Switzerland

Heading into Switzerland, I got very little sleep after heading to the airport about 11:30, getting checked in and getting about an hour of sleep while waiting for the 3:25am flight. I slept most of the 3 hours on the flight, and then kind of slept in a chair in the airport for a couple hours before meeting Erin at the Basel hauptbahnhof (Central train Station).

Weve been staying with her friend Renate, which has been fantastic. She is very nice. She loaned us her car, so weve been doing day trips and such around Switzerland.

Erin made a great list of the things weve learned from her and about Swiss life in general, which I`ve shamelessly rippied off, so consider this my reference...

- You have to cheers before taking a sip of your drink otherwise it is considered rude.

- You absolutely cannot speed. There are cameras everywhere and they mail you incredibly expensive tickets.

- The highways are well signed so you can figure out where to go no matter what. We have not even used a map to find where we are going on the autobahn because of this. We just get in the car and drive and figure it out along the way very easily.

- They put high taxes on good that try to come into the country because the Swiss try to make as much of a profit as possible. A German company started a grocery outlet type store and sell things for cheap and the government and people are mad about it because it cuts into their profit margin.

- Often times only the man works in the household because the children go to school and get out for lunch from 11-1:45, which means that one parent cannot work due to needing to pick the children up and take them back to school later in the day.

- The salary of one family member working is enough to cover what the family will need in expenses and such. The wages are quite high due to the living expenses being so high but it works itself out well here.

- They have a multi party political system and do not make a big deal out of politics such to have parties and rallies like Americans do. They do not understand why we do that and think it is a huge waste of money. The government here is mostly liberal anyway so the disparities are not as large between the various political parties.

- The government pays for health care and also has a great welfare system that does not let anyone slip through the cracks. You will never find homeless people here dues to this. Also, there are upgrades for the health care plans you can buy if you have more money and would like slightly better health care.

-There are tons of farms in the area and most farm houses have small stores in which you can buy the goods they grow on their farms for "cheap".