Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 14:31:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Neuchatel Chronicles - Edition Eight

I went grocery shopping the other day and was not as rushed as usual as I
did not really have anywhere else to be, and the store was reasonably
empty.  This gave me the chance to have a better look around and to spend
the 5 minutes examining each package that it takes for me to actually
figure out what it is without looking like an idiot in front of quite as
many people. (This is why one does not by no-name products in foriegn
countries - without pictures it is a  very risky endeavor.)  Now before I
get into any specifics, I should give some general overviews about
groceries in Europe (I say Europe rather than Switzerland because in my
previous travels I found these things to be common).  I would say there
are two major, all encompasing attitude differences between grocery stores
here and in North America.

One major difference is brand selection.  I do not mean that they do not
have a good selection here, in fact, it is quite good.  What I mean is
that in general, they do not bother to stock multiple brands of the
identical item.  Popular items they will stock a few brands, and things
like granola, which have small differences between brands will have
numerous brands in stock, but basics, like canned vegetables or milk they
generally stock only a single brand.  This does not really influence the
availablity of items, in fact it frees up more shelf space.  In general,
this is not an important difference, just a noted observation.

The second major difference, and a very noticable one, is the general
attitude about refrigeration and shelf life.  If possible, items should
not require refrigeration and should have long shelf lives.  Obviously,
some things you do not get a choice on, ie. fresh meat, but you would be
suprised at the number of things North American's consider "refrigeration
manditory" that the Europeans have found ways around.  The first thing is
fruits and vegetables.  Now we all understand that most of them do not
actually require refrigeration, but we refrigerate them anyway.  Here,
they do not.  This does not make a huge difference except you eat your
apples warm.  I think the most obvious difference with respect to
refrigeration is dairy products.  Milk, for instance, is UHT (Ultra-high
temperature I thik) treated.  I know you can get this in NA, but it is
uncommon, unpopluar and expensive.  Here, it is the other way around.
This works out great for me because I can buy milk when I get the chance,
rather than when I need it.  Of course once it is openned it requires
refrigeration, but in the mean time it makes life much easier.  

 Many cheese sold here do not require refrigeration.  I buy low fat
processed cheese slices (a staple of my diet I might add) with an
unrefrigerated shelf life of about 6 months.  These are perfect for me as
it saves me a trip down to the fridge.  In fact, the only thing I have
ever put in the fridge is my milk.  [One should note that most European
fridge's are small as a large fridge is unnecessary.  This of course saves
more energy and is related to the lack of clothes dryers and the fact that
dishwashers have no dry cycle.]  Along with milk and cheese, is eggs.
Most eggs here are kept on the shelves, not the refrigerator section.  I
assume they are heat treated.  It starts getting a little more suprising
when you can by deli sliced meats in little packages (not vacuum sealed)
with multiple "good till" dates.  I buy stuff that is good for 5 days
unrefrigerated, 2 weeks refrigerated and 7 days refrigerated after
openning.  I buy small packages and eat it at one shot.

Bread is an oddity unto itself.  The common breads you buy are big funny
shaped loaves and such, like in Rockwellian bakeries.  I never buy these
because they are big and actually somewhat expensive.  It is also just
tossed in a paper bag with no seal.  People here just cut slices off and
leave the loaf on the counter with maybe a towel over it to keep the bugs
off.  At the Cite, right at the cash registers, there is a big basket of
slices of bread that are free to take with your meal.  Generally speaking
the concept of "stale" does not apply to European bread, they like it hard
apparently.  The next variety of bread is the "toast" bread.  This is
presliced bread, similar to "normal" bread in NA except it is not in a
resealable bag, it is very thinnly sliced (about half ours), is square,
and is actually intended only for toast, or perhaps those uncouth
sandwhiches that only North Americans would eat.  It comes in two sizes
(that I have seen) regular bread size and slightly smaller than cheese
slice size.  These mini loafs are great because they fit the cheese slices
perfectly and they are small enough to eat the whole thing in a reasonable
amout of time.  The other type of bread is even better.  This is the heat
treated bread with a shelf life of weeks.  It comes in the cheese slice
size only and is perfect for a bachelor who wants to stock up a bit on
groceries.  [I once bought this in a soya variety that had soya protiens
added to make it a perfect ingredient for a vegeterian meal.]  One of the
cool things about this bread is it is like foam rubber.  I think you could
step on the loaf and it would just pop right back up.  It hardly even gets
soggy in soup.  It is cool stuff.

On top of these individual items, many more things can be bought dryed,
canned or bottled than in NA.  This leads to one of my discoveries the
other day.  I was in the dried fruit section, where there are raisins
(another staple of my diet - they seem to be quite cheap, which makes
sense with this being a grape growing region), dates, apple chips, etc.
and I see this cello wrapped dark brown thing about the size of a
chalkbrush.  I pick it up, and it has the density of raisins or so but is
relatively hard and seems to be formed into tubes, like the way plasticine
is when you buy it.  So what is it?  It is dried bananas.  Not banana
chips, but bananas sliced into quarters and semi-dried.  I am not sure if
you eat them or bake with them but I don't think I'll be buying any soon.

As an another example of efficiency for transport/storage, I have never
seen canned soup.  It is all powdered.  Amazingly enough, powdered tomato
soup is really quite good.   Mayonaise does not come in bottles, it comes
in toothpaste like tubes, as do many other condiments.  Oddly enough, even
the smallest grocery stores have a chocolate section.  Europe would be a
choco-holics dream.

The other important thing I found was a high fibre cereal (it was not with
the other cereals).  So, for all of you who were concerned about my
regularity and were thinking up ways to help me "out" (like my sister who
wanted to send me a recipe for "low fat make you poo muffins") your
worries are over.  The problem, which never actually existed, has been
solved.  For anybody out there who has never tried a high fibre diet, you
should give it a whirl (my appologies to those for whom this is not
possible).  The savings in toilet paper alone almost make it worthwhile.
For anyone willing to try it, I would suggest "Fibre 1" cereal as it is
tasty and does not go mushy in milk.  The other option is to buy "100%
Bran" or "All Bran" which do go mushy in milk, and sprinkle copious
amounts onto whatever cereal you presently eat.  You can add jam if it
makes you happy.  As a warning, do not go full-bowl on the first day.
Fibre is something you work into.  A full bowl on the first day will
likely cause intestinal discomfort, and gas.  Obviuosly, I have strayed
from my grocery store topic (unless you see some relationship between gas
and the fact that all grocery stores here smell very strongly of their
cheese sections) and so we will move on.

The other day I discovered another hazard of speaking English in a French
community.  Normally, on a bus or other public place, one has the ability
to ignore, or block out surrounding conversations.  However, when one is
in a state of English deprivation, such abilities are lost when it comes
to English conversations and it is impossible to stop listenning.  Sunday
night, on my bus ride home, there were two girls having a conversation in
English.  (If I have not previously mentioned this, there is a private
school here for spoilt, rich Canadians in their last year of high school
(grade 13 actually, since it is based out of Ontario) thus, whenever any
English conversation is heard you can bet money it is 17 year old spoilt
brats.)  Now this conversation was particulalry annoying.  The one girl
was recounting her weekend at a debating competition in Brussels where she
stayed in the ambassador to Indonesia's house and hung out with his
daughter, while the other girl kept saying "That is so cool." - "Like the
other teams there were so serious about the competition, but me and Winney
[the ambassador's daughter] like hung out and stayed up all night and ..."
"Like that is so cool."  I was very disturbed to learn I could not turn it
off.  20 minutes of "That is so cool." is more than anyone should have to
take. [Just my luck, the "that's so cool" girl got on my bus this morning
and conversed about how hard it is to get up in the morning.  Fortunately,
she was sitting quite distant and the general buzz of spit filled mouths
drowned most of it out.]
Another bus story: a few days ago this very attractive girl/woman (I will
not make any further distinction as my ability to do so is considered
somewhat dubious) gets on the bus.  (And for those of you who are
wondering, no, she was not chubby although it would not have counted
against her :)  Now, this is not all that unusual, in any country, but
what was unusual were her eyebrows.  Now, the first few times I looked at
her I was amazed at how quickly she put on a "what are you looking at"
expression (an expression I am not unfamiliar with ), but after a few
times I noticed that it had nothing to do with me looking at her, but in
fact was a permanent expression due to the way she had arched her
eyebrows.  I wonder if she does it on purpose to deter people from
staring.

I was leafing through the dictionary (yes, believe it or not, I have an
English dictionary and still have all these spelling mistakes) and I
happened to see the definition of "chino".  Now I seem to have some vague
recolection that it is a derogatory, racial term, but the definition says
"1. A twilled cotton fabric.  2.chinos . Trousers made of this material."
Which hardly seems applicable.  I mean if they were polyester pants, I
could perhaps see some connection, but what's wrong with twilled cotton?
Later, I noticed a footnote that says "[Amer Span -chino, "toasted"]"
which clarified things somewhat, but it still does not explain what
twilled cotton has to do with the whole thing.

I was sure I had previuosly talked about the plastic bag dispensers in the
parks here, but I grep'ed my mail file and found no mention of bags, so I
guess I haven't.  [If I did, you can skip this paragraph.]  Anyway, in
many of the parks here, there are these yellow poles with plastic bag
dispensers on them.  At first sight, I was left wondering what they were
for, but as I got close enough to see the picture on the little baggies,
it all became clear.  Although there were instructions in French and
German, the real give away was the smiling doggy.  If you can't figure it
our from that, you'll have to come read the French yourself.

On a more serious note, we had some snow last week.  Up where I live we
had about 15cm.  Down here in town, they only had about 5cm.  It stuck
around long enough for my prof to tell me the next day that this is the
most snow they have had in town in 6 years.  I was a little suprised to
hear that.  Not quite what one expects in Switzerland.  The next day it
rained and made short work of the snow in town.  Up at my place I still
have some, but nothing too exciting.

Can anyone explain to me why Mini-Wheats are called Toppas here, and Corn
Flakes are called Corn Flakes?  I am obviously not in Quebec.

On one of the buildings downtown, as an advertisement, they have a car
hanging as if it is driving down the side of the building.  I don't even
know what it is an ad for, but it looks pretty cool.  

I know most of you (all of you) won't find this amusing, but I can't help
laughing every time I think about it.  One of the things I often think
about is how to appropriately use centrifical force to produce a gravity
like force.  Of course the obvious things come to mind like spinning space
stations and such, but I usually think along the lines of really cool
simulators and the like.  Anyway, the other day, I was thinking about
the"vomit comet" [for those of you who do not know what this refers to, it
is a plane that is designed to continuously climb and then nose dive to
create the effects of free fall during its dives] and I realized that the
free fall might also be somewhat unnerving for the pilot, so I set about
considering creating "artificial gravity" for the pilot.  Of course this
involves spinning the cockpit.  Now, you have to picture this to get the
full stupidity:  you have a plane, nose diving in free fall, and the
cockpit section is spinning like crazy to attempt to keep the pilot from
getting sick.  Imagine the pilots view of things.  Never mind :)

The other day I was walking somewhere and I came across a bunch of
scattered collectors cards.  I could not figure out what they were so I
stopped and picked one up.  What they are is like those "animals of the
world" cards except they are put out by the train company and are "places
to go on the train" cards.  They come in different categories (scenic,
hicking, sport, activity, etc.) and they are kinda cool.  The front shows
a picture of the place and the back has a description, hours of operation,
prices, discounts with train ticket, exact directions and train prices
from various places in Switzerland.  For example, the card I grabbed is an
"Aventure" card and is for the "Rollerpalast a Lucerne".  The front shows
the outside of the building which has been painted in a huge spray paint
mural.  [Oddly enough, there is no railing on the stairs - I guess they
took them off for the photo.]  The back talks about skateboarding and
rollerblading and that they rent equipment, the times and days it's open
and the cost (with a train ticket, 3 Fr for for the first hour, 4 Fr for
others before 18:00, 5 and 6 Fr after 18:00).  It tells you the busses to
catch within Lucerne from the train station and the train fare (from
Neuchatel it's 37 Fr).  Europe public transit is not even related to
public transit in NA.  The details of my admiration for European public
transit will wait for another day. 

There is a restaurant here called "CasaBlanca - Restaurant de Nuit" and it
is what it says.  Its hours of operations are 21:00-06:00.  Considering
this is a town of 35000 I was kinda impressed.  I have not been in it, and
I am concerned it might not be just a restaurant, but from the outside
that is what it appears to be.

I was in the Cite the other day and I heard a Donna Lewis song.  Made me
really miss 95.3/104.5 (pick the one for your city).  I have been here 7
weeks now and have not watched any TV and only heard the radio as
background during my lunches.  I often wonder if the world still exists
(revolves ?) around me.  

Next week I've been invited to a hockey game.  Apparently Anderson  and
two toher Cnadians are playing.  Kinda weird to come this far to watch the
same players as I did back home :)

Anyway, I have to catch the last bus at 23:36 or I get to spend the next
hour walking uphill.

Bon Soir.

Aaron