Moving blogs.

I'm changing blogs because this one is no good. The new address is http://jarrydsuiss.wordpress.com.

Christmas Food

Our Christmas meal was rather amazing. We had a big meal for both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. We had six dishes, we each prepared one (except on Christmas day my job was to be programming, yes we actually worked on Christmas day). Our meal included foie gras, paté, pasta, cheese, sausages, ham, baked potatoes, and Bûche Nöel. Foie gras is literally called fat liver, it's goose liver which has been fattened. It is extremely expensive, 105F for 362g. Bûche Nöel is "Christmas Log". It's a dessert, they are made with all sorts of different fillings. They are very nice. We had a whole bunch of different cheeses too. Swiss and French cheese is very nice, I liked most of them.

It's too hot.

Right now it is too hot. The day I got a new jacket it was about 7 degrees outside. The snow has mostly melted, there is slush on the ground and it is raining. I think I much prefer -7 with the snow. Today we went to the markets at 7:30am to buy a whole bunch of food for our Christmas feast. Instead of going to a supermarket to get everything, it is much better to buy food by going to specialist stores. There is some really amazing food here, photos will follow shortly once we have prepared the food.

The snow from last week was beautiful, we got about 10cm, so it was all over everything: on the rooftops, on the road, on the footpaths, it looked quite good in the fields and open areas where it hadn't been cleared by the snow plows. Unfortunately by the time I decided to take a photo it was dark and the snow had pretty much melted by the next day.

I have now experienced a bit of the Swiss culture, it is quite different to the Australian culture. On the whole, people are much more friendly. At the university, many people will say bonjour when passing in the corridor and when walking into a room. It is also not uncommon to have people say bonjour when passing in the street, especially young children to everyone else. There aren't as many big supermarkets, and the small specialty shops seem to be where people get food from more, especially for bread and meat. The bread here is incredible, and not very expensive at all. The meat however is very expensive, half decent beef starts at about 40F per kilo (about $45); I saw chicken today for 35F/kg. Cheese is quite cheap here too compared to Australia. Good cheese is affordable, you go to the cheese shop and ask them to cut a chunk from a wheel and you buy it by weight. It generally starts at 20F/kg.

My French appears to be getting better. I have been able to understand things better, I actually managed to understand an announcement at the train station today saying that the train was late and that it had been moved to a different platform. To give credit to the Swiss rail system, the train actually left almost exactly 7 minutes late, they then apologised for the train being late. I've also managed to successfully buy things from shops without failing at language too much. A couple of times I have had to resort to arm waving and telling them that my French isn't so good, but I managed to get what I wanted.

There was some sort of fair out in the street yesterday. We bought a tree, carried it up the stairs and realised it wasn't going to fit in the apartment, so we ended up sawing the top off. This is my first ever real christmas tree, it is quite pretty. We don't really have many decorations so it is a little bare at the moment. Today is the first day that I have seen the sun while I've been here. It is a little deceptive when the sun comes out though. In Australia when the sun is out it is warm. Today it was actually colder than every other day since I've been here. There is a slight wind, which when it is already -8, makes it quite cold.

I went looking for a jacket and gloves today too. I went in one shop and had a very interesting experience trying to understand and explain to the shopkeeper what I wanted. I think I almost got there in the end, but they didn't have anything suitable.

I realised on Friday night that while I was paying for my lunch the cashier asked me for 50c. At the time I didn't even realise, but that night I realised she had asked me in French and I completely understood without even thinking about it. I think my French is definitely improving already, I seem to be understanding things a lot better.

It was cold enough last night for the fountain to freeze over. There are two holes in the ice where the water flows. Today I saw another type of snow. Small heavy pieces of snow falling very quickly with lots of it. The ground was covered minutes after it started. It is also very windy, it's almost like rain, it's almost like a blizzard, but not quite either.

Snow, snow and more snow

Today it snowed quite a lot. It had snowed the night before and there was a good 2 or 3 cm of snow on the ground. There was a very heavy snowfall in the morning when we went into the town. The roads in this picture are clear because there is probably underground pipes heating the road. Everything looks better when it's white, especially while it is snowing. In the four days that I have been here, I have already seen about 5 types of snowfall, it is quite amazing the different ways that snow can form. Since I had never seen snow falling, I didn't know that one can see the snow crystals. When you catch a flake it is quite amazing to look at it and see the structure.

I am here with my research supervisor (John) and his wife (Blanca) and two kids (Carolina and Alejandra). They all speak French and Spanish and are learning various others. We went and bought me a mobile phone today. John got me to do the talking. I managed to ask for a phone, but after that I missed what the person said and Blanca had to help me out. It's difficult not being able to understand people and not knowing what to say. I managed to understand at the cafeteria better today. Just as I was leaving I think the woman serving said something about my French being better than the previous time I was there.

We get a bit of French happening over breakfast, so I can learn a bit then since they can explain to me in English what things mean. There are enough people speaking French around me too that I am hoping my brain will decide that the French sounds are important and that it should pay attention. The next trick after that is just to learn enough words and the grammar. I'll also try to ask for things at shops and see how I go. I'll have to find people to talk to, that shouldn't be too hard since it seems like most people only speak French.

This has been a very interesting week of settling in. There has been some good snow and some good food. I think I am getting past the jetlag. I now know where everything is, I can find my way around town, I know how to ask to change money and now I just need to work out the names of things I might want to buy. This looks like it is going to be a very fun and interesting trip.

Settling in.

Switzerland is basically awesome. The views are beautiful, public transport works, technical things seem to work, and everything just seems to be done generally better than in Australia. The trains and buses have mostly been right on time, they have been up to about a minute late a few times. The tickets system for regular travel is much better than in Sydney. I have bought a monthly pass which allows me to travel on any transport in the zones for which the ticket is valid, this only costs 68F (about $75) which for taking the train 5 days a week saves a lot of money.

I saw my first ever snowfall yesterday. It was very pretty, the snow melted in a few hours though. Today there was a much heavier snowfall and there is now a layer of snow on the ground. I can also see snow up on the mountains, it all looks very beautiful. Falling snow is very beautiful too. To look outside and see that everything is white and there is white stuff falling from the sky looks quite awesome.

I bought a power point adaptor today. It appears that things in Switzerland are engineered to perfection. My Australian power plugs fit perfectly into the adaptor, I have rarely had a power plug fit into a socket very easily at all in Australia. On top of that, the adaptor works in every country in the world.

The Trip and First Impressions

9:10pm Sydney time, 2:10pm local time.
14 hours is a long flight. The vast multitude of movies, music and tv shows helps a lot. But when you watch three movies and the flight is only halfway in one realises how long the trip is. The first thing I noticed about Dubai airport is how big it is, it also rather fancy, plus they have free wireless and power points. Unfortunately I can't seem to see much of Dubai from the airport. It is a very strange feeling when it should be dark and it's the middle of the day.

I can see the world's tallest building from the airport, but it was a speck in the distance from where I was, although it does still stand out above everything else. Things are done a little differently here than in Australia. There are security guards everywhere, much more than at Sydney airport. There are also gender designated prayer rooms. When I came through the arrivals gate they wanted us to take our shoes off and put them in the X-ray machine. They didn't seem to care about taking laptops out of our bags like they did in Sydney though.

Right now I can hear some guy making some sort of singing noise from somewhere else in the airport. It's not in a language I can understand so I have no idea what it is.

14/12 9:15pm - Zürich
My body currently thinks it is 7am and I haven't slept for nearly 30 hours. The plane was not so good because I was extremely tired but couldn't sleep. Now I'm past that stage and am completely awake again. I have just gotten on the train and it was on time to the dot and the tracks are very smooth, much more than Sydney. The airport was very efficient. There was a driverless shuttle train from the part of the terminal that I got off to the part where the exit is. It just runs up and down the track and only takes 3 minutes to make a round trip.

Everything in Switzerland seems awesome, especially technology related. The power points are superior to Australian ones. You can see from the photo that the power points are layed out and devices made so that they all fit unlike power packs going into power boards which never fit next to each other in Australia. The light switches are also push buttons. It is very cold here, currently it is -8 and it is snowing. My Sydney winter jacket is basically useless here.