Back to the normal routine...

It has been raining non-stop for the past 2 days and is still raining today. Though not exactly heavy, but it deters one from travelling out because of the cold. Fortunately Uncle Tan's office is within a shopping centre so on such days when I'm unable to step out (ya we are actually sharing one brolly as Uncle Tan is worried another brolly will add on to the luggage weight), he would have to do grocery shopping which he has kindly offered. Of course, I'd prefer to shop for them myself cos the stuff he buys sometimes er...well, ok, shan't complain too much since he has kindly offered right?

The ladies are here to clean the apt yesterday. This batch seems to be younger except for the same old lady I saw. They are really fast workers and I wondered if they smelled my burnt fish finger. Ya, burnt one in the microwave. But when I made it for my friends the other day, it was ok. Hmm...it's either I've forgotten to turn to low heat or I should have shorten the time. So my whole kitchen was in smoke when I went to check the fish and it eventually travelled the entire house. Fortunately there's no smoke alarm here, otherwise it would be so embarrassing to have the apt staff or even a fire engine to come knocking at my door.

Slowly getting back to the normal routine after my friends have left. It's kinda fun to have guests coming. And for a moment I felt like a mum cooking a meal for my girls when they come back from their trip ;p and Uncle Tan telling them the 'house rules' when they arrive i.e not letting the shower curtain fall out of the shower area as this will wet the bathroom (cos there's no drainage for the water except in the shower area) and throwing rubbish into the smaller plastic bag instead of directly into the bigger bin as the cleaners for the apt would only come once a week to clear them.

The Swiss are pretty particular on how they dispose their rubbish. They have separate bins for different types of rubbish - plastic bottles, paper, glass etc and the residents have to buy their own trash bags. Even the trash bags are categorised. According to Uncle Tan's colleague, the trash collectors would check the bags of the residents randomly to see if they have thrown items that are not supposed to be in since they have different bins for different types of rubbish. If they found out something inappropriate in the trash and it happens that they've also managed to know how the owner of the trash is i.e. finding a letter bearing the name of the owner in the trash bag, they will then impose a fine on the person.

Our trash bag was black in colour so as to differentiate ours from the rest which are white in colour. This was because the apt we are staying are mostly occupied by expats and foreigners on short-term stay (had to be since this apt is darn expensive to rent). So the collectors would not be checking our bags at all.

Imagine the smell during the 1st week when we arrived. Not knowing if we could dispose the rubbish ourselves, Uncle Tan took the risk and decided to dispose our rubbish at the main rubbish bin outside our apt where the collectors will collect. Apparently he left it at the wrong bin without knowing until when the truck came to collect the trash, ours was still left there - Uncle Tan had thrown our black trash bag in the bin that was meant for the white trash bag. So Uncle Tan had to bring the trash to the right bin that was meant for this apt.

Learning our lesson, we now dispose our stuff in small plastic bags that we collect from our grocery shopping. When it's full, we'll tie it up and dispose it into the bigger bin for the cleaners to dispose on every Tues.

Outside, it's not too common to find a bin, unlike in S'p, where you'll find one in every 5 to 10 steps. Despite that, the place isn't littered with rubbish, thou there are cigarette butts found.

In S'p, though we have quite a number of recycle bins (I've already spotted 2 within my neighbourhood), they are always full - with junks and all sorts of rubbish. I wonder when we will reach to that level...

Well, the weather seems to be clearing up a little. Hope there'll be sunshine by noon.