Early in the morning, picture of the day

I had to hurry up, to get this picture, it started to rain later on. The colors of the forest are now very pretty.

Picture of the night

We went with friends to a folk music night and had a good time till late that night. We just could go, because we had reverations. Otherwise the room was booked out.

Schweizerische Volksmusik ist in! Especially the "Schwyzerörgeli" is just something!

Picture of the day

Nice evening in town, not to far away from our home. The stores in Bern are opened till 9pm and people like to go shopping and have a good time in town after work.

Picture of the day

A cattle in the fall.

Good Crops in Switzerland 2009

Even with the unsteady weather was the crop very good and we are satisfied.

Surfing on rivers

River surfing is a quite dangerous and you have always to have somebody watching you, in case you need help.

Our Cows don't have a skateboard

Our cows are enjoying life, but they enjoy it without a skateboard.
As long as we don't use one, we don't think about giving one to the cows, haha

Cows & Politics Explained

A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.

A SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?

AN AMERICAN DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous.

A COMMUNIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk.

A FASCIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage.

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. They are mad. They die. Pass the shepherd's pie, please.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A BRAZILIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship both of them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported on them.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION: There are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute.

Sun or rain, Bern is always ok!

Our summer is mixed with sun and rain, no problem to visit Bern, this town is for every one and for every season.

Walking in May

Who comes there?

May is the time to go walking

Happy Easter

Bahnhofstrasse Zürich

Bern to Zürich by train

Meeting in Zürich by train

Wunderfull day to go to Zürich, I start from the Westside, which is just 2 miles from my home.
Bern to Zurich takes just 56 Minutes with the train and it is exciting to be on wheels.
First I want to read in a book, but there are around me at list 4 people on the cell phone and honestly I cannot concentrate on my book, but never mind, there stories are even more fascinating.

Springflowers all over the place

Switzerland eases banking secrecy

Switzerland, the world's largest offshore financial centre, has agreed to accept concessions on bank secrecy.
The announcement comes after Switzerland had risked being added to a global blacklist of uncooperative tax havens.

Spring is coming, but crisis is still not behind us

Insteed of Spring comes more Snow

Last Saturday was like spring, but then it started to rain till everything was green, and then again came a lot of snow.

It looks very nice today and even in politics it looks nice and we hope the goverment of Switzerland has good discussions with United States.

There is nothing like traveling and visiting

When we left Switzerland for Dubai 10 days ago, we couldn't find one egg of chocolate to bring to our daughter Andrea and her new family.
We stayed with them for five days and had a extremely good time.
Now we are back to old life again and yesterday when I went shopping, the grocery store was full with Easter chocolates, eggs and Easter bunnies, even if Easter is still 43 days away.
Yesterday it also got warmer around here, it was about 15° C , snow is melting, snowdrop are starting to bloom and even bees start to fly out. They don't lose any time!

It is still freezing and more snow will come

Snow again, good enough for a snowman

After a rainy saturday follows a snowy sunday.

health insurance and unemployment

Switzerland has about 7'800'000 persons and every one has to have a health insurance and this insurance gets more costly every year and if somebody has not enough income, then he gets state assistance.
Today are about 87 health insurance companies.
In January lost 10'000 (0.3%) people their job, that means the rate of unemployment is now by 3.3%, and lots of companies are on short hours.

Wood is heating twice, when you carry it and when you burn it

It is a very cold winter and Hans is bringing everyday firewood to Bern.
We are glad to have Robert from Slowakei to helps him to prepare the wood.
Russia apparently completely stopped its gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine .
Causes of the conflict was the failure of negotiations for the new supply agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

After holidays everybody goes back to work

Tomorrow starts the work everywhere and today will the streets be full with traffic.
So we will stay home and just go out for a walk.
I went yesterday to the shopping center www.westside.ch and it was really crowded.
This evening will also come Robert back from Slowakei to Switzerland.
He started to work here at the 1. of October and he stayed at home with his family since December 18. He has a wife and two daughters.
He will come by train and we will pick him up in Bern.

Happy New Year

With Sylvester came also a lot of snow. My parents wanted to come and visit me, but the roads were to bad, so they stayed home and today I will go and see them.

We wish you all a happy New Year !