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One of my favourite pictures from camera-trap checking... |
So! Life in Switzerland so far! While there have been a few downs among the ups, this time has been filled with experiences that, besides most of them being awesome since I am for realz in Switzerland, have allowed me to learn more about myself and what direction I want to take with my life. I always thought that the whole ‘take a year to find yourself’ thing was a bit hokey. I mean, why do I have to go across an ocean just to learn what I like and don’t like? Well despite what I thought, this past month has shown me that to learn what you like and don’t like, you have to actually do these things, not just think about them and decide instinctively how you feel about them. Sometimes trying out something that you never could have seen yourself doing might surprise you by being something you love.
OK enough with the serious, deep talk. I figure that the best way to describe what I’ve been doing here is to take you through an average workday in the life of me. So here goes…
My alarm startles me out of a deep, deeeeep sleep at 6:30, if I want to make the 7am morning walk with Christine, Urs, and their Rhodesian Ridgeback Bali, … usually this doesn’t work though, and in my semi-conscious state I decide that an extra hour of sleep is way more worth it than a half hour walk, even if that could be the only exercise I get for the day (my work is 100m across the street…). I’ve never really been a morning person. So usually I don’t make the walk, but when I do, the crisp air really helps wake up my brain and I find that I’m able to concentrate a lot better at work the rest of the day.
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The frosty river on a weekend morning walk |
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The park near where I live. This was the first Sunday with snow! |
If I’m organized and DON’T turn my computer on while eating breakfast, I can usually get to work at 8. Liz, Geri and I are the 3 interns that are checking the camera traps each week, but since it’s really just a 2-person job, we devised a schedule where each person goes into the field for 2 weeks, then spends a week in the office. It just so happens that this week was my week in the office, and I’ve been working on turning the one hard copy of the proceedings of the very first Cat Specialist Group (which my bosses, Christine and Urs, currently chair) meeting in India in 1984 into a digital copy online, so that others can view the individual articles that were discussed. It has been really interesting reading about tigers, lions, and other assorted cats and the conservation measures that were in place to prevent them from going extinct. As well, I am entering a whole ton of other recent journal articles into the reference database, with subjects from the conservation of the Bengal tiger, to genetic studies on mountain lions in the States. I really like this kind of work: it combines organizing, which I (usually) like, with learning lots of different, interesting stuff, and a bit of thinking, which I’m not too keen on but I’ve heard it’s good for the brain… So work is going well :)
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On the way to the first camera trap site... |
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Yours truly changing the batteries on a camera. |
Around noon, I head home and eat lunch with the family I’m living with, then back to the office until 5 or so. Dinner is also with the family, and afterwards I usually hang out in their living room, since it’s nice to have some company, before heading up to my floor to sleep.
Not overly exciting, but there you have it..
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A foggy morning run |
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Snowwww :) |
One holiday that is celebrated in Europe and not back home is Saint Nicholas Day, on December 6th. I'm not sure in exactly which countries it's celebrated, but children can put a boot outside the front door on the night of the 5th, and St. Nicholas will put a gift or sweets in it if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they weren't good, they get a tree branch instead...
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This isn't my picture, I got it off the web, but this is what a child could expect on the morning of the 6th if St. Nicholas decided they had been good the past year... |
But the main way we celebrated this holiday here was to make Honey-Gingerbread cookies (that's my translation, not sure if it's accurate) and traditional Grittibänz, a sweet bread baked in the form of a man. These are much more easily explained by way of pictures:
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Honey/Gingerbread sort of yummy cookies. Using a stencil Liz painted the lynx paw prints on with icing. :) |
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Grittibaenz pre-baking... |
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...and post baking! Mmmm.... |
We made about 16 of them, with most of them shaped everyone at the office and at work on the 6th we had a Saint Nicholas Day party, during which we ate ‘ourselves’ as well as a whole ton of other finger food. Yum.
Last Saturday I went with my ‘host family’ to a Mineral and Fossil Fair at the Expo, which is this great big building, and it was filled to bursting with table after table of shiny rocks, ancient fossils, and everything else a geologist could possibly imagine. The main reason we went was my bosses’ son Kaspar is interested in Paleontology, but I was really glad I came along because, having a grandfather who is a geologist, I have always been interested in rocks. They had samples from all over the world: Northern Europe, Africa, South America, and of course Switzerland. The place was packed too. If all the rocks and fossils hadn’t been so darn expensive, I would have bought a lot more, but alas, I had to keep telling myself that they wouldn’t really have a purpose besides sitting there and looking pretty.
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Crystal! I think, didn't actually check the label of what I was taking a picture of... |
Tomorrow, (Saturday) I’m going downtown to do some Christmas shopping, which will be quite interesting because a) everything is in Swiss German/German, and b) I have no idea where stores are or what to look for. Let’s just hope I don’t get lost coming home like I did a few weeks ago, when it took me over an hour to walk the 30 minute route home, and I had to ask for directions three times… plus it was during a snow storm. Turns out bus route maps aren’t the best for navigating by foot…
My Swiss-German is slowly, veryyyyy slowly coming along. A friend gave me the Rosetta Stone German CD (thanks Nadja! It is very helpful!) so I have been working away at that, but unfortunately that is for German, whereas I am living in Bern, Switzerland, where they speak Swiss German. I am finding that I am able to understand more and more random words and phrases, although when it comes to conversation I am hopeless. Good thing basically everyone here speaks English, except for some of the people at the coop down the road.. French is also widely spoken among the staff at KORA, which has allowed me to keep my French skills (ha!) alive. They will be put to the real test in February when we set camera traps in the Jura Mountains, which are in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and we are dealing with French-speaking game wardens.
Just recently I have started looking into different sports I could join while here, including an indoor soccer team or a ski team, mostly because I want to meet other teens my age and stay active, but also because the food here is wayyyyyy too good, and if I keep eating at the rate I’m going, I will have gained my frosh 15 before even getting to university. There is a park nearby that is a good place to run, but with winter setting in this might prove a bit tricky. So once I get some skiing equipment lined up, as I didn’t bring mine with me from Canada, I hope to get out on the trails as much as possible!
Here is a map of Switzerland showing where I’m living (the dot) and where I’ll be working when I’m out in the field for the next 6 weeks (the purple circle). The green circle is where the 2nd session of camera trapping will take place, in the Jura Mountains, from February to March.
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And to close off this post, a last majestic picture of the stunning Swiss Alps. :) |
-Sonja
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