A Year in Numbers

This past Sunday was our one year anniversary of moving to Zürich!  Hard to believe a whole year has already gone by...doesn't seem possible!  In celebration, we hosted three college-age girls from the University of Iowa (one is a good family friend) for their spring break!  And as it was St. Patricks Day, of course we took them to an Irish pub traditional Swiss beer hall...why not!  This is clearly in keeping with "Thanksgiving in India"...who needs tradition!?

To commemorate this rather auspicious occasion, I thought a little "Year in Numbers" feature might be appropriate:

207 - Of the 365 days we've been officially living here, I've spent 207 of them in Switzerland (that's only 57%)...

6  - Swiss Festivals attended when I was here:  

• Sechseläuten (Guilds parading and snowman burning)
• Knabenschiessen (Young boys...and girls shooting)
• Räbechilbi (Turnip carving, turnip lighting and turnip parading) 
• Zibelmärit (Onion decorating, onion selling and confetti throwing)
• Klausjagen (Cowbell clanging, rope whipping, and "stained glass" mitre wearing)
• Zürifasnacht (Crazy costume and mask wearing and parading)  
• now if I could just get to the Alpabfahrt (cows coming home!)....

Burning snowman...

Official design for Knabenschiessen

Turnip leopard

Onions anyone?

One Klaus of hundreds...

Your guess is as good as mine!

*****

2 - New drivers licenses - 1 renewed in NJ and 1 obtained in Switzerland (just in case...)

35 - Weeks without driving - 29 in Switzerland (by choice - I'd rather walk or take the tram)...and 6 in NJ (not by choice - by doctor's orders...after spinal surgery)

2 - Cars owned which consistently DO NOT start - one in Summit and one in Zurich.  

2 - Cars owned which DO start - with only one driver to use either of them!

*****

21 - Hours after arrival that movers came to unpack our container!

15 - Days after arrival that our first group of visitors showed up - Connor and his 3 friends for spring break...

6 - Groups of visitors that we've had already...with two more set to come in April!

*****

19 - Years since Notre Dame was last ranked #1 in Football...

14 - Points scored by ND in National Championship game... 1/3 of Alabama's total :(

3 - Straight Rose Bowl appearances for the Wisconsin Badgers :)

3 - Straight Rose Bowl losses for the Wisconsin Badgers :(

*****

4 - Years remaining on our "contract"...

100's - More memories to be made in der Schweiz!

March already? This is madness...

I can't believe February is already over.  Maybe it's because there are only 28 days in the month, or because the sun has yet to peak out from behind the clouds for more than a couple of hours...or because I still need to wear my heavy down coat everyday...or because my good buddy, Fritz, is still in his heavy winter fur too (ok, that might be fat, not fur...) However in reality, I think February flew by because it seems like just yesterday that we started our intensive German class.  A mere 60 hours of classes, 10 hours of "Pausen" (breaks...), 3 "kleine Tests," and countless hours of homework later, I have my first Deutsch "Kursbestätigung" to show for it!

Quite impressive!

We started class 4 weeks ago with a roster of 13 eager souls...3 Americans (including my friend, Maria, and me), 1 Indian, 1 Iranian, 3 Eastern Europeans, 1 Italian-speaking Swiss...and 4 random non-English speakers.  After the first couple of days, we were down to around 10 or so - depending upon whether or not Sabrina and/or Gisele decided to show that day.  Sabrina seemed to attend on a whim and generally refused to try to do anything in Deutsch, but instead would launch in to a long winded answer or query in French...despite the teacher's frequent request, "Sabrina, in Deutsch, bitte!"  Gisele didn't show up for class until about the third day...not a good way to start.  And then she only attended sporatically...also not a recipe for success.  So by the final day - there were only 7 of us in attendance for our "graduation"...

• two really young (early 20's), non-English speaking, married Eastern European girls
• one young (24...same age as Patrick!), married, and brilliant Indian female software engineer
• one young, single (and looking for love...), extremely hard-working, and incredibly intelligent Iranian male business student
• one young, married, brilliant female - a recent Optometry school graduate from the US
• and two fifty-somethings - a famous male Serbian writer (brilliance probably goes without saying there)...and yours truly!  (Maria missed the last week to go on a trip to Istanbul instead...hmmm...priorities!!)

Quite the rag-tag bunch!  But what an interesting group!  I sometimes think the interaction with all of these unique new friends was the most enlightening part of going to class...but learning the German is helpful too!  In case you're wondering, feel free to question me on any of the following (in German, of course!):

• My name 
• Where I come from
• The languages I speak
• Where I live
• My office supplies
• General greetings
• The alphabet!
• Numbers up to a billion!
• Anything about time...actual, time periods, opening hours...
• Anything about days...days of the week, times of day, months, dates, years, seasons...
• How I'm feeling
• What I like to do
• What I don't like to do
• Anything about money
• What I want to order in the restaurant
• Filling out forms
• Things to do on a vacation
• Conjugating verbs in present tense (and two in past...)
• Nouns in the nominative and accusative forms
• and anything and everything about Herr Cimildoro, our favorite Taxi driver!

No wonder my mind is spinning on Friday nights!  My 50-something year-old brain isn't used to this!  

But, since we are having so much fun...I start course A1 intensive -  2/3 in a couple of hours...four more weeks!!  Ver Vergnügen!