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!

That is interesting, Spamm, about the schools.

Here is a story about what happened in our school recently:

We were called into school to a Parent/Teacher meeting. In attendance were not only the teacher, the head teacher, representatives from the lunch time club, but also the school nurse and head of school health dept.

The parents had asked for something to be done about bullying in the school, in DD's class in particular. Now, we had not seen or heard anything about this until the letter came but DD revealed that a little boy was bullying other children and that one child was refusing to go to school.

The accused bully, D, was not unknown to our family, as he had held my then 4yo DS's head under water when playing in the lake. He was slightly older than DS but bigger and stronger than him. This had occurred two summers previous to the school meeting and since then we had not really had anything to do with the boy.

Anyhow, it was not explicitly mentioned at first, but it was clear to all at the meeting that we were talking about D. Eventually one of the parents spoke up and said that it was enough beating about the bush, everyone knew that D was the problem, that he was aggressive and a bully.

Several other parents joined in the discussion, some defending D and saying that stigmitising him would not help, others accusing him of hurting their children. The discussion went back and forth for a while until the father of D suggested that he give his mobile number so that anyone who had a complaint about his son could contact him directly.

The Head Teacher wrote the number on the board, and some of the parents wrote it down.

I went between being horrified that D was openly accused of being a bully, and fascinated with this very Swiss demonstration of direct democracy and openness. It was certainly not the way that the issue would have been dealt with in a UK school, I am sure.

MMeL ! Especially about your ds and the lake!

I only went once and find it hard to imagine the warm summers. We spent 2 weeks in Italy then drove through San Gottardo. The temp dropped more than 10 degrees, everything cost double the price, it rained the whole time.

On the other hand, the scenery was outstanding, the people were extremely friendly, and the food was nice.

I am so glad somebody mentioned the food, as there is so much great stuff. I cannot believe somebody said the food was limited!
Cenovis is not Marmite, but it is closeish.
The raclette cheese is fab, and so is a decent fondue.
The filets de perche (fish) on Lac Leman have always been expensive, but delicious.
I adore papet vaudois with saucisse aux choux - leek and potato stew with cabbage and pork sausages, and those weird but delicious dried green beans that you soak and stew.
The variety of pastries is amazing - both sweet and savory, and I adore merveilles (sweet deep fried pancakes)
The chocolate is amazing and the varieties of coffees and chocolate drinks are great.
The wine is good - especially the white wine.
And we used to go and collect milk in our own recyclable milk container from the dairy every week.
The bread is amazing, and the variety is fab, I always used to be shocked when I traveled to the UK as a child, as there was so little choice.

So nostalgic now....

I am missing kaserkucli (phonetic spelling there) so much. I loved them and miss them on want one . It is probably the only thing I miss about CH.

My swiss tips:

Don't drive up the nurefenpass (sp deliberate) en route from Lausanne to Lugano with 2 screaming under 4's before June 1st. It is shut. And if there is a Swiss sign saying something is closed, it is. The Swiss don't forget to change the sign.

Necessitating driving back down mountain and up another one and hoping to the heavens THAT pass would be open and you don't have to drive back to Lausanne and start again.

Manor has the BEST self service restaurant. Best steak we have ever eaten.

Chicco Doro makes the best coffee. Really.

actiongirl, I recognise that without the milkyway stars.
Op, not sure if I posted this, do bear in mind that Switzerland closes down at 17.30 on a Saturday and reopens at 09.00 on Monday. Sometimes not even then, some places shut on a Monday morning.
A lot of shops and post offices and banks, particularly out of town, close at lunchtime.

Kreecher - Desperate times called for very desperate measures!!!!!

Hi,

A Basel Land resident here. Haven't read all the posts yet but my interesting facts would be:

Swiss women have only had the vote since 1971 and to stand in Parliament.
Health care is excrutiating and if you only take out basic care and are taken ill in another Canton you have to either get yourself home to your own Canton or pay for treatment.
% speeding fines are only for excessive repetitive dangerous idiots. The Ferrari guy was an Auslander who would refuse to slow down in the villags and drove through at 70km/hr. Remembering that in most villages 4/5year olds are walking to Kindy unattended!
Kidscare encouraged to be independant, it is frowned on to walk your kids to school and back. There is normally a primarschule 500m from your house and usually a policeman in the village keeping a watchful eye.
I thought Swiss children must be some kind of wonderkids, however the 4 year olds I see walking are just as reckless as ours, and it takes them ages to walk just past our house, collecting each other as they go. They run down the road, stop to talk to every cat, stop to look at mini diggers - i think the parents just send them 30 mins early to get the 500m to school. It's generally the drivers that are responsible, crawling through to avoid the kindy kids!
Brothels and swingers clubs in every town, our local one is huge and is called a Lifestyle Club!
Kitchens are barbie sized, but i don't think the Swiss Miss is tied to the kitchen, it would get in the way of her nordic walking.
Everyone gets up super early, and laugh and point at us eating brunch in our pjs at 9am on a Sat!
Every canton has a different tax level, my colleague earns 300+chf less than me a month on the same gross salary only because his girlfriend wanted to live by the tram stop which took them into Basel Stadt! The tram takes 50 mins from there and the train line takes 11 mins from our town!
Sunday - shops closed apart from Garages, restaurants and the local Volg.
Some businesses take a lunch (2) hour the same time as you need to pop out in yours! Garages, banks etc.
Apart from that i live in a town on the outskirts of Basel. As for noise rules i have never come across any. My neighbours all mow their lawns, hang out their washing, have pool parties and practise their drumming on Sundays and
lunchtimes! We have a hice mix of Swiss locals, out of towners, German and Italian families and 2 Anglo Indian families. We have a 3 storey semi detatched house with basement, garden, and underground parking for less than most apartments.

I think that Basel is the most laid back Swiss German town. The carnival is like wicker man! I agree that I have heard awful things about SIS school. The school my ds attends opened last August and there are several kids there that had to leave SIS due to bullying, lack of attention and lack of time to deal with SEN. ISB has a good rep, but it is IB and not a bilingual school. It is also in Basel Land so you would have to drive out every day.

Swiss schools have a great rep never more than 18 kids to a class here. However i wanted my son to keep up his reading and writing from the UK and this doesn't start here until 7 so we went private. My son's class has 6 kids and the teacher has a classroom assistant. He has one week in German immersion and the following in English.It's in the city and it takes my dh and ds 15-20mins to drive in and to the other side of the city.

If you live in Basel you can do your grocery shopping in Germany or France and save loads of money. You just need to be careful on your meat allowance, if you get stopped and caught with too much red meat you will be fined. We take a cool box to Freibourg and stock up once a month as we bought a big freezer for the cellar.

Phew that was huge....sorry if i rambled, good luck with the move and feel free to pm me if you want more info on Basel or if you fancy meeting up when you get here!

We love it here it is a great city. Oh and i have a fab hairdresser i can recommend (eyewateringly expensive as that is). Also there is a town of dentists on the border in France and in Germany which could keep the costs down.

Back to update two weeks in! So far I have got into the wrong side of the car several times, struggled to cross the road in the car, tried to go to a pharmacy at 12:15 and the post office at 14:30, but people have been friendly and we have been enjoying the scenery, the weather, the outdoor pools and the food!!

Welcome to Switzerland, I did the same with regards to trying to go to the Gemeinde at lunchtime. I have been here for two months and love it so far, the weather has been excellent and I think I read so much about the Swiss being cold for want of a better word that I was so pleasantly surprised by how friendly and helpful everybody has been.

Hi everyone! I thought I would update this thread because we did move to Switzerland, and have been here for four months now (in Aargau/Zurich). I've just spent some time re-reading the stories and giggling, because lots of them were spot on!!

How are you doing MistyB, if you're still around?

Well heh there!! We have had the most fantastic year here. I wrote that I was looking forward to mountain views, outdoor swimming, and amazing wildlife.

We have the most fabulous views from our house, skied every weekend in the winter, have been swimming in a different pool every day this week including a truly awesome mountain pool and this spring we spent many hours watching four baby owls and two clutches of smaller birds in our own garden.

How is it all going for you?

I met a woman who was married to a Swiss guy. They owned a house, had two DC...and the local video store would not let her join because she was a foreigner!

After she had lived there for 5 years.

I agree with kreecher. Really miserable, rude, unwelcoming people. In Geneva at least. No idea why, it's a gorgeous place.

Sorry, that wasn't very interesting

Sorry for the slow response, it has been a manic week at work!

Glad to hear you're enjoying it MistyB! We went to Interlaken last weekend, and it was amazing. Can't wait to go back there for a proper holiday! Can you recommend anywhere we should go? We have GAs, so no problem with paying for the trains

Are you sure Saffron?! I find that very surprising if so. Sounds more likely that it was a second-language misunderstanding... I live in a small village in one of the more rural cantons and the locals have been nothing but polite, even with me mangling their language.

Wow! That's awesome! Beautiful place. I love it. Have fun. No stories, just very nice memories.

(make sure u cut your grass 1mm from ground by hand when everyone is sleeping)

Silibili... thank god I haven't got any grass!!

.

Why do you think the cuckoo clock was invented there?

Interlaken is beautiful. The train journeys are so fab if a little expensive.

So .

The drive up to Italy is very nice too. Lake , stressa etc, and the surrounding areas are fab.

Nice to hear people enjoying the open air pools. We tried to work our way round them all in our locality this year. Such good value. Our fave one in Aesch costs just 10 chf for the whole family.

We went to one in Rheinfelden, where there is a beach on the Rhine, plus two pools, a river pool and assorted slides.

It was a bit like people soup though as it was 36 degrees here a couple of weeks ago. Now it's all storms and pesky critters nibbling you at night!

Glad you are settling in Kakapo. I absolutely love it here, but our neighbours do tell us that our village is quite individual in it's relaxed outlook. We have even been asked to join a private float in the Fastnacht next year by the people across the road. I took over bottles of Christmas Pudding Vodka last year, and we've been on great terms ever since.

I was offered a great job in Dusseldorf but I've turned it down to stay in Basel, so feel pretty settled! we have the best of both worlds though as we shop every weekend in Lorrach or Rheinfelden, which is very cheap, and also claim back the tax. We go there for Indian takeaways too! It's quicker to cross the border than go into the city!

Brilliant to read all this. I lived in Geneva as a child and my husband and I have just bought a holiday property in Vaud. Spent 6 weeks there this summer, got back the UK last night and am missing it hugely so enjoying reading all these posts.

I adore Switzerland. For all its strange quirks and rules, expensive living and hard to infiltrate culture, I think it is a marvellous country.

My parents lived in Geneva for a few years when my bro and I were at university. It,s gorgeous and, at times, comedic but my Mom found it really hard to meet people and get to know the locals (despite a pretty good grasp of French). She found the American women's club to be a lifesaver; I think they welcome everyone and I'm pretty sure there is a Basel group.

Lived there for three years. Loved it, but 3 years was enough...
So quaint, so perfect, but maybe we were too young!

Weird stuff we loved: the cow competitions, the chateau and vineyards where you become a local one Friday night, the mountains and scenery, fabulous summers, skiing, the safety, fondue, raclette, patisseries, wine!
Things I don miss: everybody in the village knowing everything about you and nosing all the time! The racism, even from the the young. Sending a bill for everything and sooooo many insurances. Which funnily enough, never seem to pay out!
Go and enjoy!