Jaysus, what a whirlwind. I’m a victim. But, overall, my trip was a great success: residence permit is in progress, bank account was established, a business that allows Rusty to continue as my minion was registered. Yet I can’t help but feel defeated. Defeated and summarily rejected.

See, for me, moving is all about the dwelling. In case you’ve forgotten, my better two-thirds and I have a long history of homes. Buying, renovating, selling and so on. Other people have kids, we have buildings. I thought I was cured of my obsession with living spaces. As is so rarely the case, I am wrong.

In the midst of all the immigration mess, I fell in love with an apartment in Vevey. Oh it was too small. Oh it was too expensive. There was no elevator. The closets were tiny. My sensible self knew that this was folly of the highest order. But who can explain the mystery of the giraffe heart? It was the huge balcony (with its view of trees and mountains and sweet, Swissy houses), the herringbone wood floors and the charming Italian gentleman/building manager that lured me in. Within 10 minutes of walking through the door, I was mentally hanging pictures and nagging Neil for fondue.

Now the trouble with being me is that I am essentially grossly entitled. I call it eternally optimistic, psychiatrists would call it incurably narcissistic. Tomatoes, tomahtoes, the point is I hate not being able to make a situation go my way. We applied to become the next tenants of this apartment and were told, in no uncertain terms, that we (foreigners with no formal job contracts) would not be considered. I’m not proud of this part but we begged and pleaded and, in a very terse email, had the apartment door slammed in our faces. Well, of all the nerve.

It turns out that this move will be significantly harder than I thought. Until we have a residency permit in our hands, it will easier to win the lottery than get an apartment in Vevey. Plus, the pickings are as slim as my chances of sipping tea with Oprah while she raves about the blook on national television. The great places are way out of my budget and anything that we could manage gets snapped up by those pesky legal citizens. Bastards.

Cripes. Here I go again — 90% of my time will now be spent frantically searching for a place to live while the other 10% will be devoted to searching for my sunglasses that are invariably on the top of my head. Wish me luck, I’m gonna need it.