Christmas Time

Hooray! Christmas LEGOs!

So finally Christmas time is here. It has been a hectic December, so I'll try to go in order of the events as they happened:

New Apartment
This place is crowded. With 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room/kitchen, this place is definitely not enough for the six of us. Especially since the largest room is inhabited by 3 children, and one of the "bedrooms" is actually an office, so that I can have a place to retreat when the office calls me for an emergency of some sort. It was a requirement that I could escape the noisy rambunctious kids.

To top it all off, something we never considered when I found this place, (or rather, when it was presented to me) is that we're on the fourth floor; the kids have never been in an environment where running was strictly prohibited. I'm sure our neighbor below us, a very nice French Swiss named Ann, is quite aware of the exact moment that the kids wake up in the morning; and also quite familiar when bedtime is. I'm sure somebody could map out a pretty good chart of seismic activity (from the thumping sound of running feet) versus the awake-time for the kids.

A few months ago, a Human Resources person had a conference call with my co-workers about our relocation experience. Stacy got an opportunity to vent all of her frustrations: coming without a permit; the long time to get the paper work in order, the long time to get the contact in order, the size of the apartment. She complains a lot. I could be perfectly happy with a tent and a few sleeping bags for the 2 years here. I guess she is more in-tune with the needs of the family than I am, since I'm not in the house 5 days out of the week. During the conference call, she got the idea that maybe moving to a bigger apartment is what this family needs.

So she began her search. This started around October. After looking at lots of places, some in quite convenient locations (a few blocks from the train station), and some that were terribly inconvenient (like some that were closer to Thun than to Bern; and another in the middle of nowhere, with 2 bus rides to the downtown train station ( horribly horribly inconvenient for me). After several visits where I sighed, "this is going to make my commute suck even more", some places where they looked at the "Four Kids"part and replied, "You will never find this place suitable", which to me means "there is no way we will allow four children to live here", We finally found one that was convenient for 5 of us, and only a little more inconvenient for me. The new place is in Rüfenacht, just outside Gümlingen -- very close to the kid's school. More inconvenient for me in terms of miles traveled, but not necessarily much longer in terms of time spent commuting (strangely enough). Best of all, the new place is essentially the same rent as the older one, with more space, a view, and a yard. I'll get more into the amenities later.

I pretty much gave up fighting back a long time ago. Stacy found out how to advertise the current apartment in ImmoScout24.ch, in the local newspaper, "Die Anzeiger". We found a few prospective tenants to take over our lease. Unfortunately, for the meantime, we will have to pay double rent, which really hurts my pocketbook. (Yeouch!)

As we had our multiple visits to see the apartment, which is really a house divided into three parts, the kids played chase outside in the yard. They would come inside being their typical loud selves, and we told them "Go back outside.", and they did. The house was built in 1777 (yes, really), and has recently been renovated to be completely modern inside. The downstairs was renovated several years ago, and the upstairs has been renovated within the past 3 or 4 months, I suppose. The upstairs still smells like fresh paint.

I don't have many pictures, only a picture of the outside hieroglyphs, the view of the Alps in dusk, and a picture of the wrap-around view from the patio. More pictures will be sure to come, and will get put into this folder on Picasa.



Opening Christmas Presents
Recently Joey has been enjoying a particular DVD over and over again. He first saw the trailer at the beginning of some other DVD, and called it "the commercial movie." Probably in response or to the question, "Do you like that commercial, Joey?" The movie in question is Pixar's "Cars."

Of course, the Christmas present that will be the biggest hit with Joey is a present of the same theme. One day in a toy store with Joey, he found the Lightning McQueen Talking Car toy that just has to be had. He screamed that he needed the toy. Thankfully, Stacy was doing this shopping with a girlfriend, who was instructed (quietly) to go purchase the car discretely.

Definitely, this toy was the biggest hit for Joey. The Bob the Builder shirts -- meh. The train tracks, usually a hit -- meh. The puzzle of the construction vehicles and Thomas the Tank Engines -- meh. The Duplo Legos of the "James" engine from Thomas the Tank Engine -- meh. But this toy was the choice on Christmas Day. In the display box, the toy had the "Try Me!" buttons that could be pushed to see if this toy was any good or not. Of course, Joey was pounding all those buttons to make the wheels spin, make him talk before I could get it out of the package.

Funny thing about this toy is, that seeing as we bought it in Switzerland, of course Lightning McQueen speaks German. I don't think Joey cares much. It took us a while to figure out that there is a switch underneath that makes him get out of "Probierfunktion" (trying-out-mode), into the "Ein" mode (on). No matter what button you pressed, Lightning McQueen would always say, "Ich bin schneller als schnell." (I'm faster than fast). When the green "go" button is hit, his wheels would spin for about a second, and he would repeat his one liner.

We later discovered that this toy has a whole programmable set of command you can put in. Go forward twice. Turn left. Turn around. Turn right while going backwards. Of course, each time you type in a command, the voice responds, you guessed it, in German. Vorwärts! Vorwärts nach rechts! Kreis! Vorführung!" (Forwards! Forward and right! Circle! Demonstration!).

There's a "Sprachknöpfe"button, which makes him say a few more one-liners,

• Ich suche meinen besten Freund. (I am searching for my best friend)
  
• Wo ist die nächste Tankestelle? (Where's the nearest gas station?)
  
• Wo geht's nach Radiator Springs? (How do you get to Radiator Springs?)
• Wo geht's zum Highway? (How do you get to the Highway?)
  
• Bin ich falsch abgebogen? (Did I turn the wrong way?)
  
• Hua! Wo bin ich? (Huh? Where the heck am I?)
  

Of course, Joey doens't use the program function. He just crawls as he pushes the car along. There's no real need for batteries in this car for Joey's appreciation. Just the wheels. Hope it holds up to the abuse.

This wasn't the only hit for Christmas. Up late last night wrapping presents, getting everything ready, putting the stuff under the Christmas Tree... uh.. wait. Stacy did all that. I was just playing video games. That's right. Anyway, we were up late last night, and I was quite tired this morning, but not too tired for me to hear the sound of an excited kid, not sure which one -- running down the hall at full speed. I'm sure the neighbor below also heard this. The sound ended with a pause, as if the pause was long enough to take in the view of the spoils of Christmas. The brief pause was immediately followed by a running of full speed back up the hall to the bedroom, a pause only long enough to wake up the sibling, and then followed by two sets of excited feet running full speed down the hall.

Somehow the kids restrained themselves from opening all the gifts. I am quite honestly amazed at their willpower. Somehow I'm reminded of a movie once where the bad guy and the good guy meet. The bad guy has two well trained attack dogs ready to destroy any interluder. The bad guy throws a juicy steak to each dog. The dogs sit and wait for their command. The tasty morsels at their feet are untouched. The bad guy snaps his fingers and the dogs then proceed to devour the steaks. This was the restraint that the children exhibited this morning. I guess all the housebreaking lessons are finally starting to pay off.

I was awoken later to Joey, who burst into our room with his proudest discovery: A box of cereal -- not just any cereal -- AMERICAN cereal. Kix! Kid-Tested, Mother Approved! Joey burst into our bedroom with his newest prize, "Look Mommy! Kix!" A very thoughtful co-worker sent a care package of the things we can not get here in this country. While America has crappy food that could never be found here in Switzerland, such as Velveeta, Wonder Bread, Ritz crackers, there is also a huge gaping hole of selection for some of the good things that America has to offer.

Breakfast Cereal Rant Tangent
Come to think of it, I think that a good breakfast is a sure sign of a nation ready to grasp the spoils of victory over communism. This enthusiasm for truth, justice, and the American way of life can only be explained by the most excellent selection of breakfast cereals that America's amber waves of grain have to offer. Upon our arrival here in Switzerland, it was quickly noted that such champion breakfasts as "Cookie Crisp", "Kix", "Cheerios", and "Raisin Bran" are not to be found in the pathetic breakfast food section of the local Migros. I am presented with insults to my breakfast pallet, Müesli, some other sorts of suicide breakfasts -- various mixture of nuts, anaphylaxis and death. (For those who don't know me well enough, I am horribly allergic to most tree nuts).

You Swiss should be proud of your cheese technology; your pocket knife technology, your technology for well-made windows and doors surpasses even the most luxurious homes in America. (Our windows are usually painted shut) (No wonder we don't like to go outside, we're constantly sheltered from it). You should be proud of your chocolate technology, and maybe even your snappy hats and scarves. The skis I brought from America were (literally) laughed at by the ski maintenance shop.

However, you Swiss seriously are behind in at least one category -- LIGHT YEARS behind us... Breakfast technology. Have a bowl of Cookie Crisp sometime. You will bow to our might! Chocolate Chip cookies IN A BOWL ! FOR BREAKFAST! Now that is just genius in a bowl. Seriously. You have no idea.

Back to Christmas
.. or ...
On to the very important subject of LEGOs
Yesterday, I spent the day re-assembling Joshie's busted-up LEGO toys. He had a friend back in the US, Steven, who could not be trusted with Josh's LEGOs. Invariably, 5 minutes of our backs being turned, Steven could be counted on to destroy the LEGO creation that *I* had to put together. Actually, I don't mind the destruction to much. It's the random re-distribution of the LEGOs that drives me nuts. Once Stacy would go through cleaning up the basement, some pieces would be lost, some eaten by the bunnies, (that's my only explanation), or distributed to various bins of LEGO toys (the worst).

Yesterday, I spent most of the day re-assembling some of the long-busted up LEGO creations. Of course, Josh doesn't make me reassemble the ones that I could probably figure out by myself, he makes me reassemble the horribly complex ones. If they were space toys, I might be able to put up with it. But no, this was the Medieval Castle. Ugh. I could not bare to look at the castle after reconstruction was hampered by the search for a part that did not exist in 4 different tubs strewn with zillions of legos within.

I opted for the easier fix, the Trade Federation's Droid dropship. This was a "welcome to Switzerland, Josh" present, bought a few days after we arrived to Switzerland, before any of the air shipment had arrived. Its demise was met a few weeks ago when the sound of shattering glass, followed by shrieks of horror and pain actually turned out to be the dropship falling off the shelf and blowing up in to a zillion pieces.

At least this destruction was caused by a more innocent "It fell off the Shelf and blew up into a million pieces" instead of the wanton destruction from the neighborhood hell-boy Steven. In its reconstruction, I had pieced together most of the parts myself, without much reference to the manual. There were a few times when I had to refer to the original construction plans to make progress. But: One piece can not be recovered. We don't know where it is. No clue. I can't blame it on the bunnies as they live outside now. With this omission, the drop ship remains blemished by this external and patently obvious corner-stone. Literally: the corner of the ship has gone missing.

I surfed online to Lego.com to find that you can get them to ship replacement parts. To Switzerland! I didn't get charged online, so I have to wonder if they're going to send me a bill. I found the Lego unique number for this toy, selected the piece that was missing, gave them my address (I gave them the address in Rüfenacht), and that was pretty much it! I also discovered that they have the plans from all of their lego toys as far as I could tell. If you lost your construction plans, you can always go find the PDF online and use that as a guide.

This following the instructions business was never my strong suit as a kid. I seem to remember following the construction plans long enough to build it the first time, and then the plans were lost, probably the cat puked on it or something. My LEGO foo was enhanced by my own creations -- I would model toys from my own imagination, or from cartoons I watched, or for some new space ship I imagined on my own. I made submarines from LEGOs that were water-tight (no small feat, I might add). I made VOLTRON out of LEGOs. There was no feat that could not be accomplished with my 3 boxes of worn and chewed-on LEGOs. Even to this day, I have a hard time envisioning any sort of construction tasks being solved without the ample use of LEGOs.

They stopped being such a huge part of my personality around the age of 13. Junior High school. We're all supposed to be grown-ups so quickly after 6th grade, when just a few weeks ago you were still expected to still be a kid. Now in Junior High school, you're not supposed to wear Garanimals any more, you're supposed to wear a denim jacket preferably with some sort of hard-rock band on the back. There was harsh punishments of ostracism for any behavior that could be construed as Elementary school, childish. You're expected to like girls, not think they have cooties.

You're expected to not play with LEGOs. I was caught by a girl whom I fancied playing LEGOs. Upon this discovery, and the threat of imminent ostracism, the LEGOs quickly were repositioned to the darkest corners of the closet. No longer cool. No longer fun to play with. It happened so quickly. I also lost, in a sense, that magical ability to create anything with simple blocks, or to have the same story-creation imagination I had as a kid. After that day, I lost the ability to come up with a plot of some fantastical whimsical intricacy that I had before. I don't think I have ever gotten it back. Gee, it's no wonder Teen-agers are so depressed.

I'm trying to figure out why I now dread being called back into the kids' bedroom to repair the busted LEGOs. I used to love these toys so much as a kid. Perhaps it's this new style of play that leaves me with such distaste for LEGOs now, and not some sort of L. Ron Hubbard-esque engram of the Junior-High social ostracism from LEGO enjoyment. The LEGOs can not be built any way you want, they have to be assembled as per the instructions. No deviations. Any deviations will result in the incomplete or busted project being returned to the LEGO bin.

This attitude, I think, comes from Stacy. Her brother Bryan recently gave to us a vast treasure trove of 1980's space LEGOs, many of the same models I had as a kid. I only vaguely remembered the original LEGO models, as I mentioned before, because I soon lost the box, the construction pieces, or a random LEGO went down the bathtub drain, or the cat puked on it. I went on to use these pieces to power my own creations.

This vast treasure trove of original almost mint-in-box LEGOs was because Stacy's mother dictated the style of play that Bryan had to follow. You will construct the LEGOs as the plans dictate. Upon completion of playing with the LEGO, you will dismantle either completely or partially dismantle the original LEGOs, and replace them in the original box. While I certainly befitted from this in the form of these awesome original LEGOs that we get to play with, I think it came at a price. Perhaps Bryan preferred to play with his LEGOs this way, and it didn't bother him. It would have driven me crazy as a kid.

As the so-called LEGO expert from childhood (I guess Stacy was painting, or putting on dresses, or playing with dolls or whatever girls are expected to do at that age), the role of LEGO guidance counselor for Joshie falls to me. Jake doesn't understand LEGOs, having gone directly Baby Crib toys to computer games, without any interest in any of the logical progression of kids' toys along the way. The LEGO construction gene/meme has certainly taken root in young Joshua.

Josh (6) is coming along quite well. When we got the Trade Federation Dropship, I was expected to do all of the construction. I had Josh help though. I had him sort the pieces by color, which made my task much easier. With each new LEGO toy which has been gifted to Joshie, we have assembled the LEGOs with more and more help from Josh. Recently, as a birthday present, I had him do the entire assembly of a Fire Marshall Helicopter, as I only told him what pieces to use and helped him with each step. When he received an identical LEGO set as a birthday gift, I had him do the whole assembly without my supervision, and he performed the task flawlessly. Now he can pretty much assemble, with the help of instructions, any simple to medium LEGO toy unsupervised. Repairing LEGO castles, and Drop Ships -- not so much. But he's coming along fine.

Cecilia got a Barbie doll and a matching Horse that I picked out for her at the local Loeb. Some of her promised gifts have not yet arrived from the US, so her celebration of Christmas for some toys will have to be delayed. She also recently got a book about a dog called "Mitsy." This is a book she insisted on having. The strange thing about this book is that it's entirely in German. Of all the kids, Cecilia has the most genuine interest in learning German -- not just something that is forced upon her to assimilate like a good kid.

Jake enjoyed Christmas immensely. Or so I heard. He's not here. We shipped him back to the US so he could be with his friends. We could not get the company to approve his travel on company money, so I sent him with my United Airline Frequent Flier miles. I had 106,000 miles on account, which I work out to be about 212 hours of me sitting on some commercial Jet-liner. I spent 80,000 to get him home for Christmas.

Did I mention he went business class??! That is because it took us so long to make the decision, that we couldn't fit him on to a flight to the US in Economy class, and I had the miles to do it. These are the frequent flier miles I have been saving up since 1999. To put this in perspective for Jake, I noted that 106,000 miles is almost half-way to the moon (225,000 miles). I hope he really enjoys this, and comes back to Switzerland less-miserable. His lack of enthusiasm is like a morale Kryptonite, poisoning those around him, and I sincerely hope this change of venue with the new apartment, along with the trip back to the US will change his attitude.

Me? I scored two cookbooks, so Stacy won't have to eat "Pizza and hotdogs and schnitzel and pasta" (her words) day after day because of the picky eater children. One a Vegetarian cookbook, the other a traditional Swiss cookbook. See the biggest problem we have with our American cookbooks is that they require ingredients that simply don't exist here. For example, Velveeta cheese, and Wonder bread. (no, I'm kidding). I also got a Flight Simulator for Gliders called "Condor." The disappointment for this gift is that once installed, it asked for a registration code that could not be found anywhere in the box whatsoever. I wrote to the email support, and expect a response something to the tune of "Please return it to the vendor." Thankfully we still have the receipt.

I had a Christmas present from several months ago, that I played with again today. The Ghetto Copter. I have promised to share this tale, and since I'm in the rare writing mood, and not the more common video-game playing mood, I'll share the tale with you.

The Ghetto Copter is what I called my repair attempts for my previously-super-cool Blade CX2 remote controlled helicopter. The day after my depressing Bautag with the Swiss glider club, where I was isolated in my non-Bärndütsch stage-two nadir, I realized that it would be a long winter without any soaring. On 7 October, the Swiss Toy expo was being presented at the Bern BEA Expo on the northern side of town. I took Cecilia, Josh, Joey and Stacy to see what could be found. Jake stayed home with an upset stomach.

The Swiss Toy expo was a huge arena of toys, toys, toys. They had train sets that Joey could not be torn away from. They had a huge video game area that Jake certainly would have loved, if it were not for stupid region encoding on all console video games sold outside the US. (i.e., any video games we purchase here in Switzerland for the Game Cube, PlayStation, or Xbox can't be played on our US equipment. Region coding is the stupidest invention of all time, and I can only hope that the WTO finds it in violation) (for you geniuses out there who invented on this idiocy, upon meeting you I would seriously be tempted to kick you in the sack).

In the Swiss Toy arena, they had a huge netted-off area with remote controlled toys. Airplanes, and remote controlled helicopters. The local Helicopter RC shop had a demonstration of the counter-rotating helicopter called the Blade CX2. This copter was so maneuverable that he flew it over to an object that he picked up with the heli, flew it over to the other side of the demonstration, dropped it off, and repeated. Not only did he have real skills in doing RC heli flight, but this beast actually obeyed his commands.

My previous experience with RC helicopters, especially the counter-rotating kind, was the MicroMosquito, sold exclusively by Radio Shack in the US (and only for a limited time). Although quite fun to fly around the house, it also had some really bad habits. Because it was so small, it was vulnerable to even the slightest breeze. How slight a breeze? If you had a cigarette, and its column of smoke was not perfectly vertical, this MicroMosquito would not be able to fight upwind. It also had a bad habit of getting into what we call a divergent oscillation -- an uncommanded oscillation of increasingly large swooping circles. As the blade speed was low, and the diameter of the blades not very long, the tendency for coning was huge, which led to this oscillation. With counter rotating blades, the upward coning blade met with the downward coning blade spinning in the opposite direction, ending in a crackling smack, followed by a crash. With one blade-strike too many, some parts of my MicroMosquito (which I carefully included in the air-shipment from America), made it no longer airworthy.

From the expert handling of the demonstration at the Swiss Toy expo, it was quite clear to me that this battery-powered helo Blade CX2 did not exhibit the fatal design flaws of the MicroMosquito, and therefore must be purchased immediately. I bought the boxed set for way too much money (all in Swiss Francs of course), along with the trainer kit. The trainer kit was essentially four ping-pong balls with precision holes cut in them, and some long plastic rods. The assembly was installed under the landing skids, so any landings not truly vertical wouldn't result in a dynamic roll-over causing blade-strikes with the ground. The diameter of the training set was also long enough to prevent blade strikes with the wall.

I set outside the next day to play with my new toy. It was a dream to fly. After watching the video that came with the helo (on YouTube), I adjusted all the adjustments, and managed to hover it very nicely, much easier to fly than the MicroMosquito. Of course, hovering doesn't last long until you think, "what else can this thing do?" It wasn't long until I was doing turns, flying forward, backwards, sideways. I flew it down the sidewalk. Hmm. Battery is getting low. I will have to shut it down soon. Too low! Not! Into!

Crash

...the concrete bench.

Pieces flew off. I winced. I approached it slowly. Two rotor blades eaten by the concrete bench. Good thing this guy is in Belp, and I can easily go and pick up replacement parts. Wasn't that training rig supposed to prevent blade strikes? Somehow I managed to crash the blades into the overhanging part of the bench, and out of the reach of the protective gear. Arrgh This is going to be not-cheap.

I bought some replacement blades that week, and set out in the local Soccer field instead. This should be plenty big, and won't suffer the same fate. And when I do crash (it always ends in a crash, doesn't it?), at least I will crash into soft grass. I can do this in the morning, before any soccer players show up.

I get out there, start hovering for a few minutes. Good, the replacement blades are doing fine. Let's do some forward flight. Hmm. Not going very fast. Let's do some turns with me in the center of the circle. Wow, this thing is going faster. Wow that's really fast. Woah that's getting far away from me. oh NO!!!!

Crash

This time, I had the upper blade and lower blade collision happen, apparently, I did too abrupt a movement at high speeds, causing lower blade speed, excessive coning, and a counter rotating blade strike. What is worse is that instead of crashing into a bench, or a soft soccer field, I managed to crash it in between a tree and a hurricane fence. The blades of the copter got stuck in the fence. In the terror of the moment, I forgot to shut off the throttle of the crashed copter. This is a fatal mistake that you are sternly warned against in the instruction video, and repeatedly in the manual. Now I learn why.

Strangely enough, the blades are not harmed. I take the copter to the soccer field and try again. This time, the copter won't take off, and spins madly to one direction. One of the blades does not power up at all. I later investigate the matter more closely, and discover that I burned out the left motor, which powers the top blades. Arrgh.

Another trip to Baumann. 30 Francs. Arrgh.

The two extra batteries I bought come in handy because I over-drained the battery when I crashed the helo into a fence. This old battery is useless and won't take a charge any more.

Another trip to Baumann. 25 Francs. Arrgh.

Followed by some good flights in the park over the fallen leaves of fall (and blowing them all over the place, way cool!) Another crash in the soccer field, all blades chipped or broken off. The fuselage is seriously compromised, cracks, some pieces fell off.

Hmm. This is getting expensive. I start doing the low-budget copter approach. Index cards taped where there were gaping holes in the fuselage. Scotch tape for the shattered rotor blades (which actually while I would not recommend for legal liability reasons, worked great), scotch tape wherever there were cracks. This cut down on the violent vibrations I noticed on the tail.

I present to you: The Ghetto Copter -- still flyable! Note the index card covering the vast section of fuselage that broke off, and the (un)healthy supply of scotch tape on the rotor blades and fuselage to hold it together.


I had no idea this was such an expensive addiction. I should stick to soaring. Not nearly as many accidents there.

The flying came to an end for a time when the landing gear broke so badly that I could not repair it with scotch tape, and I could not fashion any paper clips to handle the role effectively.

The helo has since been repaired by a not-cheap visit to Helikopter-Baumann by my wife, who found replacement landing gear, fuselage, and a huge supply of replacement rotor blades. I have been flying it safely indoors now, where I am forced to fly so conservatively that I don't get the temptation to fly fast and high any more. The cold weather causes the parts to become particularly brittle, and much more vulnerable to disaster. There is a huge selection of videos on YouTube for the CX2 in flight, most of the pilots shown there are much better than me.

My favorites so far:




Videos to Share

My friends who also relocated here to Switzerland had a quiet Christmas Eve dinner with their Swiss friends, and made a time-lapse video of the event. It was so clever, that I thought I would share it with you:

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... Along with the unwrapping of christmas presents, also in time-lapse. I wish I was as creative as they are.

More Bärndütsch

Well it turns out a lot of my answers were just plain wrong. (sigh). This section probably won't make any sense... I mean This section certainly won't make any sense to the non-Berners reading this. I'm including this so that the locals who do happen to read my Blog can actually feel sorry for me and maybe understand that I'm learning.

Äs isch mit mir i Walt chönne.
Should be...
Äs isch mit mir i Walt cho. (It has come with me to the forest)

Äs ha guet spile chönne.
Should be...
Äs het guet spile cho. (It could have been a fun game)

Äs isch nie Rüüme übercho.
Should be...
Äs het nie Rüüme übercho. (It nas never gotten a cold)

Äs cha schnure, aber nid brüele gha.
Should be...
Äs cha schnure gha, aber nid brüelei. (It has purred, but isn't uh.. shrug?)

Äs isch bald Jungi übercho.
Should be...
Äs het bald Jungi übercho. (It has already received uh... shrug?)

(sigh)

Shibboleths
A co-worker directed me to the very interesting article about shibboleths on Wikipedia. A shibboleth is a word that can only be spoken correctly by a native. The example most Americans would think of is "Louisville." Everybody outside of Kentucky pronounces this as "Looey-ville." All the locals pronounce it as "Loo-uh-vull", "Loo-vull", "Luh-vull", "Luh-uh-vul" or Loo-ville."

There are several Shibboleths in Swiss German. "Chuchichäschtli" and "äuä." But honestly, to me at this point, I just think the whole dialect is a huge collection of shibboleths.

Fondue
An American co-worker is in town to meet an arbitrary deadline set forth by the East-coasters. Since he is headed back to the US on Thursday, yesterday, we decided to take him to a nice restaurant in Gruyéres, to experience the Swiss custom of Fondue. Eight of us went to the restaurant and enjoyed a long 2 hour lunch (the first time I have done this since in Switzerland, I might add). We had wine and cheese and bread and potatoes. I call this the "Lipitor Lunch." There was much guilt after the lunch was complete, and I did not manage to have the will to eat dinner or even breakfast the next morning.

In case you're curious where this is, here's a map:


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Bärndütsch

What do you call somebody who knows three languages very well?
Trilingual.

What do you call somebody who knows two languages very well?
Bilingual.

What do you call somebody who speaks only one language?
American.

As a topic of conversation, people often ask me what languages I know. I proudly respond that I know English (of course), know German pretty well, at least to the conversational level, know Japanese to a much more puny level. My ability in Japanese is impressive enough only to impress people who have never learned Japanese, and impressive enough for the Japanese to realize that an American can say more than 大丈夫です "Daijoobu desu," but not really much more than that. The grammar is OK, but I lack sufficient vocabulary after a point, where I am reduced to pointing and grunting. My knowledge of French consists mostly of pointing and grunting in the caféteria at the office. Boeuf, s’il vous plaît.

As I have mentioned before, I'm also taking some tutorials for Bernese German, locally known as "Bärndütsch" That funny "ä" character is pronounced closely to the American accent of the 'a', like in 'fan' -- not like how a British person would pronounce it. Phonologists would describe the monophthong as a central rounded vowel. The ü is pronounced like a sound that does not exist in English. But something close to it would be somebody emphasizing the 'e' in true. With a weird accent.

This evening, I was working on my Bärndütsch homework. The lesson is to convert sentences from the present tense into the past perfect tense. This dialect doesn't have a past tense, like "I ran to the store," you would have to say "I have run to the store." Kooky.

So let me share my homework with you so you can feel my pain. Note that this should not be a representative of actual Bärndütsch, but a pathetic attempt by a frustrated American trying to figure out this dialect.

Present	Pluperfect
I ha deheim es Büssi. Äs chunt mit mir i Wald. Äs cha guet spile. Es chunt vor, dass äs fulänzet. Äs überchunt nie Rüüme. Äs isch scho elfi. Es chunt nie vor, dass äs bysst. Äs chunt mir gärn aa. Äs überchunt bald Jungi. Äs isch gent glücklech u ufgstellt. Äs het lieber Milch als Wasser. Chömet'er druus?	I ha deheim es Büssi gha. Äs isch mit mir i Wald chönne. Äs ha guet spile cho. Es isch vorcho, dass äs fulänzet Äs isch nie Rüüme übercho. Äs isch scho elfi gsy. Es isch nie vorcho, dass äs bysst. Äs isch mir gärn aa cho. Äs isch bald Jungi übercho. Äs isch geng glücklech u ufgstellt gsy. Äs het lieber Milch als Wasser gha. Syt dihr druuscho?

The course is taught based on a book called, well... "Bärndütsch" by Ursula Pinhero-Weber, (ISBN 3-7225-0010-9). This book is written in High German, and really seems to expect the audience to a native German speaker, for example coming to Switzerland from Austria or Germany. There are many new words that I don't even know in German, which are making this kind of difficult for me. It is clear to me that it is probably quite rare for an English speaker (much less an American) to actually wish to comprehend this dialect, because there seem to be very few books on this subject. In other words, there probably isn't a market large enough to justify Rosetta Stone in making a Swiss German version of their software.

Stacy bought a book for me a while back, which also doesn't seem to be filling my need well: Hoi! Your Swiss German Survival Guide. What I really need is some spoken Bärndütsch spoken slowly with Hochdeutsch subtitles and maybe also the phonetic subtitles for Bärndütsch. Since my office is all English, and I work in the French sector of Switzerland, our neighbors all talk to us in English, and all the signs are in Hochdeutsch, I am feeling pretty hopeless that this is going to be anything other than an intellectual exercise.

The only glimmer of hope of learning this was last week, when I was speaking with a local. The conversation turned to Bärndütsch, and I said one or two of the sentences I learned from my tutorials. The local laughed and was impressed that a foreigner, much less an American, would even attempt such a feat. Well, laughter is at least a first step, isn't it?

As mentioned before, my goal is really to understand WTH people are talking about in the flying club; maybe also on the train so I won't feel so isolated. Speaking this dialect isn't important to me, but I understand that in order to understand, speaking it might make it all easier. Anybody else know any English speakers in this situation? Success stories? I feel like I'm the first American in Bern ever to do this, as the Americans I have met here so far can hardly muster ordering a beer in Hochdeutsch.

Jungfraujoch and Interlaken

Back in November, my mother and sister came to Bern to visit. They spent the time in our cramped apartment in Bern, and got to see some of the sights to be had in Switzerland. Unfortunately, it rained most of the time, but there were a few days where the sun came out.

While the relatives were in town, we realized that it probably would be a horrible loss of opportunity for them to come all the way to Switzerland, so that they can just look at my apartment walls. So we found a day to get out of the apartment and go see Switzerland.

Gurten
On a quiet Saturday, I took my sister and her 6 month old(-ish) son up to the top of Gurten. The trip involved a walk from our Liebefeld apartment to the Wabern bei Bern train stop, and taking the hill-climber train, the Gurtenbahn, to see Bern from above.

Up until that point, the weather had been typical Bern for that time of year: Cloudy, foggy, drizzly, depressing. Fortunately

Thanksgiving

Starting the day before Thanksgiving, my mother, my sister, and my nephew arrived in Bern to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. This is the first time since we left the US that we have seen any family members; so their visit was incredibly welcome and well-received.

I was so excited by the visit, that I took the days off work to spend time with them. I was also maxed out on Paid Time Off, so this was perfect timing for them to show up.

Thanksgiving Dinner
Thursday was pretty much lost to recovering from jet lag for the travellers, so we elected not to have the celebration on the actual Thursday night. The dinner was scheduled for Friday night, and we invited all of the other co-workers in-exile from my office. Chris, Maria and Chris's wife, Miz K. Chris and Miz K. brought the beer, a honey-glazed ham, some sort of cranberry cherry thing, and some delicious glaze for the ham. Maria brought home-made Mac and Cheese from her mom's recipe book.

For you non-Americans reading this blog, please first get caught up on what Thanksgiving is all about, some of the foods eaten on Thanksgiving.

Usually, I don't really like the turkey, and will enjoy all of the side fixing instead of the actual Turkey. In fact, my opinion is that Thanksgiving would be perfectly acceptable if we just forgot the turkey, and ate only the side dishes. The ideal Thanksgiving dinner would contain these items, and not bother with the turkey:

• Green Bean Casserole
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Mashed Potatoes
• Stuffing
• Turkey Gravy
• Cranberry Sauce
• Pumpkin Pie

So, thankfully, we had all of these items. Some smuggled into Switzerland from the US, others found here, and some made from scratch. I think the only items we really had to smuggle in were the fried onion bits for the Green Bean Casserole. Hmm. Maybe some other items; I'm not sure.

Like every Thanksgiving, I ate too much. I should have worn my "stretchy-pants" to accommodate for the increased storage capacity. After the dinner, I was overcome with the urge to sleep, a side-effect doubtless caused by the Tryptophan. I made this remark at the dinner table, and Chris responded, "That sure is a long way to say the word Heineken", as he pointed at my glass of beer.

Jake sat next to Chris, and took pleasure at annoying Chris. He poked an increasingly annoyed Chris on the shoulder, saying 'poke, poke'. I guess he was trying to get attention, or just be funny.

"Jake, leave him alone. He knows Brazilian Jiu-jutsu, and probably could pummel you. And he has my permission. " I pointed out to Jake.

Chris's wife remarked, "Yeah, he only doesn't hit people with glasses, and doesn't hit girls." Jake got up from the table to go get his glasses; likely to don them as if they were some impenetrable shield. As Jake was walking back to the bedrooms, Miz K shouted, "Don't you go putting on your sister's clothes!" Well, it was funny at the time.

Fun With Foil
Sitting after dinner, we had a sheet of aluminum foil sitting idle. Conversation and fiddling fingers eventually started making funny things with folded aluminum. I think it started with Josh wanting me to make a paper airplane for him, made of Aluminum foil. I crafted one, threw it, and it flew beautifully. Chris started making Origami, making an unflyable airplane. Somehow, it turned into personal adornments. Earrings, nose rings, glasses.

My sister Deborah made glasses for Jake. I borrowed the glasses for a minute and crafted them to mimic Deborah's first pair of glasses -- a subject of mythic family folklore. Deborah's first pair of glasses were worn in the first grade. The glasses salesman pointed out the first pair of glasses, "These are so beautiful. I think you will really like these." They were turquoise, with blue sparkles, and had the typical harlequin cats-eyes shape that was so prevalent in the late 1960s. I have never seen these glasses. But their legend has lived on within family folklore for decades. As to why Deborah chose these glasses, the first pair that was offered to her, and why she accepted them so readily and eagerly, her response was, "Well I didn't want to hurt the salesman's feelings!" I understand the glasses were later broken in a tragic schoolyard incident, but I'm not fully aware of the details.

Here is my artistic impression, with aluminum foil, of those original glasses, as worn by my sister:


And worn by Jake, along with a pig's snout of foil:


What would foil be without wearing Hip-Hop's best ornament? The Dental Grillz! Chris (right) and I show off our dental fashion, with a mean look to go with it.


We had a really great time. Everybody did. Each foil creation was met with howling laughter. Each creation met with the next, more outrageous foil creation until we got to the dental grillz, when the joke finally got kind of old.

Miz K's local friend, living in Switzerland, originally from Poland, when told of our Thanksgiving adventures had many questions. Among the questions and incredulity of the quantity and quality of the food, finally asked: "Is this the way Americans celebrate this holiday? With Aluminum foil?"

Miz K responded:"The eating part, yes. The foil part? No, it hasn't been, but we had so much fun it will be from now on."

Stage Two Conquered

At last, I can write about my victory over "Stage Two"

Stage two? You don't know about stage two? Ok, let me take a few steps back and explain.

Stage Two
A co-worker, who re-located from South Africa shared me her relocation document, which seemed more thorough than the one I had gotten. Among many of the nuggets of very useful information, it described the four stages of ex-pats in relocating to a foreign country. Stage one can be summed up as "Oh this is great! Look at this cow-bell! It's so cute and Swiss!" The novelty of the banal excites you. The activity of relocating keeps you busy. The charm of novelty keeps you entertained.

Stage two happens after that novelty wears off. It can simply be described as the homesick phase. The psychology is a little more complex than just "homesickness." What once would inspire fascination for what the locals would find to be banal no longer appear fascinating or unique. The dialog of "Look at the bus fare machine! It has German and French on it! That's so cool! I love Switzerland" -- that dialog has gone.

You start to miss home. You realize the closest Taco Bell is in Iceland. You didn't particularly like Taco Bell in the US, and only had it maybe twice a year. You made fun of it every opportunity you had. But now you miss it. And there is no hope of satiating your desire until you go back to the US.

My Personal "stage two"...
Well it might be incredibly clear to you! It was right around that time that I didn't write any blogs. Right after the Geneva trip, and it abated about a week or so before the Japan trip, not finally being passed until I was in Japan. The nadir of my "stage-two-ness" was on October 6th, some bad news about the financing of my house back in Virginia came up. I missed Taco Bell terribly; finding that there were no Taco Bells anywhere in Europe. (How is this for depressing? Type Taco Bell Bern into Google and this blog comes up in the first page of hits).

To top off my disenfranchisement with Switzerland: I was very frustrated with the SGBern flying club. Not the lack of equipment, or inability to fly, but the fact that I felt absolutely isolated and alone with the club. This is not the fault of anybody in the club. I like them all. I think it's a great club. But it's not the club I left in Virginia. I had deep personal relationships with so many people in Skyline Soaring. I left them all behind. I was nearly regarded as the celebrity that I deserve in SGBern. Back home, I could fly up and down the valley with comfort and ease. I could join in on any conversation, and my opinion was valued. I left all that behind by coming to Switzerland. This was when the gravity of all these insights set in.

October 6th was the SGBern "Bautag" The fall clean-up that is done to prepare all the gliders for the winter season. Flying season pretty much ends in October, and the weather in Bern doesn't really allow for any flying. I felt rather isolated on that day, when I rediscover the realization that I don't understand a freaking word that these people are saying.

We were at the lunch table after doing the day's worth of work. I sat with the younger crowd. To my right, sat Ronnie, who lives in Schmitten. To my left, Christoph, who lives in Bern, and works as an architect. I occasionally talked to Ronnie, or to Christoph. In Hoch Deutsch with Ronnie, or English with Christoph. In one of those pauses with my chatting to Ronnie or Christoph, the tide quickly turned. The conversation suddenly and immediately turned political. In a moment, the conversation immediately occupied the entire table into a heated political debate -- in BärnDütsch.

Dammit! My comprehension of what was going on immediately went from 95% to 3%. They didn't mean to do it. They did not mean to exclude me. They did not want me to feel unwelcome. But it happened, they did and I was. That stupid language barrier has cast me out AGAIN. As I sat there at the table, a heated argument about SVP and Blocher, to me, it felt like I was in the corner, alone. The heated debate lasted 30 minutes, but it felt like hours. As I sat alone in my thoughts, I reviewed my decision to come here. I can't believe I left all my great friends in Virginia for this.

I can't believe I put myself in a place where people don't find me amusing, funny, smart, or knowledgeable. What the hell was I thinking? Why did I move from a nice big single family house in Virginia, to an over-crowded apartment around neighbors who don't like me and can't communicate with me? Why did I leave my beautiful glider, wonderful friends, easy food for this? Dammit! I am suffering the punishment of solitary confinement while in a crowd.

This was it. This was my moment of "Ex-Pat stage two nadir."

I am literally fighting back the tears as I write this. This period here in Switzerland really, really sucked. I didn't express my depression to anybody. (It's a typical guy thing). As I sat isolated at the table in a sea of unfamiliar phonemes, I planned my correction strategy. Just how exactly can I fix this?

1. Learn the Swiss German dialect of Bern (BärnDütsch).
2. Find some other distractions to occupy myself during the winter months. (R/C helicopter) (I'll get into the "Ghetto Copter" later).
   
3. Do more touristy-things.
   
4. Try not to work too much, as that will certainly depress me even more.
   

Nah. None of these things worked. The forces of work conspired to make me work many long days at the office. During this period, I couldn't spend much time with the family. time -- pretty much all of October -- I just sulked around. I don't even particularly remember that month very well. "I effin' hate this place." "WTH was I thinking?"

The opportunity to have a business trip to Japan came along. I took it. I love Tokyo. This will help, I'm sure. The rest of the family was deep in stage two, as well. (Joey excluded). I need this trip to Japan for ME.

American Humor in Tokyo
As I mentioned in the previous issue, the time in Japan was painfully busy. We worked 11 or 12 hour days every day. It was thankless, hard, tiring work. We often retired to our hotel rooms to immediately sleep.

To break the monotony of the working with computers, we had a few songs and subjects of humor which kept re-surfacing.

An oft-repeated subject was the constant re-playing of the theme song from movie "Team America: World Police" The song is poking fun at American patriotism. Sorry if the dialog from the song is not safe for work: "America! Fuck Yeah!" At the end of the song, they shout out things that you, as an American, should be proud of. The main singer shouts out the word of the patriotic subject, the responding singer responds with "Fuck Yeah!" Here are the subjects you should be proud of as an American, (as the song goes) (Original Lyrics)

• McDonalds
• Wal-Mart
• The Gap
• Baseball
• NFL
• Rock and roll
• The Internet,
• Slavery (What the hell?)

They take a breath, and go on to the next list, the range of subjects getting ever more questionable: But it's part of the humor.

• Starbucks
• Disney world
• Porno
• Valium
• Reeboks
• Fake Tits
• Sushi
• Taco Bell
• Rodeos
• Bed bath and beyond (in this case, the responder is rather confused and gives the response in a whisper)

Part three, ever more confusing as to why an American would be proud of these things. But they are American, especially the last two:

• Liberty
• White Slips
• The Alamo
• Band-aids
• Las Vegas
• Christmas
• Immigrants
• Popeye
• Democrats
• Republicans (confused response, they have a hard time mustering the response lyric)
• Sportsmanship
• Books

You may now be wondering why I transformed my PG-rated Blog into a tarpit of "Not Safe For Work" (NSFW) dialog. It is a rather strange, circuitous path toward delivering me from the jaws of "stage-two-ness." I think the song really did a great job of shouting the things I miss about the US in the first stanza, and then poked fun at some American things that we shouldn't be proud of (slavery, fake tits, etc), to the things I really don't miss from the US (Republicans, Bed Bath and Beyond).

Laughing seems to be a great way to get out of a funk. Laughing at yourself seems an equally valid path. I am pretty sure that nobody else will find this same path of deliverance from stage two to stage three. But this one was mine. Thank you, Trey Parker.

I think this song was more a catalyst than the actual concept which moved me on. The good laugh just gave me the kick I needed. In no time, after about ten days in Japan, I started to get homesick for Switzerland and not homesick for America.

Instead of missing Taco Bell, I started to miss the cute college girls on the train ride every morning (there seem to be a lot of those), the excellent lunch at the cafeteria next to the office, the excellent trains, the liberty of the "GA", seeing sheep, cows, reindeer on the train ride to work, and maybe the cute way the Swiss girls say "genau," oftentimes the only word I can understand when I eavesdrop.

Jake's Stage Two
"I hate it here in Switzerland." That is Jake's sluggish muttering expression, sighed with depressed resignation. This is mumbled precisely at the same time every morning and every evening. He chants as if it were a prayer, or a daily affirmation, or a mantra. "You asked me if I wanted to come here, I said 'no', and you still brought me here anyway."

Maybe there's something we can do?

I had a meeting with his home-room teacher at school, who had some suggestions on how to get him more acclimated. Get him involved. Get him some friends. Schedule other kids to come over. We live on the wrong side of Bern; it seems to us that all of the ex-pats live in the eastern side of town, closer to Muri, and closer to school in Gümligen. We got Jake involved in the basketball activity after school, and he is certainly starting to enjoy it, and best of all: He's becoming a better player!

There are a few girls at school he's got an interest in, and there are reportedly a few girls interested in him, too! When my visiting mother was waiting for Jake to get out of class one day, she patiently waited in the hallway with young Joey. Two girls came by and said, "Oh look at that kid, he's so CUTE!"

"Yeah", the other remarked. "That's Joey. He's Jake's little brother. He IS cute. Just like his older brother!" No word on who actually said this.

None of this matters. Jake seems to continually express his misery with the aforementioned mantra. He could have had a really wonderful time doing something incredibly cool and neat. To wrap up the day, he reverts to the "I hate Switzerland" mantra. We've been here 5 months now. He should be over this. I was done with stage two right a week or so before the Japan trip.

We recently bought all the kids a pair of skates, (and dusted off my old hokey skates from the closet) and took them to Ka-We-De in Bern. Jake really enjoyed skating, and may have even smiled once or twice. Cecilia has taken to skating like a natural. Joshie manages to stay upright long enough, but doesn't actually skate as much as walk on ice with skates on. Joey cries each time he gets on the ice. It is a good thing we didn't actually buy skates for him. The first night back on the ice, and I realized the next morning that it had been more than 10 years since on skates. I ached in places that I forgot I had muscles. Or maybe I didn't have muscles there, which is why it ached there. (Mostly in the hip abductor muscles)

Favorite Songs

My new favorite song, which is being played in this office over and over again:

Andrew Thompson (the singer) doesn't trust robots. You shouldn't either. Listen to this at least twice, and it will be stuck in your head. I laugh every time I watch this. Maybe this will brighten your day, too.


This next guy, DJ Bobo, is Swiss, and made this song in 2002; which turned out to be too popular in South America. Unfortunately (or thankfully, depending on your point of view), this never made it to the United States. I saw an interview with this DJ yesterday in one of the gratis Swiss newspapers I find on the train, ".ch" (That's pronounced as punkt tsee hah). I enjoy following this guys career in the 'cultural train wreck' sort of way. The kids are starting to sing it at home.
DJ Bobo's Chihuahua



His latest track, "Vampires Alive"... all I can muster to say is, "Ugh."

(Check out the wikipedia article about him. The Cantonese version of Chihuahua is quite amusing, too!)

Japan Trip

I recently came back from Japan. What was supposed to start off as a 12 day trip turned into a 17 day trip, as some expected equipment did not arrive in time.

Here's my photo album:


...And a map of where I worked and stayed:


View Larger Map


Highlights of the Trip:

Unfortunately, I worked nearly the whole time. 16 of the 17 days were spent in that data center, and there was very little time to goof off. Which is a shame that I spent so much time flying over to that country from Switzerland, only to spend the whole time in the data center.

But here are some cool things that I managed to squeak out, despite the 70 hour work weeks:

Roppongi
Roppongi is the place where all the US Navy sailors and marines go, when on shore leave. This means that the businesses of the area cater to the foreign interests especially. There are many english speaking establishments there. There are also some street corners that are very shady. The four of us went to go find a place to get a drink, and we ran the gauntlet.

There is one street in Roppongi that could best be described as "running the gauntlet." Many of the establishments, in order to get you into their bar, will have men on the street corner, asking you to come to the club. They are very pushy, and usually don't take no for an answer. They are usually inviting you to "Gentlemen's clubs" or strip clubs, but occasionally, they invite you to just regular bars.

After walking 5 meters and telling 7 or 8 of these guys to buzz off, I pulled the "Quebeqois Act," only I don't know French, so I had to substitue with German, instead. What I call the "Quebeqois Act" is when you act like you don't speak English, but you actually do. I walked the street, in German, "No, I don't speak English. Only German. Go away" I thought I had figured out how to get rid of them. Suddenly, this Nigerian with PERFECT German called me on my bluff, inviting me to his club. You can't win here.

Toy Park
I did manage to visit the Toy Park in Ginza. It took me a few tries to find it again, and I did do a lot of extra walking in Ginza. I don't mind getting lost. Toy Park is a store that has lots of cool Japanese toys -- four floors of neat Japanese toys you can't find in the US or Switzerland. I bought ¥20,000 worth of toys, including some 3-D puzzles for Jake, two train sets for Joey, a transformer of some sort for Joshie, and a Kimono for Cecilia.

エアロフライテックシリーズ の Ｑスカイ
(AeroTech Series Q-Sky)

Toys for me? Oh heck ya. I've recently gotten into small remote controlled aircraft. (I will write about the "Ghetto-Copter" in another issue) While at the Toy Park, I bought a nice little remote controlled airplane that can be flown indoors. The plane is made of Styrofoam and weighs not much more than a few pieces of paper. Aerotech's Q-sky. Here's a commercial on YouTube.

Of course, the instructions are written for Japanese, by Japanese. And they are hilarious. Here is the instruction page. These are the actual instructions that came in the box -- really, I'm not making this up. Click on it so you can see the images up close. Since you don't know Japanese, I will translate the captions for you below.



Let's go through the instructions: starting with block one:

1. Don't wear the airplane as a necklace


2. Don't put the controller between your legs, you never know when it's going to blow up and damage your dangling bits.
   
3. Don't use it as a karate chopping block. Nobody will be impressed.
   
4. Dogs are not allowed to fly remote control airplanes.
   
5. If you score a touchdown, don't spike the plane.
   
6. Magicians are not allowed to use their special powers to influence the flight.
   
7. Do not pick your nose while flying the plane with one hand. We are not impressed by your ability to multitask.
   
8. Don't shout out your window telling your neighbors about your plane. They probably won't be as impressed as you think they will be.
   

Return Trip
On the way back, I was blessed with mostly clear weather over Siberia. Yes, Russia is big. The trip from Tokyo to Zurich is a 12 hour plane ride. The flight begins with a direct north route, about 45 minutes going over the Japan Sea, and reaching the Russian coastline. The next 9 hours are flying over Russian territory. The most amazing thing is that I saw absolutely no signs of civilization until Vazhki (sp?).

For a long time, the world record for a glider flight was a ridge flight, starting from Pennsylvania, down to Tennessee, and back up. Relatively recently, this long distance glider flight record was broken in Argentina, in 2003. I have wondered if the Ural mountains would serve as a good opportunity to break that record in Argentina. With the length of the Urals, and the long daylight of the summer months, it might actually be possible:

This flight over Russia gave me the opportunity to see the Urals from altitude to let my imagination wander. It appears that the urals are very rocky to the north, and more smoothed out to the south. There appears to be a significant gap between this rocky northern part, and the smoothed out shorter southern part. Also, I noticed that there is no prepared terrain anywhere nearby. If you land out, you are landing out in the trees, maybe 1000 km from the nearest rescue team. Hmm. Maybe somebody else can attempt that record.

Here's a rough estimate of my flight back over Russia. I should have taken some pictures, because I will not likely ever be able to see this view again. Here's a map of what I'm talking about. The orange line is the proposed record-breaking flight, and the blue was the flight path my jet liner took. The blue marker shows where the Ural mountains break, and the pink-ish marker shows the first signs of civilization that I saw along the trip.


View Larger Map