The Swiss Way

We've been in Switzerland now for about 7 weeks. It's been rather interesting as an American who lived in a bustling city in Asia of 4 million people and now coming to a small city of 100,000 people in Europe. At first glance, things seem more familiar here than in Asia. For example, grocery stores sell familiar products (not American brands but western type food) and a department store is exactly what you would see if you were walking into Macys (in Singapore you never knew what you would find in various stores and malls). So, when we initially arrived it was less of a cultural shock for me. I kind of understood what was going on (minus the fact that everything is in German, small detail).

The more days I spend here the more I realize a lot of things may look similar to what I know about living in a Western cultural but things are drastically different than what I am used to. Here are a few examples:

1. EVERYTHING closes on Sunday. You can find some restaurants that remain open for limited hours and a small grocery store at the train station but other than that the city shuts down. Sunday is considered a non-working day so you're not even supposed to do anything in your house that would alert your neighbors to the fact that you are indeed working like wash your windows, vacuum or do laundry. Even the largest stores, like IKEA, are closed. For a family coming from places that were open 24/7 and relying mostly on the weekends to get things done, this has been a challenge. Our Saturdays have been filled with errands from morning to night and we've had to be extremely organized about taking full advantage of those hours which the stores are open.

2. Taking breaks and time out for lunch is extremely important. The majority of places close down from 12pm - 2pm so workers can take their lunch. This includes grocery stores, dry cleaners and the post office. Then they close around 4:30pm (except certain grocery stores might stay open until 7 or 8pm). It's really amazing. This was especially evident with the movers over the past 2 days in our home. About every 50 minutes the house would get very quiet and I wondered where they were. I then realized they were on a break. After being in the house for 2 hours, they all took a 40 minute break followed by a very leisurely lunch. It drove me a little nuts (being 9 months pregnant and all) but I had to realize this is very much a part of their culture. There is no point in stressing yourself out because there is always more time tomorrow. Very unAmerican and unAsian culturally speaking.

3. Getting someone to come to your house and do work (no matter what type) takes weeks and is ultra expensive!!! There is no "we'll be there tomorrow." It's all "I have an opening 2 weeks from now." Really??? And any kind of labor is very, very expensive. A housecleaner makes $35 an hour plus vacation and sick leave (at the expense of the employer). Waiters make the same thing so customer service is not an issue. They are not there to make tips. If you eat there or not, they still make their money. And dry cleaning? It costs at least $12 for a pair of pants and $7 to launder a shirt and it takes over a week to get your clothes.

4. Please indulge me for a minute while I go on a small rant. NO houses come with closets or light fixtures. Our house in Austin has beautiful closets in each room. Our apartment in Singapore had beautiful closets as well. Lots of shelves to store things and lots of room to hang up your clothes. Our beautiful apartment here, no closets. Not one. So we decide we will buy some closets from IKEA because when we move home we will not need to take these with us. First, they make you pull these massive boxes off the shelves yourself (can you imagine? Me as pregnant as can be and my poor husband lifting these things all by himself). Then, they charge you 10% to deliver the thing and if you'd like someone to put them together, you have to pay $65 an hour per worker with a minimum of 2 workers. This all seemed very outrageous to me. We put together the closets ourselves and it was a massive, massive project (that is not done yet. ugh). In Singapore, if you bought furniture from IKEA they pulled it off the shelves for you and you paid 5% for delivery and assembly. Such a difference.

So...those are just some of the differences between the Swiss way and the American and Asian way. I'm sure many more will pop up the longer we live here and I hope we're here for a longer stay because darn it, those closets were expensive and hard to put together and we'd like to enjoy them! :-)