Laundry!

I think I have discovered the reason behind Europe’s depopulation woes.  Their washing machines are too tiny.  Today, after Small Son and his New Girlfriend left to go back to the US, I started changing sheets and doing laundry as one does.  Y’all.  I began at 8 a.m. and it is now 5:30 p.m. and I am still not finished.  My washer is sooooo tiny, (how tiny is it, you ask?), it is sooooo tiny that I have to wash each sheet separately.  Yes.  Both the top sheet and the bottom sheet do not fit in the little container at the same time.  I can fit one sheet and two bath towels and possibly a pair of tightie whities, but not two sheets.

Lawd Amighty, you could fit all of the bedding from the third floor of a Holiday Inn in one load in my washing machine in the US with room left over for a poodle or a small toddler.  The only two women in the US who do more than one load of laundry per day are Kate Gosselin and the Octomom.  So far today, I am on load number FIVE and I am still not finished.  Now, perhaps, you are thinking that Small Son and New Girlfriend are just major dirty laundry producers.  No.  A normal amount, I would say.  Four sheets and a handful of towels.  So, here’s my question.  What do these Euro-women do who have a bunch of kids?

Ah ha!!  They don’t have a lot of kids.  Usually one.  Never more than two.  It’s a real problem over here, the depopulation of Europe.  They are not replacing themselves anymore and I know why.  Women don’t want to spend their entire life in the laundry room watching their three diapers and a couple of pairs of footie pajamas spin round and round.  If I had to do two childrens’ laundry (or more!) every day with these machines, I would require way more Valium than is legally permitted.

I’m really confused about this.  I know the washers and dryers are small so that they will be more energy efficient and use only an eyedropper-full of water for the entire wash/rinse cycle, but, c’mon!  How is it more energy efficient if you have to run ten times as many loads to get the job done?

And, of course, there’s no bleach, but that is an old story and we will not go there.

So, while we are waiting for load number five to finish, let me tell you about The Puzzling Speedo Rule in Evian.  One day while the kids were here, we went down to the private pool/beach here in my city of Lausanne to go swimming.  This is a funny concept so let me explain.  We live on a lake.  Most of the shoreline is rocky.  There are very few actual beaches.

The modus operandi appears to be that every city/town/village along the lake stakes out the very best “beach” within their city limits and fences it off, all the way down from the access road into the water.  Then they add a few pools and a playground within this fenced-in area and they charge you to enter.  Clever.  So, you can go to the crappy beaches or jump off rocks for free, or you can pay a few franc and go to the primo-bitchin’ beaches with pools and high dives and on-site bars and restaurants.  Guess where I prefer to go?

Anyway, we had a nice day, but the pools were not heated.  Remember, it was just snowing here not even a month ago.  These pools were cold even though we are now in the middle of a heatwave.  We went in them but it was not really pleasant.  It was, actually, a bit painful.  The locals were just a-hoopin’ and a-hollerin’ and having a good ol’ time, but our lips were turning blue, if you know what I mean.

We made a collective decision to try out the “private” beach in Evian, which is just a ferry ride away across the lake.  Here’s a hint Lausanne; heat your pools.  The natives are defecting to France.  The ferry was packed with Swissies going to dip in the heated pools in Evian.  HOWEVER.  When we got up to the ticket booth to pay our paltry admittance, (3 euros 50), there was a giant sign regarding proper bathing attire.  There appeared to be a pair of swim trunks with a great big red “X” on it and a picture of a teensy pair of Speedos with no “X”.  Mr. Big and Small Son looked at me like I would be able to interpret this sign.

First of all, it was a GRAPHIC sign, i.e. no words.  Like I am some great interpreter of French graphic signs.  I look at the sign.  I look at Mr. Big and Small Son standing there innocently in their swim trunks.  I look back at the sign.  I say:

“Surely, it means that you cannot wear STREET CLOTHES in the pools.  They cannot possibly mean that every single person in there with a Y chromosome has to wear a Nut Bag.”

Ahh.  Yes, Trailing Spouse!  That is what that must mean!  They just don’t want you in the pool with your regular clothes, like boxers and khakis!  Good on you for figuring out that crazy sign!”

And in we go.

Well, of course, every single man, boy, male infant in the entire place was sporting a Banana Hammock.  Can you say Too Much Information?  I never saw so many packages in my life, except in the Bloomingdale’s Christmas window displays.  I mean, really.  Sir, excuse me, we haven’t even met.  Don’t be pointing that thing at me.

We tried to sneak Small Son down the water slide in his flashy trunks.  Non, non, non.  I tried to explain to the French Pool Gendarme that, in America, my son’s shorts were an actual bathing suit.  Busted.  Back into the lake we went.  You see, you could go in the lake with all of the other middle school juvenile delinquents with those trunks but not the heated pools.

Fast forward to the next day when I went on my favorite website, englishforum.ch, and I asked those veterans on there WHY the Only Speedo Rule.  Firstly, I found out it is not just a French thing.  They also have this rule in many pools in Switzerland.  Some people thought it was a hygiene issue, which didn’t make any sense, but then the truth eventually came out.  Speedos are for actual swimming, not just jumping in a pool to horse around and cool off.  It appears to be a cultural thing and, also, a snob thing.  If you are going into a swimming pool, you should be swimming, i.e. doing laps.  Swim trunks are not conducive to doing laps because they fall off.

Fair enough.  I asked Mr. Big and Small Son if they would be willing to don the proper attire to go swimming in the public pools round these parts.  Two guesses what their answer was and the first guess doesn’t count.  “No flippin’ way”.  These are dyed-in-the-wool American guys.  They would rather be hit by a train than exhibit their family jewels out in public.

They did, however, enjoy looking at all the ladies sans bikini tops.  Oh.  Did I forget to mention that little tidbit?  Yes, tops are optional in Evian.  So, don’t feel toooooo badly for Mr. Big and Small Son.  Their day was not an entirely ruined.

Laundry’s done.  More later on the hiking trip we took while Small Son was here.  But no more about Speedos.  I promise.

Multiple Personality Disorder

I’m going to take a much-deserved break and sit down and write in my blog.  Why did I think that by combining two dreadful chores into one it would make each slightly less horrible?  Didn’t work.  Listening to French language CD’s while ironing dress shirts just doubled the dreadfulness.  So, to the blog for a breather.

I’ve been writing a lot about my travels in the rest of Europe and not so much about my own backyard, so let’s fix that and take a quick look around Switzerland.  Switzerland is a funny place.  Not funny ha-ha, funny as in odd.  If Switzerland was a psych patient, it would be diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder.

We will call one of the personae who lives there inside the mind and body of Switzerland Jan.  Jan speaks Swiss German and drinks a lot of beer.  Jan always plays by the rules.  He lives in the Alps and minds his cows and sells his milk to the cheesemakers who turn it into stinky cheese.  Jan then melts this cheese in a big pot and eats it with bread and potatoes.  Jan owns and wears lederhosen.

Jan’s house is directly attached to his barn so that he can always be surrounded by the smell of his beloved cows, even while sleeping or brushing his teeth.  Jan does not care for foreigners, which would include all persons who were not born and raised in Jan’s village.  It is rumored that Jan does occasionally let his hair down and have fun and tell jokes, but no one from outside Jan’s village has ever witnessed this, so, at this point, Jan’s sense of humor is still just a rumor.  When Jan travels to the big city, he goes to Basel, Luzern or Zurich.  He and his wife, Anna, stay in a charming hotel or gasthof, and buy Anna a new dirndl or two from the shops.

Switzerland has another personality residing with Jan inside its’ body whom we will call Fabian.  Fabian lives in Geneva and works in a bank depositing money for rich Middle Eastern men wearing dishdashas.  Fabian speaks French and drinks a lot of wine.  Fabian and his girlfriend, Amie, are in their late 30’s and have just had their first baby.  They all live together in a modern apartment of 80 square meters which costs Fabian 4,000 Swiss Franc per month.

The apartment has a view of the Alps and Lac Leman.  Fabian also follows the rules but has been known to bend them on occasion.  Fabian and Amie sneak across the border every Sunday to buy meat and do the bulk of their shopping in France, where they also see all of their other Swiss friends doing the same thing.  Fabian and Amie pretend not to see these other friends buying clandestine non-Swiss food products.  On Le Weekend, Fabian and Amie like to ride their bikes around Lac Leman, towing the baby behind in a snazzy little cart.  This activity keeps Fabian and Amie incredibly skinny, fit and looking good in their all-black wardrobes.

Jan and Fabian also share the body of Switzerland with Mario.  Mario is not allowed to have much room inside the body, just 10 percent, but it is the warmest part of the body, so Mario doesn’t care.  Mario speaks Italian and eats a lot of pizza and risotto.  Jan and Fabian like to vacation down in Mario’s sector on Lago Maggiore or Lago di Lugano. 

Mario drives a Formula One race car for a living and lives in a villa in Ascona.  Mario pays even less attention to the rules than Fabian.  Fabian and Jan think Mario is enjoying life just a little bit too much and, most of the time, completely forget that Mario even exists.

Jan has a shadowy second cousin, once removed, living there inside the body of Switzerland, named Benno.  The only confirmed sighting of Benno was back when all four men were boys and had to get together for their mandatory Swiss Army conscription.  Jan, Fabian and Mario have never seen Benno since.  Benno, along with approximately 31 other people, speaks Romansch.  He is only allotted the pinkie finger of Switzerland and never leaves his Graubunden stronghold. 

Jan, Fabian and Mario are a little spooked by Benno and don’t care to know what kind of relationship he has up there on his mountain with his sheep.

Now, if a Swiss person ever tries to tell you that Jan, Fabian, Mario and Benno are all one big happy family and play nicely together in the sandbox, that is a load of crap.  The only time these four feel like they live in the same country is every four years at World Cup time.  For four weeks every fourth summer the whole body goes into a nationalistic soccer-driven fervor.  All four personalities get out their red flag with the big white cross and hang it from their balconies or window sills.  After those four weeks have passed, the flags get packed up again and the body of Switzerland divides itself once again into its’ four identities.

Imagine for a moment, if you will,  if California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado all spoke one language, Florida and Georgia spoke another one entirely, Connecticut another and everybody else spoke English.  Now imagine if those people who spoke English all spoke a different version of English, according to which state they lived in.  Like, the folks in New Jersey spoke a slightly different English than New Yorkers.  Different enough that it was difficult for a New Jersey person to understand a New York person.  THEN, squish all of that entire land mass into an area the size of South Carolina, so they are all bumping into one another all of the time, (well, except for the people in Connecticut who never leave their state and are kind of spooky).  What to do?  How do they communicate with one another?

Answer:  teach them a FIFTH language in school when they are just children that then becomes the default language when they try to talk to one another.  Hence, in the body that is Switzerland that suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, Jan, Mario, Benno and Fabian communicate with each other in English, the default language.  Fabian and Mario even went so far as to learn each other’s languages in school, but neither one of them was willing to tackle Swiss German, so Jan is out of luck.  Benno and Jan both had to learn to write in High German, because neither one of their spoken languages translates well into a written language, so those two can communicate if they pass notes.

And that, my friends, is a tongue-in-cheek look at life in Switzerland.  Who benefits from this Multiple Personality Disorder?  Travelers!  You get the feel of three different countries/cultures, (four if you are brave enough to go to Graubunden) all within a few hours of each other.  Why go to Germany, France or Italy when you can just tool around little Switzerland and get the same flavor?  Fabulous, I tell you.

Allright, enough playtime.  Back to ironing and French tapes.  Wonder if the Rosetta Stone does a version in Romansch?

A Small Rant About Queuing/Queueing, or However the Hell You Spell It

The Swiss are genetically incapable of forming a queue, or line, as we call it in the US.  And I hate a line-butter.  (Or line-cutter, some people call them line-cutters).  Don’t you?

I saw it again, just this morning, in the Porto, Portugal airport trying to get on our flight to Geneva.  The very new, very nice little airport there in Porto has one serious design flaw.  There is only ONE entrance into EIGHT security lines.  It’s like 8 lanes of Los Angeles traffic merging down into one, except in reverse.  I mean, people had time to do their makeup, write a report and practice the Kama Sutra while waiting in this line.   Being from one of the two countries that understands proper queuing etiquette, i.e. the US and the UK, (and, I must admit, the UK folks are the crowned champion queuers—they can form a line out of spit, Kleenex and Popsicle sticks), Mr. Big and I took our place at the end of the line which was outside the terminal at the edge of  the parking lot.

When we finally made it about 90% up the line and caught our first glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, I saw them.  The f***ing Swiss.  Butting.  COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS, as always, that there was, indeed, a line of people snaking for about 4 kilometers back into the hinterlands.  I saw not one, but two, separate groups of travelers, who came directly out of the ticketing line where they had just handed off their Longchamps luggage and walk directly into the head of the queue!  I’m poking Mr. Big in the arm, “Look, look for it.  The red passport with the white cross.  Look for it, Mr. Big.”

Sure enough, Swiss passports to the man, but, more importantly, no guilt!  They don’t even know that they have butted into the head of a line that stretched back to Guam!!  And, even though I don’t understand a word of Portuguese, the natives in the line were pissed, too.  I could tell by undertone, the vibe, the body language.  Even little old ladies were pissed!  “Bah, F***ing Swiss!” is pretty much universal in any language.

Why do they think they are entitled to do this?  They are from a highly regulated country that manages to teach their infants not to cry on Sundays, (which, I suspect, involves the employment of duct tape from an alarmingly early age, but I cannot prove this).  Why can they not understand the concept of a line?  Here are a few more examples that make my teeth hurt:

On The Metro or Train.  When the doors open, it is polite and UNIVERSALLY UNDERSTOOD that one stands to the side and lets the disembarking passengers off first.  Simple concept, right?  Non, non, non.  They stand DIRECTLY at the opening of the doors and try to barge their way through the oncoming traffic and then have the gall to look MIFFED and, quite possibly, might let out with a disgruntled “Ssschuut!” if they are not let onto the Metro car immediately.

Getting on an Elevator:  If you have ever seen anyone get on an elevator first, immediately turn around and plant their body right in front, right in the middle, and, subsequently, force all of the other passengers to make their way around them like water going around a boulder in a stream, then that person was Swiss, guaranteed.    I ride the Metro every day.  At my Metro stop, I have to get on an elevator to get up to street level, so I have to experience this phenomenon at least once, if not two or three times per day.  And I have been studying them.  In depth.  Because this is soooooo annoying to me.

At first, I thought it was just little, old ladies who felt somehow entitled to interrupt proper elevator behavior.  Little, old ladies can be annoying in any country.  Let’s face it, they are kinda mean and scary, as a general rule.  But, sadly, no.  It is all age groups, both sexes, all socio-economic strati.  With one exception.  The moms who are pushing strollers always go to the back of the elevator and try to get to get out of everybody’s way.  So, here is a small cheer for the Swiss moms with little tykes.  Good for you.

Me, being the smart-ass that I am, I try to set an example.  I think to myself, “Self, we are going to teach these Swiss folks BY EXAMPLE how to properly queue.”  So, using PRONOUNCED body language, I make a big, exaggerated, sweeping move to the side when the Metro stops and show the natives how rewarding it is to let other people off the train before embarking.  I SKIP to the backs of elevators when I am lucky enough to get on first with a giant smile on my face.  “Look, Swiss people!!  This is how you do it!  You go to the BACK and you plant your ASS against the SIDE!”.

It is not working.  They don’t even look at me.  Perhaps if I start carrying Longchamps luggage, they will take me more seriously.

Haute Fondue

Summertime is about to roll around again here in La Suisse, and that means two things:  all planned construction projects of any sort get underway, and, your friends and family will start calling you with their anticipated travel dates.

I heard a pithy saying on one of the expat forums in answer to a poster who was complaining about the lack of a decent springtime.  A witty long-timer explained that, in Switzerland, there are only two seasons.  Winter and Construction Season.  I think the Swiss have decided that the day that the ferries on all the lakes swing into “summer season”, (this year it was April 17th), marks the official day that the cranes, scaffolding and road paving equipment gets dusted off and brought out of winter hibernation.  When I woke up on April 17th, five giant cranes had sprung up like crocuses off the view from my patio.  I’m like, hey!  Construction people!  You need to get those cranes out of here because I have guests coming this summer and you are spoiling my view, not to mention the pictures that they will inevitably take and later put on Facebook!  Because they are Swiss, however, and I was screaming in English, they did not listen and the cranes are all still there.  What to do?

Go up higher.  You think those gimungous mountains are there just to sit around and look pretty?  Hell, no!  We are Swiss and we are meant to go out and interact with them at every given opportunity.  We, (and I am including myself in this “we” only in the very loosest of definitions), hike up and down them, bike up and down them, ski down them, jump off them with parachutes, eat on top of them, paint them and swing between them on gondolas.  If you are feeling depressed by the cold, gray, drizzly weather, go up, young man!  Go up!  The mountains are so high that there are always a couple of them that poke up out of the clouds, (like where AIRPLANES go!), and, VOILA!, you will be in sunshine.  It will still be freezing, but it will be sunny.

So, right after the crane incident, I convinced Mr. Big that we needed to find somewhere to take our anticipated summer guests up above the clouds for some spectacular views and a little Haute Fondue.  (This is my new term, I’m copywriting it right now, this very second.  Haute Fondue.  Definition, consuming typical Swiss cuisine whilst perched on top of an Alp.)  Now, we already know of one place, Rochers-de-Naye, which is the peak up above the city of Montreaux.  We took the kids there last year and it was spectacular.  We spent the night in a yurt, ate Haute Fondue and hiked down the mountain back into Montreaux.  Fun stuff.  BUT, we had already taken two sets of guests there last year and if those same guests come back this year, we needed some new tricks up our sleeve, if you will.

Hence, Leysin.  Leysin is a mountain village up above Aigle.  (Lay-zah/Aay-gluh).  Up above Leysin lies a medium-sized mountain terminating at a peak called Berneuse.   You can drive or take the train as far as Leysin, but that, sistuh, is the end of the road, literally.  From Leysin, you must either a) hike up, b) bike up, c) take the telecabine up or d) just park your ass in one of the cafes and stay right where you are.  Well, it was a toss up, of course, between option c and option d for Mr. Big and I, but since we were on a fact-finding mission, we chose the telecabine and continued on our journey.

Sixteen franc each later, we arrived at the top.  We enjoyed the 360 degree views of at least 3 countries.  Now, mind you, in the winter, that telecabine takes you to the top of the ski slope where you will find, in winter, the prerequisite BAR, right?  Somewhere to consume your vin chaud between runs, right?  Like many other ski resorts, the bar is made of hollowed-out ice and snow.  It is, for all practical purposes, an igloo.  An igloo bar.  Get it?  Well, have you ever seen the remains of an igloo bar in the spring?  I have.  They just let it melt.  WHO KNEW?!!!  A half-melted igloo bar.  Sooooo weird.

While I was snapping photos of the Dali-esque melting igloo bar, Mr. Big is tugging on my sleeve.  “Look, Trailing Spouse, there are people jumping off this mountain.”  And, by Christ, they were.  We had stumbled upon one of the jumping-off points for the parapenters.  This is a crazy sport where completely insane people take a running start off of the side of a perfectly good 6,000 to 12.000 foot mountain with nothing but a parachute and a spare bottle of water. 

They float down and all around and land in like, Austria, or something.  We watched one girl, who was a beginner, who had to go with a guide, in a quasi-sexual tandem arrangement sort of like two spoons in a drawer, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, the girl and the trainer practiced their take-off, trying to get their steps in sync, until it was time for the actual jump. 

Will she do it?  Will she chicken out?  How will she actually make herself take that last and final step into thin air?  She did it.  I was like, you go girl, you crazy thing.  I will be in the restaurant if you need me.

Ahh, the restaurant.  It SPINS!  How fabulous.  Rotating Haute Fondue!  If you want to Google it, the name of the restaurant is Kuklos.  Just type in Kuklos Berneuse and you can see pictures of it.  Alas, our meal was too soon over and it was time to hike down the mountain back to the car.  What!  You thought I was such a wimp that I would take the telecabine back down?  Puhleez!  I am semi-Swiss.  I can hike DOWN mountains.  I bike DOWN mountains.  Only complete dweebs/really old/really drunk people take the telecabine back DOWN the mountain.  It’s the Swiss Walk of Shame, riding back down.  (It’s also the Swiss Walk of Shame taking the telecabine UP the mountain, but I prefer not to think about that.  As I said, only SEMI-Swiss.)

Because it was only May, ahem, the first leg of our journey back down was in snow.  The little lake up at the top had, apparently, only thawed out the weekend before, because the frogs were highly confused.  Ha!  There’s a sentence you don’t see very often.  Yes, we had to watch our step in the snow because the frogs were EVERYWHERE.  Mr. Big and I could not figure out if they had just come out of the recently frozen lake and were trying to make their way to higher ground or if they had been in hibernation somewhere and were trying to make their way to their now unfrozen lake.  Regardless, frogs hopping across vast snowfields was quite a sight to behold.

After a refreshing two hour hike, we arrived back in Leysin.  My friends who are reading this back in the States are laughing their heads off right now.  Trailing Spouse and a Two Hour Hike are two phrases that would never have gone together in a million years in my old life.  Trailing Spouse and a Chocolate Martini, yes.  Trailing Spouse and a Nice Long Sunday Nap, yes.  Trailing Spouse and a Two Hour Shopping Spree at the Mall, of course.  Oh, how times have changed.

BTW, tomorrow is the 1st of June.  Last night, it snowed at 1,500 meters and yesterday I had to wear a winter coat, scarf and boots to walk down to the lake to have Sunday brunch and read my (London) Times.  I’m thinking my summer guests will not have to pack a bathing suit this year to come and visit me.  A parka, yes.  Bikini, umm, not lookin’ so good.  But the Haute Fondue will be excellent!

One For The Boys

I’m going to try to do two posts this week because we are going to Bilbao, Spain for the next seven days and I don’t know if we are going to have reliable internet.  Plus, I might just be too busy eating tapas and enjoying the sunshine to write in the blog!  (Is that how you say it?  Write IN the blog?  Or, is it write ON the blog, or FOR the blog?  Which one?  I have no idea.)

Seems like I’m guilty of skewing all of my blog entries towards women and what we find interesting.  That’s only natural I suppose, because, having no penis myself, I tend to write from a feminine perspective.  This time I’m going to try to make it a little more interesting for all of those MALE Trailing Spouses out there, of which there are many.  Hi, Guys!

Also, I have another reason for writing one about the guys.  Lots of my single friends and ALL of Charming Daughter’s friends want to know about Swiss men in general and, specifically, how to find one.  Ahem.

APPEARANCE/ATTIRE:  This one is easier for European and UK men to adapt to than it is for American men.  Guys on this side of the Atlantic are ALREADY skinny, wear bowling shoes and are comfortable with taking public transportation.  You poor saps to the west of Iceland have got a major learning curve to master, however.  Sorry.

North American bodies just do not fit in European clothes.  Mr. Big is not a fat guy, but he has not missed many meal, either, if you get my drift.  He has not purchased one item of casual or dress clothing, or dress shoes, for that matter, over here.  They just don’t fit!  He wears a 36 inch waist.  Now, in the US, that is a very normal size.  Over here, that will be the largest size on the rack, if they have it at all.  Shoes are long enough, but they are all really narrow.  These are PINCHING me, Trailing Spouse!  OK, Mr. Big, there is no need to whine.

Guys, if you normally wear pleated khakis or dress pants, you are out of luck.  It is all flat front, all the time.  Suits have double vents, not single.  And, BTW, Swiss men wear suits a lot.  Here is a handy, dandy list:

1.       Monday through Friday, wear a suit.  No seersucker.  No corduroy.  Linen, OK in summer.
2.       Learn to knot a scarf.
3.       Dress shirts are NEVER button-down, only spread collar permitted.
4.       French cuffs are de rigueur, worn all the time, not only with tuxedos.
5.       Black, grey, taupe, brown, navy—all OK.  Plaid, no.  Madras, no.  Crazy golf pants with ships or lobsters embroidered on them?  No, no, no.
6.       Bowling shoes, yes.  Sneakers, no.
7.       Shorts?  You had better be on a bicycle,  playing tennis or swimming.  Otherwise, no.

MAKING FRIENDS:  This is where I feel really sorry for male Trailing Spouses.  All of the Swiss men are at work in their banks counting their francs.  All of the younger, single guys are at school in the University.  I really don’t know what you can do during the day to meet friends unless you hook up with some female Trailing Spouses and join us on our walks and coffee breaks, (and by this I mean short walks and long coffee breaks).  Speaking for myself, if you are near Lausanne, we’d love to have you join our walking group, if you are willing to discuss recipes and gossip about Swiss idiosyncrasies!   If you have kids that you are taking care of then you can meet some Moms and complain about the Swiss school system that sends your precious charges home every day for one and a half hours at lunch time as well as the 13 weeks of school holidays.  You guys really have to expend some effort to make “daytime” friends.  Much more than women do, because we are all organizers at heart.  I feel for you, truly.

Evening rolls around, however, and you should be good to go.  This is when the University boys and the other men who have been trapped in their homes all day come out to play.  (NOTE:  the Swiss idea of “out to play” means between 19:00 and 22:00 hours!)  Make sure you live in a “big” city and you will find an English-speaking pub.  (By big, I mean anything over 30,000 people).  Learn to love soccer/football and pick a favorite team.  Learn to have a love/hate relationship with Swiss beer, (mostly hate, from what I understand), and learn to call your “friends” your “mates”.  Done.  

DRIVING:  I cannot speak for any other European countries, but if you drive a car in Switzerland, you will accrue many speeding tickets from the ubiquitous speed cameras and you will wreck your car while parking.  Just get over it right now.  Mr. Big has amassed 7 speeding tickets and 3 major wrecks and 2 minor wrecks in 13 months.  At first, he was apopleptic.  Now, he is resigned.  Still, it is his number one topic of conversation with ANYONE, natives or visitors alike.  How can a man who managed to drive for 30 years without one single wreck and a handful of speeding tickets fall to such depths?  I don’t know.  I take the bus, fellas.

SPORTS:  If you are moving to Switzerland, learn to ski.  Learn to ride a bike, the kind where you wear a pointy helmet, a lycra outfit and hunch over your handlebars at a 90 degree angle.  Learn to hike up a mountain without having a stroke.  Learn to love soccer and sailing; UNlearn your love for American football and golf.  Mr. Big has even taken up roller-blading.  You heard me.  If you have ever seen anything more ridiculous than a 50 year-old man on roller blades, let me know.  Because I think he is winning that particular title.  Honey, do you want me to buy you some roller blades?  Um, no thanks, Mr. Big.  You look ridiculous.  What?!  I do not!  Um, yes.  You do.  Enough said.

And, now, for Charming Daughter’s girlfriends.  HOW TO GET A SWISS MAN TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU AND TAKE YOU TO HIS CHALET IN THE SKY IN HIS HORSE-DRAWN SLEIGH:

1.        Learn to say “Gruetzi”, (gruuut-zee, emphasis on the gruuut).
2.       Be blonde.  Be skinny.  Have smallish or medium-sized boobs and white teeth.
3.       Do not shout.  Europeans whisper or don’t say anything at all.
4.       Wear big sunglasses.
5.       Finance is sexy.  Whisper sweet nothings in his ear like “I hear the franc and the euro might be in parity by 2012”.
6.       Wear black.
7.       Ski black diamonds.
8.       Learn to live on 1.5 meals a day; one of which will be yogurt and one of which will be salad and fondue.
9.       Eat only meat that originated in Switzerland.
10.   Opt for a skinny wedding band but a fabulous Swiss watch.

Ciao, ciao.  I’m off to Espagne and a week of cheap shopping and great food!

Short Takes

First of all, thanks to the many of you Future Trailing Spouses who have been contacting me in Switzerland.  (When you post a comment on the blog, I get a personal email at my house.  How cool is that!  Who knew!)  I’m glad I can be of help in saving your sanity.  It is very scary, yes, but it is imminently do-able.  Just keep persevering.  Soon you will be like me and find yourself looking for “For Sale”, (A Vendre), signs on your little weekend junkets or bike rides because you suspect you may never be going home—full-time, at any rate.  Plus, it is practically impossible to buy any property here unless you have at least a “B” permit.  Strike while the iron is hot is what I say!  You can’t go home later and THEN decide that you were an idiot to not buy that chalet while you had the Golden Ticket.

Bleach has become my new brown sugar.  I used to own a restaurant so I am a complete and total bleach freak.  By bleach, I mean Clorox, full-strength, full-bore, make-your-nostrils-stick-together-when-you-sniff-it bleach.  Well, you cannot buy it here.  I have looked in the restaurant supply store here in Lausanne.  I have looked in grocery stores and hardware stores and automotive stores and garden stores.  I’ll bet I have about 6 bottles of “Quasi-Swiss-Bleach” in my cupboard right now that I thought might be right, but, no.  None of them are right.  They are all some completely watered-down, funky-ass version of “Green” bleach.  They don’t even smell like bleach.   When you take off the little foil cap, the smell is so benign, I think you could probably drink straight from the bottle and not suffer any side effects.  Ouzo is stronger than the bleach available here.  Gerber Peas are stronger than the bleach here.  Anyway, I tried to smuggle a gallon of Clorox in my suitcase two days ago from the US.  That shit never even made it out of Charlotte, North Carolina.  Some TSA wench brought that Clorox home and is doing her laundry with it as we speak.  When I finally arrived in Lausanne and unpacked, there was a charming little note from the US Transportation Authority advising me that they had “relieved” me of my bleach.  Because it is a hazardous material.  I’m like, PEOPLE, how can it be a hazardous material when they sell it at Walgreen’s and Piggly Wiggly?   The No-Bleach thing is driving me crazy.  I have yet to find a solution, no pun intended.

Mr. Big and I are in a war.  We are “Mountain-Stupid”.  That is not something that you admit here in Heidi Land unless you are among close friends, (of which ex-pats have none).  Anyway ,there is a giant mountain located somewhere on the other side of our lake.  Perhaps you have heard of it.  It is called MONT BLANC.  Ha.  Mr. Big thinks it is the mountain that you can only see once you are in the Geneva vicinity.  I swear it is the biggest mountain located directly right off our deck in our straight line of vision out of Lausanne.  We have poured over Google Earth.  We have looked at Michelin maps.  We fight constantly about this.  Please.  Please.  If anyone out there can direct us to a website that shows the view off of the Port d’Ouchy in Lausanne and the names of every individual mountain peak, you might, possibly, save a marriage.  I’m just sayin’. 

We need a little map WITH ARROWS pointing down to the mountain peaks so we know what the hell we are talking about.  Because, obviously, we don’t.  And Mr. Big is an engineer.  But still.  This topography thing is hard.  YOU try it and then we’ll talk.

I would like to coin a new term, right here, right now.  XP-PS.  Ex-Pat Postal Service.  No kidding, I am going to copyright this XP-PS.  Formerly known as Checked Baggage.  Well.  They are going to charge us anyway for all of our checked baggage on airplanes.  Why not call it what it is?  There was a precious post on an ex-pat forum from a frantic Mom in Switzerland the other day who couldn’t find Star Wars stuff for her 5-year-old’s birthday party.   Bless her heart, she must be very new to Switzerland .  She actually thought she could go in a random party store in Basel and find Anakin Skywalker balloons and plates just lurking there on Aisle 3.   Um, no.  Cows, possibly.  Alphorns, definitely.  Darth Vader?  No.  So, I emailed her and told her that I was in the US for 19 days and would be happy to bring back her Star Wars party supplies VIA the XP-PS.   I think the Customs Authority people in every single country must crack up every, single day looking at what ex-pats put in their luggage.    I will be trademarking the name shortly.  Remember it, people.  XP-PS.  Overloading Baggage With Contraband Items One Suitcase At A Time.

Something else I love besides XP-PS:  Friends Who Don’t Forget You.  This was my real topic when I started today’s blog entry.   One of the things Mr. Big’s company required us to do before we moved, was to have a “consultation” with a trainer/psychologist who specialized in ex-pat acclimatization.  (That is a very hard word to spell.)    This was the BIGGEST WASTE OF TIME  AND MONEY EVER.  Seriously.  The numb-nuts guy who was assigned to us had never spent a moment outside of Cleveland, Ohio and, maybe, if I’m being generous, Detroit   Ever.  And he was supposed to make me feel OK about moving to Switzerland.  Puhleez.  American Corporate Waste Of Money.  Par for the course.  OK, whatever, I have learned to go with the flow.   I was really craving some good, solid, specific, information (about procuring bleach and brown sugar and how to throw away a broken lawn chair!) and what I got was a bunch of drivel on acclimating and my FEELINGS and whatnot.  DUDE!  STOP!  Have you ever been to Switzerland?  And if the answer is no, then go “help” someone else!  Because you don’t have a flippin’ clue!  Go curl up in your Lazy-Boy, click on your ESPN, buy your chips and beer at Walmart and try not to think about me here in the land where THERE IS HORSE MEAT ON THE SHELF IN THE GROCERY STORE!  Anyway, I’ll never forget one thing he said to us.

“Mr. and Mrs. Big”.

“Yes”.

“If I cannot stress one thing enough, it is this.  You need to make new friends in Switzerland because your old friends will eventually forget you.”

Huh?  My friends better not forget me because I will come back and beat them with a cow bell on a handtooled leather strap!  What was he talking about?  Apparently, surveys show, that “old” friends move on with their lives and forget about us because we are not there on a day-to-day basis.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Do not listen to the so-called experts.  Our friends are just as wonderful as they always were and we still get invited to every little cocktail party and BBQ, even though they know we are not coming.  They go out of their way to plan future get-togethers for the times they know we are going to be home. 

Mr. Big has installed a telephone that sits here in our living room in Switzerland BUT has is a local South Carolina phone number!  I think it is probably illegal but I don’t care.  (It’s made by a company called Vonage, for those of you who want to be illegal with me).  Anyway, what a marvelous electronic item!  I get so excited when it rings!  (Except at 2 a.m.).  That’s the only drawback—if people are dialing a Swiss number with the plus sign and country code and a long list of digits, this triggers them to remember that we are six hours ahead.  When they are just dialing a local number—no mental trigger.  Hence, more phone calls in the wee hours.  A small price to pay for keeping in touch.  So, here’s to good friends, Facebook and an illegal US phone.  Long may they live!

BTW, if you want to link directly from this blog to Facebook, my tech-savvy sister has installed the “like” button up on the top left of this screen.  It will take you directly to the Trailing Spouse Blog page on Facebook.  Bonne weekend!  Trailing Spouse

Tap Water Do’s and Dont's

I ate lunch by myself in a chain restaurant in the US yesterday and suffered jarring reverse-culture shock.  I had heard this happens to ex-pats upon returning home for a visit or when their overseas assignments are finished, but it was disconcerting, nonetheless.  Yes, ex-pats complain about things in their new country, but even as they are complaining, they are subconsciously getting used to their “new normal”, in spite of themselves.

America has an abundance of chain restaurants.  The one I stopped in yesterday was called Ruby Tuesday’s.  These types of restaurants are virtually interchangeable with one another, i.e. lots of leather booths, a big bar with a few overhead TVs tuned to ESPN or CNN, a chirpy hostess who walks you to your seat and menus that are as thick as a Sunday New York Times.  They have silly names like Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, Bennigan’s, etc.  Whatever the name, it’s a safe bet that a diner will be a) expected to graze out of a salad bar at some point and b)served a portion of food that could feed a Swiss family for a week.

So, I walk in to the restaurant by myself with my USA Today under my arm to read while I am eating so I don’t look like a total dweeb who has zero friends, and the aforementioned chirpy hostess leads me to the table she has chosen for me for my subsequent dining pleasure.   I have no problem with that, I am, in fact, expecting it.  This is not Europe where you pick your own table, it is America where you are seated according to a complex rotation system devised by the management to ensure that each waiter/waitress gets an equal number of diners.  Amazing to think that American young people can’t do math in school to save their life, yet can easily understand and execute intricate matrices when it comes to their tip allocation!

Here is where I started feeling all out of whack.  There was a waiter at my table before I had even finished sitting down.  I’m talking my knees were still bent and my butt was still hovering over the chair.  Hi!  My name is Mark!  Can I get you something to drink to start you off?  Well, Mark.  Do you think I could possibly finish sitting, let alone open my menu, before ordering?

But then, I remembered the cadence of dining in America.  You order a drink first without even looking at the menu.  This is only possible because the restaurant will have WHATEVER you desire.  Raspberry lemonade?  Sure.  J & B Scotch with a splash of club soda?  Of course and would you like a twist of lemon with that or a kumquat wedge?  Sprite Zero?  Frozen Cherry Margarita?  Diet Yoo-Hoo?  Yes, yes, yes.  Whatever you want, they’ve got it.  They have to have it because if they don’t, it might be reflected later in their tip and that would be a very, very bad thing.

Well, I’m conditioned to dining in Europe, so I want wine with my meal, of course.  I catch myself just before I make the mistake of asking for the (nonexistent) wine list and just say “what kind of red wine do you have?”  Cabernet or Merlot.  That’s how you order wine in America.  By the grape.  The restaurant will have only one or two kinds of Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet and if they’ve really gone crazy, perhaps a bottle of Pinot Noir or Pinot Grigio.  Don’t even ask for Rose because you will be served a ghastly pink substance called White Zinfandel that is so sweet it makes your cavities ache.   Also, you have only two choices in quantity.  A glass or a bottle.  If you order 2 decis or a carafe or a demi-pichet, they won’t understand you.  To review, just order a “glass/bottle” of “type of grape”.

While Mark scurries off to get my Merlot, I open the menu and begin to browse.  I have barely skimmed the appetizer section when he is back with a ginormous glass of wine, (it was at least 3 decis of wine, I swear, in one glass.  3 decis of wine would cost 27 dollars in Switzerland),  a large glass of tap water with ice and a request for my food order.    Y’all, I have literally been in my chair about six minutes.  I haven’t even opened my USA Today!  Deep breaths.  Deep breaths.  I ask him for a few more minutes to peruse the rest of the 18 pages of the menu.  At this point, Mark is starting to get on my nerves.  Stop hovering, Mark!  Go away!  I will make eye contact with you when I need you, or, if necessary, raise a discreet index finger.  But until I give you the high sign, get the hell outta here!

I just needed a few moments to admire my glass of water.

A)      I hadn’t even ordered it.  It just appeared, as if by magic.
B)      It was free.
C)      It had a dizzying amount of ice in it.  So much ice, that there was actual, physical condensation raining down the outside of the glass.
D)     There was a (free) slice of lemon in it.

A thing of beauty.  We have a referendum before the voters in the canton where I live in Switzerland right now regarding water in restaurants.  Here’s the deal.  All diners order water when dining out.  It is understood that this will be bottled water.  It is understood that it will cost money and the only thing you need to express to the waiter is whether this will be sparkling or still.  HOWEVER.  There has been a recent backlash of late all over Europe against high-priced bottled water because it’s not “green” and, most importantly to those of us in Switzerland, our tap water is delicious. 

My particular tap water is Evian water.  Not kidding.  You can skip a good, flat rock across the lake to Evian, France from my house.  Our water comes from the same aquifer, but they took the name first, the little Frogs.  The Swiss had to call their brand Henniez.  Have you ever heard of Henniez?  Of course not.  Can you even pronounce Henniez?  Of course not.  Neither can I, but that’s not the point.

Anyway, here’s the issue before the legislature.  Do the people of the canton of Vaud have a RIGHT to free tap water with their meal?  Or do the restaurants have a RIGHT to charge for the tap water?  This is an issue because minimum wage is $22 per hour and so who will pay for the time it takes to fill and deliver these free glasses of water and who will pay to wash and dry the free water glasses is the question on the table.  A dilemma of epic proportions, to be sure.   In the canton of Appenzell, they had to have a vote on whether or not to ban nude hiking; we have to vote on free tap water in restaurants.  It’s a funny place, La Suisse.

Back to my lunch.  I must confess, I did go a little overboard with the salad bar, just because there were so many choices and it was a nice change of pace from the Euro green salad.  If you order a green salad in Europe, you get a plate of lettuce with French dressing (which is white, by the way, not orangey-red).  The lunch main course arrived about 2 minutes after I started eating my salad.  I was thinking “Mark.  Dude.  I’m still eating my abundant salad.  Why are you here with my crab cake?”  But I bit my tongue and just sort of pushed the crab cake out of the way to send a message to Mr. Speedy that he was rushing me.

Apparently, Mark is not good with subtle hints because he was back, uninvited, unneeded and unwanted in approximately 3 minutes.  WITH THE BILL!!  I was just digging into my salad and barely getting into the Life section of my newspaper and the article on who is anticipated to win American Idol,  and there he was like a bad penny.  He tucks the bill under the side of the crab cake plate which hasn’t even been touched yet.  “I’ll take that whenever you’re ready.”  Big American Smile.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was stunned.  Was I being kicked out?  I’d only been in the restaurant for about 20 minutes, tops, and I was being presented with a bill.  I checked my armpits to make sure that I wasn’t sweating up the place and offending my fellow diners.  All clear there.

Here’s a hint for American waiters and waitresses if they think they may have a European guest.

A)      Don’t call yourself a server.  A European will have no idea what you are talking about.  They know waiter and they know waitress.  A server is a porcelain platter on which one serves food or the piece of furniture in the dining room off of which one serves food.  A server is not a person.
B)      Stop rushing!  A typical meal in Europe takes AT THE LEAST 1.5 hours and that is at McDonald’s or Starbucks.  A meal in a regular restaurant is 2 hours, minimum.  No exaggeration.
C)      Do not be surprised if Europeans only order one bottle of wine for four people and that bottle will last through the entire dinner.
D)     They will, (eventually!), order dessert, even with lunch.  This comes BEFORE the coffee, not with, and after the cheese.  Coffee is the last and final course.
E)      By coffee, they mean espresso, served with one creamer, a pack of real sugar and a teeny, tiny chocolate bar.

F)      Never, ever, ever bring the bill before the guests have specifically asked for it.  The bill, l’addition, la cuenta, die rechnung, is the end.  They are telling you they are ready to leave.  It is a universal signal everywhere except America, where it only means that the server is washing his/her hands of that particular table.  They are saying, “My job here is done.  See you!  Don’t forget to leave a healthy tip!”
G)     Free water is a very, very good thing, especially when they are only drinking one or two little glasses of wine each over the course of two hours.

On a final note, stop worrying about your tip.  They have read the guide books for America just like you do when you go over there.  They are well aware that you survive on tips and make $2.20 per hour.  They think you are crazy, but they understand they must tip you 15% so you can go buy things in Walmart.  You will always get a 15% tip from a European unless you do something heinous like bring their bill while they are still on their first course.

I’ll let you know what the Swiss decide on the free water issue.  I can tell you, however, that if you want to hike in the nude, you cannot do it in Appenzell.