Growing up I always loved the smell of coffee but I never enjoyed the taste of it, unless it was in the form of ice cream! If I needed or wanted caffeine I always got it from drinking soda. And then when I received my cancer diagnosis I decided it might be a good idea to be nice to my liver so I stopped drinking anything with caffeine in it. Fast forward a few years and now I'm living in Switzerland. There is coffee everywhere and it seems like everyone wants to go for a coffee. Coffee is offered after every meal. It's a big deal. So, reluctantly, I've joined in and I have to admit, I'm loving it! It was especially fun to take a tour of the Jura Coffee World with my friends from ZIWA.
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So when I first saw these posters all over Switzerland I thought OMG! Of course, not knowing how to read the German that accompanies them might make a person wonder. After all, they say Position 1: german, german, german. Position 2: german, german, german. Position 3: german, german, german. I'm thinking, what is Nicholas learning? This is one of the differences we see here in Switzerland, well, Europe in general. I can't see this being used for an ad campaign in the States, but here, no big deal. If you think about them for more than a couple of seconds it's pretty easy to figure out what they are all about. They are obviously an ad campaign to reduce energy costs. Here is a link to the website - there are even some very short videos you can watch. I just thought I'd share a few of the billboards we get to see as we move around on the trains. Of course there is also the one advertising a hook-up site, but I don't want to encourage any of you to visit that one!
We do! And so does half of Switzerland. Apparently, they are passed out every ten years to any person living within 50 km of a nuclear power plant. (Nuclear power plants produce about 36% of the power in Switzerland, although plans to stop using it by 2034 were announced after the Fukushima disaster.) People often believe that the Swiss hate foreigners (thanks to the SVP), but I am now sure this is not true because unlike food labels (which are only in a couple languages) the insert with directions and information about the pills is written in a ton of languages, even English!! So they had their chance and didn't take it! I'm just very glad that nothing happened last year because we didn't have our pills until now. I feel much safer. Now..........where did I put them?
"When in Rome do as the Romans do" - translate this to mean when in Venetia, buy Venetian glass. When in England, eat fish and chips. If you are in Belgium, certainly drink the beer. However, a visit to Russia would not be complete without some vodka. If you go to China you might purchase some silk. You get the idea. So, for the past year, I've been exploring what this means in Switzerland and as a result I've learned a great deal, met some new people, gained weight, and spent a ton of money! There's something to be said for "Made in Switzerland".
Everyone is familiar with the saying "it's not the destination but the journey that counts" or some variation of that. I've thought about this many times as we travel around Switzerland. The train rides are beautiful. We see all kinds of animals, rolling green hills, rivers, lakes, homes, mountains, castles, and much more! I blog about where we end up but I'm never really able to show you the journey. You have no idea about how we got there. We often ride the train for three hours each way. You are missing that experience. During our last few trips I've started to think more about this and in a deeper way. It really is the same with people and life. I was just looking back on my page about lessons learned and the last one struck me. "There will always be more lessons to learn, but life quickly becomes more normal." This is something that Dave and I have been talking about the past few months. |
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