Where do I begin? First there are all those little things that make life a joy in the everyday. I was in the secretary’s office and as I walked out with a smile on my face I realized that I had just walked in, taken care of business in German without much thought, asking questions and understanding the answers and even cracking a joke that was understood and caused a laugh. Fluency used to be my goal, but now I realize that all I really need to be happy is to be able to easily express myself and understand and most importantly, make people laugh. Some days are better than others, but good days are getting more frequent.
Now the cause for my being in the secretary’s office was also a good one, but I am getting ahead of myself. Other little things I’m happy for include corresponding with a few people who are interested in schools I’ve been to or are currently at. It’s great to be of help at any time, but there’s a personal satisfaction in the idea that I am in a position to give such advice given how absolutely lost I was in most of my decisions and how afraid I was of where my life might lead, or rather lead nowhere. Looking back from this point I see in how many incredible ways God’s hand was guiding me and I hope and pray I will be able to remember that the next time I go through a difficult time. However, that time is not now and God seems determined to kill me with happiness. So much has happened in the past week (or is it weeks?) that I’m sure I will forget to mention some things that would have gotten their own blog post before. Note what did get its own blog post was a funny tiff with my landlady. That shows how much we get along and how happy I am here that one little incident is considered funny and worth writing about. Anyway, everything else is chronological so I’ll start where I left off. I wrote about Christmas Eve, but here are a few (unfortunately poor) pictures.
The 1st Day of Christmas (my true love gave to me: a frosty white Swiss Christmas)
The day dawned bright and everything was covered with a beautiful frost. For my first paid oboe gig in months if not years I was remarkably calm. The Pentecostal church was not very far and I got a ride with the pastor. The service went relatively well and I enjoyed playing – a very good thing which I hope never to take for granted. After the service I was dropped off and had some lone time listening to carols and opening a few presents. I took a crisp walk for an hour and when I got back Veronika was up (she’d worked the night shift Christmas Eve and was sleeping in) and we had ‘breakfast’ together and opened some gifts together. I’d gotten a package from my sister and my mother and true to form my mother had wrapped many little things so of course I had much more than Veronika. I let her open what I thought were food stuffs since we’d be sharing anyway. Once I gave her a package I thought was Girl Scout cookies and it turned out to be Stain Stick! Oops.
I gave Veronika a daily devotional in English.
Veronika gave me warm gloves for biking (and that's Nigel's scarf).
We had about eight people over for Christmas dinner of pastetli though ours weren’t heart-shaped. We had a lovely time and I did alright following the Swiss German when the conversation was rather functional, which it often was. Later on I got a call from my sis and from my folks so I can say it was a good Christmas Day. I went to be tired but happy.
The 2nd Day of Christmas (my true love gave to me: a Swiss St. Steven’s Day)
In the morning Stephan and I went to his hometown of Liestal which is not as far as Altamonte Springs is from Orlando but it’s in another canton (it’s actually the capitol of Basel Land) and has it’s own dialect. We went ‘hiking’ (maybe to the Japanese definition) along the river and through the woods. Despite grey weather we could see the Alps from the hill tower and I got some local geography and trivia lessons. On the walk back to town it started to snow – just a bit, but the first snow is always exciting. We toured Liestal in the cold and snow and I got reprimanded for calling it a cute village. It is a town – and a capitol at that!
Liestal from the tower
Having refused a drink at the lodge in the woods due to heavy smoke (Europe is not perfect yet in this regard) I got a better deal of hot cocoa in a chocolate shop. The cocoa didn’t compare to the one I had in Chur, but it was good none the less. On the train home we sampled their Bailey’s chocolate truffles and those, ah, those were delectable.
After we had tea back home with Veronika I quickly changed from walking gear to dinner party attire and experienced an even stronger Swiss tradition: St. Stephanstag. The funny thing was I didn’t know it before I arrived at Veronika’s sister for what I thought was a ‘day after Christmas party.’ As preparations were made I found it interesting how often I heard the name “Stephan.” I wondered who Stephan was (it’s a relatively common name) and when he was coming but then figured out that December 26th is St. Stephan’s day.
Here I was touched that I was invited because it really was a family event. It was nice to be like a fly on the wall and watch a Swiss family celebrate. I thought the Swiss were terribly polite and never spoke on top of each other, but I learned that at least in some families there are nearly as many conversations as people – well, not quite, but I sure had a hard time catching what was flying on all around me. The food was great, and sometimes people tried to include me. It was rather funny, often they’d start speaking to me in English then shift to German then slide back into Swiss German. The slide from German to Swiss German was the most entertaining and actually helped me learn a thing or two about Swiss German. I can’t learn it unless people speak it to me, so I appreciated the evening of listening without much pressure to hold up part of the conversation.
After dinner we sang carols in German and Swiss German – what fun! It was a lovely day but I came home rather exhausted again. There hadn’t been much chance for sleep yet this break.
That’s enough for now. Lunch is calling me. Work is, too, but updates have to be written sometime . . .
