It’s not Switzerland Day everywhere–just for Elisa and me. This time last year we were sitting at Tara and Larry’s, watching the Pride and Prejudice movie. Plane tickets were in hand. All the bags were packed. We were just waiting to head to the airport. We arrived here on Jan 18, and for as long as we’re here we are going to celebrate it. It was a very windy day and they lost our bags. Basically the whole start was really hard. But so many good things have happened and it keeps getting better.

I got my Swiss driver’s license in the mail! It makes me feel so grown up! Maybe I wouldn’t think it was such a big deal, but it took three months of visiting offices, calling the US, faxing, and so on to get it. If I couldn’t get it by tomorrow, I would be required to take a driving test and a written test, both in German, which I couldn’t pass. Rahel told me they are difficult to get here even if you do speak the language.

This week at work another package arrived containing… a… white… lab coat! Yep, that’s right. I have my own lab coat with a little “Google Labs” logo on the breast. It came with a plaque saying that the Gmail team got a “Founders Award” from the powers-that-be at Google. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. We’ll have to upload a photo of me sporting the coat in the kitchen.

• Chad’s lab coat