Happy Swiss National Day

Grüezi Yodelers,

Black sheep like The Frau celebrate
Swiss National Day too.

Happy Swiss National Day. Are you in Switzerland on August 1? Then you should have brunch on a Swiss farm. It's the thing to do if you want to live the Swiss life, so naturally The Frau will be eating her share of Zopf, cheese, and dried Fleisch tomorrow. You can find a brunch near you at http://www.brunch.ch Just make sure your farm of choice is not already ausgebucht (sold out).

Also, in honor of Swiss National Day, The Frau is having a sale. Her book, Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known, is available for CHF 16 for a limited time. This price includes shipping within Switzerland and a free bookmark with a cloud or sun, depending on how you feel about Switzerland at the moment. The Frau will sign the book too if you want. The offer is available until August 10 and payment is via bank transfer. Please mention the super secret code Chuchichäschtli in your book order e-mail. If you can also say what Chuchichäschtli means, your total price drops to CHF 15.

All the best for an ausgezeichnet holiday.

Liebe Grüsse

The Frau

A Swiss Expat Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving holiday, The Frau would like to wish every yodeler much good health. And to do this, she would like to take you with her to the office. We expats do have to work on Thanksgiving, after all.

Open on a Swiss open-plan office on Thanksgiving Day. Employees are sitting across from each other. If it weren’t for their computers where they can read the news, they would simply stare at each other blankly all day long. People are speaking various dialects of Swiss German. Keyboards are clicking. Phones are ringing. But then The Frau sneezes and all work stops.

WORKER 1: Gesundheit.

WORKER 2: Gesundheit.

THE FRAU: Danke.

WORKER 3: Gesundheit.

THE FRAU: Merci.

WORKER 1 starts typing again. WORKER 2 continues his phone call. Things are getting back to normal. But just when The Frau thinks she can get back to work...

WORKER 4/STRAGGLER 1: Gesundheit.

THE FRAU: Thanks. Danke. Gleichfalls.

Everyone gets back to work for 4 minutes and 38 seconds (approximately). Then…

WORKER 5: Sneeze.

Repeat entire dialogue, bitte.

The Boss walks over.

THE BOSS: Did everyone remember to do their timesheets?

EVERYONE: Nein. There is no job number for sneezing. What should we do?

The boss leaves to check about job number for sneezing. Then it happens. The Frau feels another sneeze coming on. She can’t bear it. So she runs to the bathroom so she can sneeze scene-less, but on the way there, someone wishes her En Guete. Of course. It is almost turkey time, mitenand. So stop typing and start sending your En Guetes irgendwo before you leave the office to get a Rivella and an overpriced sandwich. Happy Expat Thanksgiving.

Expats: The Most Confused People on Earth

Expat Thanksgiving is already over. It was last weekend.

The Frau sometimes misses the United States. She misses family. Especially on Thanksgiving Day. And it’s hard to raise a child when you are 5,000 miles from home even when you have friends that masquerade as aunts and uncles, other expats you eat turkey with the weekend before.

And there are other American things the Frau misses, things that are so hard to come by in Switzerland like affordable housing, non-smoking outdoor space, English, and cheap Chinese food.

In these moments, the Frau could move home again. But a moment later, the Frau thinks, wait! If she’s in Chicago, she won’t be able to grocery shop in another country on a whim. Or bike over a border. Or hike in the woods without driving to a forest preserve first.

And then her friends in the U.S. add to her angst, e-mailing her things like, “I have to fly back on Christmas Day because I have to work on the 26^th”

Work on December 26^th? What kind of heartless company makes people work on the 26^th? Oh yeah, an American one.

Excuse the Frau, but after being in Europe for six years, where everything shuts down between Christmas and New Years, the thought of being thrown back into the American Rat Race, where stores now open even on Thanksgiving, is one of the biggest reasons to stay in Europe. 

But then again, there's always that pesky long-haul flight just so Baby M can visit grandparents…

Oh help.

The only conclusion the Frau can come to this Thanksgiving is this: The idea of living in the U.S. again scares her. She wants to. She wants to not. She wants to. She wants to not.

But then again, staying in Switzerland scares her too. Does she want her daughter to be Swiss? Does she want her daughter to always be treated as a foreigner even if she grows up here? Does the Frau want to continue live her life as a foreigner? Does the Frau want her daughter to speak a secret language while she continues to feel like a two-year-old when it comes to Swiss German?

The Frau has become like many expats: stuck somewhere between two worlds. And because she knows them both so well now, neither one of them will be ever perfect.

What the heck was she thinking when she moved abroad?

She was thinking of adventure. Not of being ruined for life no matter what country she lives in.

Everyone knows it takes guts to move abroad. But no one talks about the fact that it might end up taking even bigger guts to move home again.

Does anyone else have these issues? What makes you want to move abroad? What makes you want to move home? And what makes you scared of ever doing either?  

God save the Frau, Stadtfest Baden is here.

Are you ready yodelers? Because it’s that time of year. Time for the festival with the worst logo the Frau has ever seen. 

Can someone please explain the comma?

In a way, the

Stadtfest Ba-

den,

logo is so bad, it’s good. And it’s everywhere. On bus wraps. On billboards. On the festival plakat that the Frau will probably be forced into buying just for going out her front door. Even the shops in Baden are getting into the action, arranging the logo in the proper

Stadtfest Ba-

Thank goodness they didn't forget the comma!

den,

arrangement on their windows. Yes. With the comma and the bad word break and everything. It’s almost too much fun for the Frau to handle. And you know the Frau. Would she ever be sarcastic?

In case you can't tell, the Frau isn't overjoyed for this Fest. She learned from experience that a 10-day festival in Baden will make her completely sleep deprived and overly anxious to never hear a collective drunk scream at 5 a.m. or a Swiss-German rapper played at ear-defending decibels again.

Ja, die Frau hat Erfahrung. She lived through another one of Baden’s 10-day festivals in 2007. It was called Badenfahrt and it taught her that even Swiss buildings made with 100% concrete can shake when placed next to a rock and pop stage featuring, you guessed it, Swiss German rappers.

Anyway, Badenfahrt had a better logo but a much more unfortunate name. Not that the Swiss minded. In fact, they actually sold T-shirts with Baden on one side and Fahrt on the back. The Frau now regrets not buying one so she’ll most likely be ponying up the CHF 40 for her plakat featuring the worst logo she has ever seen just for the novelty of actually owning such a souvenir.

Are you coming to Stadtfest Ba-

den,? 

Scary Worldwide: The Band Uniform

In honor of Halloween, I wanted to share something that is a truly frightening phenomenon worldwide: the school band uniform. Pictured above is Baden's version (heads have been chopped off to protect the innocent).

What an outfit. Wow. Makes me feel better about that wool, navy and orange shoulder padded suit that I had to wear in high school.

Note to all band members: I know it's not your fault, but putting a feather in your cap is never a good idea.

Did you wear a band uniform in school and live to tell about it?

How to use REKA checks

For the last four years, my husband has been getting pay slips to order REKA checks from his company at a discount of 20%. REKA checks can be used to pay for holidays in Switzerland and have been around for decades.

But like most things during our first few years here, my expat brain could handle only so much stimulation, and so the REKA check stuff would get recycled with all of the other mail that wasn't absolutely necessary to figure out.

But now, after being here for almost four years, I have energy to figure out some new stuff. So when the REKA info arrived a couple of weeks ago, I actually ordered CHF 500 worth of REKA checks, which meant I got them for CHF 400 with the 20% discount. After receiving the checks in the mail, I went directly to the train station to buy overnight train tickets to Lake Bled and used them all up in one big payment. And they worked so great, the very next day, I ordered another CHF 400 worth.

So here's what you do if you get REKA stuff from your company: take the pay slip to the bank and pay it. About a week later, the mailman will ring your bell and you'll sign to receive your checks. If you order CHF 500 worth, you'll get one envelope with CHF 300 (all in CHF 10 denominations) and two envelopes, each with two CHF 50 denominations.

REKA has a website that shows all the places you can use REKA checks, but this website, like many Swiss websites, has much to be desired and almost never functions properly. So here's all you need to know:

You can use REKA checks for anything SBB/CFF/FFS. And that should be all you need to make them worth it. You can use the checks for buying local train tickets in the automated machines. You can use to checks to buy a ticket to Paris. You can use the checks to pay for an entire SBB vacation. And you can use them to buy your GA or half-price card.

If your company doesn't give you REKA checks at a discount, you can also buy them at COOP, but this is not such a great deal as you will only get a benefit of 3% (what a typical Swiss discount!). But still, if you're buying a GA or something pricey, it's an option if you want to save a bit of money.

If anyone has experience with REKA checks or just wants to comment on how to save money in Switzerland, please leave a comment.

Last Minute Gift Ideas from Switzerland

Cheese. Chocolate. Fondue Pot. This being my fourth Christmas in Switzerland, it has been even harder to get creative with what to give friends and family back home. Sure I've talked about the ultimate Swiss souvenir before, but I needed something different this time, as some family members already have that particular bathroom accessory. Anyhow, you can read what I've come up with over on Expatica.com today (except for you, mom, no peaking!)

If you'll be giving gifts from Switzerland, what are you gifting? Or if you've received a unique gift from Switzerland, what was it? Inquiring shoppers want to know.

Celebrating Thanksgiving from Abroad

This being my fourth Thanksgiving abroad (wow, time flies), I've got to say that each year I've celebrated a bit differently. One of the worst parts about being an expat are holidays like these being well, just not like real holidays when you have to go to work. The first year I had friends visiting from the States and the turkey thing was too overwhelming (not to mention too pricey) so we had raclette for Thanksgiving. (You can read about it in my column in this month's Swiss News).

Last year we had our Swiss neighbor over for a more proper American-style Thanksgiving. We cooked turkey breasts, cranberries, cornbread, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie and more. All our neighbor could say in between admiring all of this foreign food, was "it's just like in the movies."

This year, I'm celebrating with some American expats in Zurich. We're having a potluck Thanksgiving tonight after everyone gets out of work. How about you? Will you be celebrating? Or just working? Or both?

And be sure to check out my guest post today over on Swisstory Blog about what the Swiss think of expats in Switzerland.