Awash in sh...

I now work daily in a building I've visited almost monthly for the past two years. The food in the cafeteria is really really good, as is the coffee. The restrooms are a bit different. In public, "WC" marks "water closet". In most cases, including in this office, they hide toilets in closet-sized rooms with locks on the doors. There's no need to listen to a gut blast in the stall next to you, nor ask the chap to hand you toilet paper from his spare roll. Here, you're in your own room. Just you, and a toilet, an annex from a sink room.

What absolutely shocked me yesterday about these rooms in this particular office building, what I hadn't noticed in two years, was a new sign. An instructional sign. Apparently, if one sits on one of these toilets, and uses one's elbow to press against the flusher, one finds oneself awash. Release it, and a happy blow-dry follows. After laughing out loud alone inside one of these rooms, just me, the toilet, the new sign, and a process I have never experienced, I walked into a shared space where someone was brushing their teeth. Of course, odd looks ensued, but it was a two-way odd exchange. Who brushes their teeth in a space where my post-process ass was blowing around???

Buffet

I complain a lot about the heat and no air conditioning. I am told my complaining will only last a few weeks. The nights are cooler. I leave the windows wide open, hoping to catch a breeze. We're high enough off the ground to not worry about possible intruders, and the Swiss believe in their very low crime rate. A couple of nights have been almost as warm as the day, and in the evenings we swam in the lake to cool off, or I took a cold shower before bed. This must be how my grandparents lived as children, before central air conditioning was widely available.

The first day we left our apartment with our windows open and a light on, we came back to a scary movie scene. We spent the next 20 minutes vacuuming live bugs off the ceiling, chasing moths around the rooms. I don't see "screens" on homes here. Just these enormous windows with big sturdy hinges. I'm guessing 9 months out of the year it's just too cold and rainy for the bugs to grow in numbers to be any more than a minor nuisance.

I've actually been considering investing in mosquito nets, but that would follow an expectation that these bugs are an ongoing problem. At the moment, my mosquito bites have mosquito bites. Either there's a really really fat and happy mosquito family in Ruschlikon, or one of these things told a whole bunch of its friends where there's a free buffet.

Cinnamon and cloves

I rode school buses to school for most of my student education. These are interesting inventions. A big tube of kids on wheels, no seat belts, a high center of gravity. When one is small, three can easily fit into a seat. When one gets to high school, and is still having to ride in one of these things, there's just not enough room to be sitting next to someone else.

There were several times on a bus, or at school, one of us kids would become ill and lose whatever contents we had in our stomach. Once in a while it would cause a chain reaction. A practiced bus driver would quickly grab a bag of whatever they used and would pour it onto the mess. The combined smell was something of cinnamon and cloves, with undertones of hork. It was so distinctive, one of my classmates wrote about this in a creative writing class some 7 years later, and I still remember it. I am occasionally flashed back into those moments when I eat a desert called "Apple Crisp", or anything with cinnamon and oatmeal. Wintery holiday seasons are good times.

When Kris and I were dating, she watched me sign a credit card bill for dinner, and asked me about my mysterious middle name.

her: What's the E of your middle initial stand for?
me: Exceptional.
her: No really.
me: Ok. Extraordinary.
her: Come on.
me: Fine. It's Eloquent.
her: Edward?
me: No.
her: Ernie?
me: No.
her: No? Not Ernie?
me: No.
her: Eric?
me: No.
her: Ezekial?
me: ...
her: Emily?
me: (blink)
her: Seriously, I give up.

It was a year before she finally found out by reading it on my new Arizona driver's license. I had forgotten I hadn't told her. My annoying behavior was more just a self-amusing game than anything else. It's a name that has been shared by a few members in my extended family, and I'm really quite proud to have it.

We've started to exhaust the American supplies we carried into Switzerland, and we're starting to slowly replace them from local stores. The other day, Kris bought me some new deodorant. I was of course over-using the old American antiperspirant because I'm a filthy sweat-beast at work these days, with no air conditioning, working in a sealed building located in an industrial district, a building with horrible circulation, and I have no hope of finding a refrigerator big enough to fit my dehydrating corpse.

I guess this is available in the States. It's new, and it has English words on it, so maybe that's why she picked it. I started using this new deodorant, and oddly the old memories of a short creative story titled "Cinnamon Yuck" came pouring back. It's not really what I want to smell like, considering this scent has a very specific trigger for me. Funny the power of what a simple smell can do.

I'm a curious sort. I read the label. All of the usual chemicals and additives with exaggerated names were recognized, save one. Eugenol. I had to look this one up on wikipedia. I learned it's extracted from the oils of cinnamon and cloves. Here's another purchased-in-Switzerland product I'm rubbing on my body that I am no longer comfortable with.

And yes, Eugene is my middle name.

An Italian, a Brit, and an American...

An Italian, a Brit, and an American walk into a Swiss bar and order three beers. I wish I had a good joke for that. I don't. It actually happened tonight. I was the American.

I can say I enjoy working with them, but can also say I reaaaally enjoy drinking with them. I learn very interesting things from different perspectives. Like no one at the table knew why Velveeta is orange. Or why in the world would Americans individually wrap sliced cheese? Or why do American steaks taste soooooooo different than the cows in Switzerland? They're the same species. A colleague's husband articulated it nicely to me. "They're quite proud of their fitness cows here."

Hez

I traded mz US laptop for a German laptop todaz. The US laptop needs to be returned to NZ. The kezboard on this laptop is different in too manz wazs to describe. The most obvious are that Zäs and Yäs are in traded positions, and an extra AltGr kez. The ä (apostrophe) is somewhere else I canät find. When I tzpe, it comes out looking like I donät know how to tzpe. I guess I donät.

One of mz colleagues said good luck with the question mark and the backslash. He said mz contraction of “do not”, which comes out looking like “donät” looks enough like the American word donut. I followed with a Homer Simpson: “mmmmmm donäts.” Heäs actuallz too cool to think that was funnz, but I laugh at mz own humor, and after all mz humor is reallz just to entertain me.

Another expat colleague who came before me received the nickname “Hez” because for a few weeks, thatäs how he started out his instant messaging chats to other people. “Hez”.

Itäs going to take some getting used to this. My boss said he has worked on US, Italian, and German kezboards. It takes a couple of weeks to adapt, and then I wonät have anz more problems.

Letäs hope.

Eat

When I first met Kris, I was a gaunt 23-year-old, and food was not a priority. It was only something I did when I needed, but I had poor eating habits and my diet consisted of McDonald's or Buddig sandwiches with extra mayo. It actually worried Kris. On occasion, Gma Betty would invite me to eat dinner with them. During those times, I am told I would eat like "an army". Betty even mentioned to me "I don't know how you do it. I couldn't eat like that and still look the way you do." I hadn't learned to cook yet, I mean really cook. I could do simple things, but nothing creative.

It wasn't until I landed my first table-side waiter job at EBT in Kansas City that I started to understand the value of cooking, and experimenting with different foods. This particular restaurant awoke my curiosity about food, opened my eyes to what was possible. I started to cook, to impress others, to appreciate the work that goes into a fine meal. I learned to identify ingredients so that I could try to replicate the dish at home. Kris loved it.

In 20 years of being married, I used to cook every so often. I don't much any more except for special occasions, like when a boss comes over. Sarah loves those times. It's more likely we will eat out, either just Kris and me, or we will go as a family and eat like horses. Kris will cook, but it is not her favorite thing to do. It is definitely a lot of work, pre, during, and post. We rely on staples, dishes that are easy, ingredients that are cheap and with the least amount of effort. This is something I understand. Food is a necessity, not so much a priority.

When we moved to Switzerland, our family cook became somewhat disoriented. The ingredients here are very different. The restaurants are very expensive. From necessity comes invention. We started to see what we perceived to be European-style meals, or at least Kris' interpretation of what that means... plates of different kinds of cheeses with jams, assorted meats, bratwursts, pastas... Last night, this creativity came to an end.

her: I just don't know what to cook here.
me: Did you before?
her: Pff. You're a funny man. A bowl of cereal for you.

Post-worthy?

Every weekday morning I walk the same path from the apartment to the bus stop. It isn't a long walk. Maybe 10 minutes. On days where I don't look at my watch, I usually have an extra 20 minutes to wait because I just missed the last one by moments. On such days, I'll walk an extra 5 minutes to the Thalwil Starbucks, and order a tall skim cappuccino. My Swiss colleagues laugh at me because it's just so American to order anything at Starbucks. For me, it's as natural as ... wearing business attire in the summer. I've done this a few times. Sometimes I'll see someone I know there, but mostly not.

Today was like any other day. Make-me-perspire-warm, a very clean and shiny morning, Starbucks cappuccino, sit out front on the sidewalk and watch the people walk by.... except today people were looking at me funny. For the most part, I kept repeating in my head they were looking at me funny because I was obviously an American, sitting out front of a Starbucks, drinking a coffee that was not European, wearing a tie in the middle of August. How stupid.

Finally, two younger ladies walked by, laughing... and laughing... they couldn't stop laughing. I kept my attention on my BlackBerry, reading my iGoogle page for what might be going on in the States... at 1am. I mean, I'm a married man. I can't be bothered by flirtatious Euro-fems.

one: (something to me in German, of which I look up like "huh?")
two: (laughing laughing laughing)
me: I'm sorry?
one: Oh, you only speak English?
me: Yes. (now I'm certain they are making fun of me somehow)
one: I asked you if you dropped something. (she points at the ground, a few inches from my shoe)
two: (laughing laughing laughing)
me: Uh... (I look, and realize in horror, I am looking at what can only be described as... a discarded condom)
one: (laughing, walking away)
two: (laughing, walking away)

Hmm. To post, or not to post.