Home!

Well, just a brief note. We are back home in Texas, our cell phones and home internet finally turned on, and all of our things have arrived as well (though we’re only half-way through the unpacking process – when did we acquire so much stuff?).

Many of you have asked what I’ll be doing with this blog in the meantime. I keep up with most of my friends on Facebook, and while this blog has documented some aspects of our life in Switzerland, it was more of a travelog than anything else. I have a bunch of day-trips that we took that I’ve not yet documented here, so I’ll continue to do that for a while until I run out of material. And of course, any future adventures will be documented here.

Hope all of you are well. Happy New Year!

Our Schedule…

In case anyone wants to know how crazy things are, and how you might be able to fit in and help…

Hey Look!

I’m now on Expat Blog:

Unexpected Christmas Difficulties

He may be a little young for it, but we decided to get our son a toddler bike similar to this one:

Most kids here learn to ride a bike this way, and they start as a toddler. He might not use it much until this spring, but since there are such a wide variety of these bikes we wanted to get him one while we were here and had the means to ship it home.

I found a model on sale at one of the larger local stores, and need to do some grocery shopping. I lugged back my groceries and this large box with the bike in it as well as one of those “doodle-pads” (the latter of which we hope to use to keep him occupied on the plane). And it was raining and cold. It was one of the rare times I wished I had a car.

As soon as I walked in the door my overly excited husband started opening up the box. He’s really loving being a father, and can’t wait to help his son ride a bike. Being Switzerland, he of course found instructions in German, Italian, and French. “Good luck, honey,” I said as I went to put my groceries away. I’m pretty proud of him, though. Using only the pictures, and asking me for help with one word in French, he put the wee bike together.

Some Helpful Langauge for Visiting (Northern) Switzerland

Ok, so my phonetics are probably a bit off, but I thought this might help someone so I’m publishing it anyway. One of our visiting friends wanted to learn a few more phrases, so I made this list for her of the words and phrases I use the most in my every day speech here in northern Switzerland and I think would be most helpful to a visitor. These are spelled as I hear them, definitely not written correctly. The accented syllables are in all-caps. I also simplified the pronunciations, as the subtleties in the language are hard to understand unless you hear them.

Hello/Good Day: GROOT-zee

Good Bye: Off-VEE-der-shane *or you can say* AD-dju

Please/You’re Welcome: BIT-eh

Thank You: DANK-eh

Good Evening: SHONE-en-AH-big

Good Morning: GOO-teh MORG-eh *or you can say* MORG-eh

Check, Please!: TZAHL-en BIT-eh

Excuse me/Pardon me: en-TCHOOL-deh-gung *or you can say* eh-SKOOSE-ee

How much does this cost?: vee feel costet das?

I am sorry, I don’t speak German. Do you know English?: en-TCHOOL-deh-gung, ich SPREK-eh KINE-eh deutsch. KENnen-zee ANG-lish?

Bag or Sack: TASH-eh

A few numbers:
1 ein
2 svie
3 dry (or in Swiss German “dru”)
4 fear
5 funf
6 sex
7 zeben
8 ahhcht
9 noyn
10 zehn

Feel free to correct my pitiful attempt or add to it.

Vocabulary Fun!

Even though I got really frustrated with learning German, it wasn’t always a struggle. One of the interesting things about learning German is how certain really long words are just a series of words strung together. Once you figure out which word is what, you can usually decipher most or all of the word. One of my favorite words to say (that I have utterly no use for in everyday conversation) is the word for hot air balloon: Heissluftballon. Heiss is hot, Luft is air, and Ballon is balloon. Easy!

I also like how clear-cut and logical the language can be. The word for shoe is Schuhe. The word for gloves is Handschuhe. Get it?

I think that with any language, the first words you should learn are yes, no, hello, please, thank you, and good-bye. Swiss German has some really unique alterations to those basic commands. Most Swiss folks drop the “n” sound off the end of nein, and sometimes their ja sounds more like a “joh”. Bitte is always “please,” but I’ve heard about a half a dozen variations on how to say “thank-you.” The proper (high German) way to say thank-you is Danke schön. You’ll also hear Vielen Dank, Merci Vilmal, Danke Vilmal, Danke, and Merci (said with a German and not French accent). Saying hello the wrong way can also immediately place you as an outsider. Guten Tag may be the proper way to say hello in German, but everyone in (northern) Switzerland always says Grüezi. For more than one person, you can say what I like to call the translation of “Howdy Y’all” or Grüezi Mitenand. You can also tack on the word Mitenand to your good morning (Guete Morge, short for Guten Morgen) and good evening. I have no idea how to spell how the Swiss say good evening, much less pronounce it, but it is a take on the proper Guten Abend and sounds like “chairnobik” to me. The Swiss good-bye is different from high German as well, though you will hear a lot of shop folks say Auf Wiedersehen because it is considered polite. Uf Widerluege is goodbye, but so is the more informal Tschüss or Ciao!

And of course, in any language, you need to know how to order a beer: ein bier, bitte!

Eddie has a German picture book (Mein kunterbuntes Wörterbuch) with all kinds of vocabulary in it – food, animals, parts of the body. I think one of the funniest is the word for skunk, an animal that only lives in the Americas: Stinktier or literally “stinky animal!”

NOTE: In case you were wondering, all proper nouns when written in German have the first letter capitalized, which makes me a little nuts, but I wrote it correctly in this post.

Makes Cents!

Pardon the pun. I recently saw an article about the decline of popularity of the American penny. It got me thinking about the Swiss money system. The Swiss equivalent of a cent is a rappen. You can only get rappen as small as 5. The denominations are 5, 10, 20, and 50.

Also, the Swiss Franc paper money doesn’t start until the 10 Franc note. You can only get smaller Francs as coins in denominations of 1, 2, and 5. Another interesting note (ha! full of puns today!), if you withdraw money from an ATM, you will receive the highest denominations possible, unless you select otherwise (if the option for smaller denominations is available). Heath’s eyes bugged out the first time the ATM spat out a 200 CHF note at him instead of a wad of 20’s.

All in all, I think the Swiss system is, I think. Although I did have to buy a new wallet with a coin-holder!

And the cow says… MOO!

Sorry, we’ve been reading far more children’s books than adult’s books lately. But it relates to my quick post of the day. For some reason over the past week or so, if I have the north-facing windows open, I will quite clearly hear a bellowing cow. The nearest ones I know of are a handful that were brought from some higher pastures to some pastures that are in between the line of houses of our area and the wooded walking trails. Like this guy:

And he’s probably a half a mile away! I guess that the acoustics of living on the side of a hill account for some of it, and that the cows here are just really loud.

Interesting snacks

I always like to try new food items and you never know what wacky food combinations will work well. This week I grabbed two new snacks, Snips and Schoko Pfeffer-Nüsse, and two favorites I discovered last year, Lebkuchen and Quarkini.

Snips are the same consistency of Cheetos (maybe a little less gummy on the teeth), and instead of cheese flavoring, they are made with peanuts. It is sort of like eating puffed rice peanut butter. Not bad, but not something I think I’ll be madly craving when we go back to the states.

Despite my hope that all things Christmas would not appear in shops until after Thanksgiving, most grocery stores have started selling Christmas candy and cookies. In one such display at the checkout line, I grabbed a bag labeled Schoko Pfeffer-Nüsse. Schoko is short for schokolade, or chocolate. Pfeffer is pepper, but I temporarily forgot this, and thought it meant peppermint. And Nüsse is nuts. I was hoping it was some sort of chocolate peppermint and nut cookie. No such luck. These were a soft gingerbread cookie flavored with real pepper, and dipped in a chocolate and unknown white candy shell. Not all that great, and I’m a fan of mixing things like chili and chocolate.

My favorite treat right now is definitely the Lebkuchen. They sell it in little packages and at the markets and grocery stores. Even the cheap ones at the drug stores are good! The Swiss version of Lebkuchen is a tiny (usually heart-shaped) cake or really soft gingerbread cookie, filled with a dark apricot preserve, and the whole thing dipped in dark chocolate. They are extremely addictive, and I will buy as many bags as I can to take home with us.

Last but certainly not least is the Quarkini, found at local bakeries. They remind me of a cross between a really good Cruller donut with a slightly creamy, but light and airy center, shaped like a large donut-hole and rolled in sugar. I’m not sure why these only appear in the winter, but I love them! They almost never make them home, as we eat them while walking. Too bad they usually cost at least a Franc each, because I could probably eat a dozen at one sitting! Based on the name, I believe that these treats are made with Quark (a type of curd or cream cheese that is often added to desserts or yogurt over here).

Quarkini

All this snack-talk is making me nibbly. I think I’ll go see if there are any more Lebkuchen in the pantry!

Altstadt Market in Winterthur

One of my favorite things about Switzerland is all the local food. I’m a big advocate, whenever possible, to eat locally and try to reduce our carbon footprint by regularly eating goods that are transported hundreds or thousands of miles. The Swiss are very proud of their local foods, and all foods are required to have the country of origin located somewhere on the packaging (or in the case of the grocery store, on the sign). Sometimes you pay a bit more for Swiss goods, but I think it is worth it.

Every Tuesday and Friday in the Winterthur altstadt (old town), there is a farmers market. I’m not sure what time the shops set up, but at 10:45 AM every one of them begins packing up goods (but a please and a smile will get you a few last-minute goods). Usually all of the food is local, with perhaps cherries from France or olives from Greece, but usually no further than that. There are copious amounts of small farms with stands packed with the season’s best and tons of florists. (The Swiss are keen to keep fresh flowers on the graves and in their window boxes. I’ve seen some truly outstanding gardens as well.) There are also two fish stands, a number of cheese and bread stands, some selling fresh homemade pasta, and a tiny spot for a lady that only sells fresh organically grown herbs.

I love going there whenever I can. The folks are always incredibly nice and helpful. I often get free samples offered to me, and sometimes they’ll toss something extra in my bag when I buy stuff. I’ve gotten free mushrooms, a bag of fresh egg noodles, extra Japanese Lantern shells, and even extra apples. Unless there is an event in the altstadt, pretty much each shop is in the same spot every week. It is nice when I want to say, just get some fish and some bread, or I’m craving a slice of lemon chocolate chip cake from a baked goods stand that is all the way at one end of the market line.

The market is year-round, but there are fewer stalls in the early spring, when there’s not much produce to sell other than stored apples and potatoes and eggs. During the month of December the Christmas Market competes for space in the altstadt. Practically each town in Switzerland has a farmers market once or twice a week – there’s even one in the middle of the busy Zurich hauptbahnhof (main train station)!

Here’s a few pictures of my cherished Winterthur market, mostly taken earlier in the summer.

Announcement!

We are moving back to Texas in January!

Lots of details still to be ironed out, but I’m sad, happy, worried, and stressed all at once.

We still plan to take a few more day trips and at least one weekend trip within Switzerland, so I’m sure I’ll have more to post in the next few months. I’ve also got a backlog of posting that I keep meaning to get around to. And since this blog isn’t just about us living in Switzerland, but also about our travels, I’ll be sure to update any future interesting adventures.

Touring Switzerland and the rest of Europe

I was thinking today about how many places we’ve seen and explored here in Switzerland over the last year and few months that we’ve lived here and how much more we want to see, not just of Switzerland, but of Europe.

Even though I’ve not written about all of them here on this blog, here are some of the places we’ve been to. The ones that have an tic mark are ones we want to go back to and explore again:

• Appenzell
• Bern
• Basel *
• Baden
• Luzern/Lucerne *
• Montreaux *
• Schaffhausen
• Stein am Rhein *
• Zurich *
• Winterthur
• Rapperswil
• St. Gallen
• Mountains: Pilatus, Titlus, Santis, Rigi, Jungfrau, and one whose name escapes me
• Bellinzona
• Locarno
• Interlaken *

Here are some of the places and things left that we want to see and do in Switzerland:

• Alpfahrt and Alpabfahrt (cow parade between high and low pastures)
• Aargau
• Chur
• Neuchatel
• Tobogganing in Interlaken
• Sion
• Zermatt (where the Matterhorn is)
• Geneva (we went through it, but didn’t get to explore it)
• Montreaux Jazz Festival
• Gruyeres – to see the cheese making and the nearby factory of Callier (chocolate)
• Schweiz – the heart of Switzerland and its namesake
• Thur Cathedral
• Lugano
• Kronbrog – Summer Toboggan run (train stop at Jakobsbad)
• Hergiswill – glassworks
• Urnersee
• Kloster Einseideln
• Glacier Express (despite its name, it is a slow scenic train ride through the mountains)
• Maienfeld (origin of the novel Heidi)
• Sierre
• Leukerbad and Lotschental
• Regensburg
• Oberhofen on the Thunersee

Outside of Switzerland, there’s tons more to explore, if only we had the time and more importantly the money. Even living here, travel isn’t cheap, and the dollar is currently suffering quite pitifully in comparison to the Euro. And recently, the dollar has taken a severe dive against the Swiss Franc – huge problem for us, because we are still paid in US dollars, and were using the exchange rate as sort of a buffer against the high cost of living here. But enough about money, how about some hopefully attainable dreams?

Team Building Hiking Trip and the Alp Aufzug

A month or so ago (I’m late as usual to posting events) my husband went on a Team Building hiking trip thing. His team took a train to bus to a cable car up a mountain, and then hiked back down the mountain, going down on scooters partway, and stopping for the occasional beer. The day ended with dinner together. It was an all-day thing, and even though he was pretty tired at the end, my husband had a blast.

On their way up the mountain, though, Heath encountered a really special parade – one I’d hoped to see during my time in Switzerland, but have thus far missed: the parade of cows from the high pasture to the low pasture in the fall (and vice-versa in the spring), called Alp Aufzug. This is a very integral part of Swiss rural culture. Lots of tourists and Swiss citizens flock to small alpine towns to view the parades. There’s often a specific traditional order and custom to the parades. The one that Heath saw started with children leading goats, and then the adult men in their bright vests leading cows wearing huge bells. And at the end was a man in brown. I’ve seen photographs of other parades where women wear traditional costumes including a fantastic headdress that looks like it belongs in the movie Dune and men blowing those huge Alpine horns at the end of the day. I missed it this year, but I’m determined to go to one of these parades next year.

My husband got some absolutely fantastic photos of the event:

children in traditional Swiss costume leading the Alp Aufzug

Cheese cart at the end of the parade.

Heath’s coworkers were a little boggled by his eagerness to scramble out of the bus (which had to pull to the side of the road) to take pictures of cows (twice! there were two parades that day!). But they just teased him over beers later. Here’s a few shots of his hike.

Schloss Hegi

In the town of Winterthur, there are two castles. The more well-known is Schloss Kybourg. It is a bit confusing to get there by public transportation, so while it is on our list of places to check out, we’ve not exactly been there yet. A fun little castle that is very easy to get to is Schloss Hegi. It is on the north-east finger of the city of Winterthur, and I can walk there from our flat pretty easily. I first noticed it while taking a hike along the overlook above Oberwinterthur. In the picture below, it is that cluster of very old-looking buildings on the edge of the town.

Once I figured out what the buildings were, I was determined to check it out. I mean, come on, as an American, when will you ever live within a 15 minute walk of a castle? I went there twice this summer (once with my visiting friend and former boss, Sharon, and once with a group of our local friends), and it is really a unique castle and museum. It was only opened to the public very recently. Schloss Hegi was first built in the 1200’s with later additions in the 15th and 18th centuries. This odd clash of time periods makes for a fascinating set of buildings. From what little information I’ve dug up, it seems that the main tower was built first, with the rest of the buildings added on later.

Schloss Hegi

What makes a castle unique? They are a dime a dozen here in Europe, right? Well, this castle is more like an estate house or a very tiny palace. Perhaps in the 12th century it was meant to be a fortification, but the additions from the 15th and 18th century show a more pastoral lifestyle. When the castle was made into a museum, it wasn’t extremely well-thought out. The only way in most areas or floors is the way you came out. Narrow cramped staircases (in some cases ladders!) lead you between floors. If you aren’t careful, you’ll miss a whole section of the castle or a room. There’s dead-ends and locked doors. It sounds completely nuts, but really that’s part of its charm.

Old firewagon

The objects in the museum are completely random as well. On the first floor and in the basement you can find a collection of small cannons, ancient fire-fighting wagons and buckets, and a hearse (the kind which would be drawn by a horse). More fire buckets line the first set of stairs. Interesting tidbit about the buckets: each family in the area had their own. When a fire was discovered, each family would fill their own bucket(s) and come running. Each of the buckets in Schloss Hegi has a different family crest or symbol on it. The buckets are all made of leather, too, and kind of an odd elongated narrow shape.

Fire Buckets

We also encountered a tiny landing full of odds and ends leftover from the kitchen: copper pans, and utensils and a big cast-iron pot. It looked like a mish-mash of things left behind for the past few centuries. There are several large sitting rooms or possibly dining rooms, cozy little bedrooms, and tiny maid’s quarters. There were rooms with no obvious original purpose, each filled with things like armory, antique children’s toys (which, in my eyes were very creepy), and even farming tools. Every room had something new and interesting to look at. Kids will like it, too, but very young ones like ours had to be watched at every second. Still, everyone had fun.

Kiddos share a windowsill in one of the tower rooms.

While possibly not the gem of Winterthur, if you are in the area, Hegi Castle is worth a visit. The caretaker that was there both times I visited was extremely nice and helpful, making sure we didn’t miss any parts of the castle, and even helping us take a group picture in front of it. The first time I visited, he was popping out of random windows as we were leaving the castle, like some sort of bizarre Monty Python character. Hegi Castle (aka Schloss Hegi) is only open March through October, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 2PM to 5PM and Sundays from 10AM to noon, and in the afternoon from 2PM to 5PM. You can find out more about visiting Schloss Hegi here.

More pictures of our adventures in Schloss Hegi can be found here.

 

Happy Halloween!

Although Halloween isn’t really celebrated here in Switzerland, there are several expat groups that were hosting parties for the kids. We decided that our son is still a bit too young to participate in any big Halloween and had a lazy day at home. We devoured jack-o-lantern and ghost-shaped Peeps brought to us previously by my mother-in-law. Eddie got a little wild with the sugar, but it is a good thing we almost never give him any. We also carved a pumpkin. And I whipped up a Halloween Feast of Squid-Ink Pasta with homemade Alfredo sauce, Shrimp Scampi, and pan-braised Spinach:

We even had Pumpkin Apple muffins! As the evening ended, I took Rosie for a walk and snapped a picture of our pumpkin in the window of our kitchen. As expected, we were the only window with a Jack-o-Lantern shining through.