Administration and turning cogs
I'm writing this on the boat from Lausanne to Evian Les Bains, which is in fact in France, even though it's just across the lake.
My bank gave me chocolate!
It's been a very busy first full week in Switzerland! After we arrived last Thursday, Tanya and I have spent much of our time doing administrative tasks. There is truly a lot of bureaucracy here, but the crazy thing is that if you do it in the right order, and you have all the required documents at each step, it is a very efficient system. I get the feeling there are cogs turning behind the scenes here at every level - the metros grind under the city, the postal service works on the weekend, and when you fill out a form, a database across the country accepts your details. And we have been entering our info into a lot of databases! The rough outline has been:
Find somewhere to stay! Turns out you need an address for just about everything else. A temporary address is fine, and we sorted out a month's accommodation before we left Australia.
Register at the Contrôle des Habitants! Here you have to fill out a form announcing that you've arrived and you want your living/work permit - which your employer had previously applied for. For us this went smoothly and the next day we were able to pick up a letter each which certifies that we have a permit on the way. This letter turns out to be more important than I expected - at about every step we have been asked for a permit, and the letter works as proof that the real one is on the way. Getting the permit costs around CHF 100.
Give our biometric data! As part of the permit process, we were required to give the Canton biometric info, which means fingerprints and a photo. You get a letter of invitation when the permit is approved and with that invitation you can have your biometric info taken when you show up and pay CHF 20.
Open a bank account! For this you need a work contract, the permit letter, and your passport. We opened accounts with PostFinance, the post office's bank, and we just had to rock up with the documents. They gave us chocolate to eat while the forms were filled out, and then a big box each to say thanks! As Murray would say, imagine that!
Get set up at work! For me this meant getting officially registered at EPFL, which involved officially signing up for the doctoral school, getting a card, and handing in my new bank account details.
Get transport passes! Although we really wanted to buy unlimited train passes, Tanya and I decide we can't afford it yet so we have both got 'Demi-tarif' cards which get us half price train travel, and monthly unlimited passes for the Lausanne public transport system (which is totally awesome).
Look for a permanent apartment. This is hard, but you have to do everything else first. I'll write another post about the trials and tribulations of our apartment search soon.
Et voila, now I'm in France, and it's time to go!
The Rolex Learning Centre at EPFL.