Bern, books, and by-the-way
The Battle of Murten or Kim’s 550-Year-Old Fake News
Murten (Morat in French) is a German- and French-speaking Swiss community of around 10,000 in the canton of Fribourg. It perches above a small lake and boasts a walled medieval Old Town complete with a castle and a fifteenth-century church. It’s a good place to take out-of-town guests, not only because it’s beautiful, but also…
A Small Defeat for Toxic Nationalism
You may have noticed that Switzerland has been in the international news recently. Last Sunday, on June 14, 55% of Swiss voters rejected a proposal to cap the country’s population at 10 million by 2050. Right now, the country has a little over nine million people. If the Swiss had said yes to the proposal,…
My Swiss Washday
Soon after I moved to Bern in 1988 as the young wife of a Swiss man, I met a delightful American woman named Margaret, who had been the young wife of a Swiss man in the 1930s. She’d married a farmer, and when we spoke, she was still living in a Bernese farmhouse. I was…
The Luck of the (One-Sixteenth) Irish
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! When I was in elementary school, it was customary for anyone who didn’t wear green on March 17 to be pinched by their classmates. I made an effort to remember my “something green” every year, but I must have forgotten at least once, since I can recall crying as a seven-…
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Kim Hays 