RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘transportation’

Sharing The Expat Experience

27 Sep

A friend of mine at work put me in touch with a new Expat last week.  He has been ‘in-country’ only a couple of weeks.  We got a chance to meet for coffee today.  It reminded me of when I arrived. So many new things and all sorts of new ways of doing things.  He asked a couple of good, relevant questions for new comers to Switzerland.  They are worth repeating.

What are the orange boxes on the buses?

Those orange boxes are ticket validation machines for multi ride passes.  If you have a 10 ride pass, or a day ticket, it needs to be validated.  Stick it in the slot and the machine will time stamp your ticket.

What about dry cleaners?

Yes dry cleaners do exist in Switzerland, and like everything else they are expensive as compared to the U.S.  A typical dress shirt is about 5 francs to clean and a suit is usually around 20 francs.  Dry cleaners are most likely found by public transportation hubs.  Train stations and airports as an example.

Where is the best place to get a haircut?

In Switzerland you’ll pay about 27 francs as a minimum for a basic mens haircut.  If you are used to walk-in type shops like Cost Cutters, or Fantastic Sams in the U.S. you’ll want to consider a chain called Gidor.  They do not take appointments and are the most reasonably priced.  For men, you’ll need to be prepared to tell the stylist how long you want your hair cut in millimeters, and it is also good to know the word auslauf, or we would say ‘tappered in the back’ in U.S. English.

If you have any other questions about life in Switzerland leave a comment and I’ll see what I can come up with.

 

 

 

 
No Comments

Posted in Daily Life

 

Swiss Transportation Museum

24 Feb

Swiss Transportation Museum

This weekend we took a trip to Luzern to visit the Swiss Transportation Museum.  It is a trip I had wanted to take for some time, but for whatever reason I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Part of it was probably the fact that I thought it would be more of a ‘Man’s Museum’ and I wasn’t sure my wife would enjoy it.  After all what do you expect when you are going to see a collection of old trains and cars.

What I found was something much more than just a collection of trains and cars.  There were also boats, planes, a submarine under restoration and the only collection of ski lift chairs I have ever seen.  All of the exhibits were really fantastic and interactive.  Everything looked to be brand new.  I don’t know if that was just Swiss cleanliness or the fact that the place was in fact using a lot of the latest technology for its exhibits.

I was amazed at the size of the place as well.  The museum is built on a large campus with several buildings and we spent a good 5 hours walking around.  More amazing than that was the fact that my wife actually enjoyed it.

In the courtyard between the buildings there were also plenty of interactive things for kids.  There were scooters and bicycles as well as a huge sand pit with a bunch of construction related toys to play with.  I would imagine that the place is hugely crowded in the summer with all sorts of rug rats.

It was definitely worth the trip and the 28 CHF admission fee.  Keep in mind if you are going to take public transportation you can get a 10% discount on the entrance fee by buying you ticket together with you train ticket.  Just ask at the ticket window.

One of the highlights for me was the automated parking robot that displayed the museum’s car collection.  It is a bit hard to explain, but think of all the cars as if they were sitting in an enormous shelving system.  About 5 levels high and maybe 10 vehicles wide.  For the demonstration show a huge robotic carriage would pull the full sized cars off the shelves and bring them down to display them in front of the visitors.  It was really an awesome sight to see.  I took a few pictures so maybe I’ll post them in a future post.

 
No Comments

Posted in Swiss Day Trips

 

Taking the Tractor Home From Alphorn Practice

30 Aug

Taking The Tractor Home

Monday nights are Alphorn night for me.  The last couple of weeks I have been meeting up with a Swiss Farmer and a Guy that runs a Coffee Business to hang out and make some noise with our alphorns in a parking garage.  Thinking about it, it is really seems like something total odd, almost like a dream.

One of the guys I play with was nice enough to meet me at the bus stop with is car today because it was raining.  So as we were driving the two minutes from the bus station to his place he started to tell me that our other friend drove his tractor.  At first I thought my German was failing me so I asked him if the other guy had a car. “No,”  he said, “That is why he drove the tractor.”  Sure enough as we pulled up to the apartment complex there was a nice green John Deere parked out front.

We played for about an hour and a half and when it was time to go, my friend with the John Deere asked if I wanted to ride back to the bus stop.  Sure, why not I thought.  I think he as a bit nervous at first to have an American hanging off the back of his tractor with an Alphorn.  But I assured my friend that I knew how to handle myself.

I explained to him that my grandfather back in the states had a farm, and as a kid I used to ride out in the fields or into the forest to collect wood.  I had spent plenty of time on tractors and know how to handle them.

I managed to snap a photo over my friends shoulder with my phone as we were driving down the street.  It was really cool how the feeling of being on the back of the tractor brought me back to a place I hadn’t been emotionally in a long time.  I started to remember the summers I had spent in Michigan on my Grandparents farm.  The afternoons with Grandpa, working in the field cutting down trees for the winter heating, or riding out to clear ditches or mend a fence.  Those were really special times for me.  I didn’t spend nearly enough time at the farm, but I will never forget those experiences.

So slowing coming back to reality, my friend pulled over at the bus stop and I hoped off.  Sitting there at the station was a young guy, probably in his twenties.  He looked both amused and confused by what he was seeing.  He said to me “Nice ride?”  I replied in German “Yeah, special unscheduled bus service.”   With both laughed and sat down to wait.

 
No Comments

Posted in Daily Life

 

Hey, He Stole My Tooth Paste

30 Apr

I had an experience yesterday that should not surprise me I suppose.  But sometimes I think people just take things to far.

I started my day before the crack of dawn to head to the airport for a 7:15 flight.  On a one day trip I usually manage to get everything into one carry, including computer.

Since the ban on large volumes of liquids I have for the past 3 or 4 years been in the habit of always keeping one full size toothpaste tube with only one or 2 squeezes of toothpaste around just for travel purposes.

Well yesterday, when I was going through security the guard opened my plastic bag and advised me that my obviously decimated, almost empty tube was labeled with 180 grams of weight.  This was not acceptable.  I could only bring 100 grams of tooth paste.  I gave him the evil eye, thinking take a look buddy, there are about 5 grams of toothpaste in that tube.

Being a little groggy I told him to just take the darn thing.  In hindsight I should have pulled a pen out of my bag, crossed out the 180 grams and wrote 100.

Sometimes people take things a little too far.  Do you have any similar stories?

 
No Comments

Posted in Travel

 

Looking for A Combi

12 Jan

I’m not actually looking for a Combi. It’s just a word that I really like. I am not sure if it is a German word or a British English word. I can say it is used on German websites.

It is such a great word. I was thinking of a friend of mine who drives a Subaru. Or last time I talked to him he did. It is at least 5 years old now, probably more and I have to believe he might be looking for a new Subi Combi.

So what is it? If you haven’t figured it out it is a something will call a station wagon, or wagon for short in U.S. English.

Does anyone know the roots of this word?

 
6 Comments

Posted in Daily Life