Welcome to the land of four official languages: German, French, Italian, and low and behold, Romanch. I’ll give you a lot of credit if you have ever heard of Romanch, simply because it is spoken by such a small percentage of Switzerland that I doubt it has any world clout. It’s a fun little romance language that appears to have its strongest roots in Italian with a German flavor. Unfortunately we (Barbie, one of the other interns and I) didn’t make it to the northeastern corner of Switzerland to hear this well-kept secretive language. This was because we were far too entertained in the western part of the country driving between and through Zurich, Luzern, Interlocken, Lausanne, and Geneva.
Out of these five cities I would vote for Luzern being the most beautiful and Zurich the easiest to navigate. Sadly for me however, these were both Germanic speaking cities, so I don’t envision spending too much time in either of these locations in the near future.
Example of Switzerland's city beauty. This was taken downtown.
Rather than recapping each individual city, I’m going to throw everything to you all at once with a little organized list. It was the easiest way to jot everything down—so figure me if I didn’t pay attention to elements you’d be interested in. If you have any questions, you know where to find me.
Fun Facts/Notations:
1.Every city has an “old town”. There is an entire quarter of each city whose ancient buildings are well in-tact and streets well-worn from horse-hooves and carriage carts. Switzerland is not unique in having “old towns” except for the fact that every city has one. Simply put, this is because they don’t engage in wars. Their countryside’s have not been burned down, nor their cities destroyed. Their cities’ greatest enemies are pollution and population increases, not bullets, missiles or bombs.
2.Swiss roads are full of three things: roundabouts, tunnels, and cows. Roundabouts are so common because the Swiss are rather efficient, and instead of having a 4-way stop sign, they put in a roundabout so you only need to yield to oncoming traffic—no need to wear out your brakes. The tunnels I am purely speculating on, but here is my theory. Switzerland is beautiful. They do not want to clutter it with visible man-made constructions such as highways, so they hide them through a series of multi-kilometer tunnels. Point two regarding tunnels: Switzerland is incredibly mountainous. Instead of winding up and down a mountain with Indian-turns, they borrow right through the mountain. No need to waste time going around them.
3.40% of Geneva residents are foreign-born. This is can be attributed to Geneva being the headquarters for a slew of NGOs/IGOs as well as the European headquarters for countless multi-national corporations. Knowing that Geneva is such an international metropolis, I was worried that I may not have the opportunity to practice my French as much as I wanted (or rather, needed to) as I did not envision everyone knowing French. However, I found that nearly everyone I came across knew French (whether it was their first language or not) though nearly everyone spoke another language better than French—ranging from German to English to Russian. Barbie and I stayed in one of the more ethnically diverse neighborhoods where Asian cuisine was more common than bakeries, and still we were impressed with the fluency of everyone’s french.
4.Staying in the ethnic section of the city had wonderful perks besides the aroma of spice and rice—it was less expensive than the other side of the river. Here, parking was only $60 a day, and a diet coke was only $3.00. They advertised their McDonald’s “dollar menu” for $2.50. As outrageous as this seems, tuition as the Graduate school I am looking at there is only $10,000 for both years combined. The Swiss have large incomes, and can afford to pay a hefty price for small purchase. However, when it comes to education, they do not want to prevent anyone from attending top-notch schools, so their tuitions are either free or $2,500 per semester for non-Swiss nationals.
5.Another great perk of where we stayed in Geneva: It was only a 10 minute walk to the university where I interviewed, and another 5 minutes past that to the UN. The view from our bedroom overlooked the infamous fountain in Lake Geneva, the largest fountain in the world (with Lake Geneva, or Lake Lacman—depending on who you are speaking with—is the largest lake in Europe [save Russia of course]).
6.Though it was certainly nice to have a guided tour of the UN, I was a bit disappointed that it was my only alternative. There is currently no part of the UN that visitors are allowed to explore on their own, including the outside grounds. However, the tour itself was wonderful. My two favorite rooms were the humanitarian reinforcement efforts and the disarmament room. The humanitarian room was designed by the Spanish architect Miquel Barceló. The disarmament room told a story, while the humanitarian room had a theme. The disarmament's story regarded the effects of war and those of intelligence, portraying how far the evolution of science and technology have come while balancing it with how much war has destroyed efforts to advance.
7.While in Geneva we spoke with a Greek native about the differences between Greece and Switzerland. Besides pointing out the obvious differences in efficiency and diversity, the aspect of Greek culture that baffles him the most is the dependency that Greeks have on their cars. Greece has a well networked public transportation system in all major cities, yet most families own multiple cars. Not only this, but they will take them to drive very short distances—less than kilometer walk. This is the reason why I award the Greeks with the most creative parking medal—there are too many cars and not enough spaces, so they simply create their own. I’m still waiting to find the perfect picture to post regarding the double-parking on the sidewalks that I have witnessed. Not only are cars blocked in, but people actually have to walk on the road because the sidewalks are entirely covered by cars.
8.The Swiss don’t speed. When the speed limit says 120kph, you push your limits by going 125. You’ll be flying solo in the high speed lane the entire way if you decided to exceed the speed limit—which I wouldn’t recommend doing. The Swiss Guard is not something I would test.
9.Speaking of the Swiss Guard, contrary to my previously held beliefs, Switzerland does have an army, and a well-trained one at that. Their males are required to complete a national-service requirement. Though they are considered to be the most neutral country in the world, and probably won’t deploy troops anywhere, they are more than prepared for an attack.
10.Switzerland, home to the UN, only became a member in 2002. The UN, originally the League of Nations (founded in NH!) was created during Wilson’s presidency almost 100 years ago. Yet only 7 years ago did Switzerland vote on becoming an actual member. It was fairly convenient for them, considering it is home to the European Headquarters.
11.Switzerland as many of you already know is not a member of the EU. Nor does it intend on becoming one. However, it will accept the Euro in most cities, and complies with many EU regulations (though you are permitted to smoke in restaurants there). Its boarders are open in the sense that they allow a certain amount of EU citizens to work and study in Switzerland.
12.Swiss bank accounts are infamous for their secrecy. This is why so many heads of states and terrorists organizations have financial protection, because the Swiss bankers refuse to reveal the contents or account holders of their customers. Granted, in the past decade they have been far more cooperative, investigating into a few accounts linked with Al Qaeda, but they are not granted the EU’s request to share with EU officials the information of all the accounts of EU citizens.
13.The Swiss do not write personal checks, nor do they often use their credit cards. They pay with cash, or more commonly, will simply transfer the allotted amount of money from their bank account into yours. This guarantees that they have the amount of money they claim to, where checks and credit cards do not have this same protection. They are actually quite amused with the concept of writing personal checks. Fine. But I will still remain skeptical about giving you my bank account number so that you may deposit money directly into it. Though, I suppose they do have the protection of Swiss banks accounts. Must be nice.
14.Exits in Switzerland are not labeled by numbers or even location. They merely say: exit. Granted, they do have signs indicating that the exit in 400m leads to Geneva, but so do the next three….I have yet to figure out how you can tell which one you should take. Unless of course you are lucky enough to have a GPS which indicates it for you.
Alright, that’s all folks.
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