Böögg Burning

Yesterday I was in Zürich, visiting an old friend and joining the locals in their celebration of Spring’s arrival. It is called Sechseläuten and involves a parade of various guilds of the city, as can be seen in the pictures below.


The highpoint was however the burning of a snowman-like figure filled with explosives and placed on top a big pile of firewood. Supposedly a rapid explosion (less than 15 minutes) heralds a warm and long summer. It felt as if the entire city was on the move, luckily we managed to squeeze ourselves into a position where the Böögg at least partly was visible.




The Böögg burnt very well and exploded after 10 and a half minutes (thus giving me high hopes of warm and sunny weather). Maybe this was due to the 23-degree sunshine on this day or because this wasn’t the real Böögg, but a replacement. The original one was kidnapped.

Achtung: For those who like chronological order the coming posts will be confusing as I try to catch up with events since Easter.

Deutschverständnis

Now that I have been here a while you might wonder how my German is faring. I’d say I'm at the stage where, in order to understand 99%, I need people to speak at a moderate speed. Nonetheless I was surprised during a lecture about Swiss history and politics that I understood almost everything, even the jokes. Outside of lectures it is trickier. Swiss-German is so different that even native Germans who have been here for several years don’t understand it. Luckily most people in SG are happy to speak German-German (Hochdeutsch) when asked. In addition everything is written in Hochdeutsch, giving me ample opportunity to increase my vocabulary. The exceptions that prove this rule are the SMSs. These are, more often than not, in Swiss-German and to make them utterly unintelligible they follow different spelling rules depending on which part of Switzerland the sender is from. Speaking of words, here are, in an expression of my weird humor, my two new favorite words: Kartoffelstandort and Schwalbenkönig.

LG

Skiing

When I first arrived, the sun was so sunny and it was so warm that I thought Summer must have arrived with me. As a consequence I left my winter coat in the car heading home to Sweden. This was slightly optimistic. As my Swiss flat-mate said "April macht was er will" (trans. April [weather] does what it wants). After those Summer-y days I have experienced snow, a mix of rain and fog, more snow, more fog, more rain and today it has snowed most of the time.

This has had one major consequence. Skiing. When there is precipitation in SG (elevation 600 m) it is almost guaranteed that it is snowing at the alp tops. And since there is no sweeter combination than ski slopes covered with fresh snow and free of tourists (we are now in the post-season) I am one happy (and now slightly tanned) exchange student.

But besides hitting the slopes every weekend so far I have also done other things, like...after-ski. Local beer is good and the view is just terrific. It really does help me find the energy needed for my studies.

Last week also entailed an episode that gave me some deeper knowledge of the habits of my host country. At the university canteen I saw a bottle of the local brand fruit juice. I checked the label and it said something about blood orange. Since I was feeling sleepy I thought this might be just what I needed. I was right in my assumption that I would get a jolt from this drink but pretty much wrong about everything else. As I began to drink my newly purchased beverage I quickly discovered my mistake. I had bought Molke, which is not a fruit-based drink but one whose main ingredient is a bi-product of cheese making. Even though it is supposedly extremely healthy I will wait a long time before sipping that stuff again.

Of widerlüge!

Sunshine and a cloud

All signs point to an excellent time here. People are friendly and outgoing; courses seem cool and there is a gazillion fun things to do. I am worried I might get too carried away in my optimism.

I can confirm the impression that everything here is expensive, ridiculously so. The thing that best illustrates this is the tendency of many places to charge for the ketchup for the fries. On the plus side (or negative for my studies) beer and alcohol is marginally cheaper than at home.

Something that is harder to spin positively is the course selection system at UniSG. It is very complicated and it takes forever to check if two courses have a scheduling conflict. But the mere fact that this is my biggest problem here speaks volumes.

Introweek

In a simplified form I can say that everyday last week looked like this

08:30-12
German classes
13:30-16
Intro to Uni, SG or CH. Sometimes this took the form of lectures, other times it came in the guise of bureaucracy.
16:00-18
Nap (I actually needed it)
20:00-02
Meeting other exchange students for bowling, pub crawl or a city walk
08:00
get up and start all over

Climate Change

When I arrived in SG the sun was most welcoming, pushing the thermometer above 20 degrees centigrade. When I left Sweden it looked like this

To compare, here is a picture of a Swiss valley we drove through on our way to SG.

+41-77-42 68 369

My new number.

First impressions

Going from Stockholm to Liechtenstein (yes, we had some time to spare so we drove a bit extra just to see the one place in Europe that voted away democracy) it is striking that there is only one thing reminding you of the fact that you have crossed a border: the SMS that informs you of the new operator you have just roamed unto. No border, no nothing. Sweet!

Once in Switzerland we drove around among the valleys and into the alp villages. In one of the most conservative (and most Swiss?) cantons; Appenzell Ausserrhoden (they gave women the vote in 1989) we found a restaurant where we could have our first Swiss meal. The place looked very promising, lots of stuff related to cheese making was displayed and the atmosphere was utterly genuine. We ordered and while the waiter disappeared into the kitchen the owner offered us some delicate bread. Not shortly thereafter we started sensing something was up. Both the owner and the waiter started to look stressed and ran around. We soon found out what was wrong. Within five minutes the waiter came and said that they could not find the Chef(!). After another five minutes the owner came, with the look on his face as if his entire life work had been brought to shame, deeply apologizing about something that had never ever occurred before. Since he was so obviously sad, and since the whole thing seemed so absurd, all we could do was to smile and walk away. Clearly the image of Switzerland as the most reliable place in the world got a severe hit already on the first day. However, since the owner was so sincere in his shame I would gladly go back and try to eat there another time.

On a purely positive note; I have found a place to stay. It went very fast and easy and is a bowling-ball throw (not an accepted expression perhaps, but you understand that it is very close) away from my university.

The address, for those who want to visit or send stuff is:
Varnbüelstrasse 13, 9000 St. Gallen

The phone number to the apartment is +41 (0) 71 222 49 61
(I will try to get a mobile number tomorrow, when school starts)

Ciao!

Take a ride with me

People say that it’s the journey and not the destination that makes traveling so much fun. I very much agree and therefore I am going to St. Gallen by car, instead of flying. Not only will this allow me to spend two days watching scenic parts of Autobahn in Germany. This way I also get to bring my bike and other heavy and cumbersome objects that would have been difficult to get on the plane. Since I don’t have a car of my own or a driver’s license I owe a great debt of gratitude to my mom who has been persuaded to drive me down.

You are of course welcome to join us, albeit only virtually. Turn on some German music or a Swiss language course (that is what we will listen to in the car) and track our progress as we head south. Our intenarary is as follows:
Depart from Stockholm around lunchtime and arrive in Göteborg some six hours later. (Map)
In Göteborg we have to Check in at our ferry by no later than 19:00. This night-ferry will then take us (Map) to Kiel in northern Germany. Arrival is expected to 09:00 on Saturday morning. We then drive (Map) to Glandorf to visit an old friend of the family. It is unclear how long we will stay. May just an hour for tea or maybe we will even spend the night. Who knows?

Afterwards we will head south (Map) and travel as far as possible to St.Gallen. Depending on the time spent in Glandorf we will reach St.Gallen either Sunday lunchtime or late in the night.

And then the adventure begins.

Hospital Flag

Me: Yes, I'm going to Switzerland.
What do you know about that place?
Cousin: I dunno, isn't it the country with the hospital flag?

Today will be the last Sunday until late July that I have dinner with my family and immediate relatives. As I was talking to them, in particular my young cousins, I realized that they (and maybe others) had a limited knowledge of what I am going to do in Switzerland.

So, in order to give you a preview of what my future posts will be about here is a short list.

• By living in a (almost) German speaking area I strongly hope to improve my mastery of Deutsch. Therefore, don't be surprised if I comment on something language related
• I am after all going on a student exchange, so school will enter into the picture, be it an eccentric professor that deserves mentioning or some random thought I have on a topic related to my studies.
• Exchange is always about meeting people, both local and the other exchangers. Add to that that I will probably hang around with the local CEMS Club and AIESEC LC. Expect bits of gossip and lots of pictures.
• Not only does the setting of a medium sized Swiss town offer something pleasing to the eye. It also brings vast possibilities to enjoy the out-doors. I am bringing my bike, uni-hockey/innebandy stick & badminton racket, but will most likely enjoy skiing, football and just plain sight-seeing as well.
• Being the perpetual optimist I fully expect there to be time over to indulge in reading the many books I need to, in order to research my thesis. I don't know how much I'll comment directly on this work, but I'll probably link frequently to stuff that is related

CH in minus 5!