Coming home… Settling back in.

September 4, 2011

Fortunately, Darrell’s cousin (Jen – our last US visitor to Switzerland) had a long career in the Army. She told us that the Army talks to soldiers coming home after a long deployment about what to expect. It was good for her to frame that for me and just let me know that there is a process to being home again. We clearly are not the same people we left as. I mean, we are still fun-loving energetic, and lovable :) , but with such a different view on life and living. I’ve been home since August 25^th now and have had some time to try settling.

It has been hard to say I am happy to be home without any caveats because there is still a lot of work ahead of us to get settled. We’ve just been going through tasks for so long now. Lately, it has been get cell phones (we have new numbers if anyone needs them), turn on utilities, go to a wedding, visit our neglected property in eastern Washington, start cleaning and moving back into our house, thinking about house projects we need to do, weeding our out of control garden….

But we are settling, and there are lots of things in the works here now. I’ve ordered a raclette maker and we are looking at espresso makers so we can stop using our drip coffee pot (friends in Switzerland were always amazed that we would drink that “stuff that you leave in a container”). We have plans for a firepit outside so we can do regular grills with wood instead of with our gas grill – which is for sale now. I am also excited to say that we now have a home carbonation system so I can drink wasser mit Kohlensäure (carbonated water) any time I want. I’m planning to sit in on the university German classes and am trying to figure out how to make regular visits back to German speaking countries so I can practice.

I am also excited about some of my favorite Bellingham things like social exercising (runs and bike rides with girlfriends), a 25K run in January on Orcas Island that I just signed up for, spontaneous and frequent get-togethers with friends, our killer Farmer’s Market, NPR at the right time of the day, and good American micro-brewed beer (after giving Swiss and some German beers a serious chance, I have to say that it really doesn’t get much better than American micro-brews for tasty beer). I am happy to say though that at our first meal with friends, I said en guete (enjoy your meal) without thinking about it.

I suspect that there will continue to be things that strike me as interesting or odd, but there are already some to talk about.

• Red onions. Darrell claims that Switzerland had red onions, but for whatever reasons, I didn’t have red onions for a year – and I had forgotten about them. Discovering them on a salad though was wonderful!

• Toilets – I am still trying to figure this out, but I think the flush handle is on the opposite side (left side here – I remember it always being on the right in Switzerland). Even more importantly though, in Switzerland almost every toilet had a toilet brush beside it (public and private) and it was clear that you were to clean your own toilet bowl. Here, there are some toilet brushes, but not as commonly. It is an odd feeling to have been very careful about cleaning up in Switzerland and then come here where it isn’t expected.

• My neighborhood… It is an old charming neighborhood in Bellingham with turn of the century houses of all styles and with tree lined streets. I loved this neighborhood when I left. The first day we went back though, I had a bit of a panic attack. All I could think was that this place was so chaotic. The houses were all different and maintained to different degrees, the yards were different shapes, the alley ways were dingy, there were parked cars and power lines everywhere (both of these are underground in Switzerland)… I honestly had to get out of there. It was just so different than the well kept Swiss homes, apartments, and green spaces with clean lines and similar styles everywhere. A week later though, we’ve had dinner three times in a row outside in our garden and I am happy to be back in my house again. Unfortunately, I think the power lines will always bother me.

• There are a lot more American flags than I remember. Still not as many as Swiss flags, but there are plenty of the Old Glory here and there.

• The brats (bratwurst) are really small here.We have to spend some time exploring what our local options are.

• And related to that…. MUSTARD – I am sure I royally embarrassed Darrell by breaking out into excited (loud) chatter about all of the mustard options (picture below) we had at our local grocery store. As one friend here pointed out, we weren’t even at the nice store, we were at the ghetto store and still had probably 40 different mustard options – Russian, Chinese, Düssseldorf, American picnic, chipotle, Hawaiian, horseradish, cranberry,jalapeno, wasabi, honey …. oh the varieties! In Switzerland, we did most of our shopping in Fehraltorf with small grocery stores, but I think it is fair to say that most groceries there focused on carrying one or two brands for each item, so options were always limited. For example, all Mexican products were always the Old El Paso brand only.

There is only one more thing to happen that will make life complete… and we are in the process of that right now… stay tuned.

Good-bye Eawag.

August 19, 2011

My last day was today and I am sad to leave. I gave a final presentation of my work conducted at Eawag and am happy to say that it is a solid bit of work – this year was a smashing success professionally. We followed the presentation with an Apéro later in the day and then some time at the local lake for a Bar-BQ.

One thing we talked about in earlier posts is how neat it is that here the custom is for you to bring your own cake for your birthday, and by the same token, you have your own party when you are leaving. Most of the parties at work are in the form of an Apéro – which was great for us because we were able to use lots of food from our Swiss pantry. At the Apéro , I was surprised to have some gifts from the people in my department (UTox). A lovely book of Switzerland from the two group leaders I was working closest with (because they knew how much I loved their country), a recycled water bottle and glass from the department chair (because what is better than that when you work at an Institute of Aquatic Studies?), and a scrap book from everyone.

The scrap book is awesome. Basically, anyone who wanted had a page with a picture they added. For example, Flavio added his famous tiramisú recipe (although it is in Italian and I won't get the translation until next year when he comes to visit!), Adi added pictures of the ICP-MS for me (so I could remember the instrument that he worked so long with me on), and David had a note written in English that he held up in his picture (he spoke Swiss German, and by the end we had worked out our own wonderful way to communicate with each other, it often involved me drawing pictures and one of us running off to a computer to look up a word). There were lots of pictures of activities from the lab and from outside adventures with my closest friends there.

Maybe best of all is the name on the front. It says Les Ambassadeurs. If you’ve been following the blog, you know we called our dog, Fiona, the Ambassador. Honestly, with all the emotion of leaving and stress of moving out, and a touch of sadness still for loosing Fiona, this caused me to cry. I have to say though, that I am honored to be considered Ambassadors ourselves. As our friend explained, not only was Fiona an Ambassador, but so were we – simply put, we gave our European friends a different sense of what an American is. I really really am honored. Thank you.

The lake was nice – it was a place I went in the early spring with some of the PhD students and post-docs to just hang out on a sunny Saturday. It was great to do that one last time with them and with some other friends - this ended up being our last good-bye with many of them.

As Darrell said when I was looking through my scrapbook the next day… it is like I just came back from camp. I made so many wonderful friends, learned so much, and just had fun. Add to that my huge accomplishments with research, new skills I am bringing back to my U.S. university, and European colleagues I hope to work with in the future... I couldn’t have asked for more and will cherish this time and these memories forever.

Catching up!

Hi everyone :)  We  returned from a vacation through France and Spain on July 31.  When we arrived back in Switzerland, we had about 2 hours to pick up Darrell's cousin (Jen) who was with us the first week of August.  We spent the week with Jen doing some really neat things in Switzerland.  It really makes me sad to think that we are leaving soon...

But, we will be catching the blog up  (France and Spain may be a separate section since we still have so many Swiss experiences to share).  We are also starting the unappealing task of trying to move back - selling furniture, getting out of contracts, saying good-bye to friends, etc....  Darrell gets back into the US on August 21 and I return August 25.  Hopefully we'll see some of our US friends and family soon - XO Ruth

A True American Tradition

The weather has been nice here - very nice - and we have been quickly included in the Swiss and German traditions of grilling outside at a public area. For some reason, marshmallows have not caught on here. Too sweet we are told. So you Americans. . . . Have a hot dog and roast some marshmallows for us.

Ruth's note: I introduced some friends from work to S'mores at a lakeside grill. Everyone gave them a try - and I think they liked them. There is only one brand in the stores (pictured here)... Rocky Mountain Marshmallows straight from Elk Grove Village, IL - not quite the Rocky Mountains... but I digress, the instructions on the back are as much fun as eating the marshmallows!

How to BBQ perfect Marshmallows?

1) Stick 1-2 marshmallows on a long-handled stick or barbeque fork.
2) Hold the stick about 20 cm ABOVE the heat source. Do NOT hold the marshmallows IN the flame. (I like the conversion into metric for the European market).
3) Rotate your utensil until all sides are golden brown.
4) Let the marshmallow cool off.
5) Eat and Enjoy!

Do you want S'More? A s'more ("some more") is a traditional campfire treat very popular in the United States and Canada, consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham crackers (biscuits). Try some more!

Finally, there is the choking warning... do the Europeans really need this?
Eat one at a time. For children under 6, cut marshmallow into bite sized pieces.

Superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch

I have learned a few interesting things at work recently about my European friends. An innocent comment to my German labmate with a reference to The Sound of Music led to a blank stare from her. The short of it is she had never heard of The Sound of Music. I've confirmed this is also true of most of the other Germans. Wow! That is so hard for me to believe... The confirmations happened over a coffee break and we ended up talking about other musicals. One that came up was Mary Poppins. In trying to remember what that word was (Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious), we also discovered that the Germans have a slightly different translation of what Mary Poppins says (Superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch) - also very interesting to me.

I have threatened them with A Sound of Music movie night... I think I'll have to provide beer and food if I want anyone to come...

Swiss Happiness

One of my girlfriends in the US sent me a chapter from a book called “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner. The second chapter is about the Swiss and discusses what makes them happy. I read the chapter and can say it rings true for 99% of what Weiner says. For example, early in the chapter, a Swiss man is asked what makes the Swiss happy, he replies "Cleanliness. Have you seen our public toilets? They are very clean."

Wow - just to show how right he is (and how the non-Swiss learn to become part of the clean toilet system), I took a picture of one of the signs in the bathroom stall at Eawag. Every toilet I've been in (anywhere in Switzerland) has a toilet brush prominently displayed and ready for use. In the sign above, there are instructions for what to do what not to do with the
toilet brush. It makes me happy :)

Fiona is NOT the Easter Bunny

We have been very lucky to meet many wonderful Swiss people. I've spoken about Iris before - she often dog sits for us - and just adores Fiona. We do consider Iris' house Fiona's second Swiss home. Fiona was with Iris last week during a class she teaches. She brought Fiona for the children to meet and started out by teasing that Fiona is the Easter bunny. When the children said, "no she isn't", Iris said, "But look, she doesn't have a tail, she has to be the Easter bunny". From there, Iris turned it into a lesson for the children on how to approach dogs they don't know. Brilliant, lovely, and caring - that is our friend Iris...

Things that are different about Switzerland: Part 2… Food and Shopping

Mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup in a tube? Dairy products that aren’t refrigerated? No brown sugar as we know it? Vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract? These are some of the questions you have when shopping in a Swiss grocery store if you are used to shopping in the US.

The condiments in a tube is just odd, but really works just like our condiments in plastic bottles (just without the splurting sounds we are used to when squeezing ketchup on your plate). Seriously though, did you know that dairy products don’t always have to be refrigerated? A sealed box of heavy whipping cream can last for months on your pantry shelf. Eggs – well, they also don’t have to be refrigerated (and aren’t always), but I am told the non-refrigerated ones don’t last as long as the ones that are (according to my in-house shopper, Darrell). Speaking of eggs, so far you can buy boiled and colored eggs in our local store year-round (think Easter eggs, but conveniently packaged in plastic on the store shelves, and apparently the coloring is so you know they are already cooked). Brown sugar here, well technically, it IS brown, but it is like granulated sugar with a bit of color thrown in – it really doesn’t taste as good no matter what anyone tells you. And then there is that lovely (vanilla) extract we tend to think of as a liquid. Yup, it isn’t a liquid here, instead it comes as a little package of vanilla sugar, and from all accounts, it is as good as our extract if not better.

If you have ever shopped in Europe and tried to purchase fresh vegetables, odds are decent you have experienced a flustered check-out clerk sitting (they all sit, no standing for the clerks here), saying something to you in a foreign language, shaking the carrots at you, looking ready to lob an apple at your forehead. You don’t know what they are saying, but know that something is really really wrong… Why else would they be shaking your vegetables at you? OK, so here is the deal. In every country in Europe I’ve been to, you have to weigh your own produce. It is really simple, as long as you can remember to do it. When you pick out your produce, find the number on the shelf tag, then find the scale in the produce section. Put your produce on the scale and push the number that matches the shelf tag, take the sticker that prints out and put it on your produce. Voila! You have just weighed and priced your own produce – and saved yourself some check-out anxiety and embarrassment…

Finally, buying coffee beans… if you want to buy your beans and grind them at the store, you can count on the fact that the grinder is outside of the check-out line. This just plain makes sense – and it really is brilliant if you think about it... In our stores in the US, you grind your beans before you pay for them, so a little ground up bean left in the grinder doesn’t matter to you. Who cares if the next person gets a blend of your residual Bellinghamster blend with their dark Ecuadorian free trade roast. In Switzerland, you’ve already paid for your beans by the time you grind them, so you can be darn sure you'll try to get every last particle of ground up bean out of the machine – it is yours after all on this side of the check-out. Truly brilliant!

Things that are different in Switzerland- Part 1 (because there is sure to be a Part 2)

When we first moved here, several things were immediately novel. These aren’t necessarily things big enough to affect how you live in Switzerland – that would include differences like not owning a car and using trains instead, or shopping daily since our refrigerator is small and freezer is not big enough to hold a bag of my beloved french fries! No, these are little things, plain and simple novelties. For example, life doesn’t change just because you push an overhead light on instead of flicking it on. Now that I think about it, we call the device that you use to turn on a light a “lightswitch” – it isn’t a switch here so what do you call it? Maybe one of our Swiss or German friends can help – do you can the button a “lightbutton” or a “lightpush” or a "lightclicker"...?

Doors deserve mentioning also. I still mutter to myself on occasion “Pull, don’t push…” when I go to push a door and find it needs to be pulled instead. I checked in with another American early on and found she had the same experience... good, it wasn’t just me. There has to be something about the orientation of the handle and the direction the door opens in Switzerland that is opposite to door orientation and functioning in the US. Again, nothing that really affects your life, but you do loose the cool factor with friends when time and time again, you don’t quite have doors figured out. While I am on the subject of doors, most front doors don’t have a handy-dandy knob that you can turn to lock a door from the inside. Instead, you do the very practical thing of locking your door from the inside with your key. Our Swiss friend early on showed us the advantage of this. When you leave your key in the door (Note to Darrell: leave the key in the inside doorknob, not outside!), you know where it is when it is time to go (no more searching for keys) and it is pretty hard to forget your keys since you have to use it to get out of the apartment in the morning (no more frantic calls to your honey that you locked yourself out of the apartment).

Moving on to the bedroom… Flat sheets? Who needs them anyway!!! There are no flat sheets here… one of our Swiss friends said she thinks that was something her grandmother used. Another younger friend just looked at me in surprise when I asked her about flat sheets and pondered why on earth you would need another sheet…. The Swiss solution to an icky blanket touching your night-time skin is a duvet cover – everyone has a duvet cover (in fact, we have TWO). In case clarification is needed, the order of your Swiss bed is as follows: mattress, fitted sheet, blanket covered in a duvet – that is all you need. I have to say, I have gotten used to this - bed making in the morning is VERY EASY! Shake the blanket covered in the duvet so it is mostly flat on the bed and voilà – your bed is made.

The final thing we have noticed is that there are very few above ground parking lots. There are plenty of parking spaces for cars, with most apartment buildings having underground parking. This is an expensive proposition to build underground parking, and cost prohibitive as our American building lobbyists may lead you to believe in the US. With that perspective, we naturally thought this had to be a requirement of the cantonal government… of course, it has to be that the builders are forced against their will to add that expensive underground parking to a project so that unsightly above ground parking lots won’t scar the Swiss landscape. An American friend living here for several years enlightened us though, by pointing out what is likely the real reason. Land is just plain ‘ole expensive here and why on earth would you waste it on asphalt? Knowing a little bit about how much an apartment costs to rent or purchase here, I think our American friend had the right answer. It doesn’t change anything about our life, but it does change the feel of our village. It feels different than our Bellingham home. It is nice.

Congratulations

Yesterday (Dec 14) was my birthday. I had already picked up what one of the traditions here was. On your birthday, you bring the cake. We don't have anything to bake a cake in (and there is no Betty Crocker or Pillsbury on the grocery store shelves), so I made some oatmeal cookies with hard-found cranberries.

There were a few minor challenges with baking here - the first is they don't have brown sugar like we know it. They have granulated sugar that is brown, but not brown sugar. The second is they use vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract. I did what I could with the ingredients and the internet...the good news is that the cookies turned out OK...

At work, there is a coffee break at 3 everyday. On days where there is a birthday, we get an e-mail that asks you to come enjoy cake at the break, so I sent out the e-mail. Within a half hour of sending the e-mail, someone confirmed that today was my birthday and then shook my hand and said "Congratulations". I thought it was odd, but... when we gathered to go in for coffee, another person came up, confirmed it was indeed my birthday today, shook my hand and said "Congratulations", several others said congratulations also (with or without the handshake).

I think the cookies were well received. They wanted to know what was in them (the oats and cranberries were unusual)... Someone bought me a coffee and wouldn't let me make it myself - you won't lift a hand, he said, it is your birthday.

That night, I met Darrell at the train station for a trip to Konstanz, a border town in Germany. This was our first time out of Switzerland since we moved here (with the exception of my work trip back to the US in Early November). We went to a really cool Christmas market there (probably my favorite of the ones we've been to) and then to a brewpub. We always like to sit at the bar since you can talk to people better. The gentleman beside us was an Italian who had been living in Konstanz for several years. There are fun stories to tell about our conversations with him, but I'll save those for later.... for now, I'll just say, when he found out that today was my birthday, he shook my hand and said "Congratulations".

XO

The ambassador of the Sofields

If you look at this blog with any regularity, you probably get the sense of a few recurring themes… this post includes two of those – trains and Fiona. It has happened many many times, that a conversation with a stranger will start with "Was ist die Hunderasse ". If I have Fiona, this is usually followed by “Huh, Sprechen sie English?” Most of the time, the people are happy to switch to English and ask the question again “What is the breed?” The second most popular question is how old she is followed by whether she is a boy or a girl. (I can answer how old she is... zwolf Jahrs alt.)

Last Saturday, we were at the World Cup ski races in Davos. A lady in the stands came up and said something in German, then switched to English. She wanted to know the standard things about Fiona (breed, age, sex, name), but kept going. She told us that she doesn’t like dogs, but could tell that Fiona was a kind dog, look at her eyes she said. She proceeded to pet Fiona and shortly tapped her partner on the shoulder to share that she found a dog she liked. When she stopped petting Fiona and went to leave, Fiona skootched closer and sat down against her. The lady just couldn’t leave at that point, Fiona had thrown the bait and she went for it. She spent the next 5 minutes giving Fiona an ear rub that they both really enjoyed!

The ambassador being loved on by someone who doesn't like dogs...

On Sunday, we were on a bus in Geneva on our way to a friend’s house. This time the language was French that we started in, but quickly went to English. An older lady wanted to know what kind of dog she was. After she found out that we speak English, she wanted to know where we came from. Zurich… she asked what Zurich was like (funny thing for a Swiss person to be asking an American). Then she told us where the route map on the bus was, how many stops after hers we would need, where people play outdoors chess in town, where the old University was, that we had to check out the old city center, etc. For 5 minutes, we had a wonderfully friendly tour guide and it started with questions about our ambassador Fiona. The stories don’t always turn out this way. When we got off the train in Geneva, a lovely little lady came up and started talking to Fiona in French, and then she looked at us for a response. We asked her in a combination of German, English, and poor French if she spoke English. She looked at us, shook her head, said something to Fiona in French and walked away. Other people seem to be afraid of her, but those people seem to be either afraid of dogs in general or just caught off guard by a dog– it is often in the train station when it is crowded and they round a corner only to be surprised by Fiona – they make a wide arch around her, keep their eyes on her, or just hesitate when they see her. Fiona has never noticed when this happens, a well trained ambassador doesn’t…

There are so many stories about Fiona and the connections she has helped us make, but the last one for now involves Darrell and Fiona on a train. Last week, they met a couple seated across from them who own a pension in (believe it or not) a skiing valley. Darrell got their contact information and now, it turns out that we’ll be spending part of the Christmas holiday with them (as paying guests of course) – and guess what started the conversation?