Die Schweiz

Rewind to last week, Tuesday.  I have been up since 5 am and finally I arrive at Zürich Hbf at about 8pm.  My cell phone doesn’t work still, I don’t have time to stop at a pay phone and let Anja know I’m there before I catch my next connection which will take me closer to her house. 8:12 I get on the S-Bahn line that should take me to Rapperswil.  I think to myself, hm, hopefully there’s a payphone at wherever I get off.  Once I’m settled in my seat for the 30 minute ride, I look up and all around me are signs saying that if you don’t have the correct/validated ticket you will pay a fine of 100 CHF and however much the ticket was supposed to cost.  I think to myself, hm, does my Eurail pass work on an S-Bahn? Frantically search my Eurail for any information and it tells me the names of certain trains I can take, frantically search the train to see what kind it is…whew, safe.  Headphones in, relaxed.  Look up again and see ANOTHER sign.  It has a big number 1 on it and then says, if you don’t have a valid ticket for first class you will be fined and you must also pay for the ticket, blah blah blah.  So now I’m weighing the options in my head. I have all three of my bags that I’ve been lugging around all day and the only way to second class was up some stairs.  Do I risk the fine and stay where I am for another 15 minutes, or do I move? Well I stayed where I was, hoping for the life of me that nobody came to check my ticket, because I was pretty sure crying and saying I was American would only get me a bigger fine if I were caught. 

Well, you guessed it.  I am now down an extra 200 dollars.  

Ha! Just kidding.  I made it out of there without a problem.  The real problem came when I got off of the train at 8:48 in the dark and rainy night and realized there were no payphones at the stop.  I was looking around, trying to find one, when all of a sudden, a figure appeared in front of me.  It took me a few seconds to realize it was Anja! She saved me.  It turned out that her house is right across the street from the stop so she ran out to check if I was there yet. Gott sei Dank!

So I came in and was received at the door by both Tom and Olaf and they had even waited for me to have dinner, so sweet!  After dinner I was shown to my lovely room with a huge window overlooking Lake Zürich and mountains and the small city of Rapperswil.  Holy moly.  After living on a farm in the middle of nowhere for three weeks? It was wonderful.  I slept in till 10 am…every single day I was there.  So.  That’s slightly embarrassing, but it was also very enjoyable. Waking up to that amazing view every day never got old.  I just laid in bed and looked and looked and looked.  I spent a lot of time just relaxing around the house, trying to help Anja out with errands and meals (although I may have just got in the way sometimes…),  and enjoying sitting around the table with the Gierhake family and laughing. 

Here’s a few highlights:

On my first full day, Olaf took me out to Rapperswil and to their favorite pizza place for lunch.  He toured me around a bit and explained a few things about the city, which was very nice! He was our German police during the whole week.  Anytime Anja and I were in the kitchen and switched over to English, Olaf would come in the room and say, “What is that strange language you’re speaking?” At first it was really weird speaking in German to Anja, since we’d ever only spoken English, but I found that I could understand her and Olaf’s German better than I could anyone else’s so far.  They all helped me a lot and made sure I understood conversations, which was a nice change from being at the first farm.  Also, the best part of every night was when out of nowhere the music was cranked up and Olaf nonchalantly danced into the kitchen. Just with a big smile on his face.  Hilarious. You’re welcome, Anja, for sharing this information with everybody who reads my blog.

Anja and I also went for two long walks during my week there.  The first was around the hills surrounding her house.  Once we’d hiked up enough, we could look down and have an amazing view of the lake.  It was so gorgeous.  There were also a few small farms, so here is a baby cow we saw. 

The second walk was into Rapperswil and down by the lake.  I saw a Carnival parade with a bunch of people in costumes and all too elaborate floats.  One float was the Costa Concordia (cringe), one was of a water park (with full water slide into a small pool and shirtless guys), and many other creative ideas that I wish I could have replicated for Homecoming again and again and again.  But hey, at least ours had a rocket with REAL flames on it. The next exciting thing happened when Anja and I asked an older gentleman to take a picture of us together.  He got one shot in, then said he’d get one more and turned the camera the other way.  We stood there and smiled while he situated the camera juuuuuust right, and then finally he moved his hand to push the button, and down fell my camera onto the concrete, bouncing to its death.  You’ll be happy to know, it can still take pictures, the lens just can’t close all the way.  Good enough for me! And the second picture he took was way better anyway.  I’ll let you see for yourself.  We needed the vertical angle.

Take One

Take Two
Much better, right?

Here's some more pictures.

 There are also parking spots in parking structures that are painted red and have a white figure of a woman in them.  So only women can park in those spots.  They’re closer to the elevators.  That’s pretty cool.

I can’t even begin to talk about the food.  TWO nights of the best Indian food I’d ever had, amazing Greek dinner, a whole fish (first for me…chopped off that head like it was nothing), and Swiss Fondue.  And none of that was at a restaurant.  Anja is the Top Chef, as far as I’m concerned. On top of that, there was breakfast.  Fresh, warm bread with meats and so many different kinds of amazing cheese and ah! Heaven. And coffee, and espresso, and wine, and CHOCOLATE.  How much chocolate you ask? I’d suffice it to say I took in the 10 kilograms that any normal Swiss person eats within a year (or so I learned at the Chocolate Museum).  But seriously. 

One night, Tom let me tag along on a night out in Rapperswil.  We went into a faux Castle that they had built specifically for Carnival and inside it was all bright lights, loud music, and people in costumes.  I had to laugh.  And then I had to have a few drinks.  We also had a mojito at the pizza place, which was really good, but I’d still call it second best in my mojito category.  La Nuestra Cocina just can’t be beat.  It was cool because with each different person that took me into Rapperswil, I got to see a different side to it. 

On my second night in town, Anja, Olaf and I watched a Deutsche Krimie together (hopefully I spelled that right…).  It’s like a crime/detective series.  The episode we watched was all about a horse farm.  The vocab was totally up my alley.  We watched  it with German subtitles, too, which made it much easier for me to understand.  A few nights later we watched a talk show about the Catholic hospitals in Germany and abortion/birth control.  That got interesting and I could follow the bigger picture for the most part. Do not get drugged and date raped and then try to go to a Catholic hospital for the morning after pill.  Lesson learned.

Most of all, I just enjoyed being with someone who knew me/got me for a while.  It was a good break from this farm business.  And there’s even inside jokes that I’m going to write now so that Anja can laugh at them and nobody else will know what it means: you’re digging yourself a hole, NOISES, should we have more chocolate? (okay, everyone will probably get that one…),  “Okay, now say it in a full sentence…” (story of my german), fighting with kitchen utensils…etc.

I am so thankful that they let me stay with them and interrupt their lives for a week. P.S. THOSE CRAZY GERMANS. That’s what I was supposedly going to write about them in my blog, but I went soft.  They are nice people, what can I say?

I left on Thursday afternoon and made a 9 hour journey to Mehring, which is right on the border of Austria, for my second three-week farm adventure. I had my first full day today, and there are already stories to tell.  I’ll save the details for another blog entry, but just to keep you coming back for more, on my first day at the farm, did I:

a.)    milk a cow?

b.)    chase a tiny piglet?

c.)    birth a calf?

d.)    bake bread in a brick oven?

e.)    All of the above?

YOU DECIDE!