Wednesday, July 04, 2007

4 July 2007

Happy 4th of July, and here’s to the fact that the 2008 elections are drawing ever closer! Dubya, your days are numbered.

A Swiss friend recently commented that he likes the German mentality more than the Swiss mentality, because the Germans are “more relaxed and laid-back.” That made me laugh, because it really showed how everything is relative. I don’t think that Germans are world-renowned for their relaxed, laid-back personalities, but compared to the Swiss, maybe they are.

One friend who has been living here for a while told me how she once met an older Swiss woman who was grumbling about how the country is falling apart and chaos was taking over. My friend asked her what she meant. The woman said that in the past, if a train was supposed to arrive in the station at 11:14, it would pull in just as the second hand swept past 12, at 11:14:00 on the dot. Now, she complained, the train could show up anywhere from 11:14:00 to 11:14:59! What is this world coming to?

Some work colleagues and I were having drinks at a bar a couple of weeks ago to welcome a new coworker to the office. We had made reservations for a table for 20 for 6 p.m., and the first of our group walked in at about 6:10. There was a lone woman seated at our very large table. She looked up, told us that the table was reserved, and told us to find another table. We pointed out that the reservation was for our group, and started sitting down. She protested that it was already 6:12, and that it was too late for us to show up. After some back and forth, and much grumbling on her part, she vacated our table and went to one of many smaller tables that were free.

There was recently a “Laugh Parade” in Zurich. I didn’t attend, but apparently, people congregated on a Sunday afternoon at a pre-appointed time and place, and then they walked through downtown Zurich, laughing. I’m not sure what they were laughing about, but it was to promote health through laughter. But seriously, who schedules a time and place to laugh at nothing with strangers? The Swiss do.

Scheduling is paramount in Switzerland. Punctuality is right up there with cleanliness and godliness, and scheduling things well in advance is also a great virtue. Take my apartment lease, for example. It’s a pretty standard lease for Switzerland. There are two built-in termination dates each year – April 1 and October 1. In order to actually move out on one of those dates, I have to give the landlord three months’ notice, on January 1 or July 1, respectively. Otherwise, I would have to find a subletter (whom my landlord has to approve), or I would have to pay all of the extra rent myself. This is definitely not a culture that is accustomed to the transient nature of young Americans.

Most Swiss people stay close to home. Zurich probably has the most “transients,” but even they come from only an hour away, and visit home often. I haven’t been to my parents’ house in almost four years, and I have very few friends left from the “olden days,” but I have met many Swiss people my age who still see their parents and childhood friends almost every week. Moving to a town that’s an hour away seems to be as big of a step here as moving from New York to San Francisco in the States.

Even for an American, I’m relatively rootless, but compared to the Swiss, I’m probably akin to a hobo with a work permit.

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