Hag

I originally took this picture because every morning I see it, and of course I have a small giggle to myself. After all, until my first coffee, I could easily be classified as a loving caffe hag.

So I started researching what it was, what it meant. I felt if I was going to try to be clever about something culturally trivial, but funny to me, I should know something about it or be blasted by people who do.

HAG is an acronym for Handels Atkien Gesellschaft (Trade Atkien Society, dunno what Atkien means but the German word Handelsgesellschaft means Partnership or Corporation, and this is what is intended). Caffe HAG is currently owned by Kraft, is a decaffeinated coffee, and is the mother of the Sanka brand better known in the US. To me, Sanka sucks. Caffe HAG is from the same genealogical tree, so by inference of pedigree, it sucks too. I don't drink it, I only laugh at its existence. Apparently, this company is the descendant of the inventor of decaf coffee, Ludwig Roselius, which he patented in 1906.

There is also a rich cultural history of this sucky brand through something called Coffee Hag Albums. The reference of Switzerland having the most complicated series has not gone unnoticed by me.

Mein Gott! Silence the bells!

I grew up in a smallish midwestern town, Blue Springs, a suburb of Kansas City, another smallish midwestern city. I went to a church in a smallish midwestern town, Raytown, a suburb of Kansas City. Not once did I hear church bells. Not even once. I DID hear church organs, people singing, a preacher giving a sermon or a prayer, people shaking hands, enjoying their fellowship, and every once in a while some dumbass doing donuts in his Pontiac Grand Prix in the parking lot.

Here, in fun Switzerland, every hour on the hour the church bells toll. Every half hour, on the half hour, church bells toll. On Saturdays and Sundays, the church bells have fits, randomly to me because I have no schedules and I don't speak German. On Sunday, at 9:50am local time, the entire area for as far as my old ears can hear erupt into mass chaos, whether I'm ready to awaken or not.

So that you can also share in the enjoyment, here's a video example of me, ducking under the Berkowitsch, then doing what I can to leave the frame of view... because, you know, I'm shy.

Swinglish

Expats (actually, not expats, just my wife) here are fond of apologizing for butchering the local language by adding their own words to it. They like to say "oh, please forgive my Swinglish." They are trying to be clever. Truth be told, it's not even a Swiss German and English mixture. It's more an attempt at Highglish Germanglish.

For someone like me who hardly knows a few words in German, the clever Swinglish phrasing is still lost on me. I told my son the other day, who is quickly learning German and singing German songs around the place...

me: You are speaking like a third grade German.
him: Come on, Dad, you say something now. You're supposed to be advanced.
me: Ha. I speak worse German than a little German baby.
him: Oh DAD!

Really, this is how we learn languages. Mimicking, speaking, then reading. I'm going to study this a bit more. I have two colleagues who know more languages than I have fingers. I have one colleague who can describe which language was popular during the 1700s and what the socio-economic status of the majority European population was. I am completely dumbfounded by this, with immense feelings of inadequacy.

Leave it to stupid me to read restaurant signs in mixed English and German, and ask "Why do they have special menus for 2 gang members and 3 gang members?"

Community Tables

In the US, I was very accustomed to having my own table for meals. In Switzerland, especially in traditional Swiss restaurants, or even at events and gatherings, there are these long benches. I know now that when I see a bench inside a restaurant, if I am not a member of a party of 6 or more, I will be seated with strangers who will share the same salt and pepper with me, or ask me to pass them the sugar for their coffee. I have a cousin who also thinks that close-talking is a cultural thing here. Could be. I do like my space. My daughter calls it her personal bubble. "Get out of my personal bubble."

There is this one specific restaurant in Zurich that most outsiders seem to enjoy, and believe that this must be Swiss culture. The locals like it, too, but only once in a great while. They serve American-sized portions, so it's mainly to sell local food culture to the tourists. It's called Zeughauskeller. I like it. It's fun once in a while, but crowded. Sometimes it's fun to talk to strangers, but I have to be in the right mood... the mood that is ready to entertain others. My father-in-law judges a restaurant's quality by the size of its nightly crowd. Thus, this one would seem to be one of the top, even with its community table seating.

Eliot Sharpener

I don't speak German. I wish I did. I've tried. I know a few little things. Enough to know when I'm making stuff up. My kids know a lot by now. They have been taking German as part of their curriculum.

Tonight at dinner while I was passing the bread, I asked my daughter a question. I was hoping to make her laugh because she was in quite a sour mood.

me: Kannst du brot? (translated, Can you bread?)
her: You're so stupid.
me: Super. Bist du brot? (translated, Are you bread?)

It started the conversation talking about what German they have learned. I was asked all kinds of questions in German. I didn't know any of the answers. They had to translate for me. Now that it was funny, the question came to me...

her: Bist du ein spitzer?
me: Am I a what?
her: If it's ein, it's a masculine or neutral word. If it's eine, it's a feminine.
mom: Ohhh, a clue...
me: What is a spitzer?
her: It has to do with something in school.
me: A pencil?
her: No. But you're close.
me: An eraser?
her: No.
mom: A pencil?
her: No! Dad already said that.
son: A pencil sharpener?
her: Yes.
me: And it's masculine?
her: What?? Dad! You're so stupid.
me: I'm just saying... Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Finally

Talking about the weather in Switzerland is considered polite small talk. Right now, it is 2 Celsius. To me, that's 35 degrees in Fahrenheit. I don't speak German. Fahrenheit looks like a German word to me, (I know it is the name of the Polish dude who created this measurement system) but for the raw irony, I'll switch in Celsius.

(in a conference room of 5 people)
me: Do local citizens enjoy this type of weather?
person 1: Of course, it's a beautiful today. It is a bit chilly.
me: This is the temperature I set my air conditioning in my house, in Connecticut.
person 1, 2, 3, 4: HA HA HA HA HA HA.
person 1: Yes, we do have to wear sweaters to the office in NY.

I am finally comfortable. The bugs are thwarted, I'm no longer sweating my ass off just to breathe, and I can finally enjoy the scenery without running for shade. It is definitely beautiful here. The leaves are changing colors. Everyone is walking around in overcoats, scarves, hats, even some are wearing ear muffs and gloves. I'm walking the dog in shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals, whistling a happy tune.

I can't imagine what my heating bill will look like when a bill finally arrives. The floors here emanate heat. I have to open doors to the outside just to let in the fresh air, something I haven't been able to do with the constant onslaught of insects.

Yes, finally I can be happy with something as simple and polite as the weather.

Exactly

Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, childrens' television programming was starkly different than today's dedicated networks of mind fry and distraction. While the behaviors I exhibited then are the same as what my children tend to exhibit (unplugging from my surroundings, sitting and staring at a box), the distraction selection then was severely limited to 3 major channels, and maybe a few extra minor channels. Afterall, we kids back then didn't have a tremendous amount of expendable income, so the marketing and revenue potential was weaker. Reruns and limited programming did have a tendency to motivate us to get up and move, although a rerun of Ultraman or Johnny Socko and the Flying Robot was always worth watching over and over. For a young boy, our heroes were Speed Racer, Batman and Robin, Superman in black and white, or the Green Hornet. Our early life lessons and language teachers were mostly surreal puppets from Sesame Street, HR PufnStuf, New Zoo Review,and Gary Gnu from The Great Space Coaster. Even the Electric Company resorted to puppets now and then.

I remembered Gary Gnu recently. The memory was triggered by a word very often used here. The word is "genau". It is pronounced like "geh-now", with emphasis on the second syllable. It means "exactly". I hear it everywhere I go, often strung together in repeating phrases. "Genau, genau." Surely two exactlys together is a stronger confirmation of agreement than only one. Yesterday, I heard it strung together 3 times. "Ja, genau, genau... genau." As an outsider, I have heard the Swiss Germans lovingly referred to as the people of Greutzi and Genau.

Uh...

I used to only smell this distinguishing smell at rock concerts that I would attend with my brother. The two of us would buy tickets to attend the old and repeating music of fading rock bands. We would ask each other "How would you feel if you had to play the same song over and over, the one you wrote when you were in a depressed stupor 35 years ago?"

Now, I can smell this distinguishing smell at train stops, walks in the park, walking through an art school campus, at restaurants, at the post office, in a grocery store... I smell THIS smell more frequently than the very local gag-reflex-causing-raclette-smell. I am not living in Amsterdam. I am living in Zurich. And yet, it is tolerated because... well, I don't know why. Of all the rule following rule lovers here, this one seems to be a little relaxed.