Hola a todos. Visiblemente hemos apprendido un nuevo idioma durante nuestra hibernacion – al meo un poco.
Nevertheless, don’t be afraid we’re not yet ready to edit our posts in south-east Chilean Spanish. For the time being we’ll continue in our kind of English.
Whatever. Santa Claus is history, Easter bunnies are just around the corner. Snow has not yet definitely gone, but today there’s even some sun and temperatures are slightly above 0°. Thus time to immediately stop hibernation, to enjoy spring and to prepare for our flight back to Uncle Don’s Own Country in a few days.
But let’s go back to the time Santa Claus still had to come and the Easter bunnies yet needed to be fathered. Last October we’ve returned to Swizzy’s Laufaburg after our incredible journey from South-East Asia to the very heart of America: Las Vegas.
Here, Laufenburg’s weather proofs its reliability. Grey, cold, rain. Early dusk, late dawn. Perfect conditions to prepare for hibernation. Just to oversleep what will enter the history of meteorology as the darkest, wettest and most awful winter ever.
Beneath the all threatening Sword of Damocles of an unknown language we’ll have to master in Latin America we take the difficult decision to interrupt hibernation regularly to learn some Spanish. What a pain in the ass. We register to Spanish lessons – a few hours every Saturday. And after a few weeks we can clearly state a certain, not negligible progress. We know our names in Spanish, we can order a beer in Spanish – provided the waitress is patient enough – and we can tell anybody addressing us in Spanish that we don’t understand a single word. Great.
To deepen our valuable knowledge we have to go to Spain. In the deepest winter only a Canary Island, Tenerife, is a real option.
Of course, practising Spanish is our priority. Let’s try ordering a beer. Doesn’t work. Maybe our pronunciation is not yet good enough. Who knows. Well, we get a beer after ordering it in our best Russian. Probably the waiter too wants to learn some interesting foreign languages.
Later we search for the hottest gourmet temple dedicated to Canarias’ delicacies. However it must be in another part of the town.
Whatever, without alternative we honour a restaurant announcing a huge choice on their menu written in all imaginable languages. Intense studies let us choose French fries and a piece of whatever. The meal sounds very British. After having ordered in our best Spanish the waiter asks in a kind of English if we would like to order now. What the hell – our Spanish accent must improve. We order in English – also not easy. He explains us that he’s not as fluent in foreign languages as in his mother tongue Bulgarian. For him no problem, as all other waiters are Bulgarians too.
Well, no chance to practice Spanish. And the Canarian restaurant serving papas arrugadas we’re still looking for – que lastima.
Finally, at a gas station we find a guy speaking Spanish only. We tell him what we need. He ignores us. We repeat. Again and again. Then he tells no estoy escuchando porque eres tourista… he knows perfectly well that tourists don’t understand speak Spanish.
Whatever. We make a few hikes around Mount Teide – even in snow. Enjoy the cool and sunny weather at our accommodation’s swimming pool. A week later we’re back in cold’n’rainy Laufaburg to continue learning Spanish.
Due to our extremely intense attempts to master Spanish we cannot fully hibernate this winter. Accordingly we also find some time to observe Swiss politics: at their head office for tribal affairs in the capital Berne and behind the scene.
Ostensibly, nothing important happens – as usual. Either the parties solve all problems by total passivity or they continue to instigate in getting the world back into the good old 50ties. The 2nd 1 of course, every Schwiizer Vüdli Pürger’s dream (SVP) – in English every Swiss Fuddy-Duddie’s ultimate dream. Nevertheless the guys cannot consequently adopt this wonderful idea till now. Still nowhere could we see them moving to a lonely valley in the Alps, building a huge wall at its entrance and starting to celebrate traditional earth flattening tribal rites for the rest of their miserable life. What a pity – would be a great opportunity for Chinese tourists to take pics.
Whatever. Most important, the Swiss Fuddy-Duddies initiate an incredibly imaginative succession of their leadership. Their eternal hero, Leader of All Leaders, Chief of All Chiefs and Honorable Superior Schwiizer Vüdli Pürger, His Excellency C. B. is succeeded by his all-beloved daughter. Just in the style of the great succession rituals of some tribes in the Northern part of Korea. But what a fortune for the Schwiizer Vüdli Pürger. With this smart lady taking over the worldwide Swiss Vüdli Pürger movement and acting as the Superior Leader of All Almighty Chiefs and Their Brave’n’Heroic Tributaries, no one will have to change her narrow-mindedness and stubbornness.
And everybody may remain in his splendid contradiction between reality and the nostalgic dreams of a world that never existed.
And we’ll have the incredible opportunity to further report to our distinguished readers on the Swiss Füdli Pürger’s eternal efforts to flatten the earth to a disk and to enclose Swizzyland by a wall of Trumpian dimensions.
But for now, enough of this boring stuff.
On 3rd April we’ll fly back to Las Vegas. Who knows, maybe there we’ll discover some different fuddy-duddy-tribes. Probably rather not – it seems they’re all the same. But who knows.
Cheeeers
Monika’n’Martin
