Thursday, December 09, 2004

And now for the French Swiss!

Last night, Mrs. TBF and I went out for dinner with Tom and Sylvia. We drove about thirty minutes to a town called Soyhières which is just outside of Delémont - in the French speaking part of Switzerland. Even after living here for four years, I still find it amazing that you just drive thirty minutes away (within the same country), and they speak an entirely different language.
An interesting thing is that the French Swiss and the French French actually understand each other when they speak French. The Swiss German speakers, on the other hand, have a very strong dialect. The Swiss can understand when the Germans speak, but the Germans have a hard time understanding the Swiss. As a matter of fact, when a Swiss person is speaking German on a German TV program, the producers often put German subtitles at the bottom of the screen.
Anyway, language was not a barrier at Le Cavalier restaurant because when the first waiter heard that we were English speakers, he just switched places with another waiter who spoke very good English. Tom and I had some frogs legs, Sylvia had a nice vegetable platter that they made up for her, Mrs. TBF had some perch, we enjoyed a few bottles of wine, I had a nice banana split for dessert, some whiskey, and some coffee. They even brought us a couple of side orders of French fries. After dinner, the chef came by our table and shook our hands.
The perfect streak continues. We still have not had a bad meal in Europe!

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