Things you better don't do

Eating two Schwöbli and a bar of chocolate just before you enter the gym and then decide to fill your water bottle with sickly sweet ice tea instead of, well, water.

After 30 minutes I had to abort the mission. I guess I would have puked all over the floor.

Yes. This is a blog entry. Yes, I go to the gym (and so does Esther). And what are Schwöbli? Well, the name derives from Schwaben, which are the German people just across the border. They seem to make nice little rolls, and they are called Schwöbli. They are made out of a dough with milk instead of water and only in Basel will you get them if you order a Schwöbli in the bakery. Everywhere else they are called Weggli. There is also another one, which is called Schlumbi. At least in Basel. Everywhere else they call it Mutschli.

That's how it is.

Our little town

That's where we live. It's a little town called Baden, at the edge of Switzerland, just next to Germany. Or nearly so. The river that runs through it comes for Zürich and later on joins (hang on, I have to check the map) the Aare (I knew it!), which a couple of miles later joins the Rhine (at least that one you should know by name). The great thing about Baden is its medieval character. It starts with the remains of a proper fortress, from where you have a splendid view of the old part of the town, with lots of little alleys and houses which would be great to live in (if you can a) afford it, b) don't mind the dark rooms and c) happen to find an empty one (which is the difficult part)), and goes on with lots of places that are just, well, nice to visit. And so we just walk through the little alleys, buy an ice cream in one of the local bakeries (which happens to sell ice cream as well), and head for the lower quarter of the town, the "Bäderquartier".
That's where the town got its name from. The springs with healing powers! Lots of old hotels host even older ladies with arthritis and other illnesses that need treatments that only Baden can provide. In between the old hotels, you find peculiar second hand shops and completely refurbished buildings where old and new fuse in great architecture. Finally, you choose one of the bridges to cross the Limmat to the other side, which is called "Ennetbaden" (other-side-of-Baden, they weren't really creative back then), and walk back up.
And there it is! Tada! The youth hostel of Baden, hurray! It seems to be an ex-shed or so, large windows, a fountain in front of it and suddenly, there it is again, the inner voice that urges you to buy two plane tickets to Auckland one way... But we resist (collective sigh in New Zealand) and head back to town, up to the lime tree place and back to our flat. Which we feature another time...

Silo8

They call themselves "Karls Kühne Gassenschau" (Carl's bold streetshow), and that's what they are indeed. It's street theatre blown up to incredible proportions, lots of action, pyrotechnical stunts, any stunts you wish, actually, spectacular sound and good humour. Karls Kühne Gassenschau are always worth a visit.

Their current play is called Silo8 and tells a story from the future, where there are way to many elderly people, so they wipe out their memory, stuff them into container villages, and store them like rabbits until they die. But the senior citizens fight back. They try to escape, get hold of a little bit of their memory again and overturn the dictatorship of an evil doctor. Finally, Alfredo remembers Aurora again and together they fly into the night.

The story so far. But then there are the special effects! A quad racing against a motorized wheelchair, a fully fledged washing machine for humans, exploding (and collapsing) buildings (twin towers, actually...), a flying merry-go-round and a dream ship propelled by a jelly fish. The great thing about the show is that they always overdo it a little bit. No, not a little bit. A lot. Where a senseful person would stop pouring petrol, they add another bathtub full. Where you would strongly suggest to tighten the screws, they don't. And if you have the feeling that the length of the rope will not ensure their security, for them it's just fine. Like that they keep the anarchy in their show. And that is good. The first row reveives blankets together with the instruction to use them for protection, and yes, they will not tell when, it will be obvious.

Last week we went to Olten to watch them. Of course, after all the years the whole show has become big. Heaps of visitors, catering, shuttle busses etc., but there is still the boss welcoming you, ushering people to free seats and when 20 of them had no place to sit, they told the audiencence on the benches to shift a little bit, and voila: everybody was seated and happy.

And now, we will go for a stroll, and later on feature some pictures of where we live...

Gere

...is the name of a incredibly tiny village. It consists of about roughly 6 huts or so, but look for yourself:

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Its claim to fame is that one of the huts used to be the retreat of Dr. Bircher-Benner. The inventor of the Birchermüsli. Oh yeah. Not too bad ey?
Well, and this is the place were a friend of us, with good connections, has access to a hut. It comes complete with running cold water, a stove and all the crockery/cutlery/whatsoevery that you need to hang out for a couple of day.
Already the way that takes you there is spectacular: up to the Gotthardpass, with the famous church of Wassen (that's another story that will be told another day), Urseren, Furkapass, the whole shebang. And if you are lucky, your friends even pick you up at the trainstation of Oberwald and bring you up to Gere. And I tell you, its spectular! Meadows full of alpine flower, honest old-fashioned farmers making hay and smiling at you (and they will also smash the window of your car if you don't have the permission to use their road, we had the permission), marmots galore playing in the sunshine, a well with ice-cold water (our bathroom for the next three days) and finally, the hut. Two tents, ready for those that want to be even closer to nature, steep mountain on all sides and a view that contains not a single hint of civilisation. The beer is already in the well, nicely chilled, there is red wine (Dole, from further down the valley), a selection local cheese, the local rye bread with nuts, we bring some cake. Heaven.
It is incredible. It takes roughly 2 minutes and you are completely relaxed and nothing else is important than just the here and now. As Andy commented: "...and the things you have to do are instinctual. The reward is immediate. You don't HAVE to do do anything. I can see how god is created in these places."
The next day is 1. August, the Swiss National Day. And the weather is bad. But we are fiercely determined to have a BBQ. So we go and collect some stones, set up a fireplace and after a little bit of fiddling a nice fire is burning. As you can see, we really took care of the fire and were rewarded with some nice steaks and sausages. And you get thoroughly smoked. Back home it took two showers to get rid of the smell! But who cares? (well, the people in train back maybe did). We served the meat with potato salad, some fried veggies, oh my god, I love food. And up there, in Gere, it all tastes better!
Every morning you have to fire up the stove (another moment to catch some smoke), which is a little bit tricky and really something for boys (i.e. for me), cook water for the coffee, move the large rock to access the "fridge" outside of the house, cut some cheese and bacon, warm up some more to wash the dishes, maybe fry some eggs... Funny, its like normal life, I guess, but its fun. Even washing the dishes is an event.
Later we did some hiking, playing in the stream (building dams, breaking down old ones, flooding empty beds, watching the water finding its new way, they had to drag me away after two hours).
We will definitely come back. Did I say that one of the huts there is splendidly renovated and refurbished? 700 Swiss francs per week, place for 6 people. I don't know the phone number...

An old saying...

Is this dust on this blog? ;-) Never mind.

An old kiwi saying says that if the customer cannot come to Revel cafe, Revel cafe has to come to its customer. In our case this meant that we bought ourselves a proper espresso machine. It was the result of long and tedious discussions, about, well, I have to give you a little bit more background to make you aware of how complicated the whole process was.

It starts, like so many good stories, with a Swiss company. Nestle. Yes, its Swiss. Very much indeed. And its reputation is not the best. As is often the case with companies that have grown to the size of an average country on this planet. Lately, Nestle came up with an ingenious coffee system, aptly named Nespresso, which is simple and addictive: you buy their machine, you buy their coffee capsules, you stick to them forever. For two reasons: the coffee is extremely good and no other capsule fits in your machine. End of story. One capsule (i.e. one cup of coffee) costs about 60 cent.That's quite something. Plus, the capsules are made of thick aluminium, and although Nestle promises that they recycle them completely, that doesn't make it much better. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to recycle aluminium? Here you go. By the way, if one replaces the word "coffee" with "mp3", "machine" with "iPod" and "Nestle" with "Apple", you get a similar story. Anyway. Back to what I wanted to tell you. We were seriously considering buying something to prepare ourselves a proper coffee. But what? Mama said "Nespresso" (she loves her machine, especially the fact that you have to push a single button to get a delicious latte macchiato (and I assure you, it is divine). The other Mama said "A fully automatic machine, which grinds your beans freshly". And right she is as well. Although more expensive in the beginning, the running costs are low and the coffee great.

This was followed by long searches on the internet and in-depth discussions with people that turned into fanatical coffee afficionados as soon as you asked them about their opinion. Interestingly, everybody sweared that his/her system is the perfect solution. Which should proof that they are all ok and that whatever you buy, you will be happy. Interestingly, it had the opposite effect: we became extremely unsure and picky.

It all ended with a visit of my brother who told us that there is only one real solution: a semi-automaic espresso machine. You fill it either with ground coffee or with pads (which are considerably cheaper than the Nespresso capsules and about equally simple to handle) and you get the real feeling. You stay independent. You treat not only your taste buds but also your soul and and and. But, and here my brother held up his index finger and became very serious, but, it must be heavy. So heavy that you can fit in the portafilter without moving the machine. Or you srew the whole damn thing onto the kitchen table. Which, funnily enough, is never considered as an option. And so there it is, the Solis Espresso Design Pro (what a cheesy name!), full metal body, a whopping 12 kg (that's what they told us, seems lighter thought) and a coffee to die for. Revel cafe just entered through the door. The Flat White is back. Thank goodness!

Homerun

Another 25 Minutes and I will get the key for our new apartment. Yay! I can't wait to just stand in there, close the door and know: "This is ours". Interestingly, a voice inside my head says: "For a while..." The voice may belong to some doomsday pessimist or to a world traveler. I assume the latter...

Yodeling (for Craig)

Yodeling is a kind of singing that is really abundant in all the countries that border the alps: Austria, Germany, Switzerland. A yodel sounds strange - and strange it is indeed. There are many misconceptions about the act of yodeling and its time to clarify this.

Yodeling is a fusion of two distinct types of human noises that served two different purposes. "Jonen" is a low-pitched sound that has been produced by the "Landsgmeind", the coming together of people from a village or a community to discuss political issues. If somebody has said something that everybody agreed with, people made this noise. The word "jonen" is also related to the word "jo" which means yes in the Basel dialect.

The second part of the yodel ist the model ("m-au-del"). Which is derived from another communal tradition: young men at the age of 18 come together to sing about how their favorite girl should be like. Again, it is connected to the verb "to model": the men hope that their wishes materialize.

But of course, this is long, long ago. About 500 years. The yodel itself has developed into an art form. Initially, however, it was a serious profession. It all started with an accident. Just around that time when yodeling emerged in the communities in the swiss alps, the reformation took place in Europe. People abandoned catholicism and the protestant church was on the rise. Protestant churches emphasized the good side of christianity, its positivity. This created a demand for artists that were able to contribute to the decoration of newly built churches, and coloured glass was very imporant. Windows of all churches were graced with pictures made of coloured glass. Still a widespread feature in many churches. Have you every tried to cut glass? Especially with the low quality glass in those days, it was impossible to get the necessary shapes to construct the biblical scenes in the windows. However, glass that is shattered with ultrasonic soundwaves splits in regular pieces irrespective of its quality. A technique that is still in use today. And this was realized early on. When several people yodel together, the interferences can easily be controlled by experienced singers to reach extremely high frequencies. And so it was the yodlers that helped to create those windows. Not a coincidence therefore, that yodeling is often done during mass (see the picture).

As with many things in Switzerland, the yodelin was perfected. Still nowadays there are contests were people attempt to shatter glass by yodeling according to predefined shapes ("Stücklijodle"). Or they try to focus the sonic waves to burst bottles ("Bierjodle"). Especially among younger people the bierjodle is famous. The loser has to drink all the beerbottles that didn't burst.

There is also a sad story that goes with the emergence of yodeling. It concerns the non-existant Swiss forest. I guess you don't know that Switzerland has basically no native forest left? That we actually import the wood to build cuckoo clocks? Here you go. In order to produce all the glass for the church windows (and even more was produced because it became a big export industry), many trees were cut to melt the glass. In fact all the trees.

This is also the reason why the standard Swiss army knife contains no saw. To protect our forests. And there is also the hypothesis that only after all the trees were cut people began farming and the cows the give the milk for the Swiss milk chocolate might never have existed hadn't there been the yodeling and the glass.

Strangely enough this story is rarely told. Althoug every child in Switzerland learns it. Maybe because there is too much negativity to it. Well, now you know.

Going to work

10 minutes before departure. Enough time to buy lunch? I take the risk and enter the grocery shop. Queues at the checkout are long, but the women work fast. Still four minutes to go. Track 8. I walk along the coach to the door and look inside. Not many people. We leave on time. Two Jewish girls discuss their jobs, the little brother flips through his tanakh but is constantly distracted by the collectors cards of the European championships. The woman next to them orders a little bottle of red wine (at 8 o'clock in the morning). I think about getting up to look at her but decide otherwise. The ticket inspector smiles at me when he sees that I own the general railpass, I am flattered. Country flies past the window. Before Olten is an old industrial zone. I see that an artist has his studio in one of the buildings just between a painter and a panel beater. I wonder whether he eats lunch together with the painters. I listen to the girls. They switch between Swiss dialect and Yiddish. The PA announces Zurich main station and people get up to walk through all the coaches to reach the first one just behind the locomotive. This shortens their walk on the platforom at the terminus. The woman catches the minibar on its way back and helps herself to another bottle. She looks pretty normal. Maybe she has her reasons. Zurich main station is packed. You need to walk briskly and plan your trajectory to avoid collisions. I always leave on the left side, where there is no official exit. There is a street to cross, but traffic is light and the tram blocks your way only rarely. Today it does. The traffic lights at the next intersection are timed, you just need to get the first one right. Up the hill, through a little alley. I can never decide whether I should take one or two steps at a time. I pass the church. Once I passed the priest on the stairs. I start to warm up. It's gonna be a hot day.

Below the Mittagsgüpfi

We went for our first hike! How splendid! Esther's mother grew up in a small mountain valley close to Lucerne, and she was keen on showing us her birthplace. Not that we have never been there, but you know, mothers... And besides, hiking is never a bad idea. So off we went. The hike started in Schwarzenberg, with nice views of the Pilatus, that's the mountain in the back of the picture. Aptly named after a figure from the bible, because the whole place there is very religious. The local cemetery has even little dispensers with holy water in front of every grave!

On the first picture you can also see where we went: Up the valley on the left to the mountains, then a right turn (where we will vanish behind the hill in the front), and finally around the hill back to where we started.

The names of the places you pass are extremely Swiss and contain heaps of Umlaute. Cows galore, typical Swiss farmhouses (Buurehöf) are everywhere, all the stuff. Up there, they really hang bells on all their cows (makes it easier to find them if they go astray). Basically all the farms along the way also offer refreshments. Some of them have no licence to do so, so they just invite you and you donate something. The inofficial highlight of the tour was therefore a visit to the Alpwirtschaft Stafel, where we ordered Moscht (cider) and a Stafelplättli (a platter with a mountain of cold cuts, cured bacon, salami slices and cheese). Yeah!

By coincidence, it was also the yearly cleaning day of the local hiking trails. Honestly! They went up early in the morning, cleared all the tracks from whatever debris landed on them during the winter, removed litter and so on. Quite an effort. Of course this had to be rewarded with a beer and so it happend that we had lots of company in the Alpwirtschaft. Around us where muscular, bearded men that all looked like Alpöhi in the Heidi movies. One of them unpacked his alphorn and played it in front of the house. An alphorn sounds beautiful. The tone is low, the notes long and the echo from the rock faces that rolled back to us made us shiver.

On the way home we passed meadows full of flowers and the biologist in me couldn't resist to take at least one picture. This is the Knabenkraut, an orchid that is really abundant there. Their petals bear beautiful patterns that supposedly act as airstrips for their pollinators.

And what does the title of the blog mean? Well, the Mittagsgüpfi (noon peak) is the name of the mountain that dominates the valley we went up.

Sundays

On the left you see the view that we have where we are living currently. It's out there, it's rural, it's country life at its best. The bells of the village church greet us, the smell of cow dung reminds us that this is, well, as I said, rural. And its a hell of way to the next outpost of civilization (i.e. a city).

And the best day to enjoy the country side is Sunday. Sundays are beautifully lazy. There is nothing to do, because shops are closed and the next larger place, Aarau, is too far away to justify the effort of getting there. And so you enjoy the joy of doing nothing. Except maybe reading the Sunday newspaper and of course having a great breakfast. On the left you see Esthers siblings and their partners doing what I just described. Nothing. On a Sunday, of course.

At one point though the itching starts. How can you sit around for a whole day? I guess in former times they could, but now, after sitting in front of your computer for the whole week, you can't. And so you go for a walk. Which is also very Swiss and very popular. God I hated those walks when I was young! Why can't we just stay inside and play? No, walk. Fresh air, a little bit of exercise and all that s**t. The problem with those walks was the following: they were unofficially classified as "Spaziergang", which translates to walk. And not as "Wanderung", which would be a hike. The difference? On a hike, you would take some food with you, chocolate, bread, an apple. On a walk, you don't. And what happens? The walk is indistinguishable from a hike! Same duration, same distance. You are starving! Maybe, bust just maybe, somebody had sweets in their pocket, that helped. But it was still terrible. In the meantime things have changed. And so we leave the house, walk through fields of wheat and poppies to the next forest or hill.

Walking is a serious business in Switzerland, by the way. They gridded the whole country with a tight network of trails. Every 15 minutes, there is signpost, indicating the next bus or trains stops, villages, mountain peaks and so forth. Impossible to get lost (but ask Esther, hehe).

I think this one of the things I somehow missed. The part of the Swiss country that is not know to tourist: rolling hills and beech forests. They are gorgeous. Because they are Swiss beech forests they are heavily managed. There is a forest floor (empty), trees (beeches, as I said), and that's it. Well, beech forest, what do you expect? No such thing as a fern tree in-between. Funnily enough thought, this renders those forests very elegant. The trunks of the trees are grey and slender, they raise to a green canopy and create a feeling as if you are standing in a large cathedral. In the summertime, the smoke of a wood fire (check my entry on cervelats!) will drift through the forest, sunrays cut through the clouds and you hear the faint sound of laughing children. But not now, I guess the weather is not right.

And so we return to the village, pass tidy houses with tidy gardens (and comment on them) and return home for coffee and cake.

Arsenic time

Looks like I was cheering at just the right moment yesterday. Seconds later hell broke loose...

Years ago I helped organizing some winter camps for little kiddies. The camps were always big fun. They were called "Snow camp" and were intended for those kids that didn't ski but wanted to get out there into the snow. We played games, built huge snowmen and tried to feed them normally healthy food for a week.

Something that was funny and happened in the first two days of every camp was what I call here the "arsenic time". The time during which the ranking among the kids is established. They all get to now their mates, they try to establish boundaries and check where the limits of the camp leaders are. It is a quite stressful time for everybody and once things have settled down, normal camp life begins.

It seems to me the same applies to the beginning of a new job. Finally it seems I can really enjoy the day in the new group. Don't ask me why, but I need to establish this ranking as well. Not that I go armwrestling with the professors, but I need to get into touch with everybody at least once, talk a little bit with them, understand where there strenghts are, learn about their weaknesses. Like that I can calm down, find my place, start to work.

Delay - Swiss style

InterCity train bound to Zürich. Stops a little bit too long in Olten. PA announcement: "Due to the European Soccer Championships there is an increased number of trains operating. This has caused a delay of two minutes. We apologize for that."

...

...

TWO MINUTES! Oh my, if this is the only problem this country has...

Another story: we are now officially um, "angemeldet" (logged in?) in Baden. Took us about 15 minutes at the town's office. As a new resident of Baden, you get some goodies (I actually knew that and was looking forward to it). Vouchers for the thermal bath, vouchers for a day trip with the local buses (how cool is that... I get the shivers when I only think about it: 24 hours on the public bus system. Incredible!), a free waste bag (waste bags are expensive here, because you pay the complete costs of getting rid of the waste with them. When they introduced that concept some years ago, people suddenly stuffed much more into their bags, causing an increase in back injuries in garbage collectors), some leaflets with "what's up in Baden, the hottest city right after New York" (I am exaggerating here) and finally, the real treat: Iodine pills. Iodine pills? Hell yeah! Iodine pills. One pack for me, one for Esther. If one of the nuclear power plants here in the neighborhood starts too leak, or even pops open, then we have to eat the stuff. The iodine will fill up our thyroid gland pronto and will reduce the load of radioactive iodine that we inhale. Phew. I feel much better now. And that's it. Nothing to eat, no restaurant vouchers, nada. Whatever.


By the way: Switzerland - Turkey: 1 : 0 !!! Excellent. Hope it get's even better.

Trying to enjoy soccer

Finally. The European Championships have started. Switzerland was "instructed" by all available media to be extremely excited. This is the event. We will show the word what a terrific host country we are and, geeeeehh!, how are we looking forward to all those fans. They were depicted as well dressed, multi-cultural, good looking, young, non-alcoholic tourists which paint flags on their cheeks, consume whatever beer the main sponsor tells them and besides that boost our economy to a degree that it will pay all the extra army and police forces that will roam our cities. That's the story so far.

And now they arrived. They looked slightly different than in the TV ads, but hey... And so it began. Saturday evening, "Fanzone" it's called. Which is a fenced off part of the city where you only get over-priced food, one brand of beer and large screens to watch the game.

I was really looking forward to having a barbequed sausage, a fresh beer (you always get it on tap) and a nice spot where I will see the whole screen. I am not asking for a lot here...

Beer was no problem. Just outside the fanzone was an outlet of a local microbrewery (called "Unser Bier", which means "Our Beer") and theirs is much better than the official one. The security even allowed us to bring it in into the zone. Proceed to step 2, the sausage. The queue was long. Their were about 15 frantic women behind the counter, trying the get a sausage from the single (!) BBQ they had fired up. It was a disaster. In Switzerland, you ALWAYS eat a sausage on such an occasion. No sandwich, no pizza slice and heaven forbid no such things like muffins or doughnuts (which they tried to sell for about 5 NZD a piece). Those things do not fit. They don't. But it seems that one of the organizers got it wrong and thought that those well-dressed, good-mannered, multi-cultural, we-are-one-happy-family people would ask for them. Well they didn't. For the simple reason that they did not show up. Those that showed up were the normal-looking, sausage-eating soccer fans.

Many of them though that wearing over-sized fleece hats in cheerful colors would enhance the performance of their team which played about 5 kilometers elsewhere. Which required hats with quite paranormal properties. They did not care. And kept them on. In front of us. The one guy that placed himself in front of Esther was, in addition to his tremendous hat, also quite tall, drunk, slightly aggressive and when Esther told him that it would be cool if he could take the hat off, he became quite enraged and insisted that it was not his fault that the hat was that tall and Esther that short. We left it at that. Not only because a peaceful night was threatened but also because he became involed in another argument that included three slick guys with lots of brillantine in their hair.

After 45 minutes we fled. We found a better place. Had the official beer and fries (Beer = 9 bucks, Fries = 7.50) and enjoyed watching part two of the Swiss being dismantled by the Czechs. I love soccer!

Addendum: Tonight we sit at home. I can drink when and what I want. No people with hats and a cosy sofa just for us. But somehow I miss the hats...

Homesick

Yesterday, we watched TV. We saw a docu about a German family returning home after they have lived for three years in New Zealand.

How can you leave that country anyway?

I miss the seagulls that tear plastic bags apart. The lights at the pedestrian crossing that only turn red when you push the button. The silly utes that roam the streets. I miss entering the youth hostel and saying hello to the staff. I miss going to work and being greeted by pukekos. Getting take away coffee. Or butter chicken. A glass of Sav in the evening with friends. The accent of the people in the lab. Coming home to our little flat. Driving over the harbor bridge. Reading signs that say "Takapuna", "Papatoetoe", "Remuera" or "Mangere". Norfolk pines. Too much UV. Shortland Street. Breakfast with Paul and Pippa. 2 liter milk jugs. Braeburn apples. Lots of Asian people on the streets. Milo bars. Pete telling stories. Rutenes visiting us for no reason. Waitakere Ranges. Mynas running off the street. Endless suburbs. But most of all, the friends.

It so funny to observe how the same thing happens again: more than two years ago we arrived in Auckland. We were really frightened. Every move was a big effort. Finding a flat, opening a bank account, getting to know people, exploring Auckland. Tasting the new food, finding our way through foodtown. And slowly, slowly we settled down.

Back home, it seems even stranger. We know the country, but we are not yet at home. It's like visiting the old neighborhood you grew up in ten years later. You still know the secret places, but they lost their magic. You recognize sounds, shapes, smells, but they don't lead you anywhere. And all that tells you "hey, home is just around the corner". But it ain't.

I guess it will take two or three months. That's what it took in New Zealand.

Surprising Esther

Esther had no clue. Nada. Zilch. She thought her two siblings take her out for a siblings-only day. Hiking. How great is that... She arrived in Switzerland just the day before and now hiking. Jetlagged hiking that is. But siblings are siblings, and so she went.

What she did not know: They have invited lots of her friends. The old ones (meaning pre-NZ), and new ones (those that she met in NZ and who happened to be in Switzerland now). They set up tables and benches in the garden, fired up the BBQ, had salads, meat and drinks ready, balloons, smarties on the tables, the whole shebang.

So we were all there. Hiding behind the house, they lured Esther into the garden with some silly excuses... When she saw all the people, she nearly fainted. It took a while for her to recognize the faces. It was funny, she knew them, but then again she couldn't put it together.

All our friends have changed a little bit. Suddenly there were little kiddies with parents where there were couples before, new jobs, new homes, lots of gossip and news that had to be exchanged. It was a wonderful afternoon. We all sat there, enjoyed each others company, talked, laughed and arrived a little bit in Switzerland.

The Swiss National Sausage

This might sound a little bit strange for the non-Swiss, but its essential to set this one right early on.

There is one central sausage in Switzerland. Some people may try to convince you otherwise. People from the canton Sankt Gallen for example will tell you "da dör me nöd säge! dasch denn öbbe nöd de serwela, daschd broodwoascht gopferdeckchl!". But I assure you, they are wrong (right, Livi?). Like many things east of Basel. But that is another story and will be told another time.

The (and we are talking The with a capital T here) sausage is the Cervelat. Or Klöpfer. It's a pretty boring sausage, actually, at least compared to things like a Nürnberger (remember the BBQ at City YHA?), or a Citterio Salami, or a Saucisson Vaudoise, but: Swiss people get this one here probably right after they have been weened off their mothers milk. The cervelat can be eaten cold, and especially the Wurstsalat has become famous in its own right. Or even better, the "Wurstsalat garniert". Which is, honestly, also not something that will ever make it into the gourmet hall of fame, but on a hot sommer evening, together with a cold beer it can't be beaten. Oh no sir, not this one. Think hilly country side, a nice inn at the far end of the village, a garden with a couple of benches, a large horse-chestnut tree whose shade cools the place and then, the Wurstsalat garniert. Oh yeah.

But that's not the topic here. The topic is the Cervelat itself. Which, actually, should be grilled. Or even better, grilled on a wood fire. When you are out and hiking, there the Cervelat shines. You learn it from your father, or in the boy scouts, if your father is more the couch potato: how to collect the right twigs and branches for the fire, how to ignite it with a single match, that you have to wait until the flames are gone, until there are only red hot embers. Look for the ones covered in white ash, those are the hottest ones. And then grill the Cervelat on them. You need to find a wooden stick (that's where the Swiss army knife comes in handy) and sharpen one end. Then cut crosses (Switzerland!) into each end of the sausage and put it on the stick. When the Cervelat heats up, the ends will bend outwards, making it look quite funny. Once the sausage is ready, you can put a little bit of mustard on top of each of the eight little ends and eat them one by one. Delicious!

There are two fractions in Switzerland. One claims that you have to skin the sausage before you grill it. The other fraction heavily opposes that. There is no consense here (ask Esther! She still insists on keeping the skin on!).

The picture is actually a piece of art, and it shows exactly how a perfectly grilled Cervelat looks like.

And as my mother uses to say (and Stefan Remmler): everything has an end, only the sausage has two.

But there is also a sad addition to it: the skin of the Cervelat comes actually from Brasil. Where they have the only cattle with the right guts for this kind of skin. But the European Union fears that these guts might contain the stuff that causes mad cow disease. And they want to ban the import of these guts. The Swiss were shocked. So far, we haven't run out of guts, but it could well be that the shape of the Cervelat might change in the near future. What a country, where these are the only problems...

We have a home

Wooahh, that was a hectic Wednesday! We had applications running for three flats at the same time, and, of course, we had our number one. I honestly had no idea what our chances were and therefore we tried our very best: we scanned the applications the same evening we saw the flats and e-mailed them to the landlords right away. Then I had to go to Basel, my old hometown to get the paper that shows that I am financially more or less alright, I think I wrote about that. 17 Swiss Francs (about 20 NZD) per paper. And of course they all wanted an original, no copy... Well, there is nothing you can do. And its all for a good cause.

And then, waiting... A day later I called one of the landlords under the pretext to check whether the letter has arrived. And to make it very clear how super-interested we are in the flat. Was that a good idea? I was not sure... I had the impression he was slightly annoyed. Oops.

Two days later I had an e-mail in my inbox: We had flat number 3 (on our personal hitlist) for sure. All we had to do was say "yes". Today. Dammit! The others would tell us in two days, should I let this one go and gamble or rather take number three but have it for sure? Esther! I need your help! But Esther was far away and when I finally reached her, she was as undecided as I was. Should I call the landlord of number one and ask him to hurry with his decision? Call the guy again?! Could be the safest way to loose the top flat. But then again, I had to know whether we were at least still in the game. I decided to risk it and called the guy. I was all apologetic and told him right away that I was no stalker at all and explained the misery that I was in. He was very understanding. Phew. We were among the top 2 for flat number 1. Excellent. Actually, he said, we were his favourites, but he still has to check whether the income that we claimed to earn was correct. Seriously, that's how they do it here! I raced to the secretary of our group and told her to call the guy pronto. Done. One hour later my phone was ringing: we got flat number one. Yes.

We will move in July 1. And yes, we have a dedicated guest room. For free.

Flat hunting

...is somewhat different in Switzerland. There is no such thing as three weeks notice and you are out of your flat. Here, you need to tell your landlord three months in advance that you want to leave. Which, of course, also means that you need to start hunting early. Very early. Which we, uhm, forgot. Plus, we are looking for a flat more or less close to Zürich. And flats in Zürich are rare and expensive. And around Zürich its the same.

In our case, we are looking for a place to live in Baden. Which is a beautiful little town, a real castle overlooking a medieval centre, an old gate that guards the entrance of the town, small alleys, old houses with very elegant facades, cobblestones, a little bit of a maze-feeling, really nice. Flat-hunting starts with homegate.ch, and there you look for flats to rent. In Switzerland people rent flats, they would never buy them. And there is no such thing as number of bedrooms. Here, it is number of rooms. Kitchen and bathrooms are not rooms, so you just count things like study rooms, bedrooms and living rooms. So as a couple, you look for three or four rooms. And the rent is paid monthly. Be aware that there is the rent and then there are the "Nebenkosten", which are listed separately but which are actually just added to the rent. Never mind. The rent includes the heating but usually not the water and the electricity. And whiteware is always included. Well, if you know all that, you can start hunting.

When you find something that you like, you ask the landlord whether you can have a look at it. You and five other couples. It's a strange situation. Slightly competitive, every couple tries to be the nicest one, laughs about all the stupid jokes of the landlord and repeats again and again how nice the flat looks and how well one would fit in. It's true! E actually pushed me "go on, talk a little bit more to the guy!" and so I did... Once the tour is finished, forms are handed out where you have to list addresses, employer details and references and then it's just praying silently at home. Actually, no, it's more. There is the Betreibungsregisterauszug. Roughly it's an official piece of paper which says that you have no current financial prosecutions against you. Well, we don't, but because we haven't lived in Switzerland during the last two years, this form doesn't say a lot. But the prospective landlord calmed me down, it's not the first time they have dealt with those things. Phew.

I will not tell you which flats are on our list, but I will tell you once we got one ;-)

Fingers crossed.

Back home

It is strange coming home to Switzerland. Everybody knows that this country is quite small, but it is also, uhm, fully packed. Not cramped, because, of course, it is a tidy country. It resembles more a nicely filled pantry. Lot's of great stuff, and everything at hand, but sometimes difficult to reach because other things are in the way.

I still know the way Switzerland works. I recognize all the familiar sounds. Then again, it is like you wake up from a dream and your mind is still in the mood of your dream. In the case of a good dream, this is mixed with the disappointment of being back in reality...

About two hours after touchdown I had my first piece of Swiss cheese. Emmentaler. The one with the big holes. I think the purists will claim that my first piece should have been Gruyère, which is probably the archetype of Swiss cheeses, the one that complements alphorns, cows and stuff, but I prefer Emmentaler. And I have to say, it was gorgeous! Then some good bread with a proper crust and nuts in it, some cured meat from the canton Graubünden, a juicy grape, voilà!

And somewhere between customs and this piece of Emmentaler it was, the idea to start a new blog, one that is catering for people abroad. I could try and explain Switzerland to them. Quite a difficult job, but then again, quite easy: I would just go on and jot down what happens to me. I am Swiss, after all and the way things happen around me are pretty Swiss as well. At least I think so.

So let's begin the experiment. Maybe it dies a quick and painless death, or it slowly rots away, or ideally, it will thrive and turn into an enjoyable read!