Zurich - Continuing with Arabic

Sample Page of My Book - Text and Vocabulary, Plus Exercises

Without really thinking about it, it seems that while I’m in Zurich, I try to learn Modern Standard Arabic and when I’m in Egypt, I go back to Egyptian Arabic. I’m not really getting the sense that I’m progressing, but I know I must be!

I dithered about taking classes again, but in the end I decided to teach myself via reading, since I’d like to be able to read fluently. I’ve been using the book “Easy Arabic Reader” to progress my skills. The cover claims “learn to read in Arabic almost instantly!”, which is, of course, a blatant lie.

I want to learn via reading because my French at A Level suddenly improved by leaps and bounds once I started to read novels in French. Unfortunately, I’m not finding it the same in Arabic.

I think there are several reasons for this (but I'm not reading a novel!) – firstly, Arabic has a completely different alphabet which means that I have to work a lot harder and I’m also reading much earlier in the learning process than when I did so for French. Secondly, whereas much of the vocabulary in French is similar to English so it’s easier to remember, there’s often no relation between the Arabic and the English: you’re just learning random sounds. Thirdly the grammar is more difficult or at least feels more foreign and I’m aware I don’t even know a lot of it (some of the ways things are phrased in my reader are really puzzling! And that’s even though I know, for example, that in Arabic if you put the verb first in a sentence, you no longer have to worry if the noun it refers to is singular or plural because you just use the singular). And, finally, Arabic is supposed to be one of the languages with the most vocabulary – since I’ve already learned three words for garden, the word for “not” changes depending on the tense, I know of about three or four words for woman, two words for “horse”, well, you can see how it all adds up and also increases the possibilities for non-comprehension.

Each time I read a new chapter (in reality, one short side of text), I feel thwarted. I need to go through it probably at least ten times, if not more, but weirdly on each repeat reading I understand more, even without looking up more vocabulary.

I’ll suddenly “click” what certain words are. Sometimes, it may be because I haven’t pronounced them correctly first time round and so didn’t realize what the word was, sometimes it’s because I’ve thought something is two words first time round and then realized that it’s just one word on my second or third reading. Written Arabic has this frustrating tendency to have spaces where you just don’t expect them to be or joins up words when you’re not expecting it, so I’m constantly getting confused. I do get fed up reading the same text so many times after a while and occasionally I’ll skip onto the next chapter just for some variation. On the positive side, I do both read and understand at the same time these days, which is more than I was able to do maybe a year ago where my whole energy was spent in just reading the words in isolation without being able to put them together.

But the book is well designed and repeats vocabulary as you go along to help you remember it and also so that you can see how one word can be used in different contexts. I'd really recommend it, since all my complaints are those of a beginner and not the book's fault at all. I carry the book with me everywhere so that if I’m waiting for my bus or need to take a long tram journey, I can delve into it. It also has some postcards in a more handwriting-type font, so that you can learn how to read that as well.

I’ve found a resource for vocabulary lists in English, Arabic and Egyptian Arabic (I’d forgotten to pack my book at the time), so I have a couple of them printed out for rote learning, too, just for variety. As if to highlight the greater vocabulary in Arabic vs English, apparently there is one word in Egyptian Arabic for a loud fart and another word for a quiet fart! I’m really not sure what that says about Egyptian culture. Don’t you just love learning languages?

Zurich - Quick Holiday in Mallorca

Cuevas del Drach
(photo (c).Candi... under a Creative Commons license)

I’ve been feeling in the need of a bit of a break recently. So, I got a travel agent (Kompas Travel – would highly recommend them) to find a short beach holiday for me for four days. It was fabulous. I gave them my dates, my desire for a beach holiday (suggested some locations, but they gave me another one), and my maximum price. They came back with two options, I picked one of them, and then everything was organized, including the transfers. This simplicity was just what I needed!

So, I ended up in Mallorca. I haven’t been there since just after my graduation (many years ago now!), when I went to a friend’s parents' holiday home in Porto Pollensa. I don’t really know why I haven’t been back.

The worst part was the initial flight time of 6.20am – it must be one of those many planes that fly over my home during 6am-7am. I had to get the first bus in the morning at 5,15am. This is one of the times where I’m glad I live near the airport.

I’d forgotten that when you book a package holiday, your transfer is bundled in with a load of other people, so on getting the transfer from Mallorca airport to the hotel, it was a huge bus that was subsequently delayed because some people had lost luggage. There was really no advantage to having carry-on baggage only. Also, although my flight back wasn’t until 10.30am and I checked in beforehand, I still had to have my pick-up at 7am to accommodate other people with earlier flights who also needed a transfer. But an hour’s taxi drive would have cost me quite a bit, so there’s always a compromise with a benefit.

To my surprise, I felt flummoxed when I went on the beach after arriving and saw all those people there – there were hundreds of them and I counted at least 80 heads bobbing about in the water, and I didn’t know a single person. In El Andalous, I’ve got so used to having the beach to myself, or knowing a few people by sight at least whenever maybe 6 or 7 others are there, and thinking it’s crowded when, heaven forbid, on the very occasional busy day, there are 20 people spread between the beach and the sea. So, it was a bit of a culture shock to see mass tourism in action.

To my delight, the water was really warm – I would guess around 28 degrees – and the beach itself was quite large. Consequently, although I am also not used to swimming where your permitted area of the sea is marked out for you with buoys, which makes me feel constricted, there was really plenty of space, particularly if I went over to the deep section (which was marked out as such with a warning).

On my third day, my body was telling me that I’d done a bit too much swimming (my arms were aching and my body was feeling floppy), so I took that day to do some excursions. In the late morning (it was my holiday, after all!), I went to see the Cuevas del Drach (Dragon Caves). I’d originally turned up the day before only to find that the tours for the next two hours were already sold out. I’d forgotten this was high season and that, unlike Egypt, tourists were everywhere.

Anyway, I bought a ticket for the next day, which was the third day of my stay. The caves were truly amazing and it was like entering the world of the Hobbit. Some of the formations looked like houses rising up out of the stone surface, some formed what looked like ornately-decorated columns but were just the markings of how the stalactites and stalagmites formed, some looked like a fine curtain pulled partly across; others looked like candles, or you could imagine trees. They were delicately lit up and then there’s the underground lake that reflects it all back again. It takes around a century for the stalactites to grow just 1cm, so many of them must have been hundreds of thousands years old; indeed some of the rock has been recorded as dating back 11 million years. It’s mind-boggling when you think humans have probably only been around for 200,000 years; the whole atmosphere to me was quite mystical. I could have cried at the beauty of it.

The tour ends with a 10-minute live performance of classical music with four musicians traversing the lake on a boat with the music reverberating in the cave. You don’t get an echo, but it’s been a tradition in the caves for 75 years now. But the real beauty is with mother nature herself.

In the afternoon, after a quick play in the water (rather than a proper swim), I took a boat trip (which itself included time for a 10-minute swim) along the coast. It was fun to be on a boat again and seeing some of the other beaches, it made me feel that the one at Porto Cristo was not so crowded after all! There were some bad reviews of the boat trips on tripadvisor, but actually I really enjoyed it – it all depends on your expectations I guess!

Anyway, after another day on the beach, and some lovely meals, I have arrived back in Zurich feeling suitably refreshed at having had a fix of proper sunshine and the opportunity to have had a few days where everything was done for me.

Zurich - Brunch at Uto Kulm

Uetliberg - A Planet on the Planetenweg

There’s no point in having a visitor if you can’t use it as an excuse to go for a brunch. The Uto Kulm hotel is situated right at the top of the Uetliberg – Zurich’s home hill / mountain – so it has great views over the lake and the rest of Zurich (and surrounding areas). I’d never had brunch there before so it was a good opportunity to try it out.

I booked in advance, so got a print-out of the ticket, which included the cost of travel all round Zurich Kanton for the entire day, so it was a good bargain. We arrived pretty much on time, but this is Switzerland so most people were already there. We climbed up the hill from the station wondering how many people were going to be at the brunch, but I think we were actually the stragglers.

It was packed (which I guess is a good sign). I’d asked for a window seat but we didn’t get one, but I didn’t have the energy to argue and I guess everyone asks for that anyway (and not everyone can have that).

It was a good brunch. At first I thought there wasn’t much there, but it later transpired that it came out in “courses”, so you really had to grab what you most wanted whenever it was on offer. It started off with a welcome prosecco and we could have as much coffee as we liked (including speciality coffees such as cappuccino, latte macchiato etc), but it was sometimes a bit hard to grab hold of a waiter.

But the food was good – it started off with a selection of breakfast items including pretty much everything you’d expect. There wasn’t a fresh egg station but they had scrambled and fried eggs for you to serve yourself, bacon, sausage, cereals, roesti, yoghurt, breads, cold meats, cheese, birchermuesli, etc. I was originally disappointed thinking that was it (although quite sufficient), but then they brought out the main courses. I can’t quite remember what they were now, but there were vegetarian options too, I was relieved to see (since Geraldine is a vegetarian). I seem to recall that there was a turkey and pork roast, some wonderful fish in batter, plus the vegetarian choices.

After this, they rolled out the dessert buffet, including chocolate and white chocolate mousse, I believe.

We decided to walk off at least some of our gluttony by going along the Planetenweg – it’s a walk along the top of the Uetliberg and they have models of all the planets, with the distance you walk being to scale with the distance between the planets (and the models of the planets at the side of the path themselves also being to scale). (Incidentally, apologies for the recent out-of-focus photos - I think my camera lens needs a clean! Either that, or I need to buy a new camera)

I was panic-stricken as we started the walk because the people coming up the hill that we were walking down were looking completely exhausted. They were wheezing! They were puffing! They were leaning on the handrail and taking a rest! And these people looked like they were so healthy and fit! So how would I be able to cope? We were going down steps and when we got to the bottom (but we were still on top of the hill, basically), it seemed that there was another path that wound its way up more gently. I think if I were going in the opposite direction, I’d take that route rather than up the stairs. Fortunately, it turned out that the way we went didn’t go up again, so I was spared the torture.

It’s a bit disconcerting as you walk, because once you start, there’s not really any option other than to continue. But you are rewarded with some beautiful views over the lake and Zurich and with the beautiful green trees and grass as you walk along. The paths are good, so you don’t really need any hiking gear as such, and if you start from Uto Kulm, you are spared the hard climb at the end.

We must have walked 6-7km in total and then got the cable car down to Adliswil. From there, to make the most of the free tickets we had, we took a bus to Thalwil and then took the boat back to Zurich, while the weather still held.

Again, I’d highly recommend this as a good Sunday activity for anyone looking for something to do in Zurich!

Zurich - Rheinfelden to Basel

Boat Coming Out of the Lock

It was a mixed bag of weather while Geraldine was over, but I had a list of things to do for all eventualities. Although I had a heavy itinerary planned, when it came down to it, neither of us had the energy to have a full-on timetable, so we mostly took it easy and then picked one thing off the list of options (and sometimes not even that).

A good weather trip was to take the train to Rheinfelden and then to take the boat for a couple of hours up the Rhine and end up in Basel. Even though Basel isn’t that far away, I’ve never actually taken Geraldine there. I’m not sure why I don’t go to Basel much – I think it’s because I used to go there a lot when I lived in Freiburg in Germany for two years and so I feel I’ve done Basel to death. However, that’s 18 years ago now, so really I should give it more time!

We had beautiful weather. Rheinfelden itself is a pretty town that sits right on the border with Germany; it’s even split in two, with part of it in Germany and part in Switzerland. We walked over the bridge across the river and into Germany, just because we could.

It was extremely quiet and, again, it felt like walking round an open-air museum with no visitors. There was a huge stork’s nest on top of one of the towers into the town – we had to look for a while to work out whether it was real nor not, since there were several things round about named after the stork (so it could have been historical), but it was indeed alive.

We found a restaurant that appeared to be attached to a clinic for the wealthy (there were some nice statues outside) and overlooking the river. We couldn’t have a seat right by the river because, despite the fact that no-one was in town, the riverside tables for lunch had all been booked, but we had a perfectly good view also from sitting just one row behind. When in Switzerland, do as the Swiss, so we started off with a prosecco and then continued on with a small lunch (I had soup, Geraldine had a salad).

It was then time to go to the boat station (only you have to call them ships in Switzerland or they get upset), where it said we had to get tickets in the nearby hotel. However, the hotel told us that since we had money-off coupons (I got them from the Coop), we’d need to buy our tickets on board. It was all very confusing, but it turned out that we could indeed just buy tickets onboard.

The trip takes you through a couple of very impressive locks – it’s amazing to see the water sink 15 metres as you just sit there. There was food and drink on board and plenty of spaces to sit although it was very hot out in the sun.

As we entered into Basel, we spotted a nice restaurant looking right out onto the Rhine. Several people were floating / swimming down the Rhine in their bathing costumes with their goods attached in a waterproof bag floating behind them. It looked fun!

We’d arranged to meet Steph and Nicolas in Basel (the trip was Steph’s suggestion), so as we came off the “ship”, Steph greeted us and, lo and behold, we ended up in the lovely restaurant overlooking the Rhine. It was a very posh place so when they brought the drinks menu, it was a huge tome bound in a black hardcover. But to our delight – it was all meant to be – their signature drink turned out to be a “petite Geraldine”. By the time we ordered, a table outside had become free, so they escorted us to our preferred location and we sipped our drinks in the evening sun; Nicolas joined us shortly afterwards.

Toward the end, it started to rain, and Steph and Nicolas had to go, so Geraldine and I went to a place recommended by Steph to eat. It was an indoor location with many different stalls each selling food from a different country and you just select which one you want to take (it reminded me of the Zurich food festival). I had really wanted to show Geraldine at least the old town of Basel, but since it was raining, we just ate and went home, but it still made for a very enjoyable day. I would recommend it to anyone as a day trip!

Opfikon - Welcoming My Own Visitor

Idyllic House and Garden in Opfikon

I’ve just had Geraldine over to visit for 6 days and one of the things she wanted to do was to see the area in which I am now living. Since I’d just had my welcome tour from the council, I thought I could try to re-do the bit in Opfikon (she’s already seen my work place which isn’t that exciting, to be honest).

All good trips start with coffee and cake, so we went to the local bakery for a snack before we began. The immediate area near me isn’t that interesting – a few supermarkets, a few take-away restaurants (which are few in Switzerland but I’m outside of the wealthy city centre now), a few sit-in restaurants, and not much else.

In the summer, the busy road bridge over the river Glatt is decorated with flowers (I’m sure the flowers would get torn out in the UK!) and on each side of the river, there is a cycle path and a pedestrian path. We walked along the river and then finally turned towards the hill and started our climb up to Opfikon.

It was good to take a visitor because Geraldine was astonished at how you suddenly end up in a rural village in the middle of the countryside when minutes before you had to sit by a busy road to have your cup of coffee. The contrast is quite extreme. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was a hot summer’s day. I’d been driven up by bus before, so it was quite a hill to get there – nothing too strenuous but enough to make you sweat when it’s so hot.

We marveled at a cyclist going up the hill and then felt a bit smug when he got off his bike, but then we were put back in our place when it turned out that he’d got off his bike because he’d arrived home, not because he was too tired. We were just judging him by our own standards!

As you may have seen from the last blog, many of the buildings in Opfikon are old and have traditional beams. On the outskirts there are some more modern buildings, but they mostly look fairly large and wealthy. It is a rural area, so there are also a fair few farms. We stopped by a stable and peered inside to look at the horses.

Geraldine has an allotment in the UK, so she couldn’t believe her eyes at the Swiss version on the edge of Opfikon. Each allotment had a little hut with curtains and a flag, clearly done out for living in to some extent. They are like beach huts in the UK and many Swiss people will go and spend a day in their allotment eating and drinking and passing the time away in the countryside. Each patch of land was exceptionally well tended without a weed in sight. It’s so perfect, it’s really a bit surreal.

We walked past an orchard (or was it cherry trees?) and at the end of each row of trees there were a couple of rose bushes just to make it look more decorative. There was a notice up explaining that the netting above it was to stop hail from damaging the trees and apologizing for its unsightliness. This is Swiss perfection for you.

The roads are quite narrow in Opfikon ; we were there on a Saturday and it seemed that nobody was about. A bus seemed to be following us about, which took up the entire road whenever it passed. It felt like we were walking round an open-air museum.

We got desperately thirsty at one point. We passed a farm shop and even though it looked closed, the notice in German on the door proclaimed that it was open. I tentatively tried the door and it led into a barn with various produce – fruits, honey, jams, eggs, and drinks. Nobody was there. A noticeboard hung on the wall where various people had posted their “I owe you” notices. Otherwise, an honesty box (milk urn) was in the middle for you to pay for your goods. We took a couple of Apfelschorle (apple juice with water), and dropped our payment into the honesty box. I’m not sure there’s anywhere left in the UK that operates such a system these days.

I took Geraldine to the viewing area on top of the hill and we noticed a huge slide (like a flume) going from the top to half-way down the hill and into a children’s playground below. I was half-tempted to go on it, but actually it looked too scary. The children no doubt love it.

Somehow, walking round this little village took us almost the entire day, although possibly we didn’t start until noon anyway, since neither of us were in the mood to rush about. We walked back down to the busy road below and it felt like we’d been away somewhere completely different.

Glattbrugg - A Swiss Welcome

The Newcomers Invade Opfikon

One really good thing they do in Switzerland – I have no idea if other countries do this (or even other Kantons other than Zurich, actually) – is that they organize an introductory day for people who have newly moved in to the area. You might think that this would be just an hour’s lecture and that would be it, but actually it is a fairly full-on itinerary, or at least it was in my case.

My one started off, I think at 9am in the fire station. This is just five minutes away from where I live, so it was very convenient. I walked up the road and could hear a brass band playing; there were balloons outside and people were wandering in. This was all to welcome us newcomers! You checked in and then there was tea, coffee and croissants available. At this point, I should probably say that, unusually for Switzerland, the whole event was free, including any drinks or food laid on at various junctures.

We were given a short talk by the fire station chief, and by various important people on the council, who explained their roles and responsibilities and what sections of the council do what. They played a short video – beset with technical difficulties (the band struck up again while we waited)  – and I was interested to see that they didn’t ignore the fact that this area is burdened with a lot of noise from the planes, but they did explain how much money the airport brought in (fair enough).

We had two huge buses and we must have been about 100 people. In Glattbrugg I think they run it just once a year; I got talking to one man who said he missed it last year and they let him attend this year’s one instead, which I thought was very good of them.

The buses took us round various points of interest. The first stop was the local library, which was actually my favorite stop, although we couldn’t stay there that long (I guess so that we didn’t disturb the users too much). The librarian explained what facilities they had and we were all presented with a year’s free pass. I even managed to find a book with dual text in German and Arabic!

We also went up the hill and into the centre of Opfikon, where I’d never been before and it’s actually a very pretty area, if rather small and not so easily accessible by public transport as where I am now. One of the farms had its entire roof covered with solar panels. From the top we could look over the whole area and our guide pointed out various landmarks.

We also visited the local football fields where a new bridge had been built across the river and they told us about little huts that you can rent out for events in the middle of the woods that were just across the road. We were given a while to wander, and I went to try to find these places, but I was too scared of losing the group to go too far, so I never did see them.

After that it was off to a children’s play area (not so interesting for me) and then, very weirdly, the bus took us to see the area where I work. I work in a fairly new area of Zurich (I think they said it’s been there 9 years) and it’s really not much to look at. However, it does have a canal just behind it and they’d set up a stall with free prosecco for us to have (I had at least two, maybe three). Soft drinks were also available, of course. It was a hot and sunny day, so perfect for sipping bubbles mid-morning!

We finished up at the local swimming pool, which of course I already know very well. The man I got talking to said it was going to be closed and refurbished soon since it was quite dated, which I didn’t know, but they didn’t tell us about that. We were treated to lunch there; a proper lunch where we were seated at tables and could go up to a buffet with various pasta dishes, I think we had a salad as starter, and fruit for dessert. There was a festival on in Glattbrugg that day so there was also a band playing in the background, too.

All in all, it was a very nice introduction to the area and it also gave you the chance to meet some of your other fellow new residents. It would be a good idea for this to be standard everywhere!

Northern Ireland - My First Visit

The Harbour in Donaghadee

For a blog about Switzerland and Egypt, this is beginning to turn into something more like a round-the-world trip. Anyway, as well as meeting up with my brothers, attending wedding celebrations, I was, of course, also going to Northern Ireland on two occasions to visit Pam.

I’d never actually been to Northern Ireland before. It’s one of those strange facts of life that you never visit anywhere that’s close to where you were brought up, but if you live abroad, you explore everywhere around you and it just seems so much more exciting than exploring your home country. And, so, I’d never been to Northern Ireland because it was just too close to (my original) home.

All the tales about the Irish being very talkative are completely true. I was a bit hungry when I landed, so I popped into the little (“wee”) store at the airport to buy myself a chocolate bar. There was an old man in the queue in front of me and even though I was obviously waiting to be served, the sales assistant just kept on talking and talking and talking to this man she was serving. She had all day. He had all day. Talk, talk, talk. If I’d have been in a hurry, I could have been annoyed, but fortunately I was feeling fairly chilled and just found it amusing. Also, I guessed the old man was probably glad of a bit of chit-chat.

Pam and I also joked about how everything is a “wee” this and a “wee” that in Northern Ireland. You buy your wee chocolate and the wee woman at the till puts it into a wee bag for you. Opposite my hotel window, there was a picture with “our wee country” written on it as if to emphasise the point.

It felt quite strange being in Northern Ireland and it reminded me of when I first went to Scotland. You can sort of identify it as being part of your culture (if you’re a Brit), but at the same time it felt distinctly different. It definitely wasn’t England. Also, like in Scotland, they print their own notes, so they have Bank of Ireland emblazoned on them, which, if you’re English, makes you panic because you wonder if you’ll get a whole load of hassle when you try to use them in England even though really you shouldn’t have any problem at all because at the end of the day it is the same currency. But the world doesn’t really work like that.

I didn’t really have time to do much sight-seeing. I took a bus tour of Belfast, although it was a bit confusing because there were several different ones to choose from and apparently my ticket allowed me to do two, but I had time only for one of them. I hadn’t realized before that the Titanic was built in Belfast, so the Titanic museum is really a must-see (but I didn’t!). I hear it is really good and the outside of the building is itself impressive. Apparently there were three ships built at the same time – the Titanic wasn’t unique.

The trip also took us to where the “troubles” used to be. I grew up with news of the IRA and bombs always on the television, so most of the names of the areas in Ireland and Belfast in particular are very familiar to me. They are trying to recover from their history and to show how much good there is in Belfast and in Northern Ireland in general. I guess that now there’s a whole generation behind me that didn’t grow up with it as part of their daily life. I lived near London, of course, and not in Northern Ireland, but the “troubles” often spilled over and targeted London, too, but I had no direct experience of it (thankfully), so it still seemed a little removed. There’s still a bit of a struggle to move on and to leave their history behind, but most people I met wanted to be working towards a peaceful future and not to harp on about the past (and here I am talking about it – sorry!).

There’s some really great shopping in Belfast and some even better restaurants. Really, we had some amazing food while we were there and the atmosphere was always buzzing. It was incredibly difficult to find a hotel at the last minute – some of the prices were outrageous, but because of the paucity of hotels, they are able to charge a fortune if you can’t book in advance. But it means that Belfast is thriving, which is a good thing!

The coastline is also beautiful – I sometimes miss the wildness of the sea that we have in the UK since the bay in Sahl Hasheesh is very calm and, of course, the lakes aren’t tidal. There’s an advert in Switzerland claiming that those who live by the sea actually get the most homesick when they see a lake, but I don’t really think that’s true.

Anyway, I would love to go back at some time and see more of it. I hear the countryside is beautiful and I’d love to see the Giant’s Causeway. I don’t know why I never went over before, but I’m glad that because of Pam I have been kicked into making at least a start!