Dumpster diving Swiss style

It's been a while since I blogged about recycling, and I think in a past blog I may have even promised that I would never blog about recycling ever again. But today, I must go back on my word, because today, I got down and dirty with the recycling process. I know I should be embarrassed to share with everyone my debacle at the local market, but blogging about it is cheaper than therapy. Plus, I don't want to have to go through the harrowing process of locating an English speaking shrink. So here goes...

The day started with some dear friends of ours flying in from Madison, Wisconsin to visit us for the week. Anytime someone comes to visit from the States, we feel very blessed and really try to make the long, expensive trip over here worth their while. We were so excited to see them and share with them what life is like here in Switzerland. So seeing as it was the Saturday of a 3 day weekend, and the markets would all be closed for the next two days, Sandy and I headed out to our town market to stock up on groceries. She thought it would be interesting to experience a Swiss market. She had no idea....


As I've said before, grocery shopping here in Switzerland is not the mindless activity that it is in the U.S. It starts with getting your ticket for the parking garage, and making sure you put it somewhere where you will be able to find it when you are ready to leave the parking garage. Second, while looking for a safe spot to place the parking ticket, you need to remember to grab your empty grocery bags, as well as your bag full of drippy, sticky, plastic bottles to be placed in the recycling bin inside the store. Third, while doing all this, you need to make sure you have your 2 franc coin so that you can retrieve a grocery cart in which to place all your bags and recylables and take them up to the grocery store in the elevator. No, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to manage all this, but apparently you have to be brighter than I am to do it while catching up with an old friend you haven't seen in 12 months.


We were chatting away while riding up the elevator, and proceeded to dump our big bag of bottles into into the large recycling bin. Usually, you have to place each individual plastic bottle through a small hole in the wall, but when they are expecting lots of customers, they make it a little easier (read: less annoying) by leaving a big bin for you to just dump your recyclables in. So we carelessly dumped and went about our shopping. Sandy and I chatted and caught up as we threw the overpriced swiss groceries into our cart without a care.


After paying for the groceries, we headed over to the customer service desk to buy garbage bags. For some God unknown reason, the garbage bags are kept hidden behind the counter like contraband and must be paid for only in cash. I promise I don't make this stuff up. Next, we stopped at the floral department for some fresh flowers because it's one of the little luxuries I splurge on to try to add a little color to our otherwise sterile white apartment. Poor Sandy has now been awake for over 24 hours but is still powering through all of our tasks with a smile on her face. Finally, we head back to the parking garage with our cart full of ridiculously expensive crap, and start loading up the car. At this point, I get the feeling that something isn't quite right. I don't know how to explain it, but I felt like something was missing. So I reached into my purse to feel for my parking ticket, and found it right where I'd left it. No problem. I'll just return my cart, pay for my parking and get Sandy and me on our way home.

This is when our pleasant shopping experience took a turn for the worse....

I reached into my purse to grab my keys. Hmmmm......they aren't in the pocket I usually put them in. Must have fallen to the bottom of my purse.... Nope, not there either. Wait, did I use them to unlock the car as we were walking towards it? That's strange, I must have left the car unlocked. But I ALWAYS lock my car. Unless of course I'm deep in conversation with a friend.....

What followed was a futile hunt through the entire car, and it's contents, for the missing keys. We searched, and re-searched, sure that we'd stumble upon them and laugh about the ridiculous place I had put them. After 15 minutes, I assure you I wasn't laughing.

Feeling like an ass, I trekked back into the store, all the while racking my brain as to where the village idiot might have placed her keys. We retraced our steps through the grocery store, checking all the bins in the produce section where we had stopped on our first pass through. I imagined how we'd laugh when we found my keys wedged between the tomatoes and the kiwi. But no dice.

I then headed towards the customer service desk where I had earlier purchased my contraband garbage bags. Knowing the woman spoke no English, I typed the word "keys" into the translation app on my iphone and waited to see the German translation to inquire about my lost keys. FYI, the German word for "KEYS", is, apparently, "KEYS". Thank God for my awesome translation app. So in my best German accent I said, "KEYS?" in a loud voice, because I'm fully convinced she will understand the English language better if I speak it really loudly. Once again, no dice.


I check out the floral department counter as we walk past it, and then suddenly I spy the recycling bins. Nooooooooo......... I'm not that ridiculously absentminded am I? But even as I'm thinking this, I know it to be true. I suddenly recall hearing a strange sound when I dumped in the plastic bottles and thinking, "Oops! Must have mixed a glass bottle in with my plastics!" But rather than look to be sure, I decided to get the hell out of the recycling area before someone comes and yells at me for an improper recycling infraction. Clearly, after 13 months, I'm still scared of the recycling police.

I sheepishly share my realization with Sandy and we start peering through the 6 foot tall plastic bag hoping to see my keys. I figured since the bag is see through, I would be able to see them and could casually rip a little hole in the side to retrieve them. Of course, that would have been too easy. The keys were nowhere to be seen. Sandy and I debate what to do as more and more people dump their empty plastic bottles into the bag that I am really praying holds my keys. Suddenly, a Coop Market employee walks up and starts wheeling away the plastic bag, and quite possibly my keys. In a panic I try to tell him with ridiculously exaggerated pantomimes of me starting my car, that I believe my keys might be in the recycling bag. He offers a lengthy response in German, making it clear he will be of no help. When I use my limited German to ask if he speaks English, he proceeds to yell something in German across the room to one of his coworkers. I don't know what he said, but I imagine it was something like, "You gotta get a load of this! This lady either really wants to play charades, or she's a freakin' moron and threw her car keys in this recycling bag!" Three of his fellow Coop Market employees came over and had a brief discussion in German. I can only imagine what they are saying to each other. One of them speaks some English and seems to understand my predicament, but doesn't seem to know how to handle this unusual situation. I'm pretty confident that this doesn't happen every day.


Finally, a pleasant older gentleman who works there, joins the small group of employees discussing the problem and proves he is the brains behind the organization. He enters a door that leads into the secret world behind the recycling wall and quickly returns with a cart and an empty six foot tall recycling bag. We play another quick round of charades so he can show me that he wants me to empty the full bag of dirty plastic bottles into the empty bag. Excellent.

I looked at Sandy who still had a smile, but now it looked a little more delirious from lack of sleep, and said in my peppiest voice, "Welcome to Switzerland!" Only I could manage to have our out of town guest sorting through garbage within 3 hours of her plane landing.

To make the situation even more mortifying, the recycling area is located right at the entrance to the store. Everyone entering and exiting the store had to walk within 10 feet of our key retrieval mission, which means that on the busiest shopping day of the week, I was spotted elbow deep in dirty plastic bottles by several hundred people. No one called my name or stopped to chat, but I'm pretty confident I wasn't someone you would want to claim to be an acquaintence of on this particular day. Fortunately, I maneuvered the 6 foot tall carts to provide a bit of a privacy wall for myself and and left poor Sandy to perform for the crowd of shoppers. No, it wasn't nice, but I figured she'd never see these people again and my reputation among townsfolk really doesnt' need any more tarnishing.


Anyway, we sorted....and sorted.....and sorted. Sandy commented on how the Swiss are quite diligent about cleaning out their bottles prior to recycling and even mentioned that one of the cleaning product containers had a "nice" smell. Remember, she hadn't slept in WELL over 24 hours at this point. About midway through our search and rescue mission, Sandy inadvertantly knocked me in the head with a bottle. At least I think it was inadvertant. Although who could really blame her if it was intentional. A few minutes later she looked at me and casually said, "This probably isn't what you want to hear right now, but there is some white stuff in your hair." She was absolutely right, that wasn't what I wanted hear and I proceeded to use my sleeve to frantically wipe at my hair like a cat on crack. I felt a little better when we realized it must have happened when she knocked me in the head with the detergent container. I may end up with a big bleached streak in my hair, but at least I wasn't wearing someone's curdled milk.

After about 15 minutes, and several hundred bottles, we were almost to the end and still hadn't spotted my keys. Dear God, if I subjected poor Sandy to this disgusting task for no reason, I will die. Really, I will just crawl into this giant bag of stinky plastic and die a pathetic death. Then suddenly with only about 50 bottles left, I spot something dark in the very bottom of the bag. Could it be!?!?!?!? I reach down and pluck my ring of keys out of the bottom of the bag and without so much as a WOOHOO!!! say to Sandy, "Let's get the hell out of here!". But as we were heading for the elevators, I quick decided it would be worth the humiliation to stop and snap Sandy's first picture of herself in Switzerland. Don't ever try to tell me I don't show my out of town visitors a good time....


Yes, just another story to add to my ridiculous adventure. At this point, all I could do was laugh at the situation and thank God I had a partner in crime to share in the experience. Oh, and it helped knowing that the next bottle I would hold in my hands, would without a doubt, be a bottle of chianti.

Viva Barcelona!

Well, the skis have all been returned to the ski rental shop and my tailbone is on the mend from my last endeavor down the slopes before the end of ski season. I was convinced I had permanently damaged my ass bone, but now that I've been off skis a few weeks, my ability to sit in a non padded chair has improved. I guess you would say it was a successful season on the slopes, although the number of times I asked, "Is this really worth it?" might lead one to question just how successful it actually was. But Bryan was in heaven with some of the world's best skiing at his disposal and I was obnoxiously proud (and camera happy) seeing my kids go from the bunny hill to real ski runs in a matter of a few weeks. There is nothing better than seeing your kids accomplish something that makes them feel good about themselves. They gained a lot of confidence and discovered a sport they really enjoy. My biggest success was managing to not seriously injure anything other than my self respect. Sadly, this is how I defined success on skis.



But rather than mourn the loss of our wintertime hobby, the Mjaanes Family spent Spring Break in Barcelona and the Costa Brava region of Spain. Although Bryan has spent a lot of time in Barcelona for work, the only things he had every seen were the airport, the hotel, the Zurich office, and a shopping mall where he would eat his meals. None of that sounds very exciting (except for the shopping mall) so we were all excited to find out why everybody LOVES Barcelona.

As the frugal family travel agent, I was originally planning to have us drive to Barcelona. You know, 9 hours of quality family time. But when I shared these plans with some friends, they all immediately game me a look that silently said, "You're about as sharp as a beach ball" and then kindly reminded me of our car trip through Tuscany. I instantly recalled the pungent smell of pee wafting from the backseat of our car and ran home to find us cheap airline tickets. I discovered EasyJet with bargain basement prices and booked our family of five on a flight from Basel Switzerland to Barcelona. Sure, bargain basement airline travel makes me a little nervous. Would the pilot be one of the few who failed the pilot test the first few times? Would the plane be second hand and have duct tape visibly holding miscellaneous parts on? My fear of flying took a backseat to my fear of paying more than I have to, and we set out on our journey to Barcelona.




The thing about EasyJet is you have to be okay with feeling like steer. Short of them branding our butts with a cattle iron, they pretty much treat you like low grade bovine during the entire preflight process. There are no assigned seats. It's each cow for himself. We had paid a little extra for "priority seating". This basically meant that when you got in line, it was your responsibility to shove your way to the front of the line while waving your "priority seating" ticket at anyone who grumbled at you. Money well spent. When we boarded the plane, I was immediately made uneasy by the terrible orange upholstery onboard. It was reminiscent of 1970's color schemes and I was sure the toilet in the bathroom would be avocado green. This is when I became aware that my 5 and 6 year olds were becoming travel snobs. "Where's the TV!" , "When will our first meal come?", and my favorite (uttered by Z multiple times on both ends of the trip) "Why do we have to go EasyJet! I want to fly a regular plane!". Even Bryan complained about how far you had to walk to get to the terminal after you checked in. Good God people, you're all going on Spring Break to BARCELONA! When I was a kid we went to the apple orchard for spring break and if we were lucky we got to go miniature golfing at the crappy putt putt up the road. I proceeded to MOOOOOOO..... at them and then tuned them out.

We arrived in Barcelona at about 8:30 p.m. and then had to take public transportation to the apartment we'd rented. We found the street it was located on and wandered around looking for number 26. At this point it's about 10 p.m. and I'm suspecting our new neighborhood might not be so family friendly. Unless your family enjoys seedy restaurants and prostitutes. As we made our way towards number 26, I noticed police activity up ahead. Sho nuf, the drunken disorderly guy is being apprehended directly in front of the door to our building. So Bryan and I and our 3 young children stood waiting for our apartment guy to let us in while Mr. Belligerent Booze Hound spouts off to the police. Who else would this happen to? There is a whole long boulevard where this guy could have been arrested, but it had to happen 6 feet from our front door. It was made even more horrific when the guys wife AND CHILD came walking up to hug and kiss him before he was dragged off to the slammer. Lovely. Nothing like making lasting memories for my impressionable children.



When our apartment guy finally got there, he took us upstairs to our apartment where we discovered that the rental company's website photographer has a wonderful knack for framing the photos of their apartments to look better than they are. I will say that it was clean, had 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms. But that's all I'll say. As he showed us around, he found one of the bathroom doors to be locked. He made a quick phone call and two minutes later, 3 guys with skateboards showed up and started walking through the apartment like they were looking for something. Clearly this rental company runs a very professional operation. Eventually, the skater dudes somehow managed to get the door opened and we were left to settle into our Spanish Ghetto apartment.

Each night of our stay in Barecelona we were welcomed home by at least 1 random chain smoker who would, without fail, be standing in front of our graffitied front door. Really, who needs a chocolate on your pillow when you can have the pleasure of asking a random creepy vagrant to remove themselves from your front doorstep each night?



Aside from our accommodations, we enjoyed 3 full days in Barcelona seeing the sites. With 3 youngs kids, it can be a challenge to hoof it around a big city, so we took advantage of the cheesy double decker buses. We visited Montjuic Castle, the National Palace, the amusement park at Tibidabo, Park Guell, La Padrera and Sagrada Familia. We spent some time wandering down La Rambla which is a touristy street with lots of bars, restaurants, and street performers. We've seen some strange street performers in our European travels, but Barcelona seems to take it to a new level. Some were impressive, like the guy dressed up as the alien from the movie (aptly titled) "Alien". If you happened across this guy while he was having a smoke break, instead of standing on his street performer box, he would absolutely scare the living crap out of you. Z was the bravest of the Mjaanes kids and dropped a Euro in his jar. Hence the picture below....



Some of the other performers were less impressive, like the guy sitting on a toilet with a top hat. He, and the toilet, were spray painted white. When a nice middle aged woman finally let her curiosity get the best of her, she dropped a coin in his jar and he proceeded to "strain" while making an explosive noise that any boy under the age of 40 would find hysterical. Lovely.





At the end of our last full day of sightseeing, we hopped on the bus to go back to La Rambla so we could grab dinner and head back to our hole for the night. After a few minutes we realized we were on the wrong route and decided we needed to hop off the bus and find the nearest subway station. The kids were excited because we got off the bus right by the beach. The weather while we were in Spain was not the greatest and by the water the wind made it downright cold. We were all bundled up in our jackets and started heading down the boardwalk. This is when one of the strangest moments in our trip occurred.




I need to preface this story by sharing with you that I am not a prude. I know that Europeans are much more comfortable with their own nakedness, and I applaud them and their exposed body parts. I have every intention of preparing my kids before our next beach excursion by enforcing a "no pointing at boobies" rule. But I wasn't prepared for this momentous conversation at 7 p.m. when the temperature is a nippy 60degrees. The whole encounter is a bit of a blur. All I know is that while heading down the boardwalk I suddenly see what appears to be 2 naked men heading right towards me. I'm freezing my ass off and think, "No, I must be mistaken. My eyes are playing tricks because no one would be walking buck naked down the boardwalk in this weather". So of course, I do what any mature woman would do, and my eyes immediately drop to the gentlemen's nether regions. Holy Crap, not only are they naked, but they don't seem to be effected by the chilly weather, if you know what I mean. They were walking VERY proudly, side by side, and I'm sure I made there day with my jaw dropping reaction to their 2 man parade. I'm embarrassed to say that after they passed us, I turned around and admired their all over tan. I was stunned and grateful that the kids were so enthralled with the beach that they missed seeing the nudey twins strutting their stuff. A few minutes later, sadly, I was still thinking about the strange situation, when it occurred to me what struck me as so odd about it. Aside from the fact that it was cold and they were naked, it appeared that they had either both taken a very recent Nair bath or had kept their friendly local body waxer VERY busy. From the neck down, they were as hairless as a baby's butt. THAT is what made it kind of like a car wreck. It was uncomfortably disturbing to look at, yet you couldn't look away. Although Bryan would strongly disagree as his eyes were diverted anywhere but at our Spanish streakers.





After 4 nights in Barcelona, we headed North up the coast to the Costa Brava region of Spain to commence the relaxation portion of our trip. Our accommodations here made up for the dump in Barcelona and we had an amazing view of the Mediterranean from our balcony. If it had been a little warmer, I think we all would have been happy to never leave the villa. But since swimming and sunbathing were out of the question, we headed to the town of Cadaques for the most relaxing lunch of our trip. Cadaques is a small fishing village where Picasso, Miro, Dali, and numerous other artists spent time living and painting. It didn't take us long to get to the town but navigating our way through the 2 way streets that are the width of 1 small car gave me a heart attack in our stick shift rental. Bryan managed to find us a parking spot without removing either of the side view mirrors in the process.



I've finally realized that the key to a relaxing meal is to make sure the restaurant has outdoor seating that is strategically placed next to an open area for the kids to play. We found the perfect tapas bar in Cadaques that sat right on the bay with a rocky beach. Bryan and I relaxed and enjoyed a few cervezas while the kids spent over an hour throwing rocks into the Mediterranean. I could spend 1000 francs at a toy store and it still wouldn't rival the entertainment the kids get from a body of water and a load of rocks. There were a few near misses that involved rocks flying dangerously close to strangers heads, but there was not bloodshed and the kids (and we) had fabulous day.



The remainder of our trip consisted of letting the kids pick the activities they wanted to do. For E, it involved riding every carousel we encountered and eating lots of ice cream. C spent the entire 4 days looking for the best miniature golf course in Costa Brava, and eventually played the only one we found that was open. And Z chose to have us rent a little electric boat so we could putt around the canals in the nearby town of Empuriabrava. After dragging them around Europe to see lots of old stuff, it was nice to let them do the simple things that made them happy. We really take for granted that they have become such great travelers. And although our trips are never without moments of child induced insanity, when I stop and think about how tolerant they are for 6, 5, and 3 year olds, we can't complain. Well, we can complain, and do. But I suspect several years from now, when our European Adventure is in the past, we will remember all the fun and exciting parts of our travels, and forget the moments of trantrums, whining, and sibling fighting. I just wish I could say the same for the image of the hairless, Spanish, streaker twins that is permanently seared into my brain.

Viva Barcelona!

E and the Papparazzi

We've begun to attract a lot of attention since we've started traveling within Europe. This probably doesn't surprise most of you since we unintentionally seem to bring attention to ourselves with crying children, our less than textbook parenting techniques, and our general inability to fly under the radar in any situation. But we've realized we draw a special kind of attention whenever we are sightseeing with E. Initially, we thought people were drawn to E because she was 2, has a lot of personality (must have been a freak genetic mutation), and is, in my extremely biased opinion, really stinking cute. But we've started to suspect there might be more to it.

It all started back when we took our family outing to the Jungfrau (a.k.a. The Top of Europe). In typical Mjaanes fashion, we decided the best time to head to the only kid friendly restaurant on the top of a mountain was at noon. Why wait until after the lunch rush when we could eat in a cafeteria with 347 other families who also lack the good sense to avoid dragging their children to a restaurant during the peak dining hours? We had just made our way into the mayhem, when Z announced he had to pee immediately or we'd all be sorry. So while Bryan dragged the boys through a sea of tourists balancing trays of overpriced schnitzel, E and I began the process of jockeying for a table. As I was scouting out the room for the family most likely to scarf down their food quickly and wipe down their own table, a nice young girl approached and offered to have us share her table where she was eating with her young boyfriend. Hey, must be our lucky day! I considered telling her the louder half of our party would be arriving momentarily, and then thought better of it. So we plopped down at their table and the girl pulled some Tic Tacs out of her purse and offered one to E. This probably would have been a good opportunity to have the old "Stranger Danger" talk, but E really digs Tic Tacs and I wasn't in the mood to handle a 2 year old meltdown in a crowded restaurant. The girl seemed nice enough and popped one of the Tic Tacs in her own mouth, so I figured the "Don't take Candy from Strangers" talk could wait.

This is when the nice girl turned a little weird. The next thing I know she's whipped out her camera and started snapping pictures of E like she's America's Next Top Model. I didn't quite know how to react beyond the, "Didn't see THAT coming" look on my face. E just stared blankly at the woman with a look in her eyes that said, "What the hell is wrong with this woman?" As I was contemplating putting an end to the strange impromptu photo session, the girl's boyfriend walked up and they very excitedly began chatting in Japanese and smiling wildly at E. We must have been quite the mother/daughter sight, staring at the 2 of them with dumbfounded looks on our faces. They soon left E and I sitting at the table with minty fresh breathe and a story to share with Bryan and the boys.



A couple months later we experienced our next strange encounter. We had all just boarded a boat on Lake Lucerne and were heading out on a sight seeing cruise. E and the boys had nabbed a seat near the kids play area and were happily building with Legos while Bryan and I enjoyed a beer and pretended like we didn't have children for a few minutes. Suddenly, a young guy in his early 20's walked up and pointed at E. He had a very excited smile on his face and asked us in broken English if he could have his picture taken with her. Hmmmm.....what is the socially acceptable thing to do in this situation? Check references? Do a background check? I opted for the cop out response that placed the dilemma on my 2 year old's shoulders. "E? Do you want to have your picture taken with this guy?" Probably wouldn't be the Supernanny's recommended response, but we were caught off guard and I never claimed to be up for a Parent of the Year award. Fortunately, E had the good sense to say, "NO!". He looked at me like, "Can you help me out here?" but I shrugged my shoulders and offered him a superficial, "sorry." You should have seen this guy's face. He went from the perkiest 20 something tourist I had ever laid eyes on, to a kid who looked like he'd just been told summer vacation had been cancelled. He sadly walked over to his table of friends, who seemed to be waiting in eager anticipation, and began talking to them in Japanese. They all sadly sighed and a few gave him consoling pats on his shoulder, all the while looking over at us and gawking at little E.



Things really started getting odd during out trip to Italy. Anywhere we went that could be considered touristy, E was photographed. On our day trip to Pisa, I was a little concerned E was going to pull a Sean Penn and start assaulting the papparazzi. As we stood in front of the leaning tower of Pisa, taking our cheesy tourist photographs, I began to get the feeling we were being watched. Perhaps it was because we all looked like drowned rats after being caught in a torrential downpour? Or maybe we were being scoped out as potential suckers for a pickpocket scam? No, we were being circled by tourists who were working up the nerve to have their picture taken with my 2 year old. The area with the best view of the tower is pretty crowded with people snapping pictures and oohing and aahing in wonder at Pisa's main attraction. When we sat E up on a post to take a picture of her in front of the tower, a young 20 something couple ran up on each side of her and made silly hand gestures with overexcited smiles while their friend snapped their picture. Fortunately, at this point, we'd decided this weird phenomenon must be documented and we began snapping pictures of the freaks who were posing with our 2 year old. A couple minutes later, another woman walked up to E , put her arm around her, and had a picture snapped. Seriously?!?!?!?! When it happened for a third time in about 10 minutes, I began to create a genious business plan in my head. We could open up a little souvenir stand and sell tacky replicas of the leaning tower while charging 20 euros a pop to be photographed with E. I'm sure child labor laws in Italy are a bit looser than in the states, and this could be a goldmine!



Our last stop in Italy was Venice. It was here that with our combined IQ's, Bryan and I were able to figure out why E was such an attraction. While taking photographs of the kids from the terrace of St. Mark's Basilica, we suddenly found ourselves with a group of about 10 people crowded around us watching. And sure enough, next thing we knew they jumped right in and started posing with them. This is when it all started to click. There is one common denominator shared by all of the wacky E groupies. They were all Asian and all had beautiful DARK shiny hair. I've never been to Asia, but my suspicion is you don't get to see a whole lot of toe heads walking around. And E is as toe headed as they come with her light blonde hair and fair skin. Does this make it any less bizarre that random strangers want their picture taken with my now 3 year old? Absolutely not. Imagine the heyday these crazies would have on a tour of Sweden.



As we looked back at our snapshots of E and friends at the leaning tower, I noticed a woman in blue is sitting in the background of all of them, watching the bizarre scene unfold with a look of bewilderment on her face. Clearly, she didn't understand the attraction either and it makes the pictures that much more amusing. We will continue to add to our own album titled, E And Her Peeps. Someday when her blonde hair turns dishwater blonde like mine, she'll probably get a kick out of the 5 minutes of fame she shared with her Asian admirers. And as a side note, that lucrative business idea I came up with in Pisa has had a change of location. We'll be setting up our goldmine near the entrance to the Great Wall of China. E's college fund should be spilling over in no time.

I've fallen, and I can't get up!

I have discovered that in order to survive in Switzerland, there are only 2 things you have to be able to do. First and foremost, you need to become comfortable with people staring at you. It's not the polite American stare that ends the minute you make eye contact with the starer. No, the Swiss stare with no hesitation and hands down would take home the gold if staring contests were included in the Olympic games. At first, it made me a little self conscious. You know, is there toilet paper hanging out the back of my pants? Are my American children behaving obnoxiously?(Never happens). But I've come to accept that they just like to stare. Initially we were bold and actually grabbed our camera a couple times and snapped pictures of the unwavering starers. Oddly enough, they weren't phased by us taking a picture so it would last longer. So now we choose to accept it, occasionally roll our eyes at them, and usually don't even notice.




The second skill you need to manage in order to survive in Switzerland, is not nearly as easy as letting people gawk at you. When living in the Alps, if you don't strap skis on at the first sign of fresh powder, you are for all practical purposes, a complete freak of nature. I am very sad to inform all of you, that not only am I a freak of nature, but my three innocent children share this stigma with me. Somehow Bryan managed to learn how to ski while living in Wisconsin. Yes, Wisconsin. His family never skied, but apparently when he hit adulthood (I use this term loosely), he and his buddies somehow managed to find a hill in dairyland, and he taught himself how to ski. Not only did he manage to learn how to ski, he managed to get pretty good at it.



Twelve years ago, when we were newly dating, Bryan whisked me away for a day of skiing in Devil's Head, Wisconsin. I think by Swiss standards, this is a bunny hill for the 3 and under set, but for me, the uncoordinated newbie, it was a mountain. He started me on the bunny hill and I recall taking out a little kid on the towrope right off the bat. As you might imagine, Bryan realized I was the woman of his dreams when he saw me take out a small tot for my own self preservation on the bunny hill. Not one of my proudest moments.

After a couple hours on the slopes, I could turn, occasionally stop, and often fall with gusto. No big surprise. Everyone falls when learning to become the next Picabo Street. But one major issue kept me from attaining my dream of becoming a master skier. When I fell, my ass couldn't get back up. Seriously, I could not physically figure out how to get my back side out of the snow and back to a standing position. It's really hard to be cute and alluring with your new boyfriend when you are grunting and flailing on the ground with ski poles dangerously flying through the air. At one point, our love story almost came to an early end when Bryan uttered the words, "This is like skiing with my Grandma Marge". I didn't know Grandma Marge at the time, but I had a hunch that she probably wasn't hitting the slopes with a vengeance at the advanced age of 87. When I did have the pleasure of meeting her, God rest her soul, I learned that she was wheelchair bound and suffered from a serious case of cankles. I would have been proud to be compared with Grandma Marge in many arenas, but not when it came to athletic prowess.

Needless to say, we didn't do a lot of skiing after that first ski date. Otherwise I might be blogging about my life as a single 30-something trying to find love on the internet. But now that we are amongst the staring, fondue eating folks in Switzerland, we've decided it's time to really hit the slopes. The Swiss are so ski crazy that when February rolls around, they shut down the schools for a week and everyone heads into the Alps. So we booked our February trip to a ski resort, got the boys signed up for ski lessons with their friends, and bought all the accessories to look the part of a ski family. I quickly learned that looking the part was MUCH easier than getting from the top of the slope to the bottom with any kind of dignity intact.



The first members of team Mjaanes to take lessons, were the boys. We signed them up for four group lessons with 2 of their friends. Aside from being crammed with all of our ski equipment, our crappy little Opel Zafira was filled with excitement and anticipation as it climbed up towards the mountains through the sleet for the first lesson. We met up with the 4 other families who were skiing that day and despite the icy rain, everyone was in good spirits. Bryan decided not to ski that first Sunday so we could keep an eye on the boys and make sure we got video footage that we could embarrass them with when they are older. Considering they had never been on skies before, the boys did great. Z even unintentionally learned the fine art of skiing backwards down the bunny hill. He practiced that move several times that first day.



After their lesson, we all headed across the street to a little Swiss restaurant and our party of 20 had lunch. Everyone was excitedly talking about the skiing they had done that day and I was naively swept up in the whole idea of becoming a ski bunny. At my age, you would think peer pressure would be a thing of the past. But no, by the end of lunch, I was ready to sign up for my first ski lesson, put my almost 3 year old on a pair of skis and let an instructor work his magic. It's amazing what a few friends and and a couple glasses of wine can convince you to do.



Fast forward 1 week, and team Mjaanes is back at the bottom of that same ski hill. E looks adorable all slipping and sliding in her tiny little skis, and since she is the bravest and most daring of the Mjaanes kids, I don't think twice about handing her over to her cute little blonde ski instructor. At this point, my nerves have kicked in and I realize that I may be in over my head. My friend Stacey offered to take a lesson with me, and despite the fact that she had skied as a teenager in Switzerland, I agreed. The poor thing had no idea what she was in for.



We met Patrick, our friendly Swiss ski instructor, and he kindly led us over to the bunny hill. There were 2 other adult women taking lessons, but everyone else was between the ages of 2 and 6. I don't have a lot of faith in my ability to ski, but I figured in no time I'd be whizzing past the boys on the bunny hill. Maybe even taunting them with a little, "Later Suckahs!" as I headed towards more challenging runs.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Things went terribly awry right off the bat. I'll preface this story by telling you that I'm generally not a fearful person. I don't get scared easily, and I don't worry terribly about getting hurt when trying new activities. I've gone skydiving, parasailing, mountain biking, and even hosted a birthday party for 10 kindergarten boys in our little apartment. I'm no chicken. But my one true fear in life, is looking like a complete ass by myself. I've had LOTS of experience facing this fear since moving to Switzerland, but this embarrassing moment may require some inpatient therapy. Patrick led us to the magic carpet which was filled with kids. I stepped onto the magic carpet and gracefully began my 10 second ascent up the hill. I felt a little silly being a grown woman on the magic carpet, but Patrick and Stacey were ahead of me and I'm not opposed to looking like an ass, so long as I'm in good company. About 1/2 way up the little incline, the magic carpet stops. No big deal. As one of the ski instructors hops off to get it going, I figured this would be a good time to adjust my footing. (Insert cringe here) Yes, this is when my own little personal horror takes place. My close friends reading this can now prepare to pee themselves. As I adjusted my right ski, the magic carpet started up again with a slight jerk. The rest is kind of a slow motion nightmare. You know that moment when you begin to fall and realize there's no stopping? That moment seemed to take about 3 minutes. I don't think I actually screamed out, but in my own little off balance head I was screaming, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!" The rest was just a flurry of skis and limbs. Picture a giraffe on skis falling off an escalator. Yup. That's pretty close to what it felt like. Since Stacey and Patrick were ahead of me, they didn't see my display of anti-athleticism. Another ski instructor stood over me with a look that said, "THANK GOD you don't belong to me today" and hollered for Patrick. This is when Patrick and Stacey looked down to see me lying in a heap next to the magic carpet. I have to admit, as I write this, it was hysterical. At the time? Not so much. You might think that was enough embarrassment for me. But if you recall, getting up is not a skill I have mastered. So after a few flailing attempts to stand up, poor Patrick had to claim me and help me up. Good times.

Fortunately, for the next hour, I managed not to humiliate myself further. We stayed on the bunny hill and I finally got the hang of snowplowing. This is when Patrick decided we were ready for the T-bar. I don't know a lot about skiing, but you don't hear a lot of people talking about the challenges of riding the magic carpet. You do, however, hear people mention that the T-bar can be a bit tricky for a new skier. Seriously, did this guy already forget the heap of alpine disaster he had to retrieve off the bunny hill? He must be a glutton for punishment.



To my amazement, I made it up the hill on the t-bar without (further) embarrassing myself or my family name. Coming down the bigger hill even went pretty well, until I was about 10 feet from the bottom and suddenly lost all control. Rather than careen into the line of children waiting for t-bar, I opted to fall in such a graceful manner that the sound of my helmet cracking against the ground was heard by a friend standing about 100 feet away. Thank God I hadn't opted for fashion first and worn my cute ski hat with the ear flaps. I probably wouldn't have looked so cute when I was being dragged unconscious on a sled past the skiers who had business being on the slopes.




So my initial entry into the world of skiing left much to be desired. I started to think I should just embrace my "freak of nature" status and learn the finer points of drinking hot totties in the lodge all winter. But after a couple post-skiing cocktails, the public humiliation didn't seem so bad and my throbbing head had been numbed to a dull ache. I may have humiliated myself beyond comprehension at one ski area, but dammit, there are hundreds of ski areas that haven't yet had the pleasure. And if the Swiss are going to stare, well, I might as well give them something to really stare at.

We wish you a Frohe Weihnachte!

Fall quickly turned into Winter here in Switzerland and with it comes new experiences and lots of grey skies. I had been told that from November to February, it is pretty grey and dreary here in the land of sausage and cheese. It has been suggested that we take plenty of trips up into the mountains to find some sunshine or we run the risk of succumbing to a bout of seasonal depression. Ahh...nothing says the holidays like mommy staying in her pajamas for a week straight with a collection of empty wine bottles by her side. So far we are all smiling our way through the season, but this may have more to do with our excitment over a trip back to Chicago than our ability to go without sun for weeks on end. We were all counting the days until we returned "home" to see our friends and family. Even Bryan who has missed home less than the rest of us, admitted that he really needed a trip home. The Christmas season here is beautiful and interesting in a lot of ways, but the Mjaanes family was ready for a little Christmas American style.



Before we headed back to Chicago to celebrate Christmas and New Years with our families, we experienced some of the Swiss traditions of the holidays. Not everything about Christmas is so different. They don't have Santa Claus, but they do have Samichlaus. He looks a lot like Santa. Red suit, funny hat, white beard. He's not fat like our American Santa. But the Swiss don't tend to appreciate obesity quite like our Big Mac loving culture. The kids get to visit with Samichlaus at school and in general it seems very similar to our ho ho ho version. EXCEPT, the Swiss like to shake things up a bit and scare the living crap out of their children. Samichlaus has an evil twin named Schmutzli. Seriously people, I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to. Schmutzli looks very similar to Samichlaus, except his outfit is black instead of red, he has black charcoal on his face and he carries a switch and a burlap bag. Why the switch and the burlap sack, you ask? Well, for the naughty little Swiss brats, of course. Legend has it that the naughty little ones get whipped by psycho Schmutzli and then thrown in his burlap sack, never to see their mummy and daddy again. I find it amusing that they don't celebrate Halloween, but they incorporate beatings and kidnappings into celebrating the birth of baby Jesus. Now, I'm not opposed to terrifying my children on occasion. (Ask me about taking the boys to a haunted house when they were 3 and 4. Some therapist is going to be very wealthy some day.) But this takes it a little far for me. Z's class took a field trip to search for Samichlaus's little shack in the woods. Keep in mind, these kids are 4 years old and are searching the woods for Samichlaus and a scary dude that may or may not want to whip them and drag them off into the woods in a sack. And I know a couple of these kids to be prime candidates for some face time with Schmutzli. Fortunately, Schmutzli's bag remained empty that day and all the kids received a bag of "sweets" from Samichlaus.



In addition to Samiclaus, the kids' school also incorporates a Swiss baking tradition into their curriculum. In all the markets this time of year, you will find little bread people called Grittibanz. They are puffy white bread men with raisin eyes and are usually sprinkled with sugar. I didn't notice them much until Z's teacher let me know the class would be making them in class. It was while helping the kids make their little bread people, that the teachers offered a little history on the meaning of the word Grittibanz. Although no one seems to know why they are a part of Christmas, someone figured out where the word came from. And once I heard the meaning of "Grittibanz", I would have much preferred being lied to and told they were just cute little Christmas elves made out of dough. But the word “Grittibanz” means old man with his legs spread. Nothing takes the pleasure out of eating a delicious sweet bread around the holidays than being told what I'm eating depicts an old man with his legs spread. The origins of some words are really best left undeciphered. Fortunately the kids were too busy wolfing down their old men with spread legs to care about his origins.



My favorite part about the holidays in Switzerland are the Christmas markets that pop up in almost every town. Most of the Swiss towns feel very old and quaint on your average day, but when they throw up some white lights and line the streets with cute wooden huts decorated with garland, I'm all over it. Since this was my first holiday season in Switzerland, I was somewhat of a Xmas market junkie and picked a new one to visit almost every weekend between Thanksgiving and mid December. The biggest draw is the ambiance and the Gluewein. I'm yet to find an American here that likes gluewein, but I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that it is yet another type of wine on the list of wines I enjoy. It's kind of a spiced red wine that is served warm and in some weird way, it smells like Christmas. There is also a lot of Raclette cheese served at the markets, and while the gluhwein smells like Christmas, my friend Crystal describes the smell of raclette cheese as "smelling exactly like dirty feet".



The rest of the little Christmas huts are filled with handmade Christmas ornaments, wooden toys, spices, scarves and hats, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are a few booths that resemble infomercials with guys slicing and dicing vegetables with the "Amaaaaaaaazing Veggie Chopper and Shredder!" Even in German, the cheesy sales guy sounds, well, cheesy. They tend to jolt you out of the fairytale that is a Swiss Christmas Market. But for the most part, it feels like you have gone back in time when you see alphorn players and processions of people dressed in traditional Swiss garb ringing giant cowbells as they walk through the cobblestone streets. I didn't buy much at the markets, although I was tempted by the Amazing Veggie chopper. But it just didn't feel right buying it without spreading it out over just 3 easy payments.



So our pre-holiday festivites in Switzerland were magical in a lot of ways, but we were really excited to get home to enjoy some of our American traditions. Usually I get all excited to set my radio to the "all Christmas carol" station from end of November until Christmas. But this year I can probably count the number of Christmas carols I heard on one hand, with the exception of the 839 performances of Jingle Bells performed by my two year old while riding in the back seat. And there are no obnoxious displays of Christmas lights in Switzerland, just white lights tastefully decorating the downtowns. I never really cared for giant blow up Christmas decorations or flashy colored lights, but you'd be surprised how much you miss them after seeing nothing but white lights for a month. I can only imagine the anxiety attacks I could cause my pleasant but reserved Swiss neighbors by inflating a giant blow up santa outside our building.



The best Christmas gift our family received this year was being able to spend time with our family and friends here in Chicago. Being away has made us appreciate the time we have with them more than we ever have before. It will be hard to leave them knowing we won't be back until July, but we feel very blessed to have made some really wonderful friends in Zurich that make our adventure more enjoyable during the fun times, and less lonely during the "what the hell have we done?" times. We're looking forward to a 2010 full of friendship, excitement, and as always, lots of laughs as we fumble our way through our Swiss adventure. Happy New Year!

The Turnip Parade

Fall has been a busy time for us here in Zurich and we just enjoyed a week of visiting with my sister, Kelly and my cousin, Jenn. It almost took a tranquilizer gun to get Kelly on the plane, but she managed to make it and Jenn managed to not bitch slap her on the airplane everytime they hit a little turbulance. I'm thrilled that they came, but if you'd told me I had to sit next to Kelly hyperventilating on an airplane for 8 hours, I probably would have suggested a trip to the Wisconsin Dells instead. Both of them were good sports and our whole family was excited that they came.

They both left their husbands behind to keep things running at home. Not surprisingly, both husbands managed to send one of the kids to school sick that week, and I'm pretty sure neither one of them managed to prepare a single meal that required utensils. However, both husbands were gracious about letting their wife travel and their kids seemed to enjoy a week of bending the rules while mom was away.

While they were here, the weather was a mix between grey overcast skies and a constant drizzle. November is clearly not the best time to visit, and I was relieved when on their last day here they finally got to see the mountains. I think they were beginning to doubt that we were anywhere near the Alps. Despite the lackluster weather, we had a great time laughing at each other and since the 3 of us hadn't spent this long together since we we spent a week at our grandparents together 30 years ago, it was kind of like a mini reunion.

The week was filled with lots of visits to chocolate shops, a fleet of wine tasting boats, a casino, a hooters restaurant, and lots of sightseeing. All of these were enjoyable, but what would a trip to Switzerland be if they didn't get too experience a strange Swiss custom? Yes, our house guests were fortunate enough to be visiting during what we like to call the "stinky turnip parade". I'd be lying if I told you this event is as exciting as the exploding snowman holiday, but it is equally as weird. And like the hostess with the mostess that I aspire to be, I made sure Kelly and Jenn were forced, I mean, invited, to participate in every aspect of the festivities.

Typically I would attempt to educate my faithful blog readers(I think their are 2 of you, Mom and Dad) on the history of the stinky turnip parade. The Swiss name for this celebration is Rabelichtli. It's prounounced exactly like the noise an 80 year old, 3 pack a day smoker might make upon waking up in the morning.(Have I mentioned that Swiss German is not the most eloquent of languages?) Unfortunately, I am unable to share with you the history of Rabelichtli, because apparently no on has any idea why they celebrate it. All I was able to find out is that "Rabe" is the word for turnip (or sugar beet, although I assure there is nothing sweet about them.)and "lichtli" means little light. This would explain why it is celebrated by transforming turnips into lanterns.

As one of the room moms in Z's class, I was responsible for preparing the supplies for the children to make their turnip lanterns. So I roused Kelly and Jenn and dragged them to school with me do some turnip gutting. This is similar to preparing a pumpkin for carving, except instead of goop and seeds inside, you find good old solid turnip. So by 9:15, my house guests and some other expat moms were using melon ballers to scoop out the insides of turnips. I had been warned that turnips stink, and stink they did. It starts out as just a strange vegetable smell, but the longer you sit in a room full of turnip innards, the stronger the smell becomes. Not the most pleasant odor first thing in the morning. It seemed like a bizarre activity and I wondered what kind of whack jobs decided to take a rarely consumed root vegetable and turn it into a freakin' lamp. This is when my sister questioned the level of sanity involved in deciding to carve a face into a pumpkin and light it up in the dark. Good point. Every country has it's crazies.



After hollowing out the turnips, it was time for the 4 year olds to begin carving designs into the outsides. The idea of carving the turnip is to carefully peel off just the skin of the turnip to reveal the white flesh of the turnip underneath. When a candle is placed in the turnip, the light shines through the white part. You can imagine how easy this is for four year olds to grasp. They were handed scraping tools and given the go ahead to create their own design. A few of them made a few little gouges in their turnips, and many started scratching at them with their finger nails. It quickly became obvious that the adult helpers would have to scrape away at the turnips while the kids looked on. This was followed by puncturing holes in the root vegetables with screwdrivers and carefully threading string through them so they could carry their stinky little lanterns.




You might think at this point that my guests had been subjected to enough crazy Swiss turnip activities. But moderation has never been my strong point, and I had also signed us up for turnip duty at C's school. We were fortunate that the smelly sugar beets had been pregutted and we would only have to assist the 5 and 6 year olds in scraping the designs in their ugly veggies. The shocker came when the kindergarteners were handed metal vegetable peelers and told to have at it. Huh? I pictured all these innocent little expat children heading home to their parents with ace bandages wrapped around their hands to stop thebleeding. And as you might suspect, it took about 2 minutes before the first kid took a chunk out of her finger. At this point, I quickly grabbed a peeler out of a little kids hand and took control of his turnip. I wasn't about to allow these kids to head home with blood stains on their Rabelichtlis. By the time we were finished, my thumbs were raw and the kids had lost interest. One little boy had mutilated his turnip beyond recognition. I kept waiting for someone in the croweded cafeteria to yell, "STEP AWAY FROM THE TURNIP,SON!". I casually brought the boy stabbing the turnip to the attention of one of the teachers nearby, but apparently they were just happy that he was occupied. She assured me he would have a turnip lantern to take home. Hmmm.... that really wasn't my biggest concern.

The culmination of all this gutting and scraping turnips into lanterns is the Rablichtli parade. Each town has their own Rabelichtli parade where the kids march through the town after dark with their laterns. Usually there is a marching band followed by lots of kids carrying their little turnip lanterns. Some towns have simple little parades, while a few towns away they keep the turnip farmers in business by holding the largest Rabelichtli parade in Switzerland. Our family decided to take part in the kids school parade. We were told that we would all take a walk through the woods with our lanterns and would be entertained by the children singing German songs in the woods. Ahhhh......doesn't that sound like a quaint evening of partaking in Swiss tradition? I envisioned a beautiful stream of light illuminating the pathway from the children's lanterns. I imagined an opening in the woods where the angelic children would gather around and lift their voices in unison.

That's not quite what happened.

When we got there everyone was hanging out in front of the school with their lanterns, eating sausages and waiting for the parade through the woods to begin. A few people were randomly lighting lanterns and one woman walked up to Bryan and said, "Can I light your fire?" This sent my sister into a fit of laughter and I think Bryan might have actually thought he was being hit on for a quick second. Sadly, she was more interested in his stinky turnip. (insert snicker here...)




One thing we've learned since being here, is that despite the Swiss being VERY anal, I mean, organized people, the school tends to be the opposite. There didn't seem to be one person sharing the evenings game plan with everyone, and as we were hanging around talking with friends, we suddenly realized that half the group had headed up a path towards the woods. It was an EXTREMELY dark evening and C paired up with his friend Rasmus and took off ahead of us in the dark. I just kept praying Rasmus's parents had kept up with them. As we got into the woods, it was every man for himself. The kids' lanterns did little to illuminate any path through the woods, and how no one broke an ankle on the obstacle course of tree roots sticking up out of the ground, I'll never know. Thank God our 3 year old buddy Miles had a flashlight with him or we wouldn't have been able to see a thing. The poor kid listened to his mom and me say "POINT IT DOWN, MILES! POINT THE FLASHLIGHT DOWN!" at least 100 times. About 10 minutes into the walk, I lost my sister and cousin, but I was more concerned with keeping E from falling off an embankment into the darkness. There were some areas with what appeared (in the darkness)to be a significant drop off on one side. From what I was told when our "parade" ended, my cousin Jenn almost rolled down the side of a hill when she stepped off one of these embankments. Apparently it was as funny as it sounds.



At this point in our death march, I'm wondering who the hell has decided to make this an annual event at this school. And what part of me thought it was a good idea to drag my 2 year old into a dark forest at night with nothing to light the way but a freaking turnip and a tea light?!?!? After about 20 minutes of stumbling around in the forest, we came to a clearing and I prayed we were going to be miraculously back at the school. No, this portion of the "parade" involved trapsing through a cow pasture. Really, what could make this evening less enjoyable then having cow shit stuck to your shoe? Fortunately, we managed to find our way through the pasture without encountering a cow pie, and after a walk back to the school, we were happy to reunite with C, Kelly, and Jenn and head home.

After bitching to several friends about a lack of German folk songs, I learned that since we were at the back of the pack. we missed the entertainment portion of the evening, which must have lasted about 30 seconds since we weren't THAT far behind. Next year, I think we'll consider participating in a Rabelichtli parade in our own town where they walk down the street with their turnips, rather than through the woods. But we did get to experience another wacky Swiss tradition and were able to share it with our visitors. This definately wasn't on the top of my "favorite things about Switzerland" list, but it's hard to compete with the exploding snowmen and kick ass chocolate. Although I have a sneaking suspicion there are some crazy Christmas traditions that might make the list. Have I mentioned the evil Santa figure that threatens to put naughty kids in his burlap sack? The Swiss never leave me lacking for something to write about...