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: