Coming from the United States and being the man of the house and I have always been the chef as well. Now that I am here in Basel, I have challenged myself to adapt to the culture here and start cooking German and Swiss meals, as much as the family can take. I am taking German lessons for 20 weeks and today I asked my teacher to grab her coat (and umbrella) and hit the streets to help me out in the grocery stores and with the street vendors.

We hit the local Coop and immediately headed for the butcher, seafood, bread, cheese, delicatessen and vegetable sections. Is it me or is the shopping here tricky? You can see a box or package and guess what it is but I have made plenty of mistakes while shopping too. I took an entire page of notes and I am still going through them now.

Next we headed out on the town, during the Basel fall Festival so street vendors were everywhere. I immediately dragged my instructor to the bratwurst vendor to get a translation there as well. I have made my mistakes while ordering in restaurants and had to know what the differences were in the options of "wurst".

Anyway, the point of this email is to see if Expats, from any country, would be interested in doing one to two hour walking tours of street vendors and more importantly a grocery store. I would like something fun but formal so we could cover plenty. Also, the tour/translator would be a valuable asset to a successful training. He/she needs to be great at mapping Swiss and German foods to the items we buy in the U.S and be open to all of the questions we would ask.

I have spoken to the company that was in charge of our relocation and they would be interested in putting something to together but I would need 10 people at around CHR 10-20 a person to cover their fees. Is there any interest in doing anything like this? Maybe I am the only Expat here with this issue but who knows. Please give feedback to this idea.

Sounds like a good idea but not for me. Shopping is one of my least favorite activities here in Switzerland. Why does it always seem that there are five uptight shoppers behind me in line, seemingly glaring, with their 2-3 items while I have a full shopping cart of items? However, I do enjoy hearing the multiple ways of saying goodbye, nice afternoon, etc.,... in the 15 second monologue from the friendly checkers when I leave.

Too funny, you hit all of your points head on.

Hi jmiddlebrook

I'm interested - have sent you a pm.

Maud

That's a good idea! I am OK with shopping in Switzerland and my German is OK enough that I don't buy weird stuff, but I would hope the 'tour' wouldn't be just aimed at American items. I'm already struggling through an American cookbook down here in Australia so any 'translation' should suit non-Americans as well.

Have fun folks, would love to join you but have to wait a bit yet.

Pam