My journey to Switzerland

This composition will deal with my holidays, specifically, with my journey to Switzerland. I intend to describe not only the trip itself and my experiences during it but also to analyse a little of the life, customs, culture and several other aspects which I was able to observe in this country.

I travelled to Switzerland on Thursday 21^st August, 2008 and I came back to Barcelona on Wednesday 27^th. I travelled by plane and this was the worst part of the journey, especially after the fatal accident which had happened in Barajas airport. The only problem was my fear of flying but in the end, the flight was completely without incident. This was a terrible event, which I will try to separate from the rest of the good experiences I’m going to talk about.

I went to Switzerland because I had a friend who lived there, working as an organ constructor. Due to the nature of his occupation, he had to go abroad since there is very little work of this kind in Spain. Moreover, he was able to get a professional qualification in this trade, which doesn’t exist in Spain.

Once I was on the ground, the typical problems of transport and organisation you usually find in an unknown country were easily solved. In this area of Switzerland they speak German, which is very difficult to understand. Nevertheless, this wasn’t a great problem since almost everybody speaks a little English or indeed speaks it very well. I was able to find the trains very quickly and they came very soon and very punctually. I did not even have time to take a look around the airport or at the Zurich train station. In Switzerland you can always ask for a travel plan (fahrplan). Here you can see something that supports the typical beliefs regarding organisation in this country. During my journey to Switzerland I could prove the veracity of Switzerland’s reputation in this regard but maybe this should be treated with a certain caution, as will be demonstrated below. For example, in the very travel plan it was possible to find some incongruities and unclear information, not only because of the problem of language and ignorance of some signs but also because of the lack of information regarding which platforms I needed for the several changes I had to make. Because of this problem, I had to wait almost one hour at night in the cold and without anything to do in an intermediate station called Ziegelbrücke.

Punctuality is a characteristic of Swiss people and this is the main difference between this country and most others. Exact timings, good punctuality and good connection between different trains become a problem for people who don’t know how things work very well, like a foreigner like me that day. There isn’t time enough to study the situation and solve one problem in the small interval of time between two trains. Then, a new question can be suggested in relation to the organisation of trains: why is there only one train each hour to connect two towns?

During the remaining days, I visited St. Gallen and Zürich, as well as Glarus, the city where my friend lived. It’s very interesting to observe the typical European style of houses in every city in the country. I refer to the style of construction in the northern part of the continent: low buildings (normally, four floors maximum) with coloured façades, without balconies and with black tiled roofs.

The most interesting thing about Switzerland is the countryside. It is spectacular. You can see snowy peaks from the window of your house. In addition, all the ground is green. The grass is very well taken care of although the weather also helps too, of course. It’s very typical to see cows on the grass and they also contribute to keeping the grass short.

On the Sunday, we went on an excursion to a reservoir and I was able to get to know the Swiss countryside and the forest better. The forest is very thick. Also it’s curious how you can feel very fresh in the forest in the middle of August. The temperature was very pleasant.

It is also very interesting to observe the standard of living and the cultural and educational level of Swiss people. One can see that the people enjoy a good economic level. Prices are very high, more than here in Spain, but perhaps the relation between prices and salaries (income and outgoings) is not as unfavourable as in Spain. Prices are a little higher than in Spain but salaries are higher still. The most shocking thing is that the price of both buying and renting property is similar to Spain. This is the great problem we have in Spain and this is the proof that it is possible to live in good conditions if the political economy is different.

The cultural level is quite high, as is the educational level. It’s rare to come across anti-social people or people who do not drive correctly. Even young people with “alternative” aesthetics are educated and I’m sure that they have fun and they go out, as they do in Spain.

It is also very normal for people to know several languages. Even though there are four official languages in Switzerland, people are also used to speaking English, and because of this it was quite easy for me to communicate with them.

Nevertheless, although the cultural level of Swiss people is very considerable, not everything is as good as it seems at first sight. The closed character of people is very obvious when you try to establish a non-professional relation with them. I’m sure that people, at least young people, enjoy themselves during their free time but perhaps they have a different concept of fun. One shouldn’t forget to greet people when you meet them –in the mountains, in a shop or an office, on the staircase, etc… People would look at you very badly if you did not answer their greetings. On the other hand, after greeting someone in a meeting or a party, you might not exchange another word with them. It is difficult to make friends. This is a curious fact. Perhaps an exaggerated level of politeness is not necessary if people are so closed. It would be better to have more fun and to have more true friends. Because of this, foreign people are not very comfortable living in Switzerland – not because of the economic and living conditions, but because they feel very alone.

Another thing you can observe in this country, which is related to the previous fact, is the good condition of the infrastructure and of various kinds of premises, in the sense that people take a lot of care of them. People have a very strong civic sense. I think that even young people who live according to an alternative aesthetics think a lot before throwing a piece of paper on the ground. Nevertheless, you can find some litter on the ground. I took some photographs that demonstrate this. Perhaps foreign people are to blame for this.

Apart from all these things that might seem to be very good, the thing that was the most difficult to accept for me was the question of timetables. I’m very lazy and I’m not used to getting up early. For this reason I consider it very hard to start work at 7 o’clock in the morning (as my friend did), and the like. This pattern implies going to bed earlier, another thing that is very difficult for me. Another difficult thing for me to get used to was the meal times. It’s impossible for me to have dinner when it is still daytime or have lunch at twelve o’clock midday.