fasnacht forever

Okay, so Fasnacht is almost over, and after two parades and a whole lot of shredded paper, I’ve learned a little more about it. Such as:

I. Fasnacht has a special purpose. I’d assumed as much, but I couldn’t have told you what that reason was before the past few days. Now, after a little more research and a hot tip from Mathias, I know that Fasnacht is a pagan tradition designed to scare off the bitter winter – think of it as a kind of Swiss Groundhog’s Day, only more proactive. That, then, explains the all the costumes, though I’m not sure why the iconic Fasnacht clown would frighten anyone, much less the great and powerful Mr. Snow Miser.

Vikings, on the other hand, are very scary, and an entire brass band of Vikings, such as the one that performed, loud and drunk, on the risers at the Metalli mall Thursday morning, were positively fearsome (especially the 300-pound tuba player in the horned helmet). So were the pirates, and the witches, and the trolls, and the other pirates, and the tigers, and the communist aliens, or alien communists, or whatever the green men in the Soviet costumes were supposed to be. The drunken ski team was not very scary (the drum major’s fu manchu notwithstanding), nor was the momma chicken with all the little baby eggs following her down the street, tossing feathers on parade-goers.

The band of smelly hippies was terrifying.

All of these, mind you, were the band members, the people walking in time and playing an assortment of mediocre pop hits from the ‘70s and ‘80s (“We Built This City,” “You’re the Best Around,” “Danger Zone”). The crowds of people watching, both at the Metalli and along the parade routes, were even more impressively, if less uniformly, decked out. There were more witches and more trolls, and there were giant, puffy clowns and Oompa Loompas and blue-haired cigarette girls, and virtually nobody tried to get away with a lame cop-out like “oh, I’m just a dude with a bobbly valentine headband and no other costume to speak of.”

As for us, Mia was Cinderella on Thursday, then shifted gears to Fairy Princess for Saturday’s parade. Sarah was a pirate, complete with a headband and a mask and a scary hook fashioned from tin foil. And Max was Clifford the small red dog on Thursday, then donned a princess dress for Saturday’s festivities.

(Got a problem with that, Tim Hardaway?)

II. Fasnacht works. How else to explain the 60-degree weather on Greasy Thursday, the first day of Fasnacht? True, it was back down to the low 30s today, but clearly, winter is on the run. Not that that’s all that impressive, given what a pussycat of a winter we’ve had so far, but still. Score one for paganism.

III. Fasnacht is funded entirely by an all-powerful cabal of Swiss dentists. Think I’m crazy? Look at the facts. The only people that weren’t throwing confetti at us were throwing candy at us, most of it hard candy of the sort that I always seem to pop into my mouth, then get sick of after about 15 or 20 minutes, then bite on, leaving a sticky pebble of sugar lodged alongside one of my many fillings. I hate that stuff, but Mia doesn’t, and she was in heaven, filling her puppy-dog purse with it, along with all the chocolates and brownies and cookies and oranges and gum she could get her hands on. For some reason we can’t quite fathom, some of the floats were also tossing out travel Kleenex and Pampers-brand hand soap for kids, but nobody – not one of the hundreds of people that passed us and handed out free stuff – was giving out floss.

Seriously. Who benefits? Follow the money, people. Follow the money.

IV. You cannot just brush confetti away like dandruff. Especially when you’re a professional, adultish woman and you make a habit of engaging 13-year-old Swiss girls in confetti fights all afternoon. That’s right, my wife, she of the fancy job and the smooth, even temperament, spent Saturday afternoon out by the hockey stadium chucking fistfuls of yellow and red and purple detritus at gangs of high school kids as they passed on parade floats.

She learned this behavior from her daughter – her four-year-old daughter, mind you – who overcame her early timidity and began heaving confetti at band members near the end of Thursday’s parade. Then she started throwing it at the non-playing mascots that trailed the bands, and then at other parade-goers, and finally point-blank at an infant in a stroller – that’s when I stepped in.

Nothing I could do to halt Sarah’s confettish, though, nor did I want to stop it – the look of glee on her face was just too hilarious. To their credit, her victims responded in kind, pelting Sarah about the face and neck and shoulders with their own supply of paper, leaving her with confetti in her hair, down her back, in her pockets. They weren’t laughing either, not like Sarah. They, one suspects, had spent the entire parade being confetti’d, and they weren’t about to take any more of it, especially from some no-account auslander.

And it didn’t end there. There was a pirate ship float shooting cannons full of confetti into the crowd. There was a medieval castle blasting the stuff from some kind of machine gun mounted in a turret. There was an “Ice Age” float (yes, “Ice Age” again – who knew that movie had such a huge Swiss following?) with squirrels showering us from the top of an iceberg, and there were toothless hags dancing along the street tossing it at us, and there were men on a flat-bed truck shoveling it – literally, shoveling it – out of a giant trough and onto our heads.

It was, as Mia so lyrically termed it, a “confetti-quake.” And for what it’s worth, it’s a pain in the neck to get out of the carpet.

V. No, I’m serious about the confetti. I’ve vacuumed four times, and the cleaning ladies were here Friday. I’m still finding the stuff all over the house.

I’m not complaining. I’m just saying.

VI. Fasnacht is rad. I love this holiday. We need to take it for America. I mean really, it’s 20 degrees in Chicago. Are you telling me that a holiday centered around drinking, fried food, and candy – one that, oh yeah, gets rid of the harsh winter as a bonus – you’re saying that wouldn’t go over big?

Let’s steal it. Let’s make it our own. Come on, who’s in?

 

everything i need to know about the swiss i learned from canadians

Today marked a bit of a breakthrough in the daycare situation, which is essentially this: I have no daycare for Max. Not that I need him anywhere full-time – I can’t work anyway, so I may as well take care of my boy, and anyway I like my boy. But I also like buying milk without constantly having to play defense, and besides, Max has to be sick of me. Really, a little separation now and then is in everyone’s best interest.

It hasn’t been easy, though. As expected, the English-speaking facilities are full up, and the local centers give priority to locals – if you can find them at all. Once, I stopped by city hall because they supposedly keep a list of daycare providers, but the woman I spoke to didn’t understand English, so I just let her instruct me in German. From her body language, I’m pretty sure she told me to “walk up this street, then left, then look for a woman wearing a brown overcoat, and ask her about the babysitters.”

I may as well have asked Max.

Eventually, I found a place – a little storefront where I can leave him for two hours on Wednesdays to play with other short people – and today was his first visit. I was right, too – he’s totally been waiting for this. When I dropped him off, he didn’t cling or cry, as I’d feared. He ran. Away from me. Laughing.

(But, you know. I’m still his hero and all that.)

Anyway, I bring all this up for a reason, and it has nothing to do with my son. It has to do with this: I met a Swiss person. Her name’s Monika, and she runs the Spiel center over at Feldhof 14. She’s not the first Swiss person I’ve met, but she’s the first one who wasn’t scanning my groceries or serving me a croissant. Or shushing me. Or some combination of these things.

We’re here two months now, and everyone I know is from somewhere else. Not all are from the States – most aren’t, actually. They’re from Germany, or the U.K., or Canada, or Belgium. But they’re not from Switzerland. Maybe it’s because the parents I meet at the park don’t speak English. Maybe it’s because I spend most of my social time with other expats from Mia’s school or Sarah’s office. Or maybe it’s because you just don’t get out much when you’re minding a toddler full-time.

Whatever the reason, it hasn’t stopped me from learning about the Swiss. I know plenty about the Swiss.

Like this: I know that the Swiss are in shape. They run along the lake in groups and they bike up narrow mountain roads, slowing traffic without compunction. And elderly men and women cruise the sidewalks with ski poles in their hands. It’s some kind of cardio exercise – they call it Nordic walking – but it just looks like old people pretending they’re skiing.

I know that the Swiss are way into their hair. Coiffures outnumber gas stations here two to one – maybe three to one. Still, every cut looks the same to me: a Judi Dench crop with a color palette ranging from deep strawberry to light burgundy. (For the men: faux-hawks all around!)

I know they’re also an insular people. Grüzi is their word for hello, and they’ll grüzi you to death, but they won’t invite you over for dinner until you marry into the family. I’m told it takes a personal introduction from a Swiss before another Swiss will trust you in business. It’s like joining the mafia.

Other things: I know they like rules, and they have a lot of rules, and they’re always up for new rules, if you’ve got some. I’ve been told by random strangers not to park here, not to talk there, not to leave my bag on this chair, not to stand where I’m standing. When I start my car in the fog, someone invariably drivdes by to flash his brights at me, because even though I haven’t moved yet, the law says I need my lights on. It’s a nation of hall monitors. There are 7 million people in Switzerland, and 6½ million of them are cops.

I know they’re serious about their cheese. I know they’re not shy about wrapping their personal automobiles in paid ads. I know they eat horse-jerky. (No, really. It’s next to the salami at the Migros.)

I know that they don’t much like kids, but we’ve been over that already.

I know a lot of things. They may all be wrong, we’ll see. Meet Monika, my one-woman demographic sample. She at least seems to like children.

This weekend we visit some serious Alps. Meantime, here’s a picture of Max with orange eyebrows, courtesy of his older sister. (Thanks, Mia!)

 

the law’s winning.

I’ve been here three weeks and I’ve gotten three tickets already. I think.

That’s a problem. Not the tickets. They’re a problem all their own, and if this doesn’t stop, I’m going to be deported in time for an American Thanksgiving, I know it. No, the real problem is that I don’t know how many tickets I’ve gotten.

What I do know is that I’ve had my picture taken twice, both times while driving, and both times while driving in the same spot. That spot, as it happens, is on the road to Mia’s school, which makes the ride to school somewhat nerve-wracking for me. The first time, I was oblivious – I was just cruising along, looking good, when a Swiss government camera snapped my picture for no apparent reason, other than that I was looking so good. The second time was about 24 hours later, and this time there was really no reason, because not only was I no longer looking good (the hard water is affecting my hair), but I was driving at a crawl, afraid of having my picture taken again. And yet…

Well, now I’ve got two photos on file with the traffic bureau. I think.

Since then, I’ve jammed on the breaks just before rounding the curve that has so clearly been set up as a speed trap for limp-haired Americans. I’ve endured angry honking from fellow drivers, but I’m pretty sure I’m saving them from speeding tickets too, so I just shrug and wave and keep doing it. It’s been more than a week now, and I haven’t had any more pictures, though at this point they may have all the pictures they need, and they may just be debiting my account every time I pass that spot. I don’t know. And that’s the problem.

The third ticket came this morning, and this time I’m certain. The good news is it’s not for speeding, it’s for stopping. Specifically, it’s for parking.

This morning after dropping Mia, Max and I finally figured out where the poor people shop. The place is called Otto, and it’s huge and messy and decidedly broke-ass, but it’s also the first place I’ve found where things cost what I think they ought to cost. Unfortunately, they cost a little more if you don’t walk the 150 yards around the back of the warehouse to find the parking lot pay kiosk that you didn’t know existed, because then you finish shopping and discover that your car has been flyered by the local polizei, and the cheese grater and cereal you just bought cost Fr. 44.80.

It’s a big, wide-open parking lot, but that doesn’t mean it’s free. Now I know.

I think that’s my motto so far here in Switzerland. “Now I know.”