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Une tasse de thé - a cup of tea. Or as we say here - ein Schwarztee mit Milch.
And a very posh one it turned out to be. Proper tea leaves and a diffuser. Beats a tea bag on mug. And I come from the land of 'a cup of tea'!

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Whilst I was in Geneva, the boys were in Sion watching the Tour of Romandie. Having collected lots of freebies, they watched the peleton pass through a first time then saw the finish. They also found the Team Sky caravan and met their cycling heroes Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas who kindly signed autographs and GT even posed for the photo below. Jude is SOO proud!

This photo of Bradley Wiggins was taken yesterday I know, which explains his look of pain as he lost his lead. However, today he won the stage (despite a mechanical issue) and Tour of Romandie with an exceptional TT. Bradley Wiggins, we salute you!

Bravo! - Well done
Bon effort! - Good effort
Félicitations - Congratulations
Bien fait - well done

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This is quite a personal one today. This is my badge for the conference I attended this weekend in Geneva - the first time I've been identified as 'Lisa Stevens - Switzerland'.
It felt a little odd to not have UK on my badge but also rather exciting. I felt rather responsible about not letting down my adpted country though! And I had an inspiring, though provoking and throughly great time.
Merci beaucoup Genève :o)

And as an aside, today I started the day speaking French, then English, some Spanish, a tiny bit of Catalan then more English and some German, more French befoer boarding the train and being drawn into conversation with the lady opposite me. She noticed my book and  we spoke English from Lausanne to Fribourg before switching to German from Fribourg to Bern where she got off. No wonder I was tired when I got home!!

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I'm in Geneva/Genève/Genf/Ginebra today and tomorrow for Apple Education Leadership Summit. I've had a great afternoon and evening, visiting CERN, listening to amazing inspiring speakers and a boat trip with dinner on the lake. And more tomorrow!

This is the roof/skylight of CERN, in the Globe of Science and Innovation.

CERN - organisation européenne pour le recherche de énergie nucléaire.

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Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday there are weddings conducted in the Museum Lindengut near our home, so it's quite normal to come across a horse and carriage, or a vintage car, or a funky novelty car parked outside the window.

Here's a rather fetching pink one!

une voiture - a car
un cheval - a horse
des chevaux - some horses
une voiture tiré par des chevaux - a horse drawn carriage

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Sometimes when I'm running I wish that I had a head camera to record the beautiful sights I see.

Today I stopped to picture this heron though. Glad to catch him - thye usually fly off by the time I've extracted my iPhone from my running tights!

un oiseau - a bird
un héron - a heron
un étang - a pond
un ruisseau - a stream

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Spring has certainly sprung in Winterthur. Flowers are in full bloom, trees are in bud and people are lying in the park at lunchtime. Et ça c'est super!

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This is my wonderful son Isaac reciting a Shakespearean sonnet in the Musical extravaganza. An enjoyable 40 minutes, particularly the year6/7 rendition of I'm a believer during which I embarrassed Jude by singing!
Un poème - a poem
Un sonnet - à sonnet
Une chanson - a song

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Sometimes when I go for a run I wish I had a head camera to record the beauty of the scenery. I do however stop sometimes to take a Photospeak as it's just too pretty. this hasn't come out as well as it might but I loved the sky, the trees and the little castle. Des arbres- trees
Un château - a castle
Le ciel - the sky
Les nuages - the clouds

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Meine Güte! I passed my TELC A2 German exam. Grade 1. And I got 98%!!!!! Dropped 2 marks on reading; full marks for the other parts.
I am utterly gobsmacked. I worked really hard but never expected to do so well. Sybille and Pilvi are brilliant teachers and Michel Thomas helped a little bit before I got here. Onward and upward - B1 next!

Congratulation words today!
Gratuliere - félicitations - congratulations
Fantastich - fantastique - fantastic
Ausgezeichnet! - excellent - excellent
Wünderbar - merveilleux - Wonderful

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We were waiting at the bus stop for the Töss bus (still love that rhyme!) when there was a thud noise on the shelter, and then another. Jude went to investigate and found this huuuuge seed pod. Never seen anything like it!

a leaf - une feuille
a seed - une graine
a pod - une cosse

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John commented on Twitter on something that I'd noticed.  Is it 'dig up Winterthur week'?
This week, all over town, yellow WALO vans, trailers and diggers have appeared along with traffic cones and holes in the road. We should start a new name.
Where's Walo?

roadworks - les travaux
yellow - jaune
a digger - un excavateur

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Today I joined Winterthur library. It's taken me this long as I bought books with me, I got more for Christmas and most importantly I've been making use of the ISW library (and there are some gems in there!). Additionally, you have to pay to join the Stadtbibliothek. And also to borrow books. This is a bit alien to me coming from the UK where libraries are free. However it makes me appreciate how much I've benefited over the years from the service, and that's before I consider my boys! And it also made me consider whether 8CHF for a ticket and 50CHFidiot s year if borrowing is very much when you consider that books are expensive here, particularly English ones. I reckon I could buy 3 possibly 4 books for that much. And I had a voucher from my welcome bundle that, to my delight, knocked 20CHF off the bill!
I look forward to further investigation!

La bibliothèque - the library
Des livres - some books

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This sign amused us and we wondered what Flab had to do with flying. Apparently it's short for Fliegerabwehrtruppen. Looks like a great museum that we'll be wanting to visit. I certainly want to see the 'plane under whose wing I was photographed running on Saturday! The 'plane in question is a Junker, affectionately known as Tante Ju - Auntie Ju which is quite amusing as both my sister and my husband's sister are called Julie so my boys have two Tante Ju!

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Heute ist Sechseläuten oder Sächsilüüte, a holiday in Zürich. You can find out all about it here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sechseläuten but basically it's a festival at which Handwerkers and their Zunfte or guilds parade. It culminates with the burning of a snowman on a pyre called the Böögg or bogey. The rate at which the head (packed with fireworks) explodes is supposed to indicate what sort of summer we'll have - the shorter, the warmer! The shortest time is just over 5 minutes, but in 2008 it took over 20 minutes.
This year it was decided that the explosion took place at 12:08 although most of the head exploded before that. You can watch it on the video here  to see (my video won't upload!)

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Big day for Winterthur - FC Winti are in the Cup-Halbfinal of the Schweizer Cup against Basel. Let's hope they play above themselves and beat Shaqiri and co.
Hopp Hopp Winti!!

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And here are more flowers in my prize for running today - a vase. Or is it a specimen jar?
Today's race - GP der Stadt Dübendorf - was around the Flugplatz. Twice. Saw some lovely old planes and a few soldiers looking on. And plenty of Hopp Hopp-ing!

Allez! - go go! - Hopp

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I missed yesterday's post so two today!
On the way out of my run, we came across this sign next to rows to tulips and daffodils. So off John popped to pick me some flowers....

Des fleurs - flowers
Des tulipes - tulips
Un bouquet des fleurs - a bunch of flowers
Un cadeau - a present

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Today I had a visitor - Gareth who I met a few years ago at Language World when he was training to be a MFL teacher at Sheffield Uni. Mad as a box of frogs, he happened to be on a grand tour of Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Germany and aske dif he could pop by. Of course I said yes!
Had a lovely cuppa and a chat with Gareth and Daniel before sending them on their way to Rheinfalle.
Bon voyage!

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Je suis retourné à la Suisse aujourd'hui après une semaine en Angleterre. Cette sculpture est à l'Aéroport de Zurich. Je l'aime beaucoup.


I've returned to Switzerland today from a week in England. This sculpture is at Zürich Airport. I like it a lot.

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And today something Jude will miss. Or some dogs!
Ruby and Dylan are Jude's doggy friends belonging to my sister-in-law's family. He loves dogs but I'm sadly allergic to them to its a treat for him to play with R and D. He's already looking forward to his next visit to Burgess Hill as he couldn't walk them this time.

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Another thing I was so glad to see was Crabbies alcoholic Ginger Beer! I'm
Hoping I can last out until next time I'm in the UK, else I'll have to resort to importing it from Germany by the box!

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I'm so glad to see my family and friends again. And I'm especially pleased to see my nephew Robert. I can Tweet and FB, or call or Skype others but Robert has to be seen in the flesh. He's precious.
I'm now greeted with "pig..... bird" when he sees me as he wasn't sure which of the two my flower at the wedding most resembled. And on his Row row the boat safari, he now meets an Aunty Lisa animal who sneezes and makes him laugh like a drain!
I <3 Bob

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Today my Mum go married to Ray. It was a lovely day and much fun was had by all.
One of the biggest hits of the day was my shoes. Purchased from the Geox shop in Winti, they are gorgeous and very special. Very spring-like, and also very high but wedgey so I managed to walk! I can't see them on the UK Geox site so well worth the investments - and they certainly created a wow!

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I'm currently in the UK so I'm reflecting on life in Switzerland vs UK.

Things that have struck me since I got back:

• traffic noise is so much worse in UK. I think it's related to road surface!
• smoking is so much worse in Switzerland. I never thought I'd say this but it was a relief to walk down the shopping precinct in Sutton and not breathe in lungfuls of smoke at every step.
• the habit of decorating trees with 'bagged scooped poop' in the park hasn't lessened here since I moved to Switzerland. I wish there were more bins around the park for depositing such offerings then perhaps people wouldn't do it!
• it's lovely to drink fresh skimmed milk.

And whilst you can get Toblerone and Lindt bunnies in the shops, (according to my spies!) you can't get blue Toblerone, nor honey Philadelphia.

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Die Familie Stevens fahren heute nach England. Isaac hat Schöggi 😃Wir haben Schöggi und Gipfeli auch.

La familie Stevens aujourd'hui voyage à l'Angleterre. Isaac a du chocolat. Nous avons du chocolat et des croissants aussi. 😄

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Jude spotted these vehicles today.
I love the variety of transport in Switzerland. Bicycles come in all shapes and sizes, recumbent and tandem as well as street and mountain. There are buses, electric buses, trams and then there are a wide variety of trains.
Who needs a car?

mit dem Flugzeug - En avion - by plane
mit dem Auto - En voiture - by car
zu Fuss - À pied - on foot
mit dem Fahrrad - À vélo - by bike

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Another sunny day and, having persuaded the boys to come outside and enjoy before it turns cold, I took this photograph as I sat on a bench near our home.
The blossom - die Blüte - la fleur
Daisy -das Gänseblümchen - Gigigeisseli/ Geisseblüemli - la marguerite
Dandelion - der Löwenzahn - Chrottäpöschä, Sonnwendlig, Weyfläcke, Säuiblueme - le pissenlit (that one still amuses me nearly 30 years after I first heard it!)

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Not an April Fool picture, I really did see a 30 foot tall can of Haldengut outside the brewery on my run. It was the start of my run otherwise I might have been a more tempted!

It's April now so if I follow my original plan, I should be sharing dime French for the next 3 months. However, I don't really want to give up on my Swiss German so I think I'll straddle the "Röstigraben" and do both!!

First word / phrase -
French speaking Switzerland - la Suisse romande - französische Schweiz - Wälschland

(German is bold, Swiss German is red and French is blue)