I realized I have mainly written about all the things I have been doing and not so much about the actual country itself.
In these last few weeks I have really been realizing how much I am in love with this country. It is truly an incredible place, and the way everything works is astonishing. I don't know if it's because it's a small country, but boy do they really have everything figured out here!
The number one thing which astonishes me here, is the transportation. I could look at a map of Switzerland and randomly put my finger down and probably be able to get to that point with either a bus, train, tram, boat or chair lift. All the transportation plans are incredible! You can get anywhere without a long wait between each mode of transportation when you have to take multiple ones to get somewhere. There's a website you can go to and type where you'd like to go and it gives you the whole plan along with exactly what plat form you have to go to and so on.. Also something amazing is how punctual this country is!! When I go to school every morning, I take a bus to the train station then a train to school. The bus comes every hour at :09 and :39. When it says it's there at that time, it's literally there on that exact minute. It's so reliable and when you make plans with someone to meet at the train station for example, you say I will be there at 8:12, and that's the exact minute you will arrive!! Okay I'll stop blabbing on about it, but here are some pictures of what it looks like here:
Another thing I love about this country, is the variety of places you can visit. In a matter of 6 hours, you can drive to any place in Switzerland. Since Switzerland is central Europe, it has all the surrounding countries flowing over the boarders to give you a good taste of what that country is like, without even entering it.
For example, I went to Tessin which is in the south of Switzerland. Tessin is a kanton (county/state) on the border of Italy, and when I went there it felt like I was in Italy. Everything was just like it would be if I was in Italy: restaurants, houses, buildings, markets, traditions, the landscape, Italian language and most of the people were Italian. Now if you look at Switzerland on a map, it is surrounded by countries with the same scene at the kantons on the boarder.
To me, those are the coolest things about this country. Now I'm going to just give some random point form points about other things that I absolutely love:
- the food is incredible... I eat a lot of bread, cheese and chocolate. Although you won't recognize me when I get home, I'm loving the meals here!
-I haven't seen a single homeless person on the streets here. They have a special set up for people that are struggling so that they can still live on their own and have enough money for the necessities, I don't know exactly how they do it but it works and sounds incredible.
-They don't have stray animals.. They have tonnes of cats outside but they're all house cats that go out during the day and wonder. The cats are all friendly, beautiful and have their own home.
-They have a great school system, you can find an apprenticeship for almost every job out there. It seems like they get through school pretty fast depending on what it is, get the experience they need, then find a job.. it's a good system!
- The people are so punctual! when they say they're going to be there at this time, they are there.
-It's a very clean country!
-Every window I look out of is usually a breathtaking view
-The views make me speechless.. cough cough, swiss alps!!
-The best thinking I do here is when I am in the mountains and it's one of the most incredible feelings I have ever felt.Now here are some random differences compared to Canada, that I have noticed in the last 6 months:
-the toilets have different handles
-the door knobs are a lot different
-the keys are different
-tv shows usually start at quarter after
-almost everything is closed on Sunday
-almost all stores are usually closed by 7 pm
-they don't have 1 cent coins, everything is on the 0 or the 5 .. $0.95
- it is a very expensive country!
-the windows open differently, they swing out instead of pushing up-people use their knife a LOT more when eating
-they use many round-abouts instead of intersections.. intersections are extremely different
-all kids take public transportation to get to school
-they're allowed to have nudity in things like newspapers and magazines
-they use graph paper as their paper, not lined paper in school.
Honestly, I encourage everyone to travel to Switzerland in their lifetime. It will take your breath away, guaranteed.
I LOVE SWITZERLAND!
No comments:
Post a Comment