Archive 2009 October

Since end of August, Stefan and I go to English school to take a Cambridge CAE course every Wednesday night.

It’s very interesting to learn something with my partner. Of course we thought about learning Japanese or German. But both of them anyway we have to learn. On the other hand our English (especially my English) is getting worse and worse. I started to mix up with German and English.

Stefan uses English daily in his office so learning English is good for both.

But today my partner is in Frankfurt due to his job, so I went to school alone. Lesson was quite interesting but the way to home after the lesson. I felt longer than normal…

It’s strange feeling when I was in Japan, I lived on my own and really enjoyed being alone. And I didn’t like staying with anybody else more than 2 days. But now I enjoy living with Stefan and when he is not here, I feel strange. Like a piece of the puzzle is missing!

Stefan is a miracle guy, he changed such a stubborn girl!

Don’t worry I enjoy being alone this time. I drink my favorite jasmine tea and spend relaxing night!

I don’t like to go to the Supermarket often. Once a week or maximum 2 time in a week is enough for me. At the supermarket there are some temptations, especially sweets and snacks which are not so nessesary that’s why I don’t like going to the supermarket.

Stefan and I go shopping on Saturday. So… On friday our refrigerator is nearly empty and I wanna use up almost everything so I always use my brain little bit more.

Today I had many pieces of different vegetables… and outside is cold… Umm. Ok let’s cook “Minestrone”. And one more sausages and a garlic. I can use the sausages instead of bacon. So let’s cook “Sausage Peperoncino Spaghetti”.

Hot minestrone and hot spaghetti (I mean spicy…) and my hot husband!? Perfect dinner?! Ooops sorry…

By the way I really recommend you don’t come to our house on Friday, I can’t serve you good food… Sunday or Monday are best day because our refrigerator is still full!?

As you know here (Europa) there are more different sorts of yoghurt, compared to Japan. I don’t know why but maybe Japanese people get enough calcium by eating fish… and also we more tend to drink milk instead of eating yoghurt in order to get nutrition. Just little information in Europa there are less different sort of milk, I think here they don’t drink so much milk compared to Japanese people. So it’s not good business to produce new milk. Here people use milk for cooking more than drinking.

And I was surprised that here even Yoghurt it has season. Around Summer I often bought Pineapple and Strawberry flavor yoghurt. But now it’s difficult to find because they are out of season! But instead of these taste, other different season yoghurt has come!!

“Mandarin flavor”, “Hazel nut flavor”, “Chestnut flavor”, “Fig flavor” and so on…

From now on I name Switzerland “A Kingdom Of Yoghurt”!!

I really enjoy eating different flavor. At the moment my best one is “Chesnut flavor”.

Samu—i!! (Cold in Japanese) From last week it’s been really cold and I already wear a coat. It’s unbelievable for me because normally in my city in Japan I wear a coat from December.

When I checked the weather forecast, it was written… 5 degrees!!! It’s really time to stay in bed all day?!

And later I was interested in the temperature in Japan so I checked it through the internet.

In Nagoya it’s a one of big city (Not far away from my city) it is 25 degrees and Tokyo is 23 degrees.

I siged with this unfair temperature… I shouldn’t have checked it.

By the way weather in German is “das Wetter”. It’s the neuter gender. Why is it neutral? For me the gender of words is one of the mystery!? What are they needed for?! Please tell me!!!

Ok, I’ll drink hot chocolate and get warm!

Before I never imagined that I would have a big problem with finding shoes in Switzerland. My size is 22-22.5cm in Japanese size and Europian size is between 34 and 35. In Switzerland the normal size for women is starting with 36.

In last July I realized this problem seriously. When I needed to buy new shoes, first I went to the department store. There are more than 3 shoes shop, but I couldn’t find my size. Ok… no problem I thought I can buy them in Zurich. One week later Stefan and I went to Zurich. At the beginning we were very optimistic even we couldn’t find my size in some shops. But about 10 shops later… we were getting pessimistic. I told myself  “Probably next shop!” I wonder how many shops we visited… but I’m sure more than 20 shops. We couldn’t find my size at all. Of course we visited some children’s shoes shop too, but children shoes are children’s shoes. The design is different from adult shoes… Since then I started to avoid shoe shops. I thought as long as I visit, I would be disappointed.

This month Stefan’s mother and I went to shopping in Zurich. And she took me to the shoe shop where they have my shoes size too!!! Finally I found the shop. Of course they didn’t have so many choices but I was sooo happy! Whee 34!!

She suggested that I should buy winter shoes (Don’t miss this precious chance) and bought beautiful boots for me.

We had a small chat with the shop staff and the staff said that there aren’t any shops with my size except this shop. What a pity that they’ve reduced to import small size.

So If I need shoes next time, I have to go to Milan (Italy) to buy shoes!

When you see me someday, maybe I would be walking bare feet!? So I’m waiting for your donation!?

Liebe Stefan’s Mutter

Danke schoen fuer die Stiefel. Sie gefallen mir sehr und ich werde sie 100 Jahre lang tragen.