Spring Skiing, Anyone?

Now, I know there was a reason I was excited to come to Switzerland; sorry if I haven't expressed that yet. Access to some of the most beautiful mountains in the world has something to do it. Last weekend we took our first trip to the mountains and it was everything I had hoped it would be. We met up with a friend of mine from college and she shuttled us in her speedy little Audi up an increasingly windy road through picturesque alpine villages until we couldn't drive any further. The end of the road in Adelboden has a cable car that takes you up a steep slope and up over a cliff to deposit you at the Engstligenalp ski area and the adjacent backcountry. We brought our dog, Raven, with us and earlier in the day she had experienced her first train rides. She wasn't too excited about the first train ride but after we made our first connection she stopped shaking and crawled under our seats to settle in for the rest of the ride. After getting all of our ski gear together we all piled into the cable car with about 20 other people and 1 other dog. Raven's first cable car ride too. The sky was gray and cloudy and even spitting a little bit of rain but you could still see the immediate surroundings and the cliffs above us as we headed up. The cable car slowed near the top as it went above the last steep part of the cliff and nestled into the lodge that is perched on the edge of the cliff. We walked out and surveyed the terrain and discussed where we wanted to ski. In the photo above, the cable car comes up on the left side of the photo, where the base of the mountain meets the flat plateau. We started across the large flat plateau, where a snowcat was grooming a track for cross country skiing. Raven had her sled-dog harness on and assisted S much of the way across the plateau, while Riikka and I plodded along under our own power. The sky cleared and we began to peel off our layers. As the terrain steepened, we donned our climbing skins to help us get better traction. We skied partway up one route and decided we didn't like the snow conditions and skied back down to a lower spot (photo taken as we were heading back down). I was skiing on new skis and bindings, which was a learning experience. I learned that the lever that flips you back and forth from tour mode to ski mode can get frozen up in wet snow conditions and not lock properly. As a result, every time I tried to turn to the right I felt a pop as my binding went into tour mode and about 1 second later I would be crashing and burning. Frustratingly reminiscent of my last backcountry tour on Mt. Adams in Washington, nearly one year ago, when one of my bindings loosened up and every time I tried to turn to the right my binding would turn with me and the ski would keep going straight. Crash and burn. The one bright side to this is that both times I could blame my poor skiing on shortcomings with my equipment. What will I do when everything is functioning properly?
After having some lunch and chipping the ice out of my binding we skied up another slope that was much nicer, a little bit gentler grade and really nicely softened surface snow for some pleasant turns coming back down. Ahhh... that is what it should be like.
By now we had had a long day (up since 5am) and we headed back down to the cable car (see cable car below). The views from the cable car on the way down were outstanding, but don't look down if you don't like heights (Mom!). After the ski, Riikka took us on a driving tour around Lake Thun and then we went to her house for a nice relaxing dinner and then took a late train back home.
The day definitely reminded us of why we are excited about being in Switzerland and we hope we will back to the mountains often. One of the cool things about the being in the Alps is that there is such a long history of mountain culture, mountaineering, and skiing. Getting out in the mountains is just part of what people do. At the top of the cable car, we saw families with young children, older couples, dogs, snowshoers, cross country skiers, backcountry skiers, alpine skiers, and snowboarders- all there to enjoy the outdoors and the mountain scenery on a beautiful spring day, and all coexisting. This means that in the "backcountry," or off-piste, we saw more people than we are accustomed to seeing in the US, but it is nice to see that many people out enjoying the outdoors too. Since I am someone who values solitude in the backcountry, I may come to find this annoying before we are done here, but for now it is charming.

Jawohl! Herr Kommandant!

Today we commuted by train to get to our daily German class. Shortly after boarding our return train, two uniformed gun-toting men entered our car. We have routinely had our tickets checked on other train trips we have done. These guys looked a little more stern and business-like than the conductors I have seen so far, but I dutifully pulled out my ticket as they approached. It is just a little bit scary to have two guys with handguns standing over you and speaking in German. I had flashbacks to my childhood, watching Hogan's Heroes on TV. Fortunately, when they spoke to us I didn't blurt out "Jawohl! Herr Kommandant," "I know nothing," or some other nonsense. They were all business and were far from the bumbling Sergeant Schultz and the monocle-wearing Colonel Klink. They were border police and were checking for passports and residence permits from foreigners, of which about 20% of the Swiss population is composed. It didn't take them long to figure out we were foreigners. Fortunately, S had just received her residence permit yesterday and had it with her. I don't have a permit and didn't have my passport with me, but I did have my 1/2 price train card and my US driver's license. I don't think they were very impressed. One of the guys took our documents and went to make a call out of earshot from us (not that we would have understood what he was saying), while the other stayed with us. Although I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, I was still thinking about worst-case scenarios. There is so much paperwork and bureaucracy here, and not much love for foreign residents, that I could see them coming back and saying, "I'm sorry, you are going to have to come with us," "I'm sorry you are not legally allowed to be in the country," or "I'm sorry, you have not properly filed your (fill in the blank) form." After a few minutes of trying to look relaxed, yet running through these scenarios in my head, the officer returned. The two spoke briefly and the one that had stayed with us said "Thank you for your cooperation" and handed us back our documents.
Just last night, when she received her residence permit, I had asked S if she thought we needed to carry our passports all the time or if the residence permit would supercede the passport. They were much more interested in the residence permit, so I guess I got my answer. Ironically, I think today was the first day that I haven't had my passport on the train. I suspect our INS has some room for improvement too, but to my knowledge they aren't at large in the country randomly stopping people and asking for paperwork. Ironically, also, this morning while riding the train to class, I noticed some graffiti on the door of the train that said "Fuck the Police." I thought it seemed odd and out of place in such a peaceful and neutral country and dismissed it as the scribblings of disillusioned youth. One of the books we have on Swiss culture talks about how there is very little crime that occurs in Switzerland and most of it blamed on foreigners. Must have been a disgruntled foreigner who wrote the graffitti...

Mann in das Haus

Last week we started German classes. Switzerland in all of its neutrality can't quite decide on a single national language. Therefore, they have 4 recognized languages, depending on the region in which you live- German, French, Italian and Romansch. I've always thought German was an ugly, guttural language and really didn't have much interest in learning it. Necessity often causes you to do things you never expected to be doing. So it is that I found myself in a beginning intensive German class last Monday. Despite my sarcasm, I am having a lot of fun in class. German has all kinds of crazy sounding words that are a lot of fun to say, and they have a way of adding many words together to make one long word, some of which can be absurdly long. I'm not quite there yet, but I do get to say fun things like "Krankenschwester" (which means "nurse").
Last Friday, after learning to say "I come from...", "I live in..." and "That is my ... (fill in your family relationship here)," ad nauseum, we started a section on occupations. We learned taxi driver, teacher, builder, salesperson, housewife and a handful of others. Today we reviewed the occupations and went around the room with each person stating their occupation. Our class is an international assortment of males and females in their 20s and 30s, from England, Portugal, Brazil, Syria, Thailand, Serbia, Egypt, Gambia, and Italy. Most have come to Switzerland with spouses who are employed here and none of our classmates are currently working except my wife. Ever since my wife received a grant to work in Switzerland, we have joked about how I would be the "House Boy." Much to my delight, I discovered that all of the occupations we have learned so far have a masculine and feminine form, which means that Hausfrau (Housewife) also has a male counterpart, Hausmann. Hausmann, I like the sound of it. Sounds a bit more prestigious than House Boy. As we went around the room stating our occupations it went something like this..."Ich bin Hausfrau," "Hausfrau," "Hausmann," "Hausmann," "Hausfrau," etc. Wow, we must sound like an exciting lot. The next time around we had to pick a different profession, just to mix things up a little. I said "Ich bin Koch" (I am a cook), which still got a lot of laughs since it is not far from the truth.
We had a discussion this weekend with friends about housewives. In Switzerland it is a very common occupation. Coming from the US it is surprising to discover that women did not have the right to vote and run for political office in Switzerland until 1971. Compare that to other countries of the world and they are far behind most other Western countries Times are changing here with respect to women in the workplace but there are some deeply ingrained traditions. One hurdle for women with children is the school schedule. Schools have 2 hour lunch breaks where most children return home for lunch. There are some positive things to be said for this-more family time, giving your children a good lunch, etc- however, it also means that someone must be around when the children return home in the middle of the day. It makes it hard to have a full-time job. My friend is female and her husband spent a year as a Hausmann to care for their young son when they first moved to Switzerland. Hausmann is not a common profession and he had little interaction with the Hausfraus in their small town.
Fortunately, we don't have any children to take care of since I am already feeling like an overworked Hausmann. I'm getting myself edumacated and i'm going to make something of myself. Or at the very least I will be able to speak some broken German, which should get me far in the world.

What's in a name?

What's in a name? that which we call a Swiss Roll
By any other name would taste as sweet.

Or would it?

So I've been in Switzerland now for 10 days and have not seen a single Swiss Roll. I have yet to scour the country for them but I suspect they are not easy to find. Shortly before moving here, my friend, Ellen, wrote to me and asked "Do they have Swiss Cake Rolls over there?" By the way if you have some extra time on your hands she has a blog too (http://spacego.blogspot.com/).
According to Wikipedia, "The swiss roll is not widely eaten in Switzerland" and even if it is they say nothing of the Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls to which I am sure Ellen was referring. Wikipedia does mention that in the US, "A chocolate swiss roll is sometimes called a chocolate log." Chocolate log only brings to mind one image. Remember the pool scene with the Baby Ruth candy bar in the movie Caddyshack. Ok, enough said.
Back to the name. Where are the Swiss Rolls? is a a bit of a jab at the isolationist Americans who think that the rest of the world either already operates like we do or, if they don't, they should. My plan with this blog is to poke fun at a couple of Americans trying to figure out Switzerland and also to poke fun at the Swiss too. After all, we are different. Those differences become much more tolerable when we can make fun of ourselves and others in a light-hearted fashion.