This morning on the tram on the way to work, I saw Santa Claus walking down the street. In Switzerland, he arrives early, on December 6th, actually, and hangs out for the rest of the month making house calls and public appearances. And there are two of them, apparently, although I don’t understand this part, so much. There is Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus, and they have different arrival dates, and one of them gives you candy, and the other gives you presents or a beating, but I don’t know which is which or who comes when, or anything like that. I always thought that Santa Claus was St. Nick, but apparently they maintain two identities and two job descriptions here. And one of them beats you. Maybe.
The Swiss way of thought is slowly warping my mind. It’s Christmas season, which I have always associated with rampant consumer culture, packed malls, and strategic shopping to avoid the crowds. Stores stay open until late at night, or even all night the night before Christmas, and they are always packed. Here, on the other hand, things are somewhat different. I was out in the city center on Saturday afternoon and noticed that one store had signs up announcing that for two Sunday afternoons this month, it will be open for business, and I am slightly ashamed to admit this, that fact both surprised and impressed me. Wow, I thought, I can’t believe the store will be open on Sunday afternoons! Then I gave myself a mental kick and realized that stores are supposed to be open on Sundays year-round, not just twice in December. Must… fight… Swissification…
A few odd anecdotes from other expats living in Zurich. A friend of mine works in a newly opened medical office. They arranged for some large plants to be delivered and distributed throughout the different rooms in the office. Upon the arrival of the plants, the doctors started taking them to their offices, but the plant people (Swiss, obviously), were much distressed, and insisted that they cease and desist, because each plant was earmarked for a specific office, based on the varying light conditions in the different rooms, and putting the plants in the wrong rooms would have been nothing short of catastrophic.
Car inspection is taken very seriously here. Ostensibly, the purpose of a car inspection is to ensure that your car is safe for driving on public roads. So you would think that they would check your engine, your lights, your brakes, and so on. What you might not expect is that they would check your paint job, your car interior, and the cleanliness of your carburetor. Expats have been told to bring their cars back in for second inspections for various strange reasons, including: 1) the car was rusty; 2) there were papers in the back seat; 3) there was grime on the car parts. I am not quite sure how a messy back seat, a rusty paint job, and a dirty oil indicator affect a car’s ability to function safely, but maybe the Swiss know something about cars that is not known elsewhere. The common practice here is to take your car to the garage the day before a car inspection, where they will test the working parts of the car, clean and wash the car’s innards (which, being car parts, tend to get unacceptably dirty, by Swiss standards), and then drop the car off at the inspection point before the car has a chance to get dirty again.
A similar point of expat confusion arises upon moving out of an apartment. Sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing the apartment is seldom sufficient. Landlords will take the knobs off of your stove to see if there is grease underneath the knob. They will take apart your faucets to see if there is accumulated calcification inside (which there almost always is, since the water here is very hard). They will look inside the toilet and under the sink. They will peer at every square inch of carpet and every bit of the walls. They will check to see if the terrace has leaves on it, and if the plants are well maintained. The windows must be cleaned, inside and out, and in between, since there is a double layer of glass for noise and temperature insulation. Very few people attempt to clean their apartments themselves upon move-out, because no matter how much you clean, they will find something even more absurd. Common practice is to hire a professional apartment cleaner, who will clean like mad and meet apartment inspection standards, guaranteed, for about 800 bucks for a one bedroom apartment.
The Swiss way of thought is slowly warping my mind. It’s Christmas season, which I have always associated with rampant consumer culture, packed malls, and strategic shopping to avoid the crowds. Stores stay open until late at night, or even all night the night before Christmas, and they are always packed. Here, on the other hand, things are somewhat different. I was out in the city center on Saturday afternoon and noticed that one store had signs up announcing that for two Sunday afternoons this month, it will be open for business, and I am slightly ashamed to admit this, that fact both surprised and impressed me. Wow, I thought, I can’t believe the store will be open on Sunday afternoons! Then I gave myself a mental kick and realized that stores are supposed to be open on Sundays year-round, not just twice in December. Must… fight… Swissification…
A few odd anecdotes from other expats living in Zurich. A friend of mine works in a newly opened medical office. They arranged for some large plants to be delivered and distributed throughout the different rooms in the office. Upon the arrival of the plants, the doctors started taking them to their offices, but the plant people (Swiss, obviously), were much distressed, and insisted that they cease and desist, because each plant was earmarked for a specific office, based on the varying light conditions in the different rooms, and putting the plants in the wrong rooms would have been nothing short of catastrophic.
Car inspection is taken very seriously here. Ostensibly, the purpose of a car inspection is to ensure that your car is safe for driving on public roads. So you would think that they would check your engine, your lights, your brakes, and so on. What you might not expect is that they would check your paint job, your car interior, and the cleanliness of your carburetor. Expats have been told to bring their cars back in for second inspections for various strange reasons, including: 1) the car was rusty; 2) there were papers in the back seat; 3) there was grime on the car parts. I am not quite sure how a messy back seat, a rusty paint job, and a dirty oil indicator affect a car’s ability to function safely, but maybe the Swiss know something about cars that is not known elsewhere. The common practice here is to take your car to the garage the day before a car inspection, where they will test the working parts of the car, clean and wash the car’s innards (which, being car parts, tend to get unacceptably dirty, by Swiss standards), and then drop the car off at the inspection point before the car has a chance to get dirty again.
A similar point of expat confusion arises upon moving out of an apartment. Sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing the apartment is seldom sufficient. Landlords will take the knobs off of your stove to see if there is grease underneath the knob. They will take apart your faucets to see if there is accumulated calcification inside (which there almost always is, since the water here is very hard). They will look inside the toilet and under the sink. They will peer at every square inch of carpet and every bit of the walls. They will check to see if the terrace has leaves on it, and if the plants are well maintained. The windows must be cleaned, inside and out, and in between, since there is a double layer of glass for noise and temperature insulation. Very few people attempt to clean their apartments themselves upon move-out, because no matter how much you clean, they will find something even more absurd. Common practice is to hire a professional apartment cleaner, who will clean like mad and meet apartment inspection standards, guaranteed, for about 800 bucks for a one bedroom apartment.
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