M-Budget, je t'aime!

Ah, M-Budget.... you're so much cheaper than all those other pretentious food products with their ungreen labels and fancy names. You even provided me with a reasonably-priced cell phone!

Sadly, there are a great many markets that M-Budget has not yet made its way into, and, with the exception of bike rentals (free for 4 hours!!) they are all ridiculously expensive. The day after I arrived, I stopped by the gym across the street to see how much a membership would be. Go ahead...guess. Nope! You're way off-- its 250 CHF a month!! (Swiss francs are about the same as dollars.) And its a crappy gym.

Today I realized that to spend my lunch hour swimming will require some sort of timepiece to let me know when the hour is up. So, after asking my officemate for advice, I headed over to Manor, the big department store, and browsed the watch section. Not surprisingly, the Swiss do not seem to understand why anyone would want a watch but for its aesthetic appearance and superior quality. Indeed, the salesman seemed less than impressed when I admitted that I was looking for the cheapest possible watch that only needed to tell time and survive in water. He reluctantly took me the "bargain section" of plastic watches that averaged about 60-70CHF. Why hasn't Wal-mart taken over this country yet?? After giving up on finding a cheap watch I moved on to the electronics section in search of a microphone for my computer (so I can talk to you people for free), but alas, once again I was foiled by the high prices. Sadly, I left Manor empty handed, and came home and enjoyed a nice warm bowl of M-budget pasta. Mmmm.....