Swiss and AA Suck

A few months ago I purchased an economy-class ticket to New Orleans with American Airlines. I'm a music fan and wanted to attend the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival. It was a great festival, I met some cool people, and I hope to attend again some year.

The choice of flying with American Airlines was partially due to cost but mostly due to the Travelclub partnership with Swiss. Travelclub is your basic loyalty and rewards program where customers can accumulate points and later spend them on rewards such as a free flight.

After returning from New Orleans, I completed the points claim form and had it rejected. After a telephone call to Travelclub I learned that I flew in a booking class that did not qualify for points. I was confused. Didn't economy count?

Apparently American Airlines has numerous booking classes and I happened to be in a class that did not qualify. This wasn't clear when I booked the flight: My online agent Ebookers.ch only notified me that I was flying in economy. Had I been in class A, B, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q (only if sold outside Europe), R, S, V, W, Y, or X I would have been eligible for the points. I flew class O.

I'm disappointed with Swiss, American Airlines, and Ebookers for obscurring this information. American Airlines has a complicated booking system (23+ classes?!) that only came to light after I got screwed. In the end, I missed the fine print and I'm not surprised. I'm certain it's somebody's job to do this.

Language Barriers

Moving to Switzerland has been challenging. "…just there [in Europe] it’s a little different." said Vincent to Jules on their way to a job in Pulp Fiction.

The differences are too numerous to mention, but likely the biggest challenge to a migrant is the language. Switzerland has four official languages, three are widely spoken, and one is local to Switzerland. Swissgerman is the language of eastern Switzerland and is spoken by roughly 64% of the population. There are many dialect flavours and the Swiss pride themselves on being able to tell where a person is from by the way they say hello or "Gruezi".

The dialect is difficult, so difficult that even native German speakers can’t understand it. However, with pratice, time, and some understanding of normal (high) German, I can now understand about 70% of what is spoken depending on the context, who is speaking, and how loud the music is.

Swissgerman isn’t really required to live here. It’s rare that I meet somebody who can’t speak English, and even a rarer that they can’t speak high German. So conversing with the individual isn’t a problem unless we simply have nothing to talk about.

It’s with groups that I’m screwed. I don’t want nor expect everyone to switch to English or high German for me. It just won’t happen because it’s not natural for them to speak to each other in these languages. What does happen is that conversation flies over me, I understand the odd sentence without context, and look lost when people break out in laughter. The challenge is not to look bored. My helpless face will sometimes buy a translation, but by then the joke is already long past.

It’s an inevitable part of living here that will only subside once I master the language, and that will only come about by submersing myself in such situations where Swissgerman will be spoken. I realize this isn’t anybody’s fault, but will this take another 3.5 years?

Painful Lesson

Today after four years I visited the dentist. I never feared the scraper and light in my youth. Visits were a mere formality to hear that everything was in good working order. In my 30 years I only had one cavity and oral surgery to remove my four wisdom teeth.

Perhaps my over confidence for dental hygiene caught up with me. Today I learned that a root canal is required on one of my teeth. This didn’t come as a shock, but rather as disappointment for procrastinating. Four years! It was neglect that caused this. No other reason. Now I have to go through the procedure and pay through the nose. There is a lesson here somewhere.