I was in the same circumstance as you last year so I can give you my completely biased opinion:
1) no idea. I guess you may want to be careful of aircraft noise if you wind towards the airport area.
2) one of the huge benefits of this city in comparison with (eg) London is that its relatively small and you can get pretty much anywhere in about 20 minutes or so. The possibility of walking / cycling in to work is something i wouldn't have dreamed of in London for example. So to live too far away from your work and/or general hub seems to me just to subject yourself to unneccessary hassle. Dispense with your conception of the UK commute and think about how it could be in a nicer place! You can find city environment or countryside environment without crossing the border. Also public transport in Switzerland is pretty good but the minute it involves a border crossing it can be much more problematic
3) nope but dont discount the local schools which can be remarkably good at that age group if you are happy with the whole French thing. Local schools can also provide an easier way for the four of you to integrate locally and find people nearby in a similar situation rather than only mixing with the expat (and maybe geographically dispersed) crowd.
4) the cost of pretty much anything which involves a workman here still makes my eyes water. It can be more than double the price of a London workman. And the cost of anything that doesn't involve a workman can, from time to time, cause you to wonder where the hell the world is going to... the person in front of me in the migros supermarket queue at the weekend had a bill of chf 750 for one trolly's worth... Plus don't underestimate the cost of health insurance if you are paying for it yourself. But boy, do you feel like a client here in comparison with the UK health service!
Other shocks? People say hello to you in the street here, certainly not a London thing. The sun shines brightly on a nicely consistent basis. February is most definitely quite impressively cold.
5) in the context of 4, bring your stuff from the UK if you can. Your TV won't decode local signals but the Digital DVB will, for what its worth (not much). Bring a sky box or a freesat box and you can watch UK tv by satellite pretty stress-free. I had no problem with any electrical goods I brought over. i can recommend Crown relocations, they were absolutely impeccable, on time, respectful and literally the only breakage I had was a single light bulb.
If you want any more specific questions answering feel free to send me a private message!
hucklewoo, Jun 17, 2009 @ 12:26
