A Mr. & Mrs. trying to live with the Swisses: In early times some sufferer had to sit up with a toothache, and he put in the time inventing the German language.

The five words no traveller wants to hear, especially in a language they don’t understand: Your ticket is not valid.

The ticket people on the trains always make me nervous. After the train leaves the station they go person to person to make sure you have a valid ticket. I don’t know why they make me so nauseous since they wear little striped ties and all of them carry purses. Both accessories for both genders.

I was riding the train back to Geneva from Zurich this evening, and the lady took my ticket and looked at it. She said something in German, which I’m assuming wasn’t “Are you American because if you are I’m going to play a mean trick on you” but “Your ticket is not valid”. When I replied in English, she explained that my ticket was a roundtrip from Zurich to Geneva and back, not Geneva to Zurich and back. I’m not sure why this matters, but apparently it does. I wanted to tell her that I actually didn’t buy the ticket, it was Britney Spears from my office who is French. But she was nice, punched the ticket, and moved on to the next person. I’ll let you know the day when I can finally confidently present my ticket knowing for sure that I’m on the right train with the right ticket in the right section heading in the right direction. Right now there are too many iffy factors.

Speaking of languages you don’t understand, I made an unfortunate discovery today. My phone not only displays the day of the week in German on the front, which I can figure out, the lady who helps me on my voicemail by telling me what number to press to delete, save, or replay a message also only speaks German. I received a voicemail today from someone in German (which hopefully isn’t the same person who has been texting me about something important), so I tried to delete it. The automated lady voice was very friendly as she repeated the instructions about five times, but after trying every number (it must be a combination to delete a message), I gave up. And for all of the times I took for granted “to delete this message, press 7”…

Despite all of these setbacks, one of the highlights of my day was when a lady on the train said “geshundheit” when I sneezed. A real German one.

I actually got some work done today and logged some chargeable hours. It felt strangely nice to be working since it’s an environment where I’m comfortable and know what I’m doing. Tomorrow I’m going out to my first client, though, so I'm nervous about that. With my luck, they’ll only speak German. Maybe then they can help me with my phone.