May 31-June 2

I have taken the American custom of efficient mealtimes far too much for granted. Here, we adhere to a fairly rigid schedule in which lunch is served out of ponderous earthenware bowls and takes a standard three-and-a-half hours, and where dinner is served off of sturdy wooden platters and takes four.

As a point of comparison, seven-and-a-half hours is somewhat longer than your standard European work day.

We have eaten incredibly well here: we’ve tried raclette, which is a Swiss delicacy involving slabs of cheese melted in little pans on a bazier and then scraped onto bites of potato and pickled onion; we’ve feasted on roast chicken picnic lunches; and we’ve dug deep tracks into rhubarb cobbler made with ingredients fresh from the Middelmanns’ garden. And all these treats are accompanied by so much golden, crusty bread that I fear, in the words of a New York panhandler who I once offered a roll, that I’m turning into a loaf.

Long after the last sauce is sopped up with the last morsels of bread, we sit there, listening. After a while, the muscles begin to twitch of their own accord, and, when wisdom loses the battle to youthful immaturity, you begin to commit little sins against Emily Post and common decency. Perhaps (spitballing here) you fold your cloth napkin into origami shapes, or rearrange your silverware on your plate to tell the time, or (if you are a true mannerless brute) warily catch the eye of another fellow sufferer and burst into spasms of laughter ill-disguised as minor aneurysms.

When we are dismissed, we retire to our chalet trembling with intellectual fatigue, yet somehow we must continue the conversation for hours over yet more white bread, which inhabits every nook and cranny of Switzerland, I think. My fear is that is we stay much longer, we will become accustomed to passing days in this way. Every time I pull my chair to the table, it gets a little easier to stay…and stay…and stay. Culture shock is imminent when I return to the New York desk-lunching world.

Apart from these daily activities, on Sunday we went to a church in the little village of Lausanne, where Udo preached in English to a tiny and friendly international congregation.

Later, we picnicked be a lake that looked over into France, and it was warm enough to think about swimming, though not perhaps to commit the act. I think the snow is melting more each day from the peaks I see out my window, but perhaps it’s just the sunlight fooling my eyes.

We went to a Bach concert that afternoon at an ancient cathedral, falling gently asleep in our chairs to strains of the world’s finest music, surrounded ancient Swiss bishops in their crypts and sarcophagi and ancient (but living) Swiss laypeople in stiff wooden chairs like ours.

As we groggily got up to leave, the sun was setting over the frilly rooftops and belltowers and cobblestones, and the whole of the dusk felt absolutely authentically Swiss.

Another delight: every fountain in Switzerland must run with clear, drinkable water by law, if it doesn’t sport a sign bearing the words “non-potable.” I’m drinking more fresh Alpine water than I’ve ever before desired, simply because of the novelty of being able to scoop it at random from any stone pool or wooden trench.

Tuesday was our last day in Switzerland, and also Eri’s 22nd birthday. Jill bought a fascinating fruitcake with what looked like partially dissolved aspirin tablets speckled across the top. It was covered with wrinkles that seemed to give it nearly the appearance of human flesh, and we warned Eri that she could look forward to looking like that by the time she turned 40 if she kept indulging in Mediterranean suntans.

We leave tomorrow for Manuel’s wedding in Warsaw, Polan, As usual, our flight blans include absurdly lengthy layovers (this time in London), and some degree of ambiguity as to the likelihood of actually arriving. I’m told Poland is lovely and full of castles, but don’t know if anything will compare in my mind to the all-consuming mountains and hilly vineyards of Switzerland.

It’s strange to think how long it has been since I have been inside an English speaking country.