Settling Into Our New Apartment

Where we last left off… The “Swiss Family Dubin” moved to Geneva from Virginia in mid-April with nothing but 12 giant duffel bags to our name. Our new apartment was unavailable until May 1st, so we stayed in temporary lodging in the historic city center for those first 2 weeks.

I LOVED staying in the historic center. We were close to everything and it gave us a great way to get to know Geneva before settling into our daily life in our neighborhood.

You can read my blog post recapping our fantastic sightseeing-packed first week in Geneva here.

Also, those on Instagram, I post daily updates / photos there — follow me here.

Oh, and a quick sidenote to those thinking of planning a Geneva getaway (hint, hint — come visit!)… we stayed at the Hotel Central and I’d recommend that for anyone looking for a reasonably-priced, clean and central 2 bedroom apartment. I’d highly recommend Apartment 43, in particular. It’s big and check out this view!

At the end of the 2 weeks, it was time to pack everything up (again) and head to our new apartment in the neighborhood of Saint-Jean, which is still central, but just a bit removed from the hustle and bustle of the lake. After one short 10 minute bus ride, we were home!

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Geneva is notoriously difficult in terms of apartment-hunting. It can take forever, and the agencies here, called Regies, can be difficult to work with. We were lucky to bypass the whole bureaucratic process completely by renting directly from an owner. We are renting a furnished apartment, so all we needed to do was unpack our stuff and we’d be settled in. This was a real blessing since it would make everything much easier on the girls, especially.

Here’s a quick glimpse of the apartment, before we unpacked all the toys… ha!

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We had something special in store for Evie. So see a before and after

Here’s Evie as she saw her new room decorations for the first time – so cute!

Also during this time, Evie started a new school 3 days a week…

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Scott got an awesome new bike…

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And we’ve had a lot of fun exploring our new neighborhood.

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Oh, and there’s been parks. Lots, and lots, of parks.

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It’s hard to believe that we’ve only been in our apartment 15 days… we already feel very much at home here. Looking forward to seeing what the coming weeks, months, and years have in store!