Frustrations

For the sake of reality, not everything is picturesque and enchanting. Yesterday the cable man came to unhook the cable. He spoke no English and we spoke no French, but he insisted on trying to talk to us a mile a minute as though we would magically understand him. I showed him the cable jack and he took care of it, and before he left he turned to Mom and said "learn French." Apparently he did know SOME English. Mom was very bothered but I'm trying to get her to laugh it off.

Later in the day I tried to hook up a Skype telephone to the computer. However, they are on US power jacks. Power converters might sound like a simple ordeal but they are not at all. US wall plugs run on 110 volts while European plugs put out 220 volts. So, simply converting your jack is not good enough because most appliances can't handle all that voltage and will blow out. There are exceptions, like my lovely computer, cell phone charger, camera battery charger, etc. However, standard things like lamps, hair dryers, stereos, etc. need a transformer to step the power down in addition to a converter to fit into the plug. That's not all. After figuring out the voltage, then you have to worry about the wattage. Our transformer is good for up to 300 watts. It's bulky and seems like it would work for a lot, but something like a blow dryer runs on about 1500 watts. Needless to say, we bought a new blow dryer out here rather than try to deal with that mess.

So, I hooked up the Skype phone modem through the transformer. This should have been no problem since it only runs on about 8 watts, and the other appliance plugged into the transformer is a stereo which takes about 60 watts. However, I couldn't get it to work. I tried it with the transformer and without and apparently blew it out and gave up. Then I couldn't get the stereo to work and thought I'd somehow managed to blow it as well. Does this sound frustrating enough? Well, I left Dad to figure out what happened and apparently the fuse in the transformer blew so we need to replace it. It came with one extra but if you know the McGowans at all you would know the chances of finding it are pretty small. So now Dad has to get a new one next time he returnes to the States. Fortunately I didn't damage the stereo, but I have no idea why the fuse in the transformer blew since is good for 300 watts and both appliances together drew less than 100 watts.

I give up. I drank a lot of wine last night.

One good thing: good wine is very cheap out here. That's about the only cheap thing. The conversion rate from USD to CHF is almost matching, something like 97cents to a dollar. 200CHF is about 180USD. We went to Starbucks today (Mom made me do it) and the average cost of a tall beverage is about 7CHF. A cup of tea which is $2 back home is over 4CHF here, or just about $4. A pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream costs about 9CHF, and a half gallon of Orange Juice is about 8CHF. Guess I won't be drinking as much orange juice.

Another funny thing is UHT milk which has a shelf life of nine months and doesn't have to be refrigerated. UHT means ultra high temperature, which is probably about twice as hot as pasteurizing for a much shorter period (2-3 seconds) to kill the spores and thus make the milk last longer. We haven't been brave enough to try it. There's lots of Gruyere cheese but no cheddar. These little differences are easier to deal with though.

Don't get me wrong, I love it here. Mom wants to go home. I'm working on her attitude problem.