Nate and the Tale of the Taggs - Part 2

The Conclusion...

(read Part 1 if you haven't yet.)

The Map (again):

View Directions to Zentrumstrasse 1, Fischbach-Göslikon, Schweiz in a larger map

The shrill ringing of a mobile phone alarm pulled me out of a deep and dark sleep. It took me a few moments to remember where I was: a small Austrian village nestled at the foot of the Alps at the home of the Stubbe family whom I didn't know from Adam twelve hours previous. I opened the window and looked across a wide green valley with high Swiss mountains in the distance and a bright blue sky overhead.

Sister Stubbe was getting ready to leave for work and led Joseph and me downstairs to a table spread with bread, jams, butter, müsli, milk, juices, and fruit for breakfast. She hastily explained how to lock up when we leave and after trying our darndest to express our great thanks we said goodbye to our host and heartily attacked our breakfast.

After cleaning up a bit we went out to the driveway to our old friend the rental Sprinter van. I helped Joseph back out of the narrow driveway into the petite lane while trying not to be distracted by the gorgeous waterfall above.

My mind reflected again and again on the mass of items we had unloaded at the church in Austria the day before. How much did our current load weigh? Would it still be too much for the customs? It was impossible to know until we got to customs, and this provided a nice little knot in the stomach to go with breakfast.

Twenty minutes after leaving the Stubbes' we approached the Austrian checkpoint. No one was there and so Joseph, wanting to play things as safely and by-the-book as possible, pulled over and went dutifully, as the guard yesterday told him he should have done, to the small office nestled between the in-going and out-going lanes. Seconds later he returned to the van shaking his head, "They looked at me like I was stupid and said they didn't care." Yes, the Austrian border guards are lovely.

We crossed the Rhein again and pulled up to the dreaded Swiss customs building. Joseph went inside and found people in somewhat better spirits than the day before. He came back out and pulled the van onto the scale. Now was the moment of truth. Would we be allowed to finally enter Switzerland or would we be sent back to Austria with another 30 franc plus €50 fine?

We both stood on the scale next to the van (I was careful not to eat too much that morning so that we could keep our weight down). Joseph went inside and reemerged moments later triumphantly. We were two hundred kilos under the weight limit. We could now enter Switzerland!

We started the van with celebration and with great relief we turned onto the highway that would take us to the Taggs' new home. Suddenly the sky seemed bluer, the sun shinier, and the grass greener as we passed into the gorgeous Swiss countryside.

From the cows on the lush hillside meadows carved from deep green forests, to the storybook farmhouses, to the flagrantly modern structures of the cities, everything was meticulous, clean, and proudly Swiss. Colorful hot air balloons floating above the idyllic landscape added that final touch that had me convinced the Swiss were purposely daring us not to love their country despite their draconian customs agents.

Eventually we came to the series of villages outside Zürich where the Taggs' new home would be. It took a bit of searching and driving through colorful Swiss villages before we found the road that took us to Fischbach-Göslikon. Finally, in the early afternoon we arrived at the apartment building with a green field on one side and playground on the other.

Emily and Megan waved to us from the playground as we pulled the van up to the door. Luckily their new apartment was also on the ground floor, so we were able to unload the van relatively quickly.

After unloading we managed to find a few edibles from among the kitchen boxes and the ward had also donated some victuals. As we ate, Emily's parents arrived from France to help with the kids and the setting up. Joseph and I were only able to stay and chat for a short time before it was time for us to be on the road again. We still had an entire apartment in Munich to paint!

We said goodbye to Emily, parents, and the kids and we were once again on the road. The return journey was largely uneventful, we even whizzed through the border checkpoints, but when we came to the town of Bregenz in Austria (where the last James Bond movie was filmed, remember the opera scene?), we hit a massive traffic jam. Nearly an hour later we were through and crossing into Germany.



The shadows were long as we pulled into the driveway of the old apartment building in Munich. We still had a fair amount of stuff to load into the sprinter van before we could start painting. It was mostly odds and ends but it still ended up filling more than half the truck. We then began covering the floors with plastic, masking outlets, and preparing the apartment for a slick of white paint.

Joseph managed to paint the walls of one of the bedrooms before it was 8:30 and decided to call it quits for the day. We were exhausted and nearly fell asleep on the bus ride back to my apartment.

After a quick shower and some Vietnamese food from across the street, we were ready to hit the hay. I slept great.


It was Sunday morning, but the ox was in the mire and needed a fresh coat of paint, so we traveled back to the old apartment and started the rest of the paint job. It was moving along nicely and then I had to leave to get ready for 2pm church.

After church the young single adults in Munich always get together and cook a nice Sunday dinner in the church. Joseph was able to drop off the keys and papers to his former landlady and officially "move out" out of the place. He arrived at the church with the van just in time for dinner.

We left the van parked at the church since it was safer and since there is no parking for a sprinter van where I live, and we went back to my place. We had a big day ahead of us.



Throughout this whole ordeal I often felt like I was in the middle of that riddle with the hen, the fox, and the bag of grain, or at least an amusing mathematical story problem. The Taggs' belongings were now scattered across three countries, and we still couldn't get everything in one van load and still be underweight at the Swiss customs. We also didn't want to spend the time and gas money of driving superfluously from the Swiss apartment to Austria and back again. So we had to formulate a new Master Moving Plan, and this one had better work or else we would really be in trouble.

Here was new Master Moving Plan: We would drive from Munich to the Swiss border, cross at customs and then continue on for about a half an hour to the town of St. Gallen where there was another LDS church. We would then leave our load in the church parking lot and drive back to Dornbirn, Austria where the rest of the Tagg's belongings had been sitting since Friday, take them across the border to St. Gallen and then combine both loads and continue with everything to Fischbach-Göslikon. I would then drive the van back to Munich alone and drop it off. It was a daring plan, and it could easily come apart if something unexpected occurred. But move forward we must and move forward we did!

The first order of business on Monday morning was to go to the Europcar rental agency at the train station and register me as a second driver of the rental van. We arrived shortly after opening and I had my passport, driver's license, and proof of address all at the ready. The clerk asked me only for my driver's license. Great! Of course you will always have everything you need when they don't ask for it. But we couldn't complain too much, the result was still satisfactory.

We grabbed a quick pastry breakfast at the train station and took the U-bahn one stop to the church. One of the young single adults, Kay, had volunteered to come with us today to help us with all the loading and unloading. He is studying to be a fitness trainer and is like a German Arnold Schwarzenegger, just the kind of guy you need on a move. We met him on the steps of the church, backed the van out onto the street and the three of us were on our way.

The only stop we had to make was to the hardware store just outside of Munich to return the extra paint. We did so without a hitch. The manly feeling of manliness that comes from driving a big van, picking up heavy objects and putting them back down, and being in a hardware store was reduced considerably as we unloaded the paint from the van with "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" blaring from the speakers in the parking lot.

It was another beautiful day and the two and half hours to the Swiss border were a breeze. The tension returned, however, as we once again approached the Austrian border station. There was a steady stream of cars passing out of Austria and a lone guard standing watching the traffic with arms akimbo. Again, Joseph wanted to do as he was told by the first border guard and check with the guards before leaving Austria. There wasn't really a place to pull over and so Joseph simply stopped by the guard, lowered the passenger-side window, leaned over Kay and me, and uttered a clear, "Entschuldigung" (Excuse Me) to the guard. That didn't seem to get his attention and so Joseph naturally tried offering a friendly, attention-getting "hallo!" The guard snapped his head around and glared at us for a split second then growled and spat, "Ich heisse nicht 'hallo'!" (I am not called 'Hallo!').

Somehow I wasn't surprised but I still couldn't quite believe that things would start going bad before even getting to Switzerland. The guard went on in acidic rebuke, "Wir sagen Grüß Gott!!" (We say 'Grüß Gott'!! -the formal "Gutentag" of Bavarian and Austria).

With this cheery mood in place Joseph let out a spurt of apologies and proceeded to explain that we were moving and asked if we should stop. The guard seemed furious that we would even waste his time with such an unimportant question. He shook his head and waved us on towards Switzerland as violently as he could manage.

We laughed at him as we crossed the Rhein into Switzerland, but I had to admit a certain apprehension now as we approached the customs office. We were almost certainly underweight, but who knows what new shenanigans these bureaucrats might pull.

Joseph left Kay and me in the van and went inside. Only a few moments later he came out shaking his head with a wry grin and explained, "The man said we're free to go; he didn't even bother to weigh us!" Great! Except it chaffed just a little that that which caused us so much grief on Friday was completely disregarded on Monday.

So we entered Switzerland again I wondered at the fact that the whole landscape, the buildings, everything seems to become more colorful, more perfect as one enters Switzerland. How do they do it?

We drove for about 30 minutes until we came to our exit at St. Gallen. With only a few wrong turns we found the LDS church tucked away in a quiet neighborhood. No one was there and so we parked the van and started unloading everything in the corner of the spacious parking lot.

A few minutes later we were on our way to Austria with an empty van. We chose a different border to cross this time just to avoid the bad luck of the former checkpoint. Soon we were pulling into the parking lot of the church in Dornbirn, Austria where the rest of the Taggs' belongings had sat since Friday. Elders Byrne and Stringham were there in their P-day clothes (it was P-day after all) and helped us load the 960 kilos of boxes, beds, and couches into the van.

We said our last goodbyes and thanks to the elders and then got back on the road towards the border.

We'd had enough of Austrian border guard hospitality and so we drove past their little station with crossed fingers hoping they wouldn't stop us. We saw no one there and once again we were over the Rhein and into Switzerland.

By this time we knew the Swiss customs building as though it were our local hang-out. Joseph went in like one of the boys and came out a few moments later laughing. No weighing this time around either!

So it was back through the magical curtain of neutrality into the Swiss wonderland. 40 minutes later we were pulling into the St. Gallen church parking lot again hoping that all the stuff would still be there. It was there alright, and looking horribly out of place in the immaculate Swiss neighborhood like a junky suburban American garage sale. We were lucky no one called the police.

We realized however, that there was already a lot of stuff in the van from Austria and a lot of stuff sprawled across our corner of the parking lot. We weren't entirely sure it would all fit inside the sprinter.

Luckily, all three of us were skilled Tetris players and found slots, spaces, nooks, holes, places, and even a few crannies for every last box and Ikea board. The last to go in was Joseph's rusty old bike and it just barely fit smooshed at the rear of the load. The double doors shut gloriously tight and it was now time to deliver this last bit to Fischbach-Göslikon.

An hour and a half later we were there and unloading! The work went fast with Emily's dad in the van moving things to the edge for Kay, Joseph, and me to unload. Emily directed traffic inside. Within a short time the van was finally empty and the house was a chaos of boxes, boards, and random pieces of furniture--work for another day.

We ate some tasty tacos that Emily and her mom had prepared and had a few moments to rest on the couches. The afternoon was getting on, however, and Kay and I still had a long road back to Munich.

We said our goodbyes to the Taggs and got aboard the sprinter van once again, this time with me in the driver's seat. I pulled out onto the main road and we were off.

Everything went smoothly and I was careful to drive the speed limit in Switzerland so that I would avoid any Imperial entanglements. When we finally crossed into Germany I was happy to finally be on the German autobahn where, in many sections, there are no speed limits. I got up to 160 kph (100 mph) several times, though I didn't want to push it past that. It was actually a really great feeling, driving that fast without worrying about being pulled over. Even at that speed many smaller sportier vehicles overtook me at a whiz.

It was nearly 10pm as we gassed the van and returned her to the rental agency. Nary a ding nor a scratch was there to be found.

With the van returned, the Taggs and their belongings all where they should be, their old apartment squared away, and Kay and me safely back in Munich, the end of the Swiss Moving Adventure had come. I went to bed that night tired after a long and exhausting weekend, but feeling happy that I had been able to do a small bit of good, that I had had fun, and that I now had a good story to tell.


Driving through the town of Baden, near Fischbach-Göslikon...





The Taggs and I at their new home...

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