i had been picking and eating blackberries while strolling along, and noticed a particularly good patch - just before i noticed that the fence the blackberries rambled along contained WILD BOARS.
when they looked over at me and perked their ears up, i tossed in a berry.
one enormous tusked head sniffed, then rose, and then snuffled up the berry. the beast then came over and begged for more.
i couldn't keep up with the demand, so ni was picking berries so i could pass them through the fence to the eager piggies.
it was delightful.
it was only partially spoiled by the huge sign that we found just around the next bend warning do not approach the fence, do not get within 3 metres of the boars and especially do not try and feed them.
i still have as many fingers as i went with, so i consider it a win.
the worst part of the trip was the trip to the local zurich pharmacy.
the pharmacy tech that i spoke to was beautiful. she was between the age of nineteen-and-a-half and twenty four. she was cute, blonde, blue eyed and smiling. she had a rhinestone on one of her front teeth just to give her gleaming smile an extra twinkle.
she spoke hesitant english.
i spoke no german. i speak some french, but it's appalling quebecois french, so i try to avoid using it in europe.
she had noticed that i needed help, so i dove in.
"i have a yeast infection..."
"infection? what is that word? yist?"
she was clearly embarrassed at her uncharacteristic lack of fluent english. i was embarrassed because i didn't know how to communicate the nature of my medical needs with her in french or german.
i had noticed that "candida" was a really popular swiss brand of toothpaste and chewing gum, so i was at a loss for how to explain it to her.
she called over another pharmacy employee, but he was busy and he directed us to the large french-english-german dictionary.
alas, the word for yeast according to that book related only to brewing beer or rising bread and was thus only serving to further muddle up the communication.
"where is infection?" she gestured to her own body and encouraged me to act out my problem.
"my vagina..." i said, she looked confused, so i resigned myself to the pantomime. i pointed and waved my hands.
"my vagina is VERY ANGRY..."
she was even more embarrassed, and so was i.
she did understand the particulars of the problem, and then nervously giggled and pointed out that we had been using a display for canesten kombi-pack as a table for the dictionary.
i giggled as well.
she was very sympathetic as she rang up a box of the canesten for me.
my vagina was happy again.
much cheese and wine was consumed, and good times were had.
komet is an exceptional host.
i need to go to europe more often.
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