Surprising stuffs in Switzerland - flyers

When it comes to promoting a product sending out flyers is a common way and Switzerland is no exception. I am huge fan of stickers having on our mailbox saying we do not wish to get any promotional material. However, this has not happened yet here. The main reason is that I did not (and sometimes still do not)  have any idea which store I should go to pick up let's say a pillow (ok, besides the obvious choice of Ikea) or a mop or anything besides supermarkets. In fact I was not familiar with the name of the supermarkets either. There are not many huge international chains in Switzerland (and that's common in the Netherlands as we know), so even figuring out where to buy a specific item can be challenging.
But back to my story. So every week several flyers arrive in our mailbox and let me say that some of them are pretty surprising. This includes a weekly flyer about different car brands. Honestly I have never seen anything like this before. Flyers in our mailbox every week about brand new cars? I understand that Switzerland is supposed to be a rich country but seriously?
One of my other "favorite" just arrived a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, this is what it seems. It's a flyer about old Swiss military equipments. Who on earth would want to buy any of this? Actually, considering how important the military is in this country probably this should not even be a surprise. In a country, where houses have bunkers to hide in a case of anything and everything happens these products should come handy. Still, I pass on that and nobody should expect any of this for Christmas either.

Lindt factory outlet

As Christmas is approaching fast and we visit friends and family we decided to pay a visit to Lindt. In the supermarket there is a huge variety of chocolate, mainly Swiss of course but since there is a Lindt chocolate factory not far from us, we decided to go there and check out what they have especially after the great experience we had at the Kambly cookie factory.
There used to be (or still) factory tours but we were mainly interested in shopping and discovering seasonal flavors. This time around there is a special Christmas Lindt shop with all the seasonal items and there is the regular shop with the all-year round items. There is a short walk between the two but the best part is the air smells like chocolate so walking from one place to another is so much fun!

When I was living the San Francisco Bay Area I visited the Guittard Chocolate Factory, which was an amazing experience. I was lucky enough to get a private tour and experience the way of making chocolate. This tour made me really appreciate good chocolate and be selective of which one I eat. I am not saying I am not tempted by a Kit Kat bar once in a while but I prefer having a small piece of a great chocolate than a bigger piece but low quality.

Now, I have a confession to make, which may seem crazy: I am not a huge fan of Lindt products. It's not about the quality but rather than the flavor or the texture. As I am not a huge fan of the taste of Hershey, I am not a huge fan of the taste of Lindt either. To be fair, I rarely eat any chocolate bars. I just simply not that into them. I love a really nice piece of cookie or some pastries instead.

But let's get back to the Lindt outlet. We bought several packages of kugels and bars for present as my family and friends DO like them. This is a selection we bought with the Christmas Lindt bear.

Recycling 2

So what happens to the stuff you collect in your house?
The household garbage is collected once a week. For compost, there is a huge bin outside and is taken away probably in every two weeks. For carton and for paper there are separate ones obviously.
As for the rest and for big piece of cartons or paper or everything else, there are places called ökihof, the dumping places for (almost) anything that collected separately. It's free to take things there although you have to pay for dumping plastic.
It's pretty convenient to get rid of everything at once although the opening hours are ridiculous as it's only open from the mornings till 5 pm and on Sat until 12.30, which means if you work you can only go on Sat and if you are out of town you have to wait another week. It's almost true for all the shops though in Switzerland so no surprise here. Scheduling and planning is the key and once you set it up everything goes smoothly.
Besides that you can also bring your stuff to the supermarket where you can find recycling points.

Obviously it's not an option if you have a ton of garbage left from the moving in or renovation or a couple of weeks piled up paper and plastic but can be a solution for a quick clean up.

Recycling 1

Before moving to Switzerland I tended to think I am protecting nature by not littering and recycling paper, glass and tins. Now that I live in Switzerland though I realize there is room for improvement.

On one hand it's very easy to recycle here as simply that's the way and on the other hand it is made really easy. In Amsterdam or the center where I lived at least it was more difficult especially when you have a bike on which you are supposed to carry the garbage to the recycling place.

Switzerland definitely mastered recycling. People on average recycle more than 70% of their garbage and this is what we have been doing as well. As we know Switzerland is an expensive country and so is having household garbage. You can only put your household garbage out in a certain bag that is purchased at certain supermarkets. If you do any other way, you can be fined as much as 10,000 CHF. Yes, ten thousand franks. Households do not pay any yearly or monthly fee as in other countries so the amount of disposal comes from the garbage bag. You pay as much garbage you have. This is one of the reasons people choose to recycle, which is actually (mostly) free.

So, when moved here this was one of the first projects we had to figure out. Where to put the garbage... I know it sounds silly but it's indeed an important project.
First of all, we collect compost, plastic, paper, carton, aluminum, white glass, brown glass, green glass, PET, milk bottles, batteries and other things that we want to get rid of (such as a broken mop for instance) separately and we do not drop them into household garbage. The question is now where to collect these as you basically need a separate container for each and the IKEA ones are really not that nice to keep 5 of them at least in the kitchen. I already have some idea how to store them but until I manage to find what I have in mind we only have a corner with a couple of baskets and bags. Not that nice but it's for a good cause, right?

Chores 1

When you move to a foreign country even the smallest things can be problematic and that's especially true when you move into a flat in Switzerland. Not only you have to stick what's in your contract such as opening your windows at least twice a day but to perform your chores can be strange at first.
Most of the apartments in Switzerland do not come with a washing machine. I am not totally sure what the reason might be but I guess it has to do something with noise. You are not allowed to make any noise on Sundays or during the evenings that can disturb your neighbors. (This actually not only includes noise but everything else that can disturb anyone in your street. For example you cannot move out/park a van in front of your house during Sunday or on a holiday because the sight of that can disturb people)
Not surprisingly, our apartment does not come with a washing machine either. Instead there is a common room in the attic where you can perform anything related to clean your clothes. Whatever that is. To be precise there are two rooms.
One has a washing machine, a dryer and a sink while the other one is the drying room. What it means is that you are only allowed to put your wet clothes in that room. You are not allowed to hang any wet clothes in your apartment.

When you hang your stuff in the dryer room, you have to turn a machine on that gets all the vapor and drys your clothes in an hour or two.

So how do you know when can you do the washing? You don't really. At least not in our house. In general there is a schedule set up and you have to stick to that. As there are only three apartments in our house we do not have such a thing but obviously that did not help me in the first couple of weeks because I was never sure if I was interrupting anyone's schedule or what. Of course I could ask which I did when we run into one of our neighbors but you do not really go and knock on their doors during evening either. 

Kambly cookies

Sunday was cold and windy and since we spent Saturday shopping in Germany (a post will come soon on that one) we were not planning to do anything other than having a cozy day in. We actually wanted to go for a jog too but we got a slight cold on Sat and because it was raining a bit we decided not to go. Instead we went to visit the Kambly cookie factory in Trubschachen. I know, I know....from jogging to cookies.. not a good deal.
Anyway, anyone who is visiting Switzerland and has a couple of hours, definitely should go to this place because one could get a real taste of the country (literally). There are about 30 different kind of cookies and crackers, which all have free samples so you can try which one to buy. The packages you can buy are 500g each and costs between 8-11 CHF. It's actually a good deal considering a package of 100g costs around 3.50 CHF in the supermarket. You can also get some nice tins with cookies inside which are perfect for gifts.

There is also a cafe where you can have a selection of pastries or get a cup of milk/coffee/tea with the samples. The place is overwhelming so be prepared! I highly suggest to eat something proper before your visit to prepare your stomach.

For kids this place is simply heaven. They can not only have unlimited pieces of cookies but there are some activities for them too. It's Christmas time therefore they had some Christmas cookie baking class for kids only. You probably have to pre-register for these activities I assume.



Besides the workshop there is also a short intro of the history of Kambly and how the famous bratzeli (pretzel cookie) is made.

Address and opening hours can be found on their website.

The next place we scheduled to visit before the holidays is the Lindt chocolate factory.

Taboos and the country aka socializing with Swiss people

During our weekend we had our real first encounter with Swiss people. It was interesting and went against (almost) everything I read or heard before.
Obviously we met Swiss people before, engaged in small conversations..well, at least me because my German is limited plus I currently do not work. My husband (uhh strange to say it) works with Swiss people plus interacts with MANY on daily basis and he has great experience. We more or less met our neighbors although the welcome apero that we are supposed to do has not happened yet (mainly because we are still out of some furniture and nowhere to sit really).
This weekend though, one of our neighbors organized the yearly Halloween get together. We really looked forward attending because we were really curious who live here. The only thing we basically knew that this place is a really Swiss one with only a really small number of non Swiss. And that's actually true. Turned out, we were the only non-Swiss:)
As a preparation, I read forums and talked to people about how Swiss behave in a social setting what the taboo topics are and what they like to talk about etc. Interestingly, during the conversations those topics came up such as money, occupation and how we ended up in the neighborhood. I was amazed! On one hand they are easy to talk to them and yes, they keep things to themselves and really private (no surprise here) but they are just simply curious people as everyone else in the planet. After we went home we were discussing how the evening went and both of us were super amazed. Actually we had a great time, met with nice people and was so much fun to get an insight in this culture. And after two months in Switzerland I can say I like it here.

And that's today's view: