The American public transportation system. It makes you want to drive.

Yodelers. There is something wrong with the American public transportation system. It's so good (insert sarcasm) it makes you want to drive.

But then, you don’t want to drive, because then you sit in endless traffic (because everyone else has come to the same conclusion that their public transport system won't work for them) and then you have to pay $30 to park, and then you can't even find a place to park.

Ok, ok. Maybe The Frau got spoiled by Switzerland. But based on all the Americans complaining about traffic, commutes, and lack of public transport options, maybe, just maybe, The Frau has every right to complain.

New York's La Guardia Airport, for example, DOES NOT CONNECT to New York's metro system. Imagine a European city not connecting its major airport to its train or subway system. It's just unthinkable. 

Well, the La Guardia example meant that it cost The Frau over $100 to get to a friend's house in a taxi. Americans pay the price for their lack of public transport every time they have to drive and park or take a taxi. It's insane.

The Frau’s sister recently had to change apartments in Boston. She now lives 6 miles from work. Sounds good, right? But to get to her office via American public transport, it takes her…drum roll…90 minutes.

There are no extra rides when you need them in the U.S.

This is not a joke. This is how broken the American transportation system is.

So The Frau’s sister tried driving. Took 45 minutes and cost $27 a day to park. But on days there is a baseball game, the parking garage kicks you out at 4:30 p.m. Even though you are required to pay $27 for the DAY. 

Desperate, The Frau’s sister tried biking to work. Took 45 minutes (wow, faster than public transport!) but the route is along busy roads and doesn’t feel very safe nor will it work during half the year in the snow.

Now let's go to another American city: Chicago. Compared to Boston, Chicago’s transport system is amazing. As amazing as a transport system is that doesn’t connect major train stations with other forms of transport can be, that is. As amazing as a transport system can be that can take you 15 miles in 20 minutes, but then take 45 minutes to go the last 1.5 miles of your journey. Will Chicago ever consider bus-only lanes? That is the question.

Needless to say, The Frau misses Swiss public transport. Seeing the Gotthard Tunnel getting ready to open on June 1 does not make this any easier.

See, it took the Swiss 17 years to build a 35-mile long tunnel through a mountain. In comparison, it took 70 years for one Chicago suburb just to repave 10 miles of their roads. Yes. Supposedly this summer, after 70 years, the suburb next to the one The Frau is living in will fix the pothole-ridden roads and The Frau might be able to bike down the street again.

Oh, America, there’s a reason The Frau works from home.

The big visit to Zurich

Grüezi, People.

The Frau is in Zurich. After a year away, The Frau is back for a visit.

And you know what? She thought she might feel like a tourist, but instead Zurich feels like home. It feels like she never left. It feels like Switzerland is embracing The Frau and The Frau is embracing Switzerland.

So far she's given a reading, gone to her first Swiss wedding, hiked the Alps, gone to two spas, done some writing and copywriting, visited old colleagues and friends, and most importantly, discussed construction schedules and tunnel transport with her old Swiss neighbor over 30+ slices of Raclette.

While visiting old friends in Zurich the other night, The Frau tried to explain to other expats how hard it is to make new friends with Americans back home. 

You know, those friendly, ever-smiling Americans. 

The problem is, once you tell your life story to the average American, and your life story comes to the part about living abroad, suddenly, their eyes gloss over. 

They can't relate to you at all. 

"Oh, you lived in Sweden?" they'll say. "That's nice."

End of story. The average American doesn't want to hear any more.

This is hard for the repatriate, who can't wait to share their experiences.

But until it was recently required for Americans to have passports to go to Canada or a Caribbean island, only 10% of Americans had passports (now 20% do). But still. About nine out of ten Americans can't relate to a repatriate at all.

At one point a few months ago in Chicago, The Frau's husband exclaimed over another American's bumper sticker. It said "CH." 

"Wow," said Mr. Frau. "Switzerland! What connection do you have to it?"

The other American looked at him confused. "What? The CH is for Clarendon Hills," he said.

Clarendon Hills is a Chicago suburb.

So there it is. The hardest part about being home. While your world is big, most Americans' worlds aren't. 

Coming back to the big, wide world solves this.

Needless to say, it's good to be back. 

Classical Music in the United States versus Europe

The Frau went to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) last Saturday night. They were playing for the third year at the Morton Arboretum in Chicago’s western suburbs. The concert was wonderful. It made The Frau want to see more of the CSO. Except…

Here’s the thing. Going to most musical events or shows can be a time-consuming, stressful, and costly thing to do in the U.S.

Even with the CSO playing closer to The Frau than in their usual downtown location, this still meant a 25-minute drive to the Arboretum each way, not to mention having to wait another 30 minutes after the show was over just to be able to leave the parking lot due to all congestion. (The Arboretum is not public transport accessible, in case you’re wondering.)

Anyway—The Frau was interviewing an American music professor at a German university on Monday. This professor thought that classical music had much more support in Germany and in Europe than in the U.S. The Frau asked her way.

“Because you can walk to it,” she said.

The Frau never thought about the arts and the support of the arts this way. But this, dear yodelers, may be exactly the reason that arts organizations struggle in the U.S.

When The Frau worked in Zurich, she would just walk over to the Zurich Opera House (a mere four-minute walk from her office) to see a performance. There was no driving, parking, or stress on her time. When the performance was over, she simply caught a direct train to her village, which left from the station a five-minute walk from the Opera House. This train came every 15 minutes, no matter the time of day or night. When she got to her village, she walked three minutes to her apartment.

Compare this to The Frau’s father in Chicago. He would also walk over to the Lyric Opera of Chicago after work. But then he would strategically leave the opera before the performance was over so he could rush to the train station to take a ridiculously slow train back to his Chicago suburb (that only ran once an hour in the evenings) home. When he arrived at the train station in his hometown, he either had to walk two miles home or have my mother pick him up. The lack of transport and good transport options in the U.S. is atrocious and it affects every part of life—even the support of the arts.

The Frau often wishes she could get a CSO subscription. But she’s just not willing to take on the hassle and stress involved with getting to Orchestra Hall and getting home--at least more than once a year.

What do you think about the situation for the arts in Europe versus the United States?

An Apology to Zurich Weather

Lieber/Liebe(?) Zurich Wetter, 

(please excuse The Frau's gender confusion but "Wetter" is a "das" so how do you address it in a letter?)

The Frau is sorry. She never thought she'd miss your grayness. But of course, Facebook jealousy did its thing and last week The Frau was treated to a friend’s picture of her family biking under blue skies to the Zurich Zoo (caption: 17 C°) while The Frau was freezing her B-O trying to walk seven blocks on un-shoveled sidewalks to spin class (caption: -15 C° + windy).

It is bitterly cold in Chicago. The Frau doesn’t know why people choose to live here. Oh wait, she chose to live here. But it’s so cold she can’t even justify walking Toddler M, who refuses to wear mittens, home from preschool (nor would the stroller function on the un-shoveled and un-even sidewalks).

So instead, Mother-in-Law picks Toddler M up from preschool in her car since The Frau is strange and Swiss and still can’t bring herself to buy a car. Yet. But the whole -15 C °+ wind chill is changing her outlook. (Oh, and The Frau would also like to say that Mother-in-Law is really nice to put up with her strange and un-American daughter-in-law. Especially since The Frau can't function at all in Fahrenheit.)

Note to Chicago People:
Often there is barely any snow in balmy
Switzerland, even in the mountains.

Oh temperate gray Zurich! The Frau is sorry for previously writing about how much your weather sucks. Because a place that is so cold she is stuck indoors despite a sunny, snowy day is worse.

Suck it up, you say? That’s what The Frau thought too. Stop complaining and go outside in the snow. So she did just that. She went to the snowy woods for a walk. How cold could it be? Well, according to her Swiss watch, she lasted seven whole minutes before she couldn’t feel her face and had to run back to the car. And that was the other sad thing. The only way to get to the woods is to drive. Another reason she'll have to get that car soon.

  

Everyone in Chicago thinks Switzerland is the same in terms of weather. But you’re used to this, right? they say. They see Switzerland as freezing and snowy when in fact it is neither, except maybe snowy in the mountains. Sometimes. But definitely not last year.

In any case, there is a happy ending to all of this. Because yesterday it was a balmy -2 C° so The Frau went cross-country skiing in the snowy woods. The only thing that finally brought her back to the car was a pair of blisters. And that was reason to celebrate.

Liebe Grüsse

The Frau

Clock Tower: A Love Story

Is it possible to miss a clock tower? In other words, is it possible to miss a dinging, every fifteen-minute, 24/7 reminder of just exactly how much time I've just wasted on Facebook? A couple years ago, I would have said, no. No way. It is not possible to miss something like that.

But the last time I was in the Chicago suburbs, I was lying in bed listening to silence, wishing I could hear what time it was. It was then that I discovered something: I have grown accustomed to my Swiss clock tower. In fact, I may have grown to love it.

My relationship with the clock tower wasn't always so happy. When I first moved in, I loved the Disney World looks of it from my apartment. But then I ended up cursing it, because surely, I thought, it would shut off at night, right after 10 dings, along with the rest of the city lights.

Then I started to get used to it. I never missed the train to work (2 dings). I never rang my neighbor's bell a second too early or a second too late (4 dings, then 7, for a 7 p.m. dinner). And for the most part, I stopped hearing it (no dings!).

But then hatred started up once again when the clock tower went under scaffolding for almost two years. It was ugly. It was noisy. And then, instead of a clock face, I was looking right in the eyes of Swiss construction workers, who were staring at me in my Strawberry Shortcake pajamas. Yikes.

Now, though, the scaffolding is gone, the construction workers have moved to the building next door, and it's just me and the clock, once again. And while its new white paint and blue facelift make it look even more Disney than before, that's ok. Because I'm starting to believe that despite all odds (I mean, all dings) we may actually live happily ever after. Or something like that.

Is Switzerland home?

Sometimes I feel like I don't know where home is. When I head back to Chicago, I've noticed that I always write "going home" in my Facebook status. But then when I get back to Switzerland, I've also been known to write, "home again". Can home really be both places?

Over Christmas, I watched Julie & Julia. It was such a great movie on so many levels (expat life, Paris, cooking, writing, blogging). In the movie, Julia's husband tells her that home will be wherever both of them are. I think this is a nice approach to answering the question of where home is. 

But still. Even if you believe this, a foreign country can still be hard to feel at home in sometimes. Today over on ACC, I've written a few tips on how to make Switzerland feel more like home. Like getting to know your neighbors and learning the language. I'd love to know what you do to make Switzerland feel more like home.

How do you approach the question, "where is home?" Are we lucky if we feel like we have more than one home? Or is it a curse to love more than one country?