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).

15 February 2005

I spent a long weekend in Barcelona (where, as in Rome, they seem to have an objection to absorbent napkins; must be a Mediterranean thing), and it has been a bit of a shock to come back to Zurich. Barcelona was sunny with temperatures in the 60’s, food was plentiful, good, and cheap, and restaurants were open for dinner past midnight. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or back in Zurich), temperatures are in the low 30’s, food is bland and expensive, and restaurants close early (although it doesn’t really matter, since it’s not really worth going to them in the first place). I am a little ashamed to admit what I spent my time doing in Barcelona. I know that there are tons of sights there, but apart from the aquarium and the Miro museum, I spent the entire time eating and sleeping.

This past weekend was Carnival weekend in Catholic areas, and I was able to “enjoy” the festivities, mostly when I was trying to sleep. In Barcelona, I was awakened one morning by the Loudest Puppet Show on Earth, which was being performed in the square outside of my hotel, and in Zurich, as I was trying to sleep last night, a marching band took up residence under my window, wearing fluorescent costumes (if you’re from Philly, think Mummers, and if you’re from New York, think Halloween), and banging on steel drums (I guess that traditional Swiss instruments would have been a little out of place).

Anyways… No matter how much the Swiss French insist that they are more laid back and easygoing than their Swiss German counterparts, deep down inside, the fact remains that they are, first and foremost, Swiss. One example of this is in their avoidance of personal contact beyond the requisite three-kiss greeting. Hugs are seen as overly intimate and off-limits between friends. Even the best of friends will shake hands or do a formal three-kiss greeting. Long hugs, short hugs, bear hugs, all are seen as involving too much personal contact for non-romantic relationships.

Also, there is the ironing. I acknowledge that certain things need to be ironed, such as dress shirts and wrinkled pants. However, I believe that jeans and t-shirts, if they are taken out of the dryer and folded (or even if they are taken out of the dryer and tossed on the floor), do not require ironing. The Swiss believe differently. Everything must be ironed, including t-shirts and jeans, otherwise, as one Swiss person put it, “Your jeans aren’t perfectly smooth.” He hastened to add that he does not iron his socks or underwear, although I would not have been terribly surprised if he ironed those, as well. If you’re going to iron your jeans and t-shirts, what’s to stop you from ironing your socks and underwear?

I imagine that it must be difficult for the Swiss to travel. Although they must appreciate the low prices and wide selection available in other countries, the lack of order and cleanliness must drive them mad. Emerging from a restroom in Spain, my traumatized friend said, “Thank God for Swiss toilets.” This is the same person who said that he spends his entire time out of the country dreaming about cheese, and upon returning to Switzerland, rushes to his favourite restaurant to gorge himself on fried cheese balls.

It is true that other countries lack the obsession with cleanliness that is so prevalent in Switzerland. Where else can you find little kiosks in the street that dispense tiny bags meant for dog poo? Where else are there specially designed cleaning machines that suit various cleaning niches? There are ride-on cleaners for the street, different ride-on cleaners for tram tracks, push-style cleaners for narrower sidewalks and alleys, and handheld units to reach corners and crevices. Some cleaning machines are scrubbers, some are more like leaf blowers, and others are giant vacuum cleaners. Where else is recycling akin to religion? The Swiss bundle their papers into perfectly rectangular packages, leaving them out on the appointed recycling days. They even make a point of looking at their neighbors’ recycling, and are quick to point out flaws. One expat had called the recycling authority to find out exactly what she could include in her bundles, and she followed the guidelines exactly. Nevertheless, her neighbour continues to tell her that she is violating recycling regulations by including this or that, despite being informed that the recycling authority had approved the contents of the bundles. Imagine if everyone had the time and determination to inspect our neighbors’ trash. Honestly, don’t they have better things to do?

7 February 2005

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.

1 February 2005

Sometimes it all of a sudden occurs to me, “Whoa, I’m in Switzerland.” I had one of those moments when I left work on Friday and ended up in Rome a few hours later. Pretty cool, considering that if I had taken the same length flight from New York, I would only have been able to go to D.C. or Boston. Rome was Rome. Big place. Photogenic architecture. Delicious, cheap food. More art from all of your old textbooks than should be in one place. Good cappuccino. Lots of old buildings that are falling apart. I found myself wondering, if Rome had been in Switzerland, would there still be ruins, or would the Colosseum and the Forum still be intact and in use? It’s hard to say, given the Swiss obsession with keeping things new and whole.

Some odd things about Rome. Despite the fact that it is winter, and it is cold enough outside to warrant a coat, hat, gloves, and a scarf, shops keep their doors open to the outside, and hotels and restaurants think it is appropriate to turn the heat off. I don’t think I have ever slept anywhere so cold that didn’t involve pitching a tent and eating Gorp. And no matter how good the sales, I refuse to try on clothes if I can see my breath in the dressing room. Also, is it a European customer service thing, to not want to answer questions, take food orders, give directions, or sell merchandise?

Disturbing eye contact was a big thing there. After living in Zurich, where everyone is politely treated as a stranger, and New York and Boston, where strangers and serial killers are lumped into the same category of people you can trust, it was quite a shock to go to Rome. On the subway, instead of feigning deep interest in the ceiling, or shoelaces, or the inside of their eyelids, passengers would stare at each other without embarrassment or fear. I had to overcome my initial thoughts of “Is that a psychopath staring at me?” and “Do I have pizza on my face?” and then feign deep interest in the ceiling, my shoelaces, or the inside of my eyelids.

Back to Switzerland. I have been puzzling over this episode since it happened on Sunday night in the Zurich airport, as we made our way towards customs. My friend and I were amused by the fact that the escalators here have motion sensors, so that they only turn on when you trip the sensor. Spotting an idle escalator, we started running to be the first to trip the sensor; as I reached the escalator, I turned to laugh at my friend, who was (I thought) right behind me (I thought this because I had heard someone running). As I turned, it was some random Swiss guy, who had also been running for the escalator, and he laughed strangely as he got on behind me. My friend was a little behind Swiss Guy, and said that when we started running, he did, as well. Now here is the puzzle: was he running because he also wanted to be the first, or was he running because he saw other people running, and, being Swiss, figured that he should follow the herd? No, he was not in a rush; we were coming from the gates, not going towards them, and he stopped running once he reached the escalator. I’m putting my money on the herd mentality, because I don’t think he would have been all that excited about the escalator. And he’s Swiss. They like herds here.

American television culture has made it all the way to Switzerland, with such pervasive influences as the Simpsons, the O.C., Nip/Tuck, and MTV. One amusing pastime is to listen to the voice dubs or to read the subtitles on American shows. On Die Simpsons, Homer Simpson expresses his frustration by saying, “Nein!” instead of “D’Oh!” The Simpsons has just recently started airing with the option of listening to the original voices, and a Swiss person told me that the American voices were all wrong, and that the Simpsons don’t sound like that. Uh… yes they do, they were made like that, and only acquired German voices in later re-dubs. Even stranger, though, is the fact that loads of hip-hop and rap-influenced shows on MTV have made it here with subtitles. I have been asked some confused questions about Pimp My Ride and Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, and I can assure you that if you were to watch those shows with German or French subtitles, you would have plenty of questions, as well. Does that stuff even translate??

American English has infiltrated Switzerland to varying degrees. People here often have a surprising command of English grammar and vocabulary, but even when they have good grammar and vocabulary, you can still get them on slang, heh heh… One Swiss German asked me what I meant when I said, “What’s up?” I explained that it was a casual greeting that you might say in place of “How are you?” After that, whenever I said “What’s up?” he would reply, “Good” (imagine Arnold saying it, more like “Goot”), no matter how many times I then tried to explain that you would probably say something like “Not much” or even just “What’s up?” I want that one to catch on. “What’s up?” “Goot.”

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 6: Living in Switzerland; Language

Switzerland is a small country with a population of about 7 million people, spread out over an area about the size of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware, (which rank 47th, 48th, and 49th out of the 50 states, when it comes to size). In this small country, there are four official languages spoken (German, French, Italian, and Romansch), and several unofficial languages, (including Swiss German, which is the dominant language, despite not actually being an official language; English; and other smatterings here and there of other languages, as well.

Living here sometimes makes conversations feel like a giant game of Taboo, as people navigate around unknown words in conversations not held in their mother tongue: “I am looking for the place where you go to get things that are yours, but you do not have them anymore.” “The lost-and-found?” “Yes, and I have a map here that I made with the machine in my office.” “The printer?” “Exactly.”

Despite not having an official language that is uniquely their own, the Swiss are very keen on distinguishing between “us” and “them” when it comes to language. French spoken with a Parisian accent is seen as snobby, as is High German that is spoken using correct grammar and pronunciation. Swiss German is generally not taught to outsiders, and attempts to speak Swiss German are usually countered with English or High German. It sometimes leaves foreigners at a bit of a loss, since the Swiss will never include outsiders who speak the “wrong” languages, or who speak the “right” languages the “wrong” way, yet they also do not want to let outsiders in on their linguistic secrets.

So what does it sound like when people speak here, you ask? Well, the Swiss French speak a French that is quite comprehensible to non-Swiss (Assuming that said non-Swiss understand French), with some slang and other turns of phrase being region-specific. If only we had learned how to count using the Swiss system in high school French!! No more four-twenty-ten-seven, thank you, a simple ninety-seven will suffice here. Swiss German, on the other hand, is almost entirely impenetrable, even to fluent High German speakers. It has been described as “sing-song, “guttural,” or “something like Danish, maybe,” and I have also heard the comment that “somehow it has more consonants *and* more vowels than High German.” I prefer to make a simpler aural image: imagine the Swedish chef from the Muppets trying to hack up a hairball. (Note: the Swedish chef is one of my favourite Muppets, so that isn’t an entirely bad thing.)

31 January 2005

I will update tomorrow. Today I will take Advil and Sudafed, and I will drink tea. Note to building owners in Rome: you may want to consider turning the heat on during the winter. Just a thought.

24 January 2005

Slowly but surely, the Swiss mentality is infiltrating my brain. I tell myself that as long as I can still register horror at this process, they haven’t completely taken me down, and I will fight it until my will has been dominated, and I become a rule-following, trash-sorting, non-jaywalking, CD-alphabetizing, belt-wearing, mullet-sporting Swiss-wannabe. Two recent examples of this Swissification: I had my name and email address engraved on my MP3 player, because then if someone found it, they could return it to me more easily. Hee. I actually believe that it is possible that someone would return a $400 MP3 player to me if they found it on the tram or something. (Scarily, they probably would, given that lost laptops regularly make it back to their rightful owners here). Second, I was in a restaurant and ordered the fish, despite the landlocked nature of Switzerland. I miss seafood, OK? There is hope for me, though. I still recognize the distinction between restaurants that serve good food, and restaurants that serve bad food, although I am now surprised when a restaurant actually serves good food for a reasonable price. When the fish came out, it was good, and I was shocked. Since when is it shocking that food you order in a nice, sit-down restaurant actually tastes good? Since coming to Switzerland.

OK, so I have recently gone through a spate of American food cravings. Nothing elaborate, just things like burgers, PB&J, chili, and so on. In procuring the necessary supplies to make these things, I noticed even more oddities about the grocery shopping experience here than I had noticed before. It amazes me, how the grocery store here never ceases to amaze me. The spice aisle, for instance, only has about 10 spices, plus a bunch of mish-mash mixes. Want celery salt? Sorry, no luck, but if you’d like “Mexican” spice, or “Thai curry” in a jar, we’ve got that. The jam aisle brings further revelations. You can get a huge jar of strawberry-rhubarb preserves, or generic-brand jars of such flavours as kiwi-apple or cranberry-pear, for about $2 a jar. Also inexplicably in the jam aisle is this sort of pureed, sweetened chestnut product that has the consistency of high-grit toothpaste and the appeal of grade school paste. How can they have so much selection for such low prices, limited to one type of product? Go elsewhere in the store, and there is only one brand, or two, tops, for criminal prices. Since when does chicken cost more than $20 a pound?

Speaking of chicken (and other meat), there is some sort of regulation that requires that all meat be labelled with its country of origin, both in restaurants and in supermarkets. I assure you that it brings me unspeakable relief, knowing that Fiver’s horsemeat is American and my ground beef is Swiss. The ground beef, by the way, was for burgers. It took me a while to find ground beef, since they have various ground meats here, and the ground meat that is packaged and promoted for making burgers is a mix of beef, pork, and veal, which I don’t think will taste like a real burger. I’m quite sure that the pre-made horse burger patties will not taste like the burgers I’ve been missing.

Of course, you can also go to a restaurant and order burgers, and some places even boast that their burgers are “American-style,” which I am assuming means that they are horse-free. Apparently picking up on the Supersizing idea, one restaurant offers to make one burger for the entire table, no matter how big the party is, which results in a giant lump of cooked ground meat, three inches thick and soggily lying on top of an over-sized bun, ready to feed six people. Sorry, that is not a burger. And it is definitely not a burger if you’re eating it with a fork and knife (pizza and individual burgers also receive the fork and knife treatment).

Every time I get a salad, and I am asked what kind of dressing I want, I get a little bit flustered, because the colors and flavours don’t match what I grew up with. Here, the French dressing is white, and looks sort of like Ranch. The Italian dressing is reddish, and looks sort of what I would think of as Country French. The two kinds taste pretty much the same. I have no idea what the other dressings are when they are offered, but usually there are only the two, since this is Switzerland.

Two good things about going to restaurants here are that generally, they automatically do separate checks, and that tip is included in the cost of the meal. No more complicated divisions of checks at the end of the meal, and no more “multiply the tax by two and then round up.” However, that said, people still do tip, sometimes, and I am never quite sure when they decide to do it, and how much. This is further complicated by the fact that you have to make a split-second decision on tipping, since the waiter comes to you, takes your money, and gives you your change on the spot, and if you’re going to tip, you do it by telling him to keep a certain amount of the change. Nothing stalls out your brain like having to make a snap decision, then trying to dictate that decision in another language to the person who will receive the benefit (or insult) of the decision.

Editor's Note

I have been informed by my Swiss French friends that many of my observations about living in Switzerland are more applicable to German-speaking Switzerland than to French-speaking Switzerland. Let the record show that I have noted this distinction here.

17 January 2005

So last week as I was walking down the street after dinner one night, I all of a sudden realized that I haven’t seen a limo or a stretch SUV in months. Months!! Apparently, the term “party like a rock star” is a foreign concept here, since you never see people sliding out of a stretch Hummer to dodge the velvet rope and go to the VIP room, for the most part due to the lack of stretch Hummers, velvet ropes, and VIP rooms. In fact, since many bars here close rather early, compared to the 4 a.m. closing time of most Manhattan bars, there is not a lot of time to party like a rock star. On the other hand, many Swiss will party like high school ravers, since the Ecstasy-heavy clubs stay open quite late, and the guys get spiffed up in their tapered, ankle-length pants (it would be unheard-of for guys to wear pants that come within an inch of the ground), and girls wear their sassiest 80’s gear, and they stay up until all hours, awkwardly twitching to endless techno. Party on, Wayne.

The Swiss like everything to be predictable, efficient, and functional, which really makes life easier in many ways, since you always know what will happen, and when. Sometimes, however, the system doesn’t make it as far as you would like, and you will come across a blatant oversight in logic and practicality which makes you think that sometimes, the Swiss like to smoke a little too much crack. There is one thing in my apartment that I silently curse out every time I use it, and that is my shower. The bathtub is a normal bathtub, with a normal faucet and normal taps. The showerhead is a standard European showerhead, attached to a flexible hose and mounted on the wall.

OK, fine, so what’s the problem? The problem is that someone decided that it would be great to have some cabinets in the bathroom, and that the best place to put these cabinets would be *in the shower.* So along the entire length of the bathtub, there are cabinets that come down to about 5 feet, 3 inches, forcing anyone who is not a Munchkin to either hunch down or tilt to the side while taking a shower. I’d like to note that there are lots of other cabinets and closets in my apartment, and that these particular cabinets are unused, because there are few things that I want to keep in cabinets that are in my shower, since I imagine that things get rather humid in there.

One thing that I find rather quaint here, in a strange way, is the Swiss insistence on keeping a “strong military.” All able-bodied males are required to serve in the military, and after an initial, intensive 4-month training period, they are required to go back for two weeks of refresher service every two years for 22 years. They are issued assault rifles, which they keep at home, and 20 bullets, which are numbered, so that when they check in every other year, it can be ascertained that they are returning with the same 20 unused bullets (now there’s a career to brag about, checking the serial numbers on bullets). There are about 1 million people in the Swiss army (and yes, they do get Swiss army knives), and the Swiss air force proudly flies about two-dozen American-made fighter jets, for annual military expenditures of about $3 billion. What I find quaint about all of this is that the Swiss are so convinced that it is absolutely necessary and fully effective to maintain this military force, as this gargantuan military deters attacks from Switzerland's many enemies, and fends off invasions by evil nations hungry for Swiss cheese and chocolate. (I would like to note that the always-brilliant Dubya was absolutely certain that Switzerland did not have an army at all, so I'm a little skeptical of the deterrent value of an army that some world leaders know nothing about).

Two questions: first of all, who would attack Switzerland when it holds the money of all of the most influential people around the world, and second of all, would 1 million semi-trained ground troops and two dozen planes really hold off a full-scale attack from any larger country? It reminds me a little bit of the rose in The Little Prince, who boasted that the tigers and their claws were no match for her four thorns.

And on a completely unrelated note, I was in a gas station market over the weekend, and realized that the mini-marts here are of an entirely different ilk than those accompanying Exxons and Texacos in the States. No Slurpees or dancing hamsters, no hot dogs of questionable age and origin. Here, you go to the gas station market when the regular grocery stores are closed (any time after 8 p.m.), and you can buy baguettes, frozen foods, fruit, and other foods that do not begin with Nacho Cheezy or Blue Razzamatazzberry.

I would like to note that my favorite item for sale was called “Crack Sticks,” which were just frozen fish sticks, but I just love the idea of having a conversation such as the following, “Honey, I’m going out, do you need anything?” “Man, I really want some Crack.” “Well, I don’t know where I can get you any, it’s 8:15 at night!” "Go to the gas station, look for Frank, and ask for Crack Sticks. In the meantime, I'll finish putting those cabinets in the shower.”

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 5: Living in Switzerland; Differences

Welcome to Switzerland. Sometimes when you look around, you may feel like you are Dorothy, and you have somehow ended up in the Land of Oz, surrounded by miniature versions of everything, things that seem vaguely familiar but somehow different, and strangely-dressed people that jabber at you in funny voices while welcoming you to Munchkinland. But you’re in Switzerland, and although the people are strangely dressed and jabbering at you, they are most likely not welcoming you to Munchkinland, but informing you instead of some rule that you have broken by landing your house on top of their witch, since house-landing is probably only permitted on alternate Tuesdays with a permit and a supervisory police force present, and house-landing on witches, I imagine, is strictly forbidden, especially if you then take the witch's sparkly red shoes, which were probably made by Adidas and intended for men, seeing as this is Switzerland..

You will notice that things here really are completely miniaturized, especially compared to the land of the Super Size. People fold themselves into cars that make VW Bugs look capacious. They drink their sodas in glasses that would usually be used for whiskey. They buy their milk by the half-liter or liter. They put their trash out in kitchen-sized garbage bags, in streets that are too narrow to have one lane of traffic, let alone two. They buy their chicken breasts one at a time.

You will see some familiar sights, such as Starbuck’s and McDonald’s, but take a closer look. Things are still a little bit off-kilter. Take a look at the menu in McDonald’s. Yes, the ubiquitous Big Macs and fries are there, but what are Choco Balls? (Breaded, deep-fried wads of McNutella). What about McShrimp? (Breaded, deep fried shrimp). And when did McDonald’s add strawberry cream pie (also deep-fried, is there a trend here...) to their menu? Do American McDonald’s also have “Asian Weeks,” where they offer everything with a glop of teriyaki sauce on top? It also seems unlikely that McFondue, available in the mountains here, is served in the original McDonald’s.

Does it seem like everything is moving in slow motion? Are you in a strange dream sequence? No, but apparently the Swiss are constantly engaged in a “who can walk slower” contest that non-Swiss are not privy to. There is no other way to explain why so few people can clog the sidewalks so effectively, no matter what time of day or what part of town it is. They are masters of inefficient sidewalk usage, and you have to appreciate, on some level, the seemingly blissfully unaware miens that they maintain while practicing this skill. They walk in pairs and trios, sweeping slowly down the sidewalk, or they walk alone, with unpredictable pauses. They meander from side to side, pinging and ponging off the margins of the walkway, or they just take the old-school approach of shuffling along at the pace of a disabled snail.

10 January 2005

A trip to a Swiss grocery store never ceases to astound me. First of all, there’s the issue of product organization, or the lack thereof. Wine is sold next to dog food, and milk shares shelf space with chocolate. It takes me an inordinate amount of time to collect a short list of groceries that fit into one shopping basket, because I have to circle the entire store for each item, not knowing if I should look for spices in the candy aisle or the canned goods aisle, or somewhere else altogether.

The actual products being sold can be equally baffling. Got milk? There’s the boxed kind that stays good for months, and there’s the bottled kind that requires refrigeration. Whole milk is king, because apparently, low fat and skim milk are not so popular here. Want toothpaste? The most popular brand here is black licorice-flavored. Knowing how our normal, mint toothpaste tastes with orange juice, I shudder upon imagining the stomach-turning flavor combinations experienced after brushing with licorice toothpaste. Need ice? It’s not a simple matter of going to the corner store to buy a five-pound bag, since most Swiss don’t buy ice. You can go to the fish market and ask them to fill up a bag of ice (I can only hope it’s pre-fish ice, rather than post-fish ice), or you can go to the cleaning supplies aisle of the grocery store and buy these little plastic bags that you fill with water and freeze to make ice balls (no automatic icemakers or ice cube trays here).

So then you take your basket to the cashier, and you realize that you haven’t brought grocery bags. D’oh. Add some to your basket for about 25 cents each, or try to carry everything home in little plastic bags that each fit one or two items. Bag it yourself, since there isn’t an awkward teenager standing at the ready to put your groceries in bags for you.

The next hurdle comes when unloading groceries at home. The fridges here are about half the size of a regular American fridge, and the freezer is even more miniscule. My parents have two full-sized fridges and freezers full to the gills at home, just for the two of them, but I have to fit everything into a hobbit-sized fridge. I have been told that the Swiss make multiple trips to the grocery store each week, but who has that kind of time, since it takes an hour to find and buy each basket of groceries?

So, knowing how frustrating it is to find groceries, carry them home and take them upstairs, last week I decided to try out the grocery delivery service that is available here. There is only a limited selection of goods available, and the delivery charge is pretty hefty, but there’s a new user’s discount, so I figured I’d give it a go and see if it matched up to FreshDirect (it didn’t). I was specifically shopping for Fiver’s food, as the vet has put him on a new diet of horse and potatoes. Yes, the grocery stores here sell horsemeat, as in "giddyup, horsie, let's gallop to the slaughterhouse so I can eat you," and what I find somewhat mind-boggling is that I can have pounds and pounds of horsemeat delivered to my door with a click of the mouse, but I can’t find things like creamed corn.

In any case, you would think that with all these difficulties in finding and storing food that I would have starved to death by now, but I seem to be quite safe, probably due to the fact that cheese, chocolate, and pasta have become three of my main food groups here.

On an unrelated note, I have dreamed up a malicious plot, ahem, I mean, an interesting psychological experiment that I would love to try out at some point, if I am motivated enough, and if I decide that the potential negative ramifications are minimal. The Swiss adore rules, and will obey them blindly and to the letter, without ever stopping to question the purpose and effectiveness of said rules. My proposal is to make some official-looking signs setting out a temporary rule, something along the lines of, “Due to intermittent construction, please use the opposite sidewalk for the week of ____.” Next, post the signs on a street that gets a lot of pedestrian traffic, and sit and laugh, (read: make sophisticated scientific observations). Will they notice that there is no construction? Will they obey the sign? Or perhaps I should make it even more absurd. “To use this street between ___ and ___, please take a ticket, or if there are none left, please apply for a ticket at [office] on Mondays and Thursdays between 2 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.” How many people would show up at the office? How many people would use the street without a ticket? And the Swiss question, could I get in trouble for doing this? The American version of the same question, what are the chances that I would get caught?

Also unrelated: I went to a Chinese restaurant this past weekend. Well, *tried* to go to a Chinese restaurant. But they were closed for two weeks for vacation!! Their phone rang and rang, unfettered by an answering machine, and it was only upon arriving at the front door of restaurant that we discovered the two week closing. What kind of restaurant, especially a Chinese restaurant, completely closes for two weeks? And what kind of business doesn't even leave an answering machine on, letting customers know that they are closed??

3 January 2005

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I hope you all made it safely from 2004 to 2005. How frightening that it's already 2005, and I still find myself accidentally writing 2003 on things.

I went into the mountains in Villars, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, where six of us had dinner and champagne by the fire in a chalet. We played some I Never (which wasn’t quite as juicy as past rounds I’ve played with RCSers and CLSers, but enlightening, nonetheless), messed around with the PlayStation, and turned in around 3. I lost my lip balm while up there, which many of you will realize is one of the greatest catastrophes that could happen to me, since I need lip balm more often and more desperately than most crack heads need their next fix. Out of sheer desperation, I started using Neosporin, instead, which wasn’t the tastiest thing ever, but it worked until I was able to go buy more of the real thing. I promise that pictures will go up in a day or two, both from Christmas in San Francisco, and from New Year’s here in Switzerland.

So anyways, after ushering in the New Year, I spent the remainder of the weekend in Lausanne. I went for fondue with five other people, and it had been about a month since I last had fondue, which surprised my friend greatly, as he has it every week or so. Keep in mind that when they say they eat fondue here, they are talking about some serious eating. This was the first time I’ve had fondue with a group of people in Switzerland, and they brought out the biggest vat of cheese I’ve ever seen. Take a block of cheese about as big as your head, throw it in a pot, and melt it, and that’s about how much five or six people will eat in one sitting. Remember, if it's made well, it should be stinky, like unwashed socks. By my rough calculations, when we had fondue nights in college, we had about one-quarter as much fondue for twice as many people. Granted, we also had a pot of chocolate fondue, and it was more just to have something to eat while we gossiped and played Taboo, but still… That’s a hell of a lot of cheese. When asked if my family eats fondue at home, I laughed, thinking of my wonderful, but very lactose-intolerant family. I seem to be the only lactose-intolerant person in all of Switzerland.

A few things that puzzle me… in a lot of the older buildings and apartments in Switzerland, they split bathrooms into two rooms. One has the toilet, and the other has the shower or bathtub, which in theory, makes a lot of sense, as it allows people to use both facilities simultaneously, but the strange part is that the sink is in the room with the shower and bathtub. I very rarely come out of the shower and then need to go wash my hands, as I assume that the showering process cleanses them sufficiently. It seems more likely that you would need to wash your hands after using the toilet. So why is the sink in the room with the shower and bathtub, instead of in the room with the toilet?

Switzerland has yet to go smoke-free in public places, and so people still smoke in the train station, in restaurants, and pretty much everywhere. Trains are no exception, although they do make a distinction between smoking compartments and non-smoking compartments. This would be excellent, except that it doesn’t always work. On double-decker trains, some cars have smoking compartments on the first level, with the non-smokers sitting up above, with an open stairwell between the levels. Other trains have cars that are bisected with a non-sealing, saloon-style swinging door, with smokers on one side and non-smokers on the other. Apparently, non-smokers here don’t mind the actual smoke, as the non-smoking compartments are often as smoky as the smoking compartments, it’s just that they don’t want to sit with the actual smokers. I’m not sure if it’s because they think that smoking, like leprosy, is contagious, or that smokers (but not the smoke) are disgusting, or if it’s just sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus style segregation.

And one last oddity: the whole formal-informal distinction. In every job I have had, everyone was always on a first-name basis, regardless of age difference, seniority, gender, and so on. You walk into work, meet your boss, and immediately start calling him Bob. Assuming that his name is Bob. That is not the case here, at all. Colleagues will call each other Mrs. This or Mr. That for years, even if they are 27 years old, and even if they work on the same level. Calling your boss by his or her first name is considered rude and presumptuous, and in most cases, you have to reach a great degree of familiarity before making the daring leap to going on a first-name basis. Especially in German-speaking Switzerland. I heard of one office where two women worked together on a daily basis for ten years, and were quite friendly, whereupon one asked the other if she thought they could switch to calling each other by their first names, and the other responded that she was quite happy with the status quo, and so they continued calling each other Mrs. This or That.

27 December 2004

Just got back from a week in San Francisco yesterday afternoon, and jetlag is not treating me well. It was good to go back and see friends and family (pictures coming soon), and to eat a bunch of the things I have been deprived of while in Switzerland. I ate Eritrean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Chinese food, various junk foods, and lots of sourdough bread and American cereal (it really is quite staggering, the variety of cereals available in American supermarkets).

On the way to San Francisco, I had a stop in Frankfurt. My first flight got in late, and so I missed my connection, and had to go back and forth through security and passport control to get rebooked, checked in, and so on, and consequently had my luggage and my person scanned and checked several times, including full-body pat-downs with metal detecting wands and everything. On my final trip through security, the security person stopped me and said that I had a fork in my carry-on, and that it would have to be confiscated. I had no objection to this, although I was surprised that it had gone through 3 or 4 times without comment. When they took the fork out, it was a child’s fork with rounded tines, and I pointed out that you could probably stab yourself harder with a pencil than with this fork, and also that I would receive a grown-up fork upon getting dinner in the plane. The security person sputtered and stammered, and finally said in an authoritative voice, “Well, this is Germany.” Apparently, they frown upon forks in Germany. Obviously, once I got on the plane, I had dinner, whereupon I received not one, but two very pointy forks of the stabbing variety. And a plastic knife.

Before going on my little trip, I was out for dinner at a sort of pan-Asian type restaurant here in Zurich. The menu offered such redundant dishes as “tuna sashimi tartare.” Is there any non-tartare sashimi? In any case, over dinner, my friend was saying that he wanted to take a vacation somewhere, and was trying to come up with somewhere to go. He elaborated, saying he wanted to go somewhere weird, with strange rules and customs that he could laugh at. Um, look around you? No need to spend your hard-earned money looking for a society based on weird rules. You’re here!!

One thing that is great about Switzerland is that the mail here is very fast. If you post a first-class letter to anywhere within Switzerland, it arrives by noon the next day. Granted, it’s a small country with only about 7 million people (fewer people than New York spread over the area of two New Jerseys), but that’s still pretty damn fast. In any case, I was expecting something in the mail right before I left on holiday, and it wasn’t coming. It turns out that the person had posted it second-class, instead of first-class, but my Swiss friend was completely sure that mail can never get lost, and that if something is sent, it will arrive. How charmingly naïve, to think that the mail never gets lost. Although maybe it never gets lost in Switzerland.

And in exciting events, I was at work the other week, and there were crazy sirens outside. As we watched from the office, about a dozen police cars and ambulances gathered in the main road, and started cordoning off bigger and bigger areas. As it turns out, there was a double homicide in a bar about 100 meters from my office building. A man shot two other people in a bar at 4:30 in the afternoon, then ran away before he could be caught. This being Switzerland, the story made the news big-time, and everyone was so shocked that someone would use a gun to kill people. This being Switzerland, the closing line of the big story on the newspaper’s website was that the incident caused traffic jams and delayed and re-routed trams.

Finally, speaking of trams, since coming here, I have only had my tram pass checked three times in almost seven months. I ride the tram about 15 times a week. So the odds are pretty low that your ticket will be checked on any given ride. Last week, however, I was going to the airport at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, and the tram guy came on and asked for everyone’s tickets. Doesn’t he have better things to do at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, like sleep? Sometimes they gang up and make a sort of blitzkrieg ticket-check. The second time I had my ticket checked, four regular guys got on the tram, joking and bantering as if they were everyday citizens. Two got on in front, and two in the back. Once the doors closed, the two pairs barked out in Swiss German, “Tickets!” They then swept inwards, leaving no ticket unchecked, then got off at the next stop, resuming their mild-mannered guise of four friends waiting for the next tram of unassuming victims. It seems sort of silly. Everyone here obeys the rules whether or not you check, so I’d say they should either just have automatic checkpoints where you can swipe your ticket, or not bother checking at all, since these random assaults don’t seem to turn up many offenders.

13 December 2004

Apparently, Santa also has a day job here, because I saw him driving a tram full of children around Zurich the other day. I guess it’s not cool enough to just go visit Santa at the department store, tell him what you want, take a picture, and move along. He should also drive you and twenty of your friends around the city, pointing out Christmas decorations, or whatever it is that Tram Driver Santa does.

The Swiss also have strange takes on other imaginary figures meant for children. For instance, instead of the Tooth Fairy, they maintain that mice come and take your teeth and leave you a present in the middle of the night. First of all, why would a mouse want used teeth? Second of all, where does the mouse get money to leave under your pillow? Third of all, how does a mouse carry all those teeth and all that money? Fourth of all, how can a mouse travel so quickly to take care of all of the lost teeth? And finally, how can a mouse leave you a note telling you that they’re proud of you for losing a tooth, and to take care of the new one? Honestly, you might as well have a Tooth Roach or a Tooth Boll Weevil. The Easter Bunny does not frequent Switzerland, but it is unclear who actually leaves eggs and candy for the children. Someone does, it’s just not a giant, magical rabbit.

Anyways, I was in Lausanne for the weekend, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which is both surprisingly similar and surprisingly different from German-speaking Switzerland. One thing that they do there that would horrify many of my beer-guzzling American friends is to drink beer mixed with Sprite. Why do they do this? Apparently, because beer has such a bitter taste, adding Sprite makes it more palatable. I agree on the bitterness, but I usually just opt for wine or a mixed drink, rather than trying to doctor the beer into drinkable form. I think that they smoke more heavily there, as well, if that is possible. Smoke-free New York, I miss you so…

To give you an idea of how important cheese is to the Swiss, especially those from the French-speaking parts, I was playing "Which is worse?" with a friend over the weekend, and when he was told to decide whether he would rather give up fondue or booty for the rest of his life, he only half-jokingly said that there was no way he could ever choose only one, since fondue is "like oxygen" (direct quote; I guess he's saying that there's nothing like filling your lungs with some cool, fresh... cheese?) I don't think it would have taken most of my American friends more than two seconds to make that decision.

My shopping woes in Switzerland continue. It amazes me how hard it can be to find something that is so easily found elsewhere. It becomes a sort of small, private victory when you decide you want to buy something, and you actually find it in a store that is open when you are there, and you are afforded the privilege of spending your money to buy it. Example: I am looking for a large air-tight container to store dog food. I have been to several department stores, housewares stores, pet supply stores, and grocery stores, but none of them carry such items. One pet supply store said that for their best, regular customers who buy large quantities of goods from them, they will sometimes order these containers and make them available, but otherwise, they don't have them. Um, if it is something your customers need and want, and it's something you can sell for a profit, why don't you just carry it in your regular line of products?

On a different note, how computer-dependent are you? I’m currently on personal computer #4, and before personal computers #1-4, I used family computers #1-4. I think I first started sending emails through my parents’ accounts back in 1993, and then got my own primitive AOL account later that year. I go through severe withdrawal when separated from a computer for more than a day or two, and when I am in front of a computer, I check email constantly. This addiction has been long-lived, and shows no signs of abatement. However, connectivity is not such a big phenomenon in Switzerland. Few people I know have their own computers, and few have a high-speed connection at home. Email didn’t become prevalent until 1999 or so, and I think I have only seen one BlackBerry since getting here (in fact, after reading this, a Swiss friend asked me, "What is a BlackBerry?") Few people use eBay, blogging is quite new, and IM is not the time sink it is in the States. “Can you imagine life before Google?” is not a valid question here, as many people are still living that life. Whoa.

This Saturday, I leave for San Francisco to see the fam, and I’ll be flying back on the 25th, getting in on the 26th, just in time to go back to work on the 27th. Fiver will spend the week getting pampered by my friend's fam in Lausanne; I can only hope he will still remember me when I come back.

In case you're wondering what I'm looking forward to most in San Francisco, here's the short list: seeing the fam (I haven't seen Kazu since he started walking!), catching up with a few friends in the SFO area, shopping, sleeping in on weekdays, sourdough bread (no one has even heard of it here), fresh sushi (raw tuna should never be the greyish pink color it is here), Ethiopian food, Chinese food, Korean BBQ. Yes, there are restaurants here that hold themselves out as serving the aforementioned types of cuisine, but I am highly suspicious when a Japanese restaurant is run by Indians, a Chinese restaurant serves pad thai, and an Ethiopian restaurant is also a pizza joint. So far, these suspicions have been well-founded.

Happy Holidays, I'll be updating again in two weeks...

Addendum -- 6 December 2004

So I got some clarification on the Swiss Santa thing. Sort of. On December 6th, Chlaus shows up with his friend Schmutzli, who is "a small, dirty man," and a donkey, and they give out candy or whippings. Kinky, right? Chlaus lives in the woods, and is single, and dresses just like Santa Claus. On December 24th, the Christkindli, a faceless, shapeless, undefined entity, sweeps through Switzerland and distributes gifts. No one knows who or what it is or where it comes from, but it brings the loot, so that's all that matters. (Incidentally, my information source thought that the elves and Mrs. Claus were really weird, as if the "small, dirty man" and the donkey were perfectly normal. Who needs a wife if you have a small, dirty man and a donkey, right?) In Germany, instead of Chlaus and company, they get St. Niklaus, who used to be a bishop and also dresses like Santa and lives in the woods, and also gives candy and beatings. He puts candy, nuts, and oranges in the shoes of good children (mmm... I love eating food out of my shoes). On December 24th, Weihnachtsmann ("Christmasman") gives out gifts. He, too, dresses like Santa, and like Santa, spends all year making presents for the children. Even though he and St. Niklaus seem to fill similar positions and wear similar uniforms, they are apparently independent contractors with no affiliation or friendship. I think that one of them should sue the other for copying his big idea of dressing up in red and white and giving stuff out to kids in December.

Editor's note

Thanks to everyone who seems to be interested, for some unknown reason, in my random ramblings about life in Switzerland. I've had over 5,000 hits since this low-budget, low-tech, low-quality site was launched (if it even deserves such an important-sounding word) at the end of July. Keep coming back, and I'll keep writing...-AC

6 December 2004

This morning on the tram on the way to work, I saw Santa Claus walking down the street. In Switzerland, he arrives early, on December 6th, actually, and hangs out for the rest of the month making house calls and public appearances. And there are two of them, apparently, although I don’t understand this part, so much. There is Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus, and they have different arrival dates, and one of them gives you candy, and the other gives you presents or a beating, but I don’t know which is which or who comes when, or anything like that. I always thought that Santa Claus was St. Nick, but apparently they maintain two identities and two job descriptions here. And one of them beats you. Maybe.

The Swiss way of thought is slowly warping my mind. It’s Christmas season, which I have always associated with rampant consumer culture, packed malls, and strategic shopping to avoid the crowds. Stores stay open until late at night, or even all night the night before Christmas, and they are always packed. Here, on the other hand, things are somewhat different. I was out in the city center on Saturday afternoon and noticed that one store had signs up announcing that for two Sunday afternoons this month, it will be open for business, and I am slightly ashamed to admit this, that fact both surprised and impressed me. Wow, I thought, I can’t believe the store will be open on Sunday afternoons! Then I gave myself a mental kick and realized that stores are supposed to be open on Sundays year-round, not just twice in December. Must… fight… Swissification…

A few odd anecdotes from other expats living in Zurich. A friend of mine works in a newly opened medical office. They arranged for some large plants to be delivered and distributed throughout the different rooms in the office. Upon the arrival of the plants, the doctors started taking them to their offices, but the plant people (Swiss, obviously), were much distressed, and insisted that they cease and desist, because each plant was earmarked for a specific office, based on the varying light conditions in the different rooms, and putting the plants in the wrong rooms would have been nothing short of catastrophic.

Car inspection is taken very seriously here. Ostensibly, the purpose of a car inspection is to ensure that your car is safe for driving on public roads. So you would think that they would check your engine, your lights, your brakes, and so on. What you might not expect is that they would check your paint job, your car interior, and the cleanliness of your carburetor. Expats have been told to bring their cars back in for second inspections for various strange reasons, including: 1) the car was rusty; 2) there were papers in the back seat; 3) there was grime on the car parts. I am not quite sure how a messy back seat, a rusty paint job, and a dirty oil indicator affect a car’s ability to function safely, but maybe the Swiss know something about cars that is not known elsewhere. The common practice here is to take your car to the garage the day before a car inspection, where they will test the working parts of the car, clean and wash the car’s innards (which, being car parts, tend to get unacceptably dirty, by Swiss standards), and then drop the car off at the inspection point before the car has a chance to get dirty again.

A similar point of expat confusion arises upon moving out of an apartment. Sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing the apartment is seldom sufficient. Landlords will take the knobs off of your stove to see if there is grease underneath the knob. They will take apart your faucets to see if there is accumulated calcification inside (which there almost always is, since the water here is very hard). They will look inside the toilet and under the sink. They will peer at every square inch of carpet and every bit of the walls. They will check to see if the terrace has leaves on it, and if the plants are well maintained. The windows must be cleaned, inside and out, and in between, since there is a double layer of glass for noise and temperature insulation. Very few people attempt to clean their apartments themselves upon move-out, because no matter how much you clean, they will find something even more absurd. Common practice is to hire a professional apartment cleaner, who will clean like mad and meet apartment inspection standards, guaranteed, for about 800 bucks for a one bedroom apartment.

How to Pass for a Swiss Person, Part III, Section 4: Living in Switzerland; Dating

You may want to know how Swiss culture differs from American culture when it comes to your social life, or more specifically, when it comes to your love life. Well, rest assured, you love life will remain completely unchanged. Hahaha, sorry, I can’t say that with a straight face! Enjoy your love life while you can, because once you come here, it’s back to junior high for you and your relationships!!

First of all, the Swiss often resort to the age-old tradition of informing their crushes of their interest through mutual friends. Remember the old, “Hi, my friend thinks you’re cute” trick? It is still used here, even when said friend is in his late 20’s! The only part missing is the note written in secret substitution code, with a checkbox to confirm or disconfirm your reciprocal interest.

Second of all, the Swiss are a little bit slow when it comes to making a move. We all know what the “three date rule” is in New York, so I won’t elaborate on that here. In Switzerland, it is not unheard of to go on ten dates with the same person, with nary a kiss. One Swiss guy I know, who is in his late 20’s, is known among his friends as a smooth talker who gets along well with the ladies. He met his current girlfriend, and after three dates (and by dates, I mean the old-fashioned kind, with dinner and movies, not just coffee or a beer), he KISSED her. His friends were so impressed by his smooth moves and fast action. Kids move so quickly these days, don’t they?

Third, what happens if you’ve made it through ten dates and decide you want to move it to the next level? Most people here go to college in their hometowns, and as people start college at a later age, and college runs for at least 5 years, it is quite common to have a 26 year old college student living at home with his parents. If his girlfriend also lives with her parents, then they are in a bit of a bind, by American standards. Here, however, it is not seen as an obstacle at all. Although they are slow to get involved, once they are involved, the Swiss see no problem in involving the whole family, as well. Parents are completely happy to have their children’s significant others (or non-significant others) staying the night in their children’s rooms, and the children are perfectly happy getting their groove on next door to their parents. The Swiss equivalent of the walk of shame between dorm buildings is the walk of shame from your girlfriend or boyfriend’s bedroom to the breakfast table, to have some morning grub with the parents. Freaky deaky.

A final junior high parallel is the duration of relationships, or lack thereof. Once the Swiss go through the agony of "Do you like me? Check yes or no," and the numerous action-less dates, they settle into relationships that are about as long as the life cycle of a fruit fly. A three-month relationship garners impressed faces and awed congratulations, as well as queries regarding the distant future. A couple that seems hopelessly infatuated will almost surely be hopelessly uninfatuated when the season changes. Despite earnest feelings and a tendency to make mountains out of emotional molehills, or perhaps because of them, relationships come and go, just as they did in junior high. Don't fall behind on your gossip, or else you'll be several breakups and crushes behind on the news!

NEWS FLASH -- 3 December 2004

Ugh, so I got a flu shot this year, like a good girl, but I caught something this week that was acting suspiciously like the flu. Not only was I pissed that I was sick, I was pissed that maybe my flu shot hadn't protected me against the flu, and it was a twisted sort of relief to find out that I had managed to catch a 36-hour stomach virus, instead, and that the flu shot was not being proven useless, which was really only a very small consolation while I was burning down the house with my fever, and making good friends with my not-very-huggable toilet bowl. Fiver, good little boy that he is, realized that something was wrong, and stood guard by my feet, protecting me from who knows what for hours on end. He knows he did a good job, because he is back on his hypoallergenic chicken-and-rice diet for the rest of the year.