Carnivaaaaaal!!!!

We survived Carnival! We weren't sure how it was going to go for us, seeing as we live very close to the Old Town, which is ground zero for the festivities, and we had heard many warnings and horror stories about the parades, roaming, costumed marching bands, and drunken revelers making so much noise that sleep would be impossible. In that respect, it turned out not to be nearly as bad as we feared. We live far enough off the main beaten track that we mostly just experienced fringe activities, with the exception of two parades and a few dancers, singers, and marching bands warming up and setting up in front of our building.

In another respect, the sheer scale and craziness of Carnival, or Fasnacht as it is called here, blew us away. We didn't expect anything nearly as awesome as what actually occurred. Thousands and thousands of people from all over Switzerland, Europe, and beyond converge on Lucerne for the festivities, and they all come in costume, all of them. Every kind of costume imaginable, no limits on outrageousness, many of them painstakingly handmade. Really incredible, especially considering this is Switzerland, the most staid, conservative, prim and proper country on the planet! It's as if the Swiss just hold all this craziness in all year long, and when Fasnacht rolls around, their inner party animal breaks out and takes control. Perhaps dressing up in elaborate costumes and creating an aura of anonymity allows them to express themselves in ways they could never do otherwise. Amazing to behold, and I'm glad we did. They really plan and prepare for this event all year long, the obvious massive amount of work that goes into making it a reality is very impressive. We have never experienced or witnessed a party on this grand of a scale. I find it somewhat interesting that they celebrate a series of religiously significant events by dressing up in ofttimes demonic costumes and drinking themselves silly, but who am I to judge? It's very difficult to describe in words the actual scope and feel and overall atmosphere of the festivities. I wish I could put video on this blog, but I haven't figured that out yet. I will try and link to some video in the future. Anyway, I've downloaded a few pictures which really don't do it justice, but better than nothing!
















February 25, 2010

So how about an update on our work situation? I think that we have both achieved a pretty good level of comfort with the rules, procedures, and type of play at our new casino. I just recently passed my 90 day probation evaluation, and they were surprisingly positive about my performance. I thought that I hadn't done nearly as well as they seemed to think I did! In any event, I didn't get fired. Maybe I'm a little too harsh on myself. After all, I was coming from the easiest, most kick back dealing job in the world into a situation that taxed my learning and adaptation abilities to the max. I should be surprised that I have done as well as I have. Let's go over again a few of the differences between Caesars Palace and the Grand Casino Lucerne. For starters, everything is in foreign languages. Note the plural. I don't have to deal with just one foreign language, but many of them. High German is what you learn in official language texts, and is what I know a bit of now. This is what most of the casino staff communicate in, although not all. Some speak one of several varieties of Swiss German, which comes in what seems like dozens of dialects, all with different pronunciations and many different words accompanying each version. The casino patrons also speak a bewildering variety of Swiss German, along with differing dialects of Italian, French, High German, Romansch, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Greek, Czeck, Slovakian, and on and on. Swiss German does not even have a written counterpart to what is spoken. This is because there are so many dialects with so many different words used for the same things that a universal written language would be impossible. Apparently this is what Germany used to be like back in the day, probably before Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck unified them into the German Empire in the nineteenth century. So, pretty much the only way to learn Swiss German is to pick a dialect, find a person that speaks it, and listen. They actually do have classes that teach it around town, but that's not going to happen. I have my plate full enough just trying to learn enough German to function adequately. If I have a problem with understanding someone, which is happening less and less often now, I just ask them to either speak in High German or English. Fortunately, most people here speak at least some English, and many speak it fluently. It blows my mind how many languages the average European can speak! It's not uncommon for someone to speak four, five, or more languages, and to be able to switch amongst them effortlessly. It doesn't seem like it should be possible. Most Americans have trouble with just English. I'm sorry, but I have to say something here. The average American is dumb as a box of rocks. This is why we have so many problems with our sociopolitical situation in America. If Americans took on average just twenty minutes a day to educate themselves on the issues confronting our society, we certainly wouldn't have as many issues to confront. However, they would rather listen to their favorite bonehead pundit tell them what the issues are, and how they should think! Ok, I'm done.

In addition to the language barriers, I have had to learn much more complex dealing rules and procedures, as well as far more complex games. Let's take Roulette. In America, Roulette players simply bet the outsides or some basic combination of the inside numbers, straight ups, splits, corners, streets, lines, and so on. Requires some learning, but not too complex. Here, we have all those bets, as well as 1, 2, and 3 number neighbor bets, small series(tier), large series(voisins), zero spiel, orphelins, finales, chevals, carres, schnapps, spiel seven nines, and more, in every denomination and amount possible. We also have call bets, which means that a player can throw money or chips at you at any time up until you waive off further bets, and call out, in a foreign language, what combination of bets they want. You then have to, if they haven't told you, find out what denomination they want it in, calculate the amount needed from the amount given, place the bet yourself, and give them any change they might have coming, all hopefully before the ball drops. Denominations of chips here come in $5's, 10's, 20's, 50's, 100's, and up. This may not mean much to non-casino people, but some of these are different denominations than any other casino in the world, and when you've never dealt with these denominations, it takes time to figure out how to convert and count different amounts. Add to this fact that the $10's are red, just like the $5's back in Vegas. Many players, because it amuses them, wait until the last second before waive-off to throw money at you and call out the most complex bet they can think of. Sometimes, I will have several players throwing money and chips at me simultaneously and yelling in multiple foreign dialects what they want, right before waive-off. I then have to decide what to do. It can be infuriating. Oh , and the waive-off. In Roulette, the dealer 'waives-off' any more bets before the ball drops, so players won't keep placing bets after the winning number is already known. This involves saying 'No more bets, please' as well as physically passing your hand over the layout. In America, this is rarely a problem, as the game is much simpler, and the players much more disciplined and considerate. Here, not the case. The dealer, me, must waive off any more bets with at least three or more spins remaining, because it takes at least that long to get the players to stop making their God Damn bets! Otherwise, they would continue to make their bets right up to, and after, the ball dropped. At busy times, I sometimes have to call 'No more bets, please' while waiving my hand over the layout very early, then repeat the words and motion multiple times, in increasing volume, until I am yelling and sobbing at the top of my lungs "NO MORE BETS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, NO MORE BETS, PLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASE!", and frantically draping my body and arms over the layout, pushing and slapping people's hands and bodies out of my way in my desperation to get them to stop, kind of like hacking my way through a jungle with a machete. "Hey, that's my butt your placing that bet on, not 14!" , "Ooh, I didn't know you thought of me like that", "Ouch, that's my ear!" "Please stop hurting me!". Good fun.

Blackjack is also harder, though not as bad. At Caesars, most BJ tables had 5 spots, no side bets, and only one person per spot could bet. A maximum possibility of 5 bets. Here, there are 6 spots, a side bet (Perfect Pairs), and three people per spot, and side bet, are able to place bets! This makes it possible to have 36 possible bets on the table every hand! This is not uncommon.

The legal age to gamble here in Switzerland is 18. This is, in my opinion, far too young. To see peach fuzz-faced young boys and bubble gum chewing young girls in a casino gambling, and chain smoking, is just wrong. Yes, chain smoking. They start smoking young over here. I think it's not uncommon for kids here to get their first custom lighter and pack of smokes for Christmas at around the age of ten, from their parents. 'Here ya go, Tommy, light up..... its fun!' I thought that I had dealt with a lot of smokers in my life, having worked in casino's for 14 years, but that was all child's play compared to this. I had really only dealt with some packs of Chinese chain smokers at Caesars on occasion. I hadn't really, really observed serious chain smokers on a daily basis until now. It is disconcerting. To see everyone at your table with a cigarette in their hands constantly, to see them barely ever take a breath of air without it being accompanied by cigarette smoke, to see them extinguish one cigarette only to immediately light another, is very, very sobering. I keep thinking that at any moment they are just going to fall off their chair dead, but they don't, and the younger they are, the more likely they are to smoke. I'm starting to develop a theory that might explain things. What if the Swiss are aliens from another planet, and there is some vital substance in cigarette smoke that, combined with our particular atmospheric makeup, enables them to breathe without extra equipment? This could explain many things that are different about the Swiss, their inexplicable Anal Retentiveness, their singular lack of an understandable sense of humor, their preference for dark colors, their obsession with and love of arbitrary rules and procedures, their extreme and bizarre hyper efficiency, and so on. But back to the age thing. The age of 18 is too young to be in a casino gambling, teenagers do not have the emotional and mental maturity to handle gambling, or drinking for that matter. They should not be there, just like American teenagers should not be able to drive at sixteen. It's just too young. Here, it is seventeen, and that is still too young.

I'm going to go ahead and post this, even though I wanted to say more about work and work-related issues, simply because I won't have much time or ability to write any more for a few days. We are in the process of moving, and I will lose home Internet access for awhile until we get everything set up. Will try and write another this next week about our moving experience, taxes and how you pay them here, our Engelberg ski resort hike, and more! Stay tuned.

I've been checking out a lot of the other Blogs by Swiss Expats, and although many are very good, entertaining, and enlightening, they are also discouraging. Discouraging because, again, some of them are very good, much better than mine, and it sometimes makes me not want to write mine anymore! Ah well, I have to keep on keepin' on, if for nothing more than the sake of my loyal followers. So here goes!

Timi and I finally went skiing! This was Timi's first time ever and my first time in over 12 years, so it was a pretty exciting day for us. We went with a friend of ours from work, Vera, and we all drove up the shore of Lake Lucerne to a small village called Vitznau, and from there took one of the oldest cog-wheel trains in Europe up to the top of Mt. Rigi, one of the main mountains rising from the shores of the lake. Now, Mt. Rigi does not have a world-class ski resort on its slopes, but more like an old-fashioned type of ski area, with only four old-style Poma and T-bar lifts, and the cog-wheel train tracks going right on through the middle of the whole thing! We went to this ski area instead of one of the fancier, full-service resorts around the area mainly because it was free. We have access to free passes to the mountain and the 'resort' area and all its facilities as a perk of working at Grand Casino Luzern. It worked out well, though, because it was easier to teach Timi the basics of skiing at a small, simple resort like this rather than a big, fancy, busy resort like Engelberg. So, I spent most of the day teaching Timi as much as I could about skiing. She knew nothing, so was a clean slate so to speak. She had to learn everything, from how to carry her skis, to how to put her boots on and clip into her bindings, to how to catch and ride the lifts up the slopes, to how to Snowplow and stop, to how to crash as safely as possible, to how to get back up and into her skis. All told, I think she made a lot of progress and did very well. Why, within the first few hours she had already mastered picking up her skis and poles in a tangled heap and smashing them onto the snow as hard as she could. And her ability to swear at the top of her lungs in three languages while simultaneously hurtling down the slope on her face was awe-inspiring. Like she'd been doing it her whole life! I'm very proud of her. And so what if she accidentally skied onto the train tracks, then fell down, lost one ski, couldn't get up, and came within seconds of getting run over by a train? These are common occurrences. I know you all wish you could have seen her rip off her other ski, throw all her gear off the tracks, and then do a somersaulting flip over the train track snow berm from a stand still. It was awesome! Seriously, though, even with all of the inherent frustrations in learning something as complex as skiing, she made a lot of progress, and even if right now she has vowed to never set foot on a ski slope again, and has cursed the day she met me, I think that she has a lot of potential. Maybe I'll buy her some skis for our anniversary, I bet she would love that. Now you can never say that I don't know a lot about women!

I forgot to mention that several weeks ago we drove up to a small village in the Alps called Grindelwald. Grindelwald is the gateway to the Jungfraujoch, the tallest mountain in the Alps, also called the 'Top of Europe'. We went to see the World Snow Festival, but that turned out to be a bust, just a handfull of not so well-sculpted snow sculptures by teams from countries around the world, including the United States. Canada's was probably the best, but it wasn't really even good enough to be included in this post. The town of Grindelwald was nice, though, and it's setting was magnificent, with the Jungfrau peak and others in the background, cradling the small village of Grindelwald in their skirts.

Even though the World Snow Festival was a bit of a bust, just the trip to the village and experiencing the sights was worth it. The natural beauty everywhere here in Switzerland is unsurpassed, you really don't have to be good at taking pictures, just turn your camera on, point it anywhere, and shoot. You're bound to catch something good.

In other major events in our Swiss life, we scored a new apartment! I've already posted pics of the view from the balcony of this apartment, but no pictures from the inside. That's because I don't have any, but hopefully soon will. We made a good impression on the guy currently living there, as well as the guy who is subletting it to the guy who is currently living there! The guy who is living there now is originally from Mexico, but has lived in Switzerland for twenty years. He's fallen in love with a women who lives in Mexico, so is moving back to Mexico city. His name is Hans Peter Schwartz, so is obviously of at least half German ancestry, but I think he relates more to his Mexican side and is pretty happy to be moving back to his homeland. He had a giant Mexican flag on the wall in the dining room, which was a clue to his identity. I spouted a little bit in what is my now extremely limited Spanish, and we talked a little bit about Mexico. I think he liked that. Timi had also written a really nice e-mail to the guy subletting the place as soon as the ad hit the internet, and that had an impact on our winning the place. Otherwise, our chances would have been pretty slim to beat out real Swiss people applying for the place. It's a two bedroom, one bath, with a good-sized living room, a balcony, and a dishwasher! The bathroom is very small, but we'll have to adapt. It's also very close to the Lido, which is the main public beach and summer entertainment area in the Lucerne area, with some cool museums, IMAX theatre, and a planetarium nearby, and it looks out over a creek and walking paths up into the hills. It will be sweet in the summer. It's a little further from our work than we currently are, but we could still walk there in twenty minutes or so. The rent is $1,380 plus $60 for parking, which will be about $300 less than we are paying right now. We just have to get our current apartment rented out by the end of the month, or we will be liable for that rent as well. Wish us luck!

In my next post I will be talking about the Swiss Carnival, which is huge here in Lucerne. Stay tuned!

I have a day off today, only one, and so we tried to get as much stuff done as possible. Got up early to go see another potential apartment to rent. It wasn't worth it, but we didn't know that before hand. The apartment was off a pretty busy main thoroughfare here in Lucerne, in a suburb called Ebikon, very close to downtown. The street view from the building is shown to the right. It had a nice balcony facing the street, but it was just too noisy. The rest of the apartment was straight out of the Fifties, original linoleum floors, bathroom the size of a match book, ancient kitchen, and very old school layout. An old school layout for an apartment here in Switzerland is like this: You open the front door and encounter a hallway. Off of this central hallway are doors that lead to different rooms. For example, the first two doors on your left will be bedrooms, then the third door will be the living room, maybe with some built-in storage cabinets in between the doorways. The first door on your right will be the bathroom, perhaps more closet space, than the kitchen at the end of the hall. That's it, basically just very simple boxes within boxes. It was a definite No, but the basement was pretty cool. As I've mentioned before, all buildings even to this day in Switzerland must be built with a bomb shelter and kept stocked at all times with food and necessary living gear. This building's bomb shelter was hardcore. Just getting to the storage area we had to pass through three blast doors, and then the bomb shelter's main area was still below and accessible via a large manhole cover. I posted
a picture of the manhole cover to the bomb shelter in our own building here to show you what it's like. Pretty wicked. The Swiss just take it all in stride, they are totally used to having multiple layers of blast doors and bomb shelters in all of their buildings. There are also large community bomb shelters in all cities, towns, and villages for all those citizens who for one reason or another do not have their own bomb shelter, and you can occasionally see these built into the sides of hills, identifiable by massive concrete emplacements leading to large metal and concrete doors. I have also read accounts of anti-aircraft gun bunkers and hidden tank and other weapons installations positioned in fake barns and farmhouses and such in key places around the country. Don't know how effective these would be nowadays, but there you go.

We also went to a discount grocery store out in Kriens, another suburb area of Lucerne, called Aldi. Many grocery stores here in Switzerland, and I think much of the rest of Europe, would be considered to have strange design and traffic layout patterns by American standards. You can get in easily, but its hard to get out unless you're buying something! The entrances are separated from the exits by walls and one way automatic doors. The dedicated exit areas are only accessible by passing through the check out aisles.
So, if you have entered and then decided not to buy anything, you have to push and shove and excuse your way through full check out lanes to exit the building. Nice. On the other hand, if you've decided to buy some things, and it is more than a small amount , you can also find yourself in a pickle. In the picture close by, with Timi in it, you can see the "massive", and by "massive" I mean extremely tiny, space that is provided to bag your groceries. So, a very delicate and perfectly timed operation has to be performed, and it can't be done by only one person. Both must as quickly as possible remove the items from the grocery cart and place them on the conveyor belt whereafter the second person grabs the cart, flings it to the other side of the checkout clerk, positions it for maximum grocery packing efficiency, frantically opens the bags that must be brought from home because they don't provide bags at the store, and immediately starts jamming the groceries into said bags at breakneck spead.
Meanwhile, the sadistic checkout clerk, with a manic gleam in her eye, reveling in the only entertainment she gets all day, attempts to check the items out as quickly as possible, shoving them into the miniscule receiving area at the speed of sound and glaring at you when you inevitably choke, accidentally placing the oranges on top of the tomatoes, causing a repositioning delay that you cannot afford! Then, while smirking at your haplesness, she calls out the total bill, whereas your partner must whip out the money and pay before the people in line behind you start to complain. All in all, an interesting experience. Don't ask me why they don't provide more bagging space. Nobody knows. We asked a clerk one day, and she just said 'That is Aldi'. And I say, 'That is Switzerland'. Enough said.