Overheard at Starbucks, pt 2

It's NaNoWriMo, and by some miracle, I am almost halfway through the month and still within shot of potentially 'winning' (winning = writing 50k words in 30 days, an average rate of 1,667 words/day).

I work well at Starbucks. It's a productive space for me (which is how I justify the 7 franc chai latte). Lots of other people also bring their laptops to work at Starbucks. Students, casual people, older people, business-y people. This conversation just happened between two men who were sitting near me. Business man starts to leave and says goodbye to man at next table.

Man at next table (MANT) in Swiss accent: "Goodbye. Where are you from?"

Business-y man in perfect British accent: "London."

MANT: "Where?"

Business-y man: "England." (smiles)

MANT: "Oh, you don't look like it."

Business-y man: "Chinese blood." (stops smiling and leaves)

Uggggh. Conversations like this make me cringe. I know they happen all the time, and I certainly heard similar ones in the US regularly. And to be fair, my cringing is a minor issue - I have never been on the receiving end of these conversations. When I say I'm from the US, people nod and leave it at that. Because I have the fortunate coincidence of looking like what an American citizen 'should' look like. (Interestingly, within the US, when I say I grew up in West Virginia, I often get a puzzled look and the comment, "But you don't have an accent." Or the less innocent "But you have all your teeth." Har har har, people).

Just yesterday I read this NPR article looking at this exact question (their entire Race Card series is fascinating), so this topic was on my mind. I've certainly been witness to these conversations - hasn't everyone? Perhaps you've even unwittingly been guilty of it yourself (no judgment, keep reading). My sister's partner was born and raised in the US to parents who immigrated from India, and I know he's been questioned in the US. One of my good friends here grew up in Zurich and (from what I can tell) speaks Schweizerdeutsch with the best of them, but she is technically a Korean citizen, and often feels the need to clarify that in conversations when asked the above question. Mortifyingly, when I met her, I showed surprise to hear that she grew up here - I made the embarrassing mistake of assuming she was from the US, since she spoke flawless American-accented English. It was an extremely gauche move of me, regardless of whether I was questioning her Asian appearance or not, and a reminder to me that I now live in a multi-lingual country where many people speak a variety of languages flawlessly.

I'm not a philosopher and I don't study race or ethnicity or appreciate my own white privilege as much as I should, so I just want to say this, as a reminder for myself and everyone else out there: when you ask someone where they are from, please do them the courtesy of believing their answer (their first answer). Unless they are an international spy or hit man, there is no reason for them to lie about it.  The answer to "where are you from?" can provide a myriad of conversation starters. So if you want to ask a follow up question, take a moment to check yourself, then ask one - about whether they enjoyed growing up there, their experience in the area, when they moved, or if their family still lives thereabouts. There are many options that don't dwell on a person's racial or physical appearance, so - in my opinion - try one of those.

Celebrating crochet craft completions

I stalled out on some crochet projects a couple months ago, but have picked them back up over the past few weeks. And to a bit of my surprise, I've actually finished (or close to!) several of them. My current big project is a sampler afghan, in which every square is a different stitch. It's been great - I've now learned how to rib and cable with crochet (techniques typically associated with knitting), as well as some other attractive stitches. Unfortunately, I slowed down on a square for which I found the written instructions a bit confusing and the final appearance significantly less attractive than the images in the pattern. Ah well.

Also note the lack of size uniformity. Some of the squares are going to take serious blocking before they can be assembled. Square that has been perpetually in progress for 3+ months not shown.

To distract myself and still scratch my crafting itch, which has become difficult to ignore as the weather has cooled and greyed, I've done a few other projects. My favorite is definitely the shawl I finished just last night:

I had to improvise with the color changes, since I knew I was short on yarn and wanted to try to use as much of each skein as I could. But if I didn't tell you that, would you notice?

Unfortunately I only bought 4 skeins of the yarn, so it's a bit smaller than the original pattern intended. I also made my own edge with a bit more ruffle to it. Overall, I love it. The yarn is a silk/merino/cotton blend, so it's unbelievably soft and very warm. The pattern was super easy as well - I crocheted this from start to finish in 4 days. Highly recommend!

I'm also almost done with a scarf that I'm attempting without a pattern - which I feel now to be a mistake, but since the scarf is 90% or more done, I'm not about to restart it. Oh well! 

Scarf disappointment. It's a medical condition.

I based it on a simple wave pattern, which I thought would look nice with the blue colors, but the yarns are more novelty than I'm used to, so the entire scarf feels a bit stiff and looks quite awkward (imo). I think a looser stitch would have been better to give these yarns more pliability (that is so not a word that I've ever seen applied to crafts, but maybe I'll start a trend). Win some, lose some! Unless anybody out there needs a scarf that isn't very warm or snuggly? 

And finally, I finished another market bag, this time in blue with brown handles. 

I continue to play around with modifications of this pattern, mainly changing the handles. I like the two tone look, and I bought a crapload (technical measure) of the mercerized cotton yarn when it was on clearance, so I'm taking color requests for Christmas presents (I've got more of the blue above, a teal color, dark blue, brown, white, linen, and lavendar). I may try another bag pattern with only one large shoulder handle from the same pattern designer and put in stripes, because stripes are festive (and easier than polka dots). :) 

I hope everyone is having a happy fall! What craft projects are you working on?

Overheard at Starbucks

Two or three times a week, I like to take my editing or writing to Starbucks. It helps me get out of the house, and I'm more productive outside the apartment (I don't do it every day because of the prohibitive expense. Not only the chai tea latte that is my standard, but also because it's right next door to a crazy tasty salad restaurant that has to-go dinner salads that make me feel all healthy. I'm weak, I know). I usually go to a specific Starbucks that has an upstairs, away from the loud coffee grinder and clinking dishes. It's never full but is consistently busy, so I can usually guarantee myself a spot.

While German/Swiss/foreign-type people definitely hang out at Starbucks, I've never been to one without hearing native English (British or American). This puts me in the somewhat unusual (at least in Switzerland) position where I can eavesdrop on other people's conversations. I've been privy to some inappropriate flirting (a girlfriend was mentioned early in the conversation but apparently conveniently forgotten), a couple actually making out, a painfully slow English tutoring lesson, and various other conversations that cannot so easily be pigeonholed.

I am currently listening to one such conversation now. The setting is an elderly British gentleman and a woman approximately my age whose native language is not English, although her accent is slight enough that I cannot guess where she is from. They started by talking about a name for a project and story arcs - I thought they were going to talk about a screenplay or book. No.

For the most part, the older man seems to be lecturing her about...well, I'm not sure. He has referred to a study by Harvard psychologists about body "power positions"and told her a (very) longwinded story about a friend who, by choosing the scenic route after a leg injury required less rehabilitation time than anyone could have predicted (this story, much to my surprise, was not a metaphor. Driving an actual scene route, mountains and everything, helps heal, apparently). She then responded by saying "that's funny, because I have the exact same thing going on," and then told a story about a younger girl who was being being very competitive about working out or team stuff (I may have missed the connecting thread here). His response: "I feel that you are upset because you are missing something in how you are responding to this girl." Or maybe she's just a pain in the ass. Just an idea.

Other gems include:
"I need to work independently. Some people get projects done by working together, but I just do the entire thing myself. Because I know myself and know that is the best way to get something done."

"Most people don't even realize he's dominating them. I do, because I'm that type of person."

"I'm saying the words as I breathe in. I watch that happen, then I'll start seeing clouds of blue."

Is this dude supposed to be some sort of advisor, or did he set up this meeting just to talk about how awesome he is?

September fly by

September has always felt like a short month to me, and this year was no exception. My parents visited for three weeks, and in that time we managed to see a bit of Germany (Munich), Austria (Salzburg, which unfortunately was a bit of a rained out mess), and Italy (Milan). We also did more tourist-type activities around Zurich than I'd done in my previous 7 months combined, including a wonderful afternoon at the Zurich zoo, a boat trip on Lake Zurich, and visits to three of the main churches in town. We also trimmed hedges, dug up my entire garden, planted various bulbs for next spring, painted a bookshelf, organized the basement storage, picked apples/made homemade applesauce, and my amazing mother hemmed a set of curtains (by hand!). Busy times.

Before departing for Munich, I watched a few lectures from the "Great Courses" (photography) series my parents had bought me before departing Boston - yes, about 8 months late. I was eager to try out my newfound expertise 45-minutes-of-knowledge and ended up taking well over 1500 photos in an attempt to learn more about both photography and my specific camera (a Nikon D3200). And what I learned was - well, I learned I want a more versatile lens. But! I also learned a lot about aperture and shutter speed and how to mess around with them. Good times.

So when we returned, I was all excited about playing around with the photos after the fact and posting stunning photos. Unfortunately, my poor 4-year old MacBookPro has single-digit GBs of memory free (as in, 2 or 3 GB), so I can't download my photos onto my computer. Boo. Hopefully I'll get an external hard drive in the next week and treat you all to magnificent works of art pictures that don't suck. In the meanwhile, I downloaded and am posting just one or two representative pictures from each outing as proof samples.

In other news, my German continues to be spotty (some encounters leave me triumphant, one has left me in tears of frustration), I think that I finally have what the Swiss consider a complete job application package (I'll find out this week if a picture of my PhD diploma counts as a "copy of my certification"), and I took on the position of managing editor for the bimonthly publication of the AWCZ - October, bring it on!

Bavaria, the statue:

Unfortunately this picture gives no sense of her size, but as per Wikipedia, she is 18 and a half meters tall (I originally typed it as '18.52,' but the period doesn't show up well, and I didn't want anyone to think she was near 2 km tall). 

Rainy view of Salzburg:

View of the river Salzach. The large building in the foreground is the Salzburg cathedral.

The (unbelievably enormous) Duomo in Milan:

Nice cathedral. BIG.

View from the Duomo roof back over the Piazza Duomo. An entrance to famous shopping area Galeria Vittorio can be seen to the right. Sorry for the crane ruining the shot. Zurich has the same problem ("Oh, look, what a beautiful cityscape - crap, never mind.") 

Zurich zoo:

Three tapirs and a capybara walk into a bar...

It's a llama! Or an alpaca. But definitely not a vikunya or a guanaco (yes, the zoo had all four). My Peruvian husband had only a 50% success rate in identifying the various types, so I don't feel bad.

Lake Zurich and mountains:

Yep, that's snow. I plan to try another outing on a clearer day (who wants to come visit and go with me?).

Knabenschiessen

B and I leave tomorrow morning for a week's vacation, and I have many errands and cleaning to do. So, of course, I prioritized a blog post.

Things have been pretty quiet here the past few weeks. The weather is turning cooler and the air has picked up a crispness that I cannot get enough of. The berries are slowly starting to disappear from the supermarket shelves, sadly, but are being replaced with dozens of apples and various gourds. Fall has definitely arrived.

This past weekend, Zurich held one of its major local festivals (the other, Sechseläuten, is held in April) called Knabenschiessen. I had never heard of the festival, and for a beginner's guide, this Newly Swissed article briefly gives its history. Literally translated, it means 'boys' shooting' - an ambiguous term at best (are the boys doing the shooting or being shot themselves? Luckily, it's the former). Apparently, the Zurich canton started the festival back in the 1890s as a way to get boys interested in their upcoming mandatory military service (a service requirement that is still in effect today). In order to participate, boys must be between 13 and 17 and live or otherwise be affiliated with the canton of Zurich (either through parents or school). In 1991, the competition opened to girls of the same age. It's a sharpshooting contest, and the children are scored out of a maximum of 35 points.

The festival starts on Saturday, and students in the Zurich canton are given a half day of school on Monday, the final day of the festival. The main street taken over by carnival rides and vendor tents is the street where B works, so I headed up there on Monday afternoon to take a gander.

A trolley that (I believe) took families/children directly to the shooting range. I chose to go the long route - a choice that resulted in me never actually reaching the actual destination.

 My first impression was that the street fair was much, much bigger than I expected. 'Traditional' street fair booths, such as jewelry, food, and schoggifrüchte (schoggi is Swiss german for chocolate - in other words, chocolate dipped fruit), abounded, but there were also many, many booths that were less traditional. My two personal favorites were a pillow vendor, which seemed rather deserted, and a live plant auction, which was doing a surprisingly booming business.

He had a lot of plants to sell.

I was disappointed to see that this abbreviation has made its way across the Atlantic.

Candy stand. I refrained. I'm so strong.

A textile booth with an interesting mix of traditional Swiss patterns/embroidery (left) and patterns from further afield (right).

An American flag! Selling hot dogs and corn on the cob - the latter, frankly, looked a little withered, to my disappointment.

This booth was quite busy with a young female clientele. I admit, I got one of these in my hair on a high school trip to Montreal. I thought it was awesome. I failed to think about the later consequence of having to cut it out of my hair.

A random geek booth. It had some impressive statues.

Yes, I wanted to buy one of these. ADORABLE BABY DRAGONS, what's not to love?

My second impression was that I was a fish out of water. I was at the fair for an hour, and not only did I hear no English, I also didn't hear any other languages (except German). In a city where 50% of the population are Auslanders, I'd finally stumbled into the Swiss population.

A traditional Swiss organ grinder! Wait, what?

I'm sorry to report that I never made it out of the kilometers of tents to actually witness the shooting competition (I'm not great in crowds). I did, however, treat myself to a skewer of chocolate-dipped pineapple and strawberries and some Chnoblibröt, garlic bread. And refrained from buying a palm tree from the persuasive-even-in-Swiss-German auctioneer, so B is probably grateful for that.

Ok, if you insist.

Garlic bread! The tag line underneath reads "against Vampires and small hunger."

It was greasy, oily, and very, very garlicky. Mission accomplished.