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Wilkommen IN DER SCHWEIZ! Welcome to Switzerland!!
I’ve hesitated to start a blog or journal of my three month stay in the city of Bern, capitol of beauituful Switzerland, known to the Swiss as Confederatio Helvetica, yet at the same time part of me wants to capture this experience with all my senses and write it down and share it. My hesitation comes from my desire to live this short experience fully and not spend a moment more on the computer than necessary. Still, writing can be a sort of therapy, and fortunately I’m fast on the keyboard and have plenty of technology at my fingertips, so I might as well give it a go.
Perhaps a theme would be good, rather than trying to document every moment, if I just log a few thoughts around a central theme, as often as feasible, giving reader’s a glimpse into my experience without boring them to death with the mundane. Okay, well maybe a few mundane details will be necessary…like why I’m here, what I’m doing, etc., but that can wait for now. Let’s get started.
Food, now that’s a good central theme, around which our lives revolve whether we like it or not, and if you know me well you’d agree that food is something I enjoy. Eating it of course, but also cooking it, experimenting with it, photographing it, finding new foods, and discovering great places to eat or buy really exceptional food. By the way, as my lovely wife would agree, beer and wine are also food in our book :).
Let’s start there with my long awaited SwissFix, a sabbatical of sorts, and see where it goes…
12.März 2009 “Avoiding Airplane Food”
I’ve always dreamed of living in Europe. I was an exchange student in Germany more than 25 years ago, and the bug has never left me for a moment. I love the study of language, and what better place in the world than Switzerland to be immersed in a wide variety of Sprache or languages. So, I parted my family in Kenai, Alaska yesterday evening, and I arrived in Los Angeles at 10:00am enroute on my flight from Alaska to Switzerland, just in the nic of time to obtain my working visa at the Swiss Embassy, as their doors closed behind me at 12:00 noon. A good friend had picked me up and raced me across that frantic city to accomplish this last minute mission, and Gabrielle, the not so friendly Swiss Embassy Visa Frau handed me my amended passport back and at last I knew for sure that I was on my way to Switzerland, where I would spend the next three months working on a software migration project for cellular customer service systems at the semi federal telecommunications company Swisscom in Bern, Switzerland thanks to the efforts of my good friend Urs Wehrli, owner of System2 Informatik.
The same friend who had picked me up in Los Angeles… (More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
13.März 2009 “Kalbskopf Culture Shock”
Contrary to the silly superstitions of Friday the 13th, I arrived in Zurich, Switzerland 30 minutes ahead of schedule, and without incident, at about 3:30pm (my plane did not crash for those of you that haven’t heard from me yet). My seat had been a bit tight, but sitting next to me was a delightful Professor of Musicology and Medievel History named Nancy from Los Angeles, born to Dutch and German parents, having lived in Basel, Switzerland, and fluent in English, German, French, Swiss German or Schwyzertüüsch, and capable in Italian and probably Spanish as well. Our conversation, which moved back and forth between English and German, was a good prelude to my arrival in Switzerland. When I wasn’t chatting with Nancy about our families, her travels, her summer house near the Italian-Swiss border, or learning some useful and curious Swiss German phrases, I slept. Not comfortably, but I slept. I woke up an hour or so before landing, ate a croissant with cream cheese and strawberry jam, drank some orange juice, and prepared myself to step on Swiss ground and begin my adventure.
My new boss, and friend, Urs Wehrli met me at the Zurich airport… (More+Pics-Mehr+ Fotos)
14.März 2009 “Rösti mit Gschnätzeltes”
After a long night’s sleep I woke suddenly with a little bit of panic as I glanced at my cell phone and saw the time was 12:00 noon, oh Mensch, I can’t believe I slept 10 hours straight, and what about Urs, my boss, he was coming to meet me at 11:00am to go into town. I quickly showered and dressed, then I urgently unpacked my suitcases, got a bit organized, and finally made a cup of instant NesCafe that Urs and his wife Sandra had provided, along with the fully stocked refrigerator. I took the coffee out on the balcony, and sat in the warm morning sunshine, with a tiny view of the Swiss Alps on the horizon. I noticed the sun wasn’t as high in the sky as I would expect for just past noon, but didn’t think too hard, I wasn’t really awake just yet. After I finished my coffee and made my way toward the kitchen for breakfast, I caught a glimpse of a small clock on the nightstand that I hadn’t noticed the night before, and the time said 8:40am. What??!! I looked at my phone again, and it was 12:40, but then I noticed it said A.M., oh man! I thought I had changed it, but realized I had only changed the time zone on my laptop…oh well, I was up now, fully dressed, showered, and caffienated, AND on the right time zone so I would be less likely to oversleep two days later on my first morning to the office.
With the ample provisions I found from Urs & Sandra, I made a nice hearty breakfast, eggs, bacon, and fresh Swiss bread, kissed with some incredible black cherry marmalade… (More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
15.März 2009 “Halfway Across Switzerland…Not just for Cheese!”
You don’t really need to drive halfway across Switzerland for cheese, you can find it anywhere, everywhere, and in every variety. But, I did anyway, for Swiss Raclette Cheese on my second full day in Switzerland, but it wasn’t just for the cheese! It was for friends. Fishing friends to be exact, and nothing keeps fishing friends from going to great lengths to share some new fishing stories and reminisce on old ones.
I woke up this morning and was barely dry from the shower when our friend Ihnsan, from a village near Luzern, about an hour away from Bern, was ringing at my door…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
16.März 2009 “First Day in the Office”
When you have a fully automatic espresso maker, made by NesCafe and fed by espresso bullets sitting on the end of your desk row, you can’t possibly resist being highly caffienated throughout the day. That was my state on my first day in the office, which helped me process the volume of new information and stimulus entering my newly Swiss imprinted brain.
The first one was waiting on my desk the moment I sat down, the second came at 9:30am during our coffee break in the lobby cafe, with a croissant chaser…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
17.März 2009 “Rösti Replay”
After a long day at the office, filling my head again with new Swiss words, new technologies, and meeting new faces, I decided to head back downtown and find some Swiss Food for dinner. I had scaled back on lunch a little, so hunger was motivating me, but I wasn’t going to settle until I found something Swiss-ish…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
18.März 2009 “Date With a Deer”
Okay, okay you animal lovers, don’t get the wrong idea. I only SAW a deer today, I didn’t shoot the cute thing, so no steaks roasting on my balcony….I don’t think that would make a good impression on my new neighbor, the elderly Frau Steurli anyway! After a long day at the computer, I needed a hike in the woods, and I had seen a “Wald” or forested area near my flat on a Google Maps earlier in the day…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
19.März 2009 “Fondue for Two”
Well sort of, Cindy and I enjoyed our 2nd date via webcam, this time with some homestyle instant Emmi fondue and some good Swiss bread, beer and sausage. Not bad. Fondue can be found on the shelves in every grocery store (Emmi Brand is the best), in many restaurants, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up in the company cafe one of these days. Good thing is…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
20.März 2009 “Mongolian BBQ?”
Now this was a first for sure. Today marked the end of my first week on the project, and to mark it well my boss took our team out to lunch at a Swiss Mongolian BBQ with Pakistani chefs. Welcome to Switzerland in 2009. Diversity is all around us…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
21.März 2009 “Near Heaven, or in a Dream” (“Neben der Himmel oder noch im Traum”)
I woke early today, gathered the last few things I’d need for an overnight ski trip in the Alps, and headed out of Bern in my borrowed wheels. The sky was clear as a bell. The Mountains were gorgeous, with just a little fog in the valleys and around Lake Thun, as I drove toward my first destination of the day, the nordic ski trails of Kandersteg, at the base of the Alps enroute to the higher elevations of my second destination Adelboden… (More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
22.März 2009 “Melchsee-Frutt Skiing down the Alps”
After three nordic skis in the Alps, my legs were nice and warmed up from their cramped desk position over the past week, so it was time to hit the slopes of Melchsee-Frutt, in the Alps between Luzern and my friend’s home on the lake in Sachseln. It would be an early morning, in our attempt to beat the crowds that would surely hit the sunny slopes…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
23.März 2009 “Schnitzel Monday…”
In a word, YUM…………….(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
24.März 2009 “Schnee und Spargel”
It’s that time of year, like in Alaska, when the snow doesn’t know that it’s spring, and the Aspargus starts showing up in the market. I stopped at the Migros grocery on the way home tonight, then by the Metzgerei (the local butcher for you Metzgers!) and I had thought about taking an evening walk down by the Aare, but the snow started again…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
25.März 2009 “Swiss National Hockey Arena”
Okay, so I’ve been in Switzerland for 10 days already, time to get integrated fully. What better way than to join a company hockey game, played in the biggest ice arena in Switzerland, here in Bern. How lucky does a guy get…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
26.März 2009 “Fondue Dream Come True”
I’ve dreamed for many years of having homemade Fondue in Switzerland, the real deal, even though we’ve always enjoyed our Emmi Fondue from Fred Meyer back home, especially at Christmas and New Years, by the lake during hunting season, and whenever it just gets too cold in Alaska. This fondue evening with Urs, Sandra, Charlene & Chiara, my adopted Swiss family…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
27.März 2009 “Chocolate Easter Bunnies Galore”
I’m not exaggerating one bit, when I tell you that right now in the city of Bern, Switzerland every bakery, every chocolate shop window, every department store, and even the grocery stores have filled their window displays with the most incredible variety of chocofied easter bunnies, easter eggs, ducks, chicks, and other assorted creations I have ever seen in my life! In every sense of the word it is overwhelming. So many choices, so many prices, so many calories, so much chocolate…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
28.März 2009 “Berner Brats in Bier with Kartoffelsalat”
I found some nice looking “Berner Brats” at the funny meat market called “Mine & Your Butcher Shop” the other day, so it was time to cook them up on this terribly rainy and cool Saturday in Switzerland. I have little else to report from this day, except an incredible last minute victory in the equivalent of the NHL Stanley Cup here, the Swiss National Hockey Playoff Quarterfinal match between Fribourg…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
29.März 2009 “Sunday Fondue & A Flask (and a Volcano!)”
Well, the rain stopped, and I can’t complain because the first two week’s weather here in the wonderland of Switzerland has been perfect, particularly considering the alternative my family has been facing back home with snow, more snow, wind, oh, and the volcano, Mt. Redoubt erupting every hour on the hour…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
31.März 2009 “Eruptions on the Homefront”
Nothing much happening here, but between snowstorms, volcano eruptions, and schoolwork, my dear wife Cindy has her hands full. Mt. Redoubt erupted most recently at 16:07 on 1/31/09, Tuesday. Ash is likely blowing across the Kenai to some degree, don’t know how much yet. Some great pictures are available at the Alaska Volcano Observatory…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
1.April 2009 “My Blog is Over”
This will regrettably be the last entry in SwissFix. The Swiss government has intervened and decided to censor my blog due to inappropriate food content. Unknowingly, I have violated several international Swiss conventions regarding the safe handling, cooking, and presentation of cheese…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
2.April 2009 “April Fool’s Swiss Chocolate Contest”
Yep, they do it here in Switzerland too. Stinky fish in your desk drawer, urgent phone calls that make sweat, for a minute, and fake Blog entries. Sorry, I couldn’t help it, had to be sure someone out there was actually reading this ramble, and indeed, several of you have woken up and let me have it!
So, as my peace offering, I have a challenge for you, a little contest, with the prize of some delicious Swiss Chocolate sent to you if you win…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
3.April 2009 “Random Food Pics”
These are just some random food pics, local pizza & beer, Bratkäse from Ihsan in Melchsee-Frutt with potatoes, homemade Rösti, Dr. Pepper at last, and photos the “Coop” grocery store…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
4.April 2009 “Bier & Big Bows in Bavaria”
Did you know that there are 618 different breweries producing beer in Bavaria? Neither did I, and much to my chagrin I learned that in one short weekend trip to Munich I wouldn’t be able to try them all! Mostly because it’s April, and Oktoberfest is still a good 6 months away! Bier did greet me refreshingly…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
5.April 2009 “Old Friend, New Friends, Really Good Food”
Sweet are the memories of youth, sweeter yet the memories we make new each day, preserving the tastes and aromas of our life experiences, when we eat really good food. Such was the evening in Munich, or München as its called auf Deutsch, with my long-time, long-distance friend Christoph Bieringer, who I first met in Alaska in 1984…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
9.April 2009 “Easter Holiday Begins”
First, let me share with you what I learned about the Easter or “Ostern” holiday in Switzerland, and as near as I can tell, the rest of Europe as well. Its a big deal here. Sure, as you’ve heard already there are little (and big) chocolate bunnies everywhere, as if they’ve lived up to their reputation for populating even in chocolate form, but beyond that this is a major holiday for the Europeans…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)
10.April 2009 “Luzern, Lucerne, Luzerno”
There you have it in a nutshell. Switzerland. Everything is written in three languages, German, French and Italian, necessarily and by decree. I understand better why now as I’ve travelled a few thousand kilometers in total around this fine country over the past month. As a linguist-lover, nothing could be finer…(More+Pics-Mehr+Fotos)