29 November 2004

OK, the award for “weird museums” officially goes to the German-speaking world. Back in October, I went to one of the oddest museums I have ever seen, the Gletschergarten Museum in Lucerne, which featured Ice Age tools, a reconstructed Swiss living room, and a house of mirrors (see 11 October 2004 entry). At that time, I thought maybe it was just a Swiss thing. But this past weekend I was in Vienna, and I went to see the Criminal Museum, which focused on crime in Vienna over the years, with old murder weapons, bloodstained clothing, casts of victims’ faces, and drawings of various murders from the past few centuries. I went to that museum because the Pathology Museum was closed, which is a shame, because I could have seen pickled limbs, preserved skin diseases, and jars of human organs.

I did make a couple of token visits to more conventional museums, but I have to admit that the bloody sheets from an actual murder were more interesting than the paintings of bowls of fruit by little-known Austrian artists. I did not make it to the museum that is entirely dedicated to funerals and death (yes, there is one), but I did manage to have dinner in one of Hitler’s favorite cafes. I didn’t see the National Library, but I did see a priest’s robe that had a 2-foot tall Jesus-on-a-cross in deep relief (about two inches deep) on the back. No opera or carriage rides, but I had a good snicker at the ticket machine that, during payment, advises you to, “Be aware of strange looks.” Heh heh, I really shouldn’t laugh, since I wouldn’t be able to say that in proper German, but what can I say, me likes English funny.

So in Vienna it is getting towards Christmas (well, I suppose it is getting towards Christmas everywhere), and around Christmastime, there are lots of booths in the street that serve hot mulled wine, and people buy a mug of wine and sip it in the cold before going on their way. The wine is doled out in mugs. Real mugs. And no one steals them or walks off with them accidentally. Wouldn’t you think that plastic cups would be wiser, both in terms of minimizing losses and cutting down on labor, since the mugs need to be washed after each use (I hope)?

Switzerland still beats out its neighbors for politeness. I had forgotten that the rest of the world isn’t as meticulously proper as are the Swiss. While I was waiting to disembark in Vienna, a jowly gentleman reached over me to get his briefcase, with which he swiftly conked me on the head, apologizing only after I delivered a furious New York-style scowl at him. Apparently believing that his briefcase blow had stunned me into stupidity, he then tried to push past me in the aisle of the plane. I’m skinny, but he was not, and there was no way we were fitting into the aisle together. So then he tried to push in after me, cutting off my friend, who like me, is a New Yorker at heart, and unlike me, is fluent in German, both textbook and gutter, and gravely told the man exactly what he could do with what and where he could put it and how. We then exited the plane, feeling that we had won one for the good guys, spreading peace and goodwill towards men, except for those men with the chutzpah to whack little Asian girls over the head with their hard briefcases, to which we say, !@#$%& to all, and to all a good night. Ho, ho, ho, and bah humbug.

NEWS FLASH -- 24 November 2004

Just booked last minute tickets for the weekend. My friend Charles is visiting for Thanksgiving (which isn't a holiday here, so I had to use some of my precious 5 weeks of vacation for something I always took for granted). After not being able to find reasonable ticket prices in advance, we decided to take a gamble and take whatever came up. Vienna, here we come!! Sweeeet...

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 3: Living in Switzerland; Food

As we all know, food is an important part of life. On top of its ability to keep us from starving to death, which is one of its main attractions, food is one of the defining factors of culture, identity, and waistlines. What is American food? Burgers, fries, apple pie, potato chips, pizza, meat loaf, tuna casserole. Even specific regions have their own culinary identities, whether real or stereotypical. Californians love their alfalfa sprouts, New Yorkers love their hot dogs, Texans love their beef, and Southerners deep-fry everything.

The same applies to Switzerland. Get ready for your new dietary staples!! Because they are Swiss, the Swiss will only eat certain foods at certain times of year, because everything needs to go according to its proper schedule. Summertime is warm, sunny, and perfect for cookouts with friends. When shopping, head straight to the sausage section. Sausage, sausage, and nothing but sausage. Yum! If you don’t feel like having a hot meal, you can make a delicious and balanced sausage salad: take two kinds of pre-cooked sausage, chop them up, throw in cubes of cheese, some mayonnaise, mustard, salt, and pepper, and you’re all set. If you want some color, add some diced tomatoes or apples, but not too much, or you’ll ruin the sausage-y goodness!

At any time of year, you can have rösti. Take some day-old boiled potatoes, grate them, and fry them up with some onions, cheese, milk, salt, and pepper, into a big, soggy hash brown. You can top it with some meat and gravy. Just like Mom used to make, right?

Wintertime is approaching, so it’s time for fondue and raclette!! Raclette is slices of potato, grilled with some cheese and maybe some onions and ham. Fondue, as you know, is a big pot of melted cheese, which you dip bread or potatoes into. If it’s made right, it should smell, as one Swiss friend described it, like you took dirty, wet gym socks and squeezed them into the pot. In the mountains, McDonald’s serves up, you guessed it, McFondue, which I’m guessing is not good enough to smell like nasty gym socks.

If you hadn’t noticed already, you can make almost every Swiss dish with sausage, cheese, potatoes, and onions. If you want to try something off the beaten path, however, restaurants serve horsemeat. I’m sure it comes with a side of potatoes and cheese.

For non-Swiss food, you have plenty of enticing (by enticing, I mean puzzling) options. Want some pad thai? It is served, obviously, at the Chinese restaurant, since it is Thai food. Hummus is considered exotic, and has been upgraded from New York’s take on hummus. You don’t buy it at the green grocer and eat it in front of the TV with carrots. You order it in the restaurant, and it comes as a stand-alone dish. California rolls are considered to be real sushi, despite their lack of sushi-ness. I think that the source of the problem is that few ethnic foods are centered around sausage, cheese, and potatoes, so the Swiss aren’t quite sure how to make them.

22 November 2004

This past weekend, I went to Solothurn and checked out the Kunstsupermarkt, which is the Swiss equivalent of New York's Affordable Art Fair, encouraging people to buy original art for their homes, instead of having the same museum prints as everyone else. After that, I checked out the Art Brut Museum in Lausanne, which is dedicated to outsider art. In general terms, this refers to untrained, nonmainstream artists, but practically speaking, a large percentage of these artists are mentally handicapped or psychologically disturbed. There were, however, a few artists represented who were well-adjusted members of society who just happened to dabble in art in their free time or after retirement. All I could think was, would you really want your work to be displayed in that context, since people then just assume you were either stupid or crazy? Although I have to admit, the crazier the person was (based on the bios provided by the musem), the funkier and more interesting the art they produced. The coolest pieces were by people who heard voices, molested little girls, or grew up in insane asylums. The everyday people just couldn't compete, I guess because they weren't guided by voices. Voices that told the other artists that burnt siena would be better than yellow ochre for painting in the monster's eye that was staring at the naked shemale under the serpent-tree.

Anyways, back to real life. Well, no, back to Swiss life... Non-Americans apparently have a very, let’s say, interesting view of American life. One person I know has what he calls “American parties” once in a while, where they entertain American-style. What is an American party, you ask? Well, in basic terms, it’s a cookout. OK, so I thought that was a good start. I should have left it at that. They don’t have ribs or steaks or chicken or hot dogs. (Seriously.) They serve burgers. (Makes sense.) But they eat them with BBQ sauce or honey mustard. (Huh?) They don’t put American cheese or Swiss cheese on their burgers, since they don’t exist here, and I didn’t want to know what cheese they use, instead, after finding out that Monterey Jack also doesn’t exist, and cheddar is something they have heard of but don’t eat. Instead of hot dogs, the ubiquitous sausage stands in as their processed-meat-in-a-tube of choice, also served with BBQ sauce and honey mustard. What about the Tostitos and salsa, guacamole, Doritos, hummus and pita? No way, paprika-flavored chips all the way, since that’s what they do in America, right?

Another friend, who is actually German and has lived in Switzerland for many years, and who is generally amazingly familiar with American culture and turns of phrase, as she comes into contact with a lot of foreigners, made me laugh the other day. I was eating a granola bar, and she asked me, “What do you call those in America?” I told her we called them granola bars. She expressed a lot of shock and surprise, saying, “Well, I had heard that they were called that, but I couldn’t believe that anyone would call them that.” What, then, are they supposed to be called? I awaited her response, anticipating something so logical that “granola bar” would be strange in comparison. “We call them Farmers.” Uh, and that makes more sense than granola bar?? (Farmer is a generic brand of granola bar here, in case you were wondering where that came from.)

Anyways, here are two related things that have baffled me since I got here. The Swiss have several different types of electrical and phone outlets still in use. So if you want to plug your microwave in or hook up your phone line, it isn’t a simple matter of just taking the microwave or phone and plugging it into the wall. You need to check and see what shape the outlet is, and then get the appropriate adapter for the outlet. It’s bad enough when you’re traveling and need to try to plug things in, but to have to deal with that in your own home?? The other thing that is sort of strange is that at any given outlet in the wall, it is quite likely that there will only be one socket. When is the last time that you only needed one socket at each outlet? How about never? My computer area alone requires nine, which entails plugging a power strip into the lone socket, and then another power strip into that one, in order to have enough outlets. I wonder if that’s why that fuse blows more often than any of the other ones in my apartment…

And finally, for all of the law dorks out there, the Swiss have a completely different approach to “fixtures” law. In the U.S., when you put in a fixture, it is, by definition, fixed, meaning that when you leave, your landlord can either get pissed at you for putting it in, or he can let it slide and keep it. Fixtures run with the property, as BarBri so earnestly told us. Not here. Fixtures run with the tenant, so that when a Swiss person moves out of his apartment, he will take all of his light fixtures with him, and install them in the next place. If fixtures aren’t fixed, who knows what else is no longer true here!!

15 November 2004

I am taking this opportunity to announce to the entire world that I have officially lost my mind. Several friends are visiting me over the course of November, and like a good little person with OCD, or a good little Swiss person, I dutifully marked their visits on my calendar, making sure that each one had their own weekend so that they could have my undivided attention. This past weekend, my friend Jon was coming, next weekend, my friend Liwei, and over Thanksgiving, my friend Charles. Excellent. So I get a voicemail Thursday night, asking if it's possible to get into my apartment during the day on Friday and to meet up later that night. From LIWEI. I check my calendar, and she's not coming until next weekend. I check my emails, and she definitely said this weekend. So I was just retarded. So Liwei and Jon graciously agreed to share the weekend without killing me or each other. Whew, disaster averted.

Liwei and I had fondue and wine for dinner on Friday, once I got out of work. Alcohol and dairy, two things that don't usually rank high in an Asian diet, for various reasons, Asian blush and lactose intolerance among them... Haha...

So then on Saturday night, I went to a water park. Yes, a water park, even though the temperature was right around freezing. I thought it was an insane idea, as well, but all of the slides and rides are indoors, and the water is heated, so that it stays open year-round. Then there are thermal baths that are outside, so your entire body is warm, and your face is freezing. A few observations:

Don't wear a swimsuit that has white parts if you're going to sit in a pool of iodine-infused water. It turns your swimsuit yellow. And then, if you ask a Swiss attendant how to get iodine out of a white swimsuit, she will say, "Don't wear it into the iodine pool." Thank you, that was helpful. Unfortunately, the damage is done, and I am asking for remedial measures, rather than preventative ones.

The Swiss are clearly not as litigious as Americans, and I am definitely a lawyer. I was walking around the entire night spotting examples of potential liability. The iodine pool has a sign that says, "Don't get into the iodine pool if you have iodine sensitivity," which seems like a liability-reducer, except that it is posted at the far end of the pool, and to read it, you have to get into the pool and go to the other side. Too little, too late. There were no American-style signs saying, "Caution, floor may be wet," "Walk, don't run," "Children should not be left unattended," "Wet surfaces may be slippery," or other similarly obvious but necessary warnings. The floors were tile, rather than rubber mats. Children wandered around alone at will. There were no attendants at the top of each slide to tell you when to go and when to wait, or to say if you were too short, or too heavy, or whatnot. Instead, the park guests were expected to read the instructions and judge for themselves (never let them do that, because they will do it wrong and then sue, I was thinking). One particularly helpful sign said something like, "Children under a certain age should not go on this ride." Um... details, please? What age, or at least what weight or height are you looking for here?

Outside of the water park, Switzerland is similarly blithely unaware of all of the potential lawsuits lurking on crumbling staircases with no guardrails, or waiting in coffee cups that don't indicate that contents may be hot. A lot of plastic bags don't tell you that they are not toys, and that children may suffocate on them, and the tram stops don't tell you to watch out for approaching trams. It is only upon entering little embassies of American lawsuit culture, such as McDonald's and Starbuck's, that you are reminded of such dangers. I don't know what is more entertaining, actually: seeing these warnings against stupidity, or trying to figure out where the anti-stupidity warnings should be posted.

Speaking of Starbuck's, there are about seven in Zurich, I think, which is the densest Starbuck's concentration in Switzerland. Imagine a Manhattan where you can walk 10 blocks and not see a Starbuck's. Instead, here we seem to have lots and lots of banks and private equity firms, with some shoe stores thrown in.

NEWS FLASH -- 12 November 2004

Enough with the crazy parades, already! I was in my apartment minding my own business like a good Swiss person around 8:30 last night, and a marching band started doing its marching band thing around my block, finally settling in the square directly outside of my window, where they played until 11:15, playing such hits as "Que Sera Sera" and "New York, New York." They were decked out in Carnevale gear, inexplicably enhanced with CDs stuck all over them. They were about 30 members strong, and had learned to play their instruments, oh, last week, I would say, based on their skill, or lack thereof. Imagine your 5th grade marching band, drunk and seasick, playing two different pieces at once, and that's what it sounded like. Oh, the humanity...

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 2: Living in Switzerland; Services

Just a warning, but the term “services industry” is very loosely interpreted here. Because most salespeople and wait staff work on a real wage, and tipping and commissions are minimal, customers are left to fend for themselves if they have the gall to want to purchase something at a service-oriented establishment.

Before moving to Switzerland, take one last shopping trip to Barney’s, Macy’s, Bergdorf’s, Nolita, Soho, Chelsea, or wherever it is that you buy your clothes. Revel in the prices, variety, and selection. Enjoy the assistance of the attendants who are always willing to find you something different or stay past the end of their shift to get a smaller size. Welcome to the land of “one style suits all,” “find your own damn size,” and “please leave, we’re closing in ten minutes.” What if you go to a chain store, and they are out of the size you want. Can they call the other branches, and check to see who has the one you want? Hahahaha… what a silly question. Maybe they will be helpful enough to tell you where the other stores are. If you’re lucky. And if you’re very, very nice.

Walk up to the post office, a restaurant, a store right around closing time, and you may just be S.O.L. It is not unheard of that an attendant will close the door in your face as you approach the entrance, and, raising an eyebrow, lock the door. God forbid that they stay open even a minute past closing time to pick up some extra profit.

Are you a late eater? Sorry, restaurants often shut their kitchens down at 10 p.m., even on weekends. Delivery is almost unheard of, which, although it lessens the amount of junk shoved into your mailbox and under your door in the form of take-out menus, can really cut back on your lazy late-night eating habit, and you my very well find yourself eating an egg, a bar of chocolate, and some stale cereal at 11 p.m., if you weren’t forward-thinking enough to buy some groceries at lunch time when you were at the grocery store.

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 2: Living in Switzerland; Services

Just a warning, but the term “services industry” is very loosely interpreted here. Because most salespeople and wait staff work on a real wage, and tipping and commissions are minimal, customers are left to fend for themselves if they have the gall to want to purchase something at a service-oriented establishment.

Before moving to Switzerland, take one last shopping trip to Barney’s, Macy’s, Bergdorf’s, Nolita, Soho, Chelsea, or wherever it is that you buy your clothes. Revel in the prices, variety, and selection. Enjoy the assistance of the attendants who are always willing to find you something different or stay past the end of their shift to get a smaller size. Welcome to the land of “one style suits all,” “find your own damn size,” and “please leave, we’re closing in ten minutes.” What if you go to a chain store, and they are out of the size you want. Can they call the other branches, and check to see who has the one you want? Hahahaha… what a silly question. Maybe they will be helpful enough to tell you where the other stores are. If you’re lucky. And if you’re very, very nice.

Walk up to the post office, a restaurant, a store right around closing time, and you may just be S.O.L. It is not unheard of that an attendant will close the door in your face as you approach the entrance, and, raising an eyebrow, lock the door. God forbid that they stay open even a minute past closing time to pick up some extra profit.

Are you a late eater? Sorry, restaurants often shut their kitchens down at 10 p.m., even on weekends. Delivery is almost unheard of, which, although it lessens the amount of junk shoved into your mailbox and under your door in the form of take-out menus, can really cut back on your lazy late-night eating habit, and you my very well find yourself eating an egg, a bar of chocolate, and some stale cereal at 11 p.m., if you weren’t forward-thinking enough to buy some groceries at lunch time when you were at the grocery store.

8 November 2004

Another election come and gone. I won’t talk about it, though, except to say that the whole thing was a big disappointment to me, and I hope that people’s priorities will change over the next four years.

A few anecdotes for your amusement. I was waiting for a tram to go to the Halloween party last week, and that particular tram stop also served as a bus stop. When I got to the stop, there was already a guy waiting. Pretty laid-back looking guy with long hair and a guitar. So we waited. After a few minutes, he asked if the bus wasn’t running, or if there was a change in the schedule. It turns out that the bus, at that time of night, was supposed to run every 12 minutes, and he had already been waiting for 13 minutes, and was rather concerned. Imagine looking at a bus timetable in New York, and actually expecting it to have any relevance to the actual buses!!

This is something that never occurred to me but probably should have. I was (as I often am) daydreaming out loud about the foods that I miss, and I said something about turkey and Swiss in some sort of sandwich context, and my friend turns to me and says, “What’s Swiss?” “Swiss cheese” is not a term that is used here (just like “Chinese food” is probably not used in China), and so they also lose phrases such as “when they recovered the corpse, it was so riddled with bullets that it looked like Swiss cheese,” which I think is a great loss. I did get back at him immediately thereafter, however, when he said, “Well, why would you think we would call it Swiss cheese, it’s not like you have something called American cheese.” Ha, yes we do! So, there.

Also, the crazy people here are unlike the crazy people I’m used to. After 9 years of living in Cambridge and New York, I thought that I knew crazy people, and I thought I knew every kind of crazy person – some of them are even my friends. But upon coming here, I realized that there is a whole other kind of crazy person to study – the Swiss crazy person. The Swiss crazy person is almost always male. He rarely smells bad, but if he does smell, it is only of too much beer. He is generally dressed appropriately and acts quite politely, considering the fact that he is completely insane. He doesn’t pick fights, scream obscenities, or molest people in the street. If he asks for money, he will generally walk up to you, and ask you for some change, if it’s OK with you. Sometimes he will show great fascination with his imaginary friend and with stationary objects, such as light posts and trashcans, and will laugh over jokes with the first, and make new friends with the others, skipping merrily the whole time. Sometimes he will serenade his neighbors with great flourishes of the hand and facial contortions, but always in a non-threatening way. Where are the spastic screamers, the belligerent stinkers, and the trench-coated fondlers? And where are the angry panhandlers and twitching junkies? I have no idea. It appears that the Swiss have rules regulating their crazy people, albeit a different set of rules, and the crazy people, being Swiss, stay within those boundaries.

A report on the computer cleaning that took place last week: the computer cleaner was the same person who had cleaned our office telephones a while back, and she showed up with her toolbelt full of tools, as well as a bag about the size of an old-timey doctor’s bag. Using various cloths, brushes, sprays, and scrubbers, she cleaned our monitors and keyboards. My monitor and keyboard took about 8 minutes to clean (yes, I timed her). If you ever feel the urge to clean your keyboard, get some mild sprays, soft clothes, large paintbrushes, and a toothbrush, and you’ll be good to go. Turn the keyboard upside down and beat it to get crumbs out. Wipe the keyboard briskly with cloths and spray, then go over it with the big brush. Finally, get in between each key with the toothbrush and a corner of a cloth soaked in cleaning solution.

And finally, some strange things that are going on. Coming up soon, there is an onion fair in a nearby town. Farmers bring in all of their onions, and there is a street festival celebrating the onion. You can buy onions and delicacies made out of onions, and people take a half-day off of work to go look at the onions. Seriously. And also, posted at many tram stops around Zurich are signs in German that proudly announce that one a certain day, you can reserve a seat, a table, or a whole car on the tram, and they will serve fondue, and you can ride around on the tram eating fondue. Just what I want to do: sit backwards on a lurching tram and eat a pound of melted cheese. I get motion-sick just thinking about it.

NEWS FLASH - 2 November 2004

Yesterday I was at work, as usual, and I got an email:

Subject: cleaning the computer

hello all,

just to let you know on wednesday the 3rd of november at 8am, someone will come to clean the computers.

have a nice afternoon

Score!! After witnessing the phone-cleaning ritual a while back, I am avidly anticipating the advent of the computer cleaner. If it takes a toolbelt full of tools and 5 minutes to clean a telephone, it must take a cart full of tools and at least 10 minutes to clean a computer!!

Back in the real world, I am anxiously awaiting the results of the election. Perhaps within a month we will know who the next Supreme Court-appointed president will be.

1 November 2004

So on Friday I went to see The Bourne Supremacy, and I realized that the whole movie experience in Switzerland is unlike any that I’ve had anywhere else, and it therefore deserves attention. First of all, movie listings are standardized and listed all together on one big poster, regardless of location or type. You can find these posters at tram stations or bulletin boards, and they are all-inclusive. Whether you want to see Garfield, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Hot and Horny Housewives III, they will all be listed on this movie poster. Once you’ve picked a movie, location, date, and time, you need to book your tickets in advance. Seats are by reservation only, so the earlier you reserve, the better your seat will be. Tickets cost about $11. So you get to the theater and find your seat. Even if the theater isn’t full, you’d better sit in your own seat, because if you accidentally sit in someone else’s seat, they might come up to you, show you their ticket, and ask you to get out of their seat, regardless of the fact that an almost identical seat is sitting empty right next to you. So you sit down and start watching the movie ads, which are mostly for the two main grocery stores, the two main cell phone companies, the tram system, and ice cream. I understand that the ice cream makers want to push their product on moviegoers, but really, where is the logic in advertising for the tram or the grocery store or cell phones in the movie theater? People will buy groceries and take the tram, regardless, and everyone already has a cell phone, which can’t be used in the theater, anyways. It seems like a waste of advertising money. So then the movie starts, and you’re getting into it, even reading some of the German and French subtitles, especially when the English is cutting in and out for that “inaudible dream sequence” effect. All of a sudden, in the middle of a scene, the picture blinks out and the lights go on. Power failure? Equipment malfunction? Intermission. 90 minutes in, they stop the movie so that you can go to the restroom, smoke a cigarette, or buy some ice cream (and if you’re fast, maybe a tram ticket and a cell phone). I sort of wonder if they do the same thing in the porn houses, halfway through the movie. I don’t think that their audiences would appreciate sudden, unannounced houselights being turned on, so I’m inclined to think not, but you never know, this is Switzerland.

Saturday, my theory on fall being “strange parade season” was further strengthened when all of a sudden, about 80 or 90 people started marching through my neighborhood, playing fifes and drums. For an hour and a half. My first thought was, “The redcoats are coming! The redcoats are coming!” And then after a while, it was more, “When are they leaving? When are they leaving?”

And yesterday, of course, was Halloween, which has only just started infiltrating Swiss culture. I went to a little get-together of expats, and while we were there, the doorbell rang. Six Swiss kids were standing at the door, two dressed as devils, two as ghosts, and two as some sort of bloody-faced characters, and they awkwardly squawked something like, “Trickletree!” We gave them some of the candy that we were eating at the party, which I never would have been allowed to take as a child, since they were unwrapped, and each kid took one gumdrop, until they were encouraged to take more. They then stood there dumbfounded and overwhelmed as these strange foreigners in even stranger costumes asked them questions about their Halloween costumes. They finally made their escape, and will probably never go trick-or-treating again. Upon leaving the party, I witnessed the Swiss version of eggs thrown on the windows, toilet paper strewn on the lawn, and baseball bats taken against jack o’lanterns and mailboxes. On one section of one guardrail was a neat line of shaving cream.