The Flag's a Plus

In Zürich, there are 3 grocery chains with a major presence, and a fourth that's smaller but influential. Migros  is probably the least expensive, with a heavy emphasis on in-house brands. They're roughly comparible to Walmart. They're trying to expand into everything. There are Migros electronics stores, Migros banks, Migros credit cards, and even a Migros mobile phone plan. Denner is a hybrid of convenience store and grocery store. They all seem to be small, though they have a pretty good selection for their size. For many of their products, they only sell the store brand. Coop is a middle tier grocery store. They carry some in-house brands and a lot of the brands that you'd see anywhere in the world. I'd equate them to Target or Giant Eagle. Coop has also started to expand into other markets like banking. Globus is very nice and very expensive. There are only a few of them in Zürich. They tend to have a much better selection of unusual international food...

In the US, if you need to send someone money, it goes like this: The recipient gives you his or her address You mail a check to the recipient The recipient carries around the check for a few days, and eventually takes it to his or her bank. The recipient's bank cashes the check and presents the check to your bank. Your bank sends the money to the recipient's bank. In Europe, it works like this: The recipient gives you his or her IBAN  and optionally, a reference number (equivalent to the "note" field on a check) You tell your bank (via their website) to send money to that IBAN and include the reference number, if there is one Your bank sends the money to the recipient's bank. Now, the key thing to understand is that almost everyone only knows their own system. Europeans have no idea what to do with a check, and Americans have no idea what to do with an IBAN.  Fortunately, the US is big enough that some of the European banks know how to deal w...

Grocery shopping in Switzerland has a few wrinkles that we don't have in the US. Among other things, people shop almost daily. In the city, most people are on foot, and they don't want to carry their groceries far, so the grocery stores are small and frequent. There are more grocery stores than Starbucks stores around me, and there are plenty of Starbucks stores. The produce section operates a bit differently from the US. In the US, the produce often has price stickers. You put the produce into a bag, and it's weighed and priced at the register. In Switzerland, there's a number listed next to each different kind of fruit or vegetable. You put your veggies in a bag, then take them to a scale in the produce section. You punch in the number, and a price sticker is printed next to the scale. You then stick that sticker to your bag. The cashier then scans the sticker at the counter. No weighing or lookup involved. It's very similar to the way that the deli works in mos...

I bought a frozen pizza for dinner. It looked like it was topped with sausage and onions. Nope. Tuna and onions.

A few smaller things that I've noticed about Zürich that probably aren't worthy of their own posts: The Swiss speak many languages. English is often not one of them. Most people speak Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German), Hochdeutsch (Standard German), a little bit of French, and an even smaller bit of Italian. Young people are more likely to speak English. I blame pop culture. Because everything is labeled in German, French, and Italian, it's pretty easy to make out labels. Whatever word English uses was probably stolen from or by one of those languages. The Swiss like steps between rooms. It's common for hallways to be an inch or two higher than the floors of the rooms around the hallway. You see this even in restaurants and public buildings. I spent the first week here tripping every time I entered or left a room. They seem to like slightly irregular walking surfaces, too. Even new construction features cobblestones and heavily textured walking surfaces. I cannot h...

In Zürich, apartments are really expensive. On top of that, the customary security deposit is 3 months' rent. So we need the security deposit plus our first month's rent up front. We knew this when we left. We had the money saved up. The only question was, "How do we get it to Switzerland?" So, I went and talked to someone at the bank myself before we left. She wouldn't stop trying to sell me crap I didn't need, but she did tell me that I'd be able to do an international wire transfer. We visited again together, and a very friendly customer service person told us that international wire transfers were NOT possible unless we were in the bank in the US. I called the customer service number to resolve the discrepancy, and was told that it was possible, but I'd have to set up a PIN before I made my first transfer. I decided to just wait until we arrived and had a local bank account. Then, I'd try it and see what happened. It turns out that there...

Yesterday, I figured out that we've been washing our clothes for the last week with fabric softener instead of detergent. Look, there was a soft-focus picture of a lady hugging a blanket on the front. "Laundry detergent" seemed like a reasonable guess.

Some photos from our first few days in Switzerland

Waiting on hold is annoying. Unless you're calling internationally and paying between 20 and 60 cents per minute. Then, it's infuriating. (Yes, there are ways to call for free over the Internet, but these are subject to occasional drop-outs. I tried this first, and when it's your bank that you're calling, and you're reading account numbers, drop-outs are really not acceptable.)

The local specialty in Zürich is a dish called Züri Gschnätzlets . It's veal, kidney, and mushrooms sliced thin and served topped with a wine and cream sauce and a side of rösti . A day or two after we arrived, we went to a restaurant that serves it. A bit after we ordered, another American couple sat down nearby, and the man ordered "the special". Their food arrived, and after a few minutes, the man said, "Honey, you've gotta try this veal marsala and hash browns! It's really good!" I am now feeling much better about my efforts to fit in.

You all know unhealthy salads like potato salad or macaroni salad. Let me introduce you to a Swiss unhealthy salad: Wurst-Käse-Salat (roughly: sausage cheese salad) To make it: Chop up cheese into cubes, chop up hot dogs or ring baloney (well, cervelat, but same idea), throw in some relish and onion, top it with a cheese sauce. Think "redneck antipasto covered with cheese sauce" and you'll be on the right track. If you were to serve it with a splash of barbecue sauce and some dried onion rings, you'd have something American enough to make a bald eagle shed a tear of pride. But, somehow, it's Swiss and I'd never heard of it before.

Zurich by Night from Alessandro Della Bella on Vimeo .