If you remember from the initial thoughts post: 👀

Apart from some of the things mentioned above, I have also been noting down other interesting (or not so interesting) things that I found to be different in Switzerland compared to home/Canada. As I continue to compile them, I will eventually post that list out too! So keep a look out for that.

So I was evaluating my list, and realized most of what I wrote was during the first few weeks I was here. Some make sense, while others don’t leave a particularly strong impression. So instead of providing that list (sorry!), I will just note some of the more standout and/or interesting items.

Smoking

By far the most noticeable one (typically cigarettes, but also a fair number of e-cigarettes.) This isn’t just attributed to Switzerland, but also to many other parts of Europe as well (anecdotally from myself and others.) Even though some people say places like Paris have a lot more people smoking than here in Switzerland/Lausanne (which is probably true), it is much more on my radar here than elsewhere, maybe because of “at home” instead of “travel” mode. Regardless, it was still a bit of a shock for me when I first came, and still is now.

Smoking is also quite prevalent among students, which is very different from Waterloo. You’ll find people smoking before and after class, during breaks, and even before exams (I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised though!)

Crossing the street

I’m pretty sure I have yet to find a stop sign in Switzerland, since they use uncontrolled pedestrian walkways here for the most part. If not, then they do have pedestrian crossings with signals, but those are all at lights (and not stop signs.) They seem to work though; from my crossings, I would say 95% of the time the driver will stop for you, but you should always make eye contact with them first. Sometimes when crossing I will see others (and myself) raise a hand to thank them, other times you just stare, they stop, and then you walk—I have not figured out if it’s customary, but either works!

An uncontrolled pedestrian crosswalk.

We seem to only have stop signs in Ontario. Not an urban planner here, but there are many things done differently in Switzerland (and perhaps generalizing to Europe), probably for the better. If you have time, check out NotJustBikes on YouTube!

(I should probably write more about Swiss trains. Maybe I will.)

Student supplies/tools

Paper

Lined paper does not seem to be a thing here, most of the stores didn’t have loose leaf lined paper. They might have had lined notepads, but I don’t recall seeing that. Instead, I see a lot of students taking notes on this kind of paper (see picture below):

The not-really-lined-but-not-really-square A4 paper.

Someone told me that it was for cursive, but no clue! I just know it is different. I have just been using blank printer paper, which seems to work alright for the most part.

Paper size is also different, although we could say that Canada and the US is the problem, with our letter sized paper of 8.5 by 11 inches. A4 paper (the closest in size to letter-sized) is slightly longer and skinnier than letter size, which was a slight problem in the first few days when I brought my letter-sized folder here.

Headphones

This one is more of an interesting one (not particularly standout), but on campus, the vast majority of students have over-ear headphones as opposed to earbuds. At Waterloo, a very large percentage of people have AirPods, but I haven’t seen too many of them here. Maybe not as many iPhone users? 🤷‍♂️

Opening and closing times

I put this here because it is quite different from back home. Here, most places close relatively early (for example grocery stores usually around 7-7:30pm), and most places are not open on Sundays, save for some restaurants (not all!) and a select few stores. Compared to somewhere like Toronto or Waterloo, where nearly everything is open on Sundays, and places close later (maybe 9 or 10pm.)

For me, the earlier closing times was not much of an issue since I wouldn’t go out that late anyways. For Sundays, it was actually helpful for keeping the discipline of Sabbath, with most places visibly closed and the environment seemed a bit more restful. Can’t go shopping, or buy groceries (usually, but of course there are still some places open). It is interesting how Sundays are still kept for “rest” (in the sense that things are closed) and is part of people’s weekly habits, despite the increasing secularization in Switzerland.

Concluding thoughts

If you are interested in a much more itemized (and long) list, I stumbled upon this list a while back—even though it is from almost 20 years ago, many of them still hold true today.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~terry/english/surprising.switzerland.html

Otherwise, these are just some of the differences I wanted to highlight.

See you around!