You Know You're in Switzerland When…

an ass is beautiful.

everything is just a bit more expensive.

plain m&m's are a new phenomenon.

How do you know you're in Switzerland?

The Frau's Love of English

The Frau loves English. She didn't realize this until six years ago when she moved to a place where Swiss German was spoken. Funny how being surrounded by a foreign language makes you love your own. It's a bit like moving to a desert and realizing, you know, I never really gave water the credit it deserves.

So let's take a moment, fellow yodelers, and give English some praise. Let's celebrate its short words. Its gender neutrality. Its lack of umlauts and accented vowels. Its lack of formal and informal you and instead its embracement of an all-emcompassing, "hey y'all."

That said, there is one thing the Frau loves even more than English. It's English spoken by non-native speakers. 

Oh, the joy that is a misplaced modifier. Oh, the excitement that is unfortunate verb choice. These little language lapses have no end in happiness for the Frau. So imagine her excitement to be in Paris two weeks ago (excitement also because it was her first weekend away from her baby ever and she planned on partying but in reality ended up sleeping) and to find this lovely note near the light switch at her bed and breakfast:

Please, switch of the light and radiators before living.

See what she means. One little Google-translated verb, one big fat laugh for the Frau. 

Anyone else love their native language even more after moving abroad?

Now available at your Swiss grocery store

Now in your freezer section.

Now in your chip aisle.

Whether you enjoy these products, or just a good laugh, the Frau would like to leave you with three little words: En guete, mitenand.