Welcome to the new administration

The only English language station we get on our television is CNN. Thank goodness for that! At least I could watch and understand Obama's entire inauguration speech in real time! And what a wonderful sight it was to see so many people joining in history in the making. I could feel the excitement across the airwaves! Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on one's viewpoint), the honeymoon is over tomorrow, with much hard work ahead. As far as I can tell, which isn't much after just over two weeks of German, Obama is getting good press here.

Last weekend, Henry and I rode the train to and from Lugano. We're taking advantage of the half-fare passes we bought for train travel throughout Switzerland. We lucked out with the weekend weather. Not only could we view the snow covered mountains along the way, but it also was warm enough for me to remove my scarf, gloves, and hat after we arrived in Lugano! Indeed, there were even some sailboats out and about on the lake. We had a lovely lakeside walk after failing to succeed in communicating in Italian with the waitstaff at lunch. It's rather amazing that a country as small as Switzerland can have 4 official languages (German, French, Italian, Romanisch), with some areas being provincial enough that many people do not speak German, the otherwise most widely spoken language in Switzerland. It will be interesting to find out whether I will be able to understand German German when we move on to Munich, no less be understood when I speak Swiss German. In fact, the dialects are different. When Henry tried speaking German German to a local shopkeeper the other day, the shopkeeper responded that he could more easily communicate with Henry in English than to follow what Henry was saying in German German. As was the case when we returned by train from Einsiedeln, our return train from Lugano was filled with skiers and snowboarders, daytripping from the cities to the winter mountain resorts. Public transportation really works!!

This is the week I've been looking forward to in my German class--the topics are essen und trinken. I told Henry we have to go out to dinner this weekend so I can order for both of us in German--Swiss German that is. Interestingly, as I learn more German, but am still at a loss as to how to say a specific word or phrase in that language, I automatically try to think of the word or phrase in French, rather than English. I suppose that's good practice for when we visit Sara in Paris in a couple of weeks!