A Well Kept Man

I just got back from my French lesson...nothing interesting to report, except:

For those that are wondering (especially my Colorado readers), I managed to sample four different Belgian beers while in Belgium, and brought back an additional nine for further "research." As I have only consumed five beers so far, I can only provide my opinion on those which I tasted. Needless to say the Belgian beers have quickly risen to the top of my international favorite beer list, leaving the Swiss competitors at the starting line. While the German beers will continue to be a mainstay, the world of Belgian brewing has opened my eyes to the wonders of pious men and their saintly craft.

The second beer comes from the only remaining brewer in Bruges, the Brouwerij De Halve maan (or the Half-Moon Brewery in English). I decided to take a tour of the brewery (which included a sample at the tour's finish), as well as have lunch in the brewery's cafe (with a beer, of course). For both the tour and lunch, I had a Brugse Zot, which is a more golden blonde pale ale with a nice finish reminding me of fruits such as green grapes and melon, with a spice finish (clove or coriander maybe). The brewery only filters the beer that goes out to the stores and shops, leaving the beer at the source unfiltered...which I think makes for a better experience. Definitely a great beer to have with a meal!

Beer number three was a pre-dinner beer in a Bruges pub named Leffe Blonde. Leffe is one of the easier to find Belgian beers and most likely you will be able to find it at a well stocked store near you. This ale had a nice quality that made it drinkable (much like a table wine) and enjoyed with bar snacks. It was a golden blonde with a more amber color than the others. As Leffe is one of the largest breweries in Belgium, the beer definitely had a controlled flavor which I guess is to ensure that each beer tastes the same (i.e. no variation from beer to beer). I will definitely look for this when I am back in the States instead of the usual Stella Artois I have look for when yearning for a Belgian ale.

The fourth beer complemented my Grandma's Style Rabbit Dinner on my last night in Bruges (rabbit is my new favorite meal). The beer, Tongerlo Double Blonde, is made by monks in the Tongerlo Abbey. This might have been my favorite of the draft beers I had while in Belgium. Like the Brugse Zot and Leffe Blonde, it is an ale with a fruity palate and spice finish, although the color was a deeper amber and the malt flavor was more pronounced than the Brugse Zot. It went very well with the rich onion sauce on the rabbit and french fries.

The fifth beer I consumed at our apartment in Switzerland is from the Orval Abbey. The Orval beer is a Trappist Ale (in the picture it is the third from the right), brewed by a Trappist monastery of which there are only seven remaining in the world that continue to brew beer (six of the seven are in Belgium, the other is in the Netherlands) out of the 171 Trappist orders. The beer in question is the Orval Trappist Ale, an extremely tasty ale that was dry yet fully flavored, much like a glass of champagne. It starts out with a nice hoppy flavor and transitions to a smooth, spice finish. If this can be found in the States, go for it. It is truly a great beer.

Starting Tuesday, I will be traveling in Belgium via Luxembourg (purely for bragging rights at cocktail parties...I've always wanted to go to one of the tiny European nations just so I could appear more attractive to members of the opposite sex.  Alli will let you know if it works).  I will be staying in Bruges (Brugge if you're Flemish) for three nights, and then driving to Frankfurt, Germany where I will spend one night (I will probably have to do a beer taste comparison here as well, um, for research purposes).

I guess I should have read the label closer. My beer, La Fin du Mond (the End of the World) was neither Swiss nor French (the label was definitely written in French, so you could understand my confusion). I figured my celebration should include a beer that speaks the same language as I managed to master for five minutes.

Unfortunately, there are other countries that speak French that I failed to remember. It was Canadian. Mark doesn't like Canuck beer. I would describe this beer as tasting of a hockey skate with the aroma of wet moose fur (although the alcohol content was a frosty 9% by volume...I guess the Canadians need a reason to drink it). Perhaps it is labeled The End of the World because you would only drink this beer if in fact, it was the end of the world. As in, "the only way I'd ever drink this beer again is if the world was ending, and my consumption of this beer would save civilization." Only then will this beer ever touch my lips again.

I will report back when I have found a worthy victory beer. I imagine it will be from a non-French speaking country...

My life tends to be fairly uneventful these days (if you put aside all of the exciting adventures I have on the weekends), so any little form of getting out of the house and accomplishing something helps make for a great day. Take today for instance; I didn't really have big plans or anything so a typical Monday. However, three weeks ago Alli decided to purchase a new pillow (oreiller) as she has grown tired (pun intended) of her current head cushioning device. As one can probably guess, this pillow was deemed unfit (I tried it as well...too poofy) and placed by the front door for me to return at my earliest convenience.

So for the past few weeks I have endured the fear of walking up into town to the magasin (store) where the pillow was purchased in effort to beg for a refund. Those who follow this blog know that this was not my first attempt at returning an undesired item. Although successful the first time, I required a UN interpreter and umpteen signatures from various store personnel to get my money back. So you can imagine how excited I was to be able to take back the pillow (I would have been happy to take the CHF 30 loss and say "Lesson Learned" but being on a budget, my darling wife told me I could either take back the pillow or forego the new underwear I was hoping to get for Christmas).

Today was the day I finally worked up the courage to go attempt a return. Unfortunately, my interpreter at the electronics store would not come home with me for future use (plus, he probably would require care and feeding which I was not prepared to provide) so I knew I would be on my own. As I entered the store I felt my heart begin to speed up a bit as I began the trek up to the 5th floor (really the 6th, but that's Europe for you). After reaching the 5th floor I quickly made my way to the counter where an employee was helping a nice British couple with their return. Success was imminent, I could feel it. Except that it wasn't...as I stood behind them waiting another employee approached me to offer help. I figured that I needed to immerse myself in the culture and face my fear, rather than chicken out and rely on my crutch of English (plus, she was cute and I figured she would take pity on me).

And so the dance began...

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Bonjour Madame! (Hello lady, you are foxy...maybe if this doesn't work out we can go have some French Fries and share a Diet Coke)

Bonjour Monsieur. Comment est-ce que je peux vous aider? (Hello creepy American dude who speaks French horribly. How can I help you?)

Parles vouz anglais? (Do you speak English, because that would make things much easier. Plus, all of my best pick up lines are in English and I don't know if they will be as effective in French.)

Non. (No, why don't you leave before I have to call the police and have you deported back to America.)

(Sensing things going extremely well, I figured I would press my luck and try and get my money back anyway.)

Je voudrais rapporter ceci. (I would like to return this.)

Rapporter? (Wow, you knowmore than six French words...)

Oui. (Yes...at least I assume I should agree with you now)

Ok. Voici que vous allez, signez ici. (Ok, please sign this slip here so we can compare it against our database to make sure you aren't the type of person who returns hair dryers and pillows, then records the activities in a blog. Ok, you check out. Here is your money back, now leave before I change my mind)

Merci, au revoir. (Thanks, Goodbye, let's do this again sometime. Maybe I'll just start buying stuff and bringing it back to work on my French as I finally had what some might describe as a conversation. This is cause for celebration.)
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As you can tell, I am stoked that I did something useful. As a reward, I purchased a celebratory beer. I will report back on the quality of the celebratory beer once I have had ample time to savor my success.

Last night I had a pression (draft beer, more formally a 'bière à la pression') with the husband of a colleague of Alli's from Medtronic. The purpose of the meeting was to get advice relating to securing a job here in Switzerland, as he had been through the same situation when his wife was transferred here nearly three years ago. For those wondering, the beer made in Switzerland is pretty much uneventful (so far...I'm determined to find a good one). As a result I tried to order a familiar beer at the "British" pub. There are many "British" pubs in Switzerland, which supposedly have all of the international beers that an typical expat would look for in lieu of the lesser Swiss varietals.

The gentleman I was with immediately ordered a Guinness, which the garçon (French for waiter...also refers to a young boy depending on the context. It appears that the original purpose for having children, at least French male children, was to have a servant who waited on you and brought you libations; apparently my father knew this as I often recall fetching his evening beer as a young lad) had no problems with. "Oui" he said, and then looked at me. Surely if they had Guinness, and being a "British" pub I would have no trouble ordering an ale or lager with a British Isles heritage. As there was no menu, and we were seated outside on the patio, I assumed that I could just pick a British ale and resume our conversation.

Now, for those that have enjoyed a pint or two with me know I don't prefer to drink heavy stouts and porters as they make me sleepy (and I find them too sweet and malty..nothing like a meal in a glass), so silly me I order a good British ale (at least in my mind)...a Bass. You would have thought I asked the garçon for a bucket of shrimp milk (if this isn't funny replace 'shrimp milk' with 'dolphin sweat'). It's like he's never even heard of such a thing. So then I figured, ok, maybe it's just Irish beer at this place, so I order a Harp Lager (similar to a Bass, but a lager instead of an ale). Again, he treated me like I was suggesting he drain the contents of battery into a glass and serve it to me.

So at this point I'm at a loss...do I order a beer I don't care for or try for another beer of the British Commonwealth (Fosters maybe...Australia was once a British colony. Maybe India has some good beer)? It was during this time the garçon became quite fed up and just leaves. He brought me back a draft beer from the very (un)British colony of Denmark (is that a hint of Lox I taste in my beer? MMMM). I am not sure what is going on here but when you think Carlsberg is a British beer you have some serious problems that can only be cured by retaking high school geography and history classes...

Needless to say next time I network I will be sure to study the beer list ahead of time for suitable choices. Heineken is readily available by the way, whereas Budweiser, Miller, Coors, etc. are not (pretty much impossible to find unless you are in a specialty shop that imports American goods). Don't even get me started about the lack of Bell's Oberon and Two-Hearted Ale...(Dad, be sure to stock up for my trip back at Christmas).

With respect to the networking itself, I received some great suggestions of how to go about securing a job (including the proper format for my CV = curriculum vitae; this is the equivalent of a resume, only instead of omitting anything that might indicate what you look like, what your family situation is, how old you are, etc., they are required. Thankfully there is a shortage of tall, skinny, American, house-husbands around age 30 in Switzerland.), some potential job agencies (for part-time or full-time work, which tends to look for trailing spouses who are in my situation), as well as offering some help getting my CV passed around to some of his contacts (of which he has many as he is basically a sales guy).

So once I can get my CV together I will begin looking (more intensely) for a job. Apparently all I really need is my residence permit, a job contract, and then I pay about $100 bucks and I get a work permit (it seems like everything here costs money to "process"...who would have thought I needed to pay the government for the privilege of providing economic growth and stability? Why hasn't the U.S. thought of this???....oh wait, the payroll tax is their version. Last time I checked that was a little bit more than $100.). It's probably a little more involved and harder than I have made it sound, but I will hopefully get some leads in the next few weeks and maybe be employed before the weather turns to less-than-bike-friendly (but then ski season starts, so maybe not...).

As you can see from the picture at right, it's one of those days. I hopped onto my bike for a ride (I wanted to feed the ducks and swans in the lake some old bread that wasn't fit for the queen's consumption) and noticed something funny about my bike (no, it isn't that my butt feels like it has a shoe wedged between my butt-bones, that's normal). Remembering some old tricks from my days as a stunt double for MacGyver (I had to wear a wig because I refused to grow a mullet) I proceeded down to the lake where there's a fountain that the little kids play in (don't worry, I was upstream from the warm areas).

I put the tire in the water (of course it was clean), and slowly turned it in the water looking for drowning gremlins jumping out a hole. Voila! (that's a French word, I think it's a wooden instrument with strings)...bubbles! Me thinks I have a hole in my tire. Sure enough, there was a large thorn sticking out of the tire, most likely from my off-roading adventure near the flash flood zone (I wish there was a warning sign for flat bike tires).

So I am now going out (on foot, I wouldn't be caught dead riding a girl's bike; at least not without my man capris, man purse, and little pink basket on the front with streamers on the handlebars) to try and find a repair kit as I don't want to purchase a new tube (when you are unemployed, err, on sabbatical you try to remain as frugal as possible... which is really nothing new for me).

On the plus side it's beautiful outside so I am going to take off my watch and hope the sun gives my wrist a little tanning action...I just need to finish my beer and bretzel (it's bread, it's pretzel flavored...it's a bretzel!) first.