In order to immerse myself thoroughly in Swiss culture, I decided to put my Spurs career on a back burner and start up a new career in charge of FC Basel. Who in the real world have recently been crowned champions of Switzerland, but on the Wii are a little bit rubbish. Apart from Alex Frei, who is AWESOME!
Bureaucracy
Anyway, on with the point of the post, which is Swiss bureaucracy. Avid readers of this blog will remember that as I signed off my previous post, I was off to buy my residents' travel permit. Well it turned out I couldn't. The piece of paper that I had that I thought was a permit was just a thing saying that I could live in Switzerland, not that I was a resident of Basel, which you need to be to get the travel permit at the reduced price. So I gave that a swerve, and the VERY NEXT DAY (which I'm thinking was what, last Wednesday - the second or so?), in through the letter box popped another piece of paper, this one with an official stamp on it. So I thought OK great, I now have my resident's permit thing. Except I don't! Because it turns out that this one is just a temporary one that says that I have applied for a permit. But it turned out to be good enough for my travel pass, so I can now roam hither and yon within throughout the whole of the Basel Canton at will (well, until July anyway). So not just the city of Basel, but the whole of Basel Land, which is a lot of ground.
Claire's real permit arrived a couple of days ago so I thought mine might come soon, but instead I had a letter asking me (in english, thankfully) for a certified copy of my marriage certificate, which thankfully we have a number of copies of. So hopefully in the not-too-distant future I will be a real resident.
So whilst I'm awaiting my residential status I am, of course, trying to settle in and learn the lingo and everything and of course, that's helped by doing the second point of this post:
Shopping!
[Sorry, that exclamation mark makes me look like a girl.]
We have some local shops and of course there's a lot of big shops a short tram-ride away in town but I figure getting to know the local lingo requires some local patronage. Also, we have a kitchen that is just slightly smaller than the galley of a 37-foot yacht. Seriously. One cupboard for crockery, one for grub. So shopping is a daily thing because otherwise we'd just run out of space. And bread's nicer that way.
The supermarkets here are different to what I'm used to. We're talking seasonal stuff in the veg aisle which was slightly problematical as, when I first arrived, "ist spargal zeit!". I only have a few recipes for asparagus, so there were a lot of frozen peas consumed. We seem to have moved forwards a bit in terms of availability now and of course, through the exploratory process, we're finding more stores and therefore more choice. Please don't think for one second that this is a moan - I actually think the supermarkets in the UK spoil us by making stuff available year-round. It just a difference, part of the adventure! [you know I have never for one second thought that I'd at some point in my life describe shopping as "part of the adventure"!].
Also interestingly, for me, is that there seem to be two main supermarkets - The CO-OP (who sponsored the beach volleyball in Barfüsserplatz) and Migros - and only one of them sells booze! Can you imagine? A supermarket without booze? Those crazy Swiss... I had been a little apprehensive about the price of beverages from what Claire had said before I got out there; wine especially. But I've got it sussed out now.
There are at least two local beers - Feldschlossen (insert umlauts where appropriate) and Warteck. I'm sure there are others but they're the main two. At the supermarket, it's just under 10CHF for 10 330ml bottles of Feld and just over 10 for the Warteck. Now, I prefer the Warteck but not enough to spend a bit more on it in the shops. So we're talking about 3CHF for a litre of 5% beer. Call it two quid and that sounds pretty reasonable.
Until you hit the wine section. Now, there are some very nice wines available at very reasonable prices - Faustino Rioja for a fiver, think I saw some Chateauneuf de Pape for well under Tesco prices. Which is great, but I'm looking for a quaffing wine. So get this. Merlot. One litre. 11.5%. 2.6CHF! Sorted! And honestly, it's thoroughly thoroughly quaffable. When we get some visitors, I promise to spend more but seriously. Sorted!
[Stop Press]
Literally just as this post was about to get published, I went out to stock up on beer in time for ... oh I don't know, is there some kind of sporting event occurring soon? ... and there's a special offer on - 18 bottles of Feld for a mere 11.90! Which requires some calculation I think:
| Product | Quantity | ABV | Cost | ABC* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feld | 18 * 33cl = 6l | 5% | 11.90 | 25.2 |
| Merlot | 1 litre | 11.5% | 2.60 | 44.2 | *Alcohol By Cost - millilitres of alcohol (quantity * abv) per CHF |
OK, not such a big deal after all. Merlot still wins by a mile!
Next post will be about Adventurous Things, I promise... and I plan to write it before RSA vs MEX at 1500GMT tomorrow...
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