Two of my most ardent blog readers are my mother-in-law and father-in-law. Maybe it is because things are slower in retirement or because anything that your children and their families do is interesting, but they seem to enjoy my ramblings. My wife has a sister and she has a husband. That makes us brothers-in-law. If you like to be excessive in your possessives, as in the Wikipedia definition, you could say "One's spouse's sister's husband is (also) considered a brother-in-law" or you could use their example: Rob and Gwen are married. Gwen has a Sister, Claire, and so Rob is Claire's brother-in-law. Claire will marry Neil, who will then become Gwen's Brother-in-law. Furthermore, Rob and Neil will become brothers-in-law to one another. Let's say I'm Rob, that makes Neil my brother in law. I'm not Rob and I'm not going to call him Neil, because that would get too confusing. I'm going to call him BILL, an acronym for Brother In Law Likeness. Is that clear now?
BILL and I have a lot in common. We both have married sisters in a crazy family (what family isn't crazy?). We are both living abroad in Europe with said spouses. Our spouses are both working, we aren't. We both do a lot of sweeping and cooking. We both walk the dogs. We both like music and play instruments. We both enjoy photography. We both like potty humor. And now we both have blogs that chronicle our seemingly parallel expat lives. See his at When Rome is Home.
BILL is a funny guy and I look forward to his witty entries. However, there is that sibling rivalry that creeps in. If you have siblings you know what I am talking about. I have brothers. BILL and I have wives that were sisters. There is always some level of competition there. Then you get married and you have to impress the in-laws. BILL is making his move to gain big points in the favorite son-in-law contest. Here is where he is gaining points: He has short, pithy entries with lots of photos; compare that to my long rambling posts, sometimes with no photos. Last I counted he was up to 11 blogalicious entries in the last week, currently I'm averaging 1-2/month. He uses a nice Wordpress blog format. I have this old-lady-wallpaper-looking template (I though it would give a nice classic central European look). BILL is a snazzy dresser. I am not.
BILL's wife encouraged him to start a blog: "Why don't you start a blog like you brother-in-law?" Now he has. Pretty soon my mother-in-law and father-in-law will be saying "Why don't you write more funny entries with lot of photos like BILL?" Or maybe they will be more subtle and say, "I haven't seen any entries from you in a while. Have you seen BILL's blog? I love his blog. He is so funny." The brother-in-law arms race is escalating. I know the pen/keyboard is mightier than the sword but if we can't resolve this here, I may need to challenge him to a gladiatorial duel at the Colosseum when we visit Rome for the holidays.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
What up, Yo? and other dialectical greetings
We resumed our German class in August after a break for most of the summer. Our new class is quite good. It is very convenient, especially for S because it is offered through the institute where she works. It is also easier because it is a 15 min.bike ride to get there rather than a 40 min. ride. It meets 2x/week instead of the 5 day/wk. class we started in the spring. Although it is not as intense, the level of the students is higher so we progress faster per hour of class. I must say that although I am attending class and doing my work, I am not putting in a lot of extra time and I don't feel like I am improving by leaps and bounds. I could be trying harder but here are my top 3 reasons why I'm not learning faster:
3) We don't do a lot of speaking in class and that is what I need the most help with, although as my teachers have pointed out, you can't speak until you know some vocabulary and grammar.
2) It is difficult to practice out in the real world because many people will switch to English if you struggle. Since communication is the most important goal I let them switch, otherwise we wouldn't get far. For example, I was just interrupted as I was writing the last sentence by a phone call. It was a woman trying to sell me a service for returning lost keys (which admittedly could be quite handy, see previous post). I muddled along in German for about 30 sec. until she got to what she was calling for and asked me if I understood, to which I replied "Do you speak English?" Her English was not great but far better than my German. I knew that she wanted to talk to me about keys and not much else.
And the number 1 reason....
They don't speak German here. What? you say. Yes, German is one of the officially recognized languages, but what is primarily spoken is Swiss German-- which is a dialect of true, or High, German. Oh, and on top of that, even if you learn some Swiss German, there are multiple regional dialects within the country. High German is what is taught in schools and it is the official written language, so reading labels, signs, newspapers etc. is relatively straighforward but there is still a lot of vocabulary that is unique to Switzerland. Before we moved here we did some traveling in Patagonia. Several times we met German tourists and when they found out we were moving to Switzerland, they remarked about how they couldn't understand Swiss German. That doesn't bode well for us if the native German speakers have a hard time with it. Since I know very little Swiss German, it is difficult for me to tell you the differences but I can tell you that they definitely sound different. During our first month here we were riding the train and there were some teenagers sitting in the row across from us. I was trying to figure out what language they were speaking and it finally occurred to me that it was actually Swiss German, but it didn't sound at all like the German I was learning in class. If you think straight-up German is harsh and guttural, Swiss German seems to have even more of the harder "ch" sounds-- however, it can be very sing-songy in its pronuncation as well.
At first I was frustrated by the dialect issue (and I still am) but then I started to think about the many dialects of the English language. My first thought for an analogy was that Swiss German is like African American Vernacular English (sometimes referred to as Ebonics). However, this also can become a racial issue so I don't really want to go there. Instead, I have decided for comparison's sake to talk about Southeastern US dialects in general. Think of it this way. You come from a foreign country and move to a small town in the deep South. Maybe you learned English elsewhere or maybe you are learning it now. It is Standard American English.
Here are S and I in Switzerland. We learn "Guten Tag" to greet one or more people. We see someone on the street and they say "Grüezi mitenand" (which as far as I can tell is derived from "Grüsse miteinander"- literally translated as "greetings with each other". Mitenand is only added when there is more than one person). That would be the equivalent of you, in the example above, learning "Hello" as a greeting and you are on the street in your Southern town and hear "Hey, y'all." They don't sound at all alike and even though you know it is a greeting you have no idea what they are actually saying.
Learning a new greeting is no problem. I have my Grüezis and my Grüezi mitenands down pretty well, by now. I can even modify it by region. For example a softer Grüsse sound for when we get more into the central part of the country (Bernese Oberland etc.). (Of course, I suspect they can tell I'm not Swiss even if I think I am doing ok). Just like you can inflect and pronounce Hello in so many different ways, so too are the Grüezis. What I love are the emphatic sing-songy greetings where the second syllable rises at the end. The Swiss are good greeters, greeting everyone they meet on the trail and on the streets of our local town. With a good emphatic Grüezi coming out of your mouth it is virtually impossible not to smile.
The problem isn't with greetings, which are recognizable as such. It is when the conversation continues that the problems begin. Seriously though, despite my frustration at the slow pace of language progress, I am learning and I can pick out more and more words. When I think about what I knew 6 months ago and what I know now, I have made progress. I just wish I could understand and speak more. My biggest frustration is that I am just adding another language that I can only use a at basic level (now I have 3 of those).
3) We don't do a lot of speaking in class and that is what I need the most help with, although as my teachers have pointed out, you can't speak until you know some vocabulary and grammar.
2) It is difficult to practice out in the real world because many people will switch to English if you struggle. Since communication is the most important goal I let them switch, otherwise we wouldn't get far. For example, I was just interrupted as I was writing the last sentence by a phone call. It was a woman trying to sell me a service for returning lost keys (which admittedly could be quite handy, see previous post). I muddled along in German for about 30 sec. until she got to what she was calling for and asked me if I understood, to which I replied "Do you speak English?" Her English was not great but far better than my German. I knew that she wanted to talk to me about keys and not much else.
And the number 1 reason....
They don't speak German here. What? you say. Yes, German is one of the officially recognized languages, but what is primarily spoken is Swiss German-- which is a dialect of true, or High, German. Oh, and on top of that, even if you learn some Swiss German, there are multiple regional dialects within the country. High German is what is taught in schools and it is the official written language, so reading labels, signs, newspapers etc. is relatively straighforward but there is still a lot of vocabulary that is unique to Switzerland. Before we moved here we did some traveling in Patagonia. Several times we met German tourists and when they found out we were moving to Switzerland, they remarked about how they couldn't understand Swiss German. That doesn't bode well for us if the native German speakers have a hard time with it. Since I know very little Swiss German, it is difficult for me to tell you the differences but I can tell you that they definitely sound different. During our first month here we were riding the train and there were some teenagers sitting in the row across from us. I was trying to figure out what language they were speaking and it finally occurred to me that it was actually Swiss German, but it didn't sound at all like the German I was learning in class. If you think straight-up German is harsh and guttural, Swiss German seems to have even more of the harder "ch" sounds-- however, it can be very sing-songy in its pronuncation as well.
At first I was frustrated by the dialect issue (and I still am) but then I started to think about the many dialects of the English language. My first thought for an analogy was that Swiss German is like African American Vernacular English (sometimes referred to as Ebonics). However, this also can become a racial issue so I don't really want to go there. Instead, I have decided for comparison's sake to talk about Southeastern US dialects in general. Think of it this way. You come from a foreign country and move to a small town in the deep South. Maybe you learned English elsewhere or maybe you are learning it now. It is Standard American English.
Here are S and I in Switzerland. We learn "Guten Tag" to greet one or more people. We see someone on the street and they say "Grüezi mitenand" (which as far as I can tell is derived from "Grüsse miteinander"- literally translated as "greetings with each other". Mitenand is only added when there is more than one person). That would be the equivalent of you, in the example above, learning "Hello" as a greeting and you are on the street in your Southern town and hear "Hey, y'all." They don't sound at all alike and even though you know it is a greeting you have no idea what they are actually saying.
Learning a new greeting is no problem. I have my Grüezis and my Grüezi mitenands down pretty well, by now. I can even modify it by region. For example a softer Grüsse sound for when we get more into the central part of the country (Bernese Oberland etc.). (Of course, I suspect they can tell I'm not Swiss even if I think I am doing ok). Just like you can inflect and pronounce Hello in so many different ways, so too are the Grüezis. What I love are the emphatic sing-songy greetings where the second syllable rises at the end. The Swiss are good greeters, greeting everyone they meet on the trail and on the streets of our local town. With a good emphatic Grüezi coming out of your mouth it is virtually impossible not to smile.
The problem isn't with greetings, which are recognizable as such. It is when the conversation continues that the problems begin. Seriously though, despite my frustration at the slow pace of language progress, I am learning and I can pick out more and more words. When I think about what I knew 6 months ago and what I know now, I have made progress. I just wish I could understand and speak more. My biggest frustration is that I am just adding another language that I can only use a at basic level (now I have 3 of those).
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Learning to Fly
"Theres no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit"
-"Leaning to Fly" Pink Floyd
Humans have seemingly always had the dream to fly. The amazing invention of the airplane has made this possible for the masses.
However, there are still those who want to soar quietly through the air and feel the air around them. Here in Switzerland, the mountain environment is well suited for paragliding and we see people doing it every time we are in the mountains. Ever since watching someone pull up their wing (that's what they call the large parachute part) and float off of the side of a mountain back in May, I have been wanting to give it a try.
Last week Susan's dad and his wife were visiting and we spent several days with them in the Bernese Oberland, in and around the Lauterbrunnen Valley. It is a spectacular Yosemite-like glacially-carved valley with steep walls and big waterfalls and is a popular spot for paragliding and BASE jumping. We saw many people with BASE jumping and paragliding packs on their backs on their way to fly from the valley walls. One morning S went for a run to check out one of the BASE jumping sites that was near where we were staying. She met a Finnish guy who was on his way to jump and tagged along to watch. BASE jumping involves freefall jumping off of a cliff or fixed object and pulling a small parachute before you hit the ground. Included is a BASE video shot in the valley so you have a bit of an idea what it looks like. (As a side note, the North Face of the Eiger, in the next valley over is also a popular BASE jumping location. Just this summer Dean Potter free soloed (climbed without a rope) a difficult route (5.12+) on the North Face with nothing but a base jumping pack. Presumably, if he fell he would have the composure to pull the cord and float back to the valley below. See news here).
When she returned for breakfast, S was still full of adrenaline from watching the jump and, although she acknowledged that BASE jumping was too scary for her, she was fired up to try paragliding. I didn't realize quite how serious she was until we ended up at the local guide shop later that morning and by that afternoon we had made plans to go the following day. The next morning we took a train to Grindelwald, in the shadow of the famous North Face of the Eiger, to meet our guides. The weather was cool but sunny with good thermals for flying. I wasn't really nervous about the mechanics of the flying in terms of safety. The way the Swiss are about regulations and licensing, I suspect it it one of the safest places to try it (I found out during the flight that my guide had been flying for 23 years). The one nagging concern I had was that my predisposition for motion sickness might make the flight less enjoyable. We took a cable car up to one of the hills above Grindelwald and walked downhill about 2 minutes to the launch site.
Our guides spread out the wings on the hillside and we put on our harnesses and helmets. We flew harnessed to the wing and to our guide who sat straddled behind us. Within 5 minutes we were standing facing downhill and my guide said "OK, start running and don't stop until we are in the air". With the strong thermals that day it took about 2 steps until our wing pulled up into the air and then another 2 steps until my feet could no longer touch the ground. We immediately began circling and climbing in the strong thermals so that within 2 minutes when S and her guide launched we were already several hundred meters above them. This is S shortly after launching with the town of Grindelwald below and the Eiger on the right side of the picture. 
We floated above the valley for about 20 minutes. We were cruising at somewhere around 40km/hr as we gradually circled and drifted back towards town. It was amazing to just be floating above everything, to feel the wind rush past and to see the curious birds flying by, wondering what we were doing. I can't say that I was completely relaxed. At one point my pilot asked if I wanted to steer. He gave me the handles and told me to pull down on the right one to initiate a turn. I pulled it gently down about one inch not wanting to move too suddenly. "More," he said. I pulled another inch, we were barely turning. "Keep going," he said, "8 or 10 cm." I slowly pulled more and the turn was now more noticeable, but by no means extreme. That was enough for me. No sudden movements please. As we approached our landing site, my guide said "Now we will drop down" and started a sharp turn to drop us more quickly in altitude. The sharp turn thrusts you up more horizontal than vertical and the additional G-forces that the centrifugal motion create made my stomach drop. I immediately started to feel sick. "Everything OK, " he said. "I get motion sickness easily," I said. 
After that we descended more gently. Fortunately, it was only another minute or 2 before we landed. It was a great experience and I am glad I did it. The sick feeling passed within an hour or so. The one thing about it that felt odd about it was being guided. How can you feel free like you are flying free when you have a a guy strapped to your back? As I saw S come in and land after me, I laughed because she looked as goofy as I felt, strapped in with her guide straddled behind her. It is great that we had the opportunity to fly without having to go through the lengthy training involved to fly on our own, but I don't think this was intended to be a tandem sport. The other strange thing for me was to be on the other side of the client/guide relationship. Having spent much more time as the leader or guide, I also felt goofy just standing there and having everything done for me.
Suspended animation, a state of bliss
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit"
-"Leaning to Fly" Pink Floyd
Humans have seemingly always had the dream to fly. The amazing invention of the airplane has made this possible for the masses.
However, there are still those who want to soar quietly through the air and feel the air around them. Here in Switzerland, the mountain environment is well suited for paragliding and we see people doing it every time we are in the mountains. Ever since watching someone pull up their wing (that's what they call the large parachute part) and float off of the side of a mountain back in May, I have been wanting to give it a try.Last week Susan's dad and his wife were visiting and we spent several days with them in the Bernese Oberland, in and around the Lauterbrunnen Valley. It is a spectacular Yosemite-like glacially-carved valley with steep walls and big waterfalls and is a popular spot for paragliding and BASE jumping. We saw many people with BASE jumping and paragliding packs on their backs on their way to fly from the valley walls. One morning S went for a run to check out one of the BASE jumping sites that was near where we were staying. She met a Finnish guy who was on his way to jump and tagged along to watch. BASE jumping involves freefall jumping off of a cliff or fixed object and pulling a small parachute before you hit the ground. Included is a BASE video shot in the valley so you have a bit of an idea what it looks like. (As a side note, the North Face of the Eiger, in the next valley over is also a popular BASE jumping location. Just this summer Dean Potter free soloed (climbed without a rope) a difficult route (5.12+) on the North Face with nothing but a base jumping pack. Presumably, if he fell he would have the composure to pull the cord and float back to the valley below. See news here).
When she returned for breakfast, S was still full of adrenaline from watching the jump and, although she acknowledged that BASE jumping was too scary for her, she was fired up to try paragliding. I didn't realize quite how serious she was until we ended up at the local guide shop later that morning and by that afternoon we had made plans to go the following day. The next morning we took a train to Grindelwald, in the shadow of the famous North Face of the Eiger, to meet our guides. The weather was cool but sunny with good thermals for flying. I wasn't really nervous about the mechanics of the flying in terms of safety. The way the Swiss are about regulations and licensing, I suspect it it one of the safest places to try it (I found out during the flight that my guide had been flying for 23 years). The one nagging concern I had was that my predisposition for motion sickness might make the flight less enjoyable. We took a cable car up to one of the hills above Grindelwald and walked downhill about 2 minutes to the launch site.
Our guides spread out the wings on the hillside and we put on our harnesses and helmets. We flew harnessed to the wing and to our guide who sat straddled behind us. Within 5 minutes we were standing facing downhill and my guide said "OK, start running and don't stop until we are in the air". With the strong thermals that day it took about 2 steps until our wing pulled up into the air and then another 2 steps until my feet could no longer touch the ground. We immediately began circling and climbing in the strong thermals so that within 2 minutes when S and her guide launched we were already several hundred meters above them. This is S shortly after launching with the town of Grindelwald below and the Eiger on the right side of the picture. 
We floated above the valley for about 20 minutes. We were cruising at somewhere around 40km/hr as we gradually circled and drifted back towards town. It was amazing to just be floating above everything, to feel the wind rush past and to see the curious birds flying by, wondering what we were doing. I can't say that I was completely relaxed. At one point my pilot asked if I wanted to steer. He gave me the handles and told me to pull down on the right one to initiate a turn. I pulled it gently down about one inch not wanting to move too suddenly. "More," he said. I pulled another inch, we were barely turning. "Keep going," he said, "8 or 10 cm." I slowly pulled more and the turn was now more noticeable, but by no means extreme. That was enough for me. No sudden movements please. As we approached our landing site, my guide said "Now we will drop down" and started a sharp turn to drop us more quickly in altitude. The sharp turn thrusts you up more horizontal than vertical and the additional G-forces that the centrifugal motion create made my stomach drop. I immediately started to feel sick. "Everything OK, " he said. "I get motion sickness easily," I said. 
After that we descended more gently. Fortunately, it was only another minute or 2 before we landed. It was a great experience and I am glad I did it. The sick feeling passed within an hour or so. The one thing about it that felt odd about it was being guided. How can you feel free like you are flying free when you have a a guy strapped to your back? As I saw S come in and land after me, I laughed because she looked as goofy as I felt, strapped in with her guide straddled behind her. It is great that we had the opportunity to fly without having to go through the lengthy training involved to fly on our own, but I don't think this was intended to be a tandem sport. The other strange thing for me was to be on the other side of the client/guide relationship. Having spent much more time as the leader or guide, I also felt goofy just standing there and having everything done for me.
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