T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
After last year’s lackluster parade in Zurich, I was beginning to think the Swiss just didn’t know how to do carnival. I mean, a correct carnival celebration does involve a certain amount of coming out of oneself, public silliness, and, (gasp!) messiness. Oh yes, I’ve heard about how in Basel there is ‘craziness’ in the … Read more
I’d like to introduce you to the new love of my life, Cru Sauvage chocolate truffles from Sprüngli, one of Zurich’s two most famous chocolatiers (Teuscher being the other, tackier one). I don’t actually know what Cru Sauvage means, but I’m imagining that it has something to do with the raw, wild, savage nature of … Read more
If there’s one thing the Swiss do right, it’s sledding. OK, they actually do several things right (melted cheese, dark chocolate, public transportation, yodeling…), but sledding is one of the most fun. It’s a completely different activity here than the sledding I grew up with in the US, which consisted of trudging up a small … Read more
So my first attempt at premeditated week-long skiing was not particularly successful. We’re back from Grindelwald, two days early. I’ll let this article in SwissInfo explain why: The month of January is set to be the warmest on record in Switzerland despite the cold snap at the end of the month, according to the national … Read more
Switzerland won my heart over in January 2005, on a trip we planned at the last minute for the long weekend of Three Kings Day (I was working in Italy, where we actually got the day off of work for it). My husband and I were both tired and stressed, but we managed to find … Read more
In case you haven’t already read about it here, here, here, or here, the non-Alpy regions of Switzerland finally received some serious snow in the night from yesterday to today. Actually it’s still coming down. Woo hoo!
[For those of you who haven’t been following along, we are in the midsts of the warmest and unsnowiest winter in the history of Switzerland (please note that this is just my own estimate, and that I am not a weatherman).] Not being able to hold out any longer, we finally went skiing today for … Read more
The first big Swiss expat blogger meet-up took place in Basel today. About 25 bloggers and significant others were there to mix, mingle, and learn each other’s real names. After several hours of eating, drinking, and musical chairs, we were led on a little walking tour of downtown Basel by The Big Finn, who made … Read more
That’s right, folks, S.Ex.B.U.F.F.A.L.O. (or whatever we’re calling it these days) is just around the corner – on Sunday, January 14th to be precise. Starting at noon, we’ll be gathering at Zum Braunen Mutz in Basel for drinking, eating, and general blogger camaraderie (or whatever else it is that bloggers do when they get together). … Read more
This weekend we decided to get out and appreciate some Switzerland. On Saturday we hopped on a train to St. Gallen, a city in the eastern part of the country. We chose St. Gallen because 1) we had never been there, 2) we had heard it was cute, and 3) it was only an hour … Read more