A fundamental cultural difference

"Americans don't want to have to scrub poop off the inside of the toilet. They don't! We'll take the extra water in the bowl to avoid that."

- my wife, after scrubbing our kids' poop off the inside of the toilet

Writer Abroad

My on-line, fellow American living in Switzerland, VCU alumnus, friend that I've never met in person, Chantal has launched a new blog called Writer Abroad. (This is in addition to One Big Yodel.)

Check it out here.

Gruyere Illustrated

We recently had family in town and took them to one of our favorite Swiss spots - Gruyere, about 80 minutes away from Geneva.

I picked up a couple postcards while I was there. I love old timey illustrations like this. It's what people did before the Canon Powershot.

I'm also a big fan of old tour posters. I love photography, but you just can't get a shot like this unless there's a giant ladle floating in the sky.

Branding Lessons from Vomiting in the Park

This morning, in the middle of presenting some ideas to my creative director, I got very nauseous. Five minutes later, I excused myself and went and threw up in the restroom.

Outside of vomiting, I felt fine. But I left the office to get some fresh air. Then, while I was in the park, I threw up again. Of course people throw up in parks all over the world. It's one of the things that ties the human family together. But I somehow vomiting in a park made me feel strangely European.

As it so happens, two police officers were passing on my last few heaves. As I stood up from my crouched position, this is the conversation that took place (translated literally):

POLICEMAN: Is it going?

ME: No.

POLICEMAN: Is it not going?

ME: I think I eat something bad.

POLICEMAN: Oh.

ME: I vomit in the office. In the toilet in the office. Then I come walk in the park. And I vomit.

POLICEMAN: Is it going?

ME: I think so now.

POLICEMAN: (makes a drinking gesture) Coco-Cola! Drink lots of Coca-Cola!

ME: Yes. Thank you.

I've heard it said that the highest tier of brand-dom is when a brand becomes a verb, i.e., when you Google something, or FedEx a package, or Xerox a paper. But I'd have to say it's when a brand is thought to improve someone's health. Especially in spite of being sugar water.

p.s. I am feeling much better now. It is going.

Barry and the Halloween Party

A friend of a freind started Obama in Our House - a kind of Flat Stanley project with a 6-foot cut-out of the President that's traveling the world (he came to me by way of Sweden).

I decided to use him as part of my Halloween costume this year.

In Geneva, the big Halloween party for expats is our church party, which gets bigger every year. It's a little funny that a few Christian faiths eschew Halloween as a night of bats, monsters and pumpkin worship, but the Mormons embrace it as a night of pot-luck fun and free on-site baby-sitting.

A few observations on bringing a 6-foot Barack Obama cut-out to an LDS/expat party:

1. The Africans love him. No matter what country they were from, little African kids in the building would call out his name and jump up and down when I walked down the hall with him.

2. The Americans loved that their kids knew who he was. No matter what their political position, Americans are so happy that their kids aren't totally out of touch with the homeland that they recognize who's in charge. (An American friend of mine said she became concerned last Fourth of July when they pulled out the Stars and Stripes and her daughter asked, "Mom, what crazy flag is that?")

Whatbits?

I’ve had to learn to write in UK English for the majority of our clients. "Colour." "Programme." Stuff like that.

I'm on a new assignment, and I’ve recently learned that the British don’t have “tidbits." They have “titbits.”

If that’s how the Brits want it, fine.

But if you Google each word, you get surprisingly different results.

Omaha Beach

While in Northern France, we stopped at Omaha Beach. As we approached, I told my kids what happened here on June 6, 1944. I had hoped it would instill a sense of reverence and appreciation in them.

Instead, my sons combed the beach looking for bullets.

Art history by accident

Last week our family drove seven hours for a vacation in Northern France. An hour north of Paris, we were all getting a little hungry, so we started looking for a place to stop for lunch.

The nearest city was Rouen. I had never heard of Rouen, but it looked big enough to offer something nicer than a roadside McDonald's. When we arrived, we found this...

Turns out the city is the home of the Cathedral Notre Dame de Rouen, a subject Monet had painted over 30 times. (It's much less fuzzy in real life. Even with the scaffolding.)

Had we eaten earlier or packed a picnic, we would have never seen this. Had we paid more attention in art history, we would have stopped on purpose. As it was, it was just a happy accident.

I think the only time something like this happened to me in the States was when I was on the corner of Broadway and 112th Street.