Prairie Post
9-07-13
(today from Lausanne, Switzerland)
It’s a beautiful day, here, in the city overlooking Lac Léman. Bievenue in Lausanne! The mountains on the other side of the lake are partially covered by fair-weather clouds; thunder had cleared the air over night. It is a late-summer day, the people of Lausanne enjoy a few more hours of sun and warmth, they spend time outside, they meet at the Lake, they suspect that autumn is just on the other side of the mountain. Bievenue in Lausanne!
How international this city must be with French, German, and Italian as their official languages, and with English as an additional bonus language to learn! But perhaps this town is too close to the French border, there are no signs of other languages, no German, no Italian, perhaps some English, mostly French, all French, just French, yes French is the language of choice. No signs or interpretations in German or Italian, all just in French, français, français, and français. Bievenue in Lausanne, bievenue to the Swiss French-only culture.
Indeed, they speak French, they live French, they eat French. Kidneys, and pork shanks, and horse meat, and tarte flambé; croissants as petit dejeuner with café noire, the usual… the menu in French, no German, no Italian, am I still in Switzerland? Oh yes, they do serve Rösti here, these wonderful Swiss potato pancakes, but they offer IPA beer with it. IPA here, in Switzerland? Really?
It is easy to travel through town with the metro system, free for all tourists and convenient to use. The 13th century cathedral on top of the hill purports to protect the city, there are stairs and stairs and stairs, there is a lot of up-and-down in this town. Let’s walk, ok, let’s walk… the young generation has its own quarter in town, with blasting music only identified by the young, with a “beach” restaurant in midst of concrete pedestrian zones, plenty of places to hang out. Why do I feel that I might not belong?
I do belong to the other side of town where they placed the university, separate from the rest of the city. The campus is nicely located right next to the Lake. Quite a few psychologists are walking around, talking, speculating, listening. They wonder what children “think,” children who are confused why adults don’t seem to know the answers to questions they are asking. How do children conceptualize the world? Is it really round? If so, why don’t we fall off? Perhaps because we live in the middle or on top of the earth… How do children think? How do adults become resilient in the face of adversity? And more discussion on gene-environment interactions: the same gene can have a positive effect if the environment is positive, it can have a negative effect, if the environment is negative – differential susceptibility is the clever word somebody coined. They talk, and they talk and they talk – perhaps the fresh air here makes their thoughts come loose, here in this mountain city next to Lac Léman, where people speak French, and only French, all the time, where the food is notably French and where the coffee is either “noir” or au lait. Bievenue in Lausanne!