Grimentz

On Saturday 24th September, Roy and I drove the little Panda (all shiny and new after being fixed) up a windy, mountain road to an alpine village called Grimentz to meet up with our friends who were looking after a giant helium balloon. I should probably explain what the balloon is all about so I don't leave you wondering what the hell it was for. Roy's work, along with the Valais cantonal police were holding a competition. There's a link here for more information, but basically it was a competition (from what I can gather) to promote communication through social networks. There were ten, giant helium balloons scattered throughout the canton of Valais and people had to search for them in teams and communicate to their team via networks and whoever finds all ten balloons, wins 10'000 CHF. Our friends were responsible for looking after one of the balloons and they had to stay in the location with the balloon for six hours. So to prevent the boredom of being near the balloon for six hours, they asked some people to join them for a picnic. It just so happened that the town of Grimentz was holding a celebration for "Désalpe to Grimentz" - bringing the cows down from the mountains for the winter.

In Valais there is a breed of cows called "Hérens"and you can see and hear them in most mountain villages. The breed is particularly territorial and naturally like to fight each other to establish a hierarchy within the herd and around the time of year that the cows go up the mountain after winter and down the mountain before winter, they hold cow fights to choose the best cow to lead the herd on the move.

We arrived in the village and joined our friends in a cafe in the middle of town and after a while we heard the familiar sound of cow bells ringing out through the streets. People started gathering in the streets to watch the procession mosey on through the town with their bells hanging around their necks. There were groups of cows coming through the main street with their farmers walking alongside with sticks to give stragglers a gentle tap to get them moving in the right direction.

There was even a St-Bernard 

They decorate the Queen cows

After the cows, came a group of traditionally dressed people. I'm not too sure on the history of the clothing etc but it looked pretty cool.

After all of the cows had finished walking through the town, they gathered them in a yard where they displayed the "queens" (best milk producers and the ones that win the cow fights) and people mill around drinking wine and eating cheese.

The town of Grimentz is a traditional looking village with narrow, cobbled roads with grand, wooden chalets and displays of traditional crafts that the town prided itself on. There was a flour mill which was run by the water that runs down the mountain - you can even buy the flour that they still grind in the mill.

We finished exploring the town and made ourselves comfortable next to the balloon and played some board games to entertain ourselves until it was time to bring down the balloon. We had a bit of fun playing with the helium from the balloon - much to the bemusement of the locals. It was nice to escape to the mountains for a day of cow watching, cheese eating and getting a sense of Swiss, mountain culture.

Sion Air Show

On Sunday 18th September, Roy and I, along with two of our friends went to the airport in Sion to watch a heap of planes fly through the sky amongst the gigantic mountains surrounding us in the valley. The show started at 9am and since our friends live in Sion, we stayed the night at their place so we wouldn't have to catch the train early in the morning to get there for the show (we still didn't have our car then - it was at the garage getting fixed after being in an accident). We packed our bags ready to go to our friends place on the Saturday and since we're still not fully adjusted to Swiss weather we packed what we thought would be appropriate based on the weather and temperatures in the days preceding the weekend - which by the way were fairly average and pretty warm.

On the drive down to Sion (in our friend's car) we started to get worried because the sky was a rather misty, grey colour with very little visibility of the mountains that usually dominate the sky and we were wondering how they could hold an air show in such conditions. The air show went for three days and was being held on the Saturday and even during the mist and cloud they were carrying on with the show. We hung out in our friend's apartment all afternoon and played games and every time we heard a plane 'whoosh' past we stopped what we were doing and ran out onto the balcony to have a look.

The next morning we woke early and got ready to go to the air show. Roy and I put on whatever warm clothes we had (which wasn't much) while one of our friends (a Swiss girl) put on two jumpers, a ski jacket, a hat, gloves and waterproof hiking boots. At the time I laughed and wondered why on earth she needed so many layers. Normally she doesn't cope too well with cold weather so I thought that she was just being over-cautious. Boy, was I wrong! She was the most comfortable out of us all. Stupid me decided that I would hang onto Summer for a little while and wore thongs. I also wore a small polar-fleece jumper and a poncho to keep myself dry, as it was raining on and off throughout the day. I felt fine walking to the show but once we got to the airport which obviously had no wind-breaks, I quickly realised what a big mistake I had made. My toes started to turn red and because we were standing still for long periods of time, my body started to try and keep itself warm by shivering. Eventually - after my lips were turning blue and my legs began to cramp up, I decided that I should try and find some shelter out of the rain and the bitterly cold wind. Unfortunately to be standing under shelter meant that I was also shielded from the views of the show that was happening in the sky above. I didn't care though, I needed to get warm.

At one stage during the show, the wind and rain got too much and the show stopped indefinitely. We huddled together to stay warm and contemplated walking back to our friend's apartment to continue playing games in the warmth. We tried asking some officials to see if the show had been cancelled for the rest of the day but no one could tell us whether it was. So we sat it out for a while hoping that the show would continue since we had paid to see it. After about an hour or so of "um-ing and ahh-ing" about whether we should stay or go, the planes returned to the sky and the clouds started to clear. Unfortunately it was still really cold but I had warmed up enough to go back out and watch the planes do their thing.

I'm really glad that we decided to stay because the show got even better in the afternoon. The big jets came out and the Swiss Airforce planes did some amazing formations. Here's a link to the air show website which has pictures and promotional videos of each exhibit.

While we were walking down the side of the runway - looking at the display of planes parked on the side, we discovered an Australian Navy plane. We couldn't resist the photo opportunity.

Our friend Chris took the photos from the day and unfortunately since the weather wasn't very good, there wasn't too many photo opportunities (rain and bitter cold wind = wet camera and frozen hands). Here's some of the photos that he took.

Despite the bitter, coldness and the threat of hypothermia, we had a great day. The entertainment value was great! It was so exciting to see such brave tumbles and turns in the sky and the powerful displays from the jets as they 'whooshed' past chalets on the side of the mountains. I think I have learnt a very valuable lesson too - always heed the advice from the wise Swiss girl in her bountiful layers of warm clothing and wear sensible shoes. Never trust your Aussie-girl instincts when it comes to European weather.

Greetings

Roy and I have been in Switzerland for over a year now so you would think that we would have greetings down pat by now right? I would say no. Despite the views of some people of Switzerland being fairly xenophobic, there are a lot of expats and immigrants living here, particularly in Martigny where Roy works. We mix with a lot of different people from many, many, different parts of the world. From places like China, Iran, Mexico, Brazil, England, India, Vietnam, France and of course Switzerland. There's bound to be more countries that I have missed but I'm sure you get the idea.

We usually socialise at least once a week with people from Roy's work and usually that's a beer at a café on Friday afternoons. It's a good way for them to unwind from work and get ready for the weekend. Usually when we go for a beer, no one bothers with formal greetings but when we meet up for other events on the weekend there tends to be more of a greeting. The standard Swiss greeting is three loud kisses on the cheek. You usually start by touching your right cheeks, making a loud kissing sound, then you touch your left cheeks, kissing sound and then back to the right.

Things get a little confusing when we socialise with some of the French folk that work with Roy. The standard greeting for French people is the same as the Swiss way except they omit the third kiss. From what I can tell, this greeting happens regardless of how well you know the people.

While at a friend's party, some people arrived who I had never met before and they made their way around the room greeting everyone in this fashion. We went to another social event with the same people and I made the mistake of just walking in the door without making the rounds and greeting everyone by touching cheeks. I understand that different cultures greet differently, but to an Aussie chick it seemed a little weird to be obliged to greet every single person, personally and touch cheeks and making a kissing sound. I can understand that it's polite and that you can engage with each person, it kind of breaks the ice a little I guess. I'm just used to walking into a party and giving a generic greeting to the group. Australian's seem to enjoy their personal space I think - possibly stemming from having so much damn space in our country.  I often wonder what people do when there is a really large crowd. Would everyone spend the whole night greeting people or would they opt for a more 'Australian' approach and just wave and say hello? Perhaps they would just personally greet the people that they know on a personal level.

Something that confuses most people we socialise with is, do we do three kisses or two if we are with French people, but we're in Switzerland? It creates this awkward question and a tense moment where you are caught between the second and third kiss and you go for the third but the other person is already pulling away and starting to sit down.

A friend who is from South Africa was leaving Switzerland for a new job so we were saying a farewell over some fondue and when we were about to leave I went in for a hug. A common way to say goodbye to a friend in Australia is to give them a hug. It's a good way to get personal without the potential of sharing sickness through an accidental spit incident while smacking your lips together to create the kissing sound when touching cheeks the Swiss/French way. I made the assumption that since South African culture seems quite similar to Australia culture that he would be ready for the hug but his brain was still in Swiss mode and he went for the cheek touching option. We got caught in this rather awkward hug, head bashing x3, kiss sounding thing that needed to be defused by us asking "okay, are we going for the Swiss three kisses or the French two?". Needless to say, it wasn't so awkward that a few laughs couldn't cut through the weirdness.

I think the best remedy for this dilemma is to establish in advance with the person you are greeting as to what type of greeting you are going to do, to save a little bit of awkwardness.

Poor Panda

So yesterday, I had my very first car accident. I've been in a car when someone else was driving and a car ran into us but never had an accident while I was driving (until yesterday). Embarrassingly enough, the accident was my fault. I pulled out out from a 'give way' road into an intersection and didn't see a car coming which plowed into the back, left of our little blue car. I'd like to think that there was some reason for it, like my mind was focusing on other things (bad excuse because my mind should be on driving) or the other guy was speeding but it was an accident and I just didn't see the car coming - one of those things that happens.

Fortunately for me, the other car was just a regular little car and not a 4WD or a Ferrari or Porsche and the guy in the car was nice and didn't yell irrationally at me for pulling out. I think if the other car had have been a 4WD or a truck for that matter, our little car would have been squashed (and me with it).

After the impact, our cars were still drivable so we quickly vacated the intersection and parked our cars on the footpath and I did the whole "Je parle très peu le français" and the "parlez-vous anglais?" speil to which he shook his head and basically said "Non". I was a bit lost since it was my first accident AND it was in a foreign country. I didn't know how the Swiss like to deal with these matters but I had a feeling it was going to be a long process (things usually take a while around here - we still haven't received our permits which we applied for in August). I phoned Roy who then asked his French colleague to phone me back so I could pass my phone to the guy to get him to explain what was going to happen. The guy said to me in broken english that the police will come and hopefully one of them will speak english.

We waited in the hot sun for the police to come and access the situation. Three rather stern looking police fellows walked around our two cars to see what was happening. I had a few more phone swaps with the cops while my friend tried to explain to me what they were saying, I gave them my licence, blew in an alcohol breathalyser which gave a reading of 0.0 (for the record), the other guy blew the same (lucky for him), they asked me lots more questions, we established that it was my fault, we filled out the insurance paperwork, they filled out a police report, they asked me for my permit (to stay in the country) I embarrassingly told them it had expired but it was being processed still (I think he understood where I was coming from, I think they realise that there's lots of bureaucracy to get around), they told me that my car was unsafe to drive and to park it somewhere and get a tow truck to come and pick it up and then I hopped in the back of the police car and they gave me a lift back to St-Maurice. I was trying to hold back the tears that were welling up due to being completely overwhelmed with the whole situation and the cops had to put up with my constant sniffing due to a lack of tissues.

More phone calls - to Roy this time, trying to work out what the next step in all of this was. You think you can happily get along with life with a small amount of local language, until something stupid like this happens and you become completely vulnerable and dependant on others. We're lucky that Roy has a network of people at work who are native french speakers who could come to the rescue of us naive, foreigners. Our friend phoned the tow truck company and organised for them to come and pick me up at home so he could get the car and take it to a mechanic. We got a very rough quote for the repairs yesterday and they were more than half the cost of the car. The mechanic is going to give a more detailed quote today (hopefully) and our fingers are crossed that he grossly over-estimated the cost yesterday. Unfortunately for us, we didn't insure the car comprehensively so our insurance will only cover the repairs for the other guy. Just one of those things that you learn lessons from. Accidents happen and I am glad that everyone involved came out of it unharmed.