Today's Conversation

Reto: It's funny how often you see people wearing Lonsdale (brand) clothes here.
Me: Really? Why is that funny?
Reto: Because it's something that no one but neo-Nazis wears in Switzerland and Germany.
Me: Huh?

Wikipedia elaborates:

"In the early 2000s, Lonsdale clothing became popular among some European neo-Nazis, allegedly because a carefully placed outer jacket leaves only the letters NSDA showing; one letter short of NSDAP, the acronym for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the German name of the Nazi Party. Wearing a brand with no Nazi links in order to express Nazi sympathies helped bypass strict laws concerning the public display of Nazi symbolism. In the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France and Germany, the term Lonsdale youth became widely used to describe teenagers with far right tendencies, and the brand was banned from certain schools in the Netherlands."

b) am having another baby

Ooh, bad timing what with all the recent international moving! Not to mention all the weeks and weeks of cleaning and moving and temporarily staying in a few different places (and christmas and all the boozy potential that I once again missed out on). Then again, maybe it was good timing, what with all the heavy lifting and toxic cleaning products and festive hangovers I managed to avoid.

Apparently it's a boy this time around, and he's due in May. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Australian experience of having a baby compares to the Swiss one (Switzerland has set a very high standard. Reto is sceptical about Australia's chances, but that might just be his extreme patriotism talking. Who knew he was an extreme patriot?). I'm also looking forward to see how we manage to agree on a name for baby #2, because as it turns out Reto has truly appalling taste in boys' names.

a) I've moved to Australia

.. which is something that I've been not mentioning on here for quite a while now. It's a looong, involved and boring process to move to Australia if you are not Australian yourself, or rather, if you are the spouse and parent of Australian people but not Australian yourself. It's ridiculous, the hoops Reto had to jump through, the forms we had to fill in, the medical examination Reto had to undergo, and most significantly, the price we had to pay (about $2500 all up! Just for the luxury of being able to live in my own country with my own husband!). Anyway, after 6 short months it was all organised and now he's a permanent resident and we could even get divorced and he would still be able to live here forevermore (or something). And perhaps he'll even manage to be Australian in a year or so! Before I'm allowed to become Swiss, which seems ridiculously unfair.

And how is it to be back? Hard to tell, so far. We only arrived the other day, and the jetlag (and, more specifically, Nonie's jetlag, which has us all waking up at 5am whether we want to or not) is a bit disorienting. It's hot. And was everything always so expensive here? It makes Switzerland seem like some sort of bargain paradise.

Hello!

Well, never mind those 9 or so months of silence since my last post. Never mind the fact that the only people likely to notice that there is a new post here are probably people I know in real life who won't be shocked by all the plot developments about to be revealed. Never mind that Facebook now fulfills practically all my needs related to sharing my life with people a long way away (or nearby, whichever) and that my blog is totally superfluous. Just in case you don't know me in real life or haven't been paying attention, you'll no doubt be interested to hear that

a) I've moved to Australia, and
b)am having another baby.

Yoicks.