Sorry for the delay, I took a last-minute trip to France, because it was a long weekend, and it looked like rain in Switzerland. How’s that for an excuse, eh? In any case, after spending the entire afternoon and evening outdoors on Saturday, three friends and I decided to rent a car on Sunday to go to Italy. Sunday morning, we decided that the town we were going to go to in Italy wasn’t very convenient, so we went to France, instead. Strasbourg, to be precise.
We packed the car with four people, a dog, four backpacks, three cameras, enough snacks to supply an entire kindergarten class. I considered picking up a package of trail mix, not because I had any particular desire to eat trail mix, but because the German term for it has always amused me – literally translated, it’s called “student feed,” the food you give students, just like “chicken feed” is the food you give chickens. Upon further reflection, I bought cookies, instead. We had no maps; instead, we put our faith in the GPS system installed in the rental car. The GPS woman proved to be quite stubborn and difficult to work with, and very vocal about her opinions, but in the end, we followed her instructions. She was all we had. But, it worked out, we made it.
Given all the hubbub in the States about passports and crossing borders and so on, it’s remarkable how lax the borders are in Europe. Border patrol between EU countries is almost non-existent. The border police aren’t allowed to stop vehicles unless they have a particular reason – such as an international manhunt, I guess. When we crossed from Germany into France, there wasn’t even a person manning the booth.
Between Switzerland and the EU (non-Europeans often forget that Switzerland is its own little island in the middle of an EU sea), border control seems to be purely for show. As we crossed from Switzerland to Germany, a man in a military beret glanced at the car and waved us on. We could have been illegal immigrants, and he wouldn’t have known. We could have had a bazooka, ten migrant workers, three terrorists, four kilos of crack, (and a partridge in a pear tree) and he wouldn’t have cared. On the way back into Switzerland, they were just as uninterested in checking our passports, human or canine.
Yes, dogs have passports in Europe, so that they can cross borders without being quarantined. Dogs also do all kinds of other things that are usually reserved for humans, at least in the States. Fiver comes to work with me almost every day, and he came to France and stayed in the hotel (the desk clerk seemed surprised when I asked whether dogs were allowed). In restaurants in Switzerland, waiters sometimes bring him water before I’ve even had a chance to order a drink for myself. Last week, I took him to a restaurant where the waiter even brought out a bowl of dog food so that Fiver could eat dinner at the table like the rest of us.
And finally, an “only in Switzerland” moment for your entertainment. Recently, Zurich has been installing lots of 24-hour garbage drop-off points around town, which are basically underground reservoirs topped with lidded metal tubes. You lift the lid, drop in a trash bag, and it drops down the tube into the reservoir. A kid fell into one of the trash reservoirs, and was extracted with minimal fuss, because, being Swiss, the garbage authorities had anticipated the fact that a kid would eventually fall in, and had conducted drills and exercises to ensure that they could quickly and efficiently get the kid out of a garbage chute once it happened. There won’t be a Baby Jessica story in Zurich any time soon.
We packed the car with four people, a dog, four backpacks, three cameras, enough snacks to supply an entire kindergarten class. I considered picking up a package of trail mix, not because I had any particular desire to eat trail mix, but because the German term for it has always amused me – literally translated, it’s called “student feed,” the food you give students, just like “chicken feed” is the food you give chickens. Upon further reflection, I bought cookies, instead. We had no maps; instead, we put our faith in the GPS system installed in the rental car. The GPS woman proved to be quite stubborn and difficult to work with, and very vocal about her opinions, but in the end, we followed her instructions. She was all we had. But, it worked out, we made it.
Given all the hubbub in the States about passports and crossing borders and so on, it’s remarkable how lax the borders are in Europe. Border patrol between EU countries is almost non-existent. The border police aren’t allowed to stop vehicles unless they have a particular reason – such as an international manhunt, I guess. When we crossed from Germany into France, there wasn’t even a person manning the booth.
Between Switzerland and the EU (non-Europeans often forget that Switzerland is its own little island in the middle of an EU sea), border control seems to be purely for show. As we crossed from Switzerland to Germany, a man in a military beret glanced at the car and waved us on. We could have been illegal immigrants, and he wouldn’t have known. We could have had a bazooka, ten migrant workers, three terrorists, four kilos of crack, (and a partridge in a pear tree) and he wouldn’t have cared. On the way back into Switzerland, they were just as uninterested in checking our passports, human or canine.
Yes, dogs have passports in Europe, so that they can cross borders without being quarantined. Dogs also do all kinds of other things that are usually reserved for humans, at least in the States. Fiver comes to work with me almost every day, and he came to France and stayed in the hotel (the desk clerk seemed surprised when I asked whether dogs were allowed). In restaurants in Switzerland, waiters sometimes bring him water before I’ve even had a chance to order a drink for myself. Last week, I took him to a restaurant where the waiter even brought out a bowl of dog food so that Fiver could eat dinner at the table like the rest of us.
And finally, an “only in Switzerland” moment for your entertainment. Recently, Zurich has been installing lots of 24-hour garbage drop-off points around town, which are basically underground reservoirs topped with lidded metal tubes. You lift the lid, drop in a trash bag, and it drops down the tube into the reservoir. A kid fell into one of the trash reservoirs, and was extracted with minimal fuss, because, being Swiss, the garbage authorities had anticipated the fact that a kid would eventually fall in, and had conducted drills and exercises to ensure that they could quickly and efficiently get the kid out of a garbage chute once it happened. There won’t be a Baby Jessica story in Zurich any time soon.
1 comment:
lol @ the canine passports & priveledges. When did you get Fiver? Does he remember life as an American?
I guess one day when I have a beagle, I will have to visit Switzerland with her to give her a taste of the good life (Yes, it'll be a female beagle, she'll be named Cassandra.).
Re: the underground reservoirs - do you know what happens with the refuse in the reservoirs? Is it ever treated or moved to another facility? What's the frequency of treatment? I would think that there'd be a fair amount of gas or other toxic materials accumulating...just curious.
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