99 Luftballoons

Sunday rolled around again last weekend and only one thing could be done: we headed to the mountains. This time, however, we refrained from throwing ourselves down icey roads on bits of wood. This was much more refined (we were, after all in the French bit). We were at the annual hot-air balloon festival in Château-d'Œx. It was cold, but there was vin chaud to warm us, and the sight of dozens of balloons floating over the valley and alps surrounding the village.

Käse

As many of you know, Switzerland is famous for several things: banking secrecy, direct democracy, chocolate and cheese. We indulged in the latter on Friday night. A big, bubbling pot of the good stuff melted down with wine and garlic (borrowed from the neighbour) in the pot, swirled around with bread so it doesn't stick. Since being here in Switzerland I have been able to try a range of traditional culinary delights, and fondue is up amongst the best of them, though that might just have been because of the copious amounts of white wine that were drank as an accompaniment. Just so the cheese doesn't give you a bad stomach, of course.

Rodeln in den Bergen

Whilst waiting for dinner to cook (onion soup), I was going to tell you all a little about the weekend, which included such things as beer in Bern, Croatian authors, lots of ham, sniffer dogs, mountain trains, mountain vistas, sledging, snow, apres-ski and falling for Switzerland all over again. But then I thought I would let a couple of pictures do the talking.

The village of Bergün, perched at 1366m, high up in the Canton of Graubünden

We decided to do something active, can you tell what it is yet (from Becky's photo)?

The 6km long toboggan run between Preda und Bergün, descending 400m from start to finish.

Vögel Gryff

Today, something was afoot in Klein Basel. Today was the festival of Vögel Gryff, which dates back to the middle ages. It starts with the Wild Maa, Wild Man, sailing down the Rhine on a raft to the sound of cannon, whilst dancing to a drum march with a pine tree sapling. Then he is met by the Leu, Lion and Vögel Gryff, a griffon, and at noon they danced a fertility dance on the Mittlere Brücke to the sound of drumming, before heading into Klein Basel and repeating the thing again and again, until 11pm.

My housemate and I met up with her parents and tried to see it a couple of times, but always missed the start- but it was something strange and peculiar to Basel, so it was good to see what little I did. Besides, Beer is always good for breakfast...

Geburtstag

Me, Becky and Hannah in Cargo Bar

Despite suggestions that I blog about being misunderstood by an NHS telephone-machine today, I have decided to tell you a little about my birthday, which was last Friday. It was made extra-special by the fact that I happen to share it with one of my Swiss housemates.

Friday was a normal day for most of it, though work seemed to go quicker with the thoughts of the New Year's Apéro from 5pm. Once I had drank a few glasses of what turned out to be rather expensive white wine, the English department took me for an après-Apéro in Bar Rouge, which is at the top of the Conference Tower in Basel and had views across the twinkling, night-time city.

Afterwards I headed back to the flat, where enough cannelloni and wine had been produced to feed an army. We sat down, ate, laughed and drank until four in the morning. Even better, the other nine guests at the table conversed in Swiss. I could understand almost all of it.

The next day I woke up feeling slightly worse for wear, but soon recovered, because Becky and Hannah, two of the other assistants, came to visit in the evening. We had some bubbles in my flat before heading to Vapiano (where else?) for pizza and wine, then d'Bar and Cargo Bar for cocktails and beer and general merriment, also ending at four in the morning after a long walk back over the Rhine from Klein Basel.

I had a really great weekend, even if I wasn't in the best of moods to go to work this morning...

Dreikönigstag

Today is the celebration of the Epiphany, which I know to be the day when the three Kings visited the stable in Bethlehem after following the star from the East. I know this because I'm a good little Catholic. Ahem.

Rather than completely ignoring the day like we do in England, the Swiss have a little way of marking it. According to today's copy of the Tages-Anzeiger, this tradition dates back many centuries, though it died out in the C19th and was resurrected in the early C20th. Basically, it involves the Dreikönigsbrot, which is a special tea bread with almonds on top, in which is hidden a small, plastic model of a King/Queen (see photo above). The person who finds the model gets to be the monarch for the day, and doesn't have to do the dishes, gets to decide what film to watch etc.

Unfortunately, my housemates had eaten half of the bread before I even thought of taking a photo of it. Also unfortunately, I didn't find the model, Sämi did... Though, the bread was tasty, and I probably would've choked on the 2cm tall piece of plastic whilst wolfing it down.

(Apologies for the drop in quality of the photos- I got a new camera for Christmas and, whilst it is amazing, I haven't learnt how to use it properly yet).

Schon wieder da

I arrived back to Basel at 1am on Monday, to a toasty warm flat and the thought of returning to work and sorting out everything I needed to after my wallet was stolen in London. Both of these things have been tackled with and achieved. Not too much has been going on, really. Just plodding to and from lessons, standing in queues, eating and drinking copious amounts of tea.


One thing has changed, though. When I moved in to the flat, my flatmates told me that I would have until after Christmas before they stopped talking to me in High German, and would switch to Swiss. Now, those of you in the know will know how scary and incomprehensible Swiss German can seem. Ordinary German words are replaced by (often cute) little utterances that were unknown to me when I arrived in September. So, the German "Guten Tag" (Good day) becomes Grüezi, the German "Kacheln" (tiles) becomes Plättli, and the German "etwas" (something) becomes öppis, all of which I like to throw into conversation now and again.

Add to this a spattering of French words not used in High German, but used in Swiss High German (which is kind of a standard across the various Swiss dialects), and I was soon happily talking about Poulet, Billets and Velos rather than the more Germanic "Hähnchen", "Fahrkarte" and "Fahrräder".

The final casualty in this whole process was the scharfes e, or "funny b", the beloved ß of those North of the border. Apparently it's not been used since the 1930s here. I don't really miss it too much now, either.

Soon, my assimilation into the ways of Swiss will be on the road to completion, and I'll be able to whip out sentences like a pro. That is until I leave the confines of Basel and the Baselbiet, because out there in the remaining swathes of the Deutschschweiz, the dialect is a whole other kettle of fish.