I always think of that song when I reflect on my visit to Switzerland.
So it's the post you've all been waiting for, I know. There are so many funny things I noticed when I was in Switzerland, I'm honestly not sure where to start. So I guess I'll do my best to do this in order.
I arrived at the airport around mid-day and my ex-husband and oldest daughter met me and my youngest there. We took our luggage to the car and I noticed immediately when entering the parking garage that I seemed to have fallen into the pages of a certain Jonathan Swift novel. I could have sworn that there must have been a sticker on the chassis of every single car that said, "Made in Lilliput". There were no trucks at all and very few "family" vehicles. It was mostly SmartCars and small sporty looking rigs. I was tempted to try to pull one backwards just to see if it would shoot forward - like a toy. It was fascinating! I never thought of my own car as a land yacht (Dodge Charger) but it turns out, I'm driving a gigantic whale of a car by European standards.
Next came the roads. Upon leaving the airport, things were pretty standard. Turns out only the English drive on the wrong side of the road, but the color-coding with the stripes is different there. I felt like we were going the wrong way on a one way road at first. That was a little stressful ... or so I thought. Once we got to the village my ex and his family lived in, my hands were gripping my seat for dear life. Not only because my ex-husband drives like he's on fire, but because the roads are SO SMALL. Now I tried to keep in mind that I was in a physics defying machine that from the outside looked incredibly small, but from the inside seemed to be quite adequate, but we're talking glorified sidewalks here. In fact, people commonly part their cars halfway on the sidewalk. There are SIGNS showing people how to park with a wheel up on the sidewalk! I'm thinking, as small as the roads were, SCREW THE SIDEWALK ... just get your go-cart out of the street, kids! That was kind of cool yet scary.
When I arrived at their house, I was expecting this mansion. The girls always talked about how they lived on the "third floor". Turns out, the house they lived in - which was a pretty standard type of house in that area - is built straight up and down. Now don't get me wrong - it's still a big house considering the world I have entered into. I am still on the watch for members of the Lollipop Guild. Everything in Switzerland seems smaller than average. But then again, I'm a greedy American with a giant car, so my perception is clearly off. There are in total, FOUR floors. Starting from the bottom, there is a basement made up of the laundry room, a wine cellar and a storage room - all pretty small. The second, or Main Floor, is where you enter the house and it consists of a foyer, the kitchen, the dining room and the living room - again all pretty modest in size. The third floor is the family bedrooms, of which there were three as well as a shared bathroom in the hallway. Finally the top floor, or Attic, has another bedroom (now my oldest daughter's), a bathroom and a common area where there are two spare beds - used by my middle daughter and the au pair (or whatever guests might come visit). The home accommodates several people, but only if those people are capable of climbing copious amounts of stairs.
Appliances. Now I need to preface this a little late by saying that this is the ONLY house I was in while visiting Switzerland, so this could be a singular experience, but I doubt it. I would love feedback from someone else who's been there to add to this. However, knowing my ex-husband and the fact that he was also raised in Texas where everything is bigger, I would think that if larger models were available, he'd have opted for those. All of their appliances are small. SHOCKER! I know ... at this point you totally didn't see that coming, right? The fridge is not much bigger than the one we keep our beer in. There are 5, now 6, people in that family and they have to work out of a fridge with no ice maker and very limited space. I realized quickly that they grocery shop regularly and I also noticed that they don't eat a whole lot of fresh produce. When I go grocery shopping here in the States, I load up. My veggie drawer alone gets filled to capacity not counting the mushrooms, tomatoes, and usually romaine lettuce that doesn't make it into the crisper drawer until about 3 days later (if it's not already been consumed). This can't happen there. It's the same with the washer and dryer. I had to wash clothes while I was there and was baffled at how my ex's wife stays on top of the laundry. I swear that poor woman has to do twice as many loads as I do because you can only fit like two pairs of jeans, three shirts and a pair and a half of socks in there. Gotta do sheets? Hope you have all day because you can only wash about a sheet and a pillow case in there at one time. Maybe a washrag if you're feeling brave. Now they did have a trunk freezer in the storage room, as well as another cupboard, so that's where they stashed most of their extra food, but I'm still trying to work out the produce situation. Good thing there's a store right up the road from their house.
The last thing that I noticed quickly upon arriving in Switzerland (really Europe in general) is the money. They love their coins. After less than 24 hours in the country, I sound like Captain Jack Sparrow himself after a successful heist. I can't even tell you how many times I sat down to use the facilities only to watch as my financial resources spilled forth from my pockets, clinking and clanking all around my feet. They don't give you "notes" until you get up to 10CHF. That was discouraging as I rarely had that much at one time in my pocket. The only thing BIG about Switzerland is the price tags on stuff. So I quickly broke the 50s, 20s and 10s that I managed to scare up. Those went quick. Then I was left with 3 pounds of change that I would later put into a vending machine for a drink I didn't really want that much, just to speed up my gait so I could get up the hill from the train station.
Aaaah ... the trains. I'll save that for another post ... ;-)
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