Bopomofo or Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符號)

I know a little bit of Spanish.  Just a wee little bit.  Enough to be dangerous.  Un poquito.  Muy poquito.

It really gets me in trouble, because after the initial Hola that spontaneously comes out (I’m from So Cal, after all :P), the opposite party usually gets all excited and starts sputtering out a bunch of Spanish to me.  J- started doing that today, and I was dutifully copying and pasting each line into Google Translate, trying to figure out what the heck he was saying.

Friday is Bridge Day (well, at least one of them)

This Thursday is August 1st, or Swiss National Day.  It’s kind of funny, because we’re used to saying Independence Day in the United States, but Switzerland didn’t have to achieve independence from anyone, so it’s just Swiss National Day.

Today my Slovenian colleague J- asked me if I was taking a bridge on Friday.  Being the smart cookie that I am, I immediately said yes.  Then I thought about it…  how the heck did I know what he meant?  I guess I just picked up the meaning of that word from being in Switzerland.  

German gives me a headache… and a stomach ache, too

I hate to say this, but German really gives me a headache.  Today my lovely Swiss coworker (I’ll call her N-) decided to converse with me in German over lunch, so I could “practice”.  She has somehow got it into her head that I know lots of words but just need practice stringing them together.  After all, Englisch und Deutsch Wörter sind ähnlich.  (Yeah, I learned that phrase today.  Just barely.  I had to look up the word for similar  because I forgot it already.  I hope I got the right one.)  

How to survive in Zurich (and how not to make dinner)

I just spent the better part of this afternoon struggling through my German homework.  It’s pretty sad;  I had to look up practically every word, and then it still didn’t make any sense, so I had to type in whole phrases verbatim into Google Translate to see if it could work wonders.  All this heartache and headache for a fill-in-the-blank one-pager.  Yes, my German is that pathetic.  😦

I had wanted to get some exercise this afternoon in my first attempt to slim down for the bridesmaid dress, but by the time I finished doing my homework, it was already past 7 pm, so I decided to make dinner instead.  Yes…  gasp!  I actually attempted to cook today.  

Springtime in Zürich

I didn’t have anything else going on today, so I was going to join some friends for the housing expo.  I’ve already established that I can’t afford to buy anything in Zürich at the moment, but I was hoping to tag along and learn what the current housing market is like.  Since the weather’s beautiful today, I decided to enjoy the sunshine and walk down to the Kongresshaus.