As promised, in planet Alan in Belfast we're celebrating Swiss National Day along with out Swiss house guest. So it'll be out with the Fondue set tonight (no joking) to get into the cheesy spirit of the occasion.
Back in 2002, we did it properly in the mountainside village of Mürren.
The entire village's population swarmed across to a large field and listened to a stirring talk (in German) and to a very talented man playing the alphorn, before looking skywards to take in the fireworks.
The hotel we were staying in even had special napkin rings just for the day!
3 comments:
Gruezzi Mitenand:
Before you go dropping yourself in it big time. You did not hear anything in "German", especially if you were in Murren. The language is Schwyz-Deutsch. And when they do the news in Swiss-German they provide German sub-titles, because it's a language unintelligible to all but those who speak it.
Ciao Mitenand, en guete
You're right - four years later and my memory of the details has faded. (But not nearly as fast as my two years of German at school.)
The language memory that stands out for me was how the automatic announcements in the train from Berne to Lausanne changed between German (Swiss German) and French as we travelled down through different cantons.
A nation divided by language.
Perhaps that better than religion :-)
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