Ohmygod ohmygod can it be? Jon Stewart in my house?

Normally I think people who blog about TV are stupid bores, but this news is too exciting to ignore: not only is Germany about to get Comedy Central, but they will be broadcasting The Daily Show every single day!

[Yes, I know, we don’t live in Germany, but all our culture (read: TV and music) comes from there, so sometimes we might as well.]

This is monumental for us expats. It’s more important, in terms of Things Expats Miss About The US, than when my local grocery store in eastern Germany started carrying salsa. Or when I started being able to access the New York Times online (yeah, I’ve been an expat for a looooong time). Or when Ali discovered where you can buy ice by the bag in Zurich.

The Daily Show is pretty much the only televised version of the news I’m willing to watch in today’s world. And I love Jon Stewart so much that I even watched the Oscars this year just to get a little more of him (favorite quote: “For those of you keeping score, that’s Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars, Three-six Mafia, one Oscar”).

According to the article, they will be showing an edited version of The Daily Show here (taking out things that are too “US-centric”), but hey, it’s a step up from our current situation, which consists of a weekly version of The Daily Show International on CNN (a channel I usually try to avoid) and all the Motherload we can watch over our disappointingly slow internet connection. But we all know what beggars can’t be…

Tags: Americana, Daily Show, expat life, Jon Stewart

A few more things about Berlin

Of course we did more than visit Christmas markets in Berlin in our four days there. Not that we can remember much after all that Glühwein… kidding, kidding. I remember a lot of stuff. Well, some.

To start off our second Berlin trip of the year, we first went to the ever-fascinating Checkpoint Charlie museum. The museum has expanded a lot since the last time I went through it, but it still contains all the exhibits I remember from years ago, like cars and suitcases and shopping bags modified to sneak people over the border. Outside of the museum, in the middle of Friedrichstrasse, a replica of Checkpoint Charlie has been erected, complete with actors dressed as American soldiers who will stamp your passport for two euros (I know this because my mother-in-law excitedly got a GDR visa stamped in hers; I was mildly amused but don’t have enough room in my passport for novelty stamps, even with its extra pages).

We spent a lot of time walking around the east, from Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburger Tor and down Unter den Linden to Museum Insel and Alexanderplatz. These are my favorite parts of the city, where the streets are dotted with cute little Ampelmänner (more on them later). I think the Berliner Dom is my favorite building in Berlin – I find myself staring at it whenever it’s within view.

We also took a trip over to the west on bus 100 (which is fun because it is double-decker and passes by a big chunk of the sites in both halves of the city). We visited the Gedächniskirche (the ruins of a church destroyed in WWII that have been left standing as a memorial) and the KaDeWe (a gigantic, famous department store where you can buy a tiny vial of vanilla extract for 25 euros).

Food is not Berlin‘s strong point, at least not when you’re a vegetarian accompanied by someone who insists on eating at German restaurants for every single meal. I ate a lot of vegetable strudel and stuffed mushrooms and salad, and filled up on beer. We ended up eating in the Nikolaiviertel twice, since we weren’t having much luck finding restaurants that were open in other areas (everything was closed for the holidays). The Nikolaiviertel is an artificially adorable little neighborhood which was reconstructed to look like a historic town center. Basically it consists of a church, a couple cheesy handicraft shops, and a whole lot of German restaurants.

Berlin is so different now from when I lived there (in 1997). It’s amazing how much construction has gone on, how many new buildings there are. On this trip I saw the new Hauptbahnhof for the first time – I loved the architecture, but was less impressed with their Swarovski Christmas tree (Zurich’s was better). Still, Berlin is one of my favorite cities, and I’d be happy to live there again someday.

Tags: Berlin, Germany, travel

International Glühwein Tour 2006 (part 3: Dresden)

From Berlin, we took a train down to Dresden for a day in the deep east. Dresden is a beautiful city even when it’s not decked out in its Christmas finery, and it drew us in with its promise of the Oldest Christmas Market in Europe, which is in its 572nd year. That’s a lot of Glühweins.

In addition to Glühwein in several variations, we encountered a couple other tasty hot seasonal beverages at the Christmas markets, as well. one was Eierpunsch (‘egg punch’), which was (not surprisingly) pretty similar to eggnog. The husband liked it, but I wasn’t so impressed. The other was Lumumba, a suspiciously foreign-sounding name for hot chocolate with rum or amaretto in it. Good stuff.

Tags: Christmas, Christmas markets, Dresden, Germany, holidays, Saxony

International Glühwein Tour 2006 (part 2: Berlin)

The last couple days of Glühwein tourism brought us back to Germany – specifically, Berlin and Dresden. I’m pleased to report we had great success in both cities, which offered up a variety of hot, seasonal beverages in a variety of Christmas markets.

First we headed to the ‘nostalgia market’ at Gendarmenmarkt, a relatively new Christmas Market that was specifically designed to be as cute and perfect as possible. Instead of Glühwein, many of the stands were advertising Feuerzangenbowle, which my extensive research revealed to be remarkably similar to Glühwein.

We also hit many other Christmas Markets around Berlin, including one on Unter den Linden and the one around the Gedächtniskirche. So many that after a while, they began to run together a little bit. One that stood out, at least by name, wasn’t a Christmas Market at all, but rather a Hanukkah Market. This took place in the courtyard of Berlin’s Jewish Museum.
We had to go through a metal detector to reach it (as everyone does to gain entrance into the museum). Around the market there were plaques in English and German which explained about Hanukkah and the holiday traditions of German Jews, which had developed into a sort of ‘Chrismukka‘ (‘Weihnukka’ in German) – a combination of Hanukkah and Christmas traditions that incorporated both their religion and the local celebrations that were mainstream in their country (something that occurs in the US, too). And of course, there was Glühwein.

Tags: Berlin, Christmas, Christmas markets, Germany, holidays, travel

2006: Dead frogs, cows on parade, a kidnapped snowman, and Japan

2006 stands out to me for a lot of reasons: my first full year of unemployment, our first whole year living in Switzerland, my first calendar year without stepping foot inside my home country (in 7 years of expat life, I’ve almost always gone home once or twice a year before this), my first year of blogging…

Now that I have a blog, it’s nice and easy to look back and see what has actually gone on during the year. Here were some of the highlights:

January started out strong with a trip to that Mecca of stuffed frog museums, Estavayer-le-Lac. We also began our Swiss ski adventures, with a couple unblogged ski trips (I wasn’t so sure about this whole blog nonsense back then).

In February we got more snow, did more skiing, visited friends in Bavaria, and watched mariachis get banned from the trams in Zurich.

In March we got even more snow, participated in insanely fun Alpine village winter sports, and learned to love Zurich’s bureaucracy. Also, I made a half-assed attempt to learn Swiss German, and the mariachis’ tram rights were reinstated.

In April I learned that Mexican restaurants in Zurich suck and that the Swiss have a very different definition of political correctness than Americans do. We were relieved to learn that at least some Swiss have a sense of humor. I traveled to Berlin, Halle, and Dresden, in my first trip back to eastern Germany since I moved away six years ago. I also started painting again, for the first time in 10 years. And of course, we skied.

In May we discovered the Matterhorn, the joys of monsters singing heavy metal, the charms of Bern, and politically incorrect candy.

In June we hiked in the Alps, hung out in the snow with some monks, discovered pizza in Zurich sucks, and got sucked in by the World Cup.

In July I barely managed to survive the heat wave (hottest July in Zurich ever!), using strategies such as swimming in the lake and ascending more snowy mountains.

In August we rejoiced in the cool weather, learned how to post videos, watched the Alps crumble, saw Zurich rave, and got our first glimpse of real live Alphorns.

In September we had fun in southern France, swam across the lake, and discovered Öpfelchüechli.

October brought us a Swiss cow festival and all kinds of crazy fun in Japan.

I barely remember November except for the novel-writing part. Oh, and our first trip back to Italy since moving away over a year ago.

So far in December we’ve… drunk a lot of Glühwein, in Switzerland, France, and Germany.

All in all, not a bad year!

—-

This post was inspired by the current ProBlogger group writing project.

Tags: expat life, Switzerland

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Swissmas!

OK, so I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of traffic from people searching the web for how to say things such as “Merry Christmas” in Swiss German. I thought I’d help you out by posting this little nugget of information, but then I realized that I didn’t know the answer. So I had my husband consult his bevy of Swiss colleagues to find out. Here is just part of the response:

It’s somehow difficult to write that down, but here is my attempt.
The following is to be pronounced as German words:

“Schöni Wiehnachte”

Here the first ‘e’ in ‘Wiehnachte’ is not only a long ‘i’ but has to be pronounced as an ‘e’. The last ‘e’ is pronounced only short, sometimes it is that short that it can not be heard at all or it is totally left away.

Helpful colleague goes on to report that “Happy New Year” is “Es guets neus.” He adds that “Here the ‘ue’ in ‘guets’ is not pronounced as an ‘ü’ but as an ‘u’ followed by an ‘e’.” Got that?

My Züritüütsch (Zurich Swiss German – yep it’s different in every city) textbook adds the following “Happy New Year”-type greetings:

• Vil Glück zum nöie Jaar!
• E guets nöis Jaar!
• En guete Rutsch!

The last one has a High German equivalent (Einen guten Rutsch!) and has always cracked me up. It literally translate to something like “have a good slide [into the new year]!”

So, Dear Readers, here’s wishing a good slide to you all, and of course a very schöni Wiehnachte.

Tags: holidays, language, Swiss German, Switzerland

International Glühwein Tour 2006 (part 1)

We spent the weekend Christmas-market-hopping around our little corner of Europe. On Friday I introduced fellow blogger Ali and my mother-in-law to that most delicious of Christmas treats, Glühwein (hot spiced wine, for those who haven’t been following along). This took place in the courtyard of the Landesmuseum, a large castle right next to the Zurich train station. In December, the courtyard becomes a little winter paradise, complete with ice skating rink and multiple food and drink stands serving up hot beverages and raclette.

I’m happy to report that the Glühwein was a hit all around (unlike last year when I made Swiss Mrs. try it for the first time – she found it vile. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, either.)

On Saturday we headed north to Baden Baden (not to be confused with Baden), a medium-sized town in Germany with a cute walking-district in the center and a big outdoor Christmas market (as opposed to the Zurich market, which loses quaintness points for being indoors). We spent the day wandering around and sampling various German Christmas treats, such as Glühwein, Magenbrot, Glühwein, roasted chestnuts, and Glühwein.

We were impressed with the wide variety of Glühwein variants on offer, such as white Glühwein, Glühwein with amaretto and oranges, Glühwein with Kirsch, and Glühwein with Jägermeister, just to name a few. We also liked that it was served in real mugs rather than styrofoam cups. One pays a Pfand, or deposit, on the mugs, and can choose to keep them as souvenirs or return them to the Glühwein stand to retrieve this deposit.

The next day we took the train over to France to check out the famous Strasbourg Christmas market. It was certainly the most crowded Christmas market I have ever been to, and probably the largest, as well. The large gothic cathedral in the center of town reminded me a little of Milan’s, and looked quite picturesque surrounded by a sea of Christmas market stands and an ice skating rink. The Glühwein (or vin chaud, as it is called in France) was served in horribly flimsy plastic cups, but at least it tasted pretty good. We had some delicious cheese and walnut savory crepes for lunch at a stand run by a very entertaining French couple. I also found a stand selling a delicious white Glühwein, which outdid even the German version.

Overall Germany is winning the international Glühwein competition, with Switzerland coming in a not-so-close second. France didn’t do so badly, but it lost major points for the flimsy hard-to-handle plastic cups. Don’t the French understand the importance of presentation?

Tags: France, Germany, holidays, Switzerland, travel, wine

Swiss Christmas Party, strike two

We went to a second Swiss Christmas party last week, thrown by my husband’s company. The owner of this company loves to force his employees to endure spring surprises on his employees, even though the Swiss ones (ie, everyone except my husband) seem to not be too fond of being surprised.

I, on the other hand, think these surprise adventures are great, and I enthusiastically attended this one despite the fact that I was feeling quite under the weather (ie, too sick to safely leave the house).

The Christmas party adventure started with a train ride out of the city to a semi-remote location up on a ridge. I’m sure there would have been a beautiful view had we actually been able to see anything (which we couldn’t, because it was night). When we got off the train we were handed torches, and then headed off uphill through a nice subdivision and then the woods, on a half-hour hike. This hike would have been a lot more fun if there had been, say, snow on the ground, but with the cold drizzle it was a little less than ideal.

When we arrived at our destination, we exchanged our torches for hot mugs of Glühwein and watched a tongue-in-cheek instructional video about the adventure that was before us: we were going to form groups around some sort of heat source, stick out our right hands and move them in circles, and feel an inner warmth.

But first, bowling! OK, actually it was Kegeln, a German version of bowling with 9 pins in a diamond shape and strange scoring rules. There were two lanes in the basement of the restaurant. After about 20 minutes of this, it was upstairs to the dining room, where another instructional video informed the two people who hadn’t yet figured it out that the activity at hand was fondue-eating. It was good, too.

The after-dinner entertainment was a montage video of past mystery trips and company Christmas parties. It included footage from our great Jungfrau adventure from the summer, but the vast majority of the video was of last year’s Christmas party, where employees had performed Beatles songs with delightfully amusing Swiss-German lyrics about things only they understood. At this point I turned to the person next to me and asked whether next year’s Christmas party would feature video of us watching video of last year’s Christmas party. He didn’t seem to understand me.

OK, so for a mystery event, this outing was somewhat sub-par. I’m looking forward to the next one to make up for this one’s shortfalls. I’m still hoping we’ll visit the monks at their pagoda…

Tags: Christmas, fondue, holidays, Switzerland, Zurich

Hey you bloggers in and around Switzerland!

The Big Finn, Sara and I have organized a blogger meet-up in Basel for January 14th. Bloggers in and around Switzerland are welcome to join us and bring spouses, family, friends, etc. More details can be found in this post on TBF’s BB.

If you’re interested in coming, let us know (by, say, leaving a comment on this post or sending me an email). We need to get an approximate head count so that we have enough space reserved for everyone. I think we’re up to at least 20 or so people already, and we don’t even have a name yet.

Which reminds me, if you can think up a name for our big Swiss blogger meet-up, let us know that too. TBF is favoring SExBOMB (Swiss Expat Bloggers Out to Meet in Basel, which, for the record, I came up with), but we’re thinking perhaps we should come up with something more… wholesome. Because we’re nothing if not a thoroughly wholesome group of bloggers.

Tags: Basel, bloggers and the people who love them, news, Switzerland

Hunting winter down wherever you can find it

Today we dug our skates out of the closet and went ice skating at Oerlikon, one of Zurich’s three public outdoor rinks. It wasn’t quite as picturesque as skating on a frozen lake (as we were able to do last year in Pfäffikon), but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At least it felt like winter.I hear the Dolder ice skating rink is the best. I’ll be checking it out soon.

Tags: winter, Zurich