Ten Observations on Switzerland

I spent a couple of days traveling around Switzerland in the past week....checking out Lucerne, Bern, and Zurich.  I came to note ten things:

1.  I rode the trains extensively, which regard as one of the finer railway systems in the world.  At some point (in Zurich), we were ending the day and needed to return to Lucerne (it would be a normal 45 minute ride).  We boarded the train, sat down and the departure time came up....but we weren't moving.  A minute or two passes, and this teenage female voice (probably 18 years old, but sounding like a 10-year old kid) comes on the speaker system, and suggesting a technical 'default' had occurred with the engine, and they were working on the problem.

She was careful not to suggest a safety issue, or broke engine.  But between the voice and use of wording, it was obvious that she was trying to be careful without saying the worse-case scenario.  Five minutes pass, and the worse-case scenario has occurred....in a squeaky teenage voice.....we were broke, and needed to move onto the next train (leaving in 20 minutes).

One of the odd features of Switzerland that you learn is that they really have an abundance of technician jobs, but not enough in population to fill them.  So they often recruit from outside of the country, or go and force kids into trades that they'd typically never think about (like a 17-year old girl being recruited to be an engineer driver). 

2.  There are Chinese tourists all over Switzerland, and carefully noting lots of things to copy.  The comical side of this is that a lot of the knife sales (something the Swiss were famous for in the 1980s).....have been bought by Chinese companies, and when you buy what appears to be a high quality knife....it's actually made in China, and shipped to Switzerland to sell.

3. The finest hash browns in the world (called rostis)....are made in Switzerland.  They are served primarily for lunch and dinner.

4.  Maybe for burgers or pizza, you can still eat for $10 or less....but if you walk into any real restaurant and order a table dinner.....don't expect to get anything decent for less than the equivalent of $25. 

5.  With one single exception, over five days....I saw the cops only once.  It doesn't matter if you are talking about train stations or shopping districts.....you just don't see the cops.

6.  Head Shops.  Legally, weed is still illegal.  However, just about everything around the use of weed is sold.  So, one might take this to suggest that twenty-percent of the population is using marijuana in some form, and the cops are just looking the other way.

7.  E-scooters.  In Bern and Zurich, I probably noted around 10,000 e-scooters being used or parked around the two cities.  I saw older retirees riding them, and kids down around the age of ten.  There's rapid growth going on, and it's a part of the landscape now.

8.  Tourism appears to be booming.  It's not just bus travel....people are using the railway system to travel around, and go select their own choice for a hotel (like I did).

9.  You see an awful lot of housing via the train lines, in rural areas.....which were built in the past ten years.  Ten miles....even twenty miles outside of a metropolitan area.

10.  You just don't see dirt-poor or welfare-type people around on the streets.