Hello!

Today is my third morning here in Zurich, and things are wonderful.

On my first day, Martin met me at the airport (with a rose!) and we took the tram into Zurich and home. There's a tram stop right by our house so we're very lucky. It's only a 10-minute walk at most to both of our universities (ETH for him, UZH for me), so I imagine we'll only need to take the tram in really bad weather.

We live in a student house with about 40 people. A student house is basically an apartment building, except that we share a bathroom with the other 5 rooms on our floor and we all share a kitchen. The kitchen is very cool, massive and a little industrial. There is a whole wall of fridges, each room has a shelf. Added to that we have a cabinet in the kitchen and another one in the locker room-like pantry off the main kitchen. Pots, pans, and dishes are shared, so we don't have to buy anything. Very handy!

We stopped at the grocery store once we'd dropped off my bags, and got some yogurt and fruit to have for breakfast. Some of you may know that my only real apprehension about this move was that I wouldn't be able to find a kind of yogurt that I like, but that fear is over! Martin's pick is excellent. I think I might be able to make it work here.

Yesterday I slept in until 2pm (yay jet lag!), so all I really did was eat breakfast (or late lunch, whichever) with a couple of people in the house and go for a run. I followed another runner and found a whole system of trails just up the hill from the house, I'm so excited! I just need to work out a strategy for exploring them without getting lost. Everything is super green here, so it felt a bit like running through a rainforest. Added bonus: no poison oak to watch out for here!

The European soccer championships are going on right now. We caught a bit of Poland vs. Greece last night during dinner, but tonight is Netherlands vs. Denmark and Germany vs. Portugal. I have decided (in honor of my heritage, hi Oma!) that I will be rooting for the Netherlands, and Germany is a very popular team in this part of Switzerland (especially because the Swiss team did not qualify for the championship). I am looking forward to watching down in the living room with people from the house!

I love you all! And Martin says hi.

Katie

PS I can iMessage (for those of you with iPhones) and I've been making use of my Twitter (@katiecaves) and posting pictures to Instagram and Facebook, but the wireless here is a little sketchy so email is probably the best option!