The Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Obviously if you have a blog, you have to write about important things, otherwise why would you bother to have one anyways? A diary is for writing about boring everyday things like: did laundry, bought groceries, considered signing up to go skydiving and then remembered my crippling fear of heights. But, sometimes I don't have anything super important to say just that I have a voice (King's Speech, anyone?). So, anyways there are some pretty extraordinary things about what has become ordinary for me and as I was recently reflecting on this fact, I thought that perhaps even things like doing laundry might seem a bit extraordinary to someone else. Thus, in no particular order, ten rather everyday things that are perhaps somewhat ridiculous to an American audience.

#1 Laundry
I have access to laundry once a week on Fridays. It costs 1 franc 20 centimes to do a load. There is no dryer, but I have a drying room, or else a drying rack on my balcony. Pros: apparently the wind and sunshine gets into your clothes, apparently you save money/electricity by not having a dryer. Cons: it takes FOREVER for things to dry, my towels are never fluffy.

#2 The View
I am surrounded by some of the most stunning views you will ever see in your life. This has the happy result of making every photo look amazing and I don't think it's something you can ever completely get used to.

#3 Language
In my bathroom I have shampoo that is in Italian, shower gel that is in German, and a body wash that is in French. The popcorn instructions are in 16 different languages. Last year, I could listen to the Winter Olympics and the World Cup being commentated in German, French, or Italian. I can order in Starbucks in English, but prefer not to. Pros: you know you're not in Kansas anymore! Cons: English can't be your secret language because most people know it and shamelessly eavesdrop.

#4 Restaurants
Not that I have been to many, because it's crazy expensive to eat out, but you have to ask for the bill and you don't have to tip! Say what????

#5 Trash bags
I know we all have to buy trash bags to put in the cans to put our waste in, but in Switzerland I have to buy specific white and green trash bags. In order to get these lovely "sacs taxés" you have to ask for them at the register in the grocery store. They come in rolls of 10 and cost 20 francs!

#6 Phone Calls
Unless you really hate talking to people, calling someone on the phone is something you do without a second thought. It's something I never had a problem with before I had to talk in French! Talking on the phone in a foreign language is so much harder than face to face because you have no facial expressions or hand gestures to help you. Your listening comprehension is tested to the max and God forbid they ask me for my telephone number because in French you don't say the individual numbers but combine them into five hundred and sixteen for 516 for example.

#7 Public Transport
Perhaps some of you take the metro everyday to work but before moving here I was used to driving everywhere. Now I get on and off buses, metros and trains like it's a piece of cake. It's still a little strange that you have to buy tickets from machines (or else have a travel pass) and you aren't checked each time or forced to go through barriers. However, if the public transport staff do a random check and you're found to be without a valid ticket, it's an immediate 100 franc fine that increases if you can't pay that 100 francs right away in cash. Better to spend a few francs on a ticket each time even if I can go for weeks sometimes without having my pass verified.

#8 Printing
As a student, I am given printing credits at the beginning of the semester and I have access to computers and printers at the university. At UNIL (University of Lausanne) there are iMacs along the corridors that I can use them to print whatever I need. I've never yet run out of credits!

#9 English
This is kinda cheating since I already mentioned language, but here I'm talking specifically about how weird it is to overhear someone on the metro talking in English. The thing is, it isn't always native English speakers who are speaking it! I once heard a couple talking in heavily accented English together using mostly swear words. It made me cringe. I also feel like if I'm the one talking in English to a friend on a bus or street, everyone else tries to eavesdrop. The weirdest thing of all though, is when you've spent time with some other English speakers and then you leave and walk out onto the street and suddenly realize that you've forgotten that if you bump into the person walking their dog, you will have to say "excuse me" in French. How can you forget that not everyone speaks English? I guess the frequent use of English in advertising doesn't help.

#10 Dog tax
Not that this effects me, but dog owners have to pay a tax for their pet. How crazy is that? The Swiss also have other annoying taxes like for having a TV and a monthly tax for being a foreigner.

My time in the US

From the end of November to the beginning of February, I was stateside having knee surgery and recovering from it. Here are some things I've said about that time and here's what I actually mean.

It was so nice to be home for Christmas.
From baking Christmas cookies, to watching Christmas movies, to eating cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, there are lots of traditions that surround the Christmas season and while some are general, some are family-specific. I had a lovely English Christmas last year but there's no place like home for the holidays! And it was fantastic to not have to be home for Christmas only in my dreams! I loved opening the advent calendar each day, decorating (a slightly shorter than normal) Christmas tree with my mother and sister, doing our annual KayStone gift exchange and being with my family to open presents around the tree.

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Some other Christmas highlights included: going to two Christmas Eve services and having our whole family stand and lift the candles together in Silent Night and driving around looking for Christmas lights with some friends while also hotly debating which Christmas carol to listen to next. Christmas is such a fabulous time of year and I loved celebrating it with my parents and sisters so much that I didn't even scold my mother for forgetting the Christmas crackers. ;)

Christmas Eve Service

The KayStones

The decorated tree on Christmas Eve

Being handicapped…had some perks.
It's incredibly humbling to have to constantly ask other people to assist you because you're so helpless. While it's nice to have people who care for you, you sometimes just want to do something yourself (like, say, put on your left shoe?) It was exhausting walking around even with my brace on because my other leg still had to do most of the work. Shortly after my surgery I went to get something out of the pantry while my mom was tutoring in the basement. I somehow managed to open the door right over my toe on my uninjured leg. My toenail was bent back quite deeply and blood was on my sock, but I couldn't hobble to get first aid supplies since now both legs had problems. My cell phone wasn't too far and after a quick call to my neighbor, she ran over to help me bandage my toe.

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Freedom is walking to the bathroom without a brace or crutches. Or at least it feels like freedom after a month of shuffling and hopping. I don't think you ever stop to appreciate how easily you can do something until you can't do that thing anymore. For example, did you realize that you have to be able to stand on two legs in order to take a shower like a normal person? You apparently need two legs to even step into a bathtub, something I wasn't able to do for a month! Stairs are also quite problematic…

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However, there were some nice things about being handicapped. I got wheeled around the Kennedy Center like a VIP when my family went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I had a temporary handicapped parking pass which allowed me, or anyone driving with me, to park in the spots closest to the stores. Absolutely, hands down, greatest way to have friends chauffeur you. Target? Here we come. Walmart? No problem. Have a hankering for Panera? I'm there. It helped that the motorized carts at certain stores were quite entertaining to drive around. May or may not have knocked things off the shelves, but hey! I'm handicapped!

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I went into the movies with some friends and it was a theatre where you had the super comfy reclining chairs and had to choose your spots before going in. There were some nice looking seats with a better angle on the screen towards the back and so I asked the lady if we could sit there. "No," she said. "They're handicap seats." I told her I was handicapped. She laughed. We sat two rows from the front craning our necks because, short of pulling down my pants and showing her my scars, I didn't have any way to prove my story. #handicapproblems

The view from a motorized cart in Costco-Christmas shopping.

In a wheelchair at the Kennedy Center

I loved seeing friends.
Um I think I could probably say this ten times over. It was soooo nice to get to see so many friends and to spend time just doing nothing! It's the hanging out time that you just can't recreate over Skype and I was loving just soaking that in. But, also, you guys (you know who you are) made me feel so loved and special with all the effort you put in to seeing me and to encouraging me through ACL recovery.

Hanging at the creek

Hanging at the creek

Out to eat-did I mention I did this a lot?

Physical therapy kicked my butt.
I don't think I had a proper understanding of physical therapy before I was doing it three times a week. They make you work hard! If they feel like you're not working hard enough, they hook you up to a torture device, aka electrical stimulation machine, which delivers an intense current for 10 secs every 30 seconds to help "activate your quad" in a sequence known as the Russian. This was all before I was allowed to be weight bearing. After I was cleared to walk around, my next form of torture was wall squats, a feat especially daunting when you feel like you just can't trust your newly operated knee. When I first went to PT, I felt like I was the worst one there. I couldn't do anything very well or for very long and it seemed like everyone around me was doing so much better. I was holding out for the day when I'd see someone more injured than me come in and have to hobble to a table.  I clearly wasn't there long enough, because that never happened…but I did realize that what was hard for me was easy for another person and vice versa. In the end it was actually good when something was challenging or my leg was shaking because it meant that I was strengthening my leg and getting back the use of my knee. I'm not gonna win any awards wall squatting, but at least I can mostly do it now!

It was hard to say goodbye.
I had such a wonderful time even with the surgery, the helplessness and the pain of PT. I was so sad to say goodbye to family and friends and I felt incredibly blessed to have been so warmly supported during my time at home. It made it hard to leave again. I cannot wait to see you all again and thank you so much for letting me lean on you when I wasn't strong…then and always!

Reflection Retreat Group Selfie

Frozen

Do you realize that I have not been in the US since before Frozen came out and became a phenomenon?

In fact, I have not been in the US for 15 months now and when I arrive I may not get all your pop culture references. I may not know all the American news. And I most certainly won't be able to catch up in just one day. 

I can tell you lots of cool stories, maybe even in French. I can tell you about skiing in the Alps and adventures in the Lausanne metro. I can tell you about awesome iCafé nights and great conversations with people you've never met. My life has been a crazy wonderful adventure filled with good and bad things and I'm sorry we haven't had any shared experiences from these past 15 months. I can't just let it all go...

BUT, I'm aware that your life hasn't frozen either. You've gotten engaged, married, pregnant. You've had a great time on vacation or a horrible time at work. Your family is really struggling at the moment and you just need a break. 

Maybe you want to hear about my life, maybe you don't, but I sure want to hear about yours! Please don't think that because I'm the one who left that I'm the only one with something to share. Tell me to shut up and listen if I don't. Tell me to hug you tight if you're hurting and tell me to share if you want to listen. 

Maybe we could do something together, to once again share an experience, to unfreeze our lives and get reacquainted? 

Do you want to build a snow man?

Deleted Scenes

Not every moment of every day can be a big event. There are invariably gaps or transition times in and amongst the grander activities. Some of these stay with me as small seemingly unimportant events, like the superfluous material the director cuts from a film. So here they are: a few deleted scenes.

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Where there's smoke there's fire, or rather, a lot of cigarettes. It is unfortunately a rather frequent experience to choke on clouds of second hand smoke just about everywhere on the streets of Lausanne. The bitter smell lingers around the whole train station and if I want to sit outside to enjoy the sunshine in a public place like a park or a café I also have to be prepared to deal with breathing in the acrid fumes. On the metro or bus I am often sandwiched between people whose clothes reek of ash tray. The streets are littered with orange and white butts flicked from careless fingers. I start to wonder at the irony of a country obsessed with recycling and going green who are singlehandedly polluting their own bodies. Although I think it's sad to see so many smokers, particularly young ones, I generally don't have a problem unless someone is blowing their smoke directly in my face. But on one particular day, as I am walking through the train station during a busy afternoon, a man passes close by me with a lit cigarette held loosely by his side. In the jostling of the crowds, the glowing tip presses against my finger and leaves a white hot burn that quickly turns to a blister. He mumbles an apology and slinks away. Thus I learn an important lesson: cigarettes are harmful in more ways than one.

A perk of public transportation is the people watching. Mostly people are on their phones. They don't do more than text or bop their head in time to their music, their fingers swiping across touch screens answering messages and playing silly games in silence. It is important to not disturb your neighbors. On this day, I'm on the metro going to the university and watching a little girl with her dad. I can't hear the words but she's tapping on the window with a small chubby finger and asking him a question. He smiles at her, leans toward the glass and breathes a hot puff of air leaving a smudge. She draws her fingers through the condensation caused by her father's breath on the window, delighted as if you had given her a coloring book and every Crayola color under the sun. She's just another metro rider swiping at a screen, but her laughter is not silent and even the woman playing Candy Crush next to me looks up to see if she might be missing out on life. The dad smiles at the little girl, breathes once more on the window and, above the scribbles of his daughter, draws a heart.

It's 7:30AM. I know because the drilling noise has begun and I can't block it out with my pillow. Yesterday there was a note in the elevator informing our whole building that they were going to be doing some work tomorrow starting at 7:30AM. It is not a time of day to appreciate Swiss punctuality. It's 7:30 AM and I needn't have bothered with the alarm.

My toilet won't flush. I know I need to call the plumber but I've been putting it off. It means a phone call in French and one out of three times I can still get the toilet to work…I call the plumber. The French conversation goes rather well but I have to wait five days for an appointment. The morning of, a short man in overalls with a tool kit shows up at my apartment, his fingers stained with grease and a cheerful can-do attitude. I show him to the bathroom and he helpfully supplies the French verb for flush when I trail off with a purposeful gap in my explanation of the problem. He putters away while I work on something on my computer in the other room. After about half an hour, he emerges with a moldy looking plastic contraption that he has removed from the toilet. With finger pointing to the broken piece he explains to me the reason for the problem I've been having. "You only have the one toilet?" he asks me. I say oui. He explains that he doesn't have the part with him in his van and in fact I need a completely new flushing mechanism. He will have to go to a store to get it. "I'll go right now and be back as quickly as I can," he says. Thank God for cheerful plumbers who go out of their way to make sure that before the morning's out I have a working toilet.

European changing rooms are an education. In the US, changing tends to be a discreet flash of naked flesh quickly hidden beneath a strategic towel or article of clothing. Here, I am confronted with so much nudity, I am aware of these women's tattoos and piercings in places I shouldn't be seeing. The showers don't have doors and consequently I keep my bathing suit on. A little blond boy about three years old is in the ladies' changing room today with his mother. He stands naked across from the shower stalls where his mother is finishing her shower and talking to him. He keeps staring at me and then glancing at his (I assume, naked) mother as if wondering why I'm still in my bathing suit. I finish washing my hair and have to walk by his mother's stall… I try not to look, it's just…there are no doors!

When I arrive at my building, the old man who lives across the hall from me is just arriving too. He doesn't walk very well and is losing his hearing. He has a series of hired women who come in and help out and they are always left banging on his door and repeatedly ringing his bell because he's too deaf to hear that they are there. When he sees me, which is rare, he greets me with a, "Are you the one who lives across from me? Are you my neighbor?" I smile politely, nod my head and say yes. He usually asks me some kind of question, and I often have to have him repeat it. Tonight isn't much different as he shuffles into the elevator and I push the button for the fifth floor. I think he asks me something about the weather but I smile and make some kind of noncommittal noise as I'm not sure. We arrive and he pushes the elevator door open and booms a "bonne soirée" in my direction as I unlock my apartment door. I shut the door, have dumped my things on the table, when my doorbell rings. Surprised, I wasn't expecting anyone, I go to the door and open it to find the old gentleman outside. "Can you help me," he asks. "I can't get this button undone. He gestures to his coat. Although a bit taken aback, I nevertheless reach over and undo the offending button for him. He thanks me and turns back to his apartment. I close my door again and am glad that, for once, being neighborly hasn't required any words.

How do you measure a year?

In the musical Rent (which, for the record, I have never seen) they have this famously obnoxious song Seasons of Love where they remind you how many minutes are in a year (525,600, in case you're curious) and ask the question: how do you measure a year in the life? Apart from minutes they propose several solutions, you could measure a year in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles (well, I guess not in Switzerland!), in laughter, in strife. The one solution they come to is how about love? Specifically, and hence the song title, seasons of love. Despite the fact that the number of minutes is technically incorrect (according to Google anyway), I think the question is actually more valid than the proposed response. How DO you measure a year in the life?

A year ago today I arrived in Switzerland. So I'm commemorating this momentous occasion by writing a blog post. In college in one of my creative writing classes we read an excerpt of a book called The Things They Carried by Time O'Brien. This collection of short stories tells you about a group of American soldiers in Vietnam by describing what they carried with them. It allowed the readers to really get an idea for what these men valued, how they spent their time and what they needed to survive. In a similar vein, I'm going to tell you about about the things I'm carrying these days.

In my purse one thing you would currently find is a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in French. Language is definitely an area in which I've grown and improved in over this past year. I decided to read Harry Potter because then I wouldn't get bogged down in comprehension since I already know the story, but instead I would be able to learn new vocabulary in context. For example, today while reading Harry Potter (it's the same name in French just with slightly different pronunciation) I learned that "avoir une peur bleue," which literally translates "to have a blue fear," means "to be scared to death." The greatest thing about learning this little phrase was that no one told me what it meant, I didn't have to look it up, I could totally figure it out from the context. What a huge encouragement!

In my purse you would also find my planner. It's full of reminders of meetings with people, meetings for planning, and academic calendar dates. My planner last year also was full of homework assignments for my classes. I took courses in literature, culture, language, and more. The classes definitely helped improve my French but were also a great place to meet international students from all over the world. The planner helps me stay organized and to make the most of my time.

In my purse you would find the most important book of all which is, of course, my Bible. More than a book, what is says is what everything I do here kind of revolves around. "Go and make disciples of all nations." It is also a great guide, comfort, and mirror-check.

In my purse you would find my wallet which is filled with Monopoly-like money known as Swiss francs (CHF). In the US every bill is green and the same size with a different guy's face on it and we have one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred bills. In Switzerland, the franc bills vary in color and they only have bills starting at tens, so the other denominations are coins. The ten is orange, the twenty is red, the fifty is green, the one hundred is blue. When we go to an ATM in the US even if we take out $100 we would probably still get it in twenties. Here 100 bills are pretty much normal and they never seem to really go very far. I often feel quite poor in Switzerland! Also, the smallest coin is 5 centimes and it is the only coin that is gold in color instead of silver. There are no pennies! Anyways, all this on currency to say that I've gradually adjusted to what the money looks like and kind of gotten used to the fact that I have four currencies in my apartment (dollars, pounds, euros and francs). Also, how rich do I sound if I say I have a Swiss bank account?!?!

In my purse you would find some other junk like American chapstick, American chewing gum, American sunglasses, but my iPhone with a British flag cover. Along with the Swiss driver's license in my wallet, I guess you could conclude that I am just a little bit cross-culturally confused.

In my purse I did not find all of the words to really sum up and measure this year in Lausanne. It's been an incredible adventure and I'm glad it's not over yet! Thank you to all of you who made it possible!

A Spider's Web

Imagine you had never seen a spider before. You're sitting in a garden and suddenly see this strange looking insect. It moves delicately amongst the leaves of a nearby bush and after a little while you start to see that it leaves something thin and silvery in its wake, like very fine thread as thin as a hair. It glistens in the morning sun and from where you're sitting you can see the grand design. An intricate web. Imagine your surprise and pride for this little insect, who is now crouched in the corner, resting and admiring its work. You wonder how it spins the thread, how it knows what pattern to make, and if it makes others to please its friends or attract a mate.

All of a sudden another insect buzzes by. It stops to admire the web and you wish you also were small enough to pay a visit. But then the insect wants to leave and clumsily twists its legs on the silken strands. It starts thrashing and and beating its wings and tears a hole in the grand design. "Oh you silly bug," you want to say. "How could you ruin all this lovely work?" You turn to tell the insect in the corner that you're so very sorry, but it is calm and watching. It does not get upset that its work has been destroyed. It goes on sitting and waiting. Eventually, the trapped insect is still and you watch the web-builder descend and wrap it up and with dawning comprehension and sickening awareness you sit back on your garden bench and watch a spider eat its meal.

There is no denying that a spider web is a work of art, but its purpose is deadly. And because the spider knows that the web's purpose and goal it does not fret when the web is being destroyed. It does not lament the damage done to all their hard work. It is not even really surprised, because the web is doing its job. Recently, I've rather felt like a spider who realizing her web is being destroyed frantically races around throwing up her arms in the air yelling, "What do I do? What do I do?" It all began with tearing my ACL, which created a huge hole in the carefully laid web of plans. Instead of remembering the purpose of webs, I started panicking that I was losing control and going to have to start all over and that I'd never be able to get things to look quite as nice ever again. I forgot that I cannot be the helpless flailing bug and also be the spider at the same time.

In case you don't appreciate marvelous analogies (and yet are somehow still reading this blog) then here's the facts: I tore my ACL, I was going to have surgery and five days in the hospital in Switzerland, my insurance will not pay for me to do the operation here as it would only be out-patient surgery in the US, so I am coming back to the US for the operation this December/January. This is wonderful in that I will be around for the beginning of the semester activities, I will be able to leave at a less busy part of the school year, and I'll be home where I can have lots of TLC all while celebrating Christmas stateside! :) There's still lots to be sorted and it wasn't in the original plan but I think it's for the best and I am certainly glad that I will very soon get to see lots and lots of people in person!

Twenty-five

In honor of recently turning twenty-five I thought I would share 25 things I have learned over this past year.
1) It is possible to have more than one home.
2) I miss things from the US while I'm away that I don't even really like in the US. Ex: candy corn
3) Normal is relative.
4) I am not less of a person if I cannot communicate deep or complicated ideas in French.
5) Long distance communication is hard and incredibly frustrating.
6) I can experience FOMO (fear of missing out).
7) Getting to know so many people from so many different cultures is so fun and keeps life interesting.
8) I am so grateful to have two passports.
9) I can say a prayer in French.
10) I know some people with whom I only communicate in French and that is way cool.
11) Skiing in the Alps is no longer something I need to check off my bucket list.
12) I have learned to be more accepting and to reserve judgment.
13) Cadbury's is still my favorite chocolate.
14) I love living in Lausanne.
15) There's nothing quite like getting a letter from someone letting them know they're thinking of you.
16) Even I, the non-touchy one of my family, can suffer from lack of hugs.
17) Getting kissed on the cheeks by men and women is still weird.
18) I have the best view in the world.
19) I know how to cook lots more than I did before.
20) I have learned to know the temperature in celsius.
21) Wearing comfortable shoes over fashionable ones is almost always the right choice.
22) Ça va? seems like a much more effective way to ask how are you?
23) Starbucks coffee tastes like home even if it's more expensive than I really want to pay.
24) I'll never be Swiss enough to go for a nine hour hike and call it a short walk.
25) Friends can be found in the most extraordinary ways, don't dismiss the value of an invitation for cheesecake.