Laundry - 1; Me - 0

There are lots of beautiful, picture-perfect moments here in Zurich. Like the riverfront at 9pm on a spring night. It is a magical place at those times, and I can't believe we actually moved here to live.

And then there is laundry time.

Laundry time is a completely different part of life here. It is instituted to bring pain and frustration into my life. I don't think it existed before we arrived, since it seems so perfectly suited to making me upset.

We have to sign up for laundry times since there is only one washer and one dryer for 6 apartments here. Usually we are late doing this and get left with 4-8pm on Saturdays. Great. That is what I dreamed I'd be doing on Saturday afternoons in Europe....washing underpants and towels.

But even that would be fine if the process itself wasn't so much slower than in the US. You have
to remember to bring your circuit card with to "turn on" the electricity in the laundry room. Then, you have to remember (as I did not do yesterday) to turn on the water to the machine or you'll waste (as I did yesterday) a whole hour of your time with an unwashed first load. And finally, did you notice I said "an hour" there in that last sentence? Yes, a load of warm water wash takes 1hr. 04 min. If you have whites that need a hot wash, we're talking 1 hr. 30 min. But wait, now that things are washed, they need to by dried. And the dryer comes with a range of options in addition to "totally dry":

"almost dry"
"mostly dry"
"kind of dry"
"kind of wet"
"mostly wet"
and
"I just made some noises and heated your wet clothes for an hour, but they're no less wet than when you put them in here. Have a great day, though!"

I've never even attempted "totally dry" but it would probably take some 2 hours. Seriously. Because "kind of wet" takes maybe 1 hr.

For a country with such advanced transportation and great produce, this one just completely confuses me. So, you readers who have a washer and dryer in your own home or apartment, next
time you go down there to do a full load (wash and completely dry) in some 45 min., take an extra minute to thank your machines. And while you're at it, give a little affectionate pat to the water pipes which are permanently "on" - for my sake.