4 July 2005

Happy Fourth of July (for whatever it's worth these days)!! It’s a bit annoying to note that we’re celebrating the downfall of a George who has been dead for two centuries, while living under the de facto rule of another George who is doing much more to offend us than just taxing tea and stamps. Instead of quartering soldiers, he’s sending them out to wreak havoc elsewhere. Instead of settling for having us hate him, he’s making the rest of the world hate us. Say goodbye to Roe v. Wade, any hope of gay marriage, and separation of church and state, because present-day George wants to turn the Supreme Court into a party-line assembly of Scalias and Thomases. Who needs education, health care, and a stable economy when you can have so much more fun ruining international relations and wrecking the environment? There’s a reason I semi-facetiously titled my Fourth of July mass-mail “American Refugee Pride Day.”

Speaking of the Fourth of July, I was in the grocery store over the weekend, and came across a display case for Swiss National Day party supplies, which included fireworks and flags and so on (Swiss National Day comes about a month after the Fourth of July, so it’s convenient that they like to prepare in advance). Fireworks can be hard to come by in the US, as they are illegal in many states, but when you do buy them, you can usually tell what it is that you’re buying, as they have instructions or pictures. Here, on the other hand, you can get your fireworks at the grocery store, and once you’ve bought them, you have no idea what any of the fireworks (if that is indeed what they are) are supposed to do. In a huge snub to tort law and product liability, the Swiss package their fireworks in generic boxes with pictures of happy children celebrating. No big warnings or disclaimers, no instructions or suggestions, no pictograms or explanations. I’m guessing that you just light them and hope for the best. Are you supposed to put them on the ground? Hold them? Throw them? Only one way to find out. Got matches?

Not only can you buy fireworks at the grocery store, you also go there to get clothes, houseplants, Swiss Army knives, government-issue trash bags, and other sundry items. In fact, a few weeks ago, I was accosted by a store representative asking me to take a written survey in German, in exchange for a free chocolate bar. Obviously, I took it. I like chocolate. They asked me to compare the store’s produce and meat with that of their competitors. Sure. Location, price, selection, all things you would expect to be asked about. But they also asked me where I preferred to buy my clothing and, if not at the grocery store, then where and why. I have a feeling that certain people buy their clothes at the grocery store, and others don’t, and that there is little you can do to make people switch. Personal opinion, but I think that their marketing and research money would be better spent trying to get a bigger share of the food market, as I don’t anticipate adding pants or sweaters to my grocery list any time soon.

Anyways, I got my Swiss driver’s license in the mail last week (they mail it to you about a week or two after you go to the Swiss DMV, not wanting or being able to give you the license on the spot). It has holograms, photo, and date of birth, as you would expect, but no address or expiration date. I’m assuming that they don’t put an address on there because the license is good for life, and the address is unlikely to stay the same forever (but then again, is a picture of my 26-year-old self going to be all that useful when I’m 70?) The license also came with a letter from the Swiss DMV, with standard information about the newly issued license, as well as a paragraph about the credit-card-size format. Until just a few years ago, Swiss (and other European) driver’s licenses were large pieces of stiff paper with a signature and photo. I’m assuming that they were easy to fake, and that they did not withstand being put in wallets or washing machines very well. And so the DMV’s letter very proudly pointed out that the “new” licenses are durable, portable, convenient, and modern. I had no idea that wallet-sized, plastic driver’s licenses were considered such a recent and revolutionary advance in ID technology.

I’m trying to get my act together for my upcoming dive trip. I’ll be flying to London, catching a charter flight down to Egypt from a different London airport, spending a week on a boat, and then doing the whole thing in reverse. It’s not an insignificant feat to navigate myself, a carry-on of regulators, a suitcase of camera gear, and a body bag of dive gear through four airports and four flights, but I’m hoping to make it there and back with sanity intact. One thing that will help is that the Swiss, blissfully confident that terrorists will not attack, invite passengers to bring their bags to the airport one day early, pick seats, and leave their luggage. Even stranger, for about $15 per bag, you can take your baggage to the train station, give them your information, and leave your bags. They take the bags to the airport and load them on the plane for you. Seems a bit lax for a country that is so paranoid as to rig the bridges and tunnels to self-destruct, require all able-bodied males to serve in the military, and build enough bomb shelters for every man, woman, and child.

So. I’m off to go shark hunting in Egypt, so I’ll be on hiatus, and back with some great stories (definitely) and pictures (hopefully) in two weeks.

American Refugee Pride Day

Editor's Note: As you probably know, the 4th of July is this coming Monday, and for some of us, that means that it's time to celebrate the end of the tyranny of King George (whether the current George is treating us any better is open to debate... well, actually, no, it's not really open to debate, Georges apparently just suck all around, so let's all join in for a hearty round of "Down With King George!! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A," and so on).

How better to celebrate Independence Day than by not having a four-day weekend, and by going to work on Monday? Don't answer that. Thanksgiving weekend (or not-Thanksgiving weekend) is even more depressing. Instead, come to the lake after work to hang out, grill some manly meat (I'll bring a small but manly grill if you bring some manly meat), have a few drinks (BYOB), and go swimming (if you so desire).

Let's meet in the grassy knoll (not that one) on the Enge side of the lake, tram 5 to Rentenanstalt, in what Niko calls the Arboretum, which looks, to the untrained eye, like a big park. Bring anyone you like; this is by no means limited to Americans.

WHAT: AMERICAN REFUGEE PRIDE DAY (aka 4th of July)
WHEN: MONDAY, JULY 4TH, 7 PM on...
WHERE: Lakeside park (or arboretum) at Rentenanstalt
WHO: you and anyone you feel like inviting
BRING: food, drinks, fireworks, blankets, George effigies, etc. I will bring a small grill with charcoal, and lighter fluid for the grill and the effigies.

Email me with questions, or call my cell if you have trouble finding us.

27 June 2005

I went to the symphony on Friday with three friends. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the concert hall is air conditioned, unlike most other buildings in Zurich, and will look forward to that (as well as the music) for the two performances I will be going to this week. Once it was established that the hall was air conditioned, the experience was nearly identical to other classical music performances I have attended in the past: older audience, musicians in formal black dresses or tails, polite silence and polite applause, when appropriate. There was only one noticeable difference. Someone near me took the liberty of farting three times during the performance, with great (but silent) gusto. It is difficult to concentrate on motifs, themes, and soloists when there are intermittent waves of noxious gas coming from an unknown location. Is uncontrolled public farting socially acceptable here? (Granted, I have been the victim of anonymous toxic farts in other cities around the world, as well).

Speaking of socially accepted behaviors, many of my male friends, if they are travelling together and find themselves to be four males sharing a hotel room with two double beds, will end up sleeping one person in each bed and two on the floor, to avoid the awkwardness of sharing a bed. This has always seemed absurd, as female friends will share beds with each other, and males and females will share beds, if they are good enough friends to do so. If you have beds for four, why put two people on the floor? Swiss men have gotten over their fear of looking unmanly in this arena, (and also in the arenas of shopping, hair products, clothes, and shoes), which makes a lot of practical sense.

Another difference in social behavior is rampant PDA (also known as public display of affection). Although the Swiss are generally reserved and all about social boundaries, that changes once they find boyfriends and girlfriends. Walk down the river or past a park bench or by the lake, and you will see dozens of couples going at it with such fervor that if they were in Manhattan, they would surely earn several whistles, jeers, and pleas to “get a room.” Some will try to cover themselves with blankets, which leaves something to the imagination (but not much), and others will just play tongue hockey and try to make it ‘round the bases without any sort of privacy barrier. My theory is that they save up all of the public affection that most Americans would spend hugging friends, and they lavish it all on extravagant PDA.

Despite this apparent physical closeness (at least in public, who knows if they are all similarly affectionate in private), the Swiss still keep certain boundaries in their relationships. Even if it’s OK to do joint tonsil inspections and breast exams in public, and even if it’s OK to share a bed in parental domiciles, it is absolutely not acceptable to burp (or even worse, to fart) around your significant other (although it might be OK to fart around your S.O. if you are at the symphony, as that might change the rules, but don’t hold me to that one). Apparently, even if you know someone well enough to exchange all sorts of caresses, familiarities, and bodily fluids, you still don’t know them well enough to let them know that you burp. Hold it in, or save it for the symphony.

To follow up on the diving thoughts that have been popping up in these entries lately: last week I ran into a group of divers going in for a night dive, and I got so jealous that I finally made up my mind to cross over to the Dark Side, get a dry suit, and start diving cold water, altitude dives, and lake dives. Fortunately, underwater communication uses universal hand signals, and above water, most of the divers here speak good English, so I won’t have to fumble around in my already very poor German for obscure diving terminology. I’m going back to the pool this Wednesday to start testing out my cold water gear. I can only hope that the synchronized swimmers will be there again, so that I can get a few pictures of them before they run away. (For those of you who have seen Mr. Helgen in Nigel's show... [said in a broad indeterminate accent] "Easy peasy, if we creep up on the swimmers before they realize we're here, we might catch a few on film, and if we're very lucky, we might even be able to trap a few. I hear that they're juicy like squirrel.")

20 June 2005

Ah, summer, with its sunny, blue skies, leafy, green trees, and weekend yodelling festivals. Yes, yodelling festivals. My friends and I went to the triennial Jodlerfest this past weekend in a nearby town, and wandered from tent to tent, having beer, sausage, and ice cream (the three major food groups in Switzerland in the summer time), in between checking out scheduled and impromptu performances by solo and group yodellers, bands, and alpenhorn players (for those of you who aren�t familiar with alpenhorns, they are the really long wooden horns that always show up in Ricola commercials). Traditional Swiss music is all in a major key, and it is very leisurely and placid, which befits a non-warmongering country, I suppose. It is very peaceful music that you could picture being sung in the mountains, and it follows the predictable verse- chorus- verse- chorus format (or, more accurately, verse- yodel- verse- yodel). The singers all stand with their hands in their pockets (I have no idea why, but they all did it that way).

All of the performers (and there were hundreds and hundreds of them) were decked out in traditional regional costumes (that, I was told, cost thousands of dollars each). In one region, apparently, the men wore dangly gold earrings in their right ears, which seemed to say Pirate more than Mountain Man. Other men�s costumes involved fitted black velvet blazers with short, puffed sleeves, worn over a long-sleeved white shirt, or ornate leather suspenders with brass cows and landscapes on them. And there were lederhosen, too, obviously. Can�t have a proper Jodlerfest without having men running around in leather shorts and knee socks! Women had long, old-fashioned dresses with laces and aprons and other old-timey touches you would expect. The surprises showed up more often in their headgear. Some had what appeared to be starched, white lace mohawks pinned on top of their heads, and others had large, frilly black nests of lace that were two feet in diameter.

The oddest performance of the day, perhaps, was a group of about a dozen men, each carrying the biggest cowbell in the world, about as big around as your arms can reach, and as long as an adult thighbone. They walked along in sync, swinging these cowbells with each step. That was it, that was the performance: men walking with cowbells. No melody, no harmony, no real performance, just walking with oversized, clanging cowbells.

One interesting thing was that this highly traditional festival was as eagerly embraced by young people as by older people. Twenty-somethings ran around in their traditional gear, singing traditional Swiss songs while sitting and rocking from side to side on wooden benches in the street, accompanied by accordions and wooden spoons. Some jarring reminders that they were indeed young people from the 21st century were that they had punkish highlights under their lace caps, had nose rings and tongue piercings, and took breaks from yodelling to talk on their cell phones.

Anyways, last week I took all of my dive gear and my camera and underwater housing (which I had just gotten back from repairs) to a swimming pool to test it all out. We were there after-hours, and the people in the pool before us were synchronized swimmers, practicing their routine. Apparently, in Switzerland, all of the weird water people come out after closing time, as evidenced first by the pack of grinning, kicking, perfectly timed girls, and then by the half dozen people trying out wetsuits, dry suits, tech diving gear, camera gear, and underwater MP3 players (I am dying to get one of these now, having tried it firsthand). I can only imagine what the people thought when they saw me on the tram, lugging about 50 pounds of dive and camera gear, complete with fins, regulators, wetsuit, dive computer, mask, snorkel, and so on. And the Swissification continues, as I am seriously considering starting to dive Lake Zurich, after a year of resisting the idea.

14 June 2005

Zurich is eternally under construction. You will never see a pothole or a crack in the pavement, because they rip up their roads and sidewalks and redo them before any potholes or cracks can form. They do this with the tramlines, as well, tearing up and replacing the tracks before they show any wear and tear. Why have two workers fixing something for a day when you can have eight workers replacing it for two weeks? It’s good for unemployment, and it also makes everything look shiny and new all the time! Every workday, there are packs of construction workers jack-hammering pavement, removing debris, mixing concrete, laying down asphalt, and doing whatever else they do in their impossibly clean and blindingly fluorescent orange pants and shirts. (I have never seen such orange pants, and I’ve never seen construction workers in such clean clothes).

The Swiss (and Swiss construction workers and contractors) get up way too early for their (my) own good. When I lived in New York, my next-door neighbor was having work done, so for several weeks I was rudely awakened at 9 o’clock every morning by the hammering and scraping of the contractors. If only workers here started at 9 o’clock, since I am out of the apartment by 8:40 every day. No, here in Switzerland, if there is work being done in my building, it starts at 7 o’clock, just to make sure that I can enjoy an hour or so of jarring noise before I get out of bed. I suppose I could get up at that time, as well, but as a matter of principle, I refuse to be vertical before 8 o’clock, unless (as has happened several times so far), I have a delivery or workman coming over at 7 o’clock, in which case I am sure they are quite stunned that I stumble to the door in my PJs and then shoo them out as quickly as possible so that I can crawl back into bed.

As long as I’m on the subject of workmen and apartments, I’ve had a rather strange little ongoing story. My building is very old, since it is in the historic district of Zurich, and so it needs some work from time to time to fix leaks and cracks and so on. Since I moved in, my landlord has had to enter my apartment about four or five times, sometimes with a workman, to check on the roof, fix a leak, do some painting, or whatnot. He does this when I am at work. A while back, when he was checking the roof, he decided that my roof terrace was overgrown, and had a gardener come in to weed, prune, trim, and sweep. A few weeks ago, he let a painter in to paint the corner of my living room, and when I came home after work, the bathroom had been cleaned -- the sink, counter, and toilet were scrubbed so that they looked factory-fresh, even though the apartment visit had nothing to do with the bathroom. Sort of odd, but, hey, free bathroom cleaning. Last week, he had to check for leaks or cracks that might explain a problem with the apartment downstairs. When I came home, the hallway and stairs had been vacuumed.

It’s like I have little apartment-cleaning fairies that come in and clean one thing each time. I wonder if he comes in, decides it’s messy, and cleans it himself, or if the workman does it, or if he calls in a cleaning person. And why clean at all, or why clean only one thing? It weirds me out thinking about it, these little mini-cleaning projects that take place each time the landlord comes by. I hate cleaning, and it’s nice to have some of it taken care of sometimes, but this is just too creepy, even for me. Now I don’t know whether to let things get messy before he comes over, to take advantage of the Cleaning Fairy, or if I should clean up beforehand, to avoid the weirdness.

Despite being in an old building, my apartment (thankfully) has a dishwasher, and the washer and dryer are right outside my front door. I grew up using dishwashers and clothes dryers, and it has always seemed unthinkably inconvenient not to have them, but it is quite commonplace here to wash all dishes by hand and to hang your laundry out to dry. In fact, I have met Swiss people my age who have never used a dishwasher or clothes dryer (in fact, one of them, despite never having used a dryer, categorically said that they were not to be trusted. On the other hand, he was also mistrustful of foreigners, women with opinions, and lawyers, so as a foreign, opinionated, female, dishwasher- and dryer-using lawyer, I must have seemed especially shady.)

7 June 2005

It has been an action-packed week, as Zurich continues waking up from winter hibernation. Friday night, some friends and I went to the symphony, which was having one of its regular special events, designed to reach out to a younger audience. The 1,500 person audience sat through the Beethoven violin concerto, quietly drank beer, applauded boisterously when appropriate, and at the end, demanded two encores. After that, the audience flooded the foyer of the symphony hall, decked out in clubbing gear, drinking beer, and rocking out to the live electric cello-mixing table-drum ensemble. Only in Switzerland could you get a bunch of punks to pay $25 to sedately drink over-priced beer and listen to Beethoven before dancing to an electric cello ensemble.

Saturday was the Christopher Street Day Parade, which is the gay pride parade in Zurich. I realized that this was probably what was going on my first weekend in Zurich last year, when I saw a troupe of men in tighty-whities doing synchronized aerobics in the street and was very puzzled. In any case, the parade was relatively low-key; I imagine that people are saving their most over-the-top gear for Street Parade in August, but there were still a few people in full drag, half nude, or sporting full bondage gear. One amusing moment was seeing a banner that read “Zurich Bears.” There is currently this strange thing going on here, with dozens of large bear statues that have been painted in different ways, on exhibit around Zurich, similar to the cow thing we had a few years back in the U.S. I got confused, wondering why they would have a banner for the statues in the gay pride parade, before remembering that “bear” refers to an entirely different concept in the gay community.

After the parade, there was a street festival with (what else but) sausages and beer, a well as other food and drink, including absinthe, which, after trying it for the first time, I can heartily NOT recommend. If you’re wondering how the Swiss feel about gays in the military, the Green Berets had a gay pride truck, decked out in camo and rainbow flags. Next to the truck, one soldier was hugging another soldier while caressing his chest, and right next to them, one of their comrades blithely chomped away on a grilled sausage. My favorite quote of the day came from my friend, who said, “Hey, the guy with the tiara is wearing an assless apron!”

Later on, there was a concert that was billed as “Swedish electronica,” but was more of a cheesy wedding band. The band, Alcazar, felt the need to include their name in every song, and most of their songs were sort of cheesy remixes of existing songs, like, “We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning, and our name is Alcazar, so sing with Alcazar!” They had coordinated Star Search-style dance moves, and it was like Abba gone horribly bad. So bad that it was worth staying to watch for an hour.

Sunday I spent the day in Appenzell, which was the last canton to give women the right to vote, and where the stereotypical residents are short and mountain-dwelling. I spent the day half-expecting to be stoned by misogynistic Oompa Loompas, but alas, none were to be seen, as it was Sunday, and the Oompa Loompas apparently stay inside counting their cacao beans on Sundays. Sunday was also the day of a nationwide referendum, in which the Swiss voted on whether to loosen trade restrictions with the EU, and on whether to give gay partnership rights. I was surprised and happy to find out that both measures passed, and can only hope that this is a good sign for progress in conservative countries in general (ahem, yes, I’m talking about my homeland, unrecognizable as it is these days). At some point, I will have to post something about the intense propaganda campaigns that preceded this vote and others.

In other news, I'm trying to get a Swiss driver's license, which I can get without taking a test, since I have a valid U.S. license. I find the whole thing amusing, since they assume that having a license means: 1) that I can drive well, and 2) that I know how to drive stick. Also, I have to get a vision test at most 24 months beforehand, which makes sense at first, until you stop and realize that a Swiss license is good FOR LIFE, in which case, after 30 years, does it really matter if the vision test was given 24 or 25 months before you got the license?

30 May 2005

They definitely do things differently here. Office culture is so unlike the working world to which I was accustomed before coming to Switzerland last year. As noted in prior entries, the Swiss tend to start and end their days early, often going to work at 7 so that they can leave at 4. They are legally entitled to have a lunch break, and many offices also have two scheduled coffee breaks per day. They also have no idea what normal people should make doing normal jobs. Swiss secretaries routinely take home an annual salary of $50,000, and complain that they are grossly underpaid for their 37.5-hour workweeks. (Edit: Keep in mind that, what with taxes and exchange rates, to make the same take-home pay in the U.S., your gross salary would have to be over $65,000).

On top of those general guidelines, however, are some smaller oddities. For instance, many Swiss wear regular shoes to the office, and then change into slippers for the day – Birkenstocks, flip flops, sandals, house shoes, the kinds of shoes you would usually avoid wearing in a business setting. It is the complete opposite of what you see in the States, where people wear comfortable shoes for their commute, then change into dress shoes for the office.

Also, the Swiss see nothing strange in wearing the same clothes three days in a row. In New York, if I saw someone wearing the same shirt and pants for more than one day, I assumed that they had unexpectedly slept elsewhere and hadn’t had time to change. Not the case here. The Swiss will wear an outfit all day, go home, take it off, go to bed, get up, put the same outfit back on, go through another day, go home, take it off, go to bed, get up, and wear it yet again, without ever thinking twice about it.

My office building is currently undergoing some renovations on the ground floor. The building management unilaterally decided to shut off water in the entire building one afternoon, so that the renovations could continue, informing all of the people working in the building that we would have to use the restrooms at the grocery store down the street, instead. When asked why they couldn’t shut off the water and do the work after hours or on a weekend, they replied that it would be more expensive to hire workers outside of business hours, and that it would cost the building tenants additional money to do so, which seems absurd, since most of the tenants have nothing to do with the construction. In my opinion, the one tenant instigating the construction should be obliged to pay the additional construction costs to allow the rest of the building to continue using their normal bathrooms and kitchens, instead of making bathroom migrations to the grocery store. But that would be logical, and we never said that things were logical here, did we?

Speaking of water, some residential buildings shut off the hot water after 10 p.m., since people clearly don’t need hot water after 10. These are often the same buildings that prohibit nighttime toilet-flushing, require men to sit down when using the toilet after 10, schedule laundry days a year in advance, and ask that walking be kept to a minimum during quiet time. How are you supposed to fulfill all of your hot water needs by 10 p.m.?

The weather forecasts are rarely accurate more than a few hours in advance here – Zurich weather is terribly unpredictable, with clouds, sun, hail, and rain coming and going on fast-forward, like in those accelerated weather pattern clips you see on TV; the weather can rarely make up its mind and stick to a plan, resulting in weeks where the highs are in the 80’s on Monday and the 50’s on Friday, with sun showers and hailstorms in between.

For the past four days in a row, however, the weather has been perfect summer weather, 80 and sunny (although there were thunderstorms predicted for three out of the four days), and I have been spending lots of time outside, having picnics in the park, reading on my terrace, napping by the lake, or just walking around, and it doesn’t get dark until 9:30, so by the time I go home (which has been after 10), sleepy and sticky from spending hours in the sun, I want to take a shower. It’s so great that the weather has been nice, and that I have the time to spend so much time loafing around outside, and (I feel ridiculous saying this), I’m so lucky to live in a building that lets me take showers after 10 p.m.

24 May 2005

So I went back to the doctor’s office early Sunday morning, the bronchitis not having cleared up yet. The doctor prescribed three more medications this time around: antibiotics, another kind of fizzy pill, and cough syrup. In the past, cough syrup always came in fairly large bottles, the syrup itself was clear and relatively watery, it tasted bad for a moment, but it was OK, because you only have to take one spoonful. This cough syrup comes in a bottle that only has six doses in it, which, at three doses a day, only lasts two days, which seems rather optimistic for a bad cough. The syrup is opaque, almost the color of Pepto, the consistency of cream of mushroom soup, and tastes the way that Vick’s Vaporub smells. It also leaves my entire mouth numb for a while after taking it, especially since I have to take three large spoonfuls each time. You would think that its thickness would mean that it’s more concentrated, and therefore requires a smaller does than traditional cough syrup. You would think.

Since I’m on the subject (sort of), let’s talk about other products that have unexpected incarnations in Switzerland. I have always been obsessed with ice cream. The Chinese word for ice cream was part of my earliest vocabulary. The Swiss love ice cream, as well. They advertise it in posters and movie trailers, and there are ice cream stands all over the place. They have also realized that sex sells, and so they advertise their ice cream with suggestive ad campaigns that remind me of American beer commercials. I thought it went a little too far, however, when I picked up a box of bite-sized ice cream bonbons, and they were called “Magnum Moments,” which sounds more like a line of condoms than chocolate-covered ice cream balls.

Another fixation of mine is gummy candy. I could live off of gummy candy, and fortunately, it is popular here, as well. In the past, I was accustomed to eating gummy bears, gummy snakes, gummy cherries, and so on, but each package of candy followed some sort of theme. Bears came with bears, fruit slices came with fruit slices, snakes came with snakes. Here, gummies mix together in one package, and they are not limited to the traditional gummy shapes. Guitars, race cars, camels, letters and numbers, tennis rackets, bottle openers (yes, they make gummy bottle openers), lips, men with ties, they all come in one big package of delicious gummy confusion.

I never cease to be amazed at the Swiss ability to assemble and disassemble large structures quickly and completely. One day, it’s a parking lot, the next day, there is a giant Ferris wheel, and a couple of months later, the Ferris wheel disappears overnight, leaving nary a trace that it was ever there. They also do this inside the main hall of the train station. Since I have been here, there have been large sculpture installations, farmer’s markets, a large Christmas market, and rock concerts inside the train station. Currently, there is a movie theatre. They built an entire movie theatre, complete with stadium seating, velvet curtains, and a box office in the middle of the train station.

Not everything remains a novelty, however. Despite efforts to maintain my own identity and fight Swissification, I have learned to go grocery shopping early and often (although I still sometimes go hungry out of laziness), to take the trash out on appointed days (although I still smuggle trash and cardboard out from time to time), to time my days according to the tram schedules (although I often end up taking one tram later than I had planned, due to my own absent-mindedness). I like the fact that I have adjusted, but I also like the fact that I haven’t adjusted perfectly – my own identity is in there somewhere, fighting against total Swissification. One area in which I have become Swissified, however, in which I never thought I could, is with morning bells. I have clear sightlines, and therefore “hearinglines,” to three churches, and the bells that chime every quarter hour around the clock, with extended ringing before church services, are quite loud. When I moved in, I thought I would never get used to the 15 minutes of bells at 7 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends, but somehow, I now sleep through them. With the help of earplugs, of course. But they used to wake me up, even with the earplugs. Let full Swissification begin.

18 May 2005

I got sick just as my travel schedule picked up, and had my first experience going to the doctor’s office here. She listened to my lungs and ordered blood work and X-rays, which seemed a bit excessive, but I went along with it. At the end of the visit, she told me that I didn’t have TB or pneumonia, but that I did have bronchitis, and she wrote a few prescriptions, which required more explanation than I’m accustomed to. America is all about the magic pill: take two of these and call me in the morning. Here, I received three medications: one was a set of blue and white pills, marked with suns and moons, to be taken at different times of day; one was a box of tablets to be dropped into boiling water and inhaled under a tented towel; the third was a tube of large tablets to be dropped into cold water and drunk once they finished fizzing and dissolving. I got to keep my X-rays, instead of leaving them on file with the doctor. Just what I’ve been needing – pictures of my lungs!

As I’ve mentioned in the past, mobile phone culture revolves around text messages much more than actual conversations, due in most part to the fact that cell phone calls are prohibitively expensive. However, SMSes are not limited to personal messages, as the many SMS spams I receive can attest. Upon picking up a new network, your phone receives several SMSes welcoming you to the network, telling you how to call a cab or check the weather, or which operators speak your language. Your phone company sends you system-wide SMSes detailing promotions and changes in policy. Dating companies advertise their services.

Yesterday, I received an SMS from the city of Zurich, informing me that the city was providing free beer in a public square to celebrate the victory of the local soccer team, which was perhaps the only useful spam SMS I have ever received. (Can you imagine the mayhem that would ensue if New York told everyone to come to a party with free beer?) I arrived, had a few glasses of free wine to celebrate the victory of a team I don’t follow in a sport I don’t watch. The square was packed with Zurichers (Zurichans? Zurichfolk?) drunkenly and happily sharing this moment of glory, drinking their free alcohol, eating grilled sausages, and singing some team anthem that shares the melody I have always known as “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends,” but is also known as “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The DJ played music for the crowd: “My Way,” “Forever Young” by Alphaville, “Song 2,” “Beautiful Day.” It was a fun impromptu party on the river, with scores of happy people shooting dangerous fireworks at will, and it was all thanks to an SMS about free beer.

I spent last weekend in Paris, catching up with friends from college and law school, and eating my way through the city. I didn’t hit any of the big tourist places, having done that on a past trip, although I did see the Eiffel Tower from a distance while walking from one place to the next, if you would really be upset if I didn’t see a single attraction. While there, I realized something that entertained me, really quite a small thing. In French, the word for “lawyer” is the same as the word for “avocado.” I went to law school for three years just to become a delicious, mushy, green fruit that is excellent on salads and in guacamole. There are worse vocations.

One of the best things about living here is that everything is so close. I have travelled to Vienna, Budapest, Paris, Barcelona, and Rome without ever flying for more than 2 hours. I can’t take a train for more than 3 hours without leaving the country. France and Spain become weekend destinations that are highly preferable to the places that were similarly accessible from New York. Instead of going to Pittsburgh, I could go to Florence. Instead of Newark, why not check out Berlin? Rather than going to Scranton, I can go to Seville. Not bad. The Swiss are used to this, and have difficulty imagining life any other way. A journey of 45 minutes is seen as one of epic proportions, and many will never travel to Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, because it is two hours away. These warped concepts of distance are even more comical when they apply them elsewhere. One friend had to dissuade her sister from her initial plans for a one-week trip to the States. She was flying in to New York, and was hoping to rent a car for the week, during which time she would drive from city to city, exploring New York, Boston, D.C., San Francisco, and L.A. By car. In a week.

10 May 2005

I spent four days in beautiful Budapest this past weekend, and despite being sick the whole time, I loved the city, which means it’s a great place, if I still liked it despite feeling like I was about to die the entire time. Like all places, it had its quirks, which I am only too happy to set forth here, not wanting to limit my snide remarks to one country. Let the record henceforth show that I am an equal opportunity mocker. Great city, though.

At one point, I tried to go to a pharmacy to get something for my throat, and the first place I went carried plenty of shampoo and candy, as well as some herbal remedies, but no medicine. I wanted to take a picture of a mysterious product called “American Aloe Vera Juice” that was made in China and labelled in Chinese, but the manager didn’t seem too keen on having pictures taken in his shop. When I finally did find a pharmacy that stocked medicine and started speaking to a pharmacist who spoke English, she nodded when I told her that my throat hurt, and nodded again when I asked if they had anything for a sore throat. Then she stood there. Finally, I asked her if I could perhaps buy something that they had for sore throats, and it was only then that she went to go find it (they keep all medication, even OTC, behind the counter, even cough drops). I’m not sure why she waited until then, and if she just thought I had gone in to make conversation.

Budapest has a population of about 2 million people, and an extensive public transportation to get them from point A to point B. When you go underground to take the subway (or when you are coming back out of the station), the escalators are the fastest escalators I have ever seen. To my litigious eye, it seemed like a tort waiting to happen, these staircases moving on fast-forward. Having successfully made it downstairs without being caught and shredded by the escalator, you validate your ticket and head for the platform to catch a train. A timer posted by the tracks tells you how long it has been since the last train left, rather than how much time remains until the next train comes. How useful, knowing how close you were to catching the previous train!

While travelling, I try to avoid the big tourist restaurants, both for budget concerns and for the experience. My friend and I headed out for lunch, and managed to find a cheap hole-in-the-wall with a long line of Hungarians waiting to be served. Not being able to read any Hungarian, we turned to someone in line with us for help. She told us to order one of the varieties of meat (most of which were breaded and fried), and one of the varieties of vegetables (most of which were finely diced or pureed, and served swimming in sauce). She then explained that most dishes had traditional pairings (sort of the way you would think fish and chips, or meat and potatoes). For instance, if you get pureed spinach, you should always get it with a hard-boiled egg. If you order chicken, you should get the carrots, and so on. I ordered the breaded, fried pork with a side of peas and carrots. The pork was quite good, but the “side” of peas and carrots was about three large portions of what looked like baby food, and was heavily sugared, rather than salted. I watched several Hungarians attacking their egg-and-spinach, and I believe my friend and I were the only ones who did not finish our Super-sized, sweetened vegetable puree. Cut us some slack, though, we tried.

America is world-renowned for, shall we say, the generous size of its citizens. I would like to propose that Hungary take its rightful place next to the U.S., as there were very large numbers of very large people roaming the streets of Budapest. Unfortunately, they were not only wandering the streets, but also the Turkish baths, where clothing is optional. I sat and tried not to stare as elephantine women sweated in the saunas, soaked in the heated pools, panted in the steam room, and lumbered and jiggled their way between rooms. I sat and definitely stared as one many-folded woman meticulously kneaded some oily, gooey substance into every crack and crevice on her beyond-voluptuous body. It is an image that will haunt me for life, and which will be forever linked in my head to Budapest.

Pictures coming soon, and next weekend I'll be in Paris, so the weekly update will be on Tuesday.

2 May 2005

I met a few expats last week, and it turns out that in most Swiss offices, all workers are required to clock in and out, to ensure that they are working the right amount of time. In many offices, the “right amount” is 8 hours and 9 minutes each day. The standard work day is 8 hours, but some offices give their workers an extra week of vacation between Christmas and New Year, and they compensate for this by working an extra 9 minutes a day for the rest of the year. Many offices also have scheduled coffee breaks twice a day that are sort of like “recess for grown-ups,” as one expat put it. One coffee break is at 9 a.m., as most Swiss like to get in to the office around 7:30, so 9 o’clock is a good time for a mid-morning coffee and snack. At my old office, if we had had a coffee break at 9, very few people would have been in the office in time to make it.

Yesterday was Labor Day in Switzerland, and the police were out in full force, decked out in their riot gear. I haven’t seen so many policemen since leaving New York. Apparently, the Labor Day traditions here don’t center around sales on school supplies, picnics, and barbecues. Instead, they have a workers’ parade (to go with the Labor Day theme), and the local Communist and Socialist organizations try to get the workers to unite. They have a yearly march down one particular street, and the riot police patrol that street very closely, as well as other key points in the city, because if they don’t, the marchers will sometimes decide to do a little bit of once-a-year, organized looting. It sounds like hooliganism, but if you think about it, at least you always know exactly when and where the looting might take place. It’s mob behavior, Swiss-style: planned, scheduled, and organized.

This Thursday, we have a day off for the Ascension, or Himmelfahrt, as they say in German. Being the mature person that I am, I am definitely not sniggering to myself while repeating the word “Himmelfahrt” under my breath. Definitely not. Just like I don’t find it at all amusing to see the word “Ausfahrt” painted on the asphalt at the exits from parking garages. Ahem, right. So I'll be spending Himmelfahrt weekend in Budapest. The next weekend, we have Monday off for Whit Monday, so I'll be in Paris for that weekend. Life is rough, I know.

Holidays and weekends are a source of both stress and relaxation here. Yes, it’s your time off, and there is no chance that you will have to work during that time. However, it is also time off for people who work in shops around town, so if you were hoping to do your shopping and run some errands, you had better get it all done Saturday afternoon, because everything shuts down after that until Monday morning. If you have a long weekend, get everything done beforehand, and shop as if a hurricane were coming, because if your office is closed, it’s a safe bet that everything else will be closed, as well. Planning for a long weekend now entails both figuring out how to spend the weekend, and stocking up on food and supplies, even if the weekend is to be spent lazing around the apartment (which it often does, since nothing is open on Saturday evening or Sunday, and so that standard weekend activity of “going shopping” is nixed).

Movie theatres do stay open all weekend, so if you’re willing to shell out about $15 a ticket, plus some money for snacks and drinks, that’s one way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Be careful what you see, though. Zurich is unique in that most movies are shown in their original language, so British and American movies are shown in English, with German and French subtitles (there are also dubbed options, so that you can see Vin Diesel moving his mouth with German voiceover, which would probably be more entertaining than the original, actually). However, if you go see a movie that was originally in Spanish, for example, the subtitles will still be in French and German, so unless you are fluent in one of those three languages, you could find yourself making up your own storyline and dialogue to go with the pictures.

Himmelfahrt. Heh heh...

25 April 2005

Yet another mystery in the world of Swiss laundry... Being my typical absent-minded self, I had forgotten to put a towel in with a load of laundry I was running, so I ran back upstairs to grab the towel to add to the wash. Upon returning to the washing machine, I grabbed the door of the machine to open it, and… nothing. The washing machine had locked itself shut once it started the cycle, and there was no way to open it. I tried turning the machine off, I tried resetting the dial, I tried pushing all of the buttons, but the machine had decided that it was going to finish what it had started, and it was not going to put up with any interruptions or added towels. Can someone explain why you would design a washing machine that locks? Do people here never need to throw something in one minute after they start a load of laundry?

Anyways… every time I go back to the States, I go to the drug store and stock up on all kinds of things: shampoo, conditioner, lotion, face wash, Advil, Dramamine, Claritin, and all kinds of other things that I could admittedly buy here in Switzerland, but which would come in much smaller packages with much higher prices. Yes, I actually lug back a bag full of things from Duane Reade because I am so opposed to the idea of paying an extra two bucks for a bottle of lotion in a brand I don’t recognize. I was much relieved to find out that other expats do this as well, and was chagrined to find out that there was one thing I had forgotten, which has an even higher mark-up margin: contact solution. I had forgotten to buy a bottle on my last expedition, and as it turns out, a bottle of contact solution costs about $15 here. D’oh.

Speaking of lotion and body wash, I come from a culture where those things are reserved for girls and metrosexuals. Here, however, such products apparently have universal appeal. Swiss boys buy body wash and facial lotion like nobody’s business, and try out new scents, foaming action, and cleansing beads with undisguised interest. I suppose they have more time and brain capacity to devote to such things, as they are only interested in one sport, soccer, as opposed to the big three that infect the minds of most American boys. When not watching soccer, they often go shopping (they adore their shoes here), often of their own accord, and not as a concession to a consumption-hungry girlfriend. And yes, Swiss boys really care about shoes. Before coming here, it was very rare that a guy would notice my shoes, but here, I have had several instances where a guy has noticed my shoes and complimented them or said that I really shouldn’t go out in them. (Being an American, I wear sneakers and flip-flops a lot. What can I say, they’re comfortable.) I haven’t figured out if it’s liberating to see such gender-bending behavior, or if it’s just sort of weird.

OK, so my landlord had to get into my apartment the other week to let a handyman do some roof repairs, and afterwards, he called me to tell me that he was also going to schedule a gardener to go onto my terrace to pull up the weeds and trim the plants and so on, because I had failed to do so myself. I was more than happy to let someone else do it, although I found it rather strange that he had expected the terrace to be perfectly manicured, seeing that it’s been winter for six months, and who does any gardening when it’s wintertime? Apparently the Swiss do. In any case, my terrace and I are now ready for summer, if only it would stop being rainy and cold.

It’s hard to believe I have been here for about 11 months already. Some things you get used to, and that’s a good thing. Some things you get used to, despite not wanting to get used to them. And some things you never get used to. One of those things is money. I still have difficulty with the money here. It’s colorful and differently sized. It’s like Monopoly money, and it’s hard to remind myself that it should not be treated as such. And there is on way to fold it neatly into your wallet, since they all fold to different sizes. And the people whose faces are on the money all look rather confused to be there. One man is in the act of taking off his glasses. One woman is wearing the kind of hat you use to cover up a bad hair day. One man looks distracted, as if someone asked him a question right before taking his picture. Come on, you’re being immortalized on widely used currency, can’t you wear contacts, comb your hair, and look into the camera?

19 April 2005

Yesterday was Sechseläuten. I'm still reeling, trying to convince myself that everything I saw actually happened. For the entire weekend leading up to the big day, there were marching bands, fife and drum bands, bagpipes, and drum lines marching around my neighborhood, getting themselves parade-ready. Makes sense, music ensembles need practice. What I found more puzzling was that there were often packs of people wearing period costume following them around; I wasn't sure if they were practicing wearing their costumes for the parade, or if they were just trying to get maximum wear out of these once-a-year outfits.

The big parade started yesterday afternoon at 3, and the twenty-six guilds of Zurich marched through the streets, accompanied by their standard bearers, marching bands, and guild-themed floats. The guilds were sort of the labor unions of yesteryear -- tanners, fishermen, blacksmiths, tailors, beermakers, merchants -- everyone had their own guild. The floats in the Sechseläuten parade reflect these old-time affiliations, so that the carpenters came by with a float made of large pieces of unfinished lumber with tools on display, and the blacksmiths had a group of hale young men hammering away in a mocked-up forge on wheels. The guilds no longer serve the same function that they once did, probably because there aren't blacksmiths and tanners anymore. Instead they are now social networking organizations for the Good Ol' Boys. If you want to be a member of the stablemasters' guild, you had better hope Grandpa is in it, because there is no other way you're getting in.

The guild members took the parade quite seriously, donning elaborate costumes that showed their allegiance. I have never seen so many men so excited to be wearing tights, velvet jackets, buckled shoes, feathered hats, and curly wigs. The spectators showed their appreciation by giving flowers to their favorite parading guild members. I heard that in the old days, when the guilds were for men only, they would bring the flowers home to their wives to show how much they loved them, but also to remind them of how popular they were with the ladies.

Each guild had a marching band of 50 to 75 people, and another 100 to 200 members, so that works out to over 5,000 costumes, and a very large but temporary rise in the demand for white tights. If you stop and think about it, there were perhaps 1,500 people in marching bands, all of which were quite good. If the same percentage of people were in marching bands in Manhattan, there would be almost 9,000 people running around on Fifth Avenue playing Sousa.

Some guilds went even further in showing their guild pride. One guild, which apparently was once made up of the men who harvested apples and made cider, was passing out apples. Other guilds threw flowers and candy to the crowds, and the winemakers gave out plastic cups of wine. The fishermen, on the other hand, had a basket full of whole fish that they were hurling at lookers-on. The group in the balcony behind us were carrying umbrellas to avoid the fish that were raining down on them, since the balcony was a prime target. After the fishermen had passed, the crowd continued tossing the fish around, sort of like beach balls at a rock concert, only messier.

Many of the guilds had dozens of horses, and it was quite a spectacle to see all the horsemen in full traditional costume, parading down the street. It almost made me forget to look out for the fish... And then there was that other guild. I have no idea what guild it was, but they were dressed like stereotypical desert sheiks -- long robe, spotted cloth tied over the head, rope belt. And, I kid you not, they were in brown-face. Each of them had taken paint and painted his face brown, which I hadn't realized was still socially acceptable. To complete their desert sheik chic, they had live camels and potted palms on wheels.

The parade kept going, with more over-the-top costumes and animals and projectiles, and the marching bands played such traditional Swiss numbers as, "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Living La Vida Loca," and "Blue Suede Shoes." By 6, however, everyone squeezed their way to Sechseläutenplatz, and the Böögg was set on fire. The firework-stuffed, gasoline-soaked cotton snowman was sitting on top of a huge wooden pyre, and it took 18 minutes for his head to explode, which is the defining moment in forecasting the summer. A couple informed me that 18 minutes is quite long, and the last nice summer they had, the Böögg only took 7 minutes to lose his head.

Later in the night, at around 11 p.m., the Böögg's funeral pyre was still burning, and the marching bands and guilds were still romping through the streets. Insane. Good times.

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 7: Living in Switzerland; Calendar

If you're thinking of living and working in Switzerland, one question that might arise is, "How many vacation days will I get?"" You're in luck, if you're coming from anywhere outside of Europe. Under Swiss law, all companies have to give their employees at least four weeks of paid vacation, and many give up to six weeks. Compare this to the starting vacation plans in the U.S., where new employees are lucky to get more than two weeks, and it sounds pretty good. Even crazier, people actually take all of their vacation days here. And if they want to take two weeks of vacation back to back, their employers are required to give it to them, because it takes a full two weeks to unwind from the high-stress lifestyle of working 37.5 hours per week (the standard Swiss work week; at many companies, if you work more than that, the extra hours can be banked towards extra vacation days).

On top of that, there are the Swiss national holidays. There are the ones you might expect, such as Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Labor Day, Swiss National Day, and since Switzerland is predominantly Catholic, there are the religious holidays, such as Whit Monday, the Ascension, St. Stephen's Day (the day after Christmas), and Good Friday. And then… well, there are two really peculiar holidays, both of which seem somewhat dangerous, but are big local traditions.

One is Knabenschiessen, roughly translated as "Boys' Shooting Day," recently expanded to include girls. This September celebration revolves around a shooting contest, in which 12 to 16-year olds show off their marksmanship with rifles, competing to win prizes or the overall title. I suppose this prepares them for later military service, which is compulsory for all able-bodied males, when they will all have their very own pistols and assault rifles to take home with them between training sessions.

The more bizarre tradition is Sechseläuten, which happens in April. Sechseläuten is sort of the Swiss equivalent of Groundhog Day, in that it is used to predict the end of winter. All similarity ends there. To start with, there is apparently a children's parade, in which children wearing traditional clothing are chased around by adults, who are carrying large pairs of scissors. I am not sure what the significance of this tradition might be. Afterwards, everyone gathers around the Böögg, which is a large snowman made out of cotton, stuffed with firecrackers, doused with gasoline, and perched on top of a giant pile of wood. They torch him, and the faster his head explodes, the sooner summer will come, and the nicer it will be. Forget Punxsutawney Phil checking out his shadow, we want scissor chases and exploding snowmen!!

It seems odd to me that many restaurants here are closed on Sundays. Sunday seems like it would be a prime eating-out kind of day, and yet many places are closed. It's not some sort of blanket regulation, as it is with shops, which are also closed on Sundays, because there are some restaurants that are open on Sundays. I think the owners and staff just can't imagine working on a Sunday, profits be damned. With the grocery stores and restaurants closed on Sunday, you'd better hope you have sufficient provisions at home to tide you over until Monday. Don't forget that the grocery store closes early on Saturday.

One thing that I have always done in restaurants is to have my leftovers wrapped up to take home. Sometimes I eat them later, and sometimes they sit in the fridge until they are unrecognizable, but I like having the option to eat them. The first time I went out to eat with a Swiss friend and asked the waiter to wrap up my leftovers, my friend was shocked, and said that he had never heard of anyone getting a doggie bag. Apparently, if you don’t finish your food, you just leave it. Since then, I have noticed that restaurants are not always prepared to wrap food up to take home, and in some instances, for lack of takeaway containers, I have asked to have half a plate of pasta wrapped, and gotten it back wadded up in a big piece of aluminum foil.

Also, tap water isn’t a big thing here. If you request water in a restaurant, they will bring out a bottle of mineral water unless you very specifically ask for tap water. I’m not sure why tap water is so unpopular here, as the water is very clean and tastes fine, as far as water goes. Offices even provide bottled water for their employees, so that they can keep bottled water at their desks, rather than being forced to drink tap water or huddle around a central water cooler. Thus, when we are at work, my dog only drinks Evian, since that’s what I have at my desk.

You may recall my friend whose office had a very strict plant-allocation plan; each room in her office was assigned a specific plant according to the room’s lighting conditions, and that plan was strictly enforced by the building’s professional Plant People. Her story continues. She also brings her dog to work, and at the end of the day, if there was a bit of water left in her dog’s water bowl, she would dump it in the pot of her very large potted plant, thinking that plants like water, so there was no harm done. The next time the Plant Person came in to water the plants, she started showing signs of extreme agitation and concern, saying that either the plant hadn’t been taking in enough water, or that someone had been watering it. She accused my friend of being the perpetrator of the unauthorized watering, as if it were a heinous crime, which my friend, feeling cornered and put on the spot, vigorously denied. She now dumps the extra water in the office sink, so that the Plant Person won’t think of her as a criminal.

Upon hearing this story, another expat friend chimed in with a Plant People anecdote of her own. Her office also had a plant allocation plan, whereby there were a certain number of plants per people in their shared offices. When one of her colleagues switched rooms, he took “his” plant with him into his new room across the hall. Upon discovering the change, the Plant People informed him that they were only paid to water a certain number of plants per room, and that his plant was in excess of their contract, and so they would continue watering all of the other plants in the office, but he would have to water that plant himself. When he pointed out that they had watered the plant before the move, and that there was no increase in the total number of plants, they said that they were required to water it in its old location across the hall, because it fell within the plants-per-room limits in that room, but that in its new home, it was a superfluous plant! He now waters the plant himself, as the Plant People are unwilling to acknowledge its existence in the new room.

4 April 2005

Back in Switzerland, once again… Vacation was amazing, as vacation tends to be. A week of diving in Belize, living on a boat with 30 guests and 10 crew members, doing three to five dives a day. It was the perfect life: wake up, have breakfast, go for a dive, have cookies, go for a dive, have lunch, go for a dive, have an afternoon snack, go for a dive, have dinner, watch a presentation, and either go for a night dive or hang out until bed time. Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, I had some leakage issues with my camera housing, so the pictures I do have are from above water.

Highlights of the trip? I played with my first octopus, saw my first stingray, and found out that bubble rings, which I had previously thought were myth, do exist. Coming out of the water on my last dive of the trip (dive #22) was terribly sad, knowing that the next time I hit the water won’t be until July. The guests were a fairly mixed group, ranging from a 13-year-old doing his certification dives to a 79-year-old (the 13-year-old’s grandfather) logging his 500th dive, with all ages in between. Props to the crew, as well, who worked their butts off the whole time. I highly recommend Nekton as a full-service, but low-key and not stuffy dive operation. And they’re not even paying me to say that :P

A quick stop in New York on the way back: dentist, doctor, dinner, and… I can’t think of a word for shopping that starts with a D. Some time to recover from the travelling and time changes here in Zurich, and I’m back at work like nothing ever happened. My mom is breathing a sigh of relief that I didn’t get bent (although I think she worries more about sharks than getting bent, even though getting bent is a higher risk… in July, I will be diving in Egypt, where there are sharks, which may very well give her a heart attack. Don't worry, Mom, it's very safe.)

Divers and Americans are both very friendly populations, so going to Belize and New York, and coming back to Switzerland really highlights the contrast for me all over again. In New York, it’s impossible not to strike up a conversation with someone in a bar, in the park, or in a shop unless you are wearing headphones (and I admit that I have worn headphones with no music playing to discourage conversation on days when I was feeling particularly unfriendly). Reach for the same shirt as someone else in a small shop, and ten minutes later, you know about her divorce and upcoming vacation. Hit the dive deck at the same time as someone, and you spend the rest of the week talking about yellow-headed jawfish with her. Sit next to someone on the plane, and you might find yourself eating dinner with him later that night. Here, it’s totally the opposite. “Don’t talk to strangers” is a motto that is taken seriously, and so people stay in their own little social circles that they’ve occupied for the past 10 years. If I were only friends with people that I've known for at least ten years, I would have a lot more empty spots in my cell phone, and no need for Gmail.

So yeah, this vacation made me realize that I miss some things really badly: breathing underwater, swimsuit weather, food, folks, and fun. Thankfully, it’s sunny and in the 60’s right now, so I’m not quite as sad to be wearing office clothes instead of neoprene. And this week, twenty points for Switzerland, because I’m going to dinner with three friends on Wednesday, and we’re bringing our dogs to the restaurant, where they will be happily greeted by the wait staff, and will probably get more service and attention than we will.

On the other hand, there is always something absurd that makes me think, “Wow, I’m really not in Kansas anymore.” If your sink gets clogged, what do you do? Get out the Drano, right? And where do you get Drano? The supermarket, the hardware store, the convenience store, anywhere that’s open and has disgruntled cashiers, right? Not here. To get the Swiss equivalent of Drano, you have to go to the pharmacy, request it, and then sign a form that acknowledges that you know that it is a dangerous substance that must be handled with care. Sometimes, the Swiss are really lax about warning labels and notices, and then sometimes, you gotta wonder...

Unrelated, but on my mind: was anyone else disturbed by the deathwatch news coverage of the Pope? It's one thing to report that someone has died, but it's another to sit outside his front door reporting that he is minutes away from death. "Tom, I'm reporting LIVE from Rome, where Church officials say that the Pope could die at ANY MOMENT. We're here to bring you the LATEST on this BREAKING STORY."

14 March 2005

I was at a birthday party over the weekend, and it struck me yet again how much it sucks to celebrate your birthday in Europe. Birthday parties are great, and Europe is great, but the two just don’t mix if you’re the birthday boy or girl. The custom here is for the birthday girl or boy to either take all of their friends and family out to celebrate, or, if they can’t afford to buy dinner and drinks for a dozen or more people, then they have them over and make dinner for them. So each year on your birthday, you have to decide if you want to pay for all of your friends to go to a restaurant, or spend a whole day in the kitchen preparing dinner for your friends. Isn’t your birthday supposed to be the one day when everyone else buys your dinner and drinks, and you don’t have to do anything at all?

Anyways… one of the first things that struck me when I first moved here, coming from Manhattan, was that Zurich was amazingly devoid of Starbuck’s. I could walk for 10 minutes and not see a Starbuck’s. There were a few here and there, but it wasn’t anything like Starbuck’s Land, I mean, New York, where you could throw bricks through the windows of three Starbuck’s from any given street corner. Not that I would do that. Although I have been tempted. But Starbuck’s is stalking me. Late last year, they moved into the neighborhood where I work, and a few weeks ago, a brand spanking new Starbuck’s opened up within brick-throwing distance of my apartment. As much as I miss certain things about New York, Starbuck’s is not one of them, so obviously it is the only thing that has crossed the Atlantic and taken root in my new city of residence.

The one good thing about Starbuck’s is that it is a non-smoking establishment. Period. Most places here still allow smoking, and you will see people with a fork in one hand and a cigarette in the other, apparently unable to wait long enough to eat before getting their next nicotine hit. I can’t imagine that it does much for the flavor of the food. Other, more “progressive” restaurants have smoking and non-smoking sections, with no partition between the sections, rendering the distinction about as effective as having talking and non-talking sections in a movie theatre. (No, they don’t do that, but it’s the same idea).

I found out something I found amusing last week. Swiss schoolchildren are graded on cleanliness and organization until they are about ten years old. This means that their teachers will randomly search their desks and book bags for signs of disorder, and assign them grades based upon how clean their desk is, how well-organized their pencil case is, and so on. I suppose if you’re going to raise a country full of OCD cleaners, you have to start young, and you have to enforce it at home and at school, but I can’t imagine having my teachers go through all of my stuff. My parents did it all the time, which was enough of an invasion of privacy, but to have such practices institutionalized and graded? Eek.

Like American schools, Swiss schools also grade their students on penmanship when they are young. Students are only allowed to write in pencil until their handwriting is deemed to be pen-worthy, upon which the teacher presents the student with an official “Your Handwriting Is Good Enough For Pen” pen. Students vie to be the first in their class to write neatly enough to get a pen. It’s the little things in life...

One thing that has been puzzling me: the train system in Switzerland is extensive and efficient. During the day. At night, the trains run infrequently, if at all, and take literally three times as long to cover the same distance. For instance, the train between Zurich and Fribourg takes under an hour and a half when it is running during the day. Around 10 p.m., it starts taking about two hours, and then after midnight, it takes almost six hours to cover the same distance, without any big detours. What is it doing for the extra four hours? Why does it take so much longer? Does it just stop somewhere for four hours, or is it just going extra-slow?

Anyways, I leave Friday to go to Belize, with a stop in New York on the way back, so I will be on a short hiatus, although I may be able to get some bits and pieces in here and there. Yay for going from 30 degree weather to 80 degree weather!! Even more yay for vacation, especially when diving is involved!!

7 March 2005

Last week, I was puttering around in one room of my apartment, and my Swiss friend called out to me from the other room, informing me that there was a “rowboat” in my room. I sat there digesting that information for a while, wondering if I had overlooked the advent of a rowboat in my apartment, then decided that I definitely did not have a rowboat. I then tried to think of anything that might resemble a rowboat, but concluded that I had no rowboat-shaped objects anywhere in my apartment. I went up to check it out, and the rowboat turned out to be my underwater camera setup, which, with its knobs, buttons, heavy metal case, and strobe arm, may, by some stretch of the imagination, resemble a robot. Such are the hazards of learning a language from non-native speakers and from the printed word: you may never be able to clearly express the difference between a small, man-powered water vessel and R2D2.

I just read an article that stated that the average Swiss woman spends over two hours per day doing housework. I’m not sure what she does for over two hours a day, since everyone cleans up after themselves constantly and makes as little mess as possible. I suppose that the laundry takes a lot of time, since the machines run on slow cycles, and are extra-small, requiring multiple loads. And then, since the clothes are hung out to dry, there is all of the ironing. Even jeans and t-shirts. And then there is the fact that the stove has to scrubbed with every use. But still, it’s no wonder that my place doesn’t look Swiss. I’m lucky if I spend two hours a week on housework.

If you spend over fourteen hours a week cleaning your house, I guess it makes sense that you want other people to keep it clean, as well. Swiss men are expected to always sit when using the restroom, although that rule is sometimes relaxed in one’s own home, or when visiting close friends who are not too anal about tidiness. One of my expat friends objects to sitting, just on principle, and will choose to kneel in front of the toilet, instead, as a compromise between his refusal to sit and his host’s preference for splash-free toilet usage. He was living with his Swiss girlfriend, and would even kneel at home, as she insisted that he not stand. American men complain that they have to remember to put the toilet seat down after every use, but I think they have it easier than the Swiss, who have to sit (or kneel, as the case may be), to satisfy the powers that be.

Even if you keep your apartment immaculate, moving out requires an even more fanatical devotion to cleanliness. Most landlords will conduct a housing inspection at the end of your residence, to ensure that the place is exactly as it was when you moved in. This sounds similar to how things work elsewhere, but it is taken to much greater lengths. The usual American apartment inspection: are the walls still there, are there holes, and is the paintjob OK? Are the drawers and closets empty? Is the kitchen emptied out and cleaned? The usual Swiss apartment inspection looks at the same things, but expects everything to be absolutely immaculate and like-new. The inspector will take apart faucets and look for calcification. He will look behind the radiator for a cobweb. He will look in the fuse box, in the backs of drawers, in storage closets, anywhere that might harbor a speck of dust. He will peer at every square centimetre of carpet for flecks of anything that wasn’t there before (and he has a record of each pre-existing fleck). It’s rather daunting, so many people will pay about $1000 to have a 1BR professionally prepared for inspection.

Before you even get to the cleaning inspection, however, you have to arrange to move out. Most apartments require at least a one-year lease, with move-out dates occurring twice a year. If your building has move-out dates on April 1 and October 1, and you moved in in May 2004, your first possible move-out would be October 2005, as it’s the first move-out date after your one-year lease. If you want to move out in October, then you have to give your landlord three months’ notice that you intend to use the move out date, or he can keep you on your lease until the next move-out date. If you want to leave before you are allowed, you can ask permission to transfer your lease, and once you have permission, you have to present your landlord with three acceptable candidates who are all ready and willing to move in, and your landlord then chooses one of them. Craig’s List just started up here, but I’m wondering how it will mesh with the housing policies that are generally in place…

28 February 2005

I experienced a momentary pang of regret yesterday when I realized I wouldn’t be able to watch the Oscars, due to the time difference and the fact that I only get two channels in my apartment, both of which are local Swiss channels that were featuring, I kid you not, accordion music and German puppet shows last night. Then I realized that I never watch the Oscars, anyways. My regret is more that I don’t get to see some of the movies I would like to see here, as not all movies make it over here.

An article in the newspaper today announced that a study had found Swiss movie theatres to be the most expensive. This doesn’t surprise me, since a movie ticket generally costs about $15 or $16, unless you go on Monday, when the tickets are about $10.25. This definitely raises the bar for how good a movie has to be to be worth the ticket price. On the other hand, during intermission, everyone leaves their coats and bags at their seats while they go smoke or have an ice cream, so I have wondered if anyone recovers their ticket money by swiping other people’s personal effects during the break. How trusting is that, to leave your purse in an unguarded room full of strangers? I don’t have that kind of faith in humanity, and so I make a compromise; I leave my coat and hat at my seat, but my wallet, phone, and keys come with me.

I find this phenomenon especially surprising, given that the Swiss tend to carry a lot of cash. Many people eschew credit cards in favor of cash, and so it is not uncommon for people of all ages to carry hundreds of dollars in cash at all times. [Note to self: if lawyering thing doesn't work out, start new career as a pickpocket and petty thief in Switzerland.] Go out to dinner with a bunch of Swiss people, and everyone has cash, so you don’t have to deal with the typical New York dining experience, where you ask the waiter to split the tab between a pile of crumpled bills and four credit cards.

Given that there are more banks and ATMs in Zurich than there are Starbuck’s in Manhattan (based on my unofficial at-a-glance evaluation), I am not sure why they need so much cash to tide them over until the next time they are near an ATM. All of the ATMs look legit, too. I only recently realized that it has been ages since I’ve seen one of those questionable McDonald’s 99-cent ATMs, or the stand-alone $2 ATMs you see in 24-hour corner grocers. ATMs here are affiliated with and usually attached to banks. Period. They don’t show up in all-night stores or dive bars, and they don’t come from sketchy third-party providers. It’s sort of reassuring, actually, and there isn’t any loss in convenience or accessibility caused by eliminating the random ATMs, since every other building here is a bank, anyways.

Anyways… I am endlessly entertained by the issues that come up when people speak a non-native language. When I speak French, I play fast and loose with genders, pronouns, and verb tenses, making me sound dim-witted, and when French speakers speak English, they just sound crazy. Because everything is gendered in French, there is a tendency to carry those genders into English, making the French speaker sound a little delusional. The world comes to life, and the speaker seems to believe that everyday objects have acquired personalities and wills of their own. “My telephone, he is acting a little crazy today.” “My computer, he is not getting along with the internet connection. She is not working so well. I will disconnect her and reboot him and see if they work better afterwards.” Don’t people get thrown in the loony bin for entertaining such delusions? “So, tell me about your friends, Mr. Telephone, Mr. Computer, and Ms. Connection… Do they talk to you? Do they tell you to break things? Do they tell you to kill people??”

One final and completely unrelated item: Eggs. (Wasn’t there a Delicious Dish skit on SNL where the next episode was about eggs? Sorry, random thought. I miss Delicious Dish. And SNL, for that matter). So, eggs, right. You can buy them raw or hard-boiled in the grocery store. If you buy them raw, they have a date stamped on the end, so that you know how old they are. If you buy them hard-boiled, they are dyed, like Easter eggs. I asked my friend why it is done this way, and he said that it was so that you could tell that they are cooked. Although the carton they come in is labelled as such, I suppose this way, the individual eggs are identified, as well. However, I pointed out that they could just stamp the eggs with the word “cooked” (or its equivalent), since they have egg-stamping technology that is used on the raw eggs, and after some hemming and hawing, his only reply was that this way is prettier, and don’t the hard-boiled eggs look nice?

21 February 2005

Did you know that they don’t eat jello in Switzerland? I just found this out yesterday, and for some reason it was a big surprise. It was just such an important childhood food that it seems strange to imagine a childhood devoid of jello. I am not sure what they have that could fill the role that jello plays in childhood desserts. Certainly not the black licorice-flavored hard bread. Probably not the dry, crumbly caramels. The hot chestnut stands wouldn’t fill the gap, and neither would the heavy cream poured over scratchy meringues. I’m at a loss.

Slowly but surely, but mostly slowly, the technological revolution is coming to Switzerland. The Swiss have discovered the iPod, and just as it was in New York five years ago, so it is here. People on the cutting edge impress people with their iPodness, and proudly sport the white headphones, which are not such a ubiquitous sight here. My decision to disguise my iPod by wearing black headphones was met with disbelief, as it is a badge of honor here, and not a sign of consumer conformity. How funny, iPods are still the rare status symbol they once were across the Atlantic!

The Internet is working to connect the world into one, happy, emailing family. Switzerland is joining the spamfest, as well. My friend said that he got his first email account when he was taking a computer class in school. They told the students all about the Internet and email, and then had them all learn more about it by signing up, in class, for a Hotmail account. That’s right, their teachers signed them up for a lifetime of spam about Cialis and barely legal teens. I guess their school didn’t have a server.

Telephone deregulation. Not a trend here at all, unfortunately. The phone plans for both cell phones and landlines charge the kind of prices you would expect if you were living in a remote village in Tanzania, and you were trying to call your friend in New Guinea. To overcome this problem, I use Vonage, a U.S.-based Internet phone service that gives me a New York number, unlimited incoming minutes, unlimited minutes to the U.S. and Canada, and cheaper rates than my Swiss numbers, for about $25 a month. By comparison, you can pay about $40 a month here to get 100 minutes of phone calls. Understandably, my Swiss peers are rather incredulous when they find out how cheap phone plans are outside of Switzerland.

Anyways, I’m trying to get ready for my upcoming dive trip to Belize. I went to a local dive shop over the weekend to get a part replaced on my scuba gear, and noticing that the shop was fairly empty, I asked if it would be possible for them to replace it while I waited, so that I wouldn’t have to make another trip to pick it up. When I had called the dive shop owner earlier in the week, he had intimated that this was possible, since it was just a quick job. On Saturday, however, I was given a rather long-winded explanation that because Saturdays are so busy, their policy is to only do while-you-wait repairs on weekdays. I pointed out that they weren’t busy at all on this particular Saturday, and that the repair in question was a fast one. The girl said she would check and see, but that she wasn’t sure if it was possible. In the end, she spent ten minutes finding out if it was possible to fix it that day, ten minutes looking for the right part, and about two minutes having it fixed. They seemed dead-set on having me come on a weekday, on the principle that they don't like to do same-day repairs on weekends, but finally relented when I told them that their shop closes before I can make it over from work. But really, if she had just looked around and noticed that I was one of two customers in a shop manned by three people, the two-minute repair wouldn’t have taken quite so long.

It’s been a long time since I’ve driven a car, but I’m pretty sure that if I got back behind the wheel, I would be able to manage OK, since automatic cars are… automatic. Apparently, however, they aren’t so automatic. Here, almost everyone drives stick, and automatic is very foreign and unnatural. My friend, who has been driving for seven years, had never driven an automatic until recently, and his dad took him out, learner’s permit-style, to show him the ropes and make sure he could figure out the complexities of driving an automatic car. That seems somehow backwards to me, to have to learn how to drive an automatic car if you already know how to drive stick. The reverse makes sense, having to learn stick if you’re used to automatic, but I thought that the whole point of automatic was that it was automatic, and didn’t require much learning.

Also, I watched Swiss Music Star (like American Idol) for the first time last night. Whoa. Nothing like watching untalented people wearing ridiculous clothes singing songs that they don’t understand (most sang in English, with varying degrees of comprehension).