Visitor

We had a visitor in our garden on Sunday!

Swiss life

Everything is gearing up for national day next week (1 August), with all kinds of Swiss flag or Swiss traditional pattern tat overflowing the shelves in the supermarkets. And all made in China, which I was a bit surprised by.

Right now, all you need to "heat and melt" at least is to leave chocolate out of the fridge.

We managed to escape from the heat yesterday - we met up with Dawn in Lucern and although it was a hot 33°C with a "felt heat" of 40°C thanks to humidity, we got the bus to the cable car and switched to the gondola to go up and away into the mountains to Pilatus, which was 20°C degrees - heaven! We also managed to get a little burnt despite putting on sun block, but it was still very worth it.

A new experience - a goat jam. The one on the stairs was not moving for anything. And some little hitch-hikers we found when we sat down.

There was a huge wait for the gondola to go back down, but just as we went to see if the cog railway was running some staff appeared at the gate to say yes, it was, swapped our tickets for us and ushered us onto the last of three cars making the descent. Thank you! And what a descent it is. And just to prove that Swiss cows get everywhere, there were some at the side of the tracks...

Dawn was just back from Japan and had brought us some amazing omiyage - a "lobster kitty" bag and "lobster kitty" and "candle kitty" sticky note set from Mie! Love the regional Hello Kittys. And we got a box of the delicious senbei crackers she brought us before, but the summer edition this time! Even the packaging is cute.

Angels, Divas, The Master and Mr Perfect and other stories

Last week was a bit crazy. I had lots of work, and we ended up doing lots of other things as well. One was seeing an apartment in Wadenswil, which we both really liked - incredibly quiet despite being close to two train lines, small garden, beautiful finish on the apartment... but the layout of the rooms wasn't something we thought we could use. The master bedroom was as large as the front room, and the current residents had divided it in half to make a bedroom and lounge area with TV, which was fine for them and their kids and made good use of the space but wasn't really something we'd do. Another bonus for the place was the hobby room which had been converted to hold a sauna and two-person bath/shower spa unit, and it was built on the site of an old brewery - the tower was still there and just down a steep path was a barbecue area with the waterfall that used to supply the brewery. Not sure what happened to the sign, as it's in a cul de sac down a small path...

Not so good was the estate agent, who despite being in his 30s and sounding Italian or Swiss-Italian, was incredibly racist and crude. We were talking about how the family had left all the doors and windows open when they went out, and about safety in Switzerland in general, when he pronounced that Geneva was less safe than Zurich because of all the "blackies". I stared. "You know, the people who work for the NGOs." He later strongly hinted that the spa bath would be a great place to have sex, so racism wasn't his only issue, but it was a shock to hear it from someone that young. I thought the country had moved on since my parents were in Geneva in the early 90s and ambassadors to the UN had trouble renting because of the colour of their skin.

We came back through the main station, where we were surprised by a suggestion that bratwurst was illegal in some way, and interested to find what looked like a bank of QR-controlled lockers where online retailers deliver purchases for you to pick up later.

The strangely sexist Diet Coke and Coke Zero bottles - the small bottles aren't so bad, although the names on Diet Coke are mainly women's. The big bottles of normal (aka "full-fat") Coke say "Family". Well, thanks for telling us your assumptions. The caps boast that the Coke is made in Switzerland (by which I assume they mean diluted) and it looks like the marketing may be done here too.

I jumped on a train up to Berne on Friday to meet Karen, a Scottish translator (French to English) who lives in Nevada but was in Evian for two weeks on holiday and coming up to Berne to meet a client. We at at Tibits, where the buffet helped to cater for various allergies, and then strolled around the town before splitting up at the Bundesplatz - which instead of the usual fountains was hosting the finish line for a race. Love the Radio Bern mascot!

I was in Zurich on Saturday afternoon meeting another translator, we had never met before but since we met at 5:00 pm, went for a long walk, had dinner together and split up at 11:30 pm I'd say we got on. ^_^

David meanwhile headed out to Ikea to get these cute and practical mini-greenhouses for my struggling shiso. Fingers crossed they do the trick.

And on Sunday we went up the Dolder cog railway on the east side of Zurich - which amazingly neither of us had gone up before even though it's covered on our passes - to see Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band play Live at Sunset. They came on at 8:30 pm and - after two encores - finished just after 10:30 so there was indeed a sunset. They played lots of old blues and jazz, all amazing musicians and singers, and they even had people standing up and dancing for the last few songs. Half of David's office seemed to be there as well.

Monday was crazy for work as well, today is finally clear but I have a lot of catching up to do and the computer is acting up so no rest for me just yet!

So Swiss, and not so

One of the clothes shops below the local Migros has started stocking traditional wear for ladies and men.

We headed in to Zurich on Saturday to meet a friend and see some of Zurifascht, a festival held every three years. I saw some of the air display team on Friday evening on my way to the shops, as they seemed to be turning around near us before heading back up the lake. First stop was the Korean food shop near the main station, and we were delighted to see that it has expanded - the little food section is now in a separate two-story shop across the street, with the food in a nice cool basement and expanded to include fresh vegetables - and the tiny restaurant was getting ready to expand into the space it had previously occupied. 

There was lots going on in the town centre - we didn't realise the trams were diverted and ended up further away than we started but eventually got to the top of the lake where you could barely walk through the crowds. Parachutists were coming in to land on a very small pontoon near the bridge, and later divers were doing acrobatic dives from a high board also very close to the bridge. There were stalls selling all kinds of food, as well as rides, a rather dubious "gondola", and more tat than you could shake a stick at including multiple piercing jewellery stalls. 

A handcar race getting ready to go, all dressed up as local trams.

Another of the irritating "share a Coke with..." labels. Might be Swiss German.

The fire brigade, who had the very high ladder extended for a while.

A "gondola", aka a wheeless bus/shipping container with windows on a crane.

A truly impressive production line of barbequed pork and beef in a fake train.

A member of the "Swiss Barbeque Team".