THINGS WE LOVE
- The beauty of Geneva and of Switzerland as a whole
- Walking / biking through Geneva's old architecture every day
- Foods
- Migros Chocolate Brownie ice cream
- The fresh-baked breads (baguette, croissant, pain du chocolat)
- Kebab shops on every corner
- La Pignata ($10 take-away pizza, which is a steal-of-a-deal in Geneva – and some of the best pizza we’ve ever had!)
- The weekly farmer’s market just outside our apartment; we especially love the olive guy (named "Mortaz") from Egypt and the kind Swiss couple that doesn't speak English but whom we buy our produce from every week that we’re in town
- We are able to walk or bike to anywhere in the city, yet are only 10 minutes from the countryside
- Jet d’Eau in all of it's glory
- 132 gallons of water per second + leaving the nozzle at a speed of 124 mph + jetted to an altitude of 459 feet + therefore at any given moment, there are 1849 gallons of water in the air = AWESOME
- Drinkable water fountains, “Eau Potable”, all over the city (the one free thing in Geneva)
- Our tiny apartment
- Bocce ball tournaments across the street from our apartment
- The modern technology of Skype (in order to “see” our family) and video streaming (our very favorite TV shows and NFL games)
- Traveling by train vs. airplanes because it’s less stressful, has better views, and you don’t have to be there 2 hours early or wait in security lines!
- Restaurant prices pretty much include everything at the onset (tax & service), so you only give a couple extra bucks as tip if you really liked the service (there’s no surprise 10% tax or 15-20% add on for tip)
- We can now say we have money in a Swiss Bank account (not only that, but it includes a high tech password system which changes numeric passwords every minute...the Swiss are very advanced in the banking department!)
THINGS THAT SURPRISED US
- Grocery stores don't always refrigerate milk and eggs
- 2.5% milk is the lowest milk fat you can find (and it's delicious)
- There are built-in heavy-duty sun and noise blocking shades on most home windows (and they're GREAT when needed)
- Tiny wheat fields, yet full-sized combines to harvest them (wouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to harvest a field!)
- Men in fancy dress suits and women in dresses and skirts riding bikes (Ang is now one of them)
- We had to buy a mandatory bike insurance sticker (for $6), which covers us for up to $2 million in damages (try to think of a scenario where you can do $2 million in damages with a bicycle and we might just try it…)
- Switzerland's billing system is extremely simple -- everyone pays his or her bills online through the bank or pays directly at La Poste (Post Office)
- There is a “Central Perk” bar / coffee shop (from the show “Friends”) in our neighborhood
- Bush & Obama faces are painted on half pipes in the skate park
THINGS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND
- FRENCH
- Sometimes they randomly crack a raw egg in the middle of a pizza
- There is a pharmacy on every corner
- A McDonald’s Big Mac costs $7 (the meal is $14)
- Most Europeans we talk to have some level of dislike for the U.S. (ranges from minor to major) but love Obama
- Certain American films and TV shows have slightly different names over here
 |
| Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles :) |
 |
| "L.A" Crash |
THINGS THAT TOOK A WHILE TO GET USED TO
- Not having a microwave!
- Bringing a $2 coin to the grocery store as a deposit to use a shopping cart
- Working on a different time zone than most of our coworkers (working late over here vs. early in the U.S.)
- No full-sized clothing dryer available to us -- we have to hang dry all of our laundry
- Time format is 24hours and date format is DD/MM/YY
- Many restaurants only serve one kind of beer, so instead of asking what's on tap (right, like we could explain that in French anyway) you simply say “Une bière s'il vous plait” (a beer, please)
- If you don’t ask for your bill in a restaurant, they’ll never offer it to you
THINGS THAT ARE STILL TAKING A BIT LONGER TO GET USED TO
- The Metric system
- Figuring out what to do next when you ask someone "Do you speak English?" and they say "No"
- Not over-shopping, especially groceries (we have to carry everything home that we purchase—most of the time on our bikes—which gets a little interesting sometimes)
- Early closures of stores (7pm) and most everything closed on Sundays
- Restaurants don’t serve complimentary water (you have to buy bottles of water with or without "gas" (carbonation)) and they give you a dirty look if you ask for free tap water
THINGS WE'LL NEVER GET USED TO
- FOOD: No sourdough bread, no Taco Bell, no Tillamook cheese
- Restaurants are EXPENSIVE (often $60+ for 2 entrees and 2 drinks)
- The smoking (it seems like everyone smokes over here)!
- We pay a TV-watching and radio-listening tax that costs as much as our TV subscription does each month (how do they know we even have a radio?)
- Having to translate snail mail by retyping word-for-word into Google translate to make sure we aren’t missing anything important
- Being far away from family and friends
It has been a fantastic year. Every day we look at each other in bewilderment at the thought of how this adventure landed in our laps. We feel so incredibly blessed to have had this opportunity to live over here and we thank God daily.
No comments:
Post a Comment