Bye, bye Switzerland ... for now

Well the 7-month journey is over.

Zurichsee; from Munsterbrucke (just outside where I lived)
tourist's view; uploaded by Dreamer7112.

I will miss:

• church bells on Saturday / Sunday; quite loud, mildly annoying (when hung over), and bizarrely, cheerful (or, at the very least ironically pleasing)
• cycling for 5 minutes and being outside Zurich and in the hills / alps of Switzerland; want a thrill? - ride 70km/hour down a Swiss mountain - big fun!
  
• smell of farms; my Mum was brought up on a Swiss farm - and when I visited Switzerland when I was a child I often visited both my grandparents and eldest Aunt's farms
• travelling; especially on trains to most of Europe!
  
• Swiss chocolate (stereotype - I know; but it really is good)
  
• the friends I have made here; in particular Josh, Ivan, Adrian, Nabs (from work); Yan Yan (my only Aussie mate); Jo, Dan (poms from Zurich); and Sibs, Martijn (my housemates!)
  
• the Swiss family; in particular Aunty Hedy and my cousin Marco; while I am a single child - Marco is the closest thing to a brother I have - the favour will be repaid if they ever make it to Australia!
  

I will not miss:

• ambiguity of pedestrian crossings; typical behaviour is for vehicles to accelerate whenever pedestrian is seen; this 'playing chicken' I prefer not to face when I am ambulating through Switzerland's cities
• UBS, Opfikon cafeteria food; while not awful - there were definitely some 'lowlights'; very similar to college food at University of Melbourne, except now you had to pay for it (and it is not cheap)
  
• all beef being ridiculously expensive and in general, Swiss food is pretty average (when compared to Australia)
  

And the question will I ever live OS again? definitely!

Working in Switzerland during the Christmas period ...

Well, a definite perk; each day I turn up for work, there is another collection of chocolates at my desk. A great mid-morning snack :)

Its the lead-up to Christmas!

Rennweg - Decorated for Christmas
Originally uploaded by markyjones.

I walked the streets of Zurich this afternoon - looking for some roasted chestnuts (of which, I am totally addicted to) and was caught up in the Christmas spirit - whoa! Traditional old European towns really go all out at Christmas, and Zurich is no different - lights everywhere; lots of Christmas trees, and the chocolate stores doing a roaring trade.

Cool.

Paradox?

I am not one to go on about the weather differences between time zones, but I couldn't resist this time. Today, it's snowing in Victoria, Australia to an altitude of 400m (in Spring!) and here today in Zurich, Switzerland (in Autumn) it is a balmy 15 degrees and sunny!

Of course it is night time here at 5pm - perfect time to go to the pub ;)

Light snow showers?

WTF; following a 20 degree sunny (Indian summer) Saturday - signs of Europe's true weather are starting to manifest - yes a report of snow for Friday:

Zurich, Swizterland; Friday; Sunrise 07:10 (CET); Sunset 17:07 (CET)
Friday's predominant weather is forecast to be light snow showers.
Minimum: -7°C; Maximum: 5°C

Woohoo!

Switzerland is its own country II - the good

There is a lot of conjecture on the English forum (in Switzerland) of which I am a participating member as to what are the virtues, or not of Switzerland - so I thought I would create my own top 5 / and (later) the bottom 5 reasons for living in Swizterland.

Switzerland and Zurich flags, originally uploaded by markyjones.

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.

And now on to the bad ...

Switzerland is its own country I

Well, I am off on holiday for 2 weeks from next week on. But before, I go on holidays - I am have a half day off next week for the public holiday of Knabenschiessen. V.medieval!

And this is the beauty of Switzerland - despite being: in the heart of Europe, internationally based with cities like Zurich, Geneva, and even Basel, a financial hub with companies like UBS, Credit Suisse - it nonetheless is a v.rural and traditional country proud of its history and origins.

And as you would surmise, I think I may go for a ride :)

Zurich, Switzerland in summer ...

Well, I have spent 4 weeks now in Switzerland, my first European summer since my teenager years; whoa I'm impressed. It has averaged here 30+ degrees for the last 4 weeks, this has allowed me to get a lot of cycling in, you can see some of the photos I have taken here:

Switzerland Cycling - Beckenried
Switzerland Cycling - Bouchs
Switzerland Cycling - Engelberg
Switzerland Cycling - Stans, Stanstad

I also have been able to spend my first weekend in Zurich, and it is a very European city - no buildings over 6 floors tall, beautiful architecture, and lots of churches ;) Anyway, I will no doubt have a more insightful report on Zurich once I lived here longer, but I couldn't resist, publishing these 2 photos of the river Limmat, and the alt-stadt of Zurich.

Fraumunster and St.Peter's Church, originally uploaded by markyjones.

Grossmunster, originally uploaded by markyjones.

Will contrast this blog with another one, once Winter comes ... he he


TAGS: Zurich Switzerland

Moved to Zurich, Switzerland!

Ok, a retrospective post; but nonetheless it deserved its own entry. So on Wednesday, June 26, 2006, I moved into my temporary flat in Zurich, Swizterland. Located on the third floor of 139 Seefeldstrasse, Seefeld 8008. Me and all my bags were taken to here by my cou-cousin Nicole - thank you very much!

So, what did it feel like? well - v.strange. I went shopping at the local Coop - you wouldn't believe it, but whammo - my first cultural faux pas - I had no shopping bags! In Switzerland, it is definatley a BYO only option, so completely overestimating the goods I had, I purchased 4 shopping bags! Also realised that you pack your own, and rather quickly because people are waiting for their goods to be put down the lane - phew, made it, only just! I then went to the local kiosk and bought an English newspaper.

V.impressed with flat, a nice 65 square meters, 1 beddie, and balconie on both sides - whoa hold on ... I can see into apartments - very Vertigo like; briefly transfixed at cute blonde neighbour having a smoke, and other neighbours having a chat - weird!

Bunkered down with 'International Herald Tribune', a steal? at only 3.60 CHF, and watched, the rather boring only-English-TV-channel CNN TV (think business news 24/7).

Started to get v.anxious about going to work the following day, but equally was excited to find the locations, meet everyone, see my desk, etc.. Nonetheless, distinctly recalling going out to the balcony and staring out into the red-blue sky ... thought to myself - what the hell have I done?