Friday's Five - 5 Swiss French Words (Related to Food) You Should Know

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Some years ago, when I was working in Zürich, I was overwhelmed with swiss german. Although I considered by german relatively fluent, I didn't understand a word of swiss german. After 3 months, I could know when my work colleagues were talking about the weather, some recent news or the upcoming weekend. But as you can see, I spent most of my time there guessing the lunch topic of the day. I usually had a poor soul sitting next to me who's job was it to translate whenever I had a clueless look on my face. 

Before moving to the french part, I thought that at least this time, the french would be the same as in France. At least some of the (very few) words I had learned in University would find their use. I was right, kind of. French in Switzerland isn't that different from the french from France, but there are, in fact, some words that will be confusing for other french speakers. 

1. Cornet. You go to the supermarket to buy some fruits and the cashier asks you if you want a cornet. Why would the cashier want you to take a music instrument similar to the trumpet after buying some fruits? Turns out, cornet is the swiss french word for sac de plastique (plastic bag). 
2. Services. Whenever I buy a quick take away salad, the kind waitress asks if I want service. The first time I thought: better decline any service, whatever it is, it will probably have an extra cost.  I then took a plastic fork and knife and went back to work. Soon afterwards I found out that service is the swiss french word for couverts (cutlery). I can picture the cashiers' puzzled look when I kindly declined and then took it anyway!
3. Déjeuner. Yes, you know this one. But, as confusing as it may be, déjeuner in Switzerland is not having lunch, but having breakfast - what in France is called petit déjeuner. 
4. Dîner. 1:30pm on a saturday. I went to have lunch on a terrace. The waiter comes to take my order by asking "Quest-ce que vous voulez pour dînez?". "Dinner?" I thought "who wants to have dinner at 1:30pm?". What school had taught me to be dinner in french seems to be lunch in Switzerland. 
5. Souper. So, if breakfast is lunch and lunch is dinner... what the heck is dinner? Souper, as in supper!

All these words are related to ordering food and going food shopping, which is as far as I can get with my limited french. 

Do you know about any words that are used differently in another country? 

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PS: Just a quick note on my april blog cleaning challenge - I'm probably going to make the move to Wordpress this sunday! I realized that many design options can't really be seen correctly unless you've already got posts in it, so... wish me luck! 

April Challenge: Blog Spring Cleaning

Vineyards in Lavaux region, Switzerland

I've realized that over the last few months the number of readers increased a lot compared to my 2010 levels and wanted to first thank you a lot for reading!  

While some of you may have started the annual spring cleaning at home, I'm taking a new challenge: 

I'm going to clean up my blog and, oh, my social media life in general. 

From simple tasks such as changing passwords and updating the list of pages I've registered into (I'd recommend you guys do this from time to time, too - it's good to know who's got information on you) to more time consuming changes, such as creating my own domain, transferring my posts, comments and followers successfully and coming up with a new web design. I think I've got some work to do, right?

Anyway, what implications does this have? If you're following me on Facebook, Twitter or are subscribes to my RSS feed, there should be no problem problems. Even using Google Friend Connect should be ok - it's just an additional widget. I'm a bit more concerned about the reader I get from google searches, but I'm sure I'll figure that out. 

My own domain!

I've got so excited that I've already purchased my domain and installed wordpress. This will make it much easier to find, as I'm switching over to www [dot] 100mileshighway [dot] com !! In case you're wondering, I've used Bluehost to buy my custom domain and set up a hosting account - I felt attracted to the fact that they have 24/7 technical support (which by they way, I've already made use of - and up to now, I'm happy with their service). 

Redesign

About the blog design or, well, theme, I haven't made up my mind yet. There are just too many options available! The first theme that comes to my mind is Thesis (the one that everyone uses and everyone recommends) - but I have a really limited knowledge of webpages and I'm afraid I would no be able to hold up it - I may just need something simple. I am considering a theme which is more suitable for highlighting my pictures... Do you have any recommendations?

New features

The content will stay the same, although I've been thinking about adding two new features (both related to travel and expat life), but I'll give you more information on this when the time is right. In any case, I would only start working on this once my transfer to Wordpress and the new blog design is all set up. 

These are the major changes that will take place during the next couple of weeks of spring around my blog. I will still post continuously (now I only hope that you'll be informed about that!). 

Do you have any plans on spring cleaning your blog this year? 

Oh and btw. I guest posted at Christine's blog, Christine in Spain, about the different alternative plans for Tenerife, Canary Islands (besides for the sun and fiesta, of course), go and see!