Home is not only where one hangs one's hat

(translated from German Blog Jessica Sagt)
The Switzerland of my childhood was made up of clichés. The ingredients were Ricola advertisements, the film "Sound of Music" and a misunderstaniding of current events. The image was one of green medows, massive Alpenhorns, and a gigantic mountain on which a log-cabin full of politicians was perched.

I've lived in Switzerland since 2006. That's longer than Athens, San Diego, Groton, Fairfax and Philadelphia. When I return to places I've lived before, I notice that a part of my heart still belongs there. Of course, Zürich is much differeint. I remain a foreigner and certain things are still foreign to me, but I've still slowly begun to feel at home. Which means of course that it is time to move again.

2009 will be our last year in Switzerland for a while. Perhaps that is why we've been finding ourselves in the company of tourists recently. This summer we saw a Alpenhorn concert and were present at the Alpabzug (the decent of the cows from the Alps)This winter I will properly snowboard and maybe even return to the Zwieblemärt (Onion Festival) in Bern, or visit Luzern's Basel's Fasching for the first time. I want to take every opportunity to enjoy our home.

For most of my friends and some of my family, Switzerland is San Galen. We married there and that's where they spent most of their time. Zürichers find that entertaining and so do I. What's really funny, however, is when my half-siblings tell me something about Switzerland that I've never experienced. They spent a couple of days in Luzern, a city that the day before yesterday, I'd never seen. I'll never know all of Switzerland, but I look forward to learning more and more about it.

When I've ridden through Washington DC, I still feel bound there somehow. That's actually why there is no question that Ivo and I will return to Switzerland. A few people have voiced their concerns. They should know that our hearts are big enough. We have room enough for new cities and new friends without pushing Zürich into second place.

more mulling from Switzerland

I've begun my translation courses and am continuing my language courses and have never heard the words "One-language Dictionary" so often in my life. When it comes to French, I still very much require a two-language dictionary for French, but neither of the two languages are my native language, so that must be good. One thing that I dislike from my courses at ZHAW, is the term "Neue Deutsch". I don't care how tounge-in-cheek it is, that isn't ANY kind of Deutsch! That's ENGLISH!!

So, I'm here in Switzerland and I'm a foreigner and am unable to vote. Ivo totally empowers my opinions when I have them on all things votable, so I feel represented, but I have no legal vote. Meanwhile in the states (until next year) I have a very limited voice in politics. I have no congress person to whom to write. I imagine that when we are raising young children I will be able to be more civicly involved. I'll be operating as a foreigner, however, even if I should become more enfranchised. I come from a country where my mother's was not the first generation to get the vote. I've had some experience breaking news to kids about the imperfections of the world with which we live, but I don't know how I will feel when it is not immediately my world in which they live.
I have become more acutely aware of this problem very recently. I'm all about being supportive of equal rights in the states. I'm excited about politically active in the states while I'm there. I'd love to be more actively supportive in marriage rights. Here in Switzerland everyone's got the same rights to the same marriage statue. Know what I just discovered? The concession that was made in order to get same-sex marriage was giving up on the right to adopt. This is killing me. I'd never heard about this before and am beside myself. I don't know what to do. How does one get politically active in a country where she has no poliical clout? As I get excited about starting a family in the future with the person that I love, how can I not want to be involved in equal rights?

'ow do you say......nervous?

I'm headed to my first translation class and I'm a bit nervous. Partly because it's a whole new environment, new things to learn, new people. I've never been in a Hochschulekurs in Switzerland before and have nothing to compare it to . Something else that is nervous-making, though is the actual translation. Last night at dinner with my in-laws I was again reminded how individualistic translation actually is.
"I would describe the charachter as dispeptic. How would someone say dispeptic in German?"
There was a back and forth and 'round and 'round that lasted 15 minutes. Everyone had more than two cents to contribute. Instead of listening to the word I wanted to use, Ivo and his dad began throwing in their own adjecties, which they thought better described the Chrachter I would be describing. "Pitbull", "Bitchy"....
One thing that is comforting is that when I heard the word that I will use, it was a gut reaction. That was right. That felt good. "sauerlich" like a sour stomach. Like a dispeptic personality.
Alright, so that felt good. But what about the words like Järzorn? Words where the translation is a few words to describe the one German word. I can't help but feel that that is inadequate. I don't know if my course will teach how not to feel inadequate. I don't even know what I want exactly from this course. I guess that I want it to make me feel confident in my translations.
The innuit don't really have 100 words for "snow" they just have a 100 words for the 100 types of snow that there is: slushy snow, wet snow, dry snow, fluffy snow....... I guess that we need adjectives isn't a bad thing. Just a different thing. I guess the key is knowing which one fits where. Like Konicki's "snizzle", for flurry. I think that I can trust having a good feel for German now and knowing what feeling I want to create with it's English translation. Is that what it is? A feeling? So then what are they going to teach us in translation?
I'm nervous

Autumn

When we arrived in Zürich after leaving the pristine autumn of Finland, our city was warm and muggy and "oh, yeah....I forgot" foggy. Ah, the fog. When I first moved here, Ivo feared that I would hate it because of the fog. It rolled in that first autumn and after day 12 I thought I might lose it. Ivo was apologetic, as if it had been fault personally. It was too sweet. Then he took me up a hill or a mountain something, above the fog and showed me where to find sun and that became one of my new favorite things about Autumn. I love autumn and I love that in autumn in Zürich the sun needs to be found.
When riding my bike I need to dodge the chestnuts and their prickly coverings in the street. Other chestnuts will be being cooked on stands on the street. The farmer's market is full and colorful and fit to burst. The Mövenpick icecream stand in front of the supermarket switches to a Brezelkönig stand. And now, I'm back to school which is also very autumnal.
I even played a game of shadow-tag with my husband and in laws in the too-early-setting sun. Inspired, like many good things, by the wisdom of Kendra.

from the mouths of other babes

On my birthday in Finland, I woke up before everyone and had a shower and washed my hair and started thinking about my half-siblings. I was thinking about them back when there were themed birthday parties (construction and princess, respectively) and the playing of "Good Guys and Naughties" (someone miss-heard the groups in World War 2) and "Mommy Daddy". These same creative minds discovered the most evil of all insults. It came at the end of every major tussle: "You're OLD!" "NO! You're OLD!" Ah, but they were sweet little things. When their nearly constant companion asked me how old I was, I answered "Twenty." He looked startled and said softly and hesitantly "Twenty? That's.......old." My half-siblings jumped to my defense, though it seemed half-hearted. I could see that to them 20 did, indeed, sound old.
Now I'm 28. If 20 was old, what would those children think now? Luckily they're a bit older, so maybe there is a bit of a different perspective. I began wondering what my child self would think about me at 28. What accomplishments I would have achieved. I thought back to games of MASH and plans with my best friend of running a candy/wooden toy shop on Prince Edward Island. I thought of how near I am to 30.
I dried and dressed and emerged from the steamy bathroom and there in front of me stood Ivo's 83 year old grandmother. Had Ivo not been asleep she may very well have sung "Happy Bitrthday to you" with the childish line "Aprikose in de' Hose". The woman hikes with speed, makes silly faces and jokes and sees without glasses. Then I realized that calling myself "OLD" was an insult to her. I accepted my birthday kisses and ate too many sweets and had a fantastic birthday.

It's not just me.

I think that I may like commuting.

Yesterday I was at ZHAW, where I will attend classes starting September, in Winterthur. On the train trip home I instinctively grabbed the Blick Am Abend laying on the nearby seat and read the front page story. (Blick am Abend is one of the trashier of the free newspapers offered to commuters.) The story was about Caster Semenya and wether or not she is male or female. The choice of words in the headline turned my stomach. As one of the teenaged girls picked up the paper Ivo and my repetitive conversation about misinformation with the illusion of information due to these free newspapers. The girl who'd begun reading the paper guffawed at the "manly woman: when is a man a man?" headline and then started talking to her friend about women who walk around with short hair "-shorthair is cute what's your point?" her friend interrupted. The friend tried to explain that she meant those women who walk around in sports clothes. Before I could internaly groan her friend said "I have trouble understanding other people's styles too. Like, wearing tons of make up and tripping around on high heels, that's not for me." I was so relieved. I was preparing myself internally for hatefull ideas sprung up from the trashy newspaper but instead found myself being excited about all of the usefull things that I can learn eavesdropping on my daily commute. That, or I could just read my purchased newspaper, I suppose.