Or: The Commercial Break is Over

I have packed everything. It is incredible how much stuff one can pile up just within a year or a bit less… In February last winter I arrived from Frankfurt with a suitcase and only one paperback Riin had given me, now I own a bagful of books, and another one full of Vogues I simply cannot leave but must take along to my new life. I also have at least 30 kilos of clothes, most of them which I will not be able to wear for a long time now, unless I want to look like a teenager. And in this change of life I am about to make, they would make the wrong costume.

I am listening to the soundtrack of one of my favourite films, The Thomas Crown Affaire, while typing here. It makes me wonder about where this movie I am playing the role of myself is taking me.

I looked up some of my trouser-suits and a couple of fancy skirts when I was visiting Mum back home at Christmas. She also stocks the stuff from my previous lives and I was glad to find them just as they had come from the dry cleaner’s – all waiting for their turn to work with me again, all patiently in their plastic bags… Come to think of it, its like a film production – pick the theme, brush the style, get the crew together.

As you see, the job interview paid off and I am moving again. Last winter I got to Berne and just needed to crash and sleep off my personal production burnout. Call it a creative crisis, holiday, escape or a commercial break – what ever it was it has now come to its full stop. I have taken my stuff to a wonderful new apartement in the highest Swiss mountains an Estonian city girl can ever imagine to be on top of. I have bought yet another pair of new heels. I have changed the soundtrack. So, once again I am taking a four hours train trip with a one way ticket. I am moving to Engadin and this is going to be a long film. So I better sit back and enjoy.

verb

A couple of weeks ago I could witness another juicy proof of the things that only happen in Switzerland - the Swiss Post had glued a note on our mailbox requiring to write my name on it in case I really lived there. We naturally obliged immediately and smirking. In an odd way, however, when I saw my name typed on the milkbox, the seemingly insignificant detail actually made me feel I was now really living here and not just residing at someone`s basement any more.

[ intrans. ] make one's home in a particular place or with a particular person :
Besides residing at the above mentioned address I have found a career path in house sitting. Claudia is on holiday in Spain so I get to inhabit her lovely light three-room roof apartement at Monbijou. I am happily alone and that leaves me the freedom to invite other good people to join me. Just yesterday I had a bunch of them over for a four-course dinner, even though they needed to bring their own cutlery…

have an exciting or fulfilling life :
Besides waking up with John Legend every day, I am enjoying the obvious advantages of living alone: dancing naked across the living room to the shower in the morning with the sun shining through the glass doors, brushing my teeth on the balkony watching people going to work and being fulfilled with the thought of my day off…

supply oneself with the means of subsistence :
I never wash up until there are no clean dishes left and then make the decision to go to Musig Bistro next door for lunch instead. Or eat a divine bowl of K Special Flakes right before midnight because I have forgotten eating the whole day and there is nothing else in the fridge.

be alive at a specified time :
For me it is definitely the late hours. I am one of those who can easily swift between day and night and wake up at four o’clock in the afternoon after watching Scrubs until five in the morning. My mind seems to start working after the clock has stroke midnight – this is when I get creative, nibble at my thesis, write my blog, toy with other interesting projects…

spend one's life in a particular way or under particular circumstances :
I came here six months ago with the idea to be going on again by now. Instead, last Monday I issued my application to prolong my living permit for another half a year. I have seen how plans change, circumstances change, I change… So for now, I am not going to change my address but rather living the life as it comes.

(A Selection of Thougts About and Deriven From the Public Transportation. Part Two.)

I do miss my Nissan from time to time but in general, I enjoy the clean streets, the quiet trains and the friendly buses of Switzerland. Here another selection of extravagant examples.

Men cannot share their feelings. No 10 Köniz – Bern.
This is a sure belief of this one girl sharing the whole story about her and her significant other having communication problems in all areas of a relationship with the rest of us sitting on the Number Ten bus the other morning. Apparently her friend on the other end of the mobile connection agrees. I don’t think I necessarily do. Despite us females always complaining about that – do we really want them to always share? And I do think the girl makes the distance of merely three bus-stops seem kilometres long.

All men worth trying are either taken or gay. S-Bahn Zürich HB - Zürich Oerlikon.
On my way to the concert last Sunday afternoon in Zurich I naturally bought a ticket before entering the yellow-blue S Bahn. The conductor, an averagely handsome young man approached us and I proudly presented my late purchase. Turned out, I had paid a half a franken too little and BANG! was faced with an 80 franks fine. I naturally focused my blue eyes on him but it wasn’t worth a try. In this case, gay…

The Good Deed She Does. Loeb-Egge - Köniz.
Sabine had brought Saku Beer along from Tallinn, and we met at the Loeb-Egge to go celebrate. Aare was as green as ever and the delicious refreshment accompanied the two charming hours of girl-talk. We climbed back and I waited for the No Ten to come. There was a lady standing right next to the ticket-machine and when a gentleman started to reach for his wallet to buy a ticket, she told him she had one too many and would like him to have it. He gratefully accepted.

And this is the pay?
We entered the bus and he took out his cell phone. Dialed a number. And started to discuss something that seemed at least a life story… It was in a language foreign to us but it was so loud one could physically sense the misery of each and every co-passenger this evening… I glanced at the lady who had given him the ticket. She was concentrating on looking out of the black window.

In general I like public transportation in Switzerland. But even in the pedestrian zone of Berne it may happen that you step into a genuine dog shit. Just as I did last Sunday morning.

Or Life Without My Green Nissan Micra I Called Salad.
Part One
Zurich Examples.

Public transportation in Switzerland is very special to me. Actually, it carries a significant meaning to the whole nation. Greetings to the bus-guy.

Tuesday, Berne-Zürich
I need to be at the airport at 9:30 so this calls for the eight o’clock InterCity. I am incredibly sleepy and the thought of a cup of the bad coffee from the little Elvetino-carriage on wheels makes me sit on the upper floor and keeps me awake. It is a very special morning, because none of us there going somewhere today says a word, and everyone has feet-space; it is indeed unusually quiet, so I, too, switch off my phone and close the eyes. The little friendly man is yelling from the back: „Kaffee-Tee-Gipfeli-Sandwich-Mineraaal!“

Same day, Zürich-Berne
I have always wanted to write a train story. Perhaps a crime one. There is an utterly unattractive young man in a pink pullover sitting across. I wonder if he would soon kill someone in my crime story. He definitely looks as if able to. He entered just before the train took off and asked me the damn question: Ischdanofrei? I wonder if anyone ever tried simply saying no, this here is not available for you. I felt so much like it – and instead of telling him that all the three free seats were taken by my bag, my Mac and my imaginary friend Anna I heard myself replying JA. He was rude enough to take the window seat so I had to move my feet. Naturally, he has now turned on his hiphopping Ipod, is now watching me and drawling through his yellow teeth. I have decided that his character is the one to meet his end in my book.

Saturday night, Zürich-Bern
I have just had a wonderful day. Long undisturbed sleep in the morning followed by a cup of perfect cappuccino in the Café Federal. Cooking delicious thai food with an old friend Philipp, accompanied by an excellent white wine and high quality conversation, followed by a late-night shot of grappa and a half an hour of sparkling chat with Yvonne. Having capsuled all these emotions I enter the train and try to find an available seat facing the driving direction. I hate sitting backwards but I compensate it by asking a handsome guy travelling alone if the one across him was still free. We immediately have an unspoken understanding regarding the arrangement of feet and he has cute green eyes. Everything looks promising until a minute before the doors close two giggling teenagers plump themselves next to us. Both of us throw them icy looks, and then look at each other in a silent agreement. Perhaps I could write a love-story, instead. Great material available here in the public transportation just waiting to be put down.

Or On How It All Started

Today ten years ago I first set my high heeled feet on the land of high mountains, delicious chocolate, cows and their bells, extremely smelly cheese, passionate skiing and gold. During those ten years I have learnt that there are so many other things there: the amazingly green waters, the impecable sorting of garbage, excellent public transportation, very good bread, snowboarding and somewhat suspicious gold.

Arriving at Zurich Airport on August 2nd 1996 my first decision was never to wear heels again. Except for the operas in the Bernese Stadttheater I almost never did. And so the relationship started – a real one, with making compromises where you have to and defending your rights when necessary. I mean, I can learn your language but I will never put butter on the bread and then top it with jam, thank you.

I remember many little things from that first day. The colourful flags on the windows, the people being very small and constantly repeating the two words meaning has been and exactly: gsy and genau. I remember the horryfying thought of being stuck in here for the whole year and wondering why on earth did I have to leave the best place on Earth there is.

Today, ten years later I cannot imagine living without the feeling of being constantly torn by comparing everything Swiss to the Estonian equivalent, occasionally undergoing showers of extensive patriotism and at the same time notice growing signs of becoming Swiss. Like getting used to the till-lady at Migros thanking you six times while you are getting your basket paid as well as having bread and jam for breakfast. Bread and jam! The weird thing about it is not the food but rather the fact that I enjoy it, I even look forward to having one every morning… I will always be a proud Estonian and always keep a good pair of pumps at a go but I have learned to honour and like the people in the small country of army knives, blue glaciers, clean streets and great kitchen. Despite their somewhat frightening policy on foreigners and putting jam on macaroni Switzerland has been nice to me and could soon take my masters in sorting garbage.

It has been exactly ten years. I will go to Migros and buy a loaf of their potato bread with nuts toight I think. I do not necessarily like chocolate but some celebration is due.

On How Switzerland Was Probably Made
Or
Some Thoughts in the Honour of the First of August

The creator of Switzerland must have been a woman. (Or a very gay man). I came to to this conclusion on a top of a mountain I got to be this weekend. I mean, the flowers all over the place, including around traffic signs are a bit of an overkill, aren’t they? As I descended the flawless green slope with at least a half a million little stone steps I tried to keep my the eyes down on the smaragd lake and ease the pain in my knees by coming up with this story on how in my opinion Switzerland came to be.

I think she was pretty, although nothing too classy, from a good home and pretty young, too. She must have had a good taste however I would have heard a second opinion on the measures of some places. As all of us in this age, she wanted it all, a fairy tale. So she decided to start with this small piece of rough land, put small blue and green spots of water all over it to make it the most beautiful one. Quite soon, so it was indeed. However, as ever so often, it was not enough. She then painted all slopes green so precicely that the grass never grows into wild pastures but rather keeps a well-groomed carpet. I believe she must have forgotten that there are other important things in life than the perfection of her work, so she kept on making sure that the roads did not have one hole in them and that fields were tailor-made bearing crops in different colours when lining up next to each other.
In the end she must have been exhausted so she topped the last mountain and never touched another country again (this is why all the rest of us are still trying to finish up on ours).

I wonder if she got to be happy ever after.

1 adjective ( hotter |ˌhɑdər|, hottest |hɑdəst|)
1 having a high degree of heat or a high temperature

Berne wants me dead. This is what it looks like with its thirty something degrees e v e r y day. The heat is killing me, its dry and salty, constant and ironic. I cannot breathe without feeling choking and having lunch in the town is a bad, bad idea unless I want to die fast and could do so even on my way there. And I cannot do my jog after work; it would be like working out in a sauna. It is simply too hot for me.

2 hot good-looking, sexy, attractive, gorgeous, handsome, beautiful; archaic comely, fair. antonym unappealing.

I like to look up words and their numerous meanings in the Oxford dictionary my Mac has for me. I reckon it is an old habit from the times I was still studying linguistics.

So many other things can be hot besides the weather, don’t you agree. Boiled new potatoes with butter and dill. A good pair of jeans. I think confidence is hot. Age, in many cases. I remember my lexicology teacher, she was surely sixty and above but standing in front of us like a royalty, wearing perfect hairdo every day and giving all her lectures standing up. She had been a ballerina, she hated girls at the university who sat with their breasts lying on their desks and everyone was terrified of her. Although at the beginning of our acquaintance she pretty much hated me too, perhaps not because of my sitting but rather because of my selective attendance of her class, I started to enjoy linguistics and pretty soon began to consider her quite hot, really. Even now, years after, I am occasionally invited to have coffee with her at the little café close to the main building of the university. Now I know that she couldn’t have cared less for the fat girls; what she despised was their lack of confidence, as she interpreted them being afraid of her.

A week last Thursday I came back home from my house sitting mission and the bus arriving in Schliern I gathered my one hundred and one things and decided to wait until I was the last to squeeze through the doors. But then a young handsome guy, perhaps seventeen, with a sneaky hot smile in his chocolate eyes quite consciously stopped and gave me way. In return, I gave him one of my broadest smiles and stepped down like Queen Elisabeth from her carriage. I somehow remembered my lexicology teacher at that moment and the whole set of the above mentioned associations lined up in my head.

It is simply too hot, this is how being barbequed feels. Mac tells me that there are 136 entries in his Oxford found for „hot“.

Saturday, 23:30
Bern Bahnhof. I am waiting for my orange train to Worb where I am house-sitting my former Swiss home for two weeks when funny things start to catch my eye again. I have had a couple of beers with a couple of Estonian friends of mine but I do not reckon it’s the beers that make some things now seem bizarre but rather the whole day I have had.
23:32
The automatic doors open upon movement. There are some other late passengers in the waiting hall but I suddenly notice that the doors open without anyone being even near them. I hardly believe in ghosts and it is certainly the strong draft blowing down here but in a way it is really beautiful. Open and close. Open. And close. Open…
23:35
A man approaches the ticket automat next to my seat. He is carrying a tiny plastic bag. He opens it and takes out his wallet. He carries his wallet in a small white plastic bag! He gets his ticket and puts the change back to his wallet. He makes me so smile.
23:36
On my other hand there is a woman reading a book. She is about my age, has somewhat a transparent figure but all in all makes a pretty impression. I glance at her feet and realize her right foot is almost five centimeters shorter than the left one, you can see it by her shoes. The one shoe does not support her at all it seems, but she is still wearing high heels. I wonder if she can buy her shoes in different sizes…
23:40
My train is here. Just before I enter it, I see a teenage girl giggling with a boy. And I could swear she is wearing grey two-piece pajamas. I prefer to sit on the left side in the train. The author of the week is Knellwolf and I open his book of criminal short stories but it is difficult to concentrate.
Time Out.
It is quite remarkable how time has different measures in those two countries close to my heart. To Estonian calculations I am getting to a point where my great uncle – a proud Estonian, Ph.D. in Economics – tells me that if I were to study more I would be too old to ever find one to marry. Besides, according to him, men would not like one with a doctor’s degree anyway – too much for keeping at home. If that should ever go down to that – I am not going to give up one for another anyway and might as well stay single. Or in Switzerland, for that matter. (Joke)
Lunchtime.
The two Estonian guys come to have lunch at the house I am currently sitting. I cook around two kilos of spaghetti and at the table, a decision is somehow made that they will swim along Aare-river from Rubigen to Berne. This is what… 20 kilometres?
16:40
I take them to Postauto. I explain the driver why the two guys enter his bus wearing only swimming trunks. I myself take the backbag with all their belongings and we take a couple of pictures. We are told by somebody that it takes 20 minutes by river to Berne.
17:01
I enter the blue train from Worb to Berne. I love this Knellwolf - he has the sweetest crime stories, like the one where a daughter introduces her boyfriend to her father and the latter is disgusted by the 64-year old English hobbit that kisses his 27-year old beauty in public. He kills the boyfriend out of jealousy and rage. Some time later he then receives a fax from Lilian thanking him for helping her get rid of her problems - she is now the sole inhebitor of the late millionaire. She said she had been convinced all along her father would do that to his beloved daughter. I a bizarre way it is one of the most beauiful stories I have read.
17:45 or so.
I am in Marzili beach at Aare. According to our calculations, the guys should be here already. But they are not.
17:50
I realize I have forgotten their backbag in the train. I dial the infoline. Instead, fire department answeres. I hang up. I call Claudia. She tells me the right info line number and I finally get connected with the railway station. They tell me to call back in ten minutes. Guys are nowhere to be seen. I now have to wait.
Time Out.
In the country of great watches, time ticks differently. Here I am a girl hopping around in my office and feeling no pressure what so ever from the society to produce offspring. Quite to the contrary, had I to stand in Pampers line at Migros I would get the oh-so-young-looks. Do not get me wrong, I respect children but let me use the hospitality of a nation to still be one myself. Shit indeed - how could I forget the backbag!
18:00
The longest ten minutes in my life are over. According to the unfriendly railway man the backbag is back in Worb. Thank God for the honesty of the Swiss. I call Claudia again. This time I am getting worried about the guys. She tells me it must take at least an hour to swim from Rubigen to Berne. But even with that calculation they should be here by now.
18:30
Claudia tells me I should maybe have them announced by the loudspeaker. She also thinks I should perhaps do it in Estonian, this way it would not sound so embarrassing…
18:59
The guys arrive – wet, excited and cold. The water in Aare is 18 degrees. I am so happy to see them. They are happy to see me. They have been swimming for about an hour and a half. And they are still happy even if I tell them that I do not have their money, cell phones or shoes. I leave them in the sun to go for the backbag…
Time Out.
Time does indeed seem to have different dimensions. The dimension of expectations, for instance. In Estonia, the general formula seems to be if you do not do it now you are two years too late: the earlier the higher heels, the later at work the better boyfriend. The light must be bright and burn fast. Yet again – it is not always bad at all. Moving my towels and flippers out from the parents house when I was eighteen I was also granted a certain kind of security that as long as I have my hands, head and two blue eyes that still see I am alright – the stream takes me along to the real life anyway.
20:30
I am back. Marzili has closed at 20:00. There are two guys waiting for me on the street wearing nothing but swimming trunks.
21:00
Portugal versus Germany. We are having a fine dinner and drinking several beers to it.
23:25
I am waiting for my train to Worb in Bern Bahnhof. Weird things catch my eye.

Bus Stories. Way To Work.

Eichmatt.
What I love about my work is that it is not my job to pick up the general phone and none of the Swiss who start living their lives at seven thirty in the morning have to get all upset about no one answering their calls. And this is my ticket for the ten-to-nine bus. Which, I sometimes miss. And everyone knows better than to call me before eleven.

Sandwürfi Friedhof.
Umbes nagu Liivaloopija kalmistu.
I take the number ten bus. Every morning we pass a window where a perfect Swiss house wife is hanging out blankets while the kids are drinking their Ovo. The seat I always get together with my Ray Bans make perfect conditions for comfortably switching off deep analysis of life. The yellow ones from last week have been changed for some flowery ones. The sheets, I mean.

Köniz Schloss.
A rather rough roundabout.

Köniz Zentrum.
After weeks of chewing nails I finally received The Letter to go fetch my Residence and Labour Permit Type B. I approached the counters for foreigners with it and greeted the guy with my most beautiful Bernese Grüässech announcing my wish to receive the blessed piece of paper. As requested in the letter, I had my passport ready, however, they did not care for it, simply wanted 90 Swiss franks. So this is how much the foreigners' identity costs in Switzerland. (Greetings to Stefanie and Christian). It was ten to five then, I remember, and I went to get a nutroll from Migros.

Brühlplatz.
An add proudly presents: We clean your blankets in only three hours! I wonder if the lady from the window ever uses their service. I mean, where else can you get them cleaned in three hours, right.

Station Liebefeld.
Field of Love. Field of Respect. Fair-Play Field. Newspaper-to-Bed Ave. Flowers-Just-Like-That Park. Partners-In-Laugh Alley. Cannot-Live-Without-You Milky Way. Wagen hält.

Hessstrasse.
Ssssssshit. Forgot to throw the old flowers to compost.

Dübystrasse. Weissensteinstrasse.
At the bus stop of one of them there is a small sad-looking Electroladen. Every morning the guy there has one of his TV-s switched on. The other day we were all staring at Beyonce through the window. She is not bad, actually.

Eigerplatz.
Last Saturday I had decided to take the Moonliner after leaving the utterly boring Dampfzentrale. Quoting the kings – if you do not know where to go out in Berne, go home. How very wrong I was not following the worthy advice! I kept myself busy deleting old smses for a half an hour until the night bus finally came. Brr.

Monbijou.
Press the button for stopping. (I wonder if the drivers get some kind of counselling because of the mental problems they have from the peeeeeeep every three seconds a day).
Another mental note still to the last Saturday’s stop: the Swiss cannot party. But I am very fond of the employment culture.

Hirschengraben.
I do not understand the people who use the escalator as stairs. They were made to serve you a piece of the very luxury you need for your morning ritual at the Stadtbachstrasse. Just like the Jura coffee machine at the office.

My PC tells me to Ctrl+Alt+Del. Let’s rock.
B

You see, this is what I am talking about. Never mix an Estonian with Swiss (hypothetically speaking). While my ear hears banasch you swiss come and correct me. Which, naturally, is absolutely Swiss. Thank you, honey.

Blond

P.S. I am absolutely sure we used Sprite.