Day 5: First Weekend

Hey Everyone! The first weekend is here, and it's been nice. Slept in until 10:45 or so; then got up out of bed and sat in my chair half conscious for about another half an hour. A necessary thing coming off of being up til 2 the previous night and recovering from jet lag. 

A lot of good things happened today. First of all, I have a cell phone. David Schneider took me out to the local "mall" if you could call it that. Picked up a few different things, one of which was my Sony Ericsson  pre-pay phone complete with sim card. As I learned over the last day or so American phones can operate in europe, provided that they have this special card in them. It's like an identity card that has your phone number, your contacts, etc. on it. You can slip it in and out of different phones and that phone will then become operable. Unfortunately Verizon does not use them. Had I a sprint or AT&T phone, I could be using it in Europe right now for cheap. Ah well, all's well that ends well. 

I also got a forward on my SalZH salary, which was excellent. I now have more cash in my wallet than I have ever had in it in my life (not counting plastic). What I learned in my pre-reading for Switzerland "Xenophobe's guide to the Swiss" proved true, the Swiss do indeed carry large bills around with them... "It is not unknown for Swiss housewives to pay for a loaf of bread at the local supermarket checkout with a 1,000 franc note. Bells do not ring. Security guards do not suddenly appear. The note is accepted without suspicion or rigorous inspection and given no more than a cursory glance; and, equally remarkably, the change is instantly forthcoming from the till." (Bilton, Paul, 16.)

Spent the early afternoon relaxing around the house. Had some lunch. This may sound a little stereotypical, but the Swiss eat a LOT of cheese. It our refrigerator we have Mozzerella, Limburger, and at least one or two other strange French-sounding varieties that escape me. My lunch today was:

--3 Slices of delicious European bread hand-sliced by myself from the loaf.
--Sliced french cheese covering two of the pieces.
--Butter on the third piece.
--Cup of Strawberry Yoghurt
--Glass of Milk

The other day I had something called "Hüttenkäse" for breakfast. Any idea my German-speaking friends what this might be? None other than that familiar Cottage Cheese. I wasn't sure what it was until I opened it, and boy was it good. You could tell that it hadn't been super-processed and sitting on a shelf for weeks. The little bloops of cheese were actually a bit more irregular in shape and larger and the liquid part a bit more congealed. I know it sounds gross to call a food that, but it was tasty! You could image the cow down the street having produced it, and it going right to the shelf.

The limburger I've not yet tried.

This evening was great too. Went over to Irene Marzano's house, one of the other English teachers at SalZH. She married an American, who was from up-state New York no less, near the Finger Lakes. The have three young kids who are just full of enthusiasm and are bi-lingual. And get this: for dinner we had hamburgers and french-fries! I chatted with Gerry for awhile while he grilled in the backyard. :) Talked about American sports, Seinfeld, what he missed about the U.S. but really liked about Switzerland. After moving to the U.S. a few years ago with their whole family they moved back to Switzerland because it was a better deal. Switzerland is expensive, but Swiss salaries are excellent. Here you can survive on one person's salary with a family. After we talked about what the coming school year was going to be like, and she gave me some books.

I'm even more enthusiastic about the coming year after our conversation. Looks like I'm going to get to work with at least a couple of small groups of students including some of the really motivated advanced speakers. We'll be working on preparation for the PET, which is a language proficiency exam offered by Oxford. So widely respected is it that students and professionals will include it on their resume.  I hope to go far with those students and have a lot of fun along the way, do PET, but also enjoy some good literature too. 

All in all the evening was great. Established some new relationships, had a good meal, got the chance to speak my mother tongue for a whole evening (good thing too because I have to keep sharp as a language teacher!). Tomorrow is an open-air church service and then the afternoon I know not what. Probably planning for school. Haven't done a whole lot since I've been because it's been so busy. Yikes! But it sounds like the first week will be a bit slower for me than the weeks to come, thankfully. Goodnight!