Happy Australia Day!

Happy Australia day! We haven't really done anything to mark the occasion, but Reto did make his own little public holiday (ie. took the day off work) and I'm not at french, so that's in the right spirit.

Happy Birthday, Mischa!

Confusion At Coop

Why is it that Swiss checkout chicks (if you can call them that; I think the average age might be a bit too high) are obsessed with tying knots in my bags of veggies? There I was at the checkout yesterday with a (scandalously unknotted) bag with various carrots and zucchinis and things in it, and the checkout woman glared at me and aggressively double-knotted the bag (so enthusiastically that I actually couldn't get the knot undone again when I got home) before she scanned the bar codes. Possibly there's a small risk that a carrot might fall out while they're doing the scanning (oh no!), but why do they care? Is it really worth getting all narky and knotting the bag for the sake of those 2 seconds or so while my bags of veggies are in their care?

Really?

In french today we spent aaaaages talking about punctuality and what it means in different countries and when it's polite to turn up a bit early and when it's polite to turn up hours late, and after this looong discussion where we all acknowledged that there is usually lots of scope for disagreement and individual differences and the fact that rules really aren't set in stone*, the teacher asked us "who here really thinks that punctuality is important?", and instantly, absolument sans hésitation, the two Swiss (german) girls, and only them, shot their hands in the air and said "me!".

And then we had a loooong conversation about cultural stereotypes.


* except possibly in Japan, it seems, where, according to the Japanese chick in the class, it's less insulting to phone up and give an excuse and reschedule a work meeting than turn up 15 minutes late

Things That Were Annoying Today

1. Ice. Ice has been driving me nuts for a few weeks now, ever since it snowed a lot and no one cleared the streets properly and we've all been slipping and sliding all over town ever since. Today I went out the 'burbs of Fribourg (to get my Swiss drivers license if you must know, tick for New Year's Resolution Number One. And even better, atrocious misreading of (what as it turned out were actually atrociously ambiguous) instructions meant that I didn't even have to do the theory test! Reto had to phone up to confirm that, though. It really was very unclear on the website. To think I wasted all that time unnecessarily learning the road rules when actually I was free to take my bung eye and my habit of driving on the left and a total ignorance of the road rules and get straight out there!). Anyway, there I was in the middle of nowhere (walking to the RTA-equivalent, which apparently isn't the done thing. They have the biggest carpark ever) bumbling around on the footpaths-masquerading-as-skating-rinks like a moron. And getting rained on at the same time, funnily enough. Warm enough to rain,not warm enough for all the ice to have melted.

2. Morons waiting for the train who have 2nd class tickets, but who get into the 1st class carriages (because it's always quicker to get into the 1st class carriages because there isn't a huge queue of people in there waiting to get out) and then go through the door from there to the 2nd class carriage that I'm queueing (with a million other people) to get into, thus managing to get in and get a seat first. Cheats.

3. Having an argument about something remotely serious in french but being unable to express my opinion in a relatively coherent way because my vocabulary is dismal. I think I may have ended up being construed as a militant vegan, which would have been fine but it wasn't what I was saying at all.

On a more positive note, I got my Swiss license (yay!), I managed to have a decent argument in french (maybe it was just everyone else misunderstanding me, not me being incomprehensible), I didn't break my leg on the ice, it wasn't freezing, I had a rather excellent salade nicoise for dinner, I got something pleasant in the mail (rather than just boring letters from my health insurance, which is what it usually is) and Reto didn't hog all the blankets last night. Which is the first time in ages that that's happened. Assidouously poking him in the ribs all the time every night seems to have finally paid off

BETRAYED

I've been BETRAYED.

Unlike almost everyone else I have ever known, I've always had great vision. No glasses, no squinting at computer screens, no whining about having to buy prespcription sunglasses, no agonising over that laser surgery.

Anyway, I've just been off for an eye test for my driving license here, and I discovered that MY RIGHT EYE IS PRACTICALLY BLIND. When I had to read the letters on the sign, I could read the bottom line with my left eye no worries, but with the right eye I had to move up a line (and even then I had to guess a bit).

I'm actually finding this really quite disturbing. It's like the beginning of the end. Next thing you know my hair will turn grey and I'll have to have a hip replacement.

Happy (Fake) Birthday, Me!

It's the anniversary of my new surname! Or at least, I've decided it is since it was today a year ago that I picked up my new birth certificate. So happy fake birthday me!

No, This Post Doesn't Come From A Duty Free Shop

No, enormous novelty Toblerones haven't vanished from the face of the earth. Someone gave Reto's mum one for christmas, and then rather than eating it herself, she gave everyone a triangle to take home. Here is ours (with ACTUAL PEOPLE for reference*):

Apparently it weighs more than a kilo.

If only I liked Toblerone.

* Don't be fooled, they're actually the king and lady king from yesterday's hard-won religious bakery item

DOES IT HELP IF I SPEAK LOUDER?

In an effort to show my parents a little bit more foreign strangeness before they left, I decided to buy one of those couronne des rois things at the bakery today (bready item being sold in order to celebrate epiphany. The idea is that everyone takes a bit of the cake/bread/whatever it is, and whoever is lucky enough to get the bit with the wee metal king in it (and possibly break their teeth) gets to be the king for the day. Although I suspect it might be rigged towards those with very small heads, because the wee cardboard crown they gave us was very, very small).

I went to the bakery. It went something like this (but all in french):
Me: Can I please have a couronne des rois?
Her: Pardon?
Me: The bread thing being sold specially today? A couronne des rois [note that I wasn't actually sure what the things were called, but this bakery had a big sign outside saying "couronne des rois", so I was going with that]?
Her: I'm sorry, I can't understand you at all. You're making no sense to me.
Me: The special bread thing because today's the 6th of January ...
Her (to colleague): Can you understand what she is saying? I can't understand anything she says.
Me: You know, like a crown [gesturing at my head] ... for kings .... [petering off]

And then someone else helped me. Who miraculously understood me. Really, I'm not that incomprehensible. It was annoying.

As it turned out there were 2 kings in our galette des rois (it was more like a collection of cinnamon snails than anything properly bready. And one of the kings seemed to be a lady). I got one of them, but the crown didn't fit. Sigh.

Resolutions

.. or possibly just a list of things to do...

Get a Swiss drivers license (before March, but preferably before February)
Be more proactive about doing things in french (like going to the dentist/doctor/small shops where conversation is unavoidable. I was going to add hairdresser to that list, but since my hair is looking really quite respectable at the moment and I haven't seen a hair professional since March, I've decided not to)

.. Hmm. No doubt there are many more things I could add about getting a job and being a responsible adult, but I don't think I will. Better to keep it all pleasantly achievable.

Blog Nerdery, part 2

It's that time of year again, when I pinch someone's idea about putting together the first sentence (or sometimes two, if the first sentence was useless) from the first post of each month and see what my year was like.

Last night at the NYE party that I went to we were all thinking of what our highlight of 2007 was.

Well, I'm back.

Well, depending on whose opinion you listen to, it's either not summer any more (yay! That's my opinion), or it's still winter (also yay! That's Reto).

Congratulations to Reto, who is rejoining the world of employed people today!

All my best intentions of sleeping in were thwarted this morning, not only by my mock-insomnia, but also by the band (as in group of people with uniforms and instruments) of morons (as in people who go wandering the streets at 7am making a racket) wandering down our street and making a racket!

The potatoes have had their day, look who coffee is celebrating now!

Sigh. Reto's been off killing people (or whatever it is they do in the army) for a good day and a half now, and I am apparently incapable of coping without him.

Note that I chose that cat for its William-Tell style enthusiasm for apples.

I'm orf on my honeymoon.

Happy temporary unemployment to Deonie!

Well. Recent(ish) reasons for not doing any blogging: nothing much has been happening except me being full of french-rage, and that's not very interesting.

Just when you thought you were getting a coffee set for 6 people for your birthday, it turns out there's actually a possibly drunken cat in the box instead!

Hmm. I think I preferred last year's verision. Although it's nice that 2008's list started and ended with nice things.

More Of The Same

Well, it's been more of the usual lately. A quick trip to France with my parents and sister to find the grave of my great grandfather who died near there during the first world war,a bit of enjoying people's insane christmas lights (these ones were opposite the hotel we stayed at in Rouen, and involved Santa in a hot air balloon, santa in his toy factory and santa with his reindeer, as well as an inexplicable dancing pelican), looking at space cabbages (I don't know what they actually are. They look sort of like cabbage-related items, but they're CRAZY, and everyone knows that CRAZY things probably come from space) and various other charming sights in Paris.

In other news, I read American Psycho while I was away, and it was the most horrible and disturbing thing I've ever read. Normally violence in books doesn't bother me so much, but this was so grisly and so graphic and so lacking in humanity ... aagh, don't read it.

Age-Defying

I was just out buying a bottle of wine and a bottle of kirsch for a fondue tonight (part of the ongoing process of Swissifying my parents, and now also my sister who is too jetlagged to object. Interestingly, yesterday when I suggested to Reto that we have a cervelat salad for lunch he made a comment about how swissish I've become. Which was odd) and the woman in the shop asked me for ID. Hee hee. That hasn't happened for ages.

In Recent News

1. I just got my results from my DELF exam, and happily I passed. Quite badly in the oral bit, quite well in the other bits (which reflects the reality of my french knowledge/usage). The results weren't due until the end of Jan, so that was a surprise. Unfortunately passing that test doesn't really mean anything useful for me (like that I'm a proficient french-speaker), but I do have a piece of paper. Or I will have (when they post it to me).

2. It's been snowing here non-stop for almost 2 days. Not very heavily or anything, but constantly, so it's really accumulated and every trip outdoors involves inadvertently standing in a puddle of slush that you thought wasn't there. Don't forget your waterproof shoes, Steph.

Tourist Frenzy

Oh how I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow. Since mum and dad arrived (a week ago) I have given them the grand tour of Fribourg (which comes in several parts and as it turns out can take days to complete. Jet-lagged, luggage-free days, but still), I've taken them to Grindelwald and the (invisible due to cloud/fog/snow) Eiger*, to Zermatt and the (pleasantly visible) Matterhorn, we've done the "here's our former home" tour of Aarau, and we've spent a few days seeing christmas markets and raclette and Stein am Rhein with R's parents (only half of whom share a language with my parents, which makes things tricky. Although I have to say, Reto's parents cope extremely well with the fact that two of their three children have married native english-speakers who are both a bit other-language challenged (since french is definitely my dominant non-native language now and not a very useful one in the in-laws setting) and whose parents are all uselessly monolingual. Fortunately the remaining unmarried sibling looks likely to stick with his Swiss girlfriend and thus save his parents from too much more intercultural incomprehension and expensive plane fares). Tomorrow it's officially been decided that no one's doing anything, which means I will be staying home, doing laundry, trying to read my stupid french road rules book and maybe going to Ikea to buy some curtains for the spare room before my sister arrives and has to sleep there for a month.

Not so relaxing after all, then. Grr.




* Sorry Steph. We heard that you wanted us to wait so we could go there with you in the evening after we'd got back. I'm sure we can go again, though, since we saw NOTHING the first time round. And maybe mum n dad will be such experts by then that I won't even have to go with you!

Happy Birthday Léo!

Just when you thought you were getting a coffee set for 6 people for your birthday, it turns out there's actually a possibly drunken cat in the box instead!

Hurrah! Just what every 1 year old needs!

Biscuit Crisis

About a month ago I saw that possibly the only christmas-themed biscuits I really like (pfeffernusse) were being sold by the bucketload in the supermarkets here. I thought to myself "It's far too early to be buying christmas-themed things! If I start now it'll just turn into a non-stop 2-month-long scoffing frenzy" and sensibly I decided not to buy any until December.

And now they've vanished from the shops. Where have they gone? The shelves are flooded with every other imaginable festive biscuit and I'm tormented daily by Reto's hideous zimtsternen (which he loves and I hate) and IT'S MADE ME REALISE THE TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-DENIAL. I won't fall for that one again then, will I?

No Photos

R and I went to Locarno this weekend (celebrating our last weekend of freedom before my parents arrive for an extended visit. They're supposed to be flying via Bangkok but fortunately have been rerouted) and had we remembered to take a camera I would have so many pretty photos to show you. There would have been heaps of the HUGE amount of snow we came across when we popped out of the tunnel in Ticino and all the huge snowflakes that were falling and of all the excellent fog that prevented us from seeing more than about 10m away (which doesn't necessarily make for a good photo, I suppose, but it was ridiculously beautiful nonetheless). There would have been some of the skating rink (complete with mirror balls and unattractive christmas decorations) that they're in the throes of putting up in the main square of Locarno. There might have been one of me in this ridiculously furry hat I'm thinking of buying (actually, there's no way I would have taken a photo of me trying on a hat in a shop, but you don't have to know that). There would have been some of these excellent trees we kept seeing, which were all brown and leafless and wintery-looking, but they all had mysterious orange blobs on the ends of the most inconveniently-located branches. I assume they were just apples or something (although they were much more the colour of oranges) that the tree-owners hadn't been able to reach, but they looked hilarious.

And there might have also been a photo of me looking all cranky and cold and being rained on. It's nice to be home (where there's almost no snow and absolutely no rain).

Asia Meets The Mediterranean

That's twice now in the last 2 weeks or so that I've mistaken the balsamic vinegar bottle for the soy sauce bottle. And not in a pleasantly "I'll just slosh this into an empty cup and make a sauce and then add it to everything else that I've already painstakingly cooked" kinda way. More in the "straight in the pan with you, soy sauce!" way. Which causes problems.

Soy sauce might start living in the fridge from now on. Although the fridge isn't really big enough to accommodate the bottle. Oh, Switzerland.

Happy Birthday Ange!

Miaow!