SwissWatching

Don’t worry, folks, I haven’t decided Switzerland is a perfect place because I’m already nostalgic…yesterday was one of those days where I was reminded that I am often dissatisfied:

• This perfectly wonderful professor gave a guest lecture during the PhD seminar on religion and politics in European history, a subject which interests me greatly.  It would have been really good, had not a middle-aged, communist-obsessed, anti-Semitic conspiracy-theorist managed to find out about it and show up.  His comments and questions seemed to betray an informed, but confusing, alternative world view…until he suddenly started going on about Jews controlling 150% of the intelligentsia and state department of the US before WWII and using that “fact” to explain historical outcomes.  The professors in the room shut it down effectively enough, but it did not feel good to be The American Jew who went to an Ivy League in the room at that moment.
• On the tram ride back to the station, I watched as Geneva transport officials harassed a black women with two kids in a stroller on the tram for not having the right combination of tickets to be riding on the tram.  They might have done it to anyone, but it was still painful.  Then, once in the train station, a Swiss man yelled at me for “taking up the whole platform with my dog.”  More precisely, Ruben was walking a few feet away and the leash made it more difficult for this man to rush past me.  Nothing like the Swiss to correct your questionably-incorrect behavior in public.
• I went with Ruben to the dog park to discover it was full of puppies!  Actually, the current class of the same puppy school we attended, and one of the puppies in it is one of Ruben’s new best friends.  I wanted to let Ruben play, since after all, that is why I went to the dog park, but I was sharply reprimanded by the teacher who told me that I am letting Ruben get away with too much and he has lost his obedience since he took the class.  Not true, Seth and I have been continually working with him, we just refuse to scream at him and punish him, but I don’t like to be scolded that I have not been taking proper pains to train my dog or doing it effectively.
• Seth and I took Ruben back to the park after dinner, where he sniffed around and studiously ignored the big dogs who were ignoring him.  In came another dog, pooped before our and his owner’s eyes, and the owner didn’t even pretend to picking it up.  Well, thank you sir, for leaving that poop for me to step in and then have to figure out how to clean off my shoes in my tiny apartment.  I am just not Swiss enough to tell him off for his offense.

On the other hand, my, has the weather been gorgeous.  And how frightening does a move to Pittsburgh seem, now that is just three months away.  This week, we sent notice to our landlord that we’ll be ending our lease.  In a few weeks, my parents will head to Pittsburgh to check out housing options for us.  There’s so much I want to do before we leave, including:

1. Go biking in the countryside at least a few times.  Hopefully Seth can work it out so as to take along Ruben in his carrier on his back.
2. Eat fondue.  I think we might have missed our chance with this winter specialty, but we haven’t had any since Michelle visited in February, I think.
3. Go swimming with Ruben in the lake.
4. Go to Cave Ouvertes (open wine tastings) in new villages.
5. Take the Glacier Express and spend some time in Graubuenden.
6. Explore something in a surrounding country at least once more…trying to make this happen for spring break in two weeks.  Northern Italy for a long weekend?
7. Go strawberry picking again.
8. Buy Seth some last items of good-fitting clothing.

Anything else that should be on that list, readers?  Not that I’ll even manage to complete what I’ve already written, given incredible quantities of school work, moving logistics, wedding logistics, and the like…

Happy Pesakh!

This weekend at the market, it was quite clear that the season for bear garlic, a popular local specialty, is upon us. (Incidentally, I checked and don’t seem to have blogged the fact I found out last year, that bear garlic’s North American cousin is the most likely candidate for the supposedly “stinky onions” after which Chicago is named.)

On Sunday, we went for a walk along the Venoges river with Ruben, and came across giant patches of it. We thought about stopping to pick bunches for dinner (or, now that I think about it, to dry and save for later) but instead we decided to continue on our way, assuming we’d have the chance to get some on our way back.

Ruben is really quite good off-leash, generally sticking near us as we walk, never running too far off, and responding to come almost all of the time. This was the first time we tried walking with him off-leash on a path affording many opportunities for veering off to the water. As we walked, Ruben tempted fate a few times, scooting himself close to the edge of the river, dipping his toes in, but coming running when we called him, at least sooner or later.

After 10 or 15 minutes of this he made a full speed approach, slightly downhill, towards the river. As we called him, and he continued on his merry way, he reached the edge, a foot or two above the water, and next thing we knew, he was in the river. As Jackie called to him I think he quickly turned around—the river wasn’t very deep there—but then he couldn’t climb out because it was too steep. But he did have solid footing, so when Jackie reached him and bent down to grab him, he extended his paws, and was saved.

Back on land, Ruben was sopping wet but totally unfazed, while we were still trying to figure out if we’d just narrowly averted catastrophe or if we had a natural swimmer on our hands. A few steps away we checked out an opening in the forested area around the river, which revealed stunning open fields:

Ruben and Jackie happily frolicked in the sun. Thanks to my phone’s map we realized we were only a mile or so from EPFL, so made our way through the fields, through a small village near EPFL, and to the metro. Quite a nice tour, except we never made it back to the forest for bear garlic! We do, however, still have 3 big bunches in the refrigerator that we bought at the market. Time to make pesto.

Now that I’ve spent a few days in Zermatt, I feel that I am able to write somewhat knowledgeably about ski resorts in the Swiss alps.  That, of course, doesn’t mean I ski in the resorts.  We’ve been to Villars, Leukerbad, Saas Fee, and Zermatt, but I think I’ve only skied once.  Seth and I are more into the snowshoeing/winter hiking side of winter sports.  So is Ruben!

I always thought the ski resorts must be like Switzerland Disneyland.  I thought they were for tourists only.  Yet, I am always surprised by how authentically Swiss they feel.  First, the same shops are there that are everywhere else, including the obligatory Migros and Coop.  Granted, the supermarkets are open later and there is a glut of expensive sports stores, but there are also dairy shops and butcher shops, lots of bakeries, and lots of restaurants serving Swiss food.  I largely think the resort bakeries and restaurants are far superior to their city counterparts, which seems odd given that that the resorts are not exactly rural villages where one would expect to find authentic, home-style cooking or ingredients.  I have also come to realize that these resorts have some stable population as well, and not everyone who lives in them works in the tourist industry.  The apartment building where we stayed in Zermatt (thanks, Alex!) has full-time residents and a shared laundry room resembling the one in Renens (which, I can’t believe I’m saying, I pine for now).  I’m also always surprised to hear that most people around are speaking the language of the place where the resort is located, and all the signs are in that language.  So if they are tourists, they are local-ish ones.

These resorts basically feature the essential Switzerland packed into a tiny little city in the mountains, where everyone is clomping about in ski boots and eating incredible amounts of cheese, and where everything is slightly more convenient and expensive than in the cities below.  They seem far less fake to me than I would have imagined.  I’ve been in mountain villages and countryside villages, and they are basically quieter, smaller versions with one bakery and one restaurant and a Migros with shorter hours than in the cities.  On the other hand, I imagine coming on a visit to Switzerland and ONLY staying at one of these resorts.  As many people do.  And I just know that despite that surprising resort semi-authenticity, they are barely catching a glimpse of Switzerland, and they have nothing for comparison to determine what was fake and what was Swiss.  They are missing the quiet, the inconvenience, the timely transportation, the vegetable markets, the rolling fields of cows and sunflowers, the vineyards clinging to the foothills, the realization that almost all stores are chains, the lakes, the bureaucracy, the universal tidiness that is not just for the eyes of visitors.  They are missing the small places, where there is nothing in particular to see or do other than observe and have a glass of wine made on the premises.  And if all they are doing is rushing down the slopes, they might be missing even more.

When people back home expect that the slopes are the only Switzerland I’ve seen, and then berate me for never skiing, because that’s all anyone they know who has been to Switzerland has ever seen and done, it makes me sad.  I know I’m missing something by not skiing, but I feel proud of how much I have tried to learn about and see this place and live as part of it.  There is so much more to Switzerland than skiing, cheese, and chocolate.  And the resorts are better seen on foot, anyway.

Here’s Zermatt (note the Matterhorn theme):

And here’s some recent scenes from regular life:

In  between desperately trying to do as much reading and thinking as I should, we have had a series of visitors: my cousin Matthew, Allison, Seth’s parents, our friend Quinnie, my parents, and soon, Michelle (who is looking forward to her escape to a nicer climate than Cambridge’s!).  Also, my choir went to Graubünden for a weekend to participate in a choral festival, and we did some hiking and singing in the mountains while we were there.

I decided I already culled my photos enough to be able to just share a few from the last month and a half on the blog.  Instead, peruse our flickr set, starting when the photos get snowy.  Don’t let that fool you into thinking it is always that snowy–it is only rarely so in Lausanne (but almost always so high in the mountains).  Ruben, obviously, has become quite the Alpine dog.

Other than that, what news is there, really, besides the protests in Egypt?

Here’s some:

• On gun control in Switzerland.  And you thought this place was super peaceful—that’s only because of all the guns!!!  There’s a big vote here on this in a couple weeks, and the scary sheep are out again in force on billboards all over the country (as they were with the minaret vote and the deport foreign criminals vote).
• February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month (the third annual, in the US and promoted mainly by the Reform Movement).  I didn’t know this existed until I read this URJ blog post, but I’m glad it does.  One rarely hears discussions of inclusion and access in Jewish settings, where debates over gender and sexuality still dominate the conversations of those who want to make Judaism egalitarian.  Visit the Religious Action Center‘s page to figure out how you can contribute to disability rights through a Jewish lens.

Ok, back to the books and the BBC.

Yesterday was my final class of the fall semester.  I presented my dissertation project to my classmates, and then various people from the history department came to our seminar for a little celebration.  Since it was the Escalade last weekend in Geneva, the department provided a couple of celebratory chocolate cauldrons filled with marzipan fruit for the smashing (this has got something to do with a tale about a woman pouring a cauldron of vegetable soup over the walls onto the heads of the invaders…?).  Embarrassingly, I turned out to be the youngest in the room, and so I was nominated to DO the smashing.  Having never seen this little ritual before, I was somewhat of a loss as to what to do, and besides, I have no special patriotic feelings for Geneva.  The Swiss people in class tried to convince me that I should pound it with my hand, but I thought I’d hurt my hand–that chocolate looked hard.  So I grabbed a nearby corkscrew and half-heartedly beat the cauldron a few times, as the people around me egged me on.  Then I ran away to the other side of the room, I’m sure looking as embarrassed as could be.  Given that there were many bottles of wine and far too much chocolate for the number of people, we students carted it up to an office and continued eating and drinking for a while.  It was a rare social event here at which I actually didn’t feel a strong urge to flee, and it was nice to get to know some of my colleagues better.

This semester was supposed to be light on coursework, heavy on dissertation prep.  I’d say it has been equal parts heavy on dissertation prep and dog training.  Next semester I’ll have to take 3 courses, not just one, I’ll have to keep working hard on the dissertation, Ruben will still be a puppy (hopefully with less separation anxiety!!!), and I’ll have to step up the wedding planning again.  Yikes.  I have two months now without any courses at all (though, with plenty of visitors), so I better get some serious reading done.

I know I rarely talk about my actual work here, so probably many of you readers probably know way more about how laundry works (or doesn’t work) in Switzerland than anything about my school, even though the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies is, after all, the whole reason we are in Switzerland.  Well, first of all, the history department’s blog is a good place to start if you want to get a sense of the academic and institutional landscape.  I’ve been asked to make a contribution to said blog, but I’ve been somewhat at a loss as to what to write there, so feel free to make suggestions.  Here’s a nice interview with my supervisor.

To review what I’ve been doing to date, after taking two years of classes in both international history and a smattering of international law and political science, plus writing a master’s thesis on Jewish advocacy at the League of Nations in the 1920s using the League of Nations archives, I got my MA in September.  I spent a couple months trying to figure out a PhD topic that would be interesting to me, feasible in terms of languages and location, and useful scholarly work.  Currently, I’ve settled on researching the historical relationship between international, voluntary service and advocacy organizations and how these types of organizations each relate to the international system.  I will explore that relationship through a selection of Jewish-American international organizations and their activities and interactions from the interwar through the postwar periods (roughly 1918-1960).  I’m sure the topic will mutate significantly, but there you have it, my 4 year project.  This is going to involve significant multi-archival work (hello YIVO, American Jewish Archives, and the US National Archives!), and a lot of reading literature that is tangential to my direct research.  So much to do, and 4 years of lonely time management to struggle with.

P.S. Don’t forget to wish Seth a happy 25th tomorrow!

Last week we had something of a mini blizzard here in Lausanne with multiple inches of snow dumped from the sky, a welcome excuse to post another photo of Ruben, for whom snow combines everything great in the world: he can lick it, he can hop around in it, and he can chase after it. Though it does stick to him in funny little snowballs. Tip for coton de tuléar/bichon/dogs with long-hair owners (who found this while googling “how to get snow out of fur of dogs with long hair”): if your dog doesn’t mind water, have him stand in a tub with warm water for 30-60 seconds and it’ll all melt. Then dry/comb/blow dry as appropriate.

But that wasn’t the end of it. This morning, I e-mailed Jackie to say that the prediction was for 15-20 cm (6-7.5 inches) of snow starting tonight and going through tomorrow, and it’s since been revised to 20-24 cm (8-9.5 inches), meaning according to the meteorological service the alert has reached: Great Danger (seriously…) Also, the meteorological service apparently calls the area of Switzerland near Lake Geneva the “lowlands.” As if we live in Scotland—also, Lausanne is nothing if not hilly.

At work, the administration sent an e-mail early in the afternoon which I didn’t get for some reason, warning of a “forte chutes de neiges” (i.e. heavy snowfall) and people started packing up to leave early right away. I only gave myself an extra 20 minutes for my bus ride to the train station, assuming that the bus might be a little screwed up, but trains in Switzerland travel through snow all the time, although not often in this area, so there wasn’t much to worry about. After sitting on the bus, in the parking lot, for 10 minutes, I realized that we weren’t going anywhere because the bus was stuck—not in the snow, which was at this point coming down quite heavily, but in traffic.

Out on the street, traffic was apparently backed up for blocks, so no cars could exit, and neither could the bus, which uses the parking lot as the start/end of its line. A few blocks away there are trams, which a few of us hapless passengers thought might be working. We asked the bus driver, who didn’t have any inside information. But when asked, he did offer an assurance that if he happened to pass us while driving and we were walking, he’d be happy to stop and let us back on. He also asked if there was any coffee available inside. The cafe was closed, and the vending machines aren’t easy to find, plus he’d have trouble passing through security, I informed him, while drinking tea from my travel mug. He noticed, and laughed, so I offered to run inside and get him coffee, as long as the other people now motivated to set off into the snow in search of moving transportation would wait for me. Two minutes later the bus driver had some coffee, and we were off. We passed the long stretches of backed up traffic, arrived just as a tram was pulling away, and decided to continue on the train station on foot. I was chatting with an American I didn’t know, so the 25 minute walk to the train station was not bad at all, even in the snow.

I expected some delays, so I wasn’t so worried about making a specific train. But at the train station, chaos. Signs claimed that trains were anywhere from 8 to 22 minutes delayed. Or flat-out canceled. Information I found online using my phone warned ominously of a “signal box malfunction,” which is never a good sign. I boarded one train, standing room only, and after 15 minutes an announcement was made inviting us to kindly disembark, since it wasn’t going anywhere. I boarded another train, this one marked as having an indefinite delay. From in the stationary train, we could hear the announcements in the station—indefinite delay for all trains to Lausanne. But after another long wait, things became more promising and after another wait, we left! The conductor announced that we were 60 minutes late (not an hour late, but 60 minutes) and the train was quite local so it made a bunch of stops, but eventually I made it home to Lausanne, where the metro is still running perfectly. Jackie had to leave for choir, but Ruben (and dinner…thanks Jackie!) were waiting for me.

According to 24 heures, train traffic will remain quite messed up between Lausanne and Geneva all night, with intercity trains all canceled, and shuttle bus service replacing part of the line. The Geneva airport is apparently closed, and the bus system in Lausanne was completely paralyzed, but may be resuming shortly if the roads get cleared (looking outside where it’s still coming down hard suggests otherwise.)