Sweet but always some sour

Being from the United States it seems like we have such a view of Switzerland as being the perfect country, and in comparison it may seem that way, but there are always problems. I mean the grass has to be greener on the other side right?

In Switzerland it is very expensive to live, so to make it possible for people to live anything you buy that has gone through a person in any way (so everything) is very expensive so they can afford to live. After thinking about this a bit I was curious how so many people in Switzerland could be farmers. I know in America they have a very hard time coming out ahead or perhaps even breaking even and have to work very hard to get to that point, and our cost of living isn't extremely high. So in Switzerland the government subsidizes the farmers very much, which may sound like a good deal, but it promotes a lot of people to farm in Switzerland, and with farming comes farmland, and with farmland comes less undeveloped land. The family I am living with is upset by how 'organized' the country seems to be. Rarely are there areas where weeds are growing and flowers are just sprawled about carelessly. It seems that most of the people have their dark brown houses with red geraniums int he window pots surrounded by farmland. Beautiful to foreigners because it symbolizes the Switzerland we see in movies, the very traditional style, which is what a lot of people are striving to keep alive in Switzerland, but this also means not moving forward for environmental purposes.

On a more personal note:

The whole family visited a gnome garden this morning. Sounded strange at first but I was pretty excited, and it turned out to be very cool. Large concrete gnomes created by a man that was once a photographer but couldn't continue to make a living that way because he didn't like the idea of using so many computer programs for photography. I saw some of his photos and he talked about them (in german, but i got some of it translated) and they were very impressive. Some examples were a priest floating in the air (this was accomplished by 120 balloons tied to him that are out of sight of the camera) preching to a group of people in a large black bag being taken by satan. Now he charges 10 Fr. (swiss francs) for people to come see his clay gnomes in his yard. This children especially enjoyed it, as some of the gnomes could glow, make noises, and spout water when you walked past them.

This evening the family had a lot of their neighbors over for desert as a sort of welcoming party for me to meet them. It was very nice with champagne, red wine, and many many deserts. Sweet... but... The children took a lot of desert because it wasn't really being guarded by the adults, and went on little sugar highs, and the come down wasn't sweet, but rather SOUR. Johannes threw a very violent temper tantrum which taught me quite quickly to limit sweets at all costs possible. To top it off when he started calming down and stepped on some warped wood and got a very large splinter requiring two adults, nail clippers, tweezers, and 30 minutes time... involving much screaming and crying.

My hands shall be full as the kids enjoy playing ruff but it always ends in someone crying or thinking something isn't fair, but I think I shall learn a lot about dealing with children and just understanding how people have to deal with me also.