary; we had a big day planned and accomplished all of our goals without getting too lost (just kinda lost a few times). We stopped by google, dropped off some excess baggage to store, had a delicious free lunch with Nate’s new google pals, made our way to our new apartment, met the landlords, signed the lease, and headed back to google to meet our gracious hosts for the evening: Keith and Andrea (Americans living full time in Zurich). Keith is Nate’s boss for the summer. After settling into Keith & Andrea’s fabulous guest room set up, Keith & Nate left for a computer party. Sharon & Andrea decided to bow out of the nerd night in favor of a tasty homemade meal in the backyard with some great conversation. Through swapping stories, Sharon & Andrea soon learned that they both previously worked at Travelers Aid Family Services in Boston. What an incredibly small world we live in! Sharon succeeded in keeping her eyes open until 8 pm in a valiant effort to defeat jet lag, Nate groggily made his way to bed a few hours later. First day in Zurich was a success!