Tales of an Expat Hausfrau: January 2007

Photos from snowy Zurich

Just back from my walk around town. The snow is still coming down. It must be putting everyone in Zurich is a good mood today. An older, distinguished-looking Swiss man saw me taking pictures and stopped to tell me about the church I was shooting. He was all smiles and questions. This never happens here!

In other exciting news, our swiss drivers licenses came in the mail today and a new lease agreement for our apartment arrived yesterday. (We're currently subleasing.) Looks like we're becoming real locals. It only took 11 months!

Snow!!!

Woke up this morning to discover the neighborhood is blanketed in snow. I feel giddy. Must be about 3 or 4 inches on the ground. It's funny how you never outgrow that burst of joy you feel as a kid seeing snow in your backyard. Always the possibility of school being cancelled (at least in Oregon). This is the first real snow fall of the winter in Zurich, and it's long overdue. It's also just in time for our ski trip to Grindelwald next week. Can't wait to go take a walk. More pics to come....

Bloggers in Basel

We ventured to Basel yesterday to meet some fellow expat bloggers living in Switzerland. It was a great group of people and a lot of fun to make some new connections. We must have been close to 30 people. After a tastey lunch, Basel local The Big Finn led us on a walking tour of the city. Looking forward to the next meet-up in Zurich.

Further reading:
The Canadianswiss blog
Expatter
Life is nicht si mal
Global Librarian
The Risse's in Switzerland
The Swiss Job
This Non-American Life

drinking + skating = bad idea

I think I've sprained my wrist. It happened on Thursday at the skating rink. I was tryinng to teach myself to skate backwards. A Britney Spears song came on and I got a little too frisky. I fell over backwards and landed on my hand - owweee! All that ice makes for a really hard landing. I suppose I shouldn't have been drinking Apfelwein (hard cider) while skating.

I'll try to see a doctor tomorrow. In the meantime, there's no time for mopping over my lame wrist (at least it's the left one.) The hubby and I are off to Basel today to meet about 20 fellow expat bloggers. It's in honor of this occassion that I've been posting so much this week.

Good times in Newcastle

One of the highlights of our busy holiday itinerary was a trip to Newcastle (aka Newcastle-upon-Tyne). The occasion for the visit was a wedding (the bride is from there). I really didn't know what to expect of the place, so I was pleasantly surprised by its charms.

Newcastle is in Northeast England, near the border with Scotland. It's of course famous for its brown ale and its musical talents (Sting and Dire Straits' Mark & David Knopfler).

What I really liked about it though, was an interesting blend of ancient, industrial-age and modern flavors. It reminded me a little of my hometown, Portland, Ore., in this way. Both are working-class industrial towns that have recently developed a more cosmopolitan side. They also have in common a river and an abundance of bridges and gray skies.

The pubs of course are not to be missed. They are the perfect antidote to winter, so cozy and convivial. I was never a huge fan of Newcastle Brown Ale, but it actually tasted better there. Sadly, many locals prefer exports, namely Miller and Heineken, according to the bride's brother-in-law. At any rate, there's a lot of drinking going on.

Along with the pubs, another fixture of Newcastle are packs of sparsley-clad women roving the streets en route to the pubs. Apparently coats, hats, pants, sleeves or anything actually designed to warm the body are a fashion faux-pas, even in mid-winter. I think my mother-in-law would pass out if she witnessed it.

Another enchanting aspect of Newcastle is its dialect, known as Geordie. I gather it sounds a lot like Scottish. The bride and groom provided us with a guide to Geordie English. I'll leave you with a few jems I especially like:
beastie - small animal
booza - pub
gobby - talkative
hoo- how (hoo ye bin the day?)
manny - young man
netty - toilet
peel off - get rid of
scabby - shabby
tatie - potato

A word about the weather

I know it's wrong and unnatural, but I'm absolultely euphoric about the weather here in Zurich. This entire week has felt positively spring-like. Yesterday it hit 55 degrees (13 C). The historic average high for this time of year is 36 F. Something is definitely fishy. I have no doubt it's global warming and we're all screwed, but a small, ashamed part of me is rejoicing.

I'm not a big cold weather person. I chill easily. I prefer spring skiing. An accupunturist once told me I "run cold." Being from the West Coast, cold to me is, say, 40 degrees. Snow was a novelty. So when I arrived in Zurich last March to three feet of snow and snow showers throughout March and April, I began to worry. If this was spring, what would winter be like?

But nothing in the weather department has been ordinary since I arrived. August was the coldest on record and July was the hottest. January actually seems milder to me that August was. Oh, what a crazy, mixed-up world!

Uplifting thought of the day

"There's an old proverb: To learn a new language is to gain a new soul."

I read this in a magazine (Yoga Journal) recently, and I love it. Unfortunately, my efforts at learning German seem to be flagging these days. It's frustrating. I've been here for 10 months and spent wads of cash on German instruction. I just spent a week in a German household where very little English is spoken, but my brain just doesn't seem to be as absorbent as it once was. It's resisting German. Perhaps its gaurding the Italian soul I gained 13 years ago in Siena.

I think what I need to do is shake up my routine. Try something new. Since I'd be really happy if I achieved the vocabulary of my three-year old niece Katja, children's books seem like a good way to go. I started last night with Der Kleine Eisbär. The illustrations really help.

At the suggestion of my German teacher, I'm listening to a lot of Hildegard Knef, a German singer from the 60s. I like her sound. She's got a deep, husky voice, and when she's not channeling Frank Sinatra she's doing Billy Holiday covers - but the words are in German. So today I find myself humming the German version of Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love). I get all the lyrics on Lyrics.de(we help you singin') so I can really follow.

I also just discovered last night, quite by accident, that iTunes is full of free German podcasts. A few of them are for beginners, so I may take a stab at that. Oh, and Christoph and I are trying to speak German to eachother on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We really gave it a shot yesterday. I'd say we did about 50-50. Okay, it was more like 30-70. We'll try it again tomorrow.

Das ist alles für jetzt. Auf wiedersehen.

Literary thought of the day

I came across this passage yesterday in a novel I'm reading and it grabbed me...

"He talked of Les Cosmopolites and the literary scene in France before the war, of their obsession with foreign travel... the almost sexual thrill of being out of your own country: an outsider, déraciné, worldly, nomadic."

Intriguing, isn't it? I never quite thought of it like that, but I like the description. I felt a bit more glamorous today, just running errands on Bahnhofstrasse and thinking of it. The book, by the way, is Any Human Heart by English writer William Boyd.

Silliness

Ahhh, the new year. I'm not big on new year's resolutions. But after browsing my photos from over the holidays, it occurs to me that there is something worth striving for this year. That something is more silliness. It shouldn't be too hard for me. Every time I speak my toddler-level German I feel pretty silly. So here's to a silly 2007, may we all have lots of laughs.

Here are some photos to get us started: