Hans and Heidi

Are we:

a). trying to convince the SVP that we are the type of foreigners who integrate themselves with Swiss society?

b). doing nothing out of the ordinary; this is how we dress now.

c). celebrating Halloween, Zurich-style?

d). falling into one of those tourist traps where they dress you up in traditional clothing, take one photo and charge you 40SF?

If you guessed answer c, you'd be right! But if you didn't, don't feel bad because I've actually done answer d before and if we were staying in Switzerland longer I'd probably do answer a as well.

Mickey's office hosted a Halloween party at a Zurich night club last month, and though we've never done this in the states, we decided to go all out and rent costumes from a shop this year. Mickey and I visited the costume shop on the Saturday before Halloween and were delighted to find hundreds of costumes from which to choose. A Minnie Mouse costume caught my eye right away. Ever since I'd met Mickey I've wanted us to dress up as Mickey and Minnie for Halloween; I would don the round black ears and oversized white gloves and he would wear his normal clothes. I reasoned, however, that I have decades of Halloweens to do Mickey and Minnie but perhaps will have just one October 31st in Switzerland. Yes, we absolutely had to wear traditional Swiss outfits and go as an Alpine Hans and Heidi duo. I did my best to select a Heidi costume that was fun yet not trampy and hoped that people would assume were embracing, not mocking Swiss culture (okay, maybe we were mocking it a little bit).

My employer wasn't offended by our choice of costume, but he was a little confused. 'Swiss outfits? Why aren't you dressing like Americans?' he said. This response was funny for several reasons, but I tried to explain that though Halloween is an American holiday, the tradition allows you to dress up as anything you like. At least, this is how it usually goes at the Google Halloween parties in Mountain View where the engineers try to out-nerd each other by dressing up in obscure, internet-themed costumes such as a facebook profile, a Google ad or a computer virus. I guess nobody told the employees of Google Zurich this, though, because Mickey and I were the only ones at the party with non-scary costumes. We were surrounded by monsters, witches, mummies, etc. and felt a bit out of place.

Paola mentioned that marketers have unsuccessfully tried to "sell" Halloween to Switzerland in recent years. She said the stores were flooded with costumes, but it didn't really catch on. I was a little surprised to hear this because I feel that Halloween is one of the finest traditions American culture has to offer; what other day of the year allows one to carve a gourd, dress up in a wild costume and collect free candy from neighbors? But maybe this latter aspect of the tradition is the reason why Halloween didn't work in Switzerland. It's easy to get young kids pumped about dressing up as fairy princesses and power rangers, but how do you get the old crotchety neighbors on board with the candy idea?

Perhaps the Swiss don't need Halloween. Fasnacht, a holiday linked to Carnival in February, gives the Swiss an opportunity to dress up in costume, while Räbeliechtli in early November is a holiday on which Swiss children parade down the streets carrying carved turnips impaled on lit candles. Besides, Swiss parents and teachers are probably too smart and health-conscious to welcome a holiday that involves bingeing on processed sugar. Oh, well. If the Swiss ever itch to initiate a 'Dress Like an American Day' holiday, I hope my host family will celebrate with sweat pants, tennis shoes and cowboy hats. And it's okay if they do it mockingly, just a little.

Ticino

After at least one cancelled trip, Mickey and I finally made it to Ticino, the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and spent an enjoyable weekend there with our friends Daniel and Sirpa. We knew we couldn't leave Switzerland without having visited this southern canton not only because we'd heard they had good risotto, but just because they speak Italian and are still part of Switzerland.

As an American leading a mostly monolingual life, it has been hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there are three national languages here. The packaging information on supermarket items is printed in three languages; how is it that our product labels are printed in one language but still take up the same amount of space on the package? I guess Swiss manufacturers have learned how to express ideas like "containing 30 essential vitamins and minerals" pictorally as to avoid printing "enthält 30 wichtige Vitamine und Mineralas, 30 contenant des vitamines et des mineralas, Contenente 30 vitamine essenziali e mineralas."

English language films are shown with both German and French subtitles and most Swiss learn all three of these languages in school, German, French and English, that is, not Italian. I guess it makes sense because only about eight percent of the Swiss population speaks Italian, but it made me feel kind of sorry for and incredibly curious about the Ticinese. Do they feel like outsiders in their own country? Is language or nationality more important to their senses of identity? When Switzerland plays against Italy in soccer I assume the Ticinese root for Switzerland, but do they have to watch the match on an Italian channel to hear commentary they can understand?

After spending a weekend in Ticino on Lago Maggiore, I was able to answer none of the above questions, but I did walk away with a turquoise necklace and a comparison that helps me make sense of my trilingual host country. I tried to imagine what the United States would be like if it were divided into three distinct cultural and linguistic regions. The Swiss German speaking part of Switzerland is known to be a little more conservative than the rest of the country, so I decided that this region could be compared to the Midwestern and southern parts of the US. The French speaking west of Switzerland, however, is more... French actually; it's slightly more relaxed with a bit more flavor. Perhaps this region can be compared to the American east coast and New England. Those areas are not as conservative as the south or Midwest, but they can be snobby.

That leaves us with Ticino and its American counterpart. Paola (and loads of other Swiss) love Ticino; "you see the palm trees and immediately you start to relax," she says. Okay, palm trees, relaxing, known for good food... Ticino must of course be compared with California. Yes, we had a weekend away in the California of Switzerland. It made us feel so at home that we decided to play a friendly round (we usually make wagers when we play) of mini golf in Lugano.

One crucial difference between Ticino and California, however, is their relationships to their southern neighbors. Unless one has family down Mexico way or is compelled to party underage, most Californians keep their distance from Tijuana and Baja California. Travelling from Ticino southward into Italy, however, is obviously quite different. There were only a couple of restaurants to choose from in the Lago Maggiore town where we stayed so we figured, 'why not drive down to Italy for dinner?' In less than twenty minutes we were waved across the border and thinking in Euros again. The restaurant we chose was a little touristy, but good and worth the 'we drove down to Italy for dinner' story.

I'm curious about how other travellers perceive of Europe and how they compare these exotic locales to the regions of home. Has anyone found the Berkeley of France, the Vegas of China, or the Yosemite of New Zealand? Perhaps it is inappropriate to equate these places that are truly unique, but the human brain naturally loves making comparisons. Regardless of whether Ticino is the California of Switzerland or not, I feel lucky that I was able to experience it first hand and make the comparison in the first place. As my friend Daniel would say while sitting down to an espresso and gazing across the lake, "life is tough."

Tradition with a Twist

If you were to ask a Swiss person what the nation's most sterotypically Swiss region is, he/she might mention Appenzell. Known for breathtaking mountain vistas, quaint dairy farms and a potent cheese by the same name, Appenzell in the eastern part of Switzerland fits the bill. When our friend Martin, who grew up in this serene spot, invited us to spend the weekend at his family's home in Appenzell, of course we didn't think twice before saying 'ja!'

Saturday began with a rather strenuous but rewarding hike up a mountain. While huffing and puffing up the trail I remembered that I do not like hiking and do it only for the guilt-free meal that follows. Indeed, the hike was rewarding not only because of the view from the top, but because I allowed myself to order french fries when it was over. Lucky for me, Switzerland is a haven for hikers who don't really like hiking. You can always find restaurants along the clearly marked trails and can opt to take the gondola back to your car in case you wuss out.

On Saturday evening we had a traditional raclette dinner and then visited a cheese factory and an authentically restored Swiss farmhouse/museum the next afternoon. We saw paintings and photos of traditional Swiss wrestling and people voting on local laws by raising their hands in the town square. The biggest take-away from this place was the notion of tradition, cultural practices that the Swiss embrace and carry on into the twenty first century.

Before we drove home on Sunday evening, Martin led us on a walk up the hill from his parents' house to a neighbor's farm where he used to shovel hay when he was a little boy. He introduced us to the farmer and we all stood around and watched while he milked the cows by attaching a vaccuum pump to their udders. When the containers holding the milk became full, the farmer would dump them into a larger tank which wouldn't pasteurize the milk, but simply refrigerate it until the milk trucks came to pick it up. As he shoveled fresh hay, the farmer pointed out which cows were pregnant and told stories (Martin translated) about how he'd sometimes wake in the morning to find a new calf in the pen. Everything on this farm sounded very natural, like things had been happening the same way for centuries.

We said goodbye to the farmer and Martin led us further up the hill, toward a quaint farmhouse with a black Audi parked in the driveway. "This is the farmer's house," Martin said pointing to the house "and this is his boyfriend's car," he said pointing to the Audi. I asked Martin to repeat himself because the notion of the farmer being gay just didn't jibe with my notion of who Swiss farmers are and how they live their lives. I think it's great, though that in this small pocket of Switzerland we cannot assume that the country folk are all 'conservative' just as we cannot lump all urbanites, especially in Zurich, into the 'liberal' category.

In this beautiful picture of Appenzeller life the farmer still rises at 4am to milk the cows, but does he return to the farmhouse for a breakfast of eggs and bacon with the Frau? No, perhaps this farmer checks his email and sits down for a cappucino with his partner. It's tradition, but with a twist.

Lang Nacht im Museum

Do you ever come across a perfectly good Saturday night and then feel indecisive about how to spend it? There's always dinner and a movie, dancing if you're feeling ambitious or game night at home if you're broke and nerdy, but even these start to feel routine after a while. I bet this is why bowling and laser tag were invented; there was a demand for something new to do on Saturday night and someone thought that knocking over pins with a heavy ball was it. Anyway, a couple Saturdays ago I was hungry for something new to do and Zurich's Lang Nacht im Museum satisfied my appetite.

The title of this annual event translates to 'Long Night in the Museum' and if you think that sounds like a field trip nightmare from hell, think again. On this one special night every year, all 39 museums in town remain open later, in some cases as late as five a.m., and unite for a single purpose: to get more folks interested in museums. Obviously, patrons cannot visit all 39 museums in one night, even if it is a lang nacht, so we meticulously read over the brochure before deciding on an itinerary. Each museum lured patrons with a unique program for the evening; some offered films while others featured presentations, but almost all of them set up bars serving snacks and drinks. The Kunsthaus, Zurich's largest contemporary art museum, literally rolled out the red carpet and hosted a big party with a deejay spinning electronic music. Memories of fourth grade field trips to the museum quickly vanish when you enter a gallery with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

We didn't linger in the Kunsthaus long, though because we figured that we could visit bigger museums any time and wanted to devote our evening to the venues with more limited regular hours. And in the case of our first stop, by 'limited' I mean only open twice per month and by 'venue' I mean a three-story underground Swiss bomb shelter/bunker/hospital. Because even today Swiss homes are required by law to have bomb shelters, I was surprised that this facility was considered enough of a relic of history to be turned into a "museum." However, once inside we learned that only part of the bunker was open to the public and the rest remains ready to be used in the event of an emergency. Whew! I knew the Swiss had a plan.

Anyway, in the 80s or 90s when part of the shelter was converted to a museum, the designers must have found it lacking a sense of life and action. They decided to remedy the problem by adding creepy, now very retro-looking mannequins to the various rooms. Our tour led us through a room where mannequins modeled how to cleanse oneself of radioactive particles in a communal shower and then put on matching Brave New World-esque uniforms.

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to peek inside a real Swiss civil bomb shelter, but as I look back on it now, the tour made me pretty uncomfortable. At no point did we enter a room without electricity, yet at the beginning of the tour we were given hot lanterns with a real flame to carry around in the enclosed space. I think the idea was to give us a sense of what the shelter would have been like in 1941 when it was built, but I'm not sure. The Lang Nacht im Museum involved a lot of guesswork because most of the information was presented in Swiss German and I had to listen really hard to understand about ten percent of what was said. Thankfully, our friends Thao and Martin were available to translate, but we didn't want to bother them all night. In any event, it was hard to hold the lantern without burning my fingers and as far as taking me back to the second world war, let's just say they did about as good a job as the mannequins.

And speaking of the mannequins... have you ever had to stand really close to one, I mean really close? Hanging out in a bomb shelter alone is enough to make anyone feel claustrophobic, but when you fill the small space with a large crowd and a couple of dusty mannequins, people start to get nervous.

So we've entered the hospital wing of the shelter and, of course, there is a mannequin about to draw blood from another that is strapped to a gurney. We're surrounded by cabinets full of antique medical tools and supplies that more closely resemble medieval instruments of torture than devices that save lives. And if this wasn't freaky enough, there is a small album of photos of the worst injuries I've ever seen lying rather unceremoniously on the table. I later asked Martin if our tour guide had warned us about this photo album, given us a little heads up that these weren't for the faint of heart, but he said he didn't. Anyway, a teenage girl starts flipping through the album as I gaze on. These are so ridiculously graphic that I know they aren't fake; deep lacerations revealing muscle and bone, third degree burns, organs spilling out of the abdomen, it was horrifying but fascinating too. I walked away from the table to check out the rest of the room and moments later I see the teenage girl lying on the floor. Her knees are bent funny and it looks like she's having a seizure. The tour guide goes on talking as if nothing had happened, but the girl's brother and mom attend to her. She regains consciousness and we learn that she fainted after looking at those pictures. The tour group that followed ours included a bunch of small kids and I hoped that the guide had removed the photo album or at least warned people about it.

We recovered from that little shock with some complimentary wine and snacks outside the bomb shelter (bet I'll never say that again) and made our way to the next museum. Because the Swiss always rise to the occasion when it comes to transportation on special event days, we were easily able to hop on a tram in the direction of Kulturama, the next stop on our itinerary. We chose this museum because they were hosting a special exhibition called Geburt or 'Birth' on the early development of human life. I have four pregnant friends right now so of course I couldn't miss it.

Before we wandered up to Geburt, which was on the second floor, we went downstairs to see the permanent collection. Like many smaller museums, churches and historical monuments I see in Europe, it was kind of half-assed, if you'll pardon the expression. Three hundred million years of life on Earth was awkwardly compressed into one room. There were fossils on one wall, primate ancestors on another, some cave paintings, a whale's heart and a dinosaur in the middle.

If Kulturama turns Swiss kids on to learning then it can't be a bad thing, but I'm still a museum snob. Maybe I've had the privilege of visiting only the best museums in the states, but I feel like we have some really good ones. Americans don't have as much history or culture as they do here in Europe, so our few museums are well funded and feature high quality exhibits. Europe, and especially Italy (Rome, I'm talking about you), are so packed with history and culture that people cannot even maintain them properly. Have you ever read an informational brochure about a Spanish church that had been translated into atrocious English? It feels so pathetic and lazy that a simple proofread by a native English speaker could have remedied the problem, but didn't. This gave me a great business idea: outsourcing maintenance of cultural/historical tourist attractions to India. I understand that a lot of these crumbling churches and castles have tight budgets, so why not get more bang for your buck by outsourcing the maintenance to India where the workers don't take a siesta?

Anyway, Geburt was interesting. Highlights included real fetuses in jars at the different stages of development and a pregnancy suit. It was fun to look at the models of a four month old fetus or a five month old fetus and think 'that's what my friend's baby looks like right now.' The pregnancy suit is more like a heavy vest with two boobs and a big tummy. Trying it on provided a great photo op, but there was no danger of actually looking pregnant unless you brought a muumuu to throw on top. A video depicting a live birth looped in one corner of the room, making me wonder if the Swiss feel that a museum just ain't a museum without graphic photography.

Still, we had a great evening and learned some new things. Most importantly, it was a more memorable Saturday night than most spent at home or in a bar or restaurant. Yeah, if I can report that I toured a Swiss bunker and tried on a pregnancy suit in response to 'how was your weekend?' then I figure I have a pretty nice life.

Nature's Candy

When we eventually leave Switzerland for our next adventure, it is hard to say what I will miss most about this enchanting little landlocked nation. Mickey wouldn't hesitate to say that he'll miss the car-less lifestyle: going about your day without mood-draining traffic jams, without the stress of hunting for parking and unconcerned about the price per gallon (or liter) of gasoline. I too will miss the ease of public transportation. Indeed, there is something truly liberating about making plans to meet friends in town without arranging a carpool or appointing a designated driver. What will stay with me long after I've readjusted to my dependence on a car, however, is the wholesomeness of this place.

When I returned from our two week tour through Italy, I was surprised by how glad I was to be back in Switzerland. It was refreshing to not see trash on the ground and to get friendly service again. Even just breathing felt different because the air is so much cleaner here. In some ways it felt like we had experienced two European extremes; whereas Italy was hot, crowded, dirty, spicy and flavorful, Switzerland was cooler, calmer, cleaner, blander and more wholesome. I've played around with a lot of different adjectives for a feeling that accompanies blue skies, white peaks, green hills, shimmering lakes and cheerful hikers and 'wholesome' fits. Wholesome is not letting your kids watch TV and slicing your own fresh loaf of nutty wheat bread. Wholesome is creamy, fatty dairy products from pretty brown and white spotted cows with giant, clanging bells around their necks. Wholesome is daily trips to the market, buying farm fresh, hormone-free eggs and toting them home in your own basket or canvas bag. Wholesome is Switzerland.

It's funny that this notion of Switzerland as a tidy, healthy, natural utopia prevails even when reality suggests otherwise. Switzerland is known to the rest of the world as the home of fondue and many Swiss do in fact enjoy this national dish aprés ski in the winter. When foreigners partake in the national tradition, however, they glance at the trim Swiss and get tricked into thinking they've chosen a wholesome, healthy menu option. 'The bread is so warm and yeasty and the cheese is local so how could I go wrong?' they naively wonder. As is the case with another Swiss national favorite, raclette (cheese on potatoes), you never put the portion you plan to eat all on your plate at one time. You stab a cube of bread, dip into the communal pot of melted, stinky goodness, eat and repeat. It's only twenty minutes later that you realize that you just downed the equivalent of have a loaf of bread and a quarter pound of cheese. You look around again at the slim Swiss ladies and scratch your head, puzzled. Sigh. I guess wholesome doesn't indicate healthy, but instead cheese made from 'whole' milk served with a 'whole' lot of carbs. Likewise, even I got fooled into bragging about Switzerland's clean air in the paragraph above before recalling that Switzerland's anti-smoking laws are years behind those of other smoker-friendly European nations. (Cough, cough). But now I'm on to you, Switzerland.

Whether the wholesomeness of this country is real or an illusion almost doesn't matter to me, though. The natural beauty of the village in which I work has bewitched me completely and nothing can tarnish the memories I've already made here. It was spectacular in the winter because of the way the snow blanketed the hills and frosted the branches of every tree, but summer and its bounty give this quiet village another appeal.

First came the cherries; it was early June when boxes of dark, plump cherries appeared at the farm house for four francs a box. Paola suggested I pick up a box for Elena and the family, but there were none left for anyone by the time we got home. These were the best cherries I had ever tasted not only because they were ripe, but because they were incredibly fresh. The farmer picked them, brought them less than 100 yards away to the farm house, boxed them and sold them to me. When produce needs to travel long distances, growers chemically treat the fruits and veggies to help them survive the journey. My cherries didn't require any treatment and thus had the softest flesh and bursted with sweet flavor at the first bite. I couldn't get enough of these cherries and started to pick a couple off my employer's neighbor's tree every time I walked by. Getting caught by the neighbor made me feel a little bit like Peter Rabbit when Mr. McGreggor catches him in his garden; I wanted to hide in a watering can. The situation became more awkward when we realized that we didn't speak a common language and I was her neighbor's employee. She rung Paola as soon as she got back in the house and graciously offered to let me and the children pick cherries any time we liked. Whew!

I was disappointed when cherry season came to an end, but I wasted no time in taking advantage of plum season. Paola had warned me about how good the cherries were, but I was not prepared for the quality of the plums. The plums I was used to had a brownish flesh with patches of red and pink and the pit was difficult to remove. The plums I bought at the farmhouse, on the other hand, were in another league. The flesh was a golden color shocked with a hint of lime that complemented the deep purple of the skin beautifully. The hue was so striking that I decided they should change the color 'plum' to refer not to the skin of the fruit, but the flesh.

Now that plum season is also over, I have moved on to wild blackberries. Eating blackberries is much more fun than even the delicious cherries or plums because you cannot purchase them at the farm house. You have to pick them yourself off of prickly bushes covered with spider webs. You may be wondering where the fun part is in that, but there is nothing like pulling a living, growing thing off of a plant and popping it into your mouth. The pleasure inherent in this abbreviation of the food chain feels completely natural, like something from our hunting/gathering past. I've gotten really good at identifying which berries are ripe. My secret is to look for those that are uniformly black (dark, dark purple), extremely plump and have a slightly wrinkled texture. If they are truly ripe, they will give easily when you pull them off the vine. I perfected my technique on a vine with hundreds of blackberries on a pedestrian pathway near Paola's house. Elena and I would stuff our faces until we couldn't find any more ripe berries.

Unfortunately, our days of blackberry picking bliss came to an abrupt halt when we got caught red-handed (or purple-handed). Yeah, I probably should have learned my lesson the first time and of course, the fact that this little area where the vine grew was gated should have been a clue that the blackberries were private property. Two middle aged people, first a man and then a woman leaned out from their balcony to shout at us. I couldn't understand exactly what they said, but I can make a pretty good guess. I considered acting like a complete jerk and shouting back 'ich verstiehe nicht' (I don't understand), but that would have only made things worse. It's funny that I was the one stealing, but still felt like they were in the wrong. They would have never been able to eat all those blackberries alone; in fact, some were rotting on the vine. As I walked away I wondered who felt like the bigger idiot, me for stealing fruit again from my employer's neighbors or them for shouting at a foreign au pair for sharing their blackberries with two little girls.

That was three weeks ago and I still haven't learned my lesson. I found a blueberry and a raspberry bush near Hannah's place and I cannot resist plucking a few scrumptious berries every time I visit. The risk of getting caught again somehow doesn't outweigh my addiction to the instant gratification of berry picking. Still, my karma has and will catch up with me. Two months ago I became so enamored with the novelty of ready to eat food growing on trees that I tried almost anything that looked like a berry. Not far from the blueberry and raspberry bushes grows a red currant berry plant. I suspected these were in fact red currants, but wasn't positive so I popped one in my mouth to find out and was pleasantly surprised. I found a similar bush with a similar berry near the old kindergarten building and eagerly gave these a taste test. The sharp, bitter flavor told me straightaway that these were not red currants. What if they are poisonous? I started to panic and spit them out.

It is a mystery even to me why I can't stay away from berry bushes after getting yelled at and nearly poisoned. I think it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, in a climate too hot for many berries and land too precious to be used on anything but housing and roads. It is ironic that my home state is one of the most productive agriculturally and yet industrial farming allows many California residents to remain oblivious to how food arrives at their local supermarkets. When I pick berries in Switzerland I can understand why farming is romanticized in literature and for political purposes; I can see why all those hippies wanted to give up their worldly possessions and move to kibbutzes in the 1970s. Modern and especially urban life demands that we keep a safe distance from our food. We almost don't want to know what farmers have to do (genetic modification, pesticides, unfair labor practices, etc.) to bring us large quantities of food so cheaply. And I guess that is why I find this little village in Switzerland so wholesome and irresistible. Buying my fruit directly from the farmhouse and picking berries allows me to reconnect with the land and nature, and I hope I never forget this sensation of feeling so wonderfully... human.