On Monday morning, M went back to the bank one more time to finish setting up the security deposit and came back almost done, but fed up. So, M and K tagged, she stepped out of the ring, and he stepped in. After two more trips to the bank, we’re pretty sure the account is set-up; not 100% positive, but pretty sure; and if the account is not set-up, we are 100% positive that the apartment will tell us.
Handover of the apartment occurs this upcoming Wednesday. We are excited to move in and have our own space. The guest house has been alright, but we've been living in the same room as our curious cats, and, every now and then, the guest house has another visitor that appears out of nowhere. We will have to make our way to IKEA to buy light fixtures and other items soon, as almost all apartments do not include fixtures; when you move in, usually bare wires are hanging down from the ceiling.
K ate something wrong mid-week. After one and a half days, M recommended yogurt, under the theory that the microbes in the yogurt would overwhelm the microbes that were punching K in the stomach. K recovered, but it was an ugly few days. Additionally, K starts to get queasy any time chopped spinach is mentioned.
In other news this week, M started her first French lessons in Switzerland, which she found to be quite exhausting since they are conducted almost exclusively in French. One of her assignments is to start reading Harry Potter à l'Ecole des Sorciers (or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the US). The goal was to read a chapter at a time, but reading 4 pages takes an hour, so she's reconsidering a more modest goal (like 5 pages). Ken will start the fun of learning a new language in week 5.
From a social perspective, we did wind back up at the Cafe du Cerf, although this time with coworkers to celebrate a successful regulatory audit. We’ve heard the conventional wisdom that the Swiss don’t spend personal time with coworkers. On the surface, Friday evening may seem to refute this CW. However, none of the folks we were out with were Swiss (French, British, Canadian, American), so this evening may not be applicable to judge the CW. Yet, some Swiss nationals were invited out and, as they did not come out, this may actually support the CW. Hmmm… More data are needed. Regardless, the evening was loads of fun with good food, good conversation and lots of laughs.
This week's lessons:
1) In Switzerland you are mandated to have both Winter tires and Summer tires for your car.
2) The Neuchatel public library has a decent English book collection, almost equal in size to the German book collection, and significantly larger than the Italian and Spanish collections.
3) Montezuma's revenge is not limited to Mexico.
4) Despite all the hills and mountains in Switzerland, almost no one drives an automatic transmission car.
5) Europeans have invented a cash card system which works like cash in that if you lose the card then you lose the cash. The "cash" exists on the card itself and not in an account. When you put your card into an ATM, you can transfer money from your bank account onto the card. Readers then read the card and deduct cash from the card to pay for things. What a convoluted system...
6) Quatre-vingt versus quatre, vingt. This isn't a new thing (at least not for M), but she did run into an issue this week when trying to purchase a pastry and she heard the cost was quatre, vingt (4 francs and 20 cents). It turns out, however, what was said was un, quatre-vingt (one franc and 80 cents (4 X 20=80). Why do the French have such a screwed up numbering system?
7) It takes 30+ notecards to cover the new French vocabulary words in two pages of the French-language kids book that M is reading.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Week 3 / Grindelwald
In week 3, work at the plant continued. Ken asserted his engineering manager authority (pronounced authori-TIE), and Margaret wreaked havoc in her quality role, ripping apart documentation to make sure it was right.
In other news, Margaret looked at three apartments on Tuesday; the result is that Ken and Margaret have decided to go with the apartment found in week 2 that had not yet been taken. Therefore, Friday afternoon was spent by Margaret taking the rental contract to the rental agency to be signed and attempting to open a security deposit "account". Unlike in the US, the deposit is not paid directly to the landlord but is kept in a sort of escrow account in the bank; at the end of your rental if no damages are found, the money, supposedly with interest, is returned to you. We discovered, however, that our Swiss "bank" is not really a bank; it's the Post office with some banking-like services. Therefore, the Post does not offer security deposit accounts. So we had to find a bank that would allow us to set up a security deposit even though we aren't customers. Margaret found that the local cantonal bank would set up the security deposit without another account but that the funds had to be available in cash and could not be transferred online. As Ken had put the pin numbers for the Post account in a "safe place," Margaret couldn't find them and was unable to get the money withdrawn. The business of setting up the security deposit will have to wait until next week.
After a hectic Friday afternoon, Margaret wandered over to the Cafe du Cerf, a local Irish pub that has many international patrons, while Ken had a round of drinks with the site management on the other side of Neuchâtel. She managed to get herself invited to sit with an American, a Canadian, and an Australian all whom are enrolled in the FIFA sports management program, whose semester in Neuchâtel is just starting. Despite the fact that she knows diddley about sports, she managed to have a really nice time talking with them.
On Saturday, we decided we had to go skiing/boarding before we lost our chance for this season. So, Ken loaded up our gear, and we went off to the mountain of Mannlichen above the town of Grindelwald. Grindelwald, in the canton of Bern, is about an hour and 45 minute drive from Neuchatel. The scenery, particularly as we entered the mountain regions, was beautiful. We passed through the town of Interlaken and made a note to come back and visit. 
The ski resorts don't quite hit you over the head with signage like they do in Lake Tahoe, so we had a little bit of trouble finding exactly where we needed to be. After we bought our lift tickets and received our two complimentary Ricola lozenges (true story), we took a cable car up the mountain to where the pistes/slopes were. The cable car ride was very scenic and took about 20/25 minutes. We had a pretty good day of skiing and snowboarding, though Margaret was done early and Ken sprained his ankle. 
After skiing we went into the town of Grindelwald to get a drink and try the two regional specialties: rösti and raclette. Although many Atlantans believe that hash browns originate from the great institution of Waffle House, the Swiss have their own take on the great potato dish: rösti. Traditionally, rösti are served mixed with bacon or sausage, but our rösti were vegetarian; 
they were mixed with veggies like cauliflower, carrots, and greenbeans. They were good, but somewhat greasy. To balance our Swiss hash browns, we had raclette, which, as shown in the picture, is a plate of melted cheese with pickles, onions, and boiled potatoes. After our meal, we couldn't help but wonder why the Swiss don't all weigh 300 pounds.
This week's lessons:
1) Cumin versus cumin-You might think that if two things look exactly the same but are in fact quite different that you might name them differently to avoid confusing the two. If you were French, however, naming them differently would be ridiculous. It turns out that caraway seeds, those tasty little bits in rye bread, are called cumin in French. Cumin is, however, the omnipresent spice found in many Indian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern dishes, and cumin seeds look very similar to caraway seeds. We did not discover this lingual fact until after we made an Indian dal soup with our cumin seeds; the soup actually tasted really good but was not quite what we had intended.
2) They don't groom pistes in Switzerland. This fact can make for some hazardous skiing/boarding.
3) Besides falafel and kebabs, good ethnic food can be found in Switzerland; it just might not be where you'd expect to find it. We had really good red curry in the Irish pub.
In other news, Margaret looked at three apartments on Tuesday; the result is that Ken and Margaret have decided to go with the apartment found in week 2 that had not yet been taken. Therefore, Friday afternoon was spent by Margaret taking the rental contract to the rental agency to be signed and attempting to open a security deposit "account". Unlike in the US, the deposit is not paid directly to the landlord but is kept in a sort of escrow account in the bank; at the end of your rental if no damages are found, the money, supposedly with interest, is returned to you. We discovered, however, that our Swiss "bank" is not really a bank; it's the Post office with some banking-like services. Therefore, the Post does not offer security deposit accounts. So we had to find a bank that would allow us to set up a security deposit even though we aren't customers. Margaret found that the local cantonal bank would set up the security deposit without another account but that the funds had to be available in cash and could not be transferred online. As Ken had put the pin numbers for the Post account in a "safe place," Margaret couldn't find them and was unable to get the money withdrawn. The business of setting up the security deposit will have to wait until next week.
After a hectic Friday afternoon, Margaret wandered over to the Cafe du Cerf, a local Irish pub that has many international patrons, while Ken had a round of drinks with the site management on the other side of Neuchâtel. She managed to get herself invited to sit with an American, a Canadian, and an Australian all whom are enrolled in the FIFA sports management program, whose semester in Neuchâtel is just starting. Despite the fact that she knows diddley about sports, she managed to have a really nice time talking with them.
On Saturday, we decided we had to go skiing/boarding before we lost our chance for this season. So, Ken loaded up our gear, and we went off to the mountain of Mannlichen above the town of Grindelwald. Grindelwald, in the canton of Bern, is about an hour and 45 minute drive from Neuchatel. The scenery, particularly as we entered the mountain regions, was beautiful. We passed through the town of Interlaken and made a note to come back and visit. 
The ski resorts don't quite hit you over the head with signage like they do in Lake Tahoe, so we had a little bit of trouble finding exactly where we needed to be. After we bought our lift tickets and received our two complimentary Ricola lozenges (true story), we took a cable car up the mountain to where the pistes/slopes were. The cable car ride was very scenic and took about 20/25 minutes. We had a pretty good day of skiing and snowboarding, though Margaret was done early and Ken sprained his ankle. 
After skiing we went into the town of Grindelwald to get a drink and try the two regional specialties: rösti and raclette. Although many Atlantans believe that hash browns originate from the great institution of Waffle House, the Swiss have their own take on the great potato dish: rösti. Traditionally, rösti are served mixed with bacon or sausage, but our rösti were vegetarian; 
they were mixed with veggies like cauliflower, carrots, and greenbeans. They were good, but somewhat greasy. To balance our Swiss hash browns, we had raclette, which, as shown in the picture, is a plate of melted cheese with pickles, onions, and boiled potatoes. After our meal, we couldn't help but wonder why the Swiss don't all weigh 300 pounds.This week's lessons:
1) Cumin versus cumin-You might think that if two things look exactly the same but are in fact quite different that you might name them differently to avoid confusing the two. If you were French, however, naming them differently would be ridiculous. It turns out that caraway seeds, those tasty little bits in rye bread, are called cumin in French. Cumin is, however, the omnipresent spice found in many Indian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern dishes, and cumin seeds look very similar to caraway seeds. We did not discover this lingual fact until after we made an Indian dal soup with our cumin seeds; the soup actually tasted really good but was not quite what we had intended.
2) They don't groom pistes in Switzerland. This fact can make for some hazardous skiing/boarding.
3) Besides falafel and kebabs, good ethnic food can be found in Switzerland; it just might not be where you'd expect to find it. We had really good red curry in the Irish pub.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Week 2
Much more time at work during week 2, but during our time out, we managed several milestones.
We went apartment hunting and saw a few places we liked. We subsequently applied for two, to find that one had already been leased. The housing search continues…
We got library cards! Of course, unfortunately for Ken, most of the trashy science fiction is au francais, but we’re both big fans of public libraries, so even if the English language section is small, it’s a huge resource.
We received our bank account paperwork in the mail: ATM cards, user IDs, PINs, and what (at first glance) appear to be 4-function calculators. Apparently the “calculators” are card-readers, and are used somehow to keep our online accounts secure: a 21st century version of Little Orphan Annie decoder-rings. We have no idea why the Swiss banks feel that this level of security is required, but the best guess is it’s driven by all the foreign secret agents (who else has a Swiss bank account?).
Friday night, we went out to dinner at the Café des Halles (downstairs of the Restaurant des Halles) in Neuchatel. Ken had the Neuchatelois prix fixe menu which included sausage with green lentils, fish and rice with citrusy pearl onions and capers, and an absinthe sabayon with a scoop of berry mouse; being that the local specialties included fish or meat, Margaret had a green salad and black truffle risotto with an apfelstrudel to finish. Dinner was accompanied by a good Neuchatelois pinot gris.
On Saturday, we drove uphill, about 5 or 10 minutes from Les Hauts Geneveys to see some of the local ski slopes. The highway signs had had us puzzled, as they appeared to show skiers skiing uphill with a line sticking up at a 45 degree angle from their crotch. Visiting the ski slope, we determined that while we had misinterpreted the sign, the sign perfectly represented the real world. While we were used to chair lifts in the US, even at small resorts, this small resort used a ski-lift. A ski-lift is sort of like a tow-rope, but the end that the skier holds onto has a round disk seat. You grab onto the lift, stick the disk between your legs, sit back, and let the lift pull you up the slope: skiing uphill with a lift-line sticking up from your crotch. Works great for skiers. It’s a little bit challenging for boarders, but the lift pole seems to have a bend in it that can be turned sideways for boarders. We didn’t wind up skiing or boarding, but we did go for a short hike in the snow behind the lifts to get a good view of the area.
On Sunday, we investigated how close the manufacturing plant was to the remaining apartment. According to Google Maps, it was just over one kilometer, and that was following the roads downhill to the apartment. Just downhill of the plant is a wooded area, and we had been told that there were trails through the woods. We figured that by cutting through the woods, we could cut the distance down. It was a muddy walk, and took longer than expected, but was certainly a walkable distance. From the apartment, we decided to test walking down into town (Yes, this does seem like a lot of walking by US standards, but with all the claims that Europeans walk everywhere, we’re just trying to fit in). The walk into town was easy, but town was largely deserted on Sunday. We did find a playground, with some great play structures that would never be allowed in the US (great fun, but also big opportunity to fall and hurt yourself). However, the walk from the plant to the apartment to the town was all downhill, so now we had to walk back uphill. Since M’s heart didn’t quite explode out of her chest on the walk back up, the outing was deemed a success.
This week's lessons:
1) Swiss “efficiency”: We have heard that the Swiss are known for their efficiency. This is supposedly why they make such great watches and why the trains run perfectly according to schedule. We have learned, however, that ensuring that things work doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with efficiency. For example, opening one joint Swiss bank account required 10 envelopes: Two envelopes to send a tax disclosure form, two to return the tax disclosure forms, two to send pin numbers, two to send bank cards, two to send the special internet-banking card decoders. Did we get the information we needed? Yes. Could we have gotten some of this information when we opened the account in person? Yes.
2) American marketers are much smoother than European marketers: What Americans call nondairy coffee creamer is known to the rest of the world as coffee whitener with vegetable fat. Mmmm….the best part of wakin’ up is coffee whitener in my cup…
3) When M comments “let’s drive this way to see what’s up there”, it’s a recipe for disaster. It’s probably going to result in Ken backing out of a snowy drive, with a big rock wall on one side and 20 meter drop on the other side.
4) An alternate explanation for how the Swiss can feed themselves when they have such small refrigerators (they're a little larger than the refrigerator you might have in your college dorm), as daily shopping seems to be such a chore: shelf-stable goods. They sell stuff here that we’d never imagine as shelf-stable in the US: orange juice, eggs, milk! With shelf-stable milk, you can buy a week’s supply of milk on one trip to the store, even though that much milk would fill half the fridge – you just put one container in the fridge at a time. Voila.
We went apartment hunting and saw a few places we liked. We subsequently applied for two, to find that one had already been leased. The housing search continues…
We got library cards! Of course, unfortunately for Ken, most of the trashy science fiction is au francais, but we’re both big fans of public libraries, so even if the English language section is small, it’s a huge resource.
We received our bank account paperwork in the mail: ATM cards, user IDs, PINs, and what (at first glance) appear to be 4-function calculators. Apparently the “calculators” are card-readers, and are used somehow to keep our online accounts secure: a 21st century version of Little Orphan Annie decoder-rings. We have no idea why the Swiss banks feel that this level of security is required, but the best guess is it’s driven by all the foreign secret agents (who else has a Swiss bank account?).
Friday night, we went out to dinner at the Café des Halles (downstairs of the Restaurant des Halles) in Neuchatel. Ken had the Neuchatelois prix fixe menu which included sausage with green lentils, fish and rice with citrusy pearl onions and capers, and an absinthe sabayon with a scoop of berry mouse; being that the local specialties included fish or meat, Margaret had a green salad and black truffle risotto with an apfelstrudel to finish. Dinner was accompanied by a good Neuchatelois pinot gris.
On Saturday, we drove uphill, about 5 or 10 minutes from Les Hauts Geneveys to see some of the local ski slopes. The highway signs had had us puzzled, as they appeared to show skiers skiing uphill with a line sticking up at a 45 degree angle from their crotch. Visiting the ski slope, we determined that while we had misinterpreted the sign, the sign perfectly represented the real world. While we were used to chair lifts in the US, even at small resorts, this small resort used a ski-lift. A ski-lift is sort of like a tow-rope, but the end that the skier holds onto has a round disk seat. You grab onto the lift, stick the disk between your legs, sit back, and let the lift pull you up the slope: skiing uphill with a lift-line sticking up from your crotch. Works great for skiers. It’s a little bit challenging for boarders, but the lift pole seems to have a bend in it that can be turned sideways for boarders. We didn’t wind up skiing or boarding, but we did go for a short hike in the snow behind the lifts to get a good view of the area.
On Sunday, we investigated how close the manufacturing plant was to the remaining apartment. According to Google Maps, it was just over one kilometer, and that was following the roads downhill to the apartment. Just downhill of the plant is a wooded area, and we had been told that there were trails through the woods. We figured that by cutting through the woods, we could cut the distance down. It was a muddy walk, and took longer than expected, but was certainly a walkable distance. From the apartment, we decided to test walking down into town (Yes, this does seem like a lot of walking by US standards, but with all the claims that Europeans walk everywhere, we’re just trying to fit in). The walk into town was easy, but town was largely deserted on Sunday. We did find a playground, with some great play structures that would never be allowed in the US (great fun, but also big opportunity to fall and hurt yourself). However, the walk from the plant to the apartment to the town was all downhill, so now we had to walk back uphill. Since M’s heart didn’t quite explode out of her chest on the walk back up, the outing was deemed a success.
This week's lessons:
1) Swiss “efficiency”: We have heard that the Swiss are known for their efficiency. This is supposedly why they make such great watches and why the trains run perfectly according to schedule. We have learned, however, that ensuring that things work doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with efficiency. For example, opening one joint Swiss bank account required 10 envelopes: Two envelopes to send a tax disclosure form, two to return the tax disclosure forms, two to send pin numbers, two to send bank cards, two to send the special internet-banking card decoders. Did we get the information we needed? Yes. Could we have gotten some of this information when we opened the account in person? Yes.
2) American marketers are much smoother than European marketers: What Americans call nondairy coffee creamer is known to the rest of the world as coffee whitener with vegetable fat. Mmmm….the best part of wakin’ up is coffee whitener in my cup…
3) When M comments “let’s drive this way to see what’s up there”, it’s a recipe for disaster. It’s probably going to result in Ken backing out of a snowy drive, with a big rock wall on one side and 20 meter drop on the other side.
4) An alternate explanation for how the Swiss can feed themselves when they have such small refrigerators (they're a little larger than the refrigerator you might have in your college dorm), as daily shopping seems to be such a chore: shelf-stable goods. They sell stuff here that we’d never imagine as shelf-stable in the US: orange juice, eggs, milk! With shelf-stable milk, you can buy a week’s supply of milk on one trip to the store, even though that much milk would fill half the fridge – you just put one container in the fridge at a time. Voila.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Your mission...Survive week one.
After the Monday holiday, we reported to work Tuesday morning to sign paperwork and pick up an official copy of Ken's employment contract. With both employment contracts in hand (along with passports, certificate of accommodation from the B&B, marriage certificate, blood donor cards, 4H cards, highest scores from Super Mario Bros, baby footprints, etc...) we headed to the Neuchâtel commune administration building to meet our relocation consultant and register as local workers.
However, the B&B at which we are staying (which, by the way, the relocation consultant had booked for us), while located within the CANTON of Neuchâtel, is not located within the COMMUNE of Neuchâtel. The B&B is in the commune of Les Hauts Geneveys, about 10 minutes up the road. Which meant that we couldn’t register at the Neuchâtel office; we needed to register at the administration office in Les Hauts Geneveys.
Our relocation consultant had scheduled sufficient time to help us register in Neuchâtel, but had a subsequent appointment, so didn’t have time to drive with us to Les Hauts Geneveys to register. With the Les Hauts Geneveys address in hand (to load into our trusty GPS), and Margaret’s French skills, we ventured off to register without our consultant.
We found the tiny administration building in Les Hauts Geneveys. The gentleman behind the counter was very pleasant. M rocked the dialogue in French; everything went very smoothly; and we were applied for registration. We can now officially work in Switzerland! However, we don't get to leave the country until our registration is complete (in about 4 weeks) because our visas were only single entry.
The rest of the work week was mostly getting acclimated: getting our work computers set up (but no phones yet); meeting coworkers and reports; getting trained on some of the systems; starting to read documents; figuring out how to work the copiers and vending machines; etc.
Most nights found us back at the B&B at a relatively reasonable hour to make dinner and entertain ourselves (although K is trying to return to his regular schedule of long hours). Unfortunately, to K’s utter horror, we discovered that Hulu (the wonderful website of free online television) does not work in Switzerland. The website gave some bogus message about not having distribution rights outside the US. Hulu withdrawal was NEVER one of the anticipated changes. Somehow, we managed, helped by the fact that we did find MacGyver in French on the television (of course, K knew the episode plot almost immediately).
We did go out to dinner with coworkers one night for cheese fondue. We made sure to drink white wine to prevent the dreaded cheese plug, which K still refuses to believe in. It was a very nice meal with plenty of good conversation. We also tried to keep our voices down, as we’ve heard that the stereotypical American uses their outside voice even when in a small restaurant. Despite the effort, we think we still came across as loud.
On Friday night, as we were leaving work, we decided to drive up to La Chaux de Fonds to check a restaurant which had been recommended by a coworker; note that reservations are strongly recommended for weekend dining, and we did not have a reservation. When we arrived, the restaurateur was nice enough to offer us a table, if we wanted to be seated at 8pm (it was roughly 6:15 then). K was hungry and unwilling to wait that long to eat, so we drove back to the B&B for dinner.
On the drive back, we stopped for our first gasoline fill-up. Nothing surprising, except there doesn’t seem to be pay at the pump. As credit cards are less-used than in the US, I guess this isn’t very surprising. As gasoline runs about $6USD/gallon, the fuel bill was a bit of a shock. It's like we were driving an SUV. After the somewhat long week of settling in at work, we also tried to stop at a local grocery store to pick-up some weekend/unwinding beer, but the stores close on Friday at 6:30, and it was now 6:37.
On Saturday, we woke up to some serious snow showers, but as stores are closed on Sunday, Saturday is a prime shopping day, so we were not to be deterred. K found a snow shovel outside the B&B, so after 15 minutes of shoveling the snow off of the dirt (which had been mud earlier in the week, but was now frozen pretty firm) drive, we were on our way. Note: it was a light and fluffy snow, else this would have taken much longer, or would have been skipped all together.
On the motorway, the roads were snowy/slushy, so we drove slower than normal. On clear roads, the Swiss are happy to tailgate at high speeds, and this practice was not noticeably diminished by the inclement weather. However, we safely navigated the roads to a local shopping plaza. Items on our list:
1. An enclosed litter box, as the enclosed litter boxes we had in CA are on the boat right now and the litter box we brought with us is open, is a must-have item as our cats enjoy tossing litter (as much and as far as they can). When we had the mess contained in our home’s mudroom in CA, this was not a big deal. Sharing a studio apartment with the cats, where there are no doors to close to separate ourselves, this is a much bigger deal.
2. More cat food and cat litter.
3. Groceries for the humans, including beer.
Success on all three!
The return trip to the B&B from the shopping plaza was marked with more snow/slush and aggressive drivers. We even witnessed one driver slide somewhat gently into another driver that had stopped at an intersection. (Fortunately, it didn't look like there was much damage to either vehicle, and presumably both individuals are covered by at least one of the multitude of insurance policies for which the Swiss have an affinity.) Back at the B&B, we could just barely tell that Ken had shoveled as the snow had fallen enough to recover everything to near the pre-shoveled depth. The rest of Saturday was pretty lazy, as we hunkered down to avoid the snow.
Sunday was still cloudy, but the snow had mostly stopped. In the afternoon, after another round of shoveling (which likely violated the Swiss rule of no work on Sunday), we walked down to the next village, La Jonchére. No particular reason, except it was fairly close. At least getting there seemed fairly close. La Jonchére is downhill from Les Hauts Geneveys.
The walk back was much more strenuous. And we were getting cold. Our Central Valley, Northern CA blood hasn’t had time to thicken up to withstand the rigors of Swiss winter. All in all, it was a pretty day and a nice walk (M thinks K's "nice walk" was a snowy, Swiss death march); good to get out and breathe some fresh, bracing air.
At the end of each week, we'd like to share some lessons that we learned during the week.
This week's lessons:
1) It snows a lot in Switzerland. There is a reason for all the tunnels and covered trenches in Switzerland; they provide driving refuge from the crazy snow.
2) When a Swiss person says they only a speak a little English, they are being modest. When an American person says they only a speak a little French, they are being realistic.
3) First perceptions are that most of the available literature on Swiss culture applies primarily to the Swiss Germans and not the Swiss French, which makes sense since about 60 to 70 percent of Swiss residents speak German and about 20 percent speak French. Considering that most of our interactions at work are not with Swiss but with other European nationals, this perception may change.
4) The Swiss French words for the numbers 70, 80, and 90 are septante, huitante, and nonante, respectively .
5) Cat food is really expensive in Switzerland. The 10 kg bag of Iams cat food is 90 CHF, which would cost us about $32 at Petco in the US.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Le premier weekend / Berne
We had to put Major into a check-able Kennel in Dulles and then check him for the flight to Geneva (he was carry-on from ATL to IAD because that flight didn't allow two checked cats). Checking Minor in ATL was a breeze; Checking Major in IAD was a fiasco. After standing at the ticket counter for about 1 hour, the counter attendant finally had every i dotted, t crossed, and every form counter-signed by two associates, so Ken could carry Major (in his kennel) over to the TSA oversize baggage screening area where Ken removed Major from his kennel so the kennel could be scanned (Airline regulations prohibit removing the pet from the kennel either in the airport or in the airplane at any time; stupid lying airliars). Of course, while Major was out of his kennel, (a) a medium sized dog in a kennel nearby was howling and barking and (b) a large dog NOT in a kennel was standing nearby appearing large (this is NOT a redundant usage of the adjective large); as Major is an indoor-only cat who has only once been within smelling distance of a dog, he was not a happy kitty. Eventually, the kennel was deemed safe, Major was re-kenneled, and taken off to sit with his brother and the rest of the checked luggage. Ken then had the opportunity to pass through Dulles security, before rejoining Margaret. If the layover had been less than 3hours, he wouldn't have made it. 3hours--to check one cat.
The flight from Dulles to Geneva was uneventful, and we arrived in Geneva around 7:30 Saturday morning (GMT +1), or 1:30am in Atlanta. While Margaret waited for the luggage, Ken went in search of a kiosk at which he could exchange currency. He decided to look outside the baggage claim area, which is considered a secure area. Of course, he didn't realize this until after he had exited baggage claim and had no way of re-entering baggage claim. This left Margaret to collect 4 checked bags, 3 carry-on bags, and 2 cat carriers alone. She was able to pile up the bags on a luggage cart and push the contents through the "Nothing To Declare" door at the baggage claim exit with Ken waiting on the other side to steer it through the cordoned off path. After about a half-hour of waiting for the kitties at the oversize baggage conveyor, watching people pick up their skis and snowboard, Margaret greeted the kitties as they arrived via the nearby elevator, escorted by one of the airport staff. The Bolton family had finally arrived in Switzerland.
We picked up our rental car and made our way from Geneva to the guest house in Les Hauts Geneveys. Although Major and Minor were initially shell-shocked, they mellowed enough in the car for a mid-morning nap. When we arrived at the guest house, we found that no one was there, but we were fortunate to have the proprietor drive up a few minutes after we started looking around. The house has three stories with a studio apartment on the bottom level, public space on the middle level, and more bedrooms/bathrooms on the top level. The Southern view over the valley, towards Lake Neuchâtel and the Alps is not too shabby.
We did some grocery shopping Saturday afternoon (as all stores are closed on Sunday, and all the nearby stores would be closed Monday for Neuchâtel Independence Day) and started settling in.
Sunday, we went for a walk around Les Hauts Geneveys and drove to the Neuchâtel train station (which is apparently excluded from the "all stores close on Sunday" rule) to prepare for our trip to Bern on Monday. We also made our first home-cooked meal.
Monday, we took the train to Bern (via Neuchâtel). We have no idea why Les Hauts Geneveys is a stop on the express route between La Chaux de Fonds and Neuchâtel, as it is quite a small village, instead of just being a stop on the local route, but no complaints. We had a 4-minute "lay-over" in Neuchâtel between our trains-plenty of time with the Swiss public transit system.
We walked around the old city of Bern (Berne in French). Lots of fountains twice the age of the US of A. Some fun clock towers. Statues of bears. And, of course, the bear pits (Bärengraben), which have held the namesake of Bern since the 16th century. We saw Momma Bear and Poppa Bear, but neither of the two cubs was evident.
As the old town of Bern is surrounded by the river AAAAAArrrre, there are some great bridge views. This photo is near the foot of the Bärengraben. We ate lunch at the Altes TramDepot at the top of the bear pits. M had spatzli (French pasta) with vegetables and cheese, while K had chicken, potatoes, and creamy leeks (although we had no clue what he was actually ordering from the menu).
After lunch, we continued our stroll aboot Bern, and saw a very impressive Gothic cathedral and the Swiss federal palace, where the Swiss Federal Assembly (aka Swiss Parliament) and the Federal Council are housed.
We met our relocation consultant after sight-seeing, had a cup of tea and a nice conversation on some open questions, and then opened our secret agent Swiss bank account.
Trained home, ate some left-overs for dinner, and got ready for our first day of work.
The flight from Dulles to Geneva was uneventful, and we arrived in Geneva around 7:30 Saturday morning (GMT +1), or 1:30am in Atlanta. While Margaret waited for the luggage, Ken went in search of a kiosk at which he could exchange currency. He decided to look outside the baggage claim area, which is considered a secure area. Of course, he didn't realize this until after he had exited baggage claim and had no way of re-entering baggage claim. This left Margaret to collect 4 checked bags, 3 carry-on bags, and 2 cat carriers alone. She was able to pile up the bags on a luggage cart and push the contents through the "Nothing To Declare" door at the baggage claim exit with Ken waiting on the other side to steer it through the cordoned off path. After about a half-hour of waiting for the kitties at the oversize baggage conveyor, watching people pick up their skis and snowboard, Margaret greeted the kitties as they arrived via the nearby elevator, escorted by one of the airport staff. The Bolton family had finally arrived in Switzerland.
We picked up our rental car and made our way from Geneva to the guest house in Les Hauts Geneveys. Although Major and Minor were initially shell-shocked, they mellowed enough in the car for a mid-morning nap. When we arrived at the guest house, we found that no one was there, but we were fortunate to have the proprietor drive up a few minutes after we started looking around. The house has three stories with a studio apartment on the bottom level, public space on the middle level, and more bedrooms/bathrooms on the top level. The Southern view over the valley, towards Lake Neuchâtel and the Alps is not too shabby.We did some grocery shopping Saturday afternoon (as all stores are closed on Sunday, and all the nearby stores would be closed Monday for Neuchâtel Independence Day) and started settling in.
Sunday, we went for a walk around Les Hauts Geneveys and drove to the Neuchâtel train station (which is apparently excluded from the "all stores close on Sunday" rule) to prepare for our trip to Bern on Monday. We also made our first home-cooked meal.
Monday, we took the train to Bern (via Neuchâtel). We have no idea why Les Hauts Geneveys is a stop on the express route between La Chaux de Fonds and Neuchâtel, as it is quite a small village, instead of just being a stop on the local route, but no complaints. We had a 4-minute "lay-over" in Neuchâtel between our trains-plenty of time with the Swiss public transit system.We walked around the old city of Bern (Berne in French). Lots of fountains twice the age of the US of A. Some fun clock towers. Statues of bears. And, of course, the bear pits (Bärengraben), which have held the namesake of Bern since the 16th century. We saw Momma Bear and Poppa Bear, but neither of the two cubs was evident.
As the old town of Bern is surrounded by the river AAAAAArrrre, there are some great bridge views. This photo is near the foot of the Bärengraben. We ate lunch at the Altes TramDepot at the top of the bear pits. M had spatzli (French pasta) with vegetables and cheese, while K had chicken, potatoes, and creamy leeks (although we had no clue what he was actually ordering from the menu).After lunch, we continued our stroll aboot Bern, and saw a very impressive Gothic cathedral and the Swiss federal palace, where the Swiss Federal Assembly (aka Swiss Parliament) and the Federal Council are housed.
We met our relocation consultant after sight-seeing, had a cup of tea and a nice conversation on some open questions, and then opened our secret agent Swiss bank account.Trained home, ate some left-overs for dinner, and got ready for our first day of work.
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