So at work last week, I had a few Swiss moments. At long last, after several months of dirtying up my phone through telephone conversations, I received the email notifying us that the phone cleaner would be coming around. While still recovering from that joy, I was treated to air raid sirens for the first time since getting here. Yes, they still have air raid alarms here. It sort of sounded like a herd of dying cows playing broken trombones and accordions, if that makes any sense. Switzerland is in many ways like America in the 1950’s. Air raids, belted pants, belief in the system, kitchen appliances, and rules.
I found out something that I think is somewhat Big Brother-ish. When you have a child in Switzerland, you have to pick a name that is in the Swiss register of approved baby names, with the “correct” spelling. The government will tell you that you’re not allowed to pick a non-approved name or unorthodox spelling, and will demand that you pick a more acceptable name. For instance, if you try to name your child “Elizabeth,” they will demand that you change it to “Elisabeth.” Don’t even think about trying something like “Latoya,” or using your grandmother’s maiden name as the baby’s name.
Big Brother also reads magazines. A woman here who runs an English language magazine about Zurich meant for expats recently received a letter from the Zurich tourism office asking that she change her magazine so that the city is called Zürich instead of Zurich, as the office had decided that all publications should use the umlaut, as it is sexier and more attractive to potential tourists. She responded, telling them that she uses the official English spelling for everything, including cities, for consistency’s sake, and because it is an English language publication aimed at English-speaking expats. No word from the tourism office yet.
Anyways, on Saturday, a few of us made our way down to Lausanne, where we managed to make enough food for a dinner party of 25. In preparation for the event, I had put together a bunch of recipes, scaled them up to feed 25 instead of 4, and converted them from English to metric. It felt like the longest grade school math class ever, practicing fractions and conversion factors. A Swiss friend once tried cooking based on a recipe that used the English system of measurements, and said that the cookies he was trying to make were virtually inedible. He asked what the trick was, how do we know how much of each ingredient to put in? I said that the recipe tells you, and was confused about what the problem was. As it turns out, he hadn’t realized that “cup,” “tablespoon,” and “teaspoon” were actual units of measure, and just used the cups and spoons he had in the house.
The other week, I went to a restaurant here in Zurich with two friends from college. The restaurant, which is called the Blinde Kuh (Blind Cow), is served by a blind wait staff, who bring you dishes cooked by a visually impaired chef. The restaurant has no lights. The website describes it as being darker than the inside of a cow, and it really is. Even after sitting inside for two hours, we were still unable to see our hands in front of our faces, and walking back into a lighted room was painful. After a few minutes, we gave up trying to eat with utensils, and ate our fish, rice, and spinach with our fingers. In any case, I realized that such a restaurant couldn’t exist in the U.S., because there were no exit signs, violating fire safety regulations, and I’m sure that someone would trip and fall after trying to walk too quickly in the dark, and would sue the restaurant for not lighting the room properly.
Another restaurant that might not be so popular in the states, but for different reasons, is a traditional Swiss German restaurant that is near my apartment. When you show up, they bring you what looks to be a large and extensive menu, until you actually open it to take a look inside. There are two full pages of different types of sausage. Who knew that there were so many different ways to grind up meat and put it in a tube? If you decide that you don’t want sausage, the pickings are decidedly slimmer, but they do serve venison, pork, and other vegetarian-friendly dishes.
Two quick notes on Rome that I had forgotten about last week: they aren’t big fans of absorbent materials there. I stayed at a bed and breakfast there, and I was given a bath towel and a hair towel, as you might expect, but they appeared to be made out of tablecloth material, which isn’t very effective when it comes to drying off after a shower (compare this with Switzerland, where they make sheets out of towel material). The restaurants also provided paper napkins that were single ply, translucent, and highly ineffective at wiping anything up.
Second thing on Rome: the guys who stand outside the Vatican, ostensibly guarding the Pope, are all Swiss. They appear in thousands of tourist photos a year, wearing their Swiss Guard uniforms, which sport orange and purple striped legwarmers, funny hats, cloaks with tassels, and other court jester gear, which probably reduces their enemies to helpless laughter, thus keeping the Pope safe. In any case, my conclusion was that, no matter where they go, the Swiss like to be, let’s say, original in their choice of apparel.
I found out something that I think is somewhat Big Brother-ish. When you have a child in Switzerland, you have to pick a name that is in the Swiss register of approved baby names, with the “correct” spelling. The government will tell you that you’re not allowed to pick a non-approved name or unorthodox spelling, and will demand that you pick a more acceptable name. For instance, if you try to name your child “Elizabeth,” they will demand that you change it to “Elisabeth.” Don’t even think about trying something like “Latoya,” or using your grandmother’s maiden name as the baby’s name.
Big Brother also reads magazines. A woman here who runs an English language magazine about Zurich meant for expats recently received a letter from the Zurich tourism office asking that she change her magazine so that the city is called Zürich instead of Zurich, as the office had decided that all publications should use the umlaut, as it is sexier and more attractive to potential tourists. She responded, telling them that she uses the official English spelling for everything, including cities, for consistency’s sake, and because it is an English language publication aimed at English-speaking expats. No word from the tourism office yet.
Anyways, on Saturday, a few of us made our way down to Lausanne, where we managed to make enough food for a dinner party of 25. In preparation for the event, I had put together a bunch of recipes, scaled them up to feed 25 instead of 4, and converted them from English to metric. It felt like the longest grade school math class ever, practicing fractions and conversion factors. A Swiss friend once tried cooking based on a recipe that used the English system of measurements, and said that the cookies he was trying to make were virtually inedible. He asked what the trick was, how do we know how much of each ingredient to put in? I said that the recipe tells you, and was confused about what the problem was. As it turns out, he hadn’t realized that “cup,” “tablespoon,” and “teaspoon” were actual units of measure, and just used the cups and spoons he had in the house.
The other week, I went to a restaurant here in Zurich with two friends from college. The restaurant, which is called the Blinde Kuh (Blind Cow), is served by a blind wait staff, who bring you dishes cooked by a visually impaired chef. The restaurant has no lights. The website describes it as being darker than the inside of a cow, and it really is. Even after sitting inside for two hours, we were still unable to see our hands in front of our faces, and walking back into a lighted room was painful. After a few minutes, we gave up trying to eat with utensils, and ate our fish, rice, and spinach with our fingers. In any case, I realized that such a restaurant couldn’t exist in the U.S., because there were no exit signs, violating fire safety regulations, and I’m sure that someone would trip and fall after trying to walk too quickly in the dark, and would sue the restaurant for not lighting the room properly.
Another restaurant that might not be so popular in the states, but for different reasons, is a traditional Swiss German restaurant that is near my apartment. When you show up, they bring you what looks to be a large and extensive menu, until you actually open it to take a look inside. There are two full pages of different types of sausage. Who knew that there were so many different ways to grind up meat and put it in a tube? If you decide that you don’t want sausage, the pickings are decidedly slimmer, but they do serve venison, pork, and other vegetarian-friendly dishes.
Two quick notes on Rome that I had forgotten about last week: they aren’t big fans of absorbent materials there. I stayed at a bed and breakfast there, and I was given a bath towel and a hair towel, as you might expect, but they appeared to be made out of tablecloth material, which isn’t very effective when it comes to drying off after a shower (compare this with Switzerland, where they make sheets out of towel material). The restaurants also provided paper napkins that were single ply, translucent, and highly ineffective at wiping anything up.
Second thing on Rome: the guys who stand outside the Vatican, ostensibly guarding the Pope, are all Swiss. They appear in thousands of tourist photos a year, wearing their Swiss Guard uniforms, which sport orange and purple striped legwarmers, funny hats, cloaks with tassels, and other court jester gear, which probably reduces their enemies to helpless laughter, thus keeping the Pope safe. In any case, my conclusion was that, no matter where they go, the Swiss like to be, let’s say, original in their choice of apparel.
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