Fashion

Zurich does at least a couple of things well: Pretty and Money. But who introduced this idea? Man-pris? Come on. When I was growing up, and we grew out of our pants, they called these "high waters" and kindly asked "Are you waiting for a flood?" Now they're a style?

And who thought shorts and suspenders with a funny little hat and a purple vest would be useful? Perhaps the concept of money is also lost on me.

Ah, Swiss people...

F*ing Mosquitos

Pardon my French.

Food prices in Switzerland (re-revisited)

Frustrated again with food prices. Let's assume the US dollar and the CH franc are even enough to compare.

- Whole rotisserie chicken in US: Avg 8.00
- Whole rotisserie chicken in Switzerland: Avg 22.00 ... for real.

- Starbuck's grande cappuccino in US: Avg 4.50
- Starbuck's grande cappuccino in Switzerland: Avg 7.00

- Milk in US: Avg 3.50 gallon
- Milk in Switzerland: Avg 1.50 liter

- Gum... omg, gum! I give up.

her: You're complaining about food again? It's better quality, alright?
me: ...

Food prices in Switzerland (revisited)

For the sake of comparison, let's assume that in the US you can drop in a quarter, turn the knob, and receive 5-7 pieces of gum. These machines exist in even the most disgusting of places, where any 5-year-old is delighted to receive gum for a quarter. Speaking as a 5-year-old, we are aware that the quality will suck, and the gum is quite likely to be stale. It's just a quarter.

But here, one can spend 1.60 on a stimulating pack of gum, similar tasting product, similar life cycle, similar conditions of the gum once purchased.

Even the imported M&M's cost less than a crappy pack of gum. For that kind of money on a pack of gum, I shall expect to be stimulated.

Zurich Street Parade

There is something very different which happens here once a year. For several hours on a designated day, the downtown area loses its freakin mind. I tried researching the significance of such an event. 600,000 people this 19th year again celebrated techno music. It is said to have evolved more toward love and tolerance since these are easier to understand than techno. I think tolerance has become the primary term as I know of four basic qualities that can characterize this state.

- Alcohol
- A high density of scantily clad humans wandering in theme-less-ness
- Trash
- Loitering

I attempted to capture these with photos the best way I could, but it's safe to assume the quality of alcohol just spans across all of them.

Parallel

Big cars are hard to park. It's hard enough to parallel park in between two small cars where the space is only supposed to be big enough for another small car. In our apartment, we have a garage with reserved parking. We've been on the "reserved" list since February. No one moves. So, parking on the street is our only option. Usually we park near the bakery. That's a bit of a walk.

Blue parking zones here are free for one hour or whatever the sign says, unless you pay for a permit which then you can park in the designated letter zone as long as you wish. There aren't any of these close by. Yellow zones are restricted, reserved for someone who has paid for it specifically. The yellow ones close by belong to another apartment, reserved for their tenants. So, we get the free white ones, like everyone else. When we're lucky, really lucky, we can find an open one just outside our apartment. But most people just leave their cars parked there forever and take the trains.

Having a car is a nuisance.

McDonald's

I grew up having a very different emotional response to McDonald's than I have today. I was curious what kind of emotional response a Swiss would have to this. After all, I am attempting to fit in. What is the view of an American corporation attempting to fit in? I asked two Swiss colleagues.

me: Have you seen the McDonald's ads?
1: Ha. Yes.
me: And? What do you think?
1: (sigh) A typical American's thinking... They come here, act like they're Swiss, expect to change us and everything around us.
me: (pause) Oh.
1: (pause) Oh, I mean no disrespect to you. I had actually forgotten to whom I was speaking.

Maybe another opinion might help normalize this first impression.

me: Have you seen the McDonald's ads?
2: Ha. Yes.
me: And? Does it give you any particular emotion?
2: Emotional? Not me, not particularly. I mean I eat there once in a while when I want something fast. But they aren't the first to say they are using local ingredients or local products. Starbucks even says they use Swiss coffee machines in Switzerland.
me: I see. I asked another Swiss person this same question, and it almost sounded anti-American.
2: Well, when the Iraqi war started, lots of people stopped going to McDonald's, Burger King, and Starbucks. Then they came up with these ads to say they aren't just American but they're also Swiss. Pretty clever.

I'm Swiss.

Metrics

Since starting this blog, here are some metrics about it that are interesting to no one other than me.

Years in Switzerland: Just celebrated 1 year, on August 1st, Swiss National Day
Total posts: 100 (counting this one)
Total number of moderated spam comments: 42 (I love the random auto-spammer comments, usually written in Chinese because they don't even show up on my reports)
Number of visits: 3,516
Number of visitor countries: 49
Number of visitor cities: 416
Avg time spent reading this drivel: 2 minutes, 31 seconds

Top 10 visitor cities:
1. Zurich - 721
2. Rueschlikon - 385
3. Lenexa - 257
4. New York - 136
5. Kansas City - 124
6. Adliswil - 108
7. Lenexa - 92
8. Armonk - 90
9. Kilchberg - 83
10. White Plains - 61

Of the 3,121 google searches which brought visitors to this blog, the top 10 search terms are:
1. omgswitzerland - 71
2. omg switzerland - 36
3. nullachtfünfzehn - 34
4. omg switzerland blog - 18
5. food prices in switzerland - 13
6. omg france - 10
7. mbibler omg - 7
8. food price in switzerland - 6
9. null acht funfzehn - 6
10. food prices switzerland - 5
... and many more variations of similar terms.

Top 3 pages most frequently landed upon which are not the main page:
1. Food Prices - 63
2. Size Matters - 54
3. Nullachtfünfzehn - 48

Metrics, beans... Who's counting?