Saturday 23 August more again

This is from a perfectly clear dawn



I finally made it to the beach! What a place! It’s like the best of Grand Tetons or Glacier if you look in one direction – better if you look in several. Plus then you have this amazingly deep blue lake. Oh, yeah, and some great Italian architecture and throw in an amazing climate and that you are in the dead center of Europe and its hard to beat.

Marianne did Asianische Küche – which was amazing as usual. I chatted some with Martin who showed me, in laborious detail, the genealogy stuff he’s been working on. That is a man who knows how to hold forth! The scary part about dinner – Wälle’s dad and another couple were there as well, is that I was pretty much able to follow a political discussion in schwitzerdutch. Obviously I seem to understand M&W the best.

Saturday 23 August more

I also chopped the tree laying on the lawn into bits – I don’t want it to suffocate the lawn with dying shubbery. Apparently 110 liters of compostables (the size of that big brown bag) isn’t very much of a 3 meter Swiss tree/bush. Also it doesn’t tend to generate much kindling given the inordinate amount of leaves.

Sat 23 August (yes I miscounted yesterday)

I am a grape owner!! I just hacked my way through to the compost pile and had to get through all the grapes to get there. Those are before and after pictures of the grape path.

The grapes don’t look like they are doing too great, but, maybe with some work, they’ll be good next year.

20-21 August, TH and Friday

Thursday I shopped, got Luciano some new tires, did banking, and tried to install the DSL kit Swisscom sent me. I'll spare you the rest. Friday was a bureaucratic day involving Sylvia, the former owner of La Perla, and the Notar. I don't want to risk a libel suit so I'll keep my vilification of certain Swiss "professionals" to a minimum, but, suffice it to say, not only were my concerns over the last year reaffirmed, Sylvia agreed wholeheartedly. The upshot is that we can move in and do whatever we want but Sylvia remains the owner in name for three to six more months. I have written more details for those who want them sent privately, but here are some highlights:

Just for kicks I asked Herr L why he didn’t apply for the visas until June. Easy, he explained, he hadn’t received the paperwork from Vikas until then. He makes a good point. He sent us the forms in early June and I returned mine within a week. Vikas was traveling in India and it took him two weeks to get his back. The fact that L didn’t send us the paperwork until June (rather than, say, September 2007) is of course moot. I decided not to press the point since he was squirming already and the answer, of course, was ultimately, “I’m sorry Herr Breimhorst, I’m really just an incompetent fool.” But, I must admit, I really did hope he would say that – it would have made me feel better. As he squirmed, however, he did mumble something about waiting for the bank. But of course we all know that’s fairly irrelevant.

In any event, if we don’t get our visa (I asked), we can appeal. Since there is no reason we’d be denied in the first place, we should win the appeal. I wonder if Tautology 101 was a prerequisite to Contradiction 102 or Obfuscation and Delay 103 or Stealth Vacations 104 at L's law school.

A La Perla
After the meeting Sylvia and I drove to San Nazzaro. She showed me how the washing machine works. Marianne had the order of the button pressing wrong which is why she wasn’t abe to help me get it started before. I apologized for having made changes to the house but Sylvia thought they were mostly good. She was glad that I cut down that tree since it really did open up the lawn. She had been on her dad’s case to get new furniture, etc. but he was a very practical man and said they weren’t worn out yet. She also had tried to get him to paint the outside of the house but he never wanted to because he thought it would attract thieves. Although, she added, La Perla had never been burglarized. I showed her where we were thinking of making a bar and she thought it was a great idea. We walked throughout the house and I asked her tons of questions about details I won’t bore you with. She apologized about its shortcomings and flaws. We spoke about Signor P and she was impressed we had a signed statement from him that we could trim that tree. She said her father had been around with him for years but had no success. Likewise, her father wanted the land next to the street but had had no success. However, one party awhile ago that had been interested in La Perla had been able to secure an agreement from P to get the land. Also, concerning trees, her father regretted putting the palm trees there, he didn’t realize they would grow so quickly.

the fate of the roses

See, now I'm getting smarter and loading the pictures first and making the captions match them instead of the other way around. That damn internet can't fool me!

Top left: initial curtailed view from top balcony before Mark's Colossal Achievement in Rose Gardening
Top Right: partway through the process.
Bottom right: looking up at Fearsome Rose Foe
Bottom left: Sneaky and sinewy rose tree trunkS - several trunks - (I did say sneaky).

But not only am I man of action, but also a deep thinker. While demolishing the roses (I did ask Herr Bremi's ghost's permission respectfully and this blog is all tongue-in-cheek and I know his ghost doesn't have internet access anyway), I did some deep thinking. I realized those master musicians, known as Poison, were hinting at a profound truth in their 1988 masterpiece "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." They were right, and the damn things hurt!!

the bush/tree aftermath

I realize that you have to scroll up to read these blogs in chronological order and thus realize the full dramatic whallop of my amazing tree-felling skills. Although a veritable Paul Bunyan, I am but a mere mortal when it comes to blogging so forgive my shortcomings.



Some have speculated that my tree-destruction skills are bred out of a deep anger against the word "Bush" and what it has stood for over the last 8 years . . . . Anyway, this bush is dead.


During the process, however, mercy took ahold of my vengeful soul and I considered merely trimming the bush . . .

the tree/bush

another angle to appreciate how immense the work was and thus how Mighty I am

Luciano con targa

also note the not yet cleaned garage . . .

19-20 August Tuesday, Wed.

I made progress! I got my targa. It turned out to not even be that hard. I printed out the letter from the insurance without problem. The agent at Camarino looked at my paperwork and immediately set about getting me a targa. I was a little worried as she got on the phone a couple times and the whole process took maybe 20 minutes, but it all worked out well.

On the way back I visited Pfister, a snazzy furniture store. Their showroom and furniture is beautiful but ridiculously expensive. Lipo was much more like what I was looking for. At Tenero I got some other things like laundry hamper, trash cans, outdoor stuff, shoes, and a hair cutter.

I came home to cut the roses to smithereens. By 7:30 I was exhausted and could only make dinner, watch some TV (the Olympics aren’t on much at night), listen to some music and go to bed. Sometimes just sitting on the balcony and staring at Locarno makes me happy.

On 8.20
I woke with a headache and felt pretty out of sorts. After writing and having breakfast I went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I figured I was just tired out from the nonstop motion and the overwhelming to do list. I decided to take it easy and follow my bliss. Thus I attacked the bush/tree. I used to call it a bush, but since it’s almost a meter taller than I am, I think it’s fair to call it a tree. I got pretty far with pruning shears and the old saw. But after lunch I needed to go see if Marianne had any better equipment. That sealed the deal. Now I have a lawn covered with dead branches.

18 August Monday

Dawn  

I woke early and went to M&W’s to print out the Kaufvertrag and other documentation to hopefully prove that the house is mine. I took it all to the comune where Marianne had suggested I speak with one Signor Codiroli. Not only was he in, but he helped me immediately. First he explained I couldn’t announce myself to the comune until the Grundbuchamt (assessor?) had registered me first. He said that the Grundbuchamt has a cantonal function and no way could he exert pressure on them as Marianne had expected might be the case. More importantly, however, he wrote me a note I could take to Camarino (where the traffic authority is located) that said I owned a house in San Nazzaro and affixed the almightly bureaucratic seal of San Nazzaro on the bottom.

I went back to M&W’s to call Swisscom to set up phone and internet. I suppose this venture was successful, although it took nearly two hours as the agent couldn’t find La Perla. Up until 2007 Ticino only used house names for addresses (a fact that even the UBS people in Zürich didn’t believe – did I mention that Zürich and Ticino are in the same country?). Now they have added street numbers and there is some confusion about which street is which. When talking to Swiss German professionals about Ticino, I often get this sort of attitude that they feel like they are dealing with the developing world. Finally, however, it seemed like it all got sorted out. Marianne got on the phone with him at the end and somehow wrangled me a free month of service because it took so long. There is still some outstanding issue about how many lines will get activated and where. I suspect that only I will really use the phone since most vacationers will use their cell phones. Anyway, the Swisscom guy insisted I’d need an electrician to come out to convert all the jacks to the same line. We’ll see what happens when I have to call Swisscom back on Thursday to see how it’s coming along. Nothing moves that quickly. Marianne shook her head and said this was pretty fast as it took them three weeks for Nicole’s apartment.

With two semi-successes under my belt, I headed out to visit the Sezione de Circulatione in Camarino (DMV). I pulled my number and was able to immediately approach a counter. An agent who spoke German took all my paperwork and said everything was fine but I needed to pay the 850.- registration fee in cash (which I didn’t have on me) and that my proof of insurance was no good because it had my former license plate on it. (Remember that in CH, the number stays with the person, not the vehicle – a fact that cost me a lot of blood sweat and tears to discover a couple years ago.)

Since I was out in Camarino already, I did some shopping in Sant’Antonino. Unfortunately I had not a franc to my name and was thus unable to get a shopping cart. I bought all I could find on my list that fit into the small basket I dragged around.

I hurried back to M&W’s since I knew I’d need to make some phone calls before 17.00h. I dropped off the food at my house and picked up my banking papers and my swimming things, thinking I’d make it down to the lake.

I called the insurance company, and, very efficiently, they told me that they could fax me a new proof of insurance without the plate number. I called UBS, and equally efficiently, they gave me a pin for my new Maestro card. I was impressed at how smoothly everything had gone. We had been berating bureaucrats the day before, but today they were coming through for me!

Walle came home from work and told me that his computer no longer received faxes. I called the insurance company again and he told me that he could mail the document tomorrow morning and it would get to San Nazzaro later the same morning. This sounded fishy to me since it’s a good hour drive from Biasca to San Nazzaro and Marianne agreed. I got him to agree to fax the document to Camarino.

Walle later thought that might not be the best route. Those agents don’t keep track of incoming faxes and don’t know when I might be coming in or who I even am. He got on the phone and got them to agree to scan and email me the document. This was quite a coup since when I spoke with him, he didn’t have a scanner. Those purchasing agents are quick!

Then we got into a big discussion about what kind of targa (license plate) I should go for. The last two summers I have had the targa provisionelle with the red stripe on it. These are issued to people who have cars in CH but who don’t have any special permission to be here. The lowest status you can have is the permesso de soggiorno. I have never applied for or gotten one no matter how many times I have entered CH – I suppose it’s a presumptive status. Here, anyway, it’s rather meaningless since theoretically the three months would restart anytime I re-enter the country. Since all I have to do is jog the 5km to Italy to return to my home country as an EU citizen, it’s rather silly.

Anyway, one can’t get a normal targa without having a Wohnsitz. Our plan had been to use my new address and go this route. However, Marianne pointed out, eventually the insurance company would find out that I wasn’t yet registered with the Grundbuchamt and everything would bounce sooner or later. Not knowing when the Grundbuchamt would register me makes everything harder – it could be months still. So we decided I should go back for the targa provisionelle. Unfortunately these are more rare and many bureaucrats don’t know what they are. As you might imagine, Marianne and Walle are not too high on the people at Camarino.

Once we had accomplished this, it was already about 7 and time for dinner. I never did make it to the beach. I stayed for dinner. I had planned on making my own but Marianne had already made food for me. Poor me! After dinner Marianne drove me home and visited La Perla briefly. She confirmed that nothing is growing in the vegetable garden but basilikum, two heads of lettuce, one random tomato, and a lot of weeds. She also deemed the roses were worth killing – and unsavable. She completely agreed that the palms need to go and she knows someone who runs a biological reserve who may want to take them for free – which would be a great solution. She also taught me how to use the washing machine even though we discovered it has no power.

After Marianne left, I hauled the stuff up from my car and watched the sky fade to black. When I finished I poured a nice big Franziskaner and sat out on my balcony with a sausage and watched the sky dim behind the Alpine crags across the lake. It was warm and I was exhausted.

17 August Sunday

Even though this picture is from 2 years ago, Wälle still looks pretty much the same while grilling.

This morning I forced myself to sleep longer since I’m sure I have quite a good sleep debt going. Eventually I couldn’t resist the lake calling to me to wake up – even though the sky was overcast. I watched some of the Olympics while cleaning out the carpets from the hallway – the one under the table was especially grody as it seems to have been disintegrating. At first I was surprised to find what looked like sand, but, upon closer inspection, it was grit from the carpet itself. That's the grit in the foreground and the lovely carpet hanging on the railing.

Around 16.00 I walked down to Marianne and Walle’s. They had finally gotten home along with Marianne’s parents from Zürich. Walle and I decided to go get Luciano (my car) sooner rather than later since he had heavy grilling to do later. First we had to liberate an air compressor from Diego’s father. Then we had to interrupt some kindly Germans’ vacation to move their cars from in front of the garage. Luciano was looking as good as new, especially after Walle pumped his tire. I grabbed the winter tires and the rest of my junk and we headed back downhill. It was a bit of a gamble since it’s illegal to drive without a license plate. But, Walle said, it’s fine to tow a car without plates so we just pretended to do that! Unfortunately Luciano didn’t fit into my garage all the way due to the crap still left in there. I didn’t clean it all out because it was a weird mixture of things that seemed to belong to the house like chairs and a lawnmower and personal items like shoes and pieces of art. Nevertheless, we got Luciano in as far as possible and closed the garage door most of the way – enough to render him invisible from the tiny little street.

Walle did a quick look through of the house and confirmed that indeed the awning was broken. Unfortunately now I’ll have to get a professional to fix one of the gears and it is stuck down, which makes the mountain peaks invisible from the living room unless you sit down.

We retuned to his house. I went through some mail from UBS and we sat around the table talking – all six of us (since Nicole was home too). I tried to pay close attention to Walle’s grilling techniques since he is the best at it of anyone I have ever met. I think the secret is in the marinade and I didn’t see how he made that. As I sipped my pescafrizz and watched the sunset (wishing La Perla faced west more) I realized why I have always loved Ticino. All the troubles and headaches over the last year seemed worth it. The morning had been overcast but now the sun was out, I was with my friends, costina (ribs) were on the grill, life was good.

Over dinner I was explaining to Marianne’s father that now I actually understand Italian better than Schwitzerdeutsch. What does that say about a “dialect”? (See my long-standing obsession with the difference between dialects and language).
I realized I had been wrong. It’s not that food tastes better when you eat outside in Ticino – food tastes better chez Imbaumgarten! I have to learn the secrets.

Towards the end of the evening I was able to ask some of my more annoying questions after Marianne’s parents went to sleep. Getting my phone connected is apparently pretty straightforward – I just have to call Swisscom and let them sort it all out. I can do that. Getting the license plate will be more difficult. Last year apparently they had to go three times to the DMV. Even though they had the paperwork and Luciano had been registered the summer before, twice the bureaucrats told them to go away as it couldn’t be done. Naturally they were incredibly frustrated as they had to keep coming back to talk to a different agent. I hadn’t realized it was that involved. Basically each agent that says it’s impossible is wrong and you just have to come back the next day and find someone else to talk to.

However, this complication is based on the fact that I have a targa provisionelle (provisional license plate). Now that I have a Wohnsitz (permanent residence), I should be able to get a real plate. But, I explained to them, I don’t have a Bewilligung (a type of visa) so I’m not sure that I’m legally allowed to live here yet. Thereupon they recommended going to the comune (like city hall) tomorrow and showing my kaufvertrag (purchase contract) etc., to the official there and officially announcing myself as here. Then at least I have some legal status, and perhaps he can speed up getting my Bewilligung. It all sounds rather risky, but I’m set to try it. I can’t buy anything for the house without a car.

16 August

The view at 6am.

Today was a good day. I woke at 6am with the sun. I watched it creep up over the Magadino plain and spread its rays over the lake. Even though I was hungry, I waited for the little store near the post office t open. Since I’m unfamiliar with its hours, I waited until 9:30 and found the place to be hopping. I’ve never seen the store so crowded. It felt great to finally populate my kitchen, assuaging my concern that I’d go hungry.
There were Olympics to watch and furniture to move until late afternoon. I went through the whole house writing up an inventory of everything that needed to be done. I didn’t want to drive Marianne’s car unduly since it was exceedingly generous of her t let me borrow it in the first place, but the only way I could see Jaimey, and the Locarno Film Festival was to drive to Cadenazzo and then take the train to Locarno. Once I had driven that far, I decided to hop over to Sant’Antonino for some shopping, after filling the car with gasoline. I didn’t have much time so I practically ran through Migros, buying things like these lovely speakers I’m listening to, a TV cable extension, and a tape measure. Describing tape measure in Italian proved an interesting task – but one which I managed. Unfortunately, upon check out I learned that the geniuses at Visa had stopped my card because clearly no American would go overseas to buy things, especially not to the same place he’d been countless times before over two decades. I guess computers aren’t that smart yet. Anyway I resorted to cash and didn’t buy the phone. I felt bad slowing down the line.

I met Jaimey at the mouth of the Piazza Grande. I’d miraculously never been to Locarno during the festival – a shock given the confluence of two of my big loves; films and Locarno. They erect a huge screen about 4 stories tall across the mouth of the Piazza and set up some 5000 chairs; quite impressive. We had a charming meal: he a pizza and me spaghetti con fruitti de mare. It was all ridiculously overpriced as mine was 24 francs and his around 17 – and that was after shopping around some. We wondered if it was Bush’s deflated dollar, festival-goer gouging or sign of some darker, more perfidious trend. Jaimey relayed how bitterly his students have been complaining. He trucked about 10 of them down from Düsseldorf where the UC Davis summer program is held.  

The screening was preceded by the awards presentation which seemed quite earnest (judging by the joy on the winners’ faces) but rather oddly arranged with people coming up sporadically to receive various awards – not all of which were completely clear to me as it was all in Italian and I was fighting some serious shut eye from the jetlag and it had become dark. Morever, sometimes it was not winners who were introduced but other introducers. Also, unlike American shows of its ilk, there was not a lot of pomp and circumstance garnished around each presentation so it was hard to tell when the chapter had changed.

The Mistress of Ceremonies was quite remarkable. Invariably each presenter and each winner came up and spoke a different language; Italian, French, German, English, and Spanish. Only the Chinese winner had an interpreter. The MC interpreted what each said, with grace and ease. And, to my ears, did a flawless job and was often more articulate than the original speaker. Moreover, her Italian was piercingly clear (maybe it had to do with the fact that it was the second time I was hearing it – you think?)  

The final screening of the festival followed the awards. It was to be an Icelandic film entitled “Back Soon.” Even though the film promised to have English subtitles, after about 10 minutes it was only in Icelandic with German and French subtitles. Most of Jaimey’s students left at this point in frustration. Jaimey was ill at ease. He had specifically checked against this possibility before bringing the students to the festival and was assured that English would appear in most of the films. Eventually Irish, French and American characters entered the film so maybe 1/3 of the dialogue was in English after all. Nevertheless, the film was fairly inaccessible to one who only spoke English. It’s debatable how accessible it would be in any event as it was a sort of stoner film about a curmudgeonly yet school of hard knocksishly wise middle aged pot dealer. It was interesting but I wouldn’t recommend rushing out to find the DVD – even if one could.
Jaimey and I drifted off to the train station fortuitously about 3 minutes before the film ended. We left with no end in sight, but, by the time we reached the screen people began clapping. Stoner film. We discussed whether the Locarno festival truly wanted to stay international without whole-heartedly committing to English being the common tongue. We doubted both its desire and execution. Although obviously neither of us are fans of American hegemony (although the US is rightfully #1!), refuting English serves to marginalize much of the non-European world. Sometime they’ll have to admit that French is no longer (if it ever was) the common tongue of the world.

This is the view from the master bedroom the afternoon I first arrived.

8/15/08 15:45
I knew there was a reason I came here. No sooner do I turn on the TV but I find an Olympic football match – Germany versus Sweden quarter-final no less. OK, but before I get too Eurocentric I should admit that now that it’s half time they’ve switched to equestrian events and badminton!
But I forget myself. How did I get here?

Well, it’s simple really. 5.5 hours from San Francisco to Philly. Then a too-brief night with Paul and Dan and a glimpse of Paul’s family’s new life, another 7 hours of flight, another 7 hours to get the remaining 90 km from the airport with buses and trains and I’m here. Well not really. I was in the San Nazzaro train station where I hid my bags behind some recycling (people aren’t supposed to steal in Switzerland anyway), walked to Marianne and Wälle’s house, and got Marianne’s car key. Of course I had their house key because I picked it up in Jaimey and Jacqueline’s hotel room in Bellinzona on the way. I got my bags and headed over to Vira, the next town over, to find my house keys. The email I got from Sylvia, the house owner, was that the realtor put the keys in a milkbox next to his office. I was pretty sure that a milkbox was Swiss slang for a mailbox, but I didn’t see any of those either. I had to drive back to Marianne and Wälle’s to get Sylvia’s number. Sylvia didn’t know much more than I did but elucidated that perhaps the “left of the door” meant not from the position of one entering, but was perhaps more deeply mired in the realtor’s incompetent subjectivity (i.e. had more to do with his left when he exited the office). Armed with this I went back to Vira. However I still found no mailbox – how did they even get mail?? I didn’t have the realtor’s cell but I called Vikas who was able to text it to me. However, the realtor wasn’t answering his cell. It’s Maria Ascension holiday by the way – one of those Catholic wonders where everyone nods and says “oh yeah, Maria’s Ascension,” but when I ask what it means no one can really define it vis a vis Jesus’ ascension, Easter, or Pfingsten (whatever that is in any other language). I called Sylvia back and, in exasperation coupled with a desire to get me the key finally, she offered to drive to Ticino – three hours without traffic. But remember it’s a stormy Friday afternoon of a three day weekend. But I haven’t given up. I go across the street and ask at the restaurant if anyone knows where the realtor’s mailbox is. A waitress points to someone walking along the street and says she’ll ask him since he owns the building. This seems common in towns with under 5000 people. Sure enough, he shows me you have to enter the apartment building next door, and, in the foyer, there are mailboxes. Well of course! He reaches in the mailbox and pulls out an envelope. He looks at me skeptically, assess my disability, and asks if he should open it for me. I bite it and rip it open with my teeth before he finishes his sentence. And I have MY KEY!!
I drive to La Perla and call Vikas as I open the door. This is the moment. Everyone has been asking me when I’d be excited about my house. All year I’ve said “the moment I have the key in my hands and it’s actually opening the door.” And it finally happened!!

In my glee I run around throwing open all the shutters and windows to let the breeze purge the stale air. I ignore the rain beginning to pour outside and now inside. I run upstairs and do the same. But suddenly I feel like I’m in some Scooby Doo episode. The wind is slamming shutters and windows. The thunder is pounding the big empty house and I walk from bare room to bare room. So I close the windows and tackle the electricity.

Sylvia had told me to find the “fuse box” or whatever you call it in English, I mean German, I mean Swiss-German (because I have no idea what the electrical control box thingee is called – foreshadowing). She said it was on the first floor. OK, so that’s not the ground floor, but the one above it. No box there. Maybe she was pre-translating it into American and really meant the ground floor? Nope, nothing there. I knew there was one of the second floor because we had tested it when we were thinking about buying. I figured she must have meant the first floor above the first floor and I flipped all the switches. But nothing happened. I called Sylvia and she confirmed that she meant the first floor upon which her father lived – but of course!! Nevermind that it’s the top floor of a three story house. I told her what I did but she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working. She said she’d call her dad’s friend over and see if he could fix it. Herr Bühler came over about five minutes later and set about dialing these loose dials tighter. My technical language skills are bad so I had not understood the difference between flipping some switchy type things and tightening some screwy type things. But, if you’re ever in Switzerland and need to get the power on, now you know.

So now I have a place with power, with fridges (4 of them), with TV, with cable, with Germany and Sweden still scoreless. I have arrived! (Now only if I can find some food on a rainy holiday…)