You Know You’re in Switzerland When…

Searching the Internet for interesting facts about Switzerland, this reporter found and adapted facts about the Swiss. You know you’re Swiss if…

…you get frustrated if you go grocery shopping abroad and there aren’t at least 10 different varieties of chocolate and 15 kinds of cheese available.

When shopping in Switzerland there are always at least 15 to 20 different kinds of cheese available. The choices range from Swiss cheese (Emmentaler, Appenzeller, Thurbenthaler, Raclette) to French cheese and also Italian cheese. In Switzerland we have no such thing as the American “Swiss cheese”. Likewise, even the smallest shopping stores in Switzerland have at least an aisle of chocolate. Milk chocolate, chocolate with marzipan filling, chocolate with truffle filling, hazelnut-milk chocolate bars and all sorts of pralines can be purchased. That is the one thing about Switzerland that everyone gets right: we have the best chocolate in the world!

…you have learned three to four languages and think this is completely normal.

In Switzerland we speak our Swiss dialect, which is very different from high German. Our classes are taught in high German but everyone else speaks Swiss German. In the fifth grade, we began learning French and continue learning it until we finish school. In seventh grade, everyone learns English, which is continued until graduating from secondary school. By that time, we all speak Swiss German, high German, French and English. Later on in apprenticeships, we may also learn Italian or Spanish and sometimes also Latin.

…you walked to kindergarten without supervision wearing a large orange triangle around your neck.

In the two years of kindergarten every child attends, they have to wear a so called “chindsgi bändel” (translated: kindergarten ribbon). It is bright orange or yellow and has reflectors on it. From kindergarten through secondary school, children walk to and from school twice a day because lunch is served at home, not at school.

…when being asked to explain how certain things work in your country, you have to use the phrase”it differs for each canton, so…”

Switzerland is divided into 26 cantons, all with their own similar set of laws. As an example no two school systems are exactly alike. In the canton Zurich, secondary school is divided into A, B and C, and according to how good you are, you are place into one of them. If you’re good in school you go to A. From there you may take a test to go to gymnasium. If your sixth grade teacher sorted you into B or C, you cannot take the test but go on and do an apprenticeship. In Aarau you are sorted into secondary school in the fifth grade. In Geneva, the students are not strictly divided, but still have half of their classes all together. The canton Schwyz has different tax laws than Zürich does, and each canton or even city decides how to distribute the 13 to 14 weeks of school vacation per year.

…you were legally allowed to drink beer and wine at the age of sixteen.

The drinking age for beer and wine in Switzerland is 16. The driving age is 18. There are some clubs you can go to if you’re 16, but mostly the minimum age limit to enter is 18 or 21.

…you have been asked , upon stating your nationality, whether you live in the mountains and whether you can yodel.

Everyone who hears the name Switzerland immediately thinks we all live in the mountains and can yodel. Well, this is most certainly not the case. The cities of Zürich, Basel Lausanne, and Geneva all have populations of over 150,000 people. Others live in villages around bigger cities. Only a small part of the population lives in very mountainous areas, where most of the milk and cheese production takes place. The alphorn is still played in the mountains, and there is also yodeling, but most city people don’t yodel anymore.

…you think everything is cheap abroad compared to Switzerland.

This is a fact: everything in Switzerland is very expensive. Here are a few examples: an average meal in a restaurant costs at lest 30-35 Fr. ($29.00-$33.83) per person. A Big Mac sandwich costs 6.50 Fr. ($6.37) and a Big Mac meal is around 13 Fr. ($12.75) Going to the movie theater costs 18-20 fr per person. We pay much more for cars and also for gasoline. A gallon of gas here costs $6.10. As a result, most Swiss drive small cars. iTunes charges are 1.50 -2.00 fr. ($1.45-$1.93) a song.

How do you really know though, that you’ve landed in Switzerland? Go to Starbucks! In Switzerland you will pay 7.50 Fr. ($7.25) for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

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