Let's talk about numbers.
Let's say you get a call on your cell phone from a number you don't recognize. You check the area code and realize it's from [city or state], which is where [name] lives, and decide not to take the call. Not here. Swiss area codes for land lines are assigned geographically, but Swiss cell phones have area codes that are assigned by service provider, which means that everyone using the same provider, whether they live in Geneva or Zurich, has the same area code. That would be like getting a call and saying, "Ooh, that's someone who uses T-Mobile, I won't take that call."
Speaking of phones, there is an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer calls directory assistance and says, "Give me the number for 911!" It sounds stupid, but at various points in the past two years, I've realized that I don't know the number for 911 here. Fire? Poison? Kitten in a tree? I wouldn't know what number to dial (much less how to describe the emergency in Swiss German). Fortunately, my life here has been relatively emergency-free so far. I am somewhat curious as to what would happened if I actually dialed 9-1-1 on a Swiss phone, but have restrained myself, just in case it actually works as an emergency line for stupid Americans, in which case I would have to explain why I was dialing an emergency number. Uh, didn't think it would work. So why did you dial it in the first place? Dunno.
If you go into a building at ground level and take the stairs up one level, what floor are you on? Second floor, if you're American. If you're European, you're on the first floor, because the floor at ground level doesn't count. So all those stairs you climbed up don't earn you any credit, from a Swiss building's point of view. This can get confusing when mixing cultures. When telling people how to find places, or asking directions, there always has to be a clarification as to what, exactly "go to the third floor" means.
When explaining how to find my apartment, I tell people: take a flight of stairs up to the European 1st floor, or the American 2nd floor. Get in the elevator and hit 5, which goes to the European 5th floor, or the American 6th floor. Go in the front door of my apartment, which immediately leads to another set of stairs to the main floor of my apartment (European 6th, US 7th), and my bedroom is upstairs (European 7th, US 8th). So you take the elevator to 5 if you eventually want to end up on the (American) 8th floor of my apartment building.
The discrepancy gets even bigger if the building is more than a dozen stories high (which is actually rare in Switzerland). American buildings usually skip 13, so that you can take just one flight of stairs (assuming that Americans take the stairs) to get from the 12th floor to the 14th floor. They don't do that here. So the American 12th floor is the European 11th floor, but the American 14th floor is the European 12th floor.
A friend who was living in Switzerland for a summer wanted to open a bank account. Nothing fancy, just a checking account. He walked into a bank and said that he wanted to open an account. They said that since he was a foreigner, there was a minimum balance. He (thinking that Swiss banks are like banks elsewhere, which often require an initial minimum deposit of $500 or so) said that was fine. They started bringing him bottled water, giving him pamphlets on money management, and making pitches on portfolio holdings, and he thought, "No wonder Swiss banks are the best in the world. They know how to treat customers right." Somehow, he found out that the minimum deposit was CHF 50,000 (about $40,000), which was a little bit over his student means. He faked a loss of interest and then slunk away.
Let's say you get a call on your cell phone from a number you don't recognize. You check the area code and realize it's from [city or state], which is where [name] lives, and decide not to take the call. Not here. Swiss area codes for land lines are assigned geographically, but Swiss cell phones have area codes that are assigned by service provider, which means that everyone using the same provider, whether they live in Geneva or Zurich, has the same area code. That would be like getting a call and saying, "Ooh, that's someone who uses T-Mobile, I won't take that call."
Speaking of phones, there is an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer calls directory assistance and says, "Give me the number for 911!" It sounds stupid, but at various points in the past two years, I've realized that I don't know the number for 911 here. Fire? Poison? Kitten in a tree? I wouldn't know what number to dial (much less how to describe the emergency in Swiss German). Fortunately, my life here has been relatively emergency-free so far. I am somewhat curious as to what would happened if I actually dialed 9-1-1 on a Swiss phone, but have restrained myself, just in case it actually works as an emergency line for stupid Americans, in which case I would have to explain why I was dialing an emergency number. Uh, didn't think it would work. So why did you dial it in the first place? Dunno.
If you go into a building at ground level and take the stairs up one level, what floor are you on? Second floor, if you're American. If you're European, you're on the first floor, because the floor at ground level doesn't count. So all those stairs you climbed up don't earn you any credit, from a Swiss building's point of view. This can get confusing when mixing cultures. When telling people how to find places, or asking directions, there always has to be a clarification as to what, exactly "go to the third floor" means.
When explaining how to find my apartment, I tell people: take a flight of stairs up to the European 1st floor, or the American 2nd floor. Get in the elevator and hit 5, which goes to the European 5th floor, or the American 6th floor. Go in the front door of my apartment, which immediately leads to another set of stairs to the main floor of my apartment (European 6th, US 7th), and my bedroom is upstairs (European 7th, US 8th). So you take the elevator to 5 if you eventually want to end up on the (American) 8th floor of my apartment building.
The discrepancy gets even bigger if the building is more than a dozen stories high (which is actually rare in Switzerland). American buildings usually skip 13, so that you can take just one flight of stairs (assuming that Americans take the stairs) to get from the 12th floor to the 14th floor. They don't do that here. So the American 12th floor is the European 11th floor, but the American 14th floor is the European 12th floor.
A friend who was living in Switzerland for a summer wanted to open a bank account. Nothing fancy, just a checking account. He walked into a bank and said that he wanted to open an account. They said that since he was a foreigner, there was a minimum balance. He (thinking that Swiss banks are like banks elsewhere, which often require an initial minimum deposit of $500 or so) said that was fine. They started bringing him bottled water, giving him pamphlets on money management, and making pitches on portfolio holdings, and he thought, "No wonder Swiss banks are the best in the world. They know how to treat customers right." Somehow, he found out that the minimum deposit was CHF 50,000 (about $40,000), which was a little bit over his student means. He faked a loss of interest and then slunk away.
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