10 January 2006

Is it really 2006? I realized that part of what helps me to mentally mark the passing of each year is the holiday season, which in the States is marked with an overabundance of red and green decorations, Christmas carols blaring in every store, and huge signs and advertisements touting holiday sales. They don’t really do any of that here, and having been here for the lead up to two holiday seasons, I don’t feel as if 2004 and 2005 really ended, and it definitely doesn’t feel like it’s 2006. Coming from the ultimate consumer culture, where retailers and advertisers tell you what time of year it is and what holiday is up next, how else are Americans supposed to mark the passage of time?

The price of stamps is going up again in the U.S., and at first I was shocked, since the price has increased pretty steadily, and the postal service itself has stayed about the same (well, with the exception of the admission from the Bush administration that they’ve been reading our mail since 9/11� Between that, the wiretaps, and the email monitoring, I’m waiting for them to �fess up that they also have video cameras installed in toilets and Victoria’s Secret changing rooms, for national security purposes, you know). Swiss postage has stayed the same for the time I’ve been here, and everything takes a day to get anywhere else in the country. Then I realized that: (1) Swiss domestic postage costs as much as American airmail, and (2) Switzerland has fewer people than New York City and if it were a state, it would rank 42nd in area, so what with the higher price we pay for postage and the smaller number of people and shorter distances, Swiss post had better be faster than American post.

Last week marked another random holiday observed in Switzerland but not in the U.S., Three Kings’ Day. It’s not a day off, but people celebrate by baking a cake that has a tiny figure of a king hidden inside. Everyone eats a slice, and whoever finds the little king is king for the day and wears a paper crown. It is especially popular with children, although offices often have a cake. Two thoughts: first of all, isn’t that a choking hazard, especially since it’s geared towards children? And second of all, I think the kings are made of plastic. Wouldn’t they melt or leach unhealthy chemicals into the cake? I guess a third thought would be that I’m American and a lawyer, and these aren’t the kinds of things that the Swiss worry about. You know, hazards, torts, accidental injuries and deaths.

As I walked to work last week, I saw something that blew my mind, even after living here for a year and a half. A man parked his car, got out, leaving the engine running and the door open, then went into a store on the other side of the street, presumably only for a short time, but still… I’ve seen people leave their cars unlocked while running quick errands before, but this was five steps further, to leave the door open with the engine running. I was half-tempted to drive his car halfway around the block so that he would come back and realize that he shouldn’t leave his car that way, but then I remembered that the last time I drove a car was in Australia in 2003, so I couldn’t be sure that I wouldn't crash it. Plus, it was probably stick shift, and I definitely don’t know how to drive stick.

I went to see Jarhead Sunday night, and my bafflement with Swiss movie theaters continues. Knowing that the main level of the theater had reverse stadium seating, where every row is higher than the row behind it, I opted for a seat in the front row of the balcony. Problem solved, right? I thought I was guaranteed an unobstructed view. Not so. The railing at the front of the balcony was high enough that if I sat back in my seat, the railing ran across the bottom of the screen. I’m not terribly short, so this can’t be an isolated occurrence, and you would think that they would have foreseen the possibility that non-giants would want to sit back while watching movies, and they would have positioned the railing six inches lower. I ended up using my jacket as a booster seat and leaving the theater once again stunned by the Swiss movie industry.