I meant to write yesterday evening, when I got back. However, I got caught up reading science articles on The Edge, listening to wicked euro techno on ABCD Eurodance and then all of a sudden it was 11 and I was falling asleep.
So I took an early night, and vowed to continue this morning. After my monthly run (1 hour, once a month... discipline at its finest my dears) and techno shower party (copyright R. Louis), I can now sit down to write properly to you. (Reference Alert: Jane Austen!)
Svitzzaluhnd and my impressions
The Flight Announcement: The flight from London to Geneva was very calm, and I had a nice time looking out the windows to the alps and lakes around. Then the flight attendant came on the intercom to give us the weather report. In english it was "temperature, around 5 degrees, sunny, some clouds but mostly clear." In french we got, "negative 3 degrees, it is snowy and raining, overcast with bad road conditions."
What the gwah?
Multilingualism: Switzerland has four official languages, Swiss German (apparently quite different from 'High German', as it only has simple past, immediate future and present tenses, and uses some french phrases.) French, Italian and Romanche. Speaking french got me around Lausanne and Berne just fine, but when I asked for directions in Zurich, all the officials spoke english to me. My aunt told me that when swiss germans and swiss french come together, they speak english together typically. An interesting phenomenon.
Jumping Jacks: I was reading an article about exercise in a swiss newspaper and scared my neighbor on the plane by bursting out laughing. Explained (in french) as "an american exercise phenomenon in which the participant waves their arms and legs while jumping in the air. A beloved tradition held by americans as a cornerstone of their efforts to not be fat."
Tschuss: Goodbye, almost like "toodles" for anglophones, as it is a familiar word. You would say tschuss to your friend, not to your superior at work. I adore this word and go around saying it all the time like a choo choo train. Tschuss tschuuuuuuss!
Croissant Phone: In Lausanne I saw a guy who was talking on a croissant like it was a phone. He kept shouting that he doesn't have service, and that he can't hear the person on the other line. What a beautiful image.
Art:
Music: Some various songs I was given. They are in french or swiss german. All the artists are swiss!
The sole song in English...
Touristy photos:
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