Confession

After 6 months in Switzerland, I still can't figure out whether to open doors via pushing or pulling.

Can you tell for the above picture? (In case you're wondering, the answer is "push".) The hinge is sometimes hidden, and the door jamb is nonexistent. Fortunately, I know I'm not alone in this problem, based on anecdotal evidence from some of my Swiss and European colleagues and friends as well as the prevalence of labeling on the doors themselves. My question is, why would such an awful design get put into such widespread use?? (Undoubtedly, it arose through the decisions of many committees and put many people into employment.)

Supposedly doors in Switzerland (or at least in my lab) are designed to allow quick departure from a building in case of emergency, which gives a quick-and-dirty method of determining the door direction. It isn't always correct, but it's a starting point if you find yourself at an unlabeled door.

Of course, being in Europe, even labels can't be a simple matter. High German and Swiss German use different types of "push" verbs for their doors! "Pull" is the same in both (ziehen), but High German uses "druecken," which means to push or press, while Swiss German insists that you "stossen" the door, a word for which LEO offers the following suggestions: to butt, to bump, to jab, to poke. Such violence in going through doors! I guess it's representative of the frustration one feels after attempting to pull open the door and then realizing it requires pushing instead (with people watching you all the while, naturally).

Bis(s) zum Morgengrauen

I recently finished reading Twilight as my daily commuter book. Why would I do such a thing, you might ask? Here's why: to learn German. That's right, I read Twilight in German as an educational activity. And you know what? It worked (to an extent). There are so many repeated words and phrases that I managed to learn a lot of vocabulary and sentence structure, as well as some "fancy" past tense verbs.

Sure, it wasn't all fun and games. Based on my experiences with German-English translations for television shows and movies, I'm guessing the translation pretty closely mirrored its English counterpart. And if that's the case, the writing quality is, to put it delicately, quite poor. I must agree with Stephen King in his assertion that the difference between J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meier is that Rowling is an excellent writer and that Meier can't write worth a damn.

The only reason Twilight took off the way it did is because Meier happened to hit on a really hot topic: first love. In the case of this book, first love is synonymous with everlasting love as well as total obsession. Similar to relationships in real-life, where the involved parties can get so wrapped up in the relationship that it becomes their world and skews time, time isn't uniformly represented in the book: the first half of the book takes place over a number of months, while the second half covers approximately 3 days.

The book actually provides a pretty good model for how to have an unhealthy relationship: one in which the girl is completely reliant on her perfect man to take care of her and save her, wherein she becomes totally and utterly obsessed with him and can't imagine going on living without him, one in which the man must have her underwing at all times.

Though really, you can't blame Bella too much, because she's apparently found the embodiment of perfection for a boyfriend. Perfect hair and teeth, clothes to make a model jealous, a hot car, muscular physique... what more could a girl ask for, other than super-pale skin and dark undereye circles? Oh wait, he has those, too! However, he and all his family members have one fatal flaw: they're hopelessly stupid. Stupid, because they go along with Bella's ridiculous plans of escaping danger by splitting up their numbers, unable to posit a better idea of their own! If there's one thing I learned from years of watching Scooby Doo, it's that splitting up is NEVER a good idea.

There and Back Again

I like the UK very much, partly because I can communicate with people there and partly because of the lovely towns. However, I've become spoiled by Switzerland's extensive public transportation system, so England's selection of trains and buses seem paltry by comparison. (One daily bus running from Bath to Glastonbury?? And at 6:15am? Get it together, National Express!)

With that said, I was able to see some cool stuff in Cambridge, Bath, and London all within one week without the aid of a car.


Most of the cool stuff was in Cambridge and Bath because London mostly sucks.

The Little Things

When people ask me what I think of Switzerland and I answer that there are both things I like and dislike, the obvious follow-up question is, which things do I dislike. I usually struggle to find the right words here, opting for something generic like "lots of little, minor inconveniences," but now I have a concrete example of something I find totally illogical about living in Switzerland.

Garbage collection. More specifically, the garbage collection process. Allow me to elaborate.

Rule 1: In order to put trash into the dumpsters, you must use only the specially designated "Zueri Saecke," Zurich-approved trash bags, which are naturally more expensive than other types. Okay, maybe the extra cost helps pay for garbage collection, recycling, alternative energy, etc., and maybe the bag is biodegradable or something. Grumble grumble. Read on for the recycling rules.

Rule 2: Recycling must be a complicated, complex, involved activity. No San Francisco-style separate-it-for-you here. Additionally, you MUST recycle. Okay, you don't have to, BUT. Sometimes the waste workers will randomly search through trash, and woe be to the person who included recyclables in their trash, as the workers will go to extreme lengths to figure out whodunnit.

Rule 3a: You must take your own glass and aluminum to recycle collection points, and only during approved times, so Sundays and anything past 7pm are out. Once there, sort the glass by color. This rule isn't that big of a deal, as there are many drop-off locations, and they're not too far of a walk.
Rule 3b: You must take PET plastic bottles to special drop-off centers that, from what I can tell, are only located within grocery stores. I still don't understand this one.

Rule 4a: Paper is picked up once every two weeks. You must leave it on the sidewalk before 7am, and it MUST be in a neat bundle, held together with twine, and tied with a bow. The recycle workers used to be more lax about the bundle rule and would let you just put it all by the curb in a paper bag, but now they simply won't pick it up if it doesn't have that bow. As far as I know, there is nowhere you can drop your paper off manually, so if you don't comply with the bow-tying, well, sorry friend, you have no choice. See Rule 2.
Rule 4b: Cardboard is picked up once a month. Follow the same rules as paper, but don't you dare mix the two together.

Switzerland doesn't appear to do compost. Apparently they just take all their trash and burn it for energy. With all the other separations they make you do, I don't understand why they don't make you sort out compost too, although I guess it's a combination of not having space to deal with compost and not needing it since they have cows everywhere.

Christmas in Deuteronomy

I spent my Christmas holiday in Deutschland. Thanks to my Auto-Correct for recommending "Deuteronomy" as the word I actually wanted. I got to see a couple towns and cities, all covered in snow and ice, as well as the North Sea (if that's what it's even called in English..), but instead of writing a long post about it all, here's a handful of interesting pictures with comments as needed.

The north coast of Germany - not quite the Netherlands, but pretty close, windmills and all

Bad Zwischenahn town Advent calendar

The founders of Bremen - 4 musical, road-tripping animals?

Dom of St. Petri - cool Gothic cathedral

Doing 150 kmph on the Autobahn - kinda like driving on the Interstate in Georgia

A "Condomat" on the quaint streets of Bad Zwischenahn (which is essentially a retirement community...)

Everyone needs to wash their tiger sometime

And now, back to life in Switzerland!

A Most Horrifying Discovery

I'm planning on putting up a post with pictures from my Christmas vacation in Germany soon (and pictures from Salzburg...). It's been almost 2 weeks since I've been back in Zurich, but I've been a little preoccupied. The apartment has been thrown into turmoil for the better part of the last two weeks because we discovered a huge, terrifyingly bushy patch of dark grey mold on one of the bedroom walls, sneakily hiding behind a wardrobe. That room was subsequently closed off and soaked in various chemicals and alcohol for a few days, with the living room becoming the new holding place for, well, everything. I think I'm still in a little bit of shock over the experience, as I never would've guessed this clean little Swiss apartment had such evil humidity lurking within. But expect pictures soon (of nice places, not of the mold).

City of Mozart, No Longer Prized for Salt

Ah, Salzburg! Where the sun was shining and the air was... bitterly cold and dry. There was snow on the ground with no inclination to melt; as such, all the feet passing over it at the outdoor Christmas Market had turned it to the color and texture of sand. Despite the temperature and the fact that you can see everything of interest there within 2 days, I really liked Salzburg.

The best view of the city came from high atop the Hohensalzburg Fortress's viewing platform, where I got a great 360 view of the whole city, thanks to the audio tour.



Salzburg also held some of my favorite cathedrals I've seen to date, with the detailed, pleasantly-colored ceilings of the Dom (Dome) and St. Peter's putting them into my top 2, in that order, and Franziskaner not working it's way into my favorites but still providing a huge, impressive (though somewhat gaudy and vaguely cultish) golden altar centerpiece... thing.

The whole town is packed with history, mainly regarding Mozart, which means lots of classical music concerts and impromptu street musicians. The royal Residenz, where Mozart gave many concerts in his all-too-short career, hosts some really amazing woodwork on it's floors; hundreds of years old and still looking great, and so detailed! (Stupidly, I didn't take any pictures of the really cool star artwork on the floors, though that might have been due to the museum workers constantly breathing down my neck.)
But really, the main reason to go to Austria is to eat excellent pastries. My new favorite is called Creme Schnitt, which is Austrian for "vanilla layer cake with sugary glaze on top that suits madam just fine." In addition to all kinds of cakes and strudels, Salzburg is known for a strange creation called Mozart Kuglen, or Mozart balls, which are chocolate-covered balls of marzipan (possibly with some pistachio added in). I lucked out in that both my Creme Schnitt and Mozart Kugeln came from Fuerst Cafe, which is supposedly one of the best in Salzburg. However, after just 2 days of exposure to all the delicious sweets, it took another 2 days to be able to touch chocolate again. Just in time for Christmas, thankfully.