Well, as of today we have been here in Zürich now for 2 weeks. They have passed quickly, for sure.

It’s funny, I’m not working, now, at least not officially, and yet I find myself terribly busy regardless! I have tried to lose no time in finding things with which to occupy myself (perhaps because I was so afraid of rattling around the house and being bored and alone!).

So we have found a church that seems pretty good — International Protestant Church of Zürich. Of course, it is the logical choice, being an English speaking church, non-denominational Protestant, and conveniently located, but it also seems that the sermons are pretty good. We’ve heard two of them now. Also, they hand you a Bible as soon as you walk in the door and that is one of my litmus tests for churches. Because if the sermons aren’t biblical-based enough such that you want your Bible in hand while you are listening, then what on earth is the point?

Likewise, we have found a band to play with. I was disappointed that there don’t seem to be many big bands in Zürich at all — this is, apparently, because Zürich is more of an Electronica town than a Jazz town. I’m told that if you want jazz, you should go to Lucerne or Bern (or was it Basel?). We found one band online but they were, alas, full. But then we found another, and they said we could just come along to check it out, so last week we tried to go but got thoroughly lost (and disgruntled) in some frustratingly empty/industrial part of Zürich — never made it there. Hoo boy were we both grumpy after that experience. This week we found it though, and it was really good. The people were extremely friendly and welcoming, quite contrary to all the mean Swiss people I have been meeting — shopkeepers and the like, who roll their eyes at me constantly when I try to talk. Anyway, although most of these guys speak pretty good English, they still spoke German and I got in some practice. They were patient with me. We went out for drinks with them afterwards and then another tenor sax gave us a lift all the way home. Altogether a really good experience and I am happy that they seem happy to have us.

Over drinks the people sitting near me were mostly speaking high German and I found I could understand about 50% of it. Of course, the Swiss-German is still totally incomprehensible, though I find that even after only one rehearsal I now kind of understand what the numbers are. It is interesting. They make all the numbers one syllable: zwanzig -> zwansk, fünfzig -> fünfsk, and so forth. And all the ‘au’ sound go to a ‘oo’ sound, e.g. ‘Posaune’ (trombone) is pronounced ‘Posoone’.   Interesting. 

I also signed up for a German course at the Migros Klubschule. Funny, because Migros is actually a supermarket, but they also have a school, and it is supposed to be a pretty good place to get language lessons. So now I am spending 3 hours twice per week until mid-October — Mon and Wed afternoons — in this class. I am very disappointed that it is almost all grammer with very little speaking, but I’m hoping to gain benefit from it regardless. 

And I spent some time on a Zürich forum and have found someone to do a English-German exchange with. We are going to meet at an Australian (ha ha!) bar this Wednesday evening and speak first English for an hour (for her: her English is very advanced) and then  German for an hour for me. Hopefully we will get along well and this will be rewrading for us both. I’m really amused at the idea of coming all the way to Zürich to meet up in an Australian bar called The Outback, though. 

Also found a nice looking hospital. There is a "Frauenklinik" attached to it which is part of the hospital but seems kind of almost like a birthing centre, though I’m not great at reading the website. My first appointment there is this Tuesday afternoon, and they will also be doing my 18 week ultrasound then, though I will only be 17 weeks. I’m looking forward to it (the ultrasound) but also of course as ever am scared & nervous. I hope that the baby is well and healthy… I haven’t been feeling too great this week. 

In my spare time I’ve been cooking lots of yummy things (if only my stomach weren’t always in such a strange state) and doing some coding work on a friend’s website. I am about 75% done with it, which is good. i’m awfully sick of coding. I haven’t done any contracting for work yet, but I must start that tomorrow, as they have just given me a fairly long list of stuff to do, which seems to be getting longer every couple days. 

The sun goes down at 10PM here. It takes some getting used to!

 The word "thousand"is pronounced, in German, like so: "tausend" 

In Swizzadeutsch it is pronounced ""doozik". 

I am never going to learn this language!

Interesting things of note:

1) There seems to be no open container law here. As such, people regularly walk around drinking, and I’m not talking just with a beer can in their hand, which would be normal. I’m talking walking around taking swigs out of a 1.5 litre bottle of vodka. More amusing, was I saw one guy sitting on a bench at the bus stop having his own private party: not only had he already emptied one bottle of wine and was halfway through another, he was actually drinking out of a wine glass. Not the bottle, not a plastic cup. A bone fide glass wine glass. He had it all set out on the bench and everything and was quietly pouring himself glass after glass and drinking it down like he was in a retaurant. Heh.

2) There are no fat people here. Sure, plenty of the older men etc. have a bit of a belly, but as for fatness? None. Moreover, there are no hobbling old people either. Virtually all of the old people, white-haired and wrinkled as they are, are trim, straight and well-clad (though there does seem to be an interesting tendancy for older women to have elegantly done hair, makeup, and clothes paired with a solid pair of hiking boots).

3) A can of beer that is one and a half times the size of a normal can of beer, costs 60 Rappen (that is, 55 US cents). That is cheaper than water.

4) The public transit is awesome. Awesome. I can’t even verbalize it. It is awesome. No matter where you are, there is always a tram or bus going to within 3 blocks of where you want to go, and it always comes within 5 minutes. Awesome.

5) You are only allowed to throw out your trash in special marked "Züri-Säckes" which cost about $2/bag. And if you put a bag in the bin which is *not* a Züri-Sack, they will open your trash and go through it until they figure out who you are so they can punish you! Gah!

6) Today we picked 1 kilo of cherries off the tree that is in the yard of our flat. 1kg free, perfect, ripe cherries! Yum yum yum.

7) Ah yes, I am 31 now. And I still feel like I’m 12.

Gah! I’ve barely been here 3 days yet and I’ve already broken a cardinal house rule!

Apparently every day from 12-1:30pm is siesta time (you wouldn’t think a cold country like Switzerland would need it, but there you go). You are not allowed to do anything, that is, specifically, beat carpets, play radios, *musical instruments*, etc. during this time.

Today I practiced my sax for the first time. I started directly at 12pm and stopped when it was close to 1.

I thought no one was home and it would be the best time!!  After a while I heard some thumping upstairs so i thoujght someone was cleaning. maybe they were actually telling me to shut up…?

There are a lot of rules on this House Rules sheet!

My German speaking/listening achievments of the day are as follows:
1. Told woman on bus (in 4 words or less) that the stop she wanted was not the current, but the next one, when she asked
2. Asked grumpy saleslady what to call a kitchen timer, and where to find one
3. Asked another grumpy saleslady where to find a thing to hold napkins
4. Asked yet another grumpy saleslady if I was allowed to carry my items up to the next floor of the shop, or if I had to pay first
5. Asked nice drugstore lady if she had any (fill in the blank) and if I could have two bottles

The Swiss are so grumpy! Even when I smile nicely and asked my question humbly, they roll their eyes at me and and sigh and refuse to speak any slower. 

Tomorrow night we’re going to have a trial play with a big band. I’m looking forward to it, but also a bit nervous…

Today, day 3 of our time in Zurich (how do you make an umlaut on this keyboard??), has not really been a stellar day. 

First, Zaubi woke me up at 5AM, becuase he was awake, because he was recently in Australia. However, I was recently in the States so I was dead tired! 

Then I started feeling depressed about being fat. Now I don’t think I’m actually much larger than I have been my whole life, but, well, the baby is definitely getting bigger and I feel fat.

Then I was trying to look up language schools but Firefox was completely sucking. Why is FF such a memory hog??? of late, Facebook and LJ both crash my computer entirely and so did a bunch of the language school sites. 

Zaubi went to work at his new lab in the morning and I went to the Zentrumbibliothek to sign up for a library card. I am trying really hard to practice speaking German but I simply suck. And trying to understand what they say back is nigh impossible. It’s bad enough when it is normal German but these Swiss are incomprehensible. Spent over an hour in the library signing up and then finding my way to the English books which are buried in the basement, in no comprehensible order, in something like stacks. 

Then went to investigate a couple of language schools. The first one seemed a bit offended that I had turned up without an appointment and they told me to come back and take a placement exam on Thursday afternoon. The second one had me take a placement exam on the spot and then told me that my grammer was very good but my speaking was terrible. Well, tell me something I don’t know! The guy there lectured me sternly on the importance of speaking to *everyone*, not being shy, watching television, practicing with my husband (I kept saying "I’ve only been here two days so far!!" but he ignored me) — anyway, i can come back and sit in on a class if I so desire. he said there was too much of a skew between my speaking and my grammar but he didn’t want to put me in the beginner class as that would be a waste. Altogether, I liked his firm, no-nonesense attitude, despite the fact that he was lecturing me.

Then met Zaubi and went to see if we could find a music store that could give us info about community bands — no luck. We found a massively huge 9and expensive) music store, but they drew a complete blank about community bands. How can that be? Aren’t they music people?

Then went to the supermarket and ordered a lamb kidney by mistake. it looked EXACTLY like a steak. Ugh. Thank goodness Zaubi noticed before I actually bought it. 

it is near impossible to Google anything, because I dont’ know the proper German words to Google, and then I can’t understand much of what it says afterwards anyway. Everything here is taking about 10 times as long.

Altogether I am rather discouraged. I am a total failure with speaking and even worse with understanding, though i really have tried today. I am still completely exhausted from jet lag: Zaubi is sick and keeps juicily coughing up phlegm in a way calculated to make me heave. (I know that isn’t very sympathetic of me, but honestly.)

At least, though, I have partially redeemed myself by baking a delicious Heidelbeertarte (that is, blueberry tart). At least, it smells ridiculously good. Yesterday I bought a German cooking book in the Zurich Hauptbahnhof and I intend to use it well!

And Zaubi may have discovered a band or two for us to join, after some extensive Googling.  

And at least the Swiss, even those in Zurich who mostly speak decent English, do not have a habit of automatically answering in English when you are sucking at asking them things in German. That would make it really hard to practice. I do find myself wishing they would speak a bit slower, though. And stop the gargling/rolling/hacking thing. 

Despite today not being very good, I can already tell I’m not going to want to leave here come February…