Sat, 20 March 2010
Jackie gives us the lowdown on being the proud member of her local CSA.
Kerrin of MyKugelhopf visits the working dairy museum where visitors can learn all about the region's world-famous cheese.
This week on Landlockedblues, Kaki King is a must-see in Geneva and Fribourg, and the Shout Out Louds and James Yorkston are previewed too.
Text size
Expat moms Catherine and Bepke met in Switzerland and realised they shared a dream: opening a cosy bookstore.Catherine Moretti (from England) and Bepke Hovers (from the Netherlands) met after moving to Switzerland with their families. After learning they shared a dream of opening a bookshop, the friends worked together to gather money, negotiate Swiss bureaucracy, and find the right property.
How did you and Bepke meet?
Bepke and I met in 2005. We were both taking German lessons, and we sat next to each other in the class. Bepke asked me if I would like to go to her house for a coffee, and we found that we both got on really well together.
What led you to start your bookstore - A Brew & A Browse?
After a year or two of chatting over afternoon coffees, and talking about how bored we both were now that the children were a little more independent from us, we started to chat about what we’d like to be able to do if we had the chance. It was a complete shock when we both said that we’d like to open a bookshop, but not just a bookshop, one that sold other little knick-knack items as well, and for it to be somewhere that people could have a cup of tea or coffee with us while they perused our shelves. We were amazed that we both had very similar visions of what it would be like, from the dark wooden bookshelves to a table with magazines, to plants in the corners.
We laughed about it, and told our husbands about it, and a few days later we met up and said, “Shall we go for it?” We are both avid readers, and we discussed how expensive new books were here, or how we’d have just a few opportunities a year to stock up on used books at the school or church fairs. We felt that it would be great for the expat community around us to have a book source that was always there.
So after seriously discussing it with each other and our husbands, we looked into finding a property, and everything else we would need to do in order to start up a business in our town.
What was the most difficult part of setting up a business, especially as expats?
Meeting the educational, legal and financial needs of those with disabilities.
Expatica’s selection of Language Schools, specialised in German for foreigners.
Information on searching for an apartment, visiting prospective homes, gathering necessary paperwork and signing the lease.
Information about the Swiss health care system, health insurance, pharmacies and emergency numbers.
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Flickr
General rating: Not rated yet
Rate article:
Add my rating