Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

I like the approach here which seems to guard against people overmedicating or medicating when it's not needed. The UK is only just beginning to see the errors of the past; giving out antibiotics like sweets. My sister was really annoyed last week because her doctor didn't prescribe antibiotics for her daughter's sore throat. Having asked her this afternoon how things were, she admitted it had got better on its own.

I think whereas this makes Switzerland seem "old school" on the medicine front, it's actually more advanced, identifying the problem of overmedicating and acting upon it.

Having said that, my sister was working in Dublin in the 1990s and a close work colleague had a suspected ectopic pregnancy. The doctor there told her to drink cranberry juice and come back in a couple of days. Maybe this has changed her view of doctors and medication... :msnsad:

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

once again...misconceptions about Switzerland before people came here, why is it relevant how it is in other countries??? :confused: it has nothing to do with the topic...I understand that it's hard to hear for "swiss" :rolleyes:

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

It's actually not too far off the mark, though. If someone has lived in and around a few different countries it probably changes their preconceptions about Switzerland.

I came directly from the UK so had a "UK-stamped" view of Switzerland. If I'd been living in, say, Germany I would have probably had my head filled with a different slant on the Swiss and their country / culture.

The Brits see the Swiss as seriously efficient and quality driven with punctual trains and accurate watches. i think the Germans see them as slightly slow with a weird language and their country bumpkin cousins.

Err... or something... :msnblush:

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

I left Switzerland because the toilet paper is to rough :D Have more room to getting around ,not have to jump left or right ,not to run in someone els :eek: don`t have to take a number and stand in line to catch a fish;)

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Sure, but this is the case wherever you move. Even if you are nicely informed, realities may still be different. If it is just a holiday-stay, some surprises can easily be absorbed, but if it is life it is more difficult. To have expectations which the new place does not and cannot meat is a tragic matter. Even if you only go to somewhere for 3 months, you should explore the place on a holiday-trip. If you want to move places, you should go to the destination place for two or three weeks to explore it a bit. I knew two Algerian-Swiss couples. Both women before marrying went on holidays to Algeria, and not only liked the families of their husbands "in spe" but later on on holidays stayed there even when the Algerian husbands had to return to Zürich. At the other hand, BOTH Algerians had visited Zürich before moving over and had seen that the place was acceptable to them. All four persons were aware of the beauties and of the shortcomings of both countries. Sure, CH + DZ since the highdays of Bundesrat Friedrich Traugott Wahlen of course are a kind of sister republics ! even if the fate of the two republics made a difference

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Wolly I think you should repeat the last grade(School) :msnshock:;) "Gedanken sind Frei"

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

I have worked in Germany, France, US, Canada, and now Switzerland.

So yes, I have worked in other EU countries.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Ever been on Metro Line ONE or SEVEN

http://www.ratp.fr/informer/pdf/orie...m7&loc=reseaux

for example at "Châtelet" ?? If there you will see what REAL shoving is like and you will love the smallish attempts done here in this regard :D

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Paradeplatz, Fridays 5.30 pm, pissing rain, approaching tram. Don't forget your gum shield and steel-capped boots.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

I had no idea that:

The Swiss are so keen on laundry detergent with flowery perfume scents.

The cured meat section of grocery stores in Switzerland would be big enough to properly be called a "department."

Anti-perspirant/deodorants (combined) wouldn't be available here (have to choose one or the other).

Drivers would be, more times than not, courteous by letting you in during backed-up traffic and acknowledging w/ a nod or wave if you do the same for them.

You can recycle practically everything here, but collecting it, sorting it, storing it, transporting it, and composting can easily be a part-time job.

Public restrooms would be, by and large, clean and private, since they are rooms instead of stalls.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Before I came here i thought:

- That you didn't have to pay for parking at IKEA. Give me a break...

- That Swiss German was an astoundingly difficult abomination that was created out of satan's belch. I'm here almost a month, I can mostly understand it (when spoken a bit slower) and I think it sounds quite agreeable.

- That vegetables are colorless, tasteless and have the texture of unripe apples. I was surprised to find that local products are much better than the ones from back home (a Mediterranean country with a bad debt crisis which shall not be named).

- That people use paper napkins. Thank god I have sleeves...

- That ice-cream was called glace without pronouncing the e. When I asked for one, I got a glass.

- That toilet paper has 2 layers. Until I saw one with 5 layers. I think it's a bit wasteful!

- That Switzerand uses the european Schuko plugs. Instead it uses the most dangerous plug I've ever seen.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Actually, it does, as compared to anywhere else I find Switzerland to be FAR LESS bureaucratic! :eek:

Therefore, it is a misconception that Switzerland is bureaucratic! :p

Of course, I live in Ticino. :D

Tom

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

I thought the local ladies would be incredibly beautiful (best plastic surgeons in Europe) & wild in bed.
I suppose 1 out of 2 is not bad :confused:

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

That "the wheels" would turn sooooo slowly.

That no Swiss would ever speak to me in Schweizerdeutsch -- only (an approximation of) Hochdeutsch -- although I understand much of what is said in dialect.

I have found most people to be really very friendly once I begin speaking with them at length. Not sure what I am missing there, but I did not come expecting any degree of extroversion.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

I hope I don't sound too wolliish when I try to make some things clear:

- It's not Ikea (etc.) but the pressure by the Greens that causes the parking fees. Stores and malls are forced to introduce fees in order to make customers use public transporation, which, in view of the location of those big stores, will never work.

- It's a funny Swiss German peculiarity that "Glace" is pronounced as if it were spelled "glacé." The opposite applies to the French word "panaché," which is pronounced like "panache" when used in Swiss German. Languages never are logical.

- I spent about a year and a half in an unnamed mediterranean country (hint: starts with "G-" and ends with "-reece"). After a lot of very practical experience with their look-through toilet paper (read: crap under my fingernails) I realized that I prefer Swiss toilet paper anytime. Same in the USA, by the way: They traveled to the moon decades ago, but they still can't make a toilet paper that doesn't need being folded eight times. Now that's what I call wasteful.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

After living in Munich for 12 years, I came here ill prepared. I expected non stressed, friendly southern Germans.

My first customer call was to the ministry of planning in Bern, where the receptionist was stressed, and I couldn't understand a word he spoke. I thought he said "Your customer is in the elevator drinking a cup of tea" Bewilderingly I said "Excuse me" and explained I hadn't understood. He replied in German "No, YOU go in the elevator and press button 'T'." This was quite a shock to me, as I had been working in the German language for 12 years, from Hamburg to Graz, and never had a problem of this magnitude before. Happily I discovered the Romandie could speak properly.

A few years later I was working in the SBB workshops in Brigg VS, a region rumoured to have a difficult dialect. On the second day I remarked to the customer at lunchtime, that I was pleased I could now, but with difficulty, understand the Walliser dialect. He replied "What dialect? Because of you we have been speaking high German for the past two days!" Oh deary me...
.

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

great story! :rofl:

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Well, yes, they ARE local. :D

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

But is it true that they yodel when they orgasm? :msnsarcastic:

Re: Personal Swiss Misconceptions Revealed
 

Who cares .... :D