What to eat for breakfast

I’ve probably already mentioned how delicious everything is here. Usually in the morning I have an omelet with some onions and peppers in it, and eat it with a slice of bread. If I’m feeling like I really need energy, I heat up muesli and add milk, just like oatmeal.

The milk here is UHT and comes in a box pack, which means you can keep it out of the refrigerator before opening it. At first I thought this was really strange, but now I realize that I can buy a bunch of it and treat it like canned food- let it sit on the shelf for a week before opening it. Some of the milk containers have pictures of flying cows or horned, evil-looking cows on them, I’m not sure why!

All of the food products have three languages- German, French, and Italian (in that order!)- because of the linguistic diversity of Switzerland. I like reading ingredients and comparing what the same thing is called in each language.

I try to pack leftovers for lunch at school, but sometimes I don’t have any and end up either buying some over-priced sandwich from the café here or packing some bread, cheese, and fruit from home. This is not an act of desperation- the bread is really great and I try to get different kinds of cheese each week (though gruyere is still my favorite by far!).

For dinner, I typically cook the same things as I did in the US: lots of vegetables. If you are thinking of moving here, consider eating meat less often- it’s at least $10 per pound, even the cheap kind on sale!

Lots of products are advertised as having Swiss origin, especially produce and dairy. They will usually tell you if the grapes are Swiss or Italian, or if the eggs are Swiss or French. Sometimes, they go into the details of which canton (state) in Switzerland the product comes from (I am in Vaud), even though they are really small!

There’s also lots of chocolate, but of course I haven’t been eating any of that.

Flamme etc.

The following is from last weekend:

Yesterday I had my first experience eating out in Switzerland. After working on some physics problems, Nanne and I went out to a brewery cum restaurant and had some “flamme.” Flamme is a pizza-like dish, with a really thin and crispy crust, a creamy sauce and cheese. You can put all different kinds of toppings on it. This was interesting, but the real shock was the price of everything! The flamme was about $20, and that was one of the less expensive things on the menu. You can get a salad, or a hamburger for $25. The whole meals were even more outrageous. And this was not even a fancy sort of restaurant. This was the kind of place that the typical student or group of friends would go to on a Saturday night.

Since last night was “museum night” in Lausanne- all the museums were open until 2am with free entry for anyone with a ticket ($10)- I later met up with another Masters student Teesa, who is the only other American here, and some of her friends to check out the exhibits. Interestingly, Teesa and I speak French with each other most of the time, even if no one else is there! I am really enjoying all of the different languages that are being spoken around me all the time. For example, last night, there were three guys from Luxembourg who were with us, so they were speaking Luxembourg version of German, which is very close to German most of the evening. Nanne, who is from the Netherlands and speaks Dutch (also not the same as German) can understand them but wouldn’t really be able to speak with them. Add to that Schweitzerdeutsch, which is the Swiss form of German and is mutually understandable with German but not really speakable (although German-speaking Swiss can easily switch to “high” German, and use it for news etc.).

There’s also a lot of Italians, Spanish, and people from the Nordic countries.

This is reminding me a lot of my friends Murad and Siddharth and our discussions on Urdu being the same language (or not) as Hindi!