French Kiss

So the kissing thing in Europe…closest I had come previously was the one-kiss-on-the-right-cheek greeting in NYC, which is replaced by the standard hug (among those with whom you would do more than shake hands) in the rest of the US.

But the European kisses, oh lordy, all the kisses. And of course, everyone does it differently.

I hear that in Belgium, it’s one kiss on the right cheek – simple, yeah? And isn’t done with everyone you come across, just closer friends.

In Germany, it is generally two kisses, right-left in order. Simple, straightforward, and not done with everyone you meet – so it’s only among more intimate acquaintances. Now, there are variations by region – and it seems southern Germany (which I could get pelted with sausages for saying), or more accurately, Bavaria, tends more toward three kisses, again starting right, then left, then right. But there seems to be a distinctly un-German lack of order and predictability to it all – perhaps it varies by groups of friends, or ancestral lines or something equally incomprehensible to your average auslander. ?

In Switzerland, it is three kisses, in the order of right-left-right…it puts order into a chaotic world to know that you swivel your head slightly to the left in order to come into contact with the right cheek of your fellow kissee, and avoid any embarrassing accidental lip contact. This is especially tricky at work – you don’t want to be kissing on your colleagues (ack). And it is done among those with whom you are more than even slightly friendly – so you get a lot of practice.

So…trust the French, right? Utter kissing chaos. First, there’s no standard kissing number (although two is the most common) – for instance, sometimes in Paris, and many other French locales when dealing with people of high respect (like the mayor I guess – who knows?) it’s four kisses. This is just asking for repetitive-stress neck injuries if you ask me. It takes hours to meet people what with all the kissing going on. Four kisses! I ask you! But, here’s the kicker – SOMETIMES they go left-first, then right. What the hell is up with that? They just HAVE to be different.

And how do I find this out? Well, it’s New Years here in the land o’ cheese and anal retention, so it’s High Kissing Season as all are wished a happy new year. Yes, that’s nice, lovely and all that. But my French colleague comes running up, warning Scott that he’s about to kiss me (Scott was at my office for our German lessons), and leans in for what I presume is the three-kiss Swiss standard – this is Switzerland after all. Well, we instantly find ourselves pressed right-cheek (me)-to-left-cheek (him) – you’ll have to get a mental picture of this, but imagine being in a small photo booth and having to press your faces together for some cheesy picture. Yeah, like that. Then we tried to fix it, pulled back and made a second attempt. Same opposite cheek pressing incident occurred. I then pulled back and asked for a thorough explanation before proceeding. It had never occurred to him that the rest of the civilized world goes right first, and it’s just natural to him to go left first. So, third time was a (quite unspontaneous at that point) charm. But I was pretty much done with kissing for the day after that.

That all said, I do love the French – they are quite charming in their own way. Particularly outside of Paris. Like Americans are nice, when they’re not New Yorkers. But New Yorkers ARE nice, you just have to know how. Parisians I'm not so sure about yet.

Scott and Diana and the Very Bad Swiss Day...

Well, of course, some days are better than others, but then some just SUCK outright. We had one of those a couple of weeks ago…

First, Diana had yet another stellar day at work – stepping on toes, putting foot in mouth, breaking all sorts of unknown, unwritten rules, nothing out of the ordinary. Topped off by receiving, among other helpful and constructive input, the inexplicable feedback that “you are overly assertive when you are giving presentations,” which, across language and cultural barriers, seemed to net out at me sounding like I knew what I was talking about, when that may or may not be true. Yeah, I know. If you can figure this one out, let me know. Total bullshit, and I have since jettisoned it from my list of things to give a crap about. But at the time, I was bitter and broken and about ready to quit and lounge about Switzerland till they threw me out (apparently, you can last years here without paying your rent…). I didn’t want to leave Switzerland, but I would have been quite happy to kiss the job goodbye.

So, feeling sorry for myself, I asked Scott to climb down to the underworld and bring the car out to come pick me up from work, and he got stuck in bad traffic and was cranky. We were both cranky and feeling sorry for ourselves, so we decided that McDonald’s was in order. And the one with the drive-through, that has the best food, is in Germany. So we went ahead straight from work to go there. Our first crisis came when I realized I didn’t have the Euro wallet with me, only the Swiss one – meaning we had no Euros, only Swiss Francs. Plus, we couldn’t find our way over the hill to the McD’s we were searching for, so we got a little lost and made some wrong turns. We got more grouchy with each other at that point. We pressed on, decided we’d go anyhow and find out if they took Francs at McD’s (border areas are often a little flexible on this). Luckily they did, so we at least had some blood sugar going.

Then, returning to Switzerland (meaning, driving about one kilometer away from McDonald’s), the border control stopped us. Since it was an unplanned trip, we didn’t have our Passports with us, only our Swiss resident permits – which we gave them, along with Scott’s driver license and our car registration. Then we got a lecture about how bad we were for not having our proper papers with us, and finally let go a few minutes later.

Awaiting us at home, after we resurfaced from the center of the earth (AKA, the parking place), was some mail. One was a letter from the landlord apparently complaining about our dogs barking, as well as we could tell with our less-than-perfect German skills. And another letter from the electric company saying they were coming to our house to inspect the light fittings, or so we thought. Bear in mind that we had been told that it’s illegal to install your own light fixtures in Switzerland, that they must be put in by a licensed electrician – a law which, of course, no one follows. So we didn’t either. So we figured we were going to be busted for Scott’s illegal lights that he had put up quite competently throughout the apartment. We were both quite cranky by this point (but not at each other anymore ;-). I was ready to can the job, and Scott was ready to can der Schweiz…so a pretty pair we made.

We forged on…and found out the letter from the landlord was sent to all tenants with dogs in all three buildings on our block – so a general letter about barking having been heard, not a letter attacking our dogs caninally. We also later found out that the entire apartment building was being inspected for electrical issues – a routine inspection that would include our apartment, but would mostly be focused on the wiring, not the light fixtures. So the moral of this story is, if you don’t speak German, don’t derive anything from German mail. And always take your Passport with you.

We felt better after that. And we stayed. But we still get cranky sometimes…just like we always do, at home or abroad. ;-)