Three Swiss Men Knock on My Door...

Today my sister had to take her baby in for a checkup with the doctor in Zurich. Unfortunately the best way to get there is by car, and her car isn't big enough to hold us all, so we stayed home. There was also the balcony glass repairman scheduled to come today, and also the kids insisted they did not want to go anywhere today, so we happily took a day off of touring Switzerland.

My sister warned me the glass repairman probably wouldn't speak English, so she wrote a note with her phone number on it in German that said something like "My sister doesn't speak German. Call me if you have questions." The glass repairman showed up though, and I was expecting him, so after he started speaking German (which I couldn't understand at all), I said "English?" He said no. So we both shrugged and I motioned for him to come in, and led him upstairs to the balcony, and he got right to work. No more words needed, and it was fixed amazingly fast. Success! So I threw out the note.

A little while later though, the doorbell rang again, and it was a man holding a package for my sister. I assumed he wanted me to sign something, because he said several whole sentences in German and he was holding one of those scanners with a screen where you can sign. I said "English?" and he shook his head no. Then he said a few more sentences, of which I understood nothing except the last word sounded like "paper" so I said "paper?" He nodded yes, but then I said, "I don't have any papers for you." I motioned signing something in the air, and asked if I should sign something, but he said no. Then he just handed me the package, and said "It's good!" and left. I have no idea what he wanted, but I got the package, so...success!

Later a THIRD knock came at the door. Who could this be? It was obviously another repairman, by my sister hadn't told me she was expecting anyone else. He said a whole lot of things in German, of which I understood nothing. When I asked if he knew English he shook his head no. I had no idea what he was there to do, but finally he said a sentence that ended with "washing machine" and I remembered we were having trouble with the dishwasher, so I guessed that was it. I led him to the kitchen and opened the dishwasher and he was so happy! "Perfecto, perfecto, perfecto!" he said. I think that's Italian? It didn't sound German. But anyway, success! Until he ran into some problem. He came to me and tried asking me all kinds of things in German, but it was futile. There was no way I was going to understand anything about dishwasher repairs in German. Then I remembered the note! I rummaged through the garbage as he looked at me with a confused expression, but when I recovered the note he cheered, "Perfecto, perfecto, perfecto!" again. Then he called my sister and it was all good. Success! Unfortunately he wasn't able to repair the dishwasher, so we'll be handwashing dishes until that gets resolved.

I didn't take very many photos today. Katie and I were reading this magnetic alphabet book, and everything was going well until we came to the letter R. I said "R is for rabbit." She said "No, it's a bunny." No matter how hard I tried, she wouldn't say rabbit! Haha! We have the same problem when alphabet books use cat/kitten for C/K. I think they should use "R is for rainbow" - everybody knows that one!

We also had some fun playing in a hammock in the backyard. Here's some cute photos of sisters/cousins hanging out and giggling.

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One interesting thing that's different in Switzerland is how the garbage is handled. It's required by law that you purchase these special bags for your household waste:

Freienbach is a municipality that includes the village of Pfaffikon, where my sister lives. The red shield with the three lions is the coat of arms for Freienbach. This bag seems smaller than the "tall kitchen" bags I use at home, but the cost is about $2 per bag! The idea is that the government is taxing you for everything you throw away, and it's supposed to encourage people to compost and recycle and cut down on waste. The recycling program over here is also mandatory and pretty extensive, and we are looking forward to visiting the recycling center with Malorie and Siraj later on. Malorie also told me that there is an option to buy a much more expensive black garbage bag which allows you to dispose of trash and recycling all together. Would you pay a lot more to avoid separating out recyclables?

Tomorrow I think we are going to take the kids to tour a chocolate factory - yum!