A few years ago, I had the opportunity to live and work in Zurich, Switzerland for six months, from April through October. As an unattached woman with the standard chocolate fetish, this was amazing -- six months, all expenses paid. Within two weeks, I packed my entire wardrobe into three black Eddie Bauer duffel bags the size and shape of Volkswagen beetles, forwarded my mail, sent my landlord a batch of post-dated checks, and showed up at Logan Airport Terminal E, passport in hand. I bought the language tapes but had only mastered "survival German" before leaving Boston -- despite this, whenever the Swiss spoke to me in German, I instinctively wanted to reply using my high school Spanish. Nevertheless, I did survive, and sent home some notes to friends and family along the way. I titled these "Notes From A Broad," and have excerpted a couple of them below. Enjoy!

April:

Well, another week gone by and it's amazing how life looks different. I'm much more at home now, although I still don't speak nearly enough Swiss-German (it's a distinct dialect) to be completely comfortable. Still, I did manage to communicate with the woman at the laundry through a combination of mime and intrepretive dance, so now my underwear is clean and I have an audition at Julliard when I come home.

Yesterday, we burned the snowman. (Big Swiss holiday -- parades, horses, marching bands, and a big snowman built from mountain snow. Rockets in snowman's head, designed to explode after snowman placed on bonfire to melt, heralding arrival of spring. Last year, rockets misfired into crowd -- no injuries, but a few scraped knees from hitting the pavement. Year before that, rocket misfired and winged a horse, causing the horse to drop instantly of heart attack. Also many tales of snowman falling off pyre prior to head exploding, rendering the rockets potential land-mines in the retrieval effort. Why keep the damn rockets, we wonder, but then, a little uncertaintly adds to the drama.) Went with James From Chicago, two Swiss guys both named Andreis, and Sarah from Bristol (England, not PA). Toured bars and restaurants till midnight, then split up to walk home. Imagine walking along the canal late at night, streets full of people and flowers, and random parades still going on, with a full moon and nothing in sight but the Swiss skyline across the water. Very romantic. A memory I will surely keep.

I have noticed that international news items are often quite random. (I really only read the English language Tribune over here.) For example, (I am not making this up) 4,000 counterfeit Smurfs were seized in Brussels this morning. Apparently, there is quite a market for them here, and there is a factory in China engaged in producing unlicensed versions around the clock. Also, Michael Jackson unveiled a wax statue of himself in Paris over the weekend. The cherry on that particular parfait was the presence of international mime Marcel Marceau, who sort of moon-walked in circles around Michael and the statue while Michael watched. The baby was nowhere in sight. (I understand you may have seen this story, sans Marcel, at home. And you would have had to see him -- you would not have heard him.)

October

I spent the weekend before last in Italy with my friend Cyndi and seven other people  from the firm who are doing secondments all over Europe. We met in Parma for lunch on Saturday (and yes, I tried the parmesan there, and it was great!) then went to Bologna (where I did NOT try the bologna) for a U2 concert held, of all places, at the airport. We walked down the runway to get to the stage area (it has always been my dream to be a runway model) and it was just like a scene from Close Encounters -- blank, dark sky, not a building in sight, a strange white glow in the distance, and thousands of people converging on it as though attracted magnetically. Great concert, then went back to Milan to stay in the apartments of a couple of the people in our group. Brunch Sunday in The New York Bar in Milan, then we drove back to Switzerland.

This past weekend, I learned to make spatzli, a noodle known to most Americans as "that funny stuff we serve with string beans." It is, in fact, a staple of the Swiss diet, and is quite good made properly. I am bringing home my spatzli-maker to inflict my new skill on friends and family. Beware.

I can't believe it's over, but I will soon be back in Boston!! Let's review some of the things I have learned this summer:

1. Beware of butter. The Swiss enjoy surprising visitors by placing it in odd locations -- the middle of pretzels, melted on top of soup, in cheese sandwiches (next to the ubiquitous pickle). In fact, the only place I did not discover butter was on my salads.

2. Air conditioning may saves lives. During one oppressive heat wave this summer, when our staff began to discuss the military weapons they were allowed to keep at home, our Swiss administrative assistant resigned. I felt at the time she was giving us foreigners a big hint, and had the weather not turned cooler, we may have been involved in a Waco-style incident.

3. Paragliding is perhaps the most dangerous aerial sport you can do. Fortunately, I only learned this AFTER Cyndi and I had done it, when our engagement partner took us aside to relate a conversation he'd had with a professional mountain climber friend of his. He earnestly requested that we not jump off any more Alps. It seems that with so many risks and so little protection, paragliding leads the field in sheer numbers of fatal accidents. (You'd think the actuary on our team would have warned us. Assuming his interests aligned with ours.)

4. There are lots of misperceptions about Switzerland. To dispel a few of these, I will state that they do NOT speak Swedish here. They DO have an active army. (Hence the knives.) They do not, however, have a navy, although one of our Canadian managers felt that the Swiss could invade and capture Canada if the spirit moved them. (Somehow leap-frogging France, no pun intended.) There IS a lot of Swiss cheese here. However, here we just call it "cheese."

5. Sadly, the neo-Nazi movement is alive and well. On the bright side, the only ones I've ever met have been real idiots, so perhaps the movement will die off. For example, there was the guy in the bar at the Ascot who, attempting to impress me with how wealthy he was, pulled a gold card out of his wallet. Upon closer inpection, it turned out to be a frequent flyer card from United Airlines. This was the same guy who attempted to convince me that Germany rebuilt itself with no assistance after WWII (hello -- Marshall Plan?!) and that the country is now a bigger superpower than the United States. Sure.

6. Even a Mercedes gets a little light at over 200 kph. And when you're driving that fast in the right lane, you catch up to the traffic REALLY QUICK. At this point, if there's someone in the left lane attempting to pass you, there is not much for you to do and nowhere for you to go. In this situation, it's a good idea just to shut your eyes.

7. When eating cheese fondue, you must drink lots of wine or else risk hospitalization. Several Swiss people, including a random woman I met on an airplane, expressed horror at the thought of drinking only water or soft drinks with fondue, since the cold liquid will cause the cheese to ball up in your stomach like a big clot and cause a major blockage. (Nice visual.) Apparently, wine prevents this. Every Swiss person with whom I discussed this swore that their mother's neighbor's nephew had actually required surgery due to an inappropriate beverage choice.

8. It is incorrect to refer to someone from the UK as a "Brit." While this is certainly not a pejorative term, it is not nearly specific enough -- like describing someone from Boston as a "North American."

Can't wait to come home -- see you soon!

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