Second Revolution

Time flies, eh? Late October brings us several celebratory dates each year, the first being Steph’s birthday (Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag! is one of my favorite German sayings, quite a mouthful and literally translated as “Heartfelt happy wish on the birthday!”), a second being my mom’s birthday and finally a third being October 31, not just Halloween but also the anniversary date of our arrival in Switzerland! And indeed the Earth has completed exactly two full revolutions around that gigantic plasma ball we call the sun since that fateful day, cause for celebration without doubt.

So what did Year Two bring us? A much-improved sense of being settled, for one significant thing. Two jobs (read: two incomes), an awesome dog-sitter, growing friendships within a relatively large group of ex-pat colleagues, some greater comfort navigating life in a foreign language, and a generally improved tolerance for annoying differences in social norms (they make it really tough sometimes though).

Year Two brought us ski equipment, discovery of world-class ski destinations a mere two hours from home and improved downhill skills last winter. It brought us to the U.S. east coast for Christmas, to Chi-town in the summertime (the best time) and a pilgrimage to good ol’ Green Bay, WI for my 20-year high school reunion. It brought us an awesome little nephew! For kicks, we followed Bruce Springsteen on his European tour for two shows in two countries in five days and watched the Tour de France peloton whiz by for all of 45 seconds. We unfortunately saw scant few visitors in Year Two compared to Year One, only two in fact. Mirroring the economy, however, we’re predicting a visitor rebound in 2010 (hint).

Have I mentioned yet that Year Two brought you 60% fewer blog posts? Sorry about that.

On the travel front, work sent us each to new coordinates. Top prize for “Uh, Where Again?” goes to Steph for her journey to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In a quirky career turn, Steph’s travel outpaced mine by more than two-to-one including breaking in both ends of a new continent--Africa--from Casablanca, Morocco to George, South Africa. I edged her for longest trip however, from Zürich to Singapore at 6,410 miles, with her measly flight to George ticking off a mere 5,950 miles (incidentally the farthest inhabited location from Switzerland is Auckland, New Zealand at over 11,400 miles--couldn’t help looking it up--meaning we can only crow about flying a quarter way around the world).

Most entertainingly, Year Two brought us each the standard five weeks of vacation time (“holiday time” as they say in Europe) for our favorite pastime: leisure travel and attempts to eat and drink like the locals. Top cool new city honors go to Barcelona; Meal of the Year honors to the wine and Belgian beer pairings (at lunch no less) at Den Dijver in Bruges; best trip goes to our sailing tour of the British Virgin Islands on the simply awesome charter boat Free Ingwe in March. We experienced the lowlands of Netherlands and Belgium, the coastlands of Cataluña and Valencia, and “Badlands” in Vienna all for the first time. Paris, Alsace, Munich Oktoberfest and London were lovely repeats.

Few legitimate complaints these days from either the two- or four-legged variety in our household, feeling fortunate and occupied and looking forward to what the future holds. That’s the way we envisioned it, it just took eighteen months longer than expected…

[Travel map below. Blue is joint travel, yellow is Steph's work, green is my work. You have to zoom out to see South Africa and Asia.]

View Second Year in a larger map

South Africa, Here We Come

With the college football and NFL seasons fully underway (including the evergreen Favre soap opera), is anybody in the U.S. paying attention to World Cup qualifying? Perhaps not, however the soccer (or football or Fußball) results rank always as front page news in Europe.

In case you're not quite up to speed, South Africa hosts World Cup 2010 next summer. Last week saw the (nearly) final round of qualifying games across the globe. The United States national team officially qualified, no great accomplishment among the weak North and Central American qualifying group against the likes of Honduras, El Salvador and much-feared Trinidad & Tobago. Somewhat surprisingly--albeit a pleasant one for the Swiss--Switzerland also qualified from the competitive European group last week. After a series of botched games and early exit as co-host of the European Championships in summer 2008 (primarily because of the crushing social pressure they heaped on themselves, very Swiss of them), this World Cup 2010 qualification feels somewhat redeeming to this tiny but nonetheless proud country constantly on the European bubble surrounded by talented, confident giants like Italy, Germany and France.

Perusing the newspaper on a tram last Thursday, the day after official qualification, I thus found this typical "local interview" clip quite amusing. Several Swiss and several non-nationals (Argentinean and "loathed" German) are asked about their dream opponent next summer. The German (lower right) gives a great loathed German answer, he wants Switzerland to play reigning world champ Italy. The Argentinian babysitter (middle right) thinks Switzerland v. Argentina would be interesting (it might). But my favorite... the 24-year-old Swiss hairdresser (featured top left) wants an "easy opponent like Chile, USA or Australia, otherwise the Swiss may lose all their games." It's funny because she's right; the USA probably boasts roughly equivalent skill to Switzerland.

There is however an X-factor: while the U.S. historically bombs out terribly in Europe (ranking virtually last in France 1998 and Germany 2006) they can improve markedly on "neutral", i.e., non-European, grounds as evidenced by their sometimes lucky, sometimes surprisingly good run in Japan/Korea 2002. As mega-fans of World Cup atmosphere and attendees in France and Germany, Steph and I already booked our (rather expensive) tickets and hotels in South Africa next summer. After planning our travels on those previous occasions around seeing a (ultimately disappointing) U.S. game, we're instead taking a loose approach: staying in stunning Cape Town and its surrounding wine regions rather than risking soccer's unpredictable fortunes; raucously attended bars and cafés broadcast all the games on TV regardless. Steph visited Johannesburg and Cape Town on a work trip earlier this year, but this will make my first journey to the African continent.

Fun stuff and definitely something to look forward to... USA! USA! USA!

Twice As Nice

Let's see now... picking up exactly where I left off... returning from Singapore to land in Zürich quite early that Thursday morning in late May, I arrived home to a full house...

Yes, can you believe I just recovered a half-started blog entry from nearly five months ago?? That must have been when I lost the blog mojo. Never mind that so many details have faded, I found some good pictures that were never shared and will nevertheless try my best in the recounting...

Indeed, Steph and I were lucky to receive our first-ever return visitors to Switzerland, of course you remember Steph's parents--code-named Kay and Archer to protect the innocent. Gluttons for punishment, they scored some cheap airfares and again landed in Zürich 13 months after their initial visit last year in late April. I blame the Global Economic Crisis for (among lots of other things, as I find convenient) general expense aversion and a relative dearth of visitors in 2009 compared to 2008. Or perhaps that a majority of friends and family are exhausting their schedules raising young children these days, making a trip to Disneyland (much less Switzerland) an arduous undertaking.

This year's 10 days with Kay and Archer required slightly different organization than last year's, per yours truly trying my hand at working again in 2009. A common theme emerges: work interferes with blogging, work interferes with Hobbes's swimming schedule, work interferes with visitors, work interferes with [reader's choice]... Instead of touring Switzerland's entirety, we opted for bookend weekend excursions to France and Germany and left them to their own devices with Zürich as home base during the workdays.

We ventured first just over the border to Strasbourg, a perfectly excellent French border town sporting plenty of interesting German influence amidst the heart of the Alsatian wine region (Steph's and my second trip since June 2008). Awesome Gothic church, great white wine, lots of Flammeküche (Alsace pizza, not to be confused with Pflaumenkuchen, or German plum tart), just a solid European town. Pictures below tell the story. Later that week back in Switzerland, Kay and Archer hiked in the vicinity of Zermatt and The Alps' famous Matterhorn peak (still haven't seen it myself) bordering Italy, and spent Friday with Steph exploring the voluminous castle in Montreaux over in my Swiss-French neck of the woods (I was working), later commuting home with me.

Saturday we visited the impressive impressionist van Gogh art exhibit in not-so-far-away Basel, Switzerland and then trained it yet again to finish the long weekend in Mainz, Germany, home to a nice Hyatt and quite near the Frankfurt international airport for their flight home Monday. Mainz scored better than expected, pleasant in its own right, more than simply a Frankfurt suburb. The highlight of the trip was an afternoon historic castle and vineyard cruise down the Rhine River through the heart of the Rheinland-Pfalz region. Castles on bluffs around every turn with Riesling vineyards strewn steeply below. We disembarked at one of the many villages along the way for a light lunch including a liter of the local white for a bargain 5 Euros served by the 85-year-old proprietress. Ich kann es nie genug sagen (I can't say it enough): Germany rocks!

Strasbourg pics link here. I think I have Rhine pics at home, but no access tonight in Lausanne. Sorry! http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=368064518703%3A542620968

Blog Back On! - summer recap

Okey doke, here we go again! My blog output dropped so anemically this summer that I simply must have saved up some creative energy, eh? I'll try to keep the next posts short and rapid-fire rather than too-big bites. Otherwise I can't even keep a Part 2 post alive these days. But don't worry, if you're really curious about the intracacies of dog-grooming in foreign lands I'll try to finish that last post too.

In the meantime, check out our fancy rooftop garden this summer. Pictured here: San Marzano tomatoes, a rampant basil weed, thyme (obscured by said weed) and yellow tomatoes, also accompanied (not pictured) by a robust potted rosemary bush and not-as-robust Italian flat leaf parsley. All soaking up the sun on a lovely blue-skied summer day, of which we can boast quite a quantity from June through September this year, a longer summer and overall less rain than last year. We suffered one hot spell for about two weeks, only about 30-32ºC (86-90ºF) and less humidity than in the Midwest U.S., but those conditions can wear on you slightly without a shred of air conditioning at home, while sleeping or in the office (also sleeping?). And although overall I'm not a big weather-complainer, this year provided even the curmudgeons scant fodder.

So we overplanted our first-ever rooftop garden a bit, underestimating how much sun the plants would devour six stories up, and watched the tomatoes strangle each other mid-summer to yield ultimately a high count but low average weight tomato--more like large cherry tomatoes. Regardless they were fantastically delicious off the vine, especially the sweet yellow tomatoes. One summer evening we prepared the classic Italian, rely-entirely-on-quality-raw-materials caprese salad with freshly-picked tomatoes and basil with olive oil and a cheese reminiscent of fresh Mozzarella (that I mistook for a special Italian-commune-labeled Mozzarella but was actually more of an under ripe version that oozed after cutting; the cheese options in the average Swiss grocery might confuse you too!). The result... not bad at all! There may have been wine too...

I'll sign off here with one more summer pic. You'll remember that the Most Spoiled Dog on Earth enjoyed the services of a full-time caretaker and entertainer during the summer of 2008, since his primary servant then lacked a job in the human world. Hobbes's new typical schedule of Mon-Wed as the only boy in the house (with his servant in Lausanne) plus Thu-Fri with a work-from-home companion didn't settle well at first. After voicing his discontent several times regarding too much time home alone--including knocking out our internet for a full week (Swiss service doesn't exactly jump to fix things) and climbing up all 88 lean mean pounds on the brand new dining room table (really a first, I would've loved to see it) to impart a few choice, deep claw scratches in the wood veneer--and with lots of help from our awesome Mexican dog-sitter Mitzy, he was more or less on board with the new routine in Summer 2009, pictured here plotting to terrorize a family of ducks on Lake Zürich. Could you tell by the smile?

Whoah! Excuse the delay!

A quick note to the blog faithful--sorry for the long delay! Hopefully we'll still find out about Hobbes's new groomer. This whole working thing really puts a crimp in my blogging style. And I guess we had a busy summer. Here's a picture from a trip to Valencia, Spain, in August to tide things over for now. We just returned home from Oktoberfest in Munich this weekend, our second annual trip, that's certainly always good blog fodder also. So hold tight please and I'll get back in the groove..!

Hair of the Dog, Pt. 1

Big news in Zürich city this August on multiple fronts! First our little neighborhood Hungarian specialty foods store started selling freshly baked bread, a remarkable event indeed well worth the newspaper coverage received. Quite a shrewd move, since we (and I can only imagine other locals) didn't frequent the store very often. After all, once fully stocked with an industrial-sized tube of authentic paprika paste and bottle of Unicum bitter herbal liquor (Hungary's answer to Jägermeister, which actually didn't need to be answered) we're set for several years of goulash dinner parties.

But a tiny new bakery is entirely a different matter. We stopped during Saturday morning's walk with Hobbes and tested the new wares, the family sharing a single Nussschnecke. Yes, that's spelled correctly with three consecutive s's, literally it means "nut snail" or what we'd call a cinnamon roll (that's Zimtschnecke) except not so sweet, with nuts instead of cinnamon sugar. The tasting panel decided it wasn't half bad with one judge in particular voting an emphatic four paws up for this latest neighborhood expansion project. It's now completely unnecessary to walk four minutes downhill to the existing local bakery; it sits on a different Platz after all, practically an altogether different neighborhood!

But our major life change in Zürich this summer appeared as another local business transformed itself. We're incalculably lucky that a Tiersbedarfladen (animal care store) opened up the street (about as far away as the Hungarian bakery) soon after we moved into the neighborhood. Neither groomers nor pet stores are plentiful in Zürich, so lacking a car means a cross-city tram ride trying to rein in Mr. Golden Personality for a grooming, or a return trip from the city's only mall lugging 33 lbs of dog food on one's shoulder. Lamentably our local shop's full potential never quite materialized, instead providing a frustratingly perfect display of typical Zürich customer service: although we tried to buy the exact same specialty dog food every month (and the owner recognized me as a montly customer), she never stocked it but instead asked me to special-order it every time with the lead time varying inexplicably from 3 days to 3 weeks (except when they forgot completely), and at 100 CHF per bag I didn't feel like stocking up. Invariably I'd buy a sometimes similar but usually different food every month, wreaking havoc on poor Hobbes's stomach. So I recently resorted again to the cross-city mall trek, viewing the haul home as good backpacking training.

Apparently that particular service model earned scant repeat business, because the store changed motif significantly a few weeks back. New signage and rearranged decor features the storefront prominently now as a Hundecoiffeur, the dog barber! Details forthcoming!

Abwasserreinigungsanlage, Pt. 2

Ha, I bet you thought I was kidding about that German word until you saw it pictured! You can find anything on Google these days.

Sometimes my inexpensive, nearly-retired, very sweet, gratefully patient Zürich barberess tries to converse with me. It's happened twice now. Of course, I've seen her well over a dozen times already but Zürichers often take a while to warm up to strangers. It didn't help that early in our "relationship" I could barely schedule an appointment via phone in German, so she understandably mistook me for another hapless ex-pat short-timer. But perseverence pays dividends.

Have you ever ordered up a haircut in a foreign language? My initial vocabulary with her consisted of pointing to various areas on my head and instructing kurz (short) or nicht so kurz (not so short). That's actually a big improvement from my first-ever Swiss haircut 20 months ago (!) in Kloten where I communicated through a written note. But she's a professional so the results are always top notch anyway.

I may qualify as her only Under-40 Male in both the age and gender categories. Her clientele consists primarily of gossipy grey-haired ladies using that old-fashioned hair-dryer thingy that sits on your head for 45 minutes (I always politely refuse the hair wash). But once after a particularly lively Schwiizerdütsch gabbing session with a longtime client and subsequent lowering of the hair-dryer thingy on those silver locks, her good mood continued unquenched and she struck up a conversation with the strange new boy. Her Hochdeutsch is quite good, with only a trace of the oftentimes heavy Swiss accent. Both times I unbelievably more or less kept up my end of the conversation. The only problem is that I get nervous and sweat like crazy while she's chatting and cutting my hair. It's excellent real-life practice for me but quite nerve-wracking; my T-shirt feels nearly soaking wet when I finally leave. So what do we talk about?

Well, here's the long answer. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a standardized system that defines foreign-language aptitude by stepwise levels. The levels advance from A1 (beginner) to A2, B1, B2, C1, up to C2 (indistinguishable from a native speaker). So just for kicks, I'm preparing to take the CEFR 'B1' exam sometime this fall, a level usually requiring about 360-400 hours of study to attain. It's defined:

B1 - Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

Amazingly accurate for what I currently can and can't do in German. My barberess and I talk about my original home, how Steph and I came to Zürich, how long we've been here and how long we expect to stay, where we work, vacation plans, and lots of general thoughts on dogs. She has no children and when we start to address the pros and cons of kids vs. dogs, her conversation rolls too fast and I can't maintain comprehension; I end up saying something vacuous at the end like, "Um, ja." That B1 level gets stuck at 'brief explanations of opinions'. B2 is truly fluent 'work-level' aptitude requiring an additional 200 hours of study (five hours a week for almost a year) and I ain't there yet.

So hopefully I'll persevere on the exam this fall. Two English-speaking friends have already experienced the ordeal; the test lasts all day with reading comprehension, listening skills, one-on-one conversation and written grammer sections. I'm a grammar whiz but struggle sometimes with hearing comprehension, especially when they record a voice over a loudspeaker or children talking quickly or traffic noise in the background or something similarly ridiculous. On that note, I should probably sign off. I have some studying to do.

By the way, this post title is Steph's favorite German word as seen on a passing sign during her daily train commute; it means "wastewatertreatmentfacility". My favorite word is ausgezeichnet!, it means "excellent!"