Category: Updates

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Mountains in the Clouds

Mountains have some crazy effects on the weather in general, and at this time of year it is particularly unpredictable. We’ve been joking about the fact that the forecast has been the same almost every day for several weeks: “50% chance of rain.” What that really means is “We have no idea what the weather is going to be like!” It might be a beautiful day with a few clouds blowing by, it could be an overcast day with occasional showers, it can be completely different one valley over, and it can change every 30 minutes as the sky swirls around above us.

Last weekend, a good friend from college came to visit. We met up with him in Zermatt to see the infamous Matterhorn and traveled to Grindelwald to see another corner of our favorite mountain region. There were brief times when it was sunny and warm as well as times when it snowed and rained, and everything in between. Fortunately, most of the Matterhorn was visible on Friday when we arrived. The peak was obstructed by clouds as it is most of the time, but it still counts — check that one off the list! The next day it was completely buried in fog. Similarly, in Grindelwald clouds blew in and out of the mountains all day, changing the visibility constantly, and covering the peaks giving them an almost infinite feel.

The weather patterns here seem to be a reflection of how I’ve been feeling about this whole experience. Sometimes its great, sometimes its … well, not so great. And it often changes several times a day. My feelings aren’t matching up with the nice smooth “cultural adjustment curve” that I wrote about a while ago. Aren’t I supposed to be adjusted by now? Shouldn’t I be on a nice, smooth upward path toward feeling “at home” in my new culture? But I’m not.

Looking back, I am definitely more comfortable here than I was six months ago. My accomplishments are getting bigger. But I still make lots of mistakes and struggle with differences all the time. So, I went in search of a new model, and I found it! The “Stress-Adaptation-Growth” model was described by Young Yun Kim in her 2002 book about Cross-Cultural Adaptation. She sees the cultural adaptation process as a spiral in which each new stressful experience contributes toward personal growth. Sort of a one-step-back, two-steps-forward approach. This is much more reflective of how I feel. Many more ups and downs. Both sunshine and rain.

Just like the weather in Switzerland, this model is much more volatile than the original curve, and there is no “peak” in view toward which we aspire. We simply take each challenge as it comes, and do our best to use it as a catalyst for growth. And we recognize that without the challenges, there is no growth. That feels like a universal truth that is not just specific to our experience, but something we can share with everyone. And, as we hike through the cloudy, tumultuous mountains, that is the most comforting thing of all.

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At the fair

On Wednesday afternoon, I took the kids to the BEA, which seems to be the equivalent to the State Fair for the canton of Bern. Now, since the entire country of Switzerland is smaller than most states, this was really more like a county fair. In the past 8 months, we’ve been to the largest fair in Europe (Oktoberfest), a local fair in Germany (Barthelmarkt), a large festival in Switzerland (Herbstmesse in Basel), and so we had to cap it off with our own local festival.

There were some similarities between all the festivals. I swear they all rent the same rides from the same company. Our kids even recognize them and know which ones they like. Emily likes the one we’ve dubbed the “whirl and puke,” which no one will ride with her anymore after our experience in Basel. But, now that she is 8 years old, she can ride it on her own. There were fewer rides at the BEA, but the ferris wheel is always a favorite that we can all do together.

The food is also similar, especially the sweets. I am a softie when it comes to cotton candy, probably because I loved it when I was a kid (okay, so I still do), and my parents never let me get it. So, we bought three huge cotton candies, which my kids devoured with a little help from their mom. The festivals all have more traditional sweets like magenbrot, as well as other food like wurst. I have to admit, I still like the German food best.

The BEA had something the other festivals didn’t… animals. It really felt like a county fair, with local farmers showing off their livestock. We saw horses, sheep, goats, pigs, Bernese mountain dogs, and even birds and rabbits. There were no cows, which I found surprising in a country with such a “cow culture.” However, at this time of year, Swiss cows are all going out to pasture after a long, cooped-up winter. We saw lots of them on the way to the fair, so I guess that’s good enough.

The fair was a lot of fun, but also pretty exhausting. So, when we missed our train home by about 45 seconds, watching it pull out of the station as we were running to the platform, I nearly lost it. You would think after all this time, I would be better at getting to the station on time. But, alas, sitting in train stations is part of every excursion we have. So, the kids and I just made ourselves comfortable for the 30-minute wait, 15-minute train ride on a packed rush-hour train, and 5-minute bike ride – all with 3 balloons in tow!

A few more pictures at the fair.

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Birthday Bunny

My little girl turned 8 years old last week. Wow! Joe and I watched our video footage of her birth in 2004… our first child. Now she is a strong young girl who speaks 2 languages, bosses her two brothers around, reads chapter books, and does division. When did that happen!?

As we mentioned, she spent her actual birthday in Sorrento, Italy. But the real celebration was on Saturday when her friends from school came to our house for a 2 1/2 hour long party.

Now, let me just say that my history with birthday parties is mixed, at best. There was the time I planned a swimsuit/water-play party in July, and then it turned out to be 60 degrees. There was the time I spent several hours building an obstacle course as the primary party activity, which took the kids only 5 minutes to conquer and demolish. And there have been several times when I have burned through all my party activities only to look at the clock and find at least half the party time still remaining. Over the years I have done a lot of improvising, and learned that it’s really just better to hire professionals. Some of my prior successes include a rented bouncy castle and an expert face-painting artist.

But in Switzerland, birthday parties are “simple.” There is no birthday party industry like there is in America, no destinations, no bouncy castles. You can buy balloons, candles, and “Happy Birthday” garlands at the store, and that is about it. So, I was on my own. Plus, none of Emily’s friends speak any English. I knew the only way to pull this off was to be really well prepared.

Thank goodness for the internet! Emily had decided on a “bunny” theme, and I quickly found several blogs by moms who are way better at this than me. I picked bunny crafts, decorations, food, and activities. Two days before the party, I hit the stores (at least the ones I can reach on my bike) and came home mostly empty handed, failing to find most of the things I needed. Back in America I would know where to go to find tagboard and puff balls.

And I’m proud to report that the party was a smashing success! The girls had a lot of fun with the crafts and activities. By some stroke of luck, we had a few hours of blue sky during the party, so we were able to go  But here, I don’t know where to find those things, and even if I did, I probably couldn’t getthere on my bike. This is where my improvisation skills came in handy, using what we had in the house to make what we needed. And this year, Emily was old enough and interested enough to help with the preparations. She and I spent most of Friday afternoon sitting at the table cutting, glueing and tying.

outside for a hoppin’ gunny sack race, to make beanbag bunnies out of socks and rice, and to teach the girls the Bunny Hop dance, which they performed for their parents at the end of the party.

I knew we had done it when I looked at the clock and there was only 15 minutes left, and we still had one activity to do. We played Bunny Bingo (with the letters “HASEN” at the top – German for “rabbits”) using Swiss M&M candies for markers until all the parents arrived. The girls all had fun, and Emily only had to translate for me a handful of times.

Given the challenges of living, making friends and communicating here, throwing this party was a huge accomplishment. After her friends had all left, Emily ran over to me with a glowing smile, wrapped her arms around me and thanked me for such a great party. Her smile alone was worth it all!

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Sorrento (Part 2)

As you read in Joe’s post, the last half of our spring break trip did not go according to plan. And yet, we still managed to make some memories, just not the ones we thought we would.

We had heard that Italian culture gets more intense as you go further South. Coming through Naples on Friday, we had planned to wear our money belt, walk the crowded streets of Italy’s densest city, and eat a slice of pizza in its birthplace. Instead, we huddled in the train station while Joe figured out how to get to the port. A very friendly police officer named Genarro took a liking to our kids, asking them their names and patting their heads in the Italian way. He seemed to follow us wherever we went. He showed us pictures of his kids and wished us a pleasant journey. I think he was just keeping an eye on us, which I really appreciated.

We dashed through the rain and the sidewalk vendors to a city bus headed to the port. We saw a little bit of the city through the graffiti-covered bus windows, and some more friendly people made sure we knew where to go. We got onto a large, mostly empty boat headed to Sorrento and rode into the rainy, wavy Mediterranean. It was one of the longest 45 minutes of my life. I put my head down and prayed as we crashed through the waves. Some people are made to be out at sea… I am not one of those people.

We made it safely to Sorrento and found our apartment. That night, still optimistic and mostly dry, we went out to dinner at a local pizza place where the kids got to watch the chef toss the dough. His plump mother (or wife? — we’re not really sure which) pinched Henry’s cheeks and literally spooned pasta into his mouth, continuously waving her hands in the air and saying how cute he was — “Bellissimo!” The pizza was cheap but delicious, and the experience was priceless.

For the next several days, we were trapped in our apartment by the rain, going out only occasionally for food. We did walk around most of the town of Sorrento with our umbrellas (until Henry broke mine). We picked lemons from our backyard grove and made lemonade (symbolically appropriate). And made it down to the marina for a nice dinner on the water. Emily celebrated her birthday with a pajama day in the apartment, a few presents we had fit in the suitcases, a dinner of rainbow pasta and a giant Italian panetone birthday cake that she had picked out at the local pasticeria.

In order to avoid going completely stir crazy, we went on one real outing. We decided if we had to choose just one thing to see in this area of Italy, we wanted to see Pompeii. We took the commuter train to the site, and wandered the streets like an ancient Pompeiian family. We saw many of the best preserved buildings, but also wandered off the beated path, as we are oft want to do, where we came across the “house of the surgeon” among other things. It really is incredible to see. Henry had no idea where he was, of course. His favorite part was splashing in the many puddles, from which his shoes did not recover until we got back to Switzerland.

It’s funny… I remember our landlord back in Switzerland telling us that during Spring Break, everyone goes somewhere and sits in the rain. So I guess we got the true European Spring Break experience.

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Bella Roma

[singlepic id=961 w=320 h=240 float=right]For the first 4 days of our Spring Break in Italy, we “did” Rome. We dragged the kids to many of the major sites in the city. Having forgotten to bring our stroller for Henry, we literally had to drag or carry him to everywhere. To write about everything we did would take far too long. We took over 400 pictures, so if they are each worth 1,000 words… you can do the math. We visited the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Borghese Gallery, Vatican Museum, and Sistine Chapel. We played junior archeologists at Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum. The kids learned some important life skills about how to deal with con-artists in Piazza Navonna. And we had our own miracle at St. Peter’s Basilica. (After seeing the Basilica and rubbing the foot of St. Peter, we walked back out to St. Peter’s Square and found a stroller in a garbage can! The “miracle of the stroller” made our movement much easier for about 48 hours, until the already broken wheel completely collapsed and we put it in another garbage can.)

While the major sites of Rome are amazing, if somewhat difficult for kids under 8-years-old to comprehend, some of our favorite memories of the city were from the food and from our experiences off the beaten track. The kids loved eating pizza and pasta. We had gelato at least once a day, and discovered the best gelateria in our area where they make their own gelato, unlike most of the little stands and bars that sell it. We explored the covered market just behind our apartment, where I got our breakfast every morning and the kids ogled octopus and other creatures in the fish market. The last morning, the owner of the market cafe recognized me and bid me farewell and the lady at the bakery squeezed the bread to show me how soft it was (“You like it like-a dis? Or like-a dis?”). We got to know Alberto at the excellent take-out place down the road called Non Solo Pizza, or “Not Just Pizza.” He made excellent gnocchi, huge pannini sandwiches sliced and sold by the length, pot roast, sea food, and much more. Our adventurous kids even tried calamari – and liked it! The last night, we ate at a nice seafood restaurant, where James and I shared a Mediterranean lobster that they pulled out of a tank right behind us.

We did all of this by riding Rome’s confusing public buses, quite an accomplishment for a family of tourists. We felt like we got a pretty good feel for the city in the short time that we had. And, though Rome is not known for many kid-friendly activities, the Italian culture makes up for it with their adoration of children. Everywhere we went, waiters and merchants would smile and complement our children, touching their heads and saying “Bella! Bello!” We may be biased, but we have to agree!

A selection of our many pictures help fill in the rest of the story.

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Signs of Spring

Spring is here. Many of the signs are familiar to us — daffodils and tulips are blooming in our yard, the kids are playing outside with the neighbors who we didn’t see often during the winter, and the stores are filled with bunnies, chicks, and colorful eggs. The clouds moved in on Tuesday and have stayed all week, bringing the infamous “April showers.” There are, however, a few things that are different about Spring here than back home.

For the Swiss, spring means gardening in a much more pervasive way that we are used to. I have spent hours in our yard, our raspberry patch, and our vegetable garden trying to get them ready. And they still don’t look as good as all the other gardens we see. Many people who live in apartments, which is very common, rent a garden plot in one of the many community gardens in the area. Gardening is like a religion here. Neighbors greet each other over the bushes and talk about the plants and the weather.

Many other flowers have come up in our yard that I don’t recognize. Little purple flowers that look like styrofoam balls stuck to a q-tip are growing under our elderberry tree. Clumps of 5-petaled flowers in white, yellow and violet are everywhere! And our peach tree, magnolia bush, and giant cherry tree are all flowering. It is really quite beautiful. And though there is a shortage of robins, the ducks have returned in large numbers. We have even seen them in the road and one took a bath in our backyard pond!

Today, we died Easter eggs the Swiss way. There are no egg dying kits in the stores, so I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. But I had recently seen bags of onion skins for sale, which I thought was a little strange. Then a friend explained that they use the onion skins to dye eggs. Huh? I looked it up online, and sure enough it is a common way to dye eggs in many countries. We gave it a try, peeling the few yellow and red onions we had in the refrigerator, and it worked beautifully, producing eggs marbled with yellows and browns. If you want to try it, there are instructions here.

And, finally, today is Good Friday, the start of Spring Break for the kids. Everything is closed today, as it is a holiday throughout the country. Tonight I have a choir concert for the Good Friday service at the main church in town. We will be performing Charles Gounod’s “Seven Last Words of Christ” among other things. I found some samples of the music here. The last movement is particularly beautiful, a perfect piece for a beautiful season.

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Keeping Gramps on his Toes

Joe’s dad left on Tuesday after a week-long visit. It was great having him here, and we loved sharing our life in Switzerland with him. It was a lot to fit into 7 days!

In the first couple of days, he got to spend a lot of time with his grandchildren. They bombarded Gramps, and adored having someone new to show all of their toys and tell all of their “funny” stories. Henry showed him the animals in our pond, James demonstrated his ping-pong skills, and Emily got to open a few early birthday presents from Grams and Gramps and did a fashion show of her new outfits. We showed Gramps our town of Münsingen, walking to the farm to meet our cow friends, biking to the Aare river to roast cervelas, extending our bike ride toward the mountains, taking the bus to the town center to play at the playground and eat lunch at the outdoor restaurant.

The next couple of days, Gramps got to spend a lot of time with his son. He and Joe attended the Bernese Hip Symposium hosted by the hospital where Joe is working. They had a chance to “talk shop,” as I like to call it. After the first day of the conference, the kids and I met up with them to go out to a nice dinner in Bern. The second night, Gramps babysat the kids (after a minor miscalculation trying to find his way back on the train) so I could join Joe at the official conference dinner.

[singlepic id=920 w=320 h=240 float=right]Once the Symposium was over, it was time to hit the mountains. We had viewed them from a distance, but we couldn’t let Gramps visit Switzerland without showing off it’s most stunning features. So, on Sunday morning we navigated the trains to Lautebrunnen in the valley between the Jungfrau and Schilthorn mountains. We have been to this area before, and it is one of our favorite places. We wasted no time getting up the mountain and taking the cogwheel train across to Mürren, something we’ve never done before. Then we caught the main cable car to the top of the mountain, a first for Gramps and the kids. We snapped a lot of pictures and had some hot cocoa and a snack in the beautiful rotating restaurant of the Piz Gloria. On the way down, we hiked one leg of the journey. We got off the cable car in Mürren, a fairly touristy mountain town with lots of hotels and restaurants, and walked down to the smaller town of Gimmelwald, a much smaller village where we were greeted by a chorus of bleating goats. We caught the cable car again, giving Gramps the exhilerating experience of riding it over the cliffs beyond Gimmelwald. After returning to the valley floor, we had a little down time at the hotel, ate a warm meal in the restaurant, and collapsed into our beds.

The next day, Gramps joined Joe and the older kids for the final day of skiing for the year. The Schilthorn is the highest skiing area in the Berner Oberland, and while the lower areas are melting, the higher pistes still have good snow. Gramps, who hasn’t skied in about a decade, kept up with the kids who showed him what they have learned this year. Meanwhile, Henry and I took a funicular from Mürren to Allmendhubel, which we had never done, and then hiked a stunning but also snowy trail back down in our tennis shoes. We all met up after our adventures to return by cable car, bus, and train to Münsingen where we made a fondue dinner to celebrate Gramps’s last night with us.

The weather has been remarkably beautiful the whole week — sunny and unseasonably warm. The morning Gramps left, the clouds blew in bringing April showers. We still miss our families, but seeing Gramps was indeed like sunshine for our hearts.

See some more pictures of Gramps’s Visit here.

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Wildlife Weekend

For once, we spent a whole weekend at home. The weather has been beautiful, spring is in the air. So, we were outside most of the time, and the kids developed a new past time — watching the wildlife in our backyard pond. In our pond, we discovered one dead koi fish, one alive koi fish, one or two frogs, and about a dozen salamanders. Henry is terrified of the frog, and he screams at the top of his lungs whenever it hops out of the water. The other kids had no such fears, and they held the frog and caught several salamanders, until James fell into the pond. At that point we decided we should let the animals be and just watch them.

Emily and James also spent a lot of time up in their tree fort. And Henry likes to play in the pebbles just below the fort. He kept a close eye on the frog, who was sitting by the pond and croaking the whole time. We had our first outdoor fire and even roasted Cervelas (fat Swiss hot dogs) and ate dinner outside. It was almost like camping in our own backyard.

On Sunday morning, we went for our first Schwab family bike ride of the Spring. Joe had seen something from the train on his commute that he wanted to try to find. So, we biked north from Münsingen, and when we were nearly to the next town, we saw some large animals grazing in a field. These were not cows, as we are accustomed to seeing in Switzerland. These were buffalo! We stopped and watched them for a while, and tried to read the sign about the buffalo farm. It was all in German, so we aren’t completely sure of the details, but it looked like the original buffalo on the farm were brought to Switzerland from Wisconsin! Okay, so technically they don’t count as “wildlife,” but they were still fun to see.

Other wildlife spotted this weekend: an eagle soaring above us on our bike ride, lots of worms in the garden, and songbirds in every tree. It might not seem like much, but for the kids, its like a zoo in our own back yard.

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Newest member of Team Alps

Another beautiful weekend in the Alps. What can I say? We left on Friday afternoon for Hasliberg, where we stayed in a 400-year-old guest house in the mountain town of Reuti. We ate out at the restaurant next door twice, a rare treat!

Our primary objective for the weekend was to ski. The season is rapidly coming to an end. Snow is long gone in the lowlands of Switzerland, but the mountains are still open for business. Emily and James have come so far in just a couple of months! We wanted to squeeze in every opportunity we can.

As you may know, Emily and James have become such good mountain kids that we call ourselves “Team Alps.” We use it especially when we are in difficult situations. For example, this weekend when I led Emily and James down the wrong ski piste at the end of our final day. We ended up on a long, flat, slushy run that went to the wrong town. We had to take off our skis and walk part of it, and face the possibility of missing our bus back home. But, as always, we gathered our strength and said, “Come on, Team Alps, we can do this!” And we did!

Henry, on the other hand, has really just glided through our trips to the mountains. He usually gets pulled on a sled, carried on someone’s shoulders, or just stays back for a nap while the rest of us take turns hiking and skiing. But he has started noticing that he is the only one in the family who doesn’t get skis, and he insisted he wanted to ski with the rest of us. I was skeptical, to say the least. The one other time we put him on skis was a disaster. But Joe agreed to be in charge of Henry, so we rented him the smallest skis in the rental shop and headed to the slopes.

I have to admit, Henry really stepped up to the plate! Granted, we mostly kept him on extremely small bunny hills, which abound in this area known for the best ski school for kids in Switzerland. Joe or I had to be right with him the whole time, but by the end we could let go and let him glide on his own for 20-30 feet. And he loved it! He also had his 2-year-old moments, as one would expect. But, he walked around in clunky ski boots for two days, didn’t get a nap all weekend, and got a sun burned face. It’s official — Henry has earned his place on Team Alps.

His accomplishment completely wiped him out, and he passed out on the train on the way home. It’s okay, Henry, you earned it!

You can see a video of Henry skiing on our video page.

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Caught in the Middle

[singlepic id=289 w=320 h=240 float=right]What is it about March? Maybe its the nicer weather, more physical activity, or just the passage of time. It was last year at about this time that James turned a corner in his kindergarten class. Things we had been working on for months just started clicking for him. And it’s happening again.

James is in the difficult position of being our middle child, a role he plays extremely well. He is both an older brother and a younger brother, and he has mastered the delicate balance of tormenting his siblings while simultaneously endearing himself to them. He loves playing video games and computer [singlepic id=421 w=320 h=240 float=left]games, and while that hasn’t changed, he has discovered a number of new interests in the past months. He loves cooking and baking, skiing, riding his two-wheel bike, and generally enjoying nature. Just yesterday, James and Emily spent an hour running around our yard spotting all the little flowers and new plants that are sprouting up through the dirt – and they LOVED it!

James also loves to read, a remarkable feat for a 6-year-old boy in kindergarten who has never been formally taught to read in English. His abilities are attributable to one thing: Calvin & Hobbes. James has found a soulmate in Calvin. He is unfocused, mischievous, [singlepic id=903 w=320 h=240 float=right]and a pain in the butt. But he is also funny, imaginative, curious, adventurous, and occasionally sensitive. The other night when I walked into James’ room before going to bed, I found him clutching his stuffed tiger named Hobbes (yes, that’s the truth) in one hand, and his laser gun made out of tinker toys in the other hand. They protect him from any monsters that might be lurking under the bed.

Tonight, James’ kindergarten class put on a play called “Es Klopft bei Wanja in der Nacht.” And guess who got to play Wanja! For the past two weeks he has been talking about it as they practiced at school. We all came to support him, and it was great to see our middle child finally get to take center stage. He was so excited, he kept waving at us when he was supposed to be sleeping in his bed. Of course, the whole production was in German. I’m not sure acting is in his future, but we couldn’t have been more proud. (You can see the show on our video page.)

Oh, and James finally has his first legitimately loose tooth – at age 6 1/2! He’s been waiting for this for at least a year as his sister lost a whole mouthful of teeth. He should be getting his first visit to the tooth fairy in the next week or so. He probably could have wiggled it [singlepic id=373 w=320 h=240 float=right]loose already, but he insisted that “Wanja” had all of his teeth. Now that’s dedication!

Either way, James has always had a killer smile that could make me melt. I’m going to miss it. But it’s all part of growing up.