Meet Hans

Time for a Schweizerhund update! Last October, I'd characterize Steph and I as fairly confident and unconcerned about tackling the challenges of our impending trans-Atlantic move, but worried sick about how Child #1 would adjust. If you had issued the true/false question stating the parents would wind up fairly frazzled but Hobbes would sink right in the groove, I'd have marked 'False'. That's why I always fail the true/false test.

Yes, the little boy has taken to Switzerland like a Wisconsinite to bratwurst. From the original farm fields of Kloten to our concrete neighborhood in Zürich city, he hasn't missed a beat. Perhaps primarily because he has constant semi-canine company (me) during his daytime naps, which appeals to his extraordinarily strong family pack instinct. But also because whereas Chicago was virtually limitlessly urban, the primary beauty of Zürich is its proximity to nature; we're 10-15 minutes by foot or tram to a choice of trails, trees, streams or lakes.

And since spring's onset, we've added to the regimen his all-time favorite activity--schwimmen! He loves to scare Lake Zürich's swans and ducks in the AM endlessly chasing a tennis ball into the water. Also important to his and our sanity, we've finally assembled his care network including dog-sitters, groomer, and vet; those are perfect examples of difficult elements to locate in a foreign city that keep one frazzled for a while. His new dog-sitter, a perfectly wonderful woman from Mexico we found through a Yahoo ex-pat exchange, loves him to death after he saved her from being bitten by an aggressively territorial dog by laying on the smack-down; don't mess with the golden 90+ pounder. By the way, this happened in St.Gallen--an eastern Switzerland city that we haven't even visited yet--during our recent Spain visit. So he's getting around and winning new friends.

He's also adjusting better to German than when I tried to teach him Spanish in Chicago. More direct cognates, I think, such as sitz! for sit!. He likes German food, too, such as little bites of bratwurst, cervelat sausage and crusty roll he's occasionally furnished when visiting our favorite sausage stand. The best part is his new German alias. On our morning walks, we often encounter groups of kids at recess or in parks, and it's so cute when they always ask "Wie alt?" (How old?) and "Wie heißt?" (What's his name?). But when I answer, "Er heißt Hobbes", they never really understand that English name and give us a weird look. So I started answering, "Er heißt Hans" and they LOVE it! And it's similar enough that he responds. Brilliant if I say so myself!

Warning: no humans appear in the following set of pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.a4286wgz&x=0&y=mjwvss&localeid=en_US