Ahha, I see your point.

I just take the boy and we play football on their "hard-play-area".

My point is: it's not locked up, there's no gangs of kids or dogs there.
It's open to everyone.

Hopefully he'll play for CH in World Cup 2022....!

definatly the racklette and the fondue, and the chinese restaruant at the Globus in Zuri where you can sip a Tiger beer

the post is amazing. every year the US social security administration sends out a statement saying 'you paid' and 'you will get' and stuff. this year the address was:

STINZURI {my full name}
ZURICH SWITZER ZURICH
SWITZERLAND 00000

The Swiss postal system actually managed to deliver the statement to me. Is that not just incredible??? Three cheers for the people at Die Post.

That is pretty impressive, I suspect that they used your full name and just looked you up in the phone book. What isn't very impressive is that the social security admininistration appears as though its system can't handle any other address format other than US. It looks like it doesn't even have a country field! It looks like they put SWITZERLAND in the part usually reserved for the town.

agreed. but the fact that they even did it impresses me. the boffins at the USpostal service would more than likely drop the letter in the 'undeliverable' bin.

i wrote the us embassy (social security section) and got a 'not our doing' letter with change of address form. we'll just have to see what happens next year.

But this is the same postal service that returned mail to Australia because the sender forgot the "care of" name, on an otherwise perfectly addressed letter. ie: yokine, c/-flatmate, xstr.... vs yokine, xstr...

Though they had been delivering mail in the first format for about six months. One slip up and it was back by seamail. we though it was lost in the mail, but it showed up at the senders home after about 3 months. Oh an apartment number on the mail box would be such an unworkable system

plentiful fresh water...everywhere - and free!

jm

Was the recipiant's name actually on the post box? If not, it seems reasonable. My delivery person is frequently, but not always, the same person.

Hi All,

As I mentioned in all my posts tonight, I just joined this page, and so far I just think it is fantastic. I am an American, born and raised in the US, with Swiss parents. I lived in the USA for 25 years and in CH for 13. I love both countries, and I have issues with both, but these are some of the reasons I love living here, if you're interested :-):

1) THE WATER...Is there any other place in the world where you can get water out of the tap and it's better than anything in a bottle?

2) THE BREAD...All I can say is YUM!! Every time I come back I am amazed at how good it is.

3) A FEW HOURS AND YOUR IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT COUNTRY...France, Italy Germany and Austria...need I say more?

4) THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY...though there is a lot of talk about racism, I have yet to live in a such a small geographical boundary that offers so much international opportunity (on so many levels), for so many people.

5) THE CINEMA-In Zurich there are more screens than I have ever seen in such a small geographical area, w/ so much choice, AND all in original language. Subtitles anyone? I LOVE that. Haven’t been able to find that any other country which offers that.

6) THE CLEANLINESS: No garbage here. Nice to have!! That's for sure.

7) THE BEAUTY: I can walk out my back door and within 5 min be in nature...and I live in the biggest city in the country.

8) THE TAXES...not too much, in my opinion. Ask any German or Swede(that does not live here) and they will be amazed. Plus. I can actually see my money in action.

9) THE FREE NEWS. Where else can you walk to work and have access to so many free newspapers? That is not something to be taken for granted!

10) SIMPLY THE RIGHT TO LIVE HERE...there are milloins..,no billions,…of people who would give everything to live in a place like this. Lucky us!!!

So I dare say, I do have a long list of things I can list as to why Switzerland pisses me off, and believe me, I spend enough time talking about them, but at the end of the day, one thing that I can say is.... how luck we are!!

Cheers,

Leysin

Hip Hip Hooray, me too The reason i haven't been able to contribute much to this site is that i've been here too long.I forgot all the really tough things that happened to me in the beginning and have just assimilated into the things that shock new-comers. Laundries, rubbish disposal etc. The more i've read on the site the more i've realised how far i've come in this integration thingy.
I love this site it has given me so much food for thought and it's good to see that there is a soladarity that i could have only dreamt of.
Hats off (even if there is a load of wingeing going on)
Oldhand

Leysin, I merged your thread into this one. Before starting a "10 things I hate about Switzerland.." , a similar thread does exist as well. Please try the search function first, and then this place will remain like point #6 in your post.

Argh. I hate when you moderator types do this. I sat there saying "why in the hell am I on a bread thread" and wondering what that has to do with things this poster loves about Switzerland.

There are some more things - more subtle than free newspapers and the cinema. (Free papers by the way have been a phenomena in the UK for many years).

I would suggest THE STATUS OF THE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER: we have a status here that simply does not exist in our own country. On a number of occasions I have been treated like a celebrity, for no other reason than I could detect than that I was English. Our language is 'cool' and those with an awareness of the the history of the 20th century are thankful for the role played by English-speaking nations.


What I miss most though is BANTER. This is a peculiarly British (and Australian/NZ) thing. I can't say that I have experienced this so much with Americans - and certainly not with Swiss...

The two threads were pretty much identical, they were both about loving switzerland as the primary topic. Not sure where the bread came in - probably along the way Checking the subject line is always a good idea...

Heh, that was the thing. It starts with the first post talking about bread - in quotes! I thought I was going batty (I'd seen it on the first go-round and it was a long list of things someone loved about living here...maybe I'm just not awake...)

I do not like Swiss bread but French but i love that the trains are on time. Whenever someone asks me what i like about Switzerland, I always reply:'the trains are on time'...:-)!

- clean streets
- safe for oneself, children
- that one can meet interesting and kind people people (mostly foreigners)
- What i love about Switzerland: the fact that one learns to appreciate the interesting and kind people you meet:-)

Which reminds me of something else which is usually quite good in Switzerland: coffee

Coffee? Have you ever craved for a lovely filter coffee or Jamaican blue mountain?

THe only Hotel where they were able to offer filter coffee to me was in Ascona, a beautiful hotel called Casa Berno

Well this got me thinking and I thought I too would compile a list of why I find living in Switzerland sweet; I have discounted: (i) location - as this is shared by most countries in Europe; (ii) water - difficult to qualify; and (iii) bread (depends on the bakery!). So here we go:

TOP 5

1. 'Little Big Cities'; a term used to describe Zurich (and I presume it can be applied to Geneva, Basel) is very apt. Nowhere in the world (I believe) can you live in an international city of less that 500K people. What are the advantages of this? well one has access to all the major shop retailers of the world (e.g. Sony, Apple, Gucci, Channel, Benetton, etc.); international rock performances (in October - Jet, Snow Patrol) that play at much smaller venues; sporting showcases such as international athletic events / soccer matches (European Championship 2008) and cultural options such as opera, Kunsthaus, etc.. And despite all this, in most Swiss cities, it is a mere 5 minutes cycling to the outskirts of the city, it is not over-populated, and it is very well maitained (e.g. good infrastructure, cleanliness, etc.).
2. Nature; Switzerland is beautiful - a combination of mountains, lakes, and a predominantly rural - based heritage / demographic. It may have amazing areas which are internationally well known such as Zermatt, Davos, etc. - but truly Switzerland is staggering wherever you are. Favourite scenerey - cows (bells on) scattered across green slanted fields of one of the many mountains (and they are everywhere).
3. Euro-Cultural Diversity; Switzerland is not mutlicultural (e.g. like Australia), however, to me it appears strongly eurocultural - that is, it is full of people from all different European cultures. The Swiss genome is difficult to define - Swiss people are not overly tall or small, blonde or brunette. I don't what the reasons are for this - but then again - you have just have to count the number of European countries Switzerland borders! I find Swiss people vary from canton-to-canton and strongly across language borders (e.g. Swiss French are significantly different to the Swiss German). In a country which has four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Romanisch) it is a truly Euro ethnic country which ironically is not in the European Union!
4. Politics; while I am not fully conversant with Switzerland's political system - it has to be admired (in a stubborn sort of way) that in a world moving towards globalism that Switzerland is still neutral! Combine that with a referendum-based political system where Swiss people go to polls every month and you have a very cohesive, slightly insular, and very democratical country.
5. Tax / Quality of Living; most of the cities in Switzerland are rated as very expensive cities, however, the caveat to this is that the purchasing power of Swiss individuals is high - why? well incomes are high and tax is low! This combined with Swiss cities rating consistently very highly on 'quality of living' scales permeates to a very high standard of living in Switzerland.

My 2 cents worth ...

Ha! Ha! Ha! This cracks me up. Whenever a visitor comes over, there's always a malarky over wretched filter coffee! Why on Earth would you want to drink it when there's such good real coffee available in Switzerland? I try to get them to savour the joy of a decent espresso, or even a 'cafe-creme' ...it's hopeless. A friend once ordered a 'latte', and was horrified to get a glass of milk ha ha ha... However, if you must have the thinner stuff - after all, it's subjective - ask for an Americano or Caffe Lungo.
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Friends don't let friends go to Starbucks