> have you ever considered that YOU possibly are a bit difficult ?
> have you ever considered that you could lower the prices in yr pl ?
> have you ever realized that drinking outside BEFORE you go to the bar is quite common here ? as the prices of the bars have risen far more than the incomes ?
> USA ? ever considered whether they will like YOU ?

And legal, too.

Tom

Well, it seems it works pretty easy for you! I am boring in that I knead bread....when bored! otherwise I'm very sociable, I strike conversations with anyone everywhere...the point is...I'm not an expat, I am simply a guy who finds himself in this part of the world, and I don't see differences in what's written on a passport. I went twice to that dodgy pickwick pub, and I only stroke rushed conversations with either foreigners or drunks...I might try another time! True is that I ought to join some club, if that is the local culture, otherwise folks don't just gather if they haven't known each other for many years...Any interesting places to go in Zug?

It sucks. My town of Winti turns into a complete dirthole every weekend. We should have open container laws for at least the railway stations and public parks.

AH! Is your home town the Kentucky of Switzerland? Thats good to know incase I want my kids to smoke at 8 years old

We kinda have the same issue where we used to live in Zurich. Could never figure out where all the parents were?

Don't blame the kids, get drunk is the only interesting things you can do in Switzerland if your budget is limited.

Correctional facility?
I guess some of them just don't care a lot.

Meeting expats and non-Swiss through work is quite easy. Meeting Swiss and developing friendships takes time.

I've been here 11 years and have met the Swiss I know through joining a Buddhist group (where I've been going every week for 8 years) I've developed close connections with some Swiss people through that, but the people I socialize with are still non-Swiss.

I do have 1 really good Swiss friend - we literally did everything together and brought our kids up together but she moved to Berlin a few years ago.

I get on well with a few of the other mums (from my sons class) one in particular when we do see each other we talk very openly. Yet we've never been out alone together, I think it might be because she's lived here all her life and has her network of friends that go back years and years and possibly still doesn't have the time to see them enough.

It's nothing to do with being boring or unfriendly, it's simply a very different culture over here and once people have their "core inner group of friends" which is usually from childhood/youth - they stay with them. Also once they have children, they have even less time and the time they do have they see this core group or family.

Very different to how it was in Australia and the UK - but that's my impression after 11 years.

Hahahahahahaha!! I don't quite look like that but close especially after a long week moving/starting work!

ok, prepare for the cold truth.

You won't make any "friends" here.

you will get plenty of colleages and activity partners, they will meet with you when they are interested on doing some common activity, otherwise no interest at all on you.

It is simply the way it is in Switzerland. ... unless you were born here and know them since kindergarten, then you would be a "friend".

You can make plenty of ex-pat "friends" though, you can get together to rant about all what is wrong here and was right back home. Many would even become real friends.

Problem is someday they will leave for another country and then you are back to case 0.

been there, done that.

Unfortunately, I can confirm this after 2 decade plus. Few Swiss friends (mainly parents of kid's friends), many expat friends who came and left, or moved far away within Switzerland which had the same effect.

"been there, done that."

Got the t-shirt? If not, there is still hope for making new friends...

On topic: I've not been here that long, but true it's hard to have the same kind of relationships back home. Far as I can tell, this is due to a number of factors:
- swiss people I know don't usually go out for a beer or doing stuff with their friends anyway (I asked, they told me so, it's not just an observation)
- people (note that i haven't said swiss, because I think this is the same anywhere else) DO have a core group of friends, from childhood, college whatever and they tend to stick with them as, like someone said before, they probably don't get enough time with these "real" friends in the first place
- people here work a lot and seem to retire in their houses after work and during the weekends; ok, I don't live in a big city, but where I come from even in small villages there are people out all the time, even if standing on their porches and saying hi to passers-by
- going out to a pub or restaurant is expensive, swiss or not; compared to my home country or USA or even Germany, where (on a decent salary) you can easily afford going/eating out 2-3 times a week (no fancy place mind you, but decent), here it's more like once a month

On the bright side (or maybe I am just blessed with some great work colleagues), I feel that swiss people DO want to do more than they do currently: go out, go on trips, do different activities. BUT, they seem to need a bit of pushing for that (which I have no problem providing), after which things start slowly rolling on their own. It's a process, some would think a long one, but I think in the end it's worth it.

Laws alone do not help. What DOES help to a certain extent are police patrols. The problem is not an exclusivity of Winterthur but a general problem. As far as I know, the police in the Canton of Zurich is entitled to tell people in definite terms what to do, and in case of doubt even take people not behaving into custody. We cannot have it both ways, forcing police to save money and expect a better police presence.

At the other hand, Winterthur has made, between 1960 and now, real tremendous progress from what it was then (shabby, dirty, run-down) to what it is now


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Easy! the mother at home doing household and cooking and the father in the nearest pub, recovering from his responsibilities


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Fact: Understanding and speaking the local language helps makes friends.

My take on the Deutsch Schweizer: they may speak a few other languages but only feel "themselves" when speaking Swiss German. This topic has come up in a few courses I've been taking. Because there is usually one person who does not understand Schweizer Deutsch, the course is held in Schrift Deutsch. This frustrates the typical Swiss to no end because they feel they are being forced to speak a non-native language in their own country. They don't mind hearing Schrift Deutsch, but when they are forced to speak it, it gnaws at their patriotic values.

Someone else mentioned being of Swiss roots and heritage, which always helps in making friends too. For those who have no Swiss roots or bonds to a local Swiss, it is much harder to make friends with the locals.

Good luck.

__________________
Faith isn't about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

I think that the children are sent OUT of the apartment to entertain themselves. I knew two boys who even when we were teenagers always were in either homes and never outside. So that when I met one of them years later for the "Musterung" (call-up for registering for military service) he asked me how I had got there, as he considered it to be complicated. I was speechless for a moment and then told him "by bike, just 10 minutes, via Bahnhof Enge and the tunnel and hey presto " My mood was down at bottom value as always when in touch with the military, and so I found his question a bit tiring anyway

Zurich or Geneva are not the best places to make Swiss friends- too many ex-pats, big businesses and banks, etc. Most Swiss there are also sort of ex-pats, as they have moved there for work, away from their community.

"Friends" in Switzerland are people you have learnt to know at age 10 up to 30 . Or / and people you did not really know but were around in the same place when you were a teenager. "Later" friends are people you have met later repeatedly, for example in a pub or at events.

To rant about all what is wrong here also is a popular pastime of "old" Swiss friends when meeting

Take a Spanish class at Migros. You'll have a common bond with your other classmates: the difficulties of learning a foreign language!

Well, when our secondary-school teacher asked that all those who had ONE parent who had grown up in the Greater Zurich area should raise their hands there were three or four out of 30. When he asked that only those whose BOTH parents had grown up in the same area, there was only ONE. Another teacher repeated the same procedure one or two years later. The number of those with at least one parent having grown up locally (that teacher extended the question to the CANTON of Zurich) was TWO, and the number of those with both parents having grown up locally dropped to ZERO .

There were many jokes about the fact that on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, all the roads and trains out of Zurich were full with people moving "home" to other cantons. Schoolfriends were from Neuenburg/Neuchâtel, or Basel or Glarus or Schaffhausen or Thurgau. Which means that most parents in our school-time were expats, and some of them most thoroughly DISliked Zürich. My mother from Schaffhausen was among the exceptions who had moved to Zürich not only for professional reasons but also because she preferred Zürich quite clearly against her beautiful but boring hometown.


GENEVA ? A cousin of me in Geneva was typically Genevoise ! Her father from Stein-am-Rhein/SH and her mother from Budapest and originally Pressburg (Bratislava) out of a Belgian-German family. She herself already as a teenager spoke French, German (both Standard and SH dialect), Hungarian and Russian. She unfortunately already died at age 50, the most deplorable thing for me ever ! But she lives on, in my memory and in the memory of all who met this unique lady !

Thats great advice. Migroklubschule is the best place in CH to make friends.