Expatica.ch, a really great English-speaking resource publication, interviewed me this week about living and working in Switzerland. It was a fun interview!
You can read it here: http://tinyurl.com/q43uho
People often ask me about the differences between working and networking in the United States and Europe. The differences are vast at times so soon I'll be blogging and tweeting regularly on these topics so stayed tuned!
Switzerland may be the most neutral of countries, but at times it can still be hard for foreigners to fit in completely. Take my daughters for example. They try really hard to balance being both American and French. Now that we are in Switzerland, it gets even more difficult. So on Friday, my oldest daughter came home from school and said in a huff, "Mommy, I get so tired of hearing kids say bad things about America." She didn't go into specifics so I didn't ask her right away. Once she calmed down, I asked her finally what she does when she hears negative things about home country. She said, "Well, usually, I argue with the kids but today I thought I'd do something different...I brought them a little taste of America – Pop Tarts!" Apparently, the girls on the playground loved the brown sugar cinnamon ones (our household favorites). Now, the entire class seems to be in love with them and planning to rush down to the American store to get their own boxes! It's nice to know that a package of boxed pastries has so much diplomatic power!
"Das ist falsche nummer. Ich bin nicht sandy."
"Danke" was my reply.
Proof that we are totally living in a global world and apparently I need to learn German now as well.
This all started yesterday, when my youngest daughter stayed home from school. It's finally getting warm here in Switzerland. While all of my daughter's symptoms seem to be those of a normal seasonal cold, no one wants to take chances these days with a growing epidemic of swine flu.
I should have called her teacher to say she wouldn't be in class, and her teachers would have certainly welcomed it. However, I know I wouldn't want someone calling me up at 6 am. So I texted one of her teachers and apparently I got the wrong number! Thankfully, I texted the other teacher as well so everything turned out fine.
"Das ist falsche nummer…" I'll have to remember how to say this. I get a lot of wrong numbers on my cell phone in both French and German. Up until this point, I've been able to reply with confidence in French and well, the other callers can at least understand me in English. One day, maybe, I can catch up to me kids with all of these languages. Then again, exactly whom am I kidding?
