easy to spend, hard to save.

Today the farmer's market had about quadrupled in size.  Hot food vendors, cured meat vendors, people selling knitted things, sewn things, wooden things, jewelry, people with plants in pots.  I tried very hard to only buy the vegetables I had come for, but then I saw this.

It's not all that hard to save, of course; I just don't leave the house too often, and when I do, it's to work at the print shop or do official business.  It's a good thing that I'm not (too much of) a compulsive spender because, as I wait to get paid for my playing work, I am getting close to broke, with all the bills I've got at the moment: school tuition, visa, compulsory health insurance.  Congrats, by the way, on the insurance success at home; yesterday the Insurance woman and I talked about how relieved we were that something positive had finally happened with all that.  Here, as I said, insurance is compulsory, and typically quite expensive; it starts at 300+ chf per month.  Fortunately they have inexpensive insurance for foreign students, 72chf/m, and for that price I get everything, really everything.  Surgery, dental work in case of an accident, inpatient, outpatient, the list goes on, and with only a 500chf deductible.  I have to admit, it's a good feeling.  In the process of getting the insurance, I was amazed again at how small the country is, and how efficiently things can be done.  There is, for instance, one woman who deals with foreign students' insurance matters, and probably few other things.  She sent me a letter to inform me of my options, then when I went to the office she came out to meet me, and when my insurance is paid for and settled she will receive the paperwork.  What happened to an army of people dealing with all these little issues?  I'm grateful and a little surprised to be getting so much personal attention by the State.

I was thinking this morning that I'll probably look back on my time here, at the beginning, as one of the healthiest times of my life.  I eat in 3 meals a day, make tons of brown rice, I cook fresh vegetables, I ride my bike or walk everywhere.  I'm still too skinny (sorry, Diane) but maybe it's less of a gaunt-skinny and more of a muscly-skinny?  I'll keep telling myself that.