Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Yesterday was a lovely day. After lunch with Veronika I met with Valda at her work to have coffee and pick up the bike she’s lending me. It was lovely, as expected, to have an hour with her. The bike is also great to have, though I haven’t figured out the light yet so it’s not yet good for night riding. I stopped by the school on the way home but it’s closed during the week, so I can’t do anything that requires a student ID. My ausweis hasn’t come in the mail either so I can’t to anything else . . .
So I went for a run after finishing my Egoscue exercises. I didn’t have much time so I thought I’d run for 20 minutes or so, but I went a different way and tried to find another way back and ended up ‘way out of Binningen. I finally stopped at a bus stop and looked at the tram map there and discovered how wrong I’d gone! I used the maps from stop to stop to find my way back, and it would have been a lovely run if I had not been worried about making my evening date. 20 minutes turned into an hour and I arrived home as it was getting dark. My feet held up just fine, though. I bought some chocolate for Annie on the way home and it’s the first time in Switzerland I’ve gone into a store shoeless. If anybody noticed, they didn’t say anything . . .
Through a comedy of errors I finally made it to Annie’s house but I wasn’t the latest one. She had invited three friends over and we had some lovely girl time. All of them are so sweet and also answered a number of questions I had about the school. One was from Latvia and we convinced her to tell a nursery rhyme in Latvian. It was cool, but I can’t describe it and I was too embarrassed to get a video. :(
Annie had made pumpkin soup, a quiche with spinach and leek, and a salad. I enjoyed the delicious meal, and also to my delight they enjoyed my story of calling the field of leeks ‘corpses.’ Of course it brought out the story of eating worms, which was also met with roaring laughter. The evening was spent in English mostly and some French. I remembered enough to say “Happy Birthday” in French (I have no idea how to write it because I’ve only heard it on tapes). I learned that American men are better than European men because they are less ‘macho,’ more family oriented, and also more faithful. Obviously they’re not getting this idea from TV but from the men they’ve met. This bit of information is stored away in my memory for later use because I’m not sure what to make of it. Good to hear something good about Americans!
After feasting well Tobie brought out her homemade exquisite chocolate, chocolate cake with raspberries. I made myself useful by washing up and I couldn’t believe it was midnight when I finally looked at the time. God’s arms are around me, for we caught the last bus by 2 minutes and the transfer to the tram by 10 seconds. I made it home safe and happy, and I’m trying not to think that all three girls are on the last of four years here.
Wednesday was a shopping day, so of course it was exhausting. I haven’t checked my email yet and that makes it about 30 hours since I last did. Ack, . . . can’t . . . breath . . .
So since I’m addicted Veronika helped me check out high speed options, and we got our ears full of talk, which I could mostly understand even though I thought they were speaking Swiss German before I realized it was High German with a strong Swiss accent. When the switched to dialect, it was over. Ah well, es kommt. I’ll probably sign up for service at 49 Francs a month. Donations anyone? Veronika is surprised I want to spend so much on that when I save money elsewhere. She doesn’t understand the extend of my addiction.
Oh, I also learned it costs some 40 cents a minute to call a cell phone from a land line. It’s cheaper to call the states! What harebrained scheme is that? At least incoming calls are free for landlines and mobiles. The mobile shopping is coming along slowly, but I’d had enough shopping for one day. I forgot to mention that we stopped by a friend of Veronika’s to check out a velo (bike) for sale, but I didn’t care for it as it seemed about the same as the bike I’m borrowing from Valda and I’d rather invest in a bike I can ride in the mountains as well.
Our shopping done we made lunch and Veronika showed me how to make mayonnaise when I made the potato salad. It tasted very different, but it tasted great in the salad. We had left over birthday cake for dessert. Yum.
So, nothing special. Now I get to go to Valda’s and connect with the world! Yippie!
On second thought, I see my inbox doubled in size over those 30 hours. It’s certainly less overwhelming when you can check every few hours . . .
On the way to the tram stop
I don't remember the eating worms story....
Could it be I forgot to tell it? When Stephan and Anu got a compost they would tell Tamino to take the scraps out and 'feed the worms.' Once when I came in from putting stuff in the compost Tamino asked me what I'd done and I meant to say that I had fed (gefuttert) the worms but I actually said gefressen, which means eat like an animal! People essen, animals fressen. Oops!
Actually, based on what I've seen of European men, that probably is true. At least Romanian, middle-aged men; religion tends to be a women's affair because for the men, raised under communism, a superstitious departure from naturalism is a weakness. Display of emotions, also isn't really cool with the over-30 male crowd.
Speaking of addictions, don't neglect Facebook!
Eh wo, I got back on due to your request, but I haven't figured it out yet. I think I refused a gift from Rebecca H. and it seems there's all kinds of stuff I'm missing, but while I'm at Valda's I'd rather play piano than figure out facebook . . .
