Week Three

I don't have many pictures this week, I will try to take more this coming week. I keep forgetting to bring the camera. So this post is mostly just random things about Switzerland and then random aspects of my life here.

The floor levels often have negative numbers, even though all the floors are above ground. For instance at the mall the floors are -2, -1, 0, 1, 2. I don't know how they decide to define 0.

There are zero signs of Halloween around, but they did have a small selection of pumpkins in the market, so I got one. It was five dollars for this little one, so I got my full use out of it, I gave it three faces. The family thought it was fun to see a pumpkin carved. We did have a few children come by the flat trick-or-treating, some dressed up, some not.








The "F" word is written around a lot. Which I think is kind of funny. I wouldn't care or know if people were writing French swear words around America.

The parks are awesome. A few we have been to have 50ft long zip-lines, which the children love.

The food has been wonderful! Some examples of things we have are freshly cut tomatoes, cucumbers or avocado lightly tossed with olive oil. For salad dressings we often just have oil, balsamic vinegar and freshly ground pepper. I have now had the traditional Swiss meal of foudue, very good but very rich and heavy. Last night we had another traditional meal of racquette(spelling?), it is a type of cheese that you melt and then pour over boiled potatoes. Very good.

They don't have clothing dryers here, they didn't in Japan either. Here we have a wash room for the whole complex, in the wash room there are lines to hang the clothing and a large fan to turn on to dry them. In Japan people just had small racks that they set outside, or left in a room of the house overnight.

I went to McDonald's on Friday with a group from Institute. McDonald's is the only American restaurant I have seen. I hear there are a few others around Europe. They don't really have fast food here. Anyway McDonald's, very expensive, someone said they heard it was the most expensive in the world and I believe it. It cost around 12 Swiss francs for a combo meal. Japan cost a dollar or two more than America, but not double or triple!

The money, CHF or Swiss franc is very close in value to the American dollar so that is very nice. CH is the abbreviation for Switzerland, but I have not figured out why. Like Japan all the currency under $10 is in coin form. The coins I have seen thus far are 10cent, 20cent, 1/2 franc, 1 frank, 2 frank, and 5 franc.

Today I rode the Fenicular railway for the first time. Not too exciting, just a short little railway that goes up the mountain. I think it is very common throughout Europe. We just rode up and spent about an hour walking around on the mountain roads. The railway is very close by, just in the city. We did see cows, which we have also seen on our other trips to mountain areas. The cows actually have cow bells around their necks. I don't think I have ever seen that in the US. It is kind of noisy with a whole field of cows.

Church has been great! At first I thought that would be the most difficult part of living here, sitting for 3 hours listening to something you don't understand. But people have been so nice and friendly, and many speak at least a little English. I have an American friend named Abby, she is here from Utah studying French at Neuchatel University. There are a good number of singles here, and most the guys speak English from their missions. Not because they went to an English speaking place but because their companions were mostly American. One of these guys named Lorenzo, Italian hence the very Italian name, was very nice and translated the meetings for me. In Relief Society I met another Italian woman who spoke English very well from her mission, in Italy. I also meet this nice stay at home mom, named Annie, with two children, so we are going to meet at the park this week! I am excited, I don't know anything about her, but she speaks English! I go to the park, different parks every day (there are a lot here), every afternoon with the children so it will be fun to have someone to meet with. There is this really nice grandma here who doesn't speak a word of English, but always makes sure to find English speakers to introduce me to and for me to sit by. She walked me home my first week, and sat by me when I was waiting for the meeting to start. So nice.

Week Two

Last weekend we went to a beautiful hotel up in the Swiss Alps called Les Bains D'Ovronnaz. It had two heated outdoor pools that had an amazing view! Here is what it looked like from the pool.





Here is the view from our hotel room.



And the following are just pictures from our little hike in the mountains. It was a beautiful, sunny, fall day, I feel like these pictures don't do it justice, but they give you a glimpse.





The food here has been amazing. The family I am living with is French, so I am learning about the French style of eating. They seem to be really into the courses of a meal. We have a stater type dish, the main dish then the cheese platter and dessert. After every lunch and dinner we have dessert! Dessert is simple like bananas with sugar or some type of fruit, but usually we have these delicious little yogurts that are rich and creamy custards or mousses. Their cheese is amazing! It melts and browns so much better than American cheeses. It is all so fresh too, considering that France and Italy are just a few hours away.

The markets are amazing. They have tons of fresh produce, and a bunch of everything. They had a stand with 25 different kinds of mushrooms, and then another stand with 30 different cheeses and a butcher with all these fresh portions of meat and a bakery with all different kinds of freshly baked bread. I haven't seen a single bag of pre-baked pre-sliced bread.

Overall I feel like everything here is the same, just slightly different. The lights don't turn on with a switch, but rather a button. The toilets don't have a handle to flush but also have a button, and they use a lot of water! Also the locks on inside doors are just like the old fashioned ones in Cinderella. The kind that you can see through the key hole and you have a cute little key. The fridge is small, but not as small as I thought it would be. It is probably about 16 cubit feet. Oh, also it has been interesting adjusting to everything being expressed in the metric system and in Celsius. Good thing I am an engineer and have used those units in my science classes.

Driving, I am still adjusting to driving. They have small roads with sharp turns and sight distance issues. And on a one lane road the two lanes traveling in opposite directions are separated by a dashed white line rather than the dashed yellow line. I haven't driven on the wrong side of the road, but I have been tempted on occasion to just switch to the other lane, but luckily I remember in time that the other lane is for the other direction of traffic. One funny thing is that the sign on the road that indicates the freeway looks like a picnic bench to me. Overall I have done fine getting around, which I think is impressive considering I cannot read the signs.

Week one

I just arrived here on Tuesday, Oct. 13 2009 at 8:00am(1:00am Texas time). I am in Pesuex, just outside of Neuchatel. Neuchatel has a population of about 30,000, and is right next to the mountains and Lake Neuchatel. We are located in the French-Swiss portion of Switzerland.

Things I have noticed here so far are the following: They kiss three times, as opposed to the French who kiss twice, when greeting or parting. They play American music in stores and on the radio, some of it recent and some is outdated 90's ish. They have cheap or some times free childcare in the malls (awesome!) and have shopping cart friendly escalators. They have roundabouts everywhere! I think I have only seen a stop light twice. Priority rules are slightly different. When you are traveling straight on a road and the road is intersected, but there is no stop light or roundabout the vehicle intersecting your road on the right has the right-of-way. There are very few houses here, too expensive. Most buildings have several flats or apartments. Almost every building if not every building has shutters, that actually shut. And there are often cute flower pots beneath the window.

Things that are neat about Switzerland: Fondue originated here, I only knew fondue as a 70's fad. Switzerland produces a lot of different kinds of cheese, I only knew about the one with holes in it. I haven't even seen that one here yet.

The following pictures are from around my block:












The first is the view from my bedroom, and the next is a view from the front room, if you look closely you can see the steeple of my church building!


This is the church building I attend, it is literally just down my street! The next picture is our view of the Lake Neuchatel and the Swiss alps from the front room.