anyone with an interesting fact/story about SWITZERLAND

[kakapo]

Hello all

It looks like we might be moving to Switzerland soon, and I'm pretty excited about it

I was wondering if anyone has any interesting stories about Switzerland to share, so I can get even more excited! Or even just more informed about the place and culture.

For example, have you been to an interesting place on holiday? What are some of the major differences from living in the UK?

Thanks in advance!

Gosh, I have never heard the thing about the electricity being switched off at lunchtime. Presumably that is only in the German speaking part of CH.

We live near Geneva and I presume that the French influence has made the Swiss a bit more easy going.

We also live in a house in a small village, so there are no restrictions to when we wash our clothes or flush our loos. We have our own bunker in the cellar, it is handy for keeping suitcases and wine in.

Housing is expensive, especially in the cities because it is scarce. And there are so many expats here whose companies pay the prices no matter how high they go. We moved out of town and were able to get a lovely house for the same price as a town flat without any strange restrictions on when you run your dishwasher. Worth thinking about.

It is common to have an older kitchen and bathroom, so if you like the house don't be put off by that. I only know about 2 people who have nice kitchens. The landlords are sure of being able to rent their flats so don't bother to do much.

You cannot haggle with the landlord about the price. I met a MNetter who thought that putting in an offer of just under the rental asking price (as she would do in UK) would be ok. She loved the house and was upset when she didn't get it.

Health insurance is expensive, so make sure you factor that in.

Generally, I love living here. There are a few things that niggle but on the whole it is a great place to live. I blog about my life in CH, link on my profile if you want a nosy.

Friends have a holiday apartment where the power to the laundry room goes off at 11.30- pita if you need to do the washing before leaving for an afternoon flight. Swiss women iron teatowels!

Apparently there are huge nuclear bunkers near Berne which are also used as holding centres for asylum seekers, most of whom get returned. All crime is committed by expats and refugees

The French Lizs. The French.

Or the gypsies.

Do get yourself sorted out with a burglar alarm, Kakapo. Not sure about German Switzerland but here in Suisse Romande, burglaries are common. Other crime is low but house break-ins and bag snatching is a problem. We had been broken into twice before I threw a hissyfit and demanded the company install an alarm or I was going home to Germany.

No crime (or at least not a lot) in Zug. It was always immigrants, particularly those pesky Yugo's that did all the crime there. Fact.
In Steinhausen there's a refugee centre, the individuals who live there don't have two rappen to rub together, yet they are the ones with the brand new Mercedes cars who go around stealing the sausage dogs that are so beloved of the burgers of the town. again.

Another thing, if you do move and go to register at your local Gemiende (don't know its name in French), unless you are church goers, don't register a religion. DH had to pay a %age of his salary to the church. He did resent it even though he is a god botherer.
Bear in mind too, there are four official periods to move in or out of a flat, at least there was in Zug.

And another thing you may have to pay a tax if your DH isn't part of the reserve fire brigade. A friend had to pay 35 CHF per annum per family member. We weren't asked to do that because our local fire station was manned 18 hours a day.
You can get round it by telling your DH he is to dress up like fireman Sam

Thanks again everyone! Keep them coming if there are more!

I told DH about the laundry power going off over lunch, and he says it's because people in the other apartments are taking their lunchtime naps. Maybe that explains why it's the German speaking part of Switzerland?

Thanks for the no haggling about apartment tips MmeLindor. We will definitely consider living outside the city in a small house. I would infinitely prefer that.

I'm a little surprised by all the reports of crime/burglaries. I've always thought of Switzerland as a very safe place. Not sure why really! Very good to be prepared for this. Not that I have much worth stealing

That's interesting about the church kreecher. We are not religious. Are there lots of religious people around then? Are the mainly RC?

Depends on the canton. We lived in Zug which is catholic, next door in Zurich and Luzern weren't. They had brothels and sex shops. We didn't.
The holidays, as well as the petrol prices and tax vary canton to canton. Zug has a lot more than Zurich due to the number of saints and their zooming up to heaven.

Funny little country. Direct democracy means that anyone can demand a referendum if they collect enough votes for their idea for a law. They are very strict about obeying laws and following rules. People are quite reserved, friendships are limited, and roads tend to be deserted after 8 pm or so or on a Sunday, which is a bit of a shock when you go from a Mediterranean country where people smile, socialize on the streets, and it is easy to make friends.

They like walking up and down those mountains in summer and winter, which I found odd.

Don't ever drive over the Susten Pass unless you have a very good head for heights/are not of a nervous disposition! Our SatNav took us that way between the San Gottardo tunnel and Interlaken. I nearly died of fright - I have never seen a road like it. Sheer drops with the only thing between the car and almost certain death are few widely spaced boulders. It goes so high that there is a glacier at the top!

DH stopped the car to take pictures. I remained in said car, sobbing and clutching the door handle for dear life. It was not my finest hour.

Even looking at pictures of it gives me the heebie-geebies!

Oh, and brace yourself to buy two sets of tyres for your car. They are not obligatory, but your insurance is invalidated if you have an accident in the winter and you don't have the correct tyres on.
Beware of speed cameras. They are a major source of revenue for the canton. We paid out a lot of money.
Another is parking tickets. The first day we got our car, I parked, saw a machine to pay, went to get some change and came back to a 20chf ticket. it seems that ordinary residents are issued with books of tickets and get a % of what they make.

Portofino
You will be shocked to know that DH and I are going on a trip this summer, taking in the Sustenpass, Nufenenpass, Gotthardpass and even the Furkapass. Great fun.

dh loved driving all the passes !

I have seen an excellent YouTube video of someone going down the Grimsel Pass (I think) strapped to a skateboard! Can't look at YT at work though.....some people are just mad!

Oh, we just did the Grimselpass two weeks ago. Was fab. But on a skateboard?

Has anyone mentioned that traffic fines are individually calculated, as a function of your annual income? There was a guy in the news who paid several hundred thousand Swiss francs for speeding

Cote - true. The father of one of DDs friends paid 24k chf. 'Luckily, his bonus was paid elsewhere so they never knew about that'. Spoken by the mother.
OP, take plenty of paracetamol and brufen. Both are hideously expensive. Also, Calpol is butterscotch flavour. DD suffered agonies rather than take that.
Marmite is like hens teeth, it isn't sold in any of the big three (COOP, Migros or Denner) but is available from smaller more expensive shops like Globus or Britshop.

Yes, but anyone who has to pay that kind of a speeding fee is extremely rich. That guy was in his Ferrari when he was caught speeding.

We were told by an expat that you have to "factor in at least £2k for traffic fines a year". I barely resisted replying, "No, you fuckwit. You just have to abide by the laws". I have had a few parking tickets and one time illegally turned left. But no more than a couple of hundred Chf in 2 years.

There are rules about everything. Someone will point these out to you if you don't know them. They do this to be helpful rather than to "tell you off".

Lots of rules are not fixed, and even if at first something seems "not possible", it can be done if you ask nicely.

You have to remember and use people's names in conversation. I find this difficult, especially on the phone, when I have not quite heard the (to my ears) unusual name of the e.g. office receptionist properly.

You can't walk more than about 200m through Basel city centre without hearing someone speak English. Our (Swiss) plumber and (Swiss) electrician laughingly commented about our (Swiss) tiler's inability to speak English.

Housing in Basel is easy enough to find (compared to Zurich and Geneva). "Outside" the city for Basel means in Basel-Land which is a different Kanton and has different rules for everything. (After school care much more tricky. Much more. We have it really easy in our bit of Basel-Stadt.).

Swiss kitchens are all tiny. Even in really swish apartments that I've been in there's never been a decent size kitchen.

Washing machines are not so much of a nightmare as people say. Just ask what the rules are when looking at apartments and if you don't like it, keep looking. You'll find something else. We have a house and do what we want. Previously we lived in an apartment with shared facilities, where we each had one allocated day and then 2 days a week were first-come, first-served and we could and did use it overnight and at weekends.

Gipfeli is the Swiss-German word for croissant.

Swiss cities are very different to Swiss mountain villages (in terms of attitudes and politics, as well as the obvious ones).

No one eats Toblerone - it's for export.

Marmite and other assorted British goods are available in a number of "ordinary" supermarkets in Basel. Particularly those situated near the International School and the campus of one of the large employers of English-speaking people.

Look for Basel expats and Basel Parenting groups on Yahoo. Also see www.baselchildrenstrust.ch

Basel is the best Swiss city [biased], although it could do with a lake.

I agree 100% Mme. We paid out around 600 chf in the three years we lived there. Arriving from a place with very few laws (Thailand) to one with many and many enforcable ones certainly tends to hone your driving skills.
The man with the 24000 chf fine also had a 6 million chf house built. More money than sense (Or taste)

at Gipfeli translation

Oh, and children do, and are allowed and encouraged to do, all sorts of things that would give MNetters in the UK kittens.

Yes, yes YES!

The look on the newly arrived UK expats when they see the 4yos leave school without any member of staff watching to see if the approved parent or guardian is picking the children up - priceless.

As to letting 6yo DC walk to school alone.

Gipfeli, agree with that one. we had visitors with children aged 12, 10, and 8. They looked on in horror as DD invited them to walk over to the next village to visit the Volg for some bread and eggs. It was through fields of cows and she often went alone [super ]

Absolutely MmeLindt, although even I had a "am I sure this ok" moment when I found myself saying to my 5 year dd "put the hammer down near that axe now darling it's time to go home" as I picked her up from the holiday playscheme where she and a friend were (unsupervised) hammering nails into a piece of wood (real hammers, real axe, proper sharp nails).