Pleasant Dinner Conversation...

A couple of things relating to toilets and plumbing...

Earlier this week, I called my folks. When I told my dad that our toilet had broken, he actually thought that I had sat on it, it had pulled off the wall, and then shattered into a million pieces on the floor. I told Mrs. TBF about it at dinner, and we both laughed. But then, we kind of began wondering how often this actually happens here. You see, toilets do not rest on the floor here like they usually do in N. America - they're bolted into the wall and just hover above the floor. In fact, I don't remember EVER seeing a toilet resting on the floor in Europe. Is there some kind of weight limit I should be aware of?

Gonna have to start paying more attention to this...

Seeing how the vision of me lying on the bathroom floor on top of a pile of reading material, fecal matter, and the shattered remains of a toilet hadn't ruined our appetites, I guided the dinner conversation to a related yet equally inappropriate topic.

TBF: Do you know one of the things I'm going to miss the most about Switzerland someday when we move?

Mrs. TBF: What?

TBF: Swiss toilet paper!

Mrs. TBF: Oh yeah, it IS good! American toilet paper SUCKS!

And you know what? Mrs. TBF is right! American toilet paper DOES suck! The Swiss TP is thick, absorbent, a pleasure to use, and generally far superior to its American counterpart. Just don't buy the recycled TP. I did that once... NEVER AGAIN!

I read in an article not too long ago about how much forestland could be saved if people would just switch to using toilet paper made with recycled paper. I figured I'd do my part, and I went next door to the grocery store and bought an "experimental" eight-pack. BIG MISTAKE! That stuff is awful. Just...don't...buy...it!

And finally...

Why is water pressure so much better here than in America. Toilets flush better, the water pressure in the shower is much better... I definitely prefer life in America to life in Switzerland, but I just wish the entire Swiss bathroom experience could be replicated in America.

Hmmm...

Maybe it can.

like: the Swiss bathroom experience and Swiss toilet paper

no like: Today? nothing!

Home Repairs...

The weather was absolutely beautiful this past weekend. We hardly saw a cloud all weekend, it wasn't too hot, and there was a nice breeze - the way summer should be. We went out for dinner with friends on Friday night, and then we took the train to Baden (by Zürich) on Saturday night for a "Sommerfest" at our friends' house. On Sunday morning, Mrs. TBF played tennis with Dr. Rammy, then we enjoyed a nice impromptu brunch at Dr. Rammy & Dr. John's house, and finally we went home to just laze around. Shortly after returning home, a small problem stuck...

The toilet in our main bathroom wouldn't flush.

I took the panel off the wall, tinkered around with the mechanism a bit, realized that it was unlike anything I had ever seen before, and then just resigned myself to the fact that a plumber would have to be called. I called our rental office on Monday morning, relayed the problem through a combination of English and German, and then just waited for a call from a plumber.

That call (fortunately) came this morning, and the toilet is now repaired.

It's when things go wrong that I really dislike living here. If I get a non-English speaker at the rental office, I always wonder if they truly understand what I'm talking about. Plus, I often don't fully understand what they are telling me. Things usually work out in the end, but I often end up sitting around the apartment waiting for a call that I'm not sure will even be coming. If I leave the apartment, and the call comes, the repairman will often hang up after hearing our English-speaking answering machine message instead of leaving a message. Aggravating!

But... all's well that ends well.

Now, I'll just wait for the bill. You see, in Switzerland, we're responsible for all repairs up to 2% of our annual rent. Can you believe it??? We pay NYC-level rent, and we have to pay for repairs up to a certain point... even if something breaks down due to no fault of our own. For example:

About four years ago, not long after moving in and while we were out of town, a torrential rainstorm came through town, and rainwater seeped into one of the covered outdoor outlets. The circuit shorted, the power to our rooftop garden was cut off, and the outlet needed to be replaced. This ended up costing something like $100. So, to recap: we weren't home, the problem had been caused by an act of nature and/or faulty construction when the building was built ten years earlier, it was an outlet we had never even used, and...

WE HAD TO PAY FOR THE REPAIR!!! It says so right in our standard Swiss rental contract.

SHEESH!!!

TBF like: our apartment!

TBF no like: standard Swiss rental contract!!!!

Out With The Old-New...

... and in with the New-New!!!

Our Nespresso machine bit the dust this weekend. It had a two year warranty, and it lasted just over three years. I consider it a personal victory that the thing lasted 50% longer than the warranty period: perhaps a new record for a product made in Switzerland.

Actually, the thing did break - and was repaired free of charge - one time during the warranty period. So, in all fairness, the fine people at Nespresso did take care of us. However, I STILL SAY...

Swiss Quality: HA! RUBBISH!!!

Seeing how the fine people at Nespresso pretty much had me by MY coffee beans since I had ordered about 500 Nespresso coffee capsules the previous week, I had basically no choice but to go out and buy another Nespresso machine. And, that I did.

We are now the proud owners of the latest (and greatest?) Citiz Nespresso machine. It's sleeker, has nice little features that our previous machine didn't have, and the coffee seems to come out hotter than before: all good! Plus, we have a brand new zwei Jahre Garantie! That means that IT WILL BE THE LAST COFFEE MACHINE WE EVER BUY IN SWITZERLAND!!!!!!!!

And now for an installment of like/no like:

LIKE: The Swiss certainly know how to make machines that make a great cup of coffee.

NO LIKE: Swiss Quality is a sham! The coffee machines should last, in my opinion, AT LEAST five years!

Bougainvillea

This is me wondering how much bigger our bougainvillea (one of the true stars of our rooftop garden) will actually get this year if it's already this big by the middle of June.

Last fall, for the first time, I sent "Bogie" (and other plants) to a greenhouse to spend the winter - he (yes, he's a he!) came back home the first week of May ready to explode with flowers. In prior years, I had him winter-over in our stairwell. While the stairwell is warm, it's also very dry. Bogie would go dormant, lose all his leaves, and have to start from scratch when I'd bring him outside in May.

Although I have yet to receive a bill, I think sending him to a greenhouse was a good decision. Don't cha think?

Another thing...

I took this picture earlier this evening at 8:50 p.m. just before the sun set. The late setting summer sun, along with the fact that we have VERY FEW mosquitoes here which permits us to actually enjoy the sunset outdoors are two of my favorite things about living in Basel. I know (because my friends often tell me) that I can sometimes be very anti-Switzerland, but I think I'll start to balance it out by sometimes reporting on the things I actually like about living here. In fact, whenever I write about something I dislike about Switzerland, I'm going to (try to) balance it out by writing about something I like about living in Switzerland within the same post.

This post?

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No like: 0