I love the Swiss and I want to strangle them all

I'm currently going through a typical and frustrating Swiss experience.  It's so dang Swiss!

Here's the story:  Every year, anyone who lives here buys a half-price train pass, which allows you to buy train tickets at half of the posted price.  (It's really just a scam to gouge the tourists.  No one who lives here pays full price.)

I renewed mine about a month ago.  The new pass usually comes in the mail in about a week.  I've been watching for mine, but it's never arrived.  It must have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

I've now had three almost identical conversations with the clerks at the train station when I've gone to explain my dilemma.  The clerk patiently listen to me as I tell him or her that I renewed my pass but that I never received it in the mail.  They then call some central number to find out what's going on.  After they talk in Swiss German for a minute, they hang up the phone and, pleased as punch, report to me that my pass was mailed out at the end of May.  They then contentedly wait for me to go away.

At that point, I explain that yes, I'm aware that my pass was mailed.  The problem is that it never made it to my house.

There's some puzzlement as the poor clerk tries to process this information.  It's difficult, I can tell.  This just doesn't happen in Switzerland.  When something is mailed, it arrives, period.  The clerk's first response is usually to repeat that it was mailed to me at the end of May.  After that, the clerk will pull up my address on their monitor and confirm that it's still my address.  Yes, I say.  They'll then ask if my name is on my mailbox.  Yes, I say.

At this point, the game shifts to "Blame the Ignorant American."  They come up with different variations, but they amount to the same thing:  this is my fault.  The second clerk patiently explained to me what the envelope would look like and suggested that I had probably thrown it away by mistake.  The third clerk suggested that I go home and conduct a thorough search of my apartment because it must be there somewhere.  (I found that remark to be so condescending that for the first time in my life, I felt the urge to strike a female Swiss train clerk.  I suppressed it.)

I haven't made much progress.  They keep giving me temporary passes under the assumption that it will show up in the mail or that I'll finally come across it in my apartment.  I may just live on temporary passes until I leave at the end of July.

On the other hand, I love the Swiss.  I'm taking the kids to our public pool tomorrow.  As I've mentioned before, it's spotless.  I know that I shall never again see a public pool as clean and well-maintained as a Swiss public pool.

Every six years

June 17th is always a special day, but it's even more special this year.  Something is happening this year that only happens about every six years (it varies due to the effects of Leap Year):  my birthday is on Father's Day.  That's right, this year, we're referring to June 17th as "Ethan's Day."

My family has something extra special planned for me.  They haven't actually said that, but I can just tell from the way they're acting that it's something great.  There's just something a little different in the way that Stace says, "For the last time, clean up this pile of papers," or the way Tanner says, "Dad, I don't want to practice guitar," or the way Lindsey says, "No, I'm not going to bed like you told me to."  The signs are subtle, but they're unmistakable.  It's gonna be incredible!

Another last

I just had my last good $45 haircut in German.  I can't wait to get a bad haircut for $15 in English!

One of those nights

Well, there won't be many more of these.  It's a perfectly clear night.  I've been looking out from our terrace all night.  We got a beautiful red sunset a couple of hours ago, and now the lake is being lit up by the crescent moon as it heads down toward the horizon.  There's going to be plenty to miss here.

Modified schedule

Some slight changes.  Here we go:

June 20-28, family trip to Stockholm and St. Petersburg
July 2, kids fly to Utah
July 6, Stace and I fly to Minnesota, buy a house
July 13, Stace flies to Utah
July 19, I fly back to Switzerland
July 23, I move out of my apartment and stay in a hotel for eight days
July 31, I leave Switzerland
Late August, we move into our new house

I still might sneak in a quick trip to Lisbon or something like that.

Still fine

Just really not much to report.  The kids go to school, I go to work, I try to spend time admiring the view from our terrace while we still have one, and so forth.

My brother Jed gets here on Saturday, though, so the party's about to begin . . . .

Summer plans

I haven't had much to say lately, but things are fine--just uninteresting.  For those of you who are curious, here's the plan for the summer:

June 20-28:  last family vacation, visiting Stockholm and Saint Petersburg.
July 2:  the kids fly out to Utah to stay with grandparents.
July 6-13:  Ethan and Stace fly to Minnesota to hunt for a house.
July 13:  Stace flies to Utah.  Ethan stays in Minnesota for a few more days to work and then heads back to Switzerland.
August 20 or so:  Ethan and Stace had back to Minnesota to close on the new mansion and buy two new luxury cars (like a three-year-old Elantra or something).
August 24 or so:  the kids head to Minnesota to get settled in, attend the Minnesota State Fair, and start school after Labor Day.
September 4:  Ethan starts his new/old job in Minnesota.
July 2033:  Ethan retires, Ethan and Stace sell the house and move to Orlando as a base from which to travel the world.

We found someone who's going to rent our old house, so we won't sell it for now.  It looks like we're going into the landlord business for at least a little while.