Jason asks a stupid question

We walked from Jason's office to Germany yesterday. (Two days ago, we walked from there to France. We are truly international travelers!) It was a bit chilly and we were all starving and our destination was farther than we had originally thought, so when we got to the mall, we were crabby.

We headed straight for the food court, at which point Jason announces he needs to go to the bathroom and leaves me with the two children and a few Euros to procure dinner. Sarah spots a McDonalds.

I get to the counter and say in my best German, "Ein Happy Meal mit cheeseburger." The man behind the counter says, "With fries and a coke?" Shockingly, he has figured out that I am English speaking. Sarah gets her happy meal (fries and Sprite and mayonnaise on the side).

Then Jason reappears and takes the children to a table while I go order our food. There was a Greek or perhaps Turkish restaurant that was serving pita bread with meat and yogurt sauce and such.

Again, I look at the picture menu (thankfully!) above the workers' heads and order in my best German. The man looks at me blankly. Since he's probably Greek (or Turkish, hard to tell), he may easily identify me as English speaking but he does not speak English. He points. I say, "yes." He points again. I'm confused. He puts together an order. He asks a question. I say, "Ja!" No idea what he asked, but he starts putting things on my sandwich, so I guess he was asking if I wanted everything on it.

He makes two things up, which somewhat resemble what I thought I ordered, but had some definite differences. Then he puts it into a bag and hands it to me. I take it to the cashier who asks, I presume, what I had in the bag. Oh dear. I have food. I try to tell her what I'd ordered (which may or may not have any relation to what is actually in the bag). She asks another question. I shrug. She rings me up for some amount and I hand her money and she hands me change and I leave.

I make it to the table and Jason, noticing the bag, says, "Why did you get it to go?"

"Because," I said, "I don't speak German."

For the wrong order, it was very delicious.

And So We Cause an International Incident

After Church we went for a drive. We headed into the French speaking portion of Switzerland. We saw a beautiful field of daffodils and a cow getting a massage. (Seriously. It was this big rotating brush thing and the cow stood under it. If we were cows, we'd want to be Swiss cows.)

We were very close to France, so we decided to go home through France. We had our passports, so everything should have been fine.

Except it wasn't.

We got to the border and presented our passports. The border guards only spoke French. Fortunately, Jason's high school French really paid off and he was able to communicate clearly with them. (Or at least, clearly enough that we didn't end up in jail.)

The children and I have not yet been to the Munchenstein police station to register. The border guards told us that if we left Switzerland we would not be allowed back in. It was all very confusing. Becuase we have a visas, we are under different rules then we would be otherwise. You don't need a visa to enter Switzerland, but if you have one, you have to register.

Jason was discussing this in French and the guards took our passports and disappeared into the building. When they came back, they mentioned that Jason worked for Novartis, so they must have looked us up in their computer and discovered things about us.

They asked to see Jason's driver's license, and that's when we discovered that he had forgotten his wallet. We got a little nervous at this point. Nothing like conversing in a foreign language with an armed man who has the power to put you in jail for attempting to illegally leave the country. Yeah! Welcome to Europe!

Fortunately, they let us turn around and we went back home through Switzerland.

Sunday Activities

We attended our first church meetings in Switzerland. We arrived about 3 minutes early, which is excellent because the Swiss do not operate on Mormon Standard Time. (Although one of the speakers did come in late.)

A missionary from Taylorsville, UT translated for us. He was very nice.

The speakers (theoretically, as the missionary could have been saying anything he wanted to) all gave very nice talks about Easter and how to be more Christlike.

For Primary, they provided Sarah with several translators. One reported to me that Sarah was answering questions, just like we knew she would. She met a girl named Piera who speaks very good English. She also met another girl, whose name she doesn't remember, who speaks English.

Almost all of the adults speak English, and the people couldn't have been any nicer. Everybody was so kind and friendly and helpful.

But, here's the spooky part. When I took Daniel out of Sunday School to feed him, no one was in the hall. And there is just one hall, so I knew they couldn't be hiding.

Relief Society was kind of a nightmare. It's a rented building, so not LDS standard issue. The floor was tile. Tile is loud. Daniel wanted to throw his toys. Plink, plink, crash.

There was a small area rug in the corner, so I took him back there and tried to entertain him. Wahh! I got some bunnies (plastic, unfortunately) together for him to play with and returned to our seat. On the tile. Crash! Smash! Fling! See Daniel, the only baby in the room, throw stuff at people, who I don't know, and who are speaking German. Ja!

That's when they politely asked me to move my chair onto the carpet.

Sigh.

Daniel was just too cranky to sit through RS, so I took him out to the hallway. Again, there were no other people out there. What is wrong with these people? Don't they understand that you are supposed to skip portions of your meetings?

Daniel finally calmed down a little bit and we returned for the closing song and prayer.

We didn't end up leaving the building for at least 30 minutes because we were talking with everyone. As I said, the people could not have been any nicer. It was a wonderful branch and I really look forward to being there.

Sarah had a great time in primary, and after church we discovered the nursery (called kindergarten here) and let's just say that we all wish we were toddlers because it's an awesome nursery. 7 months to go for Herr Baby.

After church we ate bread and cheese and "oster fleisch." (Easter Meat. Don't ask, we don't know.) Then we headed out to visit Sarah's new school.

Sarah's school looks absolutely amazing. There is a cool track for running, that also has a long jump track. We ran lots of races. Daniel made Dad run super fast and he would giggle while they were running together. Sarah loved the playground. It had wooden climbers and a rope and a cement climbing wall. The slides were built into the side of a hill, which makes sense. That way, if you fall off the side, you are not high in the air. Duh. I guess we would do that in the US if we had as many hills as we do there.

We played on the playground and walked around the school and looked in all the windows. Just from looking in the window, we can tell that the curriculum is stronger than the Central Bucks school district. And considering that CB is one of the best districts in the state, that says something.

We left the school and went for a drive, which will be described in the next post.

Swiss Culture is Different

Well, in addition to Jason not having to work over Easter weekend, the people who work at the grocery stores don't have to work either. Yikes, as we had no food.

Fortunately, we got two calls from Ward members on Thursday afternoon to warn us that the stores would be closed Friday and Monday. Grocery stores normally close at 6:00 and it was already after 5:00. This is by law, by the way.

Stores located in a train station can stay open until 10:00, so I left Jason with the kids and headed out with a pocket full of francs. (They don't do credit cards the way Americans do, so I have to be prepared with cash, which is totally foreign (ha!) to me.)

This was my first trip out on my own, and I was concerned about getting off the tram at the right spot. Jason had instructed me, and I was all prepared and paranoid. In order to get off the tram, you have to push a button to open the doors. Unlike the subways in NY, they don't automatically open.

I was counting down the stops until the Bahnhoff SBB (Bahnhoff=train station) and the announcement came that my stop was next. I prepared myself to get off. The tram stops. I jump up and push the button. The doors do not open! Everyone is looking at me funny.

Turns out, the tram had stopped prior to the station to wait for another tram to move out of the way and we were still a little bit away from the station. Oh well, embarrassing situations are always fun.

The store was a nightmare. Since the only stores in the region that are open are at the train station, and it was just a small store in the first place, it was so crowded I could hardly fit down the aisles. I stood in line forever as well. But, we got some food, I had enough cash to pay for it, and I headed home.

I did not make a fool of myself on the ride hoome. Whew!