Everybody's reading the newspaper

I was going to tell you about school but I'm a bit annoyed with that at the moment so can't think happy thoughts about it right now. Another time.

Instead I will tell you, those of you not living in Switzerland, about reading the newspaper. You've got to get into doing that. Everyone does it here. It's the in thing to do you know.

Here we are, waiting for the train and... reading the paper! I should have taken this picture a few minutes later when there were more people, but I was worried about getting into trouble for snapping pictures of strangers.

Ah ok, I understand. You have to first go to a shop like Pick'nPay or Checkers to buy the paper and then you sit with such humungous pages that you need quite a bit of floor space to read the newspaper. It used to take me a week to read one newspaper. I used to buy the Argus on a Wednesday because it had a school supplement in. Then it kept me busy the rest of the week. You have to make time to go and sit down with your newspaper in SA. You can't stand and read it while you wait for the train, because well, I don't know anyone in SA who takes the train and you'll probably wait quite some time and then you won't be reading anything because you'll be holding onto your handbag and trying to hide your wedding ring that's on your finger in case someone tries to steal it. And if after all this you still try to read your newspaper standing outside in Cape Town, the wind will blow it away! You also won't read it sitting on the train because your neighbours won't be very happy having to sit underneath half your newspaper while you're paging through it.

No here it is a little different. At all the train stations there are 3 boxes for the different free newspapers. Here's a picture:

The purple one is for the evening paper, and then there are two others in the morning. You've got to get there early or there won't be any left. And now that I'm working in the morning, I do get there just early enough (8am) to still get one. Oh yes, I have been reading these for quite some time now! And I can happily say that my German has improved so that I can now actually scan through some articles where as before I had to really sit and read and read again to try and understand. In the beginning I did it because it was the only German practise I got. Now I do it because I'm curious to see what's in the news every day.

This morning I decided I'm not going to take one because I want to read my book. But I wasn't even on the train yet when I read a headline over somebody else's shoulder and then I also wanted one, worried that I might be missing out on some important news.

So at the next station I grabbed one of the last newspapers and did what I now do every morning: read the newspaper in German like every one else does. Even the kids read it on the train.

Oh, and it's a perfectly manageable size too you see!