Socializing in Switzerland

posted by Kim
We are fortunate to know a family from Minnesota living in Bern: Colin, Alison, Noah and Daniel. Todd and I both worked with Colin at Wells Fargo, and Colin is the person who gave Todd the lead on his job here - they both work for Swisscom but on different projects.

Anyway...Alison has taken me under her wing since the kids and I arrived. She has passed on useful information regarding events and where to get stuff, and included me in several social gatherings. Last week I joined Alison and some of her friends here for dinner. It was a group of expats including women from South Africa, Ireland, India, California and us two Minnesotans.

Order...QUICK!
We met at a cafe in the center of Bern for drinks. The waiter came over when gestured to and several of the women rattled off their request; one grabbed for the drink menu to verify the wine she wanted. As soon as the waiter noted the lapse, he was off. No time for hesitating here. He was called back a few minutes later and the wine order was placed...he seemed annoyed.

Swiss Birthday Party
Isabella was invited to her first birthday party here for a female classmate. I phoned to rsvp and quickly realized that the birthday girl's mother spoke just about as much English as I speak German. I dug out bits from my community ed course in Minneapolis, to say that I was Isabella's mother, that she was in class with Fabienne and that "yes, come".

On Saturday we trained a couple villages away, got off and caught another train heading back in the direction from whence we came but a little bit west to the village of Moosseedorf. We wandered just a bit until we saw signs pointing us to the street we were looking for and quickly located the physical therapy building where the party was being held. It brought back memories of the class parties Izzi had back in Minneapolis in the studio of her friend's (Reuben) father.

As I left Izzi there with 6 other non-English speaking girls for the 5-hour party of free play, magician and lots of eating; it struck me how brave children can be.