Weekend Fun in Switzerland
Friday was a pretty easy day compared to the two before - only one meeting in the morning with two men who mercifully spoke English so I could really understand what was going on. We came back after and had lunch with Beat’s mother - she’s amazing cook and made us some Swiss food. We had bratwurst with rosti, which is a potato dish where the potatoes are sliced into very small pieces and then baked, I think with some seasoning and broth. It gets crunchy on top and really flavourful on the bottom. Yum!
I goofed off for the afternoon and just took it easy. I went for a jog around the neighbourhood and then out to the local golf course. Greeting people on the street here in the smaller towns is extremely common if not almost universal, and joggers are no exception. I still had most people say “Grüss” to me, and so I said it back, if a bit breathlessly.
Friday night some friends of Beat’s took us out to dinner at a restaurant owned by other friends, in another nearby small town. There was plenty of alcohol again, and this time I tried Slivovitz, which is made from prunes. Or at least I think it is. Beat went through a laundry list of fruit when I asked and that happened to be last one he settled on. J I won’t be bringing any of this home either. It set my throat and mouth on fire, and if I wasn’t careful, my nose too.
After visiting with Beat’s mother and staying with Beat’s mother in law, I can fairly safely say that I think mothers are very similar everywhere. Beat’s mother is studying English, which I must say is impressively good. One phrase she has mastered quite well though, is “Please, eat!” which apparently has no acceptable rebuttal on my part. So I do what I’m told, mostly. :) She’s a very sweet woman, so I’m compelled anyway.
Saturday (yesterday) we had lunch with Kathi, Beat’s mother-in-law. Since I’m staying with her, she left a post-it note on my towel that said “Daphne, we will eat launch hier at 12am” but that’s okay, I got the idea. And it was far better than any note I could have left her in German.
After lunch we took the train in to Bern and walked around window-shopping after we bought our tickets for Dresden tomorrow. We looked for perfume for Sonja, to no avail. Everything in Bern, and Switzerland in general, is extremely expensive. Coffee for two, for example, typically costs about seven Swiss Francs, or roughly the same in Canadian dollars. Ugh.
One thing that’s fun to get used to is that you’re supposed to turn lights off everywhere here - the lights in the bathroom are not typically on, for example, and you turn them off when you exit. (A little boy with his mother helpfully demonstrated while I was still in the washroom yesterday.) Lights in the stairwells and outside apartment buildings are on timers. You turn them on to see but they turn off after awhile. You usually have plenty of time, but Beat’s mother lives at the top of two flights of steep stairs. Beat’s sister, helpfully telling stories on him, told me that their mother used to stand next to the stair light switch when he went down as a little boy, in case it went off before he was all the way to the ground. Very cute, though I don’t know if he would agree. :)
In Bern, we went to see a movie. Most things listed in the theatres were either old by Canadian standards (Insomnia, About A Boy, etc) or still in original English with subtitles, which was great for me. We went to see Bowling for Columbine (which I will see again with G, because I feel bad and because it’s worth watching repeatedly, even if it is horrifying in the same way Michael Moore’s “The Awful Truth” is) It was terribly expensive, but an entertaining adventure to see it in a Swiss theatre. The spot we went to was an alternative theatre of sorts, with only one screen. When we bought the tickets, we had to specify if we wanted to be on an edge, or in the middle, and were assigned seats accordingly. My ticket said specifically “Row 11, seat 8”. Or rather, the equivalent in German.
Swiss Movie Theatre Commercials:
1) In which a teenage boy is putting the moves on a teenage girl in a car. She resists/avoids and then eventually spills a bunch of brand-name tampons on the floor of the car “by accident”. So then the boy smiles and relents, and she grins conspiratorially. Okay…you figure that one out. As for my impression, I was vaguely disturbed. J
2) Swiss ski jumpers sail through the air and land as a crowd along the sidelines rings bells, waves Swiss flags and cheers. Then a CGI cow goes over the jump and sails gracefully down to an excellent landing and even more cheering. The Swiss version of a “Drink Milk” commercial.
3) The Toblerone wedding commercial, just like in Canada, except that at the end instead of saying “What?” over product shot, it says “Und Ja??”
4) A mint commercial featuring an invisible guy that everyone including a terrible CGI peeing dog stops to stare at because the mint “makes white teeth visible!”
There was only one movie trailer, for a French comedy called “Le Maison D’espanol” or something similar. Partway through the movie, there was an intermission, just like there used to be years ago in Canada.
Today is a rainy, cloudy, foggy day. We’re supposed to be going up to the Alps, but I don’t know if we will or not since there might be snow. We’ll see.
Recent Food Update
Rosti - the potato dish described above. Sometimes by itself as a side dish, sometimes as the main dish with meat and cheese or other things on top. Delicious but heavy.
Nussgipfel - crescent shaped pastry filled with a spiced nut paste. Tasty and sticky.
Sauser - somewhere between grape juice and wine. Only barely fermented. Has the same effect as drinking prune juice. J
Vermicelles - a pile of noodles made from chestnut paste, on top of crumbled meringue and topped with whipped cream. A very nice taste, but very very heavy and sticky. Very popular here and sold many places.
Love you and miss you all!
I goofed off for the afternoon and just took it easy. I went for a jog around the neighbourhood and then out to the local golf course. Greeting people on the street here in the smaller towns is extremely common if not almost universal, and joggers are no exception. I still had most people say “Grüss” to me, and so I said it back, if a bit breathlessly.
Friday night some friends of Beat’s took us out to dinner at a restaurant owned by other friends, in another nearby small town. There was plenty of alcohol again, and this time I tried Slivovitz, which is made from prunes. Or at least I think it is. Beat went through a laundry list of fruit when I asked and that happened to be last one he settled on. J I won’t be bringing any of this home either. It set my throat and mouth on fire, and if I wasn’t careful, my nose too.
After visiting with Beat’s mother and staying with Beat’s mother in law, I can fairly safely say that I think mothers are very similar everywhere. Beat’s mother is studying English, which I must say is impressively good. One phrase she has mastered quite well though, is “Please, eat!” which apparently has no acceptable rebuttal on my part. So I do what I’m told, mostly. :) She’s a very sweet woman, so I’m compelled anyway.
Saturday (yesterday) we had lunch with Kathi, Beat’s mother-in-law. Since I’m staying with her, she left a post-it note on my towel that said “Daphne, we will eat launch hier at 12am” but that’s okay, I got the idea. And it was far better than any note I could have left her in German.
After lunch we took the train in to Bern and walked around window-shopping after we bought our tickets for Dresden tomorrow. We looked for perfume for Sonja, to no avail. Everything in Bern, and Switzerland in general, is extremely expensive. Coffee for two, for example, typically costs about seven Swiss Francs, or roughly the same in Canadian dollars. Ugh.
One thing that’s fun to get used to is that you’re supposed to turn lights off everywhere here - the lights in the bathroom are not typically on, for example, and you turn them off when you exit. (A little boy with his mother helpfully demonstrated while I was still in the washroom yesterday.) Lights in the stairwells and outside apartment buildings are on timers. You turn them on to see but they turn off after awhile. You usually have plenty of time, but Beat’s mother lives at the top of two flights of steep stairs. Beat’s sister, helpfully telling stories on him, told me that their mother used to stand next to the stair light switch when he went down as a little boy, in case it went off before he was all the way to the ground. Very cute, though I don’t know if he would agree. :)
In Bern, we went to see a movie. Most things listed in the theatres were either old by Canadian standards (Insomnia, About A Boy, etc) or still in original English with subtitles, which was great for me. We went to see Bowling for Columbine (which I will see again with G, because I feel bad and because it’s worth watching repeatedly, even if it is horrifying in the same way Michael Moore’s “The Awful Truth” is) It was terribly expensive, but an entertaining adventure to see it in a Swiss theatre. The spot we went to was an alternative theatre of sorts, with only one screen. When we bought the tickets, we had to specify if we wanted to be on an edge, or in the middle, and were assigned seats accordingly. My ticket said specifically “Row 11, seat 8”. Or rather, the equivalent in German.
Swiss Movie Theatre Commercials:
1) In which a teenage boy is putting the moves on a teenage girl in a car. She resists/avoids and then eventually spills a bunch of brand-name tampons on the floor of the car “by accident”. So then the boy smiles and relents, and she grins conspiratorially. Okay…you figure that one out. As for my impression, I was vaguely disturbed. J
2) Swiss ski jumpers sail through the air and land as a crowd along the sidelines rings bells, waves Swiss flags and cheers. Then a CGI cow goes over the jump and sails gracefully down to an excellent landing and even more cheering. The Swiss version of a “Drink Milk” commercial.
3) The Toblerone wedding commercial, just like in Canada, except that at the end instead of saying “What?” over product shot, it says “Und Ja??”
4) A mint commercial featuring an invisible guy that everyone including a terrible CGI peeing dog stops to stare at because the mint “makes white teeth visible!”
There was only one movie trailer, for a French comedy called “Le Maison D’espanol” or something similar. Partway through the movie, there was an intermission, just like there used to be years ago in Canada.
Today is a rainy, cloudy, foggy day. We’re supposed to be going up to the Alps, but I don’t know if we will or not since there might be snow. We’ll see.
Recent Food Update
Rosti - the potato dish described above. Sometimes by itself as a side dish, sometimes as the main dish with meat and cheese or other things on top. Delicious but heavy.
Nussgipfel - crescent shaped pastry filled with a spiced nut paste. Tasty and sticky.
Sauser - somewhere between grape juice and wine. Only barely fermented. Has the same effect as drinking prune juice. J
Vermicelles - a pile of noodles made from chestnut paste, on top of crumbled meringue and topped with whipped cream. A very nice taste, but very very heavy and sticky. Very popular here and sold many places.
Love you and miss you all!