ExpatCH

Swiss Sweet Spot #2

2012-03-15T20:41:00.001+01:00

Continued with my new ritual project today for the second week: forest walk, crunching leaves to the still-being-consecrated spot with a view.

Took 3 cameras, water, cheese, bread, an apple, and my beloved, dented and scratched little steel brandy flask.

Still lots of learning to slow down and be in the moment.

I can hardly wait till next week.

Swiss Sweet Spot

2012-03-09T12:03:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I began a new ritual here in the forest by our home. Once a week for at least the next year, I'll return to the sublime spot I found yesterday and take a photo of this scene.

My goal is not just to record the same scene through the seasons, though that will be an interesting document in itself, but mainly to use the 20-minute walk through the woods and the minutes seated on the shelf of rock as a meditation, a way to rinse away all the white noise and chatter, and simply Be Here Now.

The irony is that I'll also be writing about my experience, and sharing the photos for a magazine in Australia.
Yesterday, I was accompanied by my intrepid friend in Zen, Loki the Magnificent. Loki occasionally goes on short hikes with us in the forest. He hates to be left behind, and mostly loves the adventure, but always seems to wonder if this trip is really necessary, especially after watching a deer come bounding out of the underbrush. Yesterday a hare twice his size suddenly appeared hopping across a last vestige of snow in a shaded clearing. Loki was clearly alarmed.

But alarm is antithetical to our mission here at our new-found sweetspot. We'll try to learn that together in the coming weeks and months.

Swiss Army Watch

2012-02-23T17:59:00.029+01:00

Hey you Swiss immigration officers, please note that today my wife significantly enhanced my cultural integration by buying me a Swiss watch. This would be an appropriate moment for all of us here in CH to sing the Swiss national anthem, except most Swiss don't know it (a story for another time).

Sweet Maïf surprised me with a beautifully wrapped present on the morning of my 60th birthday. My present was this beautiful Tissot watch.

As you can see, it is quite something with its gold Roman numerals and hands, and, most interestingly, written in fine script on the face, the name of the town where it was made, Le Locle, which is just a 20-minute train ride away, and is where Maïf's family comes from (and which was once voted Switzerland's most boring town, another story for another time). This watch has a lifetime guarantee.

Elegant, n'est-ce pas?

Alas, as Maïf knows, I am sometimes a little shy of "elegant." Her affectionate nickname for me is "caveman," which should tell you something. So when she offered to let me exchange the stately Le Locle for a watch more fitting to my paleological predelictions, I happily grunted in the affirmative.

Shopping for a Swiss watch in Switzerland is a proven path to madness. Even in our little Neuchâtel train station the magazine kiosk usually has at least 16 glossy magazines devoted just to Swiss timepieces. Any jewelry store window has dozens of options, and inside there are hundreds more. Prices range from 3 figures to oil-sheiks-only. I've got my eye on a pretty cool mid-range Hublot as soon as I have an extra $15,000 lying around.

And yet, after a little online research last night, I stumbled upon exactly the watch I wanted, and it costs about two-thirds of the elegant Le Locle. It's called a Nomad, a name I don't hate, and it's made by Wenger, one of the two legacy companies that make Swiss Army Knives. (Victorinox's watches lack imagination.) This watch is multi-talented: easy to read with both analog and digital readouts for time, day, date and -- the clincher for this dizzy caveman -- a compass.

I do not have the best sense of direction. When I go to a new city and get lost as intended and then wonder how to get back to the train station, my inner compass is usually a smudgy 100 to 200 degrees off. So a back-up wrist compass proves quite handy.

This morning I went to the town of Délémont, an hour's train ride from our home in Neuchâtel. Délémont has a Wenger factory store -- 10% off everything! CHF378 for the Nomad. I'm amazed I resisted also buying 5 or 6 knives, backpacks and sleeping bags. I instantly fell in love with the Nomad. It's like my wife -- attractive and a whiz at multi-tasking. It even has green threads lining the velvety silicone band.

All of which is just to say, if you need to know what time it is, or which direction you're headed, I've got your back.

Expat Cat

2012-02-16T22:11:00.010+01:00

Until two years ago, Loki the Magnificent had lived his entire life in Hawai'i. He was happy in his realm among the ferns.

This is his second winter in Switzerland.

Among world expats with partners, there is usually the person who prompts the move, usually because of a job. If married, his or her partner is known somewhat ignominiously as the "trailing spouse." Loki is what you would call a trailing pet.

And yet, in some ways he is leading the way. In spite of the recent paw-numbing cold snap we've had here in Europe, this expat cat is adapting so well that I hoped he might be willing to share a few of his secrets for cozying up nicely to life on the other side of the planet in a place so alien that even the mice speak French.

No, I didn't interview him. He's a cat. Whirring tape recorders make him nervous, and if you try to take notes in front of him, he always swats at your pen. But, after 11 years of being brothers, we communicate pretty well.

Last winter here in the farmland above Neuchâtel, Loki peered out the door at the first snowfall apparently certain that Hell had indeed frozen over. This winter it's different. If the temp isn't too much below freezing, he likes to sleep outside, snuggled in the blanket of his windowsill basket.

Clearly, the boy has something to teach the rest of us who are making a new life abroad. And it is this, sez Loki: Learn from the locals, and permit them to be intrigued by you as you're true to yourself. When it gets cold, eat more and wear a heavier coat. In summer, make friends with the cows, but don't let the dogs on your turf. And first and last, embrace the adventure.

Swiss Socialism Run Amok!

2012-01-31T19:24:00.017+01:00

Hey all you patriotic American tea-bagger conservatives who see that our president is obviously a "socialist" because he infringes on your right to get sick without healthcare -- you want a really scary example of socialism?

When I put out our little trash bag by the curb today, it cost us 2 francs (about US$2.20). Two of the little grey plastic bags would have cost 4 francs. These bags are what Americans call "tall kitchen bags." With typical Swiss precision, here we call them 35-liter bags.

On January 1st, the beautiful and normally reasonable canton of Neuchâtel, where I live, put into effect a law requiring residents to put out their trash only in these little grey plastic very expensive bags that had gone on sale shortly before.

American readers may be shocked at this obscene infringement upon personal freedom. How can local government (a Swiss canton is politically equivalent to a U.S. state) possibly dictate what kind of freakin' garbage bag we citizens use?

Until 2012, here in Neuchâtel we could stuff our trash into any old bag, but most of us bought the black plastic bags that seemed to be the only ones available in stores. They cost little enough so I never noticed, which is pretty remarkable here in Switzerland where the cost of nearly everything still occasionally requires me to recalibrate.

The astronomical cost of our new trash bags here in Canton Neuchâtel is due to the best of all possible reasons. It is meant to protect the environment by encouraging people to recycle more and throw away less. And after one month, it would appear to be working. Trash volume has been cut nearly in half, according to local newspaper, L'Express. This in a country where recycling is already second nature, with recycling bins for glass, plastic and paper at grocery stores, train stops, crossroads, all over the place.

And yet, the normally law-abiding Swiss are not all on board with the expensive grey sac coup. L'Express reports that, since the law went into effect, one garbage bag in ten doesn't conform. These contraband bags are either the previously respectable, inexpensive black bags or worse, icky little plastic bags we put our mushrooms in at the grocery store. Obviously, this won't do. So the canton has hired workers to manually open and go through our non-conforming bags, looking for our address. Then they'll send us a warning letter, and if we persist in our anarchic ways, we can be fined.

We have learned our lesson. Now we'll only put our I.D. jetsam into a conforming grey bag.

The forest outside the door today

2012-01-26T20:29:00.004+01:00

And back home, Loki the Magnificent has got our back.

At the time I didn't even notice the giant flower in the sky

2012-01-12T15:40:00.009+01:00

This afternoon from my office window:

And yes, I am a Hipstamatic slut.

Merry Christmas Emile

2012-01-08T14:14:00.009+01:00

Yesterday, January 7th, Maïf asked if I had an official time to put away the Christmas decorations. I said "5 minutes ago." We're going to do it this afternoon, though we've agreed that our favorite elf transcends Christmas, and shall be ensconced in a suitable place of honor for the forseeable future.

This was our second Christmas here in our country cottage outside Neuchâtel. We got a beautiful blanket of snow a few days before, and the fields were soon dotted with deer tracks.

In town, on the apartment buildings we saw a Christmas decoration I'd never seen before coming to Switzerland: here and there a little stuffed Santa hanging from an apartment windowsill, apparently trying to break in. It sucks for Père Noël when there's no chimney.

Maïf's son, Daniel, joined us from Geneva on Christmas Eve. He and I had chosen a little spruce tree to harvest for our tree, but in the end we let it live, not because we got all tree-huggy, but because there was no room in our little living room unless we nailed the dining room table to the ceiling. Instead Maïf spread spruce greens and decorations around the house, and soon angels could be heard singing Jingle Bell Rock.

Christmas morning the three of us, like last year, tromped through the crunchy snow to our neighbors' home for their annual breakfast open house. Before we went I whimpered to MF that I hoped we wouldn't stay too long, because I'm always fearful about my poor French, and not being able to understand all the cross-talking. A couple hours later, she and Daniel had to drag me out of there.

I talked with our host Didier about metal-working, admiring his staircase hanging from metal rods. I asked his little boy Louis to show me his Christmas presents, which, believe it or not, were books and a finely crafted game that was essentially miniature foosball made with beautiful wood. Video games? What's that?

And sweetest of all, there was Emile, our newest neighbor. Emile doesn't have a lot to say, and he tends to nod off anywhere anytime as you might expect from a boy who's only 11 days old, but when he looks you in the eye, you get the message. And the message is this: Life. And Love.

So here's to you, sweet Emile. Welcome to your first Christmas, and thank you for reminding us all of the true meaning of Christmas.

When Soup Drowned the Savoyards

2011-12-12T18:10:00.029+01:00

On December 12th 1602, which, with the old Julian calendar, was the longest night of the year, story has it that a woman who came to be known as Mère Royaume came to the walls of fortified Geneva town, like so many other citizens, to help the militia defend against an attempted sneak attack by French Savoyard mercenaries. She poured soup over the wall and killed one soldier, not because her soup was boiling or extremely bad-tasting, but because it was in a heavy iron cauldron. Needless to say, the Savoyards were eventually defeated.

Today Mère Royaume’s bull's-eye bonk on the noggin is celebrated in Geneva with La Fete de l'Escalade, an annual two-day historical festival the weekend around December 12th. You can even dine at the Mère Royaume Restaurant. I haven’t tried their soup yet.

This year the weather was a balmy 45ish (F) with the setting sun replaced by the full moon.

The Grand Cortege on Sunday began at 5 p.m., led by a phalanx of helmeted pikemen. As they marched, the black smell of oiled torches passed with them.

Then came armored cavalry, the horses wide-eyed, clattering on the cobblestones, but accustomed to the torches and rat-a-tat-tat of drums and shrill fifes.

Then came a few bemused scholars in black commencement robes, then gentlemen in sturdy leather jerkins with fine rapiers and daggers. Then country people and some sheep. Then a rumbling wagon draped with battle-scared flags – a white cross on a red field -- the Savoyard flag. The wagon was decorated with smudged breastplates and helmets, trophies of the vanguished.

Then came my favorite, the pooper scooper wagon, which was hauling a big old dirty barrel with a shovel-sized hole cut in the top. Intriguingly in this city seen as the center of global human rights, the shit wagon was led by a huge magnificent golden horse. Behind was a muscular, dignified man with the shovel.

You could hear lots of Americans and Brits in the throngs of thousands. In Geneva, you often hear English around the city center, but tonight it seemed like an anglophone expat living-history outing. As the parade passed, a British couple in front of me were discussing her NGO.

It was a warm-hearted night made warmer with vin chaud, the yummy spiced red wine served hand-warming hot during l’Escalade from stands all around the medieval heart of Geneva. I also slurped up a cup of steaming soup while sitting on a bench at the top of an old defensive wall. If there had been Savoyard soldiers below, I wouldn’t have been able to do much damage.

But no doubt Geneva has future Mères Royaumes waiting in the wings, should they be needed.

Swiss Bank Accounts

2011-12-07T18:51:00.024+01:00

Recently I've been on a mission to find a better bank.

You might think that, here in Switzerland, excellent banks are on every corner like gas stations in the USA. And perhaps if the wife and I could bump the decimal point of our American liquid assets an ellipsis to the right, that might be true.

Currently, we have, I think, three accounts at UBS, the nation's largest bank. It's the bank that's got added caché right now thanks to being sued by the US government, which seeks to gain access to you sneaky Americans hiding income offshore. Maïf and I don't fear U.S. government intrusion because our assets wouldn't cover what an IRS parking lot guard dog makes in vacation pay.

What we fear is how much it costs just for me to deposit a check at UBS in US dollars. For every such check that I deposit into our UBS checking account, we pay CHF 10, which is currently equal to about $11. Considering that some of my freelance writing paychecks aren't much more than that, it's only natural that we'd seek alternatives.

So I started checking other financial institutions for a better check-fee deal. I found that Raiffeisen charges CHF 60 per foreign check, Credit Suisse charges CHF 40, and it's the same at the Banque Cantonale Neuchâteloise, but at least there, after my meeting from 11:30 to 11:33, monsieur wished me "bon apetit."

I don't take these astonishing fees personally. It's not because I'm American. It's because, in Switzerland, they don't use checks, and discourage this messy practice with exorbitant fees. "Checks are 20th century," says my Swiss-French wife with uncharacteristic Swiss-German seriousness. In this country it's mostly bank-to-bank. You and your client or doctor or chimney-sweep exchange bank transfer I.D. numbers and the sterile money-value is moved at light-speed. It's like safe sex.

My Swiss clients transfer my fees right into our account. Meanwhile, my American clients still snail-mail paper checks halfway around the planet, which I then snail-mail back to the U.S. to my American bank so it won't cost me CHF 10 to deposit it here.

Annoying and delightful.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-25T13:09:00.000+01:00

Today in the USA it's that offical American Holiday, Turkey Coma Day, when millions of you are tripping on tryptophan. If I were a terrorist horde, I'd choose today to invade because any Americans who aren't already snoring are too busy watching football to notice. Easy pickings.

I remember several years ago when I was living in Paris, an American friend invited me to his family's apartment for Thanksgiving. We had turkey and all the trimmings, and everything was delicious, but, even while considering that great American who adored Paris, Ben Franklin, it was difficult to get into the spirit.

Last Thanksgiving, my Swiss mother-in-law called on the 4th Thursday in Nov. to wish me a happy T-Day. This year she didn't bother.

So I'll pretend it doesn't matter, and that I don't miss it. But I'm making some killer cranberry sauce this weekend.

Life Recently

2011-11-15T13:49:00.002+01:00

Porc Pig-Out

2011-11-13T14:19:00.011+01:00

Yesterday, no lie, I ate an 8-course meal consisting entirely of pork preparations except for three token vegetable garnishes and dessert. Thank goodness for the non-swine dessert because I was sure they'd feed us pig knuckle ice cream.

Maïf and I had been invited by friends to a nearby village for this annual tradition. She had attended three times before and assured me it would be fun, not so much because of all the various pig meat dishes we'd be served, but because of the camaraderie. On such subjects, my wife is never wrong.

Long tables were set up in the village's unexpectedly modern community center, which seemed to normally serve as a basketball court with possibly the world's most bucolic panorama of a fairytale valley.

However, today, all eyes were on the menu. The Lord of the Flies came in many forms: as broth, as sausages (blood and "grey" -- don't ask), as upside-down-plate gellified terrine with pickles, as roasted filet. Token non-pork items also included Swiss traditional dishes of rosti (fried potatoes and onions), charcoute (sauerkraut), applesauce, carrots and beets. Erp.

How was such gluttony possible? The meal lasted from 12:30 p.m. till 6:30. We paced ourselves with walks outside to breathe in the crisp air and gorge ourselves on the green valley views. We aided digestion with plenty of the local pinot noir, and a dram of prune brandy which appeared later on.

Priceless I guess, but by the time Maïf and I had sprung for our two meals and a few half-bottles of local pinot noir for the table, we'd dropped more than US$170. Rumination upon this remuneration does not aid digestion.

But if I apply for Swiss citizenship one day, I'll definitely cite yesterday's dive off the deep end of the pork pool as proof of my devotion to Swissimilation.

My only complaint: Where was the bacon?

Switzerland by the Sea

2011-11-08T16:18:00.011+01:00

Bonjour et Aloha.

Just a few days ago I was looking out the window of our American home on Hawai‘i Island, and beyond the misty rainforest and glowing volcano, I swear I could see the Alps. I heard the jazzy song of our red rainforest bird, the 'apapane, and heard the whistle of the train pulling into Neuchâtel.

It was the first time I'd returned to my home in the U.S. since moving to Switzerland 15 months ago. I loved being back in our sublime little forest cottage, seeing friends, visiting the steaming summit crater, diving beneath the sea, and eating familiar foods -- fresh ocean fish, teriyaki chicken, sushi by the foot.

But it took a few days before I felt at home.

Five weeks later I was totally smitten all over again. It's comforting to have a sweet little home for us back in the States. There in the ocean, on the lava fields, in the rainforest, I thought of Switzerland all the time. Sure, it was largely due to missing Maïf, but also to missing Neuchâtel and our life here now.

I thought I'd be relieved not to have to struggle with French when I returned to the U.S., but I missed it as much as the cobblestones.

I missed "bonjour." Hawai'i really is a land of aloha, but people passing each other during the day don't normally look up and say "aloha" or anything else. Here, people passing on a lane or anywhere it's one-on-one nearly always make eye contact and say "bonjour."That makes me feel at home.

Bon Appétit

2011-09-23T17:15:00.013+02:00

The other day Maïf and I were having dinner out at our little roadside table between the apple tree and the garden. As a car went by, the driver said, "Bon appétit!"

Another time, I was sitting on the floor under a staircase at the Zürich train station, balancing a sloppy sandwich on my thigh while uncorking a half-bottle of wine. I must have looked like a down-and-out clochard (bum), except for my open laptop. Nevertheless, when a woman in a business suit looked over, she smiled and said, "Bon appétit."

And it's not unusual, when I'm having lunch on a bench by Lac de Neuchâtel, for older women walking their dogs to wish me the same. Train conductors do it too. Even in the grocery store if you buy a sandwich around lunchtime, the cashier will wish you bon appétit. And anytime, anywhere, when Maïf and I begin a meal, whether it's a fine restaurant or movie night on the bed, she never fails to say in a musical way, "bon appétit!"

I love this about Switzerland, and Europe in general, and Maïf in particular -- people wishing you a good meal as a blessing. Of course this says something about the reverence for good food here.

Which is a convenient segué to the cheese room of Neuchâtel's grand old restaurant, L'Hôtel du Peyrou. Finished in 1771, this mansion of a cantonal kingpin, is now one of the city's best restaurants. I got to go recently for my precocious mother-in-law's 85th birthday. After the main course, guests are led like happy supplicants to communion into the refrigerated air of la chambre du fromage. There, your waiter cuts you a small slice of whatever cheeses you choose. I got the impression that it was rude of me to only take three cheeses. Everybody else got eight or nine. Fortunately, even after 16 months here, I'm still given grace for being an American.

Auvernier Picnic with Duck

2011-09-10T10:43:00.005+02:00

A duck wants me to share my baguette. Hello duck.

I’m having a working picnic in Auvernier, a little wine-making village just a 10-minute tram ride along the lake from my town of Neuchâtel. Four-and-twenty mallards are napping by the pond. Except this quack who thinks he’s going to get my baguette.

Being an Auvernier duck he surely also likes a glass of the good local wine. I do too, especially the simple seasonal non-filtered whites, but not the flabby chasselas.

Hopping off the tram, I strolled the cob-blestoned village, which is surround-ed in summer by a soft green shawl of grape vines.

Arched doorways lead to wine proprietors’ caves, where the local wine is fermented and bottled.

Peering into the doorway of one of these little wine producers – the stainless steel tanks, the hoses, the sweet fruity aroma – it’s alchemy. I wanted to go in, but nobody was around and I was too shy.

But now here I am on a park bench beside a rippling green pond bedecked with ducks, red dragonflies buzzing, and with Lac de Neuchâtel just over my shoulder, and the Alps beyond still covered in snow.

Oh, OK duck, here you go. Bon apetit.

High on the Alps

2011-08-10T12:48:00.007+02:00

I'm dizzy. From oxygen starvation and eye-candy gluttony up in the Swiss Alps.

I live in the foothills of the Jura mountains, if such an elevation-challenged mountain range (highest peak, Le Crêt de la Neige, an embarrassing 1,720 meters) can be said to have foothills. Compared to the Alps (highest peak, Mont Blanc, 4810 meters), the Juras are molehills. If the Alps are Sophia Loren, the Jura are Gwen Stefani -- equally sexy, but, you know, different.

I formulated this complex theory recently while visiting Switzerland's three most famous resort towns: Zermatt, Gstaad and St. Moritz.

Each town is wonderful in its own way: Zermatt, a fun tourist town; Gstaad, beautiful chaletland; St. Moritz, redolent with the frisson of money, lots of money). But each of these towns is only there because of the Alps.

In Hawai'i, where I lived for 30 years, the focus, ultimately, is always back to the ocean. Switzerland is yang to that yin (or vice versa if you prefer).

I feel the pull of both, but right now I'm drunk on the Alps' rarified air, and jutting Lord of the Rings landscape.

When I go to Hawai'i hotels I prefer the cheaper "mountain view" rooms not because they're cheaper but because I find that view more interesting. No wonder I love Switzerland.

But I wouldn't want to live in an alpine village walled in by massive cliffs. I think that after a while, I'd be looking up over my shoulder waiting for a biblical flash flood or earthquake. To really live and breathe I prefer more open skies.

So please, respect for my little homey range. Plus its got that whole Jurassic thing going on. Hey Alps, do you have an official scientific Geologic Period full of dinosaurs named after you? Oh, sorry.

But don't feel bad. You're beautiful. Even in the distance from my house.

Too Few Days in Florence

2011-07-11T13:39:00.012+02:00

Switzerland being smack-dab in the middle of Europe, it's embarrassingly easy to hop a train or plane and skip around to all those countries we Americans dreamed of in Western Civ. classes. A few weeks ago, Maïf and I joined American friends for nine days in Florence and Venice, my first time in Italy.

First came Florence, a vibrant city with a view anywhere you look, seamlessly interwoven with its rich past as the heart of Renaissance art and religion, most majestically manifested by the Duomo.

The city's treasures are well protected by patrolling men and women in uniform.

We stayed in a wonderful upper floor apartment next to the Medici family chapel, which made me feel a little like a gargoyle somehow. The apartment's owner is restoring a historic fresco in one bedroom -- pale flowers and poised birds framed in soft brushwork amid the damp chalky aroma of the ages ... these things seep into your dreams at night.

But it was a very real waking dream-come-true when this rotorhead got to fly Leonardo's helicopter in one of the several museums where the maestro's machines have been constructed full-size.

Florence is a city dripping with sensuality and romance.

And most of all, art.

Clet, his self-portait and a work from his recent series using street signs for social comment.

But Florence is no calcified museum. It is zinging with café life.

And the daily dramas that make a great city tick.

Next time I'll yak about Venice. People speak of Venice as a magical place. And it is, especially if you find ant farms of tourists magical.

Only in Switzerland

2011-07-05T11:51:00.000+02:00

Hi. Just back from a couple weeks in Italy and am organizing stories and photos.

But for now, another Only in Switzerland moment: last week in the Genève Apple Store.

Most soldiers take their weapons home with them between duty. You often see them on the train or around town with their big assault rifles.

The Great New World / Old World Fork Debate

2011-06-11T15:25:00.012+02:00

We New Worlders pick up our knife in our right hand, our fork in our left, cut our U.S. Grade A not-mad steak, then put down the knife, transfer our fork to our right hand, then we take a bite, then put the fork back in the left hand, the knife back in the right and repeat.

And we wonder why there's an energy crisis in the U.S.

European epicurean efficiency experts can only shake their heads in dismay. They have a more sensible way: The fork stays in the left hand.

Here, they pierce the meat with their down-turned fork, then use their knife in the right hand to scoop up morsels of vegetable or potato onto the back of the fork. This yields more than just energy savings. Because this little ballet requires some finesse, each bite is smaller and takes a little longer to construct. It forces you to pay attention to your food instead of inhaling it. When Europeans do it, it looks perfectly natural.

And yet, we New World left/right forkers can legitimately quibble with this precious custom. Since when did chowing down become a tightrope walk? We're hungry, right? Let's eat! So what if it takes an extra sec to put the fork back in our shooting hand and shift it to shovel position?

Bon appétit !

Swiss Seasoning

2011-05-19T20:22:00.000+02:00

In Hawai‘i, where I lived for 30 odd years, the seasons move at glacial speed. So it’s quite a change here in Switzerland, where we can feel the seasons changing week by week.

I’ve been here 14 months so am seeing my second spring. As I write this, I’m sitting outside under our apple tree. The cowbells are clanging, it’s late afternoon and the setting sun is pulling the shadow of the apple tree onto the field of green young barley. Just six weeks ago the field was dirt and the apple tree was bare. Then the first tiny brave buds appeared and a week later its infant leaves began to spread. Then, overnight, the fragile white flowers appeared, and when a hailstorm hit, pummeling everything with peanut-size nuggets (they stung when they peppered your noggin), we feared we’d lose this year’s fruit.

Just after that we planted our vegetable garden. Maïf has her flowers too, but I say if you can’t eat it, it don’t get none of our precious water during this droughty summer.

We mark the seasons partly by what Pierrot, our neighbor farmer is doing – tilling, clearing rocks, scattering manure, tilling again, planting, fertilizing, tending the cows, harvesting, planting a second crop of grass for winter silage, mowing, tilling, repairing the machinery during winter, on and on. And each year, Swiss farmers make a little less money. Last year the national average was about US$58,000. Nevertheless, Pierrot looks happy.

In a month the summer solstice will mark our march back toward winter. The flowers will shrink, the tomatoes will stop coming, then the roses. The leaves on our grape vine will go red and the forest will paint itself with luminous reds and yellows. The cows and lambs will be shipped off for slaughter. One morning we’ll wake up and all will be blanketed with snow. We’ll walk in the woods, surprising a deer or fox, crunching through the snow and ice and fallen leaves, helping it turn into next year’s earth.

But for now, I can see we’re going to have apples this year.

French Lesson Vis-a-Vis Horrible Neighbors

2011-05-11T15:37:00.014+02:00

Some readers of this blog probably think I'm being paid by the Swiss Tourism Bureau to write positive reports from here in Chocolateland. If only! I get paid nothin' by nobody to write these blogs, which is only slightly less than I've so far been paid by Swiss publications. I'm still trying to figure out why salaries here for regular jobs are about double what they are in the U.S., while freelance magazine writing pays about half what I get for U.S. publications -- plus they expect you to throw in your photos for free.

But that's not what I meant to write about today. I want to write (again) about the mysterious nuances of the formal and informal "you" in the French language. I'm still struggling along with learning French. My Swiss and French friends tell me I've progressed a lot in the last year -- at least I think that's what they're saying, but I'm not sure because my comprehension is still on the level of a dog listening pitifully to his master. The upside is that I've become more proficient at reading body language. If someone smiles or laughs or brightens their eyes while speaking, I become jovial. If they furrow their brow, I try to show commensurate concern.

But that's not what I meant to write about either, so why don't I get to the point.

French teachers explain that when we first meet someone, we always use the formal "vous" form for "you" and continue with that until the two parties have achieved some mysterious level of intimacy that is usually signaled by the native French speaker -- and which we foreigners will probably miss. But once we get it we feel blessed and begin to use the more intimate "tu" form of "you" with that person.

What our teachers never tell us is that sometimes "tu" must be abandoned and we must return to the more distant "vous." Sadly, my wife and I have experienced this ourselves.

When Maïf and I first moved in here to our country cottage in the gorgeous sprawling farmlands above Neuchâtel, with the lake below and the Alps beyond, we were in bliss, especially after meeting our neighbors on either side. With the couple on one side, we quickly became friendly, and in no time "tu" and "toi" filled the air. Today we are evermore affectionate friends.

The neighbors on the other side ... not so much. The day we arrived there was a gift of fruit from them on our front step. Sweet! We went to their front door, met them, and gave them a little gift too. Soon we were greeting each other with smiles, waves and a few words here and there. They seemed to tolerate my hilarious grammar and my blank looks in response to their comments. So of course we went from "vous" to "tu."

Then came the dispute they have with our landlady, who also happens to be my darling mother-in-law. On Christmas day it was clear from the icy stare and perfunctory greeting we received from monsieur that, to him, we were tainted. Later that morning he refused our Christmas gift to the family, even though we explained that we had no say in the dispute he had with my mother-in-law (though she's clearly in the right). His wife continues to wave and venture a smile when she isn't with him.

And so I found myself confronted with a French language situation never discussed by any of my able teachers: going backwards from the warm "tu" to the frosty "vous."

It was actually easy. I've made up my mind to keep greeting my asshole neighbor with a smile and a wave and pleasant greeting in hopes he comes to his senses. Except now, instead of "Comment va-tu ?" I say "Comment allez-vous ?"

Next week at French class I'm going to present this thorny situation to the class. Who knows how they will react? The current class members are from Bosnia, Portugal, Brazil, Germany, Lebanon, Turkey, Afghanistan and Italy -- places where notions of land, government involvement, and neighborly intimacy vary widely. We've all been on the "tu" level for months. We'll see how it shakes out.

I See Annecy. Or ... Lunch with the Frenchies

2011-05-01T14:01:00.022+02:00

We went to France for lunch last weekend. Gosh I love the sound of that. Even after a year in Europe I'm still amazed how easy it is to do that.

Sophie, my French "sister" came to our house with her boyfriend Olivier and her godparents Mauricette and Francis. Maïf made a delicious lunch and, then we all strolled through our exquisite forest, now full with luminous pale-green early-summer foliage.

Then Mauricette and Francis drove back to their home in Annecy, France, and we two couples went into Neuchâtel for the evening along with about 10 million other folks to join the first fete celebrating our town's 1000th anniversary.

The next day we hopped in our little Huyndai and drove a couple hours to Annecy to spend the day and night with Francis and Mauricette before Sophie and Olivier would return the following day to Paris, and Maïf and I to Neuchâtel.

But first came an amazing lunch chez Francis and Mauricette. Sophie had always told me I'd love Francis, not least because of his wine cellar. Yes, it's a wonderful cave but Francis is the true treasure. I swear to you, this lovely man actually, truly, really has a twinkle in his eye.

Lunch lasted 3 hours, 5 cheeses and 6 wines, but who was counting? Also nuts, terrine, haricot vert, flageolet, potatoes, turkey, tarts, candies, ice cream, coffee, eau de vie. The wines began with Champagne, then a white and rosé from French sub-regions I'd never heard of, then two rich, old rust-colored Bordeaux, then port. And all the while, stories flying, songs being sung.

While sipping highly combustible prune eau de vie, we sang songs to Olivier's guitar accompaniment, then, suddenly, somehow, we were all in cars driving into Annecy to stroll by the lake and through the medieval town center before -- ack! -- another meal!

We were joined at a traditional restaurant by Thierry and Philippe, the two sons of Francis and Mauricette, and Thierry's girlfriend and two kids. I had a delicious bouillabaisse-style fish stew. Bottles of Bordeaux circled the table.

And so the family grows.

A Year in Switzerland

2011-04-05T18:11:00.036+02:00

Wow, a year already since I kissed my Swiss bride at the Geneva airport and we began our new life here. Impossible. Inevitable.

Objective scientific analysis shows that the experience has been 97-percent perfect, admittedly due in part to newlywed bliss, but also thanks to the open arms of Suisse/Schweiz/Svizzera and most of all to the sheer classy quality of life here.

Much of the year has been full of less-than-romantic moments, including the present one where I stare at the pile of Swiss and American income tax forms, and consider upsetting the (Geneva-based) International Committee of the Red Cross by calling in an airstrike.

But guess what -- in spite of Switzerland's clichéd reputation as an anally nit-picky bureaucracy, my experiences here have been anything but.

Par exemple: Just yesterday I picked up my first-ever Swiss drivers license. When I approached the window and began unrolling a long, twisted, doughy French pretzel of a sentence which I hoped was suitably explaining that I was wondering if my drivers license for which I had completed and properly presented all the paperwork, and then paid the fee in a timely fashion at the automatic bill-paying machine at my bank where I now held my very own Swiss account, merci beaucoup -- before I could get much past, mes papiers, the lady on the other side of the glass interrupted me to say (in French), "Yes, you're the man from Hawai'i, right? I was just going to mail your license today. I'll get it." She had recognized my face.

This sort of treatment has been typical of my encounters with the Swiss. So don't complain to me about Swiss bureaucracy, or I'll demand your deposition in triplicate and bill you CHF80 for each copy.

Of course it always comes with a price. My shiny new driver's license cost the equivalent of about US$120. My annual residency permit, which I got renewed last week, cost about the same. Switzerland is expensive -- that's one cliché that rings as clear as the town church bells. A good restaurant meal for two costs almost as much as my monthly $200 train pass. You can even spend that much on a couple of horse meat steaks. (So much for "civilized.")

Nevertheless, I admit that I'm predisposed to be happy here. It starts with my chérie.

Then there's the fact that being an "expat" has always been seductive to me. I loved living in Paris for six months. Some Americans would say my 32 years in Hawai'i almost qualify as foreign-living.

What is it about being a foreigner living in a different country that's so appealing to some of us? In a way I've spent my whole life as an expat. My dad was a career U.S. Army officer, which meant we moved every few years to a new state. The French word makes sense to me: etranger, almost like "stranger." I like being a stranger.

Switzerland is full of other etrangers -- about 25% of the people who live here in CH come from somewhere else. I prefer living where there are lots of international multi-culti nuances. On any given day in my city, Neuchâtel, I might hear Italian, Russian, Portuguese, German, English, Arabic and one or two other languages.

And it's language that constantly reminds me that I'm still very much a foreigner. I'm taking French twice a week, but my progress has been slow. It's a distasteful barrier for a talkative person who is obsessively nosy about this new place he lives and wants to ask everyone about everything, but fears to do so because he can't understand much of what they tell him.

Yet, the truth is that this foreign country seems like home in some weird atavistic way. My family name "Harby" comes from Old Norse, and there's a village in England named Harby. Maybe I had other ancient Celtic ancestors who migrated down here to the valleys around the Jura mountains or the Alps. Maybe one of their sons is back.

Swiss Spring on the Wing

2011-03-22T13:49:00.014+01:00

Yesterday, our neighborhood farmer celebrated the first day of spring by plowing the field in front of our little house. An unexpected exciting result of this was a golden eagle doing low fly-bys over the freshly turned dirt until ... swoop, scoop and I think it was mouse tartare for lunch.

I'm no bird nerd, but I love our feathered friends. No doubt it has to do with my fetish for flying, but that's a subject best left between my therapist and me. After so many years among the tropical birds of Hawai‘i, moving to Switzerland has opened a whole new ornitho-world to me.

So I bought myself a bible: Birds of Europe by Lars Svensson. This handsome, handy volume is full of info and color photos.

The wife and I wanted the birds to come closer so we hung one of those balls of fat and seed on a forsythia branch right outside the kitchen window. In no time the tits and thrushes were taking turns pecking away at the goodies. When that was gone, I replaced it with another, but the next day the whole thing was gone. I'm pretty sure I hung it too low and that Nala, the big St. Bernard from down the road, got hold of it. She's not even a bird dog, but we love her, so who cares.

We've also got falcons, owls, finches, starlings, enough blackbirds to be baked in a pie, and a bunch of others I haven't identified yet. During summer the owls' long plaintive nightime hooooooooot sounds just like the train whistle from down the road. I wonder which is imitating the other.

The neighborhood's most in-your-face bird is the big black crow. Maïf hates them for good reason. The aggressive invaders chase away the little songbirds and lurk along the phone lines like fascist storm troopers. But I can't help having a grudging affection for these big boys bouncing along on the ground or perched in the treetop, always with something to say. Of course, the first time I see one ripping the entrails from a sweet little thrush everything will change.

There's one other bird in the skies over here that's even more aggressive than the crow. It's the F-16 fighter plane flown by the Swiss Air Force. This American-made jet is monikered the "Eagle," and it often flies almost as low at that mouse-munching eagle I saw, but with considerably more noise. May the gods of political correctness help me, but I do love these birds too. However, again, that's a subject best left between my therapist and me.

Four-Letter Word for Switzerland

2011-03-03T13:20:00.002+01:00

I donʻt mean it as an insult, though some people might consider this rather mamby-bamby praise, but because of some recent encounters, this four-letter word keeps coming to mind when I want to describe the people of Switzerland.

For example, a few weeks ago as I was rushing to French class, I stopped at the sidewalk window of a tiny tabac in downtown Neuchâtel and asked the lady behind her barrier of candies, gum and cigarettes for her smallest, cheapest bottle of water. She smiled, and said that I could find the cheapest, smallest bottle of water at the big grocery store next to her little shop.

Then, earlier this week I finally dragged myself to the cantonal bureau of transportation to turn in the paperwork for my Swiss drivers license. I thought I had crossed every "t" and dotted every "i," but feared Swiss microscopic bureaucracy, and fully expected to be turned away because I'd neglected to obtain Franz Kafka's signature or supply my family history for the last 5 generations.

And sure enough, even though it hadn't been listed in the documents I had to supply, the lady asked me for my card de sejour, which proves I'm allowed to live here in Chocolateland. She probably thought I was having a heart attack as my eyes bulged and my lips moved, trying to find a socially acceptable alternative in French to "MERDE!" (SHIT!). Because, by bizarre coincidence, the day before, I had turned in that card to another bureau in order to renew it.

You might reasonably expect that that's when Madame's eyes glazed over and she recited a rote speech about me coming back when I had everything in order. But no. She received my news as though I had just presented her with an interesting puzzle. She asked to which communal office I had presented my papers. Then she looked up their phone number and called them to confirm they had my Permit B card. They apparently found it right away, so she put through my drivers license application toute de suite.

Nice, n'est-ce pas?

Lausanne Fan

2011-02-20T19:57:00.010+01:00

Thursday was my birthday, ample excuse to take the day off, jump on the train, and go dip my toe in a town that my chérie has been telling me I'd love.

Lausanne is midway along the north shore of Lac Léman, about 33 minutes by train from Geneva. It was first settled by the Romans, who of course had only sandals, slaves and chariots to take them from café to boutique to art museum, and in fact you have to wonder how often the chariot horses tipped over backwards while trying to clip-clop up the steep cobblestone streets. Those horses would be pissed off to know that, today, Lausanne is the only city in CH with an underground metro.

But I walked, following my nose up the winding streets and lanes. Before long I'd stumbled upon one, two, three, four little independent bookstores selling used and antiquarian books.

Lausanne's got religion too with Switzerland's grandest gothic cathédrale.

But religion is where you find it.

Pickles and Potatoes

2011-02-14T12:59:00.003+01:00

The Borg were right. "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

I'm actually trying to be assimilated into Swiss culture bit by bit in a selective way. And I don't mind saying that I'm having noticeable success. I now squirt mustard and mayo right out of a tube onto my sandwiches without even thinking of brushing my teeth. I now think that 10 degrees C. in Feb. is positively balmy. I now pay the equivalent of US$25 for a simple café lunch without gagging.

But there's still the pickles-cheese-potatoes thing. In two of the Swiss national dishes -- raclette and fondue -- these three ingredients often share your plate. To me this combination sounds like something only a feverish pregnant woman would crave.

The other afternoon, having an extraordinary family brunch at a swanky Neuchâtel hotel in celebration of two birthdays, my sweet mother-in-law asked my wife something about something, and it came out that I still can't stomach raclette, the revered Swiss dish composed of melted gooey cheese that is somehow both stinky and bland, poured over boiled potatoes with pickles on the side. My belle-mère was not amused. Normally, this sweet lady adores me, but now she was shooting me eye-daggers and making "harumph" noises.

In my own defense may I please ask you (and her) to note that I like fondue quite well. The mixture of Gruyère and Vacherin cheeses mixed with just the right amount of white wine and a drop of kirsch, all of it softly bubbling in the pot as you dip in your big cube of bread, wrap it in the fragrant mixture, pull it up, roll it so a maximum amount of cheese stays on like a glistening cloak, bring it to your mouth and woosh, a subtle melange of flavors spills into your senses. Note that this delicacy never need touch your plate. All the better because down there are the potato and pickle you've also been served. But don't worry about them. Some feverish pregnant lady will probably be along soon.

Incased in Ice

2011-02-01T19:24:00.011+01:00

For the last few days, our neighborhood has been incased in frosty glass like Tennessee Williams' menagerie, and it's, as he would have said, goddamn beautiful. I've spent a lot of winters in snowy climates, but never seen anything like this.

A few foggy mornings ago, I woke up and peered out the window. To my knee-jerk cynical eye, it at first looked like an overly-energetic department store window-dresser had snuck through the forest the night before to spray plastic Christmas flocking over every branch of every tree. But I knew better, and knew I must see this phenomenon up close and personal.

So I did what any intrepid investigative reporter would do. I did breakfast -- with extra mother-in-law-made plum jam to gird myself against the coming expedition. Then I looked at the thermometer (actually not much below freezing), liberally layered myself with fleece, wound enough scarf around and around my neck to comfort a Rapunzel, grabbed a camera and headed outside.

I wished I'd had a physicist with me -- somebody who could explain how the hell these infinite miniscule icicles form at every angle on every branch big and small.

Ask and ye shall receive, right? As I peered at the tiny gem-like spikes of ice, the most beautiful barbed wire you'll ever see, voilà, there was my lovely neighbor Marie, not even wearing a coat, holding the two CDs I'd loaned her. "Bonjour Bill," she sang (she's in a choir, and always seems to half-sing everything she says). In French she said, "It's beautiful, oui ?"

Oui, I said. Oui, oui, oui. But what makes these marvelous little crystals poking out from every branch on every plant?

Marie explained that it's the fog's humidity and the dry cold, which, when combined in just the right proportions create this miniature icicle magic. At least I think that's what she said. But my French is still bad, plus I was distracted by the snot just then freezing on my lip.

Anyway, three cold foggy days later, this little winter miracle continues.

Beautiful Basel

2011-01-20T17:33:00.004+01:00

I realize now that I'd been unconsciously resisting a day-trip to Basel just because I thought of the city as that place that was so hard to hitch-hike through so many years ago. Sometimes my dummy-quotient still surprises me.

So on Tuesday, which was supposed to be the tail-end of the gorgeous, miraculously warm sunny weather we'd been having for a week here in Suisse-Romande, I dutifully jumped on the train, and headed for this city which I'd never really seen.

I say "dutifully" because, with my Swiss rail pass, which is not cheap, I can travel anywhere in the country anytime, so I am duty-bound to use it enough each month to make the pass a bargain, even though that means traveling the equivalent of twice to Jupiter and back. But I'm determined, so off I went to Basel.

An hour after I'd arrived and ambled through Old Town awhile, I experienced a now-familiar dutiful-day-trip feeling: I love this place!

First of all, there's just the fact that you can go to practically any town or city in CH and find its medieval heart still beating, albeit now very likely with Swatch boutiques, armies of Swiss Army Knives on display, and discount outdoor-gear stores. And of course, McDonalds.

Nevertheless, Basel is beautiful.

Joining the Flock

2011-01-05T11:15:00.007+01:00

Yesterday I met my first real live shepherd. No, not one of those "shepherd of men," or some such poetical poop. This guy is a shepherd of actual sheep, about 400 of the fuzzy little fellers -- 1600 legs, he points out.

There are also two donkeys, who carry gear and tend to lead the flock when they're grazing. If the donkeys suddenly light off in a particular direction, the sheep quickly follow with great enthusiasm.

The sheep had first appeared several foggy mornings earlier. First, the clanging of their bells. Then, around the curve on our narrow country lane, all the shaggy vanilla and chocolate-brown shapes pawing at the snow. I figured they'd escaped from a Benetton commercial, but no.

photo: Marie-France

The next day, when the wife and I drove very slowly past the few who'd wandered onto the road, we heard a voice from within the mist. One word: Va! (Go!) Fortunately, this disembodied voice wasn't talking to us, though we were immediately inclined to obey, especially when we finally saw the dark, cloaked figure at the edge of eyesight.

An instant later we saw who the shepherd had commanded, a black and white border collie, running low and fast, kicking up the snow. The sheep sensed him coming and lunged in the other direction. The speedy little dog spread a wake of power before and behind him, and the sheep gave way in an exquisite display of wave dynamics.

The next day the flock spent the day in front of our house, much to the consternation of our cat Loki, who probably thought he was being invaded by an army of giant hairballs. All day long the sheep ambled about, corralled now and then by the wonder dog. They always kept pawing at the snow to get at the crispy salad beneath, thereby producing plenty of the non-poetical kind of poop, leaving the little black pellets strewn across the field like ellipses ... which is kind of poetical afterall.

The mysterious shepherd in his long dark cloak made a fire at the edge of the forest. He seemed dark and scary. I figured he probably had a cauldron over that fire, bubbling with roots and bark and maybe a fresh lamb shank. (Was the nearby snow stained with blood?) I knew I should go meet him, but I was totally intimidated by this bulky character, even though I'd seen him scratching the back of one of his sheep with his long staff.

The next day, out for a walk, Marie-France and I stumbled upon him and his flock in a lower pasture. He was already talking with our neighbor Didier, who was clearly also fascinated with the herder.

We shook hands. His were as meaty and rough as you'd expect, but his face was friendly beneath his wide-brimmed hat and long hair. Crow's feet and chapped skin showed his long exposure to the weather. He smiled easily but his small eyes were alert, sizing us up. I told him my name, and my wife's, but he didn't offer his -- not uncommon in Switzerland.

He spoke with a flat South-of-France accent, where he'd grown up. I couldn't understand a word he said, but Marie-France explained to me later. His land was about 5 km. away down toward the lake in the village of Colombier, where he also had a flock of goats. For the last several weeks he'd been gradually leading his sheep through a succession of fields, asking each landowner in turn if he could pass through and let his flock graze. Most farmers said yes, but not all, he said.

His sheep were being raised for their meat, not their wool. He said he'd tried selling their wool once, but made less than what it cost to transport it.

photo: Marie-France

He had a young border collie and some kind of terrier that stayed close to him. His one real working dog was a wonder to behold, always on guard watching the flock. When the shepherd gave him a command, he darted off and knew just what to do. "À gauche!" shouted the herder, and off the dog went around to the left.

There was also the big white dog that mingled with the flock. The sheep paid him no mind, and sometimes he dug at the ground just like them. His job, explained the herder, was to protect against wolves. Fortunately for the sheep, wolves are scarce in Switzerland. Because this guy was clearly a slacker, more interested in romping and tagging along with us, than playing dog in sheep's clothing.

While talking to the shepherd I leaned over to pet the younger border collie, and the shepherd tapped the dog away with a stick, sending it cowering behind his legs. "If he's getting petted, he's not working," said the shepherd. I guess I'm lucky he didn't give me a swat too.

Now a couple days later, the herder has moved his flock toward the village of Coffrane. He'd heard a particular farmer would be welcoming. But last night they still came back to bed down in the forest in front of our house. This morning before dawn, before I could see the sheep, I heard their bells and a dog bark. We'll miss them when they go.

Going with the Snowing

2010-12-30T13:06:00.001+01:00

One day -- probably about February -- I'll look back on my currently snow-smitten self and laugh at the silly boy who was so giddy during the first weeks of his first real northern winter in 33 years. But for now, I can't seem to get enough of the white stuff.

Yesterday, I wrapped up snug (magic word: layers) and ventured cozy and dry into the crunchy, swishing white-out that was my world just then. Tiny doilies laced with cold diamonds floated onto my face. Every sound was dampened -- the train whistle, Romeo's lonely barking, the rustle of leaves that probably meant deer rushing down the hill. Looking down at my buried boots I saw only featureless white; looking up, white; everywhere white with no edges. Friends and family have sometimes said that I live with my head in the clouds. Today there was no denying it as low clouds enveloped the falling snow.

Other days the snow flakes are vivid flecks against clear blue sky, with the Alps a distant backdrop.

Is it true that Alaskan natives have many words for different kinds of snow? I don't doubt it. But I doubt they have a word for the beauty of snow on the rooftops of a medieval Swiss chateau.

Why does snow taste so different from water?

I hope I never lose my fascination with snow. Maybe I won't. After all, I lived in a rainforest for seven years, and still love the many kinds of rain that fall on the tree ferns.

But it's sure not raining now, so I'm going outside.

Joyeux Noël !

2010-12-24T15:19:00.005+01:00

Big Bar0meter

2010-12-21T12:08:00.005+01:00

As the weather shifts, Lac de Neuchâtel changes color subtly like a giant mood stone. Steel blue, Pale teal. Cobalt. Gun-metal grey. Liquid mercury. Black.

The lake is a few kilometers down the hill from where we live. On the train, switchbacking down to our town of Neuchâtel, we passengers get passing views of the lake, and each time its color shifts just a little because of our changing angle to the sun.

And every view is newly framed by the Alps behind, the forest or blurred buildings in front.

Now that it's winter and all the leaves have fallen, we can even see bits of the lake through the trees near our house.

This view of looking down from a mountainside into a lake is both familiar and new for me. For so many years I've lived on islands in a huge ocean. There and here I stood on a mountain and looked down on a body of water, but the effect was entirely different. In Hawai'i the mountain was the island in the sea.

In Switzerland, the lake is the island surrounded by mountains.

A little yin with the yang never hurts.

Paris Passages

2010-12-10T15:02:00.016+01:00

Ah, Paris in winter. Like a gargoyle perched on Notre Dame, it is both intriguing and scary, magnetic and repulsive. The city will probably be cold and grey and rainy. If you're lucky it snows. But it is Paris, so fuck the weather. When it's miserable outside it just means you get to duck into corner cafés more often for an expresse or Armagnac.

Marie-France and I were in town for a long weekend recently to see friends and research a story. It snowed. It rained. It was freakin' cold. We didn't care. Because we spent our time in some nice bistros, including a great lunch with our sweet sister, Sophie, who got special service from our smitten waiter (and his phone number -- but don't tell him that she later blew her nose with that napkin).

Most of our time we spent in several of the city's beautiful, historic passages couverts, the covered passages where you can get in from the weather and go out of your mind strolling past all the wonderful stuff to buy.

Marie-France and Sophie and all of us strolling past the many boutiques, galleries, antique bookshops, cafés and shops selling all manner of strange stuff felt like we were in Santa's workshop.

Don't you think these gorgeous, intriguing, historic passages would be a superb subject for a magazine story?

I'm on it.

The White Stuff

2010-11-30T11:48:00.004+01:00

White Magic has put a spell over this Hawai'i boy.

The giant flakes began to fall a few nights ago, diamond lace mandalas saucering down in the still moonlight -- our first big snowfall of the winter -- and by the next morning the world was transformed, tabula blanca already inscribed.

I remember this early-winter euphoria from years ago when I lived in Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. It's that magical time of the season when you're not yet obsessed with jumping in the car and escaping south until you don't see anymore snow tires.

So let's enjoy it.

Forms of Formality

2010-11-25T16:15:00.001+01:00

This week in French class we explored the cultural nuances of you. No, not you, you silly narcissist, but "you," the always-fascinating second-person singular/plural personal pronoun as it appears in français. We're talking the informal "tu" and formal "vous" forms.

In English, "you" is so easy. We use the same word whether we're talking to a toddler who's just dumped a load in his diaper or to our boss who may be even more full of shit.

In French, not so easy. When speaking to someone you're just beginning to know, whether you choose to use the informal "tu" or formal "vous" can make the difference between being snubbed or accepted, or between getting laid or deported.

Our class of international students (Brazil, Portugal, Egypt, Germany, Venezuela, Congo, Lebanon, Vietnam, and a couple other countries I forget) discussed all this with our teacher, Nathalie, who, by the way, could read a sewer cleaning manual in French and make it sound like music. Some of us described the varying levels of language formality in our own countries, and Nathalie explained that, in Suisse-Romande (French-speaking Switzerland), one can say (translating) "hi" (salut) to a friend, but only "hello" (bonjour) to someone with whom you're not friends. We didn't get around to discussing how to give the finger to a respected colleague.

We ended our discussion by voting on whether we would all like to use "tu" or "vous" with each other. It was unanimous, but, thank goodness, we stopped short of a group hug.

Mountain View

2010-11-16T11:20:00.003+01:00

I've never understood why, at fancy resorts in Hawai'i, the ocean-view rooms cost an additional arm and leg more than mountain-view rooms.

As a happy free-loading travel writer in Hawai'i, I was from time to time offered free rooms in resorts and hotels, and usually given a luscious ocean-view room. But sometimes, during busy seasons, when happy free-loading travel writers were barely tolerated, I was put in a room over the air-conditioning fans with a mountain view. Aside from the turbo-blowers, I couldn't have been happier.

The ocean is very beautiful and dramatic and a source of timeless poetic inspiration -- for about five minutes. Then it's just really big and flat and the direction from which the tsunami will come while you're sleeping.

I've always preferred the mountain view. Here there is character and history and solidity for those of us with floaty psyches in need of an anchor.

Which is one more reason I love my new home, Switzerland. Here hotel guests pay a premium for mountain-view rooms, though I suppose if a Swiss hotel ever opens with 700 floors, the ocean-view rooms on top will be fairly pricey.

But you won't find me up there. I still love the mountain view. Like this one from a couple days ago outside our house.

Winter Wake-up

2010-11-09T14:16:00.005+01:00

The jackhammer's clat-clat-clat-clat came from down the street, a strange sound here in the country where we're more used to the plop-plop-plop of falling cow patties. Out the window we saw the approaching squad of commune workers clad in fluorescent orange jumpsuits. Using a pneumatic hammer from the back of a truck, they were pounding snow poles in the ground on either side of our little lane. Before long we'll need these poles as guides through the snow so we don't end up inadvertently driving through the pasture or somebody's livingroom.

We had first seen the red tippy-top of these poles a couple winters ago when we came to visit our future home in knee-deep snow. Then, last spring after we moved in, I saw the whole pole for the first time. They're about 1.4 meters high, the raw wood painted red on top. What's weird for this Hawai'i boy is that the poles are like the tsunami warning poles found along roads in low-lying areas all around the Islands.

So yesterday's pole placement was a wake-up call: winter is here.

And sure enough, last night, with typical Swiss efficiency, our first snow fell. I took Loki, our cat who was born and raised in Hawai'i, out for his introduction to the white stuff. The flakes floating to the ground where nearly as big as the yellow leaves that have been falling the last few weeks. I made the obligatory snowball and threw it at Loki's feet. He acted unimpressed, but that's so like him.

We'll send pix when he makes his first snow angel.

My Swiss Army Knife Life

2010-11-02T08:46:00.000+01:00

Well, my two-month gig at the swissinfo.com blog, "Write On" comes to a close this week if you'd care to have a look.

Swiss Residency in just 34 Years, 10 Easy Steps

2010-10-26T12:06:00.000+02:00

I know you have been lying awake at night asking yourself one question: What ARE the 10 easy steps to obtaining Swiss Residency in less than 35 years?

Cowed

2010-10-18T10:03:00.003+02:00

Cows are notoriously difficult interviews, and I have recently found out that Swiss cows are no different.

Walking the Walk

2010-10-11T10:06:00.000+02:00

Sometimes it looks like a parade on the little country lane where Maïf and I live -- hikers coming and going, clearly on a mission, not so much to get someplace, but just to be out tramping. The Swiss love to walk, which is what I wrote about on this week's on swissinfo.com blog, "Walking the Walk."

Monsieur, Madame

2010-10-04T12:37:00.000+02:00

I wouldn't be totally surprised to learn that somewhere in Switzerland, there's some old happily-married husband and wife who still call each other "Madame" and "Monsieur." The Swiss are just more formal than we Americans. That's what I wrote about in this week's blog on swissinfo.com. If you'd like, you can check it out at Monsieur, Madame.

Have fun.

Train of Thought

2010-09-28T13:42:00.000+02:00

Yes, I know, I haven't posted here in an eon, and you loyal readers have been suffering sleepless nights, and ... oh, you hadn't even noticed? Whew. Anyway, I've been swamped with freelance projects and day-trips and trying to extract rocks from our septic tank pipe, all very fascinating, but I'll spare you the details.

Except for this one: Train of Thought, this week's installment in a series of blogs I'm writing about expat life here in CH for swissinfo.com. Hope you enjoy it.

Wine Festival

2010-09-08T12:36:00.020+02:00

This past weekend I went to Vinea, which is billed as Switzerland’s biggest wine festival. There were reportedly some 1,200 wines available for tasting by a predicted 10,000 thirsty winos.

This wino arrived at 10:30 a.m. in the town of Sierre. Frankly, Sierre is not a place to visit for its charm, though there are exceptions.

But you gotta love a town where, once a year, two steps from the train station you can walk up to a bar in the middle of the street and get a glass of very tasty wine.

By noon, I noticed the cobblestones were blatantly trying to trip me, even though I had tasted no more than 30 wines. That probably sounds like a lot, but it was just a sip or two of each. Yes, there were spitting buckets, but the latest oenological research has concluded that spitting out perfectly good wine is totally dorky and could stain your shirt.

I had decided to restrict myself to just a few grapes, and in honor of my new home, I started with the second-most cultivated Swiss grape, chasselas. I hope this doesn't ruin my chances for being granted permanent residency, but I find Swiss chasselas, especially found in Fendant wines, to be flabby and oily, not to mention too opinionated and prone to wearing the wrong size shoes. After tasting about 10 Fendants my opinion was only confirmed. So I switched to another grape popular here, petite arvine, and after trying it in 6 or 7 Swiss wines, each quite different in style and ambition, decided that it's like a very chic woman -- attractive in all kinds of different clothes, though not necessarily naked. And I promise that that'll be the end of the opaque pretentious metaphorical wine talk for today.

To regain mastery of the cobblestones, I paused for a big lunch of roasted chicken and country potatoes washed down with lots of water, then began to stroll and taste again. By now I was limiting myself to pinot noirs, Switzerland's most cultivated and delicious grape. I'd go up to a tent where 5 or 6 vintners were each offering 10 or 12 reds and whites, but I would taste only their pinot noir before moving on. In this way, a couple hours later, I was still walking and talking and not drooling or belting out Moulin Rouge tunes at an imaginary karaoke bar.

All kinds of people had come and paid their 40 francs (about US$40) for their very own Vinea engraved wine glass with which to taste unlimited wines. Some were super-serious oenophiles with sharp pencils and permanently furrowed brows. Others were drunks with educated tastebuds. Most were fun-loving wine lovers who would swirl the half-centiliter of their latest wine, stare at it, sip, talk, laugh and sip again and again and again.

There was food too, including of course sausages and the traditional melted cheese dish, raclette. You could smell when you were getting close to the tent selling this pungent melted cheese, potato and pickle acquired taste. I held my breath while I took a photo of the rotating steampunk mechanical device that allowed rapid service. I have nightmares of a panel of stern Swiss judges requiring me to eat a sagging plate of raclette before granting me permanent residency.

But what's that got to do with a wine festival?

About 4:00 I boarded the train back home with a last taste of fresh petite arvine in my glass sitting on the tiny train table by the window. (Yes, in Switzerland you can board a train with a glass of wine.) The lady across the aisle smiled at me as the Alps sailed by.

How Many Kisses?

2010-09-03T11:55:00.001+02:00

Congratulations. You have been chosen to participate in The Kissing Research Project. It will only take a minute of your time, though, alas, will not involve any actual kissing unless you get mighty creative. You may of course decline to participate and no one will think less of your poor shriveled soul (and lips).

We ask you to answer only one 3-part question: In your corner of the world (please identify), when two friends (not lovers, not strangers, and certainly not strangers who are lovers) greet each other, does local custom dictate that they kiss, and if so, how many times and where on the face? (If it's elsewhere than on the face, your kissing customs gross us out and thus fall outside the parameters of this study.)

Why is this research being conducted? Those of you who know me, already know the answer: I intend to shamelessly exploit your experiences in an article I am writing. So there.

To get the ball rolling, allow me to disclose that, in my part of the world (Swiss-Romande), we kiss three times on the cheeks, which empirical evidence has shown conlusively to be the perfect balance of time and sweetness in our busy world.

How about you?

Bisous,
Bill

The Veil Lifted

2010-08-26T18:55:00.003+02:00

Till today
Summer has hidden the horizon
Fearing the beauty beyond
Would strike us dead.

But
Oh!
What a way
To go!

Festival Fever, Fotos

2010-08-23T14:11:00.004+02:00

During the summer months, you can stand on the tippy-top of the Matterhorn or at the bottom of Lac Léman or anywhere else in Switzerland and throw a rock, and you will hit a festival, guaranteed. Various music festivals are devoted to rock, pop, hip-hop, techno, classico-moderne, jazz or traditional folk as you would expect, but there are also festivals celebrating wine, movies, food, cheese, medieval drinking and killing and even wrestling by men and cows (separately).

With my first summer in Switzerland drawing to a close, I am not proud to confess that I missed practically all of these wonderful festivals, mostly because tickets for many of them cost more than a week's groceries, and the wife and I are philosophically opposed to starving.

Medieval faire, Luzern

But some of these colorful festivals are actually free, or nearly so, taking place right on city squares where sometimes, surprised shoppers think they've accidentally joined the circus. And some pricey festivals have free events that freeloaders like moi can enjoy without first robbing the bank around the corner. So, herewith, a few snapshots. For free:

Buskers Festival, Neuchatel

Medieval faire, Morges

Jazz festival, Montreux

Circus in the square, Neuchatel

Buskers Festival, Neuchatel

Carouge

2010-08-11T18:21:00.012+02:00

I spent a couple fun days in Geneva last week. The Missus went to the salt mines nearby, while I strolled the busy streets, soaking up the big-city vibe and looking for ways to spend her earnings. The first day I cruised Rue du Marché, stopping in at my favorite knife store to salivate over the fine wares. I also got to watch the scammers out on the street cheat tourists out of their money with the bean-under-the-box trick. Darwin would find these displays of survival of the stupidest intriguing, I'm sure.

The next day I jumped on the tram going to Carouge, an outlying neighborhood the wife had been coaxing me to visit. The tram made its way south through the noisy, busy streets of downtown Geneva until crossing L'Arve river, and suddenly it felt like we were in a charming little French town.

Just blocks away from the tall buildings and broad sidewalks full of people, here in Carouge, the narrow sidewalks in front of two-storey buildings were practically empty -- and inviting.

I found a frame shop with dozens of large, ornate, antique gold-leaf frames leaning against the walls like bored courtesans at a ball. The nice man told me that yes, he could probably find one to fit our big mirror at home, perhaps for less than 1,000 francs. He saw by my bulging eyes that our humble country cottage was not about to be blessed with any Rococo embellishments.

Nearby was a boutique filled with beautiful basketry and wood carvings -- all of it from Mauritius, where the owner's son had organized a group of local artisans.

After buying a half-bottle of Bordeaux and a sandwich in a little grocery store, I found a little park and installed myself on a bench to eat while making anthropological observations.

I will never forgive myself for not getting a photo of one amazing pair of ladies walking their tiny dogs together. One was a barrel-shaped old biddy dressed in a dark overcoat and clunky grandma shoes. Her perfect coiffure was a cottony little cloud. The other woman was quite possibly a hooker, a doll of a certain age with copper-colored hair, black fishnet stockings and scarf, stiletto Peter Pan boots and leopard-skin miniskirt. They walked and chatted like old friends while their miniature mutts trotted in front.

You two delightful ladies so suddenly gone, if you read this -- which is unlikely since probably no one else will -- look for me in the park so we can take some snaps suitable for framing. I'll be the rude guy pointing his long lens at you. So please don't call the cops -- at least till you hear me out.

Swiss National Day

2010-08-05T15:00:00.004+02:00

Swiss Air Force FA-18s are roaring overhead again this morning, drowning out the crickets in the field of golden, rustling wheat. I'm not complaining. I love fighter jets in spite of my peacenik predilections. And these jets are particularly stirring because they are splitting the same sky where, a couple nights before, brilliant fireworks blossomed and boomed in celebration of Swiss National Day. The jets and fireworks remind me of my adolescent days in Ohio when I stayed up on a Friday night till 2 in the morning watching horror movies until finally the TV channel went off the air with the Star-Spangled Banner playing as fighter planes and fireworks filled the screen.

Which got me to thinking about the Swiss national anthem. At a big neighborhood party the night before National Day, I asked if what I'd read in a snarky book about Swiss culture was true: that most Swiss don't know the words to the national anthem. He said he didn't know the words, and didn't think most other Swiss did either. Others at the table concurred. They were neither ashamed nor proud of this.

We Americans begin singing our national anthem pretty much within minutes after being squirted from the womb, and repeat this patriotic exercise countless times through our school years and at sports events. This is apparently not the case here in CH, where students are too distracted with becoming multi-lingual and computing currency conversion rates to devote quality time to learning their nation's official song.

And no wonder. Because it turns out that the Swiss national anthem isn't an anthem at all. It's just a wimpy prayer with "Joy and bliss" here and "God dwelleth in this land" there, blah blah blah. The anthem of the U.S. of A. of course is suitably martial against its backdrop of bombs bursting in air and rockets red glare. I'm sure there would also be a beautiful verse about fighter jets had Francis Scott Key been able to peer through the dawn's early light of 1814 into the future.

The one thing the two tunes share is a belief in God's blessing. Every nation likes to claim God's special blessing. A divine lightning bolt beats an FA-18 air strike every time.

It's interesting to compare the lyrics of the Swiss Psalm and the Star-Spangled Banner. You'll find the Swiss anthem's lyrics online not only in the original German, but also the other three national languages, as well as English, which will become the fifth national Swiss language just as soon as President Obama wraps up the paperwork to add UBS to the American banks the feds already control.

There's a bigger difference between Swiss and American national identities than their anthems. A Fourth of July party means hot dogs and beers. But on the night of August 1st, I was standing on the high terrace of my mother-in-law's Neuchatel apartment as the last blast of fireworks made the 1,000-year-old town below glitter. We sipped sparkling wine, and nibbled dainty little finger sandwiches. All very civilized, but not something Bruce Springsteen will ever write an anthem about.

Good Medicine

2010-07-23T18:06:00.011+02:00

This week I had my first experience with the Swiss medical system thanks to a lingering malady which shall remain nameless because it's so embarrassing. OK, OK, apparently I've got gout, the so-called "rich man's disease" because guys who get it tend to overdo it with organ meats. Other than a little paté I politely nibbled at my mother-in-law's last Easter, I haven't touched any organ meats since I was old enough to tell my mother no thanks to liver. So I have no idea why I got hit with this painful condition, which, for two weeks has made my right foot feel like little sharp-toothed monsters are chomping on my toe joints.

This led me to overcome my fear of a doctor's visit conducted in French, and visit the little clinic in the town down the hill.

My sweet wife who was tired of my grimacing and not helping around the estate called to make an appointment for me, and here's where the differences between the Swiss and American health systems began to show themselves. They told her no appointment was necessary, and that if the doctor on duty didn't speak good enough English, one of the nurses would help translate.

When I got there, the man at the reception desk took my brand new Swiss insurance card. Everyone living in Switzerland is required to have health insurance, which has the added benefit of keeping out those rabid American Tea Party people who believe that that kind of government regulation is tantamount to communism, which they equate with the gulags.

In the U.S. I had paid $200 per month for an individual plan that didn't cover medications, vision or dental, nor pre-existing conditions such as my bad back or chronic cynicism. Nor did it cover mental health conditions caused by the stress of having a health plan that didn't cover most of the things I needed.

In Switzerland, I have an individual plan that costs the equivalent of $268, and it covers 80 percent or more of the cost of everything, even including the bones broken if I leap off a building because I feel invulnerable with my super amazing insurance plan.

In the clinic, with no appointment, I waited about 5 minutes before a nurse led me into the examining room and took my vitals. She clearly wasn't one of the nurses who would translate if the doctor didn't speak much English, but my French held up OK, plus it helped that my foot was conveniently swollen. She drew blood, and I then I sat there for about 20 minutes while the blood was analyzed right there at the clinic. Back in Hawai‘i where I used to live, you wait three days to get results from a blood test.

When the doctor came in, the first thing he said (in French) was that he was sorry but he didn't speak very good French. He's Italian, practicing in CH for reasons I clearly didn't grasp because it seemed to have something to do with the fact that his guitar-playing son likes Jimi Hendrix. I asked if he spoke English, and he said "leetle beet," which was the last English he used, though he did drop in the odd Italian word. When I complimented his French, he said that was only because I didn't speak French well enough to understand how bad his was. Point taken.

The only English I spoke was "ouch!" when he pressed on my toe. In French, the word is "aiy." (Does it seem weird to you too that there are different words for the response to pain? I guess, as toddlers, when we slammed our little fingers in the cabinet door, we could have been taught to say "aiy!" or "asparagus!" or most anything.)

Anyway, Señor El Dottore and I understood each other pretty well, and after plenty of poking and prodding -- perhaps he was trying to learn the exact pronunciation of that English word I kept repeating -- he concluded that I probably have la goutte, and wrote a prescription for an industrial strength anti-inflammatory.

He also asked if I eat the kind of organ meats that commonly cause gout. I tried to think of how to say, "No, that bloody stuff makes me hurl," but ended up just saying no, and that I eat mostly fish, chicken and some pork. But I'd read that alcohol can be a contributor to gout, so I confessed that I do enjoy wine. He smiled, shrugged and said, "C'est normal." I added that I usually drink a glass or two with lunch, and two or three glasses with dinner -- about a bottle a day. Another smile and shrug. "C'est normal," he repeated -- then added I should leave the corkscrew in the drawer for a few days.

I'm going to love the Swiss medical system.

Serroue Haiku

2010-07-15T08:11:00.003+02:00

On night breeze, hooo-hooo

Our owl friend's first hello.

No! Good night, last train!

Happy, Historic Morning

2010-07-08T15:06:00.006+02:00

What a morning! Good things come in threes, right? And sometimes all before lunch.

It started with the dawn as aviation history was made right here over Lac de Neuchatel. I drove to a nearby perch to watch a distant winged dot in the sky. It was the world's first solar-powered aircraft to fly all through the night on its batteries, and it was still in the air as the sun rose this morning, the golden light giving the plane's solar cells a photon transfusion, until, after 26 hours aloft, the solarplane reluctantly landed, proving in effect that it could soar forever, or until the pilot had to come down to take a pee.

Next came the happy moment when, after two months, my darling wife's cast came off her foot. Who'd a thunk that a fracture in her pinky toe bone would lead to all this time in a fiberglass cocoon? Now she's barefoot and fancy free, and we're kicking up our heels, dancing away from anymore lame foot metaphors.

While chérie was offering her leg to a nurse who wielded a circular saw that buzzed like something from a chainsaw massacre, I strolled across the street to the commune office, hoping that they had at last received the little piece of plastic I had been coveting for three months. And lo and behold ...

So now I exist en Suisse. No more touristo. Which of course is terrific, and will save my wife from having to find a new live-in man-slave. Plus, now I am legal fodder for the work force; I can get a regular job. Oh shit.

No, really, that's fine, but please, not before lunch. We've still got Champagne toasts to make, and that'll be enough for today.

Americans Need Not Apply

2010-06-29T21:33:00.006+02:00

Last week poor little UBS told me so sorry, but no, we don't want your money. The poor little giant Swiss bank won't let me open my own account. And they were very explicit as to why. It's not because they fear that my microscopic freelance checks would injure their bankers while they're rolling on their marble floors laughing. And it's not because the U.S. dollar is a house of credit cards ready to collapse. Actually, believe it or not, the shaky currency du jour is the euro, used by every country surrounding Switzerland, and now causing centime-savvy Swiss along the borders to flock to France, Italy, Austria and Germany to buy their week's supply of Rivella and Gruyère. But this isn't why poor little UBS won't let me open my own account. The reason, they told me quite explicitly, is ... I'm American.

Well fuck you very much, UBS -- and in case you didn't notice, the United States outlasted CH in the World Cup, ha ha ha, so stick that up your secret vault where the sun don't shine!

No, I shouldn't say that. You can hardly blame poor little UBS with its assets of only 3.2 trillion (no lie) Swiss francs -- a currency so stable that UBS reportedly uses columns of 100-franc notes to hold up the parking decks below their banks. Really the no-Americans policy is the fault of the mean old U.S. government, which is leaning on teeny weeny Switzerland like a pot-bellied, gold-chained Jersey enforcer trying to get the bankers to fess up about American citizens hiding taxable income in secret Swiss bank accounts. (Coincidentally, UBS has a "Private Wealth Management" HQ in New Jersey.) And now the governments of Spain and Italy have piled on too, demanding depositors' names, everybody trying to get in on the action. Despicable.

So I don't really blame poor little UBS. Though I have to admit that I can afford to be so magnanimous only because my Swiss wife already had a couple of UBS accounts, so now one is a joint account which I'm already infecting with American dollars. (And merci beaucoup to you, Monsieur Not-to-be-Named UBS banker who helped us get my dollars into Ungrateful Banque Suisse.)

Of course that's not really what the letters "UBS" stand for. As it turns out, the letters, like the bank, stand for ... well ... nothing. Historically, they stood for "Union Bank of Switzerland," but that was only until 1998 when that bank merged with the Swiss Bank Corporation, at which point, apparently, having their name actually mean something was deemed silly.

But hey, UBS, I don't want to be part of your stupid bank anyway. Yes, the wife and I will keep our joint account there for the time-being because you are ridiculously lenient when we must momentarily overdraw our checking account for something truly urgent like hot concert tickets for Montreux. But otherwise, you better start courting non-Americans like maybe Robert Mugabe to make up for our business, because I've just discovered the gorgeous old building where the Banque Cantonal Neuchatel is located, so, very soon, I'm outta here. Unless they don't take Americans.

Bern Voyage

2010-06-18T15:38:00.001+02:00

A few days ago, with my shiny new go-anywhere-anytime-on-train-bus-tram-funicular-or-boat CFF pass in my wallet, I zipped down to Bern. My excuse for visiting the Swiss capital was to renew my passport, but really I just wanted to make this expensive year's pass ($195 SFR per month) start paying for itself. And I'd never been to Bern and its handsome medieval city center.

The ride from Neuchâtel took just over 30 minutes, during which time I frantically paged through my phrase book hoping to absorb some sense of Swiss German, of which I knew only two words, grüezi (hello), and bitte (please). I tried to memorize the phrase that I knew I'd have occasion to use most, Es tut mir leid. (I'm sorry), but always found during the day that it escaped me in the fluster of the many moments when I needed it. Instead, I relied upon the ever-versatile question, Sprechen Sie Englisch?

Searching for the American embassy, I knew I was close when I saw a Swiss soldier holding a cute little machine-gun. Nearby, an American flag hung limply behind high fences. In front of one door thick with blast-glass stood a line of hopeful young people holding papers. If the American embassy was under attack that morning, it was by cream-skinned Swiss teenagers who probably just wanted to invade Disneyland.

Unsure where to go, I got in line with them. A Swiss soldier who'd been letting people in the locked door one-by-one soon spied me and asked in perfect English if I were American. I said yes. "I thought so," he said, eliciting smiles from a few of the others in line.

How did he know? I wasn't wearing a cowboy hat or dorky white running shoes. I wasn't being loud or pushy. I wasn't even yet asking anyone Sprechen Sie Englisch?

Nevertheless, I'm sure I managed to confirm opinions about Americans' sense of entitlement when the guard told me to go to the front of the line.

Half an hour later, after multiple security screenings, a session under the blinding lights of a photo booth, and impossibly friendly service from embassy staff, I exited with the paperwork for my renewed passport.

Now it was time to see Old Bern. Though the city was founded in 1191, most of it burned to the ground in 1405, and was rebuilt in the stone buildings that I was now walking among. It was downright weird to meditate upon this, walking the cobblestone and low archways between storefronts full of modern furniture and art and yes the inevitable watches and Swiss Army knives -- and bears.

Bern was named Bärn by founder Berthold the 5th, Duke of Zähringen, because this apparently whimsical fellow decided one day that he'd name his new town after the next animal he killed in the hunt. That Bär lives on today in the town's name and statues, icons and tourist gewgaws around town. Plus there's the newly renovated live bear viewing area, Bärengraben, on the banks of the Aare River. Depending upon your perspective, this attraction is either an honor to the city's fearless namesake or a humiliating pit in which a family of bears including two cute cubs is forever trapped. The day I was there, hundreds of people were voting their conscience with their cameras and oohs-and-aahs.

Anyone feeling guilty about enslaving noble bears can give confession up the street at the tallest cathedral in Switzerland, Münster St. Vinzenz. Like so many European cathedrals, the most inspiring and intriguing personalities hanging around are not the men shuffling about in white collars, but the figures made of timeless stone.

After communing with these fine creatures for awhile, I was spiritually spent, so moved my observances to a sunny table at a nearby café to sip a beer. Then I jumped on the bus for the train station. Rolling up the street, passing the countless faces, I knew I'd been unfair to the flesh and blood of Bern. But I'll be back in a few weeks to pick up my new passport. Maybe by then I can tell them Es tut mir leid.

Swiss Dominance

2010-06-09T17:00:00.006+02:00

Please don't tell anybody but just now, while taking a much-needed break from conjugating French verbs (ennuie, ennuies ...), and pimping the stunning website of our stunning vacation home atop a stunning steaming Hawai'i volcano, I watched that Miley Cyrus video, "Party in the USA," for the third fourth fifth time in a row, and as so often happens with such sublime encounters, I began to think deep thoughts. Namely, of American "dominance" and how Switzerland could teach my country a thing or two about the US obsession with being King of the Hill.

In Cyrus's music video, an enormous American flag serves as backdrop, though red-blooded males won't notice this because the foreground features Miss Cyrus's bare thighs in torn short-shorts jeans, and ... what was I talking about?

Recently there was a typically argumentative article in The Daily Beast, an opinionated webzine that I love to hate because it often substitutes loud opinions for nuanced analysis while pretending to do just the opposite. The article was on "Why American Dominance Must End." I couldn't agree more, even though I don't plan to actually read the article.

As I was growing up in a nuclear family whose head was a career officer in the U.S. Army, it was gospel that the United States of America was the greatest nation in the world, and if you didn't agree, well you better watch out because there was a reason we used the word "nuclear" in apparently innocuous contexts.

But at some point I began to wonder why the insistence upon being "The Greatest." Yeah, maybe for Mohammed Ali and Cat Power. But why does the U.S. have to insist on crowing about being superior to, say, Lichtenstein? Can't we be a true community of nations, all brothers and sisters on our little blue planet? If you have a bunch of friends over to your house, does anyone start throwing their hips around insisting that they are better than everyone else? And if they do, doesn't that guarantee that they are immediately seen as the lamest loser in the room?

Take those dickheads the Gallagher brothers of the erstwhile English band, Oasis, who said they were better than the Beatles. I liked some of their catchy tunes, but, hey guys, just shut up and play, OK? As if pop music is some sort of artistic competition. I suspect that Liam and Noel are really just frustrated football hooligans with helmet-head haircuts and a knack for stealing Beatlesque melody hooks, but the point is, who ever said one rock band has to be "the best"? Or one country?

The United States is like the Gallaghers. "The greatest country on Earth" blah blah blah. The U.S. government even has a regulation that the American flag is supposed to fly higher than any other nation's flag when they stand together. How rude.

We Americans should really take a lesson from the Swiss, who, probably because their little country is such a diverse quilt, truly believe in the community of nations -- as long as it doesn't involve building a minaret. OK, so they've really screwed up there, but it's no accident that virtually all of the most important multi-national agencies giving succor to the world have their headquarters in Geneva. While the Swiss are clearly proud to fly their flag, they don't insist that the rest of the world bow down before it -- unless perhaps the particular flag is made of chocolate. And who can argue with that, besides maybe the Belgians?

It's probably worth noting that most Swiss couldn't even tell you who their current president is thanks to the system here, which would seem utterly bizarre to any American, where the presidency is bestowed each year upon one of the seven members of the Federal Council. Nevertheless, those male citizens who do know that Doris Leuthard is their current fearless leader would probably love to see this smart, chic babe baring her politics in a music video. Though it's hard to imagine a suitable tune for "Party in the Confederation Helvetique."

Mellow Yellow

2010-06-04T12:06:00.004+02:00

Having arrived in CH the end of March, I'm learning that there are micro-seasons here in Suisse Romande. No sooner had I fallen utterly in love with the pure brilliant colors of the tulips standing tall and proud and brave in our and everyone's still-frigid spring gardens, than they all folded in upon themselves like dying ballerinas, leaving just sad, pale, spindly stalks.

However, this tragedy was quickly assuaged by the expansive fields of colza, whose brilliant yellow blossoms quilt the countryside in late spring. I'm almost surprised that the Swiss authorities have not banned roadside fields of colza because they are clearly a traffic hazard. When you round a curve and are greeting by the breath-taking sight of millions of bold yellow blossoms carving the countryside into giant pieces of yummy-looking cake, well, it's a wonder that there aren't piles of cars off the side of the road full of dead people whose last thought was that they'd just seen the Elysian Fields.

Colza is also known in English as rapeweed, though this unfortunate name has caused considerable efforts at rebranding. North Americans know the healthy cooking oil derived from the plant as CAnola oil. This is a rather acrobatic abbreviation of CANadian Oil Low Acid, which sounds about as appetizing as an artificial lubricant derived in undergraound labs high in the Northwest Territories.

As far as I've been able to determine, colza oil or whatever you want to call it, is valued for its "neutral" taste, which, to be honest, is not something I've ever really looked for in cooking. Plus, now that I live just north of the Alps, below which are Italy and Greece where they cook and reportedly bathe in the world's finest olive oils, extra-virgin and otherwise if you catch my drift, I don't see myself using a lot of colza.

But I may buy it anyway just to do my small part in perpetuating these glorious buttery fields of tiny flowers.

Monsieur Coiffure

2010-05-27T23:17:00.009+02:00

I got a haircut yesterday, only my second in Switzerland. You wouldn't think such a simple thing would be a cultural touchstone, but it's not all cheese and watches over here, you know.

My first Swiss haircut was "une catastrophe." That was in 2008 when I was staying in Geneva for 3 months. My future wife advised going to L'Academie de Coiffure because she knew I'm cheap, and she had once gotten a good haircut there a few years before. The young student whose chair I landed in looked alarmed at my wild, boingy locks, especially when I showed her a photo of a rare moment when my hair was quite civilized. I told her I wanted it to look that way again. An hour later I looked way different -- as if a hungry badger had grazed on my head.

Still scarred by that experience, I'd been reluctant to commit to a barber here in Neuchatel, even though my hair had become indistinguishable from the brambles in the woods behind our house. I asked my neighbor for advice, but he's mostly bald, so that didn't get very far. I did not ask the plumber who installed our miraculously expensive ultra-violet water purifier because his hair looked like a tsunami turned inside out. We dubbed him Monsieur Coiffure.

But his is not typical of Swiss men's haircuts. Almost every man here is excruciatingly well coiffed. Their hair may be short or long, but it is going to be exceedingly well styled, as though cut by a watchmaker. Even moreso the women. In the last place I lived, the rainforest of a Hawaiian island, the women tend to let their hair imitate the jungle, and it generally looks attractively wild ... except when moss actually starts growing in it.

But in Switzerland, the women, like the men, generally prefer a very defined, shaped cut, often with bangs and sharp angles that sometimes resemble a knight's helmet. Which probably explains the incredible number of hair salons you find in the cities. It seems like there's one on every block. When I first visited Paris, I wondered how there could possibly be a patisserie on every block. How could all those little businesses be supported? In Switzerland, it's coiffure salons. It seems like every man, woman and child would have to get snipped, styled or dyed once every three days to support all these salons.

Anyway, I eventually asked my new friend Marc for a coiffeur recommendation. My wife has known Marc for years, and she says he is that rare individual who both hates to waste a centime and loves the finer things in life. Plus, his hair is wild, yet bohemian-respectable. He recommended Pub Coiff.

And yesterday at Pub Coiff I got one of the best haircuts of my life -- for just 19 francs. I even gave monsieur a one-franc tip because he was endlessly patient with my fractured French, allowing us to carry on the traditional manly barber-customer conversations about the sad state of the world today and the saving grace of women's bodies. As luck would have it, Venus Williams' wondrous butt was prominently featured that day on the sports and fashion pages of the newspapers he had lying around.

Soon after, we parted, shaking hands with ink on our fingers, both of us knowing I'd be back.

Getting Medieval

2010-05-19T10:35:00.003+02:00

Recently, I took advantage of my brand-new train pass that allows me to go anywhere in Switzerland anytime by train, bus, tram, boat and probably magic carpet if I can find one. So I went to the Middle Ages.

In Luzern they were having a medieval fair last weekend. I've been a fan of The Middle Ages ever since I had a crush on the medieval lit professor at my university. I also have a teensy bit of a thing for beautifully crafted knives. The fair's brochure suggested there'd be blades aplenty, so I knew this was how to break in my new train pass.

Voilà, on Sunday morning, after a two-hour train ride, there I was on top of a grassy hill above Luzern, paying my 15 francs as a cold rain and grey sky added a certain Dark Ages faux-realism to the surroundings. This atmosphere was briefly interrupted by the gateway sentry, who wore on his belt not a sword but a walkie talkie with an ear piece. Once inside, I gazed upon a scene that wouldn't have looked much different in the 14th Century. People in soggy dress tramped on soggy ground among small wood and canvas shelters where craftsmen sold leatherwork, jewelry, knives, swords, armor and archery equipment. Roasting chunks of meat turned on a spit. Pink-faced young men wearing broad swords smoked cigarettes. The rain soon let up, but anyone wearing a cape soon had its bottom fringed with mud.

Most of us wore boring modern-day clothes, but a number of the tried-and-true were decked out with medieval robes, damsel dresses, chain mail, thick leather breastplates, and of course, wide belts hung with swords, daggers, and the most important utensil of the day, the drinking horn, whose most admirable feature was that you couldn't put it down until it was empty.

The merchants had all these accoutrements for sale. A couple of blacksmiths worked their bellows and pounded out red-hot knife blades. Their stalls were lined with handsome swords and daggers. One of these artisans, from the Czech Republic, was a true master, and it took all my restraint to keep from buying one of his fine 200-franc blades. (You Freudians can just zip it, OK?)

Fortunately, I was diverted by a trio of musicians playing period instruments and cracking jokes that almost sent people rolling in the mud. I even laughed, even though I don't speak a word of Swiss-German. (The only words I understood all day were, "Es ist ein Maus!" but don't worry, it was just a fluffy fake mouse given as a prize to a little boy who clearly would have preferred a sword.)

Later I ate a gristly, greasy pork and onion sandwich that required all of the tearing of pig flesh that I assume was de rigueur among medieval folk a-feasting, and could account for all the missing teeth you always see among the grubby peasants in medieval movies.

After a couple of hours slogging through puddles in wet feet, I retreated to the nice, dry 21-Century train, having successfully resisted buying that Czech dagger that I had absolutely no use for. But just seeing the gorgeously deadly instrument was a thrill. At American festivals you generally only have to resist buying cotton candy, not medieval weapons.

Next week there's another festival celebrating medieval weapons in the town of Morges, just a short train ride away. I bet that Czech guy will be there.

The Quintessential Sound of Switzerland

2010-05-09T13:54:00.006+02:00

Can you hear it? Can you hear that magical sound outside my window?

Well of course you can't, but I hope you'll forgive my silliness because I'm under the spell of perhaps the most quintessential Swiss sound there is. No, not the ticking of a 5,000-franc watch. Nor the whistle of another approaching train that has arrived exactly on time down to the second. Nor the drone of alpine horns in the Ricola commercial. Nor even a yodeling fraulein bouncing her arpeggios off of alpine peaks.

No, I'm talking about cowbells, of course.

A few days ago, I was sitting at my desk madly trying to make a deadline when that suddenly became impossible thanks to the melodious clanging of bells tumbling through my window.

I live across the lane from a farm. The field right outside is planted with oats and alfalfa that is destined to be hay for cowfeed. But just beyond is a rolling pasture that has been getting thicker each day with long grass and buttery bright dandelions. I'd read that one of the signs of Swiss spring is when the cows return from their winter barns into the pastures. Now, here came 10 very happy cows, gamboling through the grass like death-row cellmates who'd just gotten liberating DNA test results. And each one wore a wide leather collar upon which hung a big brass bell.

Their music reminded me of a girl's bell choir I once heard in a church, except the cows weren't wearing lacy dresses, and their bells were full of chaotic joy.

Of course, I'm anthropomorphizing worse than William Wordsworth, but cut me some slack, I've never lived by a farm before.

Now, here I sit on this otherwise silent Sunday morning, again watching the happy music-making cows even as I type, and I am happy too. Such a bucolic scene is utterly charming to a suburb-bred American, especially since I know those munching cows are cheese machines on the hoof. For I am a new and enthusiastic fan of Swiss cheeses -- but my pilgrimage to Gruyère is a story for another time.

This morning, I am half tempted to go frolic with those contented cows, but of course, then I would also be frolicking with fresh, steaming cow pies. I think I'll just go have a chunk of cheese, instead.

And by the way, if I ever write about being sick of the incessant, monotonous, tuneless noise of cowbells! just hit me in the face with one of those cowpies.

Round and Round

2010-04-27T17:02:00.002+02:00

I've been doing a lot of driving recently, and am happy to say that I am no longer terrified of causing an international fender-bender incident because I didn't know whether a certain sign meant I was going the wrong way on a dead-end street, which, if you think about it, is impossible anyway, even though I'm pretty sure I was doing exactly that the other day on a street with alarming red and blue signs apparently telling me not to proceed and not to go the opposite direction.

Negotiating Swiss streets requires speed-reading. There are signs over the road and beside the road, and even signs written right on the road. It's kind of like playing 3-D chess. Fighter pilots are required to have superb "3-dimensional situational awareness." Ditto for European drivers, for whom the next piece of life-saving information could be written virtually anywhere, including on that window-box of tulips outside the neighborhood bordello.

My favorite European traffic device is the ubiquitous rond-point. This is a circle of roadway that appears at many intersections. Instead of having to hit the brakes at a stop sign even if you can see that there's not another vehicle within hundreds of meters, drivers decide for themselves whether or not they can safely glide into the circle and proceed to their chosen connecting street without infringing upon the grillwork of another driver. Even better, a rond-point is often covered with a mound of beautiful flowers or an interesting mosaic of bricks or stonework, allowing traffic to freely flow around it like chi around a lovely mandala.

Indeed, in the USA we sometimes call the rond-point a "traffic-calming circle," or a "roundabout." But mostly we don't call it anything because it mostly doesn't exist in our country.

In Hawai‘i, my previous home, there is little that is calming about such circles. When the county government announced plans to put in only the second roundabout in the state, certain concerned citizens all but mounted an insurrection, sending out a public letter calling on their neighbors to resist this crazy foreign idea, and instead "order up four stop signs ... and tell the mayor and the Neighborhood Board to go away."

But why do Americans have such antipathy towards this obviously efficient and graceful traffic device?

One day a few years ago, after considerable rond-point traffic observation from the vantage point of a Parisian sidewalk café table eventually festooned with carefully arranged empty wine glasses standing in for traffic cones, I figured out why Europeans love the roundabout and Americans loathe it. Europeans love it because they get to make their own Existential choice whether to brake or play poulet with that tilting Heineken truck heading around toward them. It's that liberté thing. In the U.S. of A., we prefer a good sturdy stop sign because it's completely clear what we're supposed to do. Plus, it gives us excellent supporting evidence for our personal injury lawsuit.

In Peseux, the village just downhill from my house, there's a place where two rond-points nearly touch each other. Together they form a sort of figure-eight. Or an infinity sign. I have to admit that this arrangement is rather too deep for me to comprehend yet. So tomorrow I plan to drive around both of them until things clarify -- or until I'm chased down by a cop. But I'm sure that won't be a problem. Certainly we'll both be very calm.

Buried by Fear

2010-04-21T11:11:00.013+02:00

It's the last week of April, and here in the countryside above Neuchatel, the trees are budding, the tulips are open wide to the blue sky, we've sacrificed our winter parkas on the pyre of pagan spring, and I've just read that a woman died yesterday in an avalanche near Zermatt.

This news does not help my avalanche paranoia.

She was the 28th person in Switzerland to be buried alive by a plummeting wave of snow this winter. So far -- because tulips and shirt-sleeve weather in Neuchatel means nothing up in the Alps, which are still deep in snow, though I can't see them now from my house thanks to that huffing-puffing volcano in Iceland.

Last winter 25 people died in Swiss avalanches. The winter before, 28; and the winter before, 21. So 2009-2010 has been only slightly more deadly than average.

Great. I feel better already. Most skiers and hikers see an alpine mountainside covered in deep, fresh snow and wonder if they've died and gone to heaven (some shortly will). I see only a poised monster veiled in blinding beauty waiting to pounce.

For most of my 30 years living in Hawai‘i, I was paranoid of sharks. When swimming in the ocean, I had to force myself not to imagine a giant set of jaws lined with razor teeth whooshing up at me. I imagined having to swim to shore with no legs, or even worse, losing all my fingers and being unable to write my compelling book about my bestselling brush with death. Then I started scuba diving, and found that, once I saw the occasional shark -- and how uninterested he was in skinny little me -- I lost my fear. I even jumped at the chance to dive in a huge aquarium tank with 26 (very well-fed) sharks.

So now I've got to get to work on avalanches. I'm focusing on the thousands of people who frolic in the Alps each winter and suffer nothing worse than having their credit card account frozen at lethally expensive ski resorts. And I guess I've actually got to go up there myself. In the snow. Where it's really cold. Have I mentioned my fear of frostbite?

I just hope there are no sharks up there.

Shrapnel

2010-04-16T14:23:00.004+02:00

My back hurts. Thanks a helluva lot, Swiss currency.

The smallest Swiss denomination of paper money is the 10-franc note. Below that, it's all shrapnel, and the 5-franc coin is the size of a flying saucer. This means you're often carrying around about 10 kilos of coinage in your pocket until that poor pocket bursts, sending cold centimes and francs down your leg, clattering to the street, making you lots of new friends who need coins for their parking meters.

Two days ago in the grocery store I paid for my veggies and wine with what, to a dumb American (moi), looked like $2.50 in quarters. Happily, it was six 2-franc coins. (Real value about 11 bucks American.) It was fun to pretend I'd just gotten two bottles of good French and Swiss wine plus fresh fennel root for $2.50.

But my sore back and frayed pocket still ask: why all the weighty coinage?

Here's my theory (listen up Barak "Stimulus-Smarty" Obama): CH is a prosperous country for many complex reasons, and one reason is clearly that they know how to make people want to spend their money as soon as they get it. How? Load down their pockets with heavy metal. Soon, if they don't spend it, they'll tip over as they're leaving the boulangerie with their change, and be stuck there like a pinned bug until they buy another baguette.

Take heed Mr. President.

More Smiling

2010-04-14T11:22:00.006+02:00

Sorry, but I've got to revisit the smiling issue. Some of you may have read an earlier post in which I described the supposed differences in smiling behaviors between the USA and CH. In short: theoretically, Americans grin like crazy with little or no provocation, but the Swiss view frivolous smiling as a possible sign of idiocy.

Well, after two weeks of intensive research, I'm here to tell you that the Swiss are as profligate grinners as any don't-worry-be-happy American. At least that's true here in Swiss-Romande (French-speaking CH), and especially in my newly adopted town of Neuchatel and the surrounding villages where I shop and otherwise have occasion to observe grins or the lack therof.

A couple quick examples:

Here's Bill ordering a take-out tuna sandwich in a patisserie, mispronouncing "thon" (tuna) so it sounds like "ton" (as in "dumb as a ton of bricks"), the sweet woman behind the counter, gently correcting him, adding a motherly smile, reacting to his chagrin with "pas de probleme, monsieur," said with an even more sympathetic smile.

Now here's Bill riding with his carpenter/neighbor André to pick up slabs of wood for desks and shelves. André wears a beautifully scuffed leather jacket with "Harley-Davidson" across the back, and he's got the bike to back it up. Sure, he smiles at me as we trade stories of our adventures in faraway places (he's bicycled through Italy, Syria and beyond), but in the home-improvement emporium, he and other locals he knows beam at each other in greeting like freshly minted angels at a beatification fest.

This is important evidence for my research: even among themselves, the French-Swiss freely give away grins.

Is this also true in the German-speaking and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland/Suisse/Schweiz/Svizzera? Further research is clearly called for.

Bread Crumbs

2010-04-08T16:06:00.005+02:00

It's the little things.

Cultural differences between Switzerland and the U.S. can be huge, of course -- can you imagine a U.S. political party called "The Evangelical People's Party?" The Swiss have one, and it actually holds seats on the National Council. (Eat your heart out, Pat Robertson.)

But what really shows the differences between life in the New World and Europe is the little things. Like bread crumbs. Or, more precisely, where those bread crumbs are. Because in Switzerland, as in France and no doubt other European countries I have yet to crumble bread in, diners put their bread right on the table, even at formal meals.

Consider the wonderful Easter feast I enjoyed with my new Swiss and French family last weekend. We were in the dining room at my darling mother-in-law's house, 8 or 9 of us, though I forgot to count the exact number of people or bottles of excellent Chateauneuf-du-Pape served by my father-in-law (pictured below with my belle-mère at another fine lunch at their home), who is French, and is my new best friend thanks to our mutual love of French Old World fine wine, even though we mostly can't understand each other because he speaks no English (or chooses to speak no English), and my French sounds like I'm channeling Pepé Le Pew.

Anyway, the dining room was gorgeous, bathed in golden afternoon light reflected off Lac Neuchatel, coming through the twin spires of the 13th century church which is part of the chateau that gave the town its name ("Neuchatel" means "New Castle" in Old French). The grand armoire commanding one end of the room was probably older than my country. As we came to table, the ancient floor creaked with that satisfying sound that echoes the ages, and brings to mind buckled shoes, ruffles and ceremonial swords (one of which was hanging just outside the doorway) -- fashions somewhat different from the designer-torn blue jeans and logo t-shirts worn by the 20-something young men at the table.

None of which has much to do with bread crumbs, so let me refocus. With the first course of paté, everyone took a piece of baguette from the baskets that were passed around. They tore off a little, then put the rest ... you guessed it, right on the table. Except me, of course. Because I consider myself relatively civilized, even though my wife's favorite pet name for me is "Caveman."

But it turns out that over here, civilized people put their bread right on the table, not on the plate. This is not because, as is normally the case in America, your plate is already piled to the ceiling with super-sized slabs of beef and french fries, but because ... well, who the hell knows? Maybe it's because adding bread plates to the table would crowd the wine goblets. Maybe it's left over from the Middle Ages when little pewter plates were piled high with giant slabs of beef and French fries.

In any case, I tried to copy everyone else and put my bread on the table. But for this Hawai'i boy who is still trying to get used to wearing shoes in the house, this was a strain. So I just ate all my bread at once without putting it down.

Another bread-related cultural difference: When a Swiss person finishes their meal, their plate is normally as clean as before they were served. Most Americans would think the Swiss person had surreptitiously slipped their plate under the table, where the dog had his way with it. But no. Let's just say that bread is the unheralded utility utensil of European cuisine. In any case, it clearly saves a lot of dishwashing elbow grease.

A Happy Easter

2010-04-04T10:41:00.004+02:00

An American friend asked me yesterday how Easter is celebrated in Switzerland. In this strongly Catholic and Protestant country, I suppose there's all the church stuff going on, with plenty of wine and bread Communion snacks. (A wineseller friend of mine, Jean-Philippe, in Neuchatel was consulted on why in the Protestant church everyone gets a sip of wine, but in the Catholic church, only the priests get to sip the wine. He said he didn't know, but did note that one of the medieval popes put his blessing on using white wine for communion, which makes you wonder if he thought Jesus' blood was a little anemic. But we digress.)

The most visible icon of Easter here in CH is, as it is in America, not J.H.C. pinned to a cross, but a bunny. Lots of bunnies. Big bunnies. All in chocolate. It seems that every store has hordes of giant brown bunnies in the windows. Supermarkets have big displays with monster bunnies in profile, all staring at you out of their one eye. Kind of scary -- Donny Darko comes to the Land of Chocolate.

But then, this morning when I got up and went into the kitchen to make coffee, I found that a very sweet bunny indeed had visited our home, and left something just outside.

The note says "Joyeuses Paques" -- Happy Easter. Inside were the hoped-for chocolate eggs and ...

Nothing scary about this cutie. Nor about our sweet neighbors who left these goodies for us. In this spirit, the wife and I wish you all Joyeuses Paques full of good wine and chocolate!

Learning to Just Shut Up

2010-04-03T13:41:00.014+02:00

A few days ago, my chérie and I went to her mother's lovely old house in Neuchatel. There, with my sweet belle-mère (mother-in-law) and her partner (these two 84-year-olds have been living in sin for 22 years), we had a simple but elegant 3-course European lunch -- paté with hard-boiled egg and salad followed by veal stew over mashed potatoes (my long-time boycott of veal momentarily suspended in the interest of international relations), accompanied by a gulpy-great Nuits St. Georges burgundy. Dessert was a swirly meringue mound surrounded by whipped cream with a dollop of raspberry jelly in the middle like a beckoning nipple. Such a mid-day repast is nothing special for my wife's mother. She prepares a 3-course lunch for her and her man almost every day.

Everything was utterly delicious, and all of it well seasoned with the bright, non-stop commentary and story-telling of my belle-mère, who could talk any filibustering U.S. Senator under the table with her charming tales.

We ate this marvelous lunch at the very same table where, in 1975, I had my first meal with the 19-year-old girl who I would then promptly lose to the world until just 3 years ago. But that's a story for another time.

My mother-in-law and I have quite the mutual admiration society going on. She loves Americans, having almost married one many years ago. And she can see that I'm devoted to her daughter.

I just hope I didn't ruin it all the next day.

She came to our house, ostensibly to look at the progress the tradesmen had made, but really I think to satisfy that atavistic mother-in-law instinct to bring food to the brood. In this case it was a casserole dish with the makings of a cheese soufflé, and a custard tart.

As she was leaving, I tried to tell her something important that I'd been wanting to for some time: that we are nearby now, and they absolutely must not hesitate to call on us if we can help them in any way. She said yes, yes, yes, but she didn't want to bother us. It's often hard to get a word in edgewise with this gal whose synapses are always snapping, so I chose a bit of French slang to interrupt her and try to emphasize my point. I thought this expression -- ta gueule -- was only somewhat rude, and, when said with an exaggerated, ironic tone, was the affectionate equivalent of "shut up." My mother-in-law is no prude, but the shock in her eyes when I said this was my first clue that I had crossed the line. My wife later told me that I had basically told my sweet, 84-year-old belle-mère to "shut the fuck up."

Now I'm mortified of course, and wondering how to apologize. But you know what's really scary? I know this is only the first of such embarrassing faux pas I'll make in the coming months.

Tomorrow we go to the house for a big Easter family feast. After apologizing, I think I'll just keep my mouth full of food.

Sunset, sunrise

2010-04-01T09:42:00.000+02:00

Yesterday eve, from our front porch:

And this morning, with powdered diamonds on the limbs:

Electric Saws, Wrenches, Drills and Mercis

2010-03-31T20:12:00.000+02:00

The house is abuzz with workmen this morning, and if these guys are typical of Swiss tradesmen, they must take etiquette lessons as part of their apprenticeship. They look happiest when gathered outside for a cigarette.

We moved in two days ago, but all the work that our dear landlady (who also happens to be my dear mother-in-law) has been having done, isn’t finished yet. So today, they’ve been coming and going like worker bees, always apologizing for the noise, putting down mats to protect the floor, asking if we need to do anything before the water is cut off.

The young electrician tries a few words of English, then quickly apologizes. I tell him, no worries, we can butcher each other’s languages together.

The grizzled, haircut-challenged plumber looks like a reject from a homeless shelter, and likes to talk to himself, but he’s obviously an expert, and he even says “excusez-moi, chat” to Loki, and has 11 cats himself, so we may all become best friends.

The Serbian insulation installer is always moving just a little faster than you’d expect for such a stout man on the other side of 50. But whenever he looks in the window and catches my eye, he stops to smile and wave – yeah, there he is again. Pazdav, monsieur.

The contractor showed up today too with a camera to document the work. I asked if he wanted to take my picture, and he forced a polite smile. He looks prosperous with his round belly and tailored suede jacket. That’s always a good sign in a contractor.

We even had a guy come over to explain how to work the washer and dryer. I laughed that anyone thought that would be necessary until he started showing us all the options. If I understood correctly the dryer can also make croissants.

Fortunately, the wife is here to communicate with them all. I usually can’t understand what electricians, carpenters and masons are telling me in English, much less French, and now it’s all metric.

Which is why I’ve been sitting here tapping away all morning, looking like I’m doing something important.

Reality through the Fog

2010-03-26T11:26:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, nearly 24 hours and four plane rides after leaving Hawai'i, as we descended through the clouds, and Geneva became visible behind a veil of fog, the magnitude of how different my life was about to become hit me like I'd just been slapped upside the head by the abominable snowman. I was scared shitless.

Becoming an expat has always seemed wonderfully romantic to me. There I'd be, wearing a colorful silk scarf, opening a bottle of the local wine as I effortlessly spoke the local lingo. How adventurous to carve out a new life in a foreign land!

Well, I do own the scarf, but as I looked down, and cold, gray Geneva came rushing up at me, and the snow still on the Jura mountains in late March looked like a forbidding fence, I felt like telling the pilot that, so sorry, but I'd forgotten my pajamas so we'd have turn the plane around.

I clamped my eyes shut and saw a movie of disasters: See Bill drowning in icy Lake Neuchatel, unable to think of the French for "please save my soggy ass!" See Bill in snow up to his shriveled privates wondering why he'd ever left the beach. See him eating a McDonald's hamburger because he still couldn't find a job. See his beloved wife leaving him for the dashing British expat wearing a colorful scarf and charming her in flawless French, sprinkled with German, Italian and the musical dialect of the lost Lapland tribe he'd saved from extinction.

Then we landed, and I breezed through customs like magic without ever having to explain to Mr. Scowling Customs Man, that, though I was here on just the usual 3-month tourist visa, I was actually staying indefinitely, and he could rest assured that it was all being worked out in some government office somewhere. In the baggage area, I found Loki the Magnificent in his scuffed up kennel, looking really pissed off at me, which I felt was better than the alternative: Loki the Deceased. Outside customs, my darling wife was waiting, and we fell into each other's arms, her tears of joy washing away my fears.

So voilà, here I was with a new stamp in my passport, and two colorful kinds of currency in my wallet next to a few remaining U.S. dollars, which now, as always, looked like bedraggled bums next to the sophisticated works of art that are Swiss francs and euros.

I slept most of that day and night. Tomorrow we go to our new home, the little country cottage outside Neuchatel, where all will be possible.

Putting the "Ex" in "Expat"

2010-03-23T19:48:00.004+01:00

The day has finally come. As a friend said during our last hike together on the volcano, "Bill, you remind me of that Peter, Paul and Mary song. I immediately knew which one she meant, and started singing, "Leaving on a jet plane," which, if you've ever heard me sing, you know was enough to make my friend wish I was already at the departure gate.

Today is the day. And the last couple weeks have been full of "lasts" like that hike -- last visit to the glowing crater, last class with my sweet and sassy middle school writing students, last time time buying toilet paper in English, last American health insurance payment (my Swiss policy will be twice as expensive; I assume that means it comes with an interpreter who'll sit in with me and the doc).

So today I am officially putting the "ex" in "expat." (Many would say I never really have put the "pat" in at all, but that's a topic for another day.) Truth is, I'm equal parts ecstatic to be joining my bride in Switzerland, and sad to leave this place I love so much. I've lived in Hawai'i for 30 years -- 23 in Honolulu, 7 in Volcano on the Big Island, so I know that, no, Hawai'i is not really paradise, but it's a very special place, and Volcano village is my favorite part of it. Mostly, it's about the friends around the Islands to whom I'm saying aloha now, as I was reminded by all of you who came to a going-away party that was thrown for me a couple nights ago. Gosh guys, I'm going to miss you -- until you come see my chérie and me in Neuchatel. Meanwhile, I'll be here on this blog, trying not to be too obnoxious.

Talk to you in a couple days from the other side of the planet, where I'll no doubt be drooling and babbling in that charming jet-lag way.

From One Jungle to Another

2010-03-19T06:33:00.009+01:00

Tonight, as I sit all warm and cozy in my house in a Hawaiian rainforest, with the mist doing a hula past my windows, I'm reminded of the icy afternoons I spent two winters ago on a little 3rd floor terrace in Geneva, where the wind mixed with the whoosh of the passing train below.

A week from today I arrive in Geneva again and will revisit that terrace. I can't wait. Of course I can't wait to join my sweetheart (proprietor of said terrace) and truly begin our life together, but also to greet again a city it took me awhile to learn to love.

Geneva is not like Paris. Paris is instant abandon and love -- and if you think otherwise, you probably ought to go hole up in Peoria and hope for a quick bland death. Geneva wears a cloak of Calvinism. Geneva does not quickly embrace you (excepting the hookers in Paquis); indeed the city practically scowls at you like that over-sized visage of adopted city father Jean Calvin on a wall at the university. Geneva expects the formal "vous" for longer than you might hope. It doesn't squander its smiles. It asks if it can be of service, and if you say no thank you, it wonders if you'd perhaps like to move on.

Or maybe I'm wrong about all this. I only lived there for 3 months the end of 2008, and it wasn't until the last few weeks that I realized I'd developed affection for the city. That's what I'm feeling tonight half a world away, and I can't wait to stand on that terrace again, breathing in the coming spring and the sweet aroma of my chérie.

Apparently, It's OK to Smile

2010-03-17T00:15:00.004+01:00

Well, a week from today, I'll at last be winging my way to Confederation Helvétique and my sweet wife to begin our new life.

But yesterday afternoon, Switzerland came to me here in the rainforest on top of Kilauea volcano, where I have lived for 7 years. There, on my doorstep, were Marlise and her husband Peter. Marlise, from the Swiss consulate in San Francisco, has been patiently shepherding me through the punctilious immigration process. She and Peter are vacationing here on the Big Island, and had asked for hiking tips, so I invited them over. Little did they know that I'd be performing cultural vivisection upon them.

They brought a good bottle of California cabernet, and I put out some hors d'oevres, including a ridiculously expensive cheese, which, though technically French, originated in udders along the Jura mountains just a few pastures north of the Swiss border. I should have bought the cheap pre-sliced squares of Kraft "Swiss Cheese," but I was afraid they wouldn't get the joke.

I shouldn't have worried. They're a spunky couple -- and they hardly touched the cheese, which I'm now rationing to myself like Communion wafers.

I spent about 5 minutes showing them the best hikes around Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, which is just past my backyard. Otherwise it was mostly me interrogating them about Switzerland.

And here's the best thing they told me: It's OK to smile in Switzerland.

I've been reading a lot about CH. Here in Hawai'i we have an acronym: FOB. It means "fresh off the boat," and refers to immigrants who clearly don't get local culture yet. I realize that, beginning next week, Swiss people I meet in Geneva, then Neuchatel and Montmollin will be looking at me, and listening to my fractured French, and thinking whatever the local equivalent is of FOB. (Gotta ask the wife about that, tout de suite.)

So it was great to have Marlise and Peter clue me in a little. I asked them about something I've been reading: We Americans tend to smile a lot. Apparently, it's our default non-threatening facial expression meant to disarm whomever happens to be studying our visage, so we can either really begin to make friends, or cut their throat before they know it. Generally, we are just trying to be friendly. But many Europeans take our incessant smiling as a hint of possible idiocy. What the hell is there to be so happy about? That's why the Swiss don't tend to smile so much; and if you want to be spoken to as an actual adult, you might want to dial down the grins. At least that's what I'd been reading.

I asked Marlise and Peter about this. Peter, who's Austrian, averted his gaze -- enough said. Marlise said, "Don't worry about it. Just be yourself."

That made me smile, but then I wanted to kick myself. Meanwhile, we can all take a lesson from this gal, who is quite Swiss, by the way.

There, But Not There

2010-03-14T22:56:00.001+01:00

Switzerland is just over the horizon. Or a few horizons, I guess, because I'm peering around the globe from on top of a Hawaiian volcano, where I've lived for the last 7 years. I can almost see CH -- the top of the church steeples, and even those few minarets that got built before the ridiculous ban. In just another week I'll be there. Finally. A year after I proposed to my sweet Swiss Miss, 6 months after our marriage, 34 years after we first met in her hometown of Neuchatel -- where we now will live.

So the adventure begins for real: Marriage! Life in Switzerland! If you'd care to read and see some of our adventures in Switzerland and beyond, you are warmly invited. I'm a freelance travel writer and photographer, so we'll be doing lots of exploring. Odd things, funny things, tend to happen to me -- or maybe I happen to them? Whatever. Come along!