But in other news, I can happily announce that I have been back in Switzerland for a week or so now. There are both positives and negatives to this, and for fairness’ sake, I will list both.
Negatives:
- Switzerland is about as exciting as visiting your grandmother. Everything is fine, but strangely formal and people pinch your cheeks and coo and such, but you kind of wish you could be off somewhere else, even while you guess you’re glad you’re there.
- I live in a room—again—slightly larger than your average shoe box, with little possibility to escape and move into a real-person apartment.
- The cost of pretty much everything here could buy you a full meal and a nice hotel room in most countries I’ve been in lately.
- I’m sure pretentiousness is an additive to most food products and likely the water supply here. Everyone earns more than me and has a better job, and half of them aren’t too shy in sharing that—excepting my friends, of course—but the general atmosphere could be packaged and sold in small bottles as “snob genevoise.”
- An over-abundance of old women with bad dye jobs, fancy cars and/or fur coats, and small dogs. But that’s almost a positive, since it’s funny.
- Getting everything fixed / reorganized / reconnected / straightened out. Phone doesn’t work. Internet doesn’t work. Bike doesn’t work. Bank card doesn’t exist. Residence permit doesn’t exist. Etc. etc.
- Having to fight with the administration for everything. Bureaucracy is everywhere, and particularly the dreaded OCP, the Office Cantonal de la Population (i.e. the “Foreigner’s office” or your national equivalent) trusted with granting residence permits to unlucky foreigners. After my various experiences in Southeast Asia, and with, unsurprisingly, lots of friends who travel, I have learned that visas and formal regulations are no laughing matter.
A word, then, to the various of you—not that these people actually read this blog—who email me about living, studying, working, traveling, etc. abroad: don’t fuck around with residence restrictions, and put some effort into understanding immigration laws and foreigners’ rights and duties. Is there a difference if you enter overland or by air (in Thailand, Laos, and Singapore, yes; EU, no), can you renew your residence permit or visa, on a visa run if necessary (SE Asia besies Vietnam), or are you essentially screwed (the EU?)? Can you get out of a problem by paying? I say, and I emphasize this: Just because you want to live/work/study/whatever abroad, doesn’t mean you will be able to, particularly if you're organizing it on your own. Many countries have seemingly silly and unnecessary laws restricting foreigners, most egregiously the United States, who finds it amusing, perversely appropriate and not at all scarring to deeply interrogate whomever they feel like, besides profiling anyone of Arab descent or of funny skin tint, such as the deeply sketchy species of young Europeans visiting the love interest they met on their last exchange. But these laws are no lauging matter: you mess up in the wrong way, and you may lose the ability to ever visit a particular country again. You may be subject to fines (as I was in Indonesia for overstaying), or lashes (ostensibly in Singapore. I’ll let you know once I try it), or deportation (US anyone?). I’ve heard stories of Spanish people staying illegally in the US and traveling in- and out via Mexico, of outrageous fines in SE Asia, or a dual Canadian-Dutch citizen friend who was only able to successfully leave the EU on the Dutch passport because a Canadian one only grants you three months, and all kinds of things people do to be allowed to stay legally. Living in Switzerland, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of dealing with the incredibly complicated and not particularly foreigner-friendly Swiss bureaucracy, involves a stack of about twenty documents, including your resumé, a letter (in one of their official languages, none of which is English) stating what you’re doing and why, proof of financial means and/or a job contract, copies of transcripts and certificates (depending on what kind of permit), eventually proof of health insurance, sometimes a Swiss person who will sign for you…
Positives:
- Everything works. Buses, trains, office hours, stores, whatever you want, it works predictably and efficiently.
- Sit-down toilets and hot showers. (Insert comment about me being posh here) These are things I can and do certainly do without. I adjust well to hardship, at least at this stage because I am young and poor and have no standards, so it doesn’t actually cause a problem that I hadn’t had a hot shower in weeks (months?), and such showers as I had mostly consisted of a bucket of tepid water. I can also acclimate to squat toilets and all that jazz, but don’t pretend you don’t enjoy these comforts—as much as I am sure you can live without them—when you have the opportunity or when you come back home. As with Singapore, Switzerland has reliable sit-down toilets and hot showers, but that is still “new” enough to be a luxury.
- Crisp evening air. Having not been much under 25 or even 35 degrees Celsius for awhile, I appreciate cool evenings and sleeping under heavier blankets, a particular delight taken from my childhood in the frigid Rocky mountains and a welcome change from sweaty nights of no sleep because the power--and your pathetic litte fan--cut off at 10 pm and it's blistering hot.
- Running again. Aside from the somewhat depressing fact that pretty much everyone I know here is training for the (half) marathon (insert instant inferiority complex), I am now running the slowest 5 k of my life, recovering both from ankle surgery last year and a solid bout of laziness inspired by cheap Asian food and constant over-30-degree temperatures, in about the same amount of time it used to take me to run 9 k. But oh well, I am running again, and thoroughly enjoy the smell of the fresh grass, the sight of the river, the flowers, and the overweight people with small dogs which all grace my usual running route.
- No longer meeting new people all the frigging time. I wanted to print up cards (“My name is …. , I do …, I live …, and I am traveling …”) to hand out and spare myself the effort. Traveling alone does not mean that you are alone, but rather that you have new people every day. Here I am happy to see familiar faces, and to catch up. I felt slightly like an alien at first, or at an awkward family / school reunion when you meet people you don’t really know and haven’t seen for a long time and they ask how it’s going and you kind of go, “uh…, welllllll, I went off and joined the circus and then got married to a Kazakhstani and then got famous as a bareknuckle-transvestite-fighter in Botswana….” And the other person kind of nods and says something noncommittal (“Ah yes, Kazakhstan, good times,”) and no one knows how to bridge the gap of several months/years. But you talk a bit, and the stories come out, and it is all good. I have to say that “my” Geneva people are some of the most awesome people I’ve met, and most of them have amazing stories of their own to tell, from slums in Kenya to bus accidents in Egypt, having the roof of their apartment collapse in Berlin, local transport in Ecuador or what have you. So there’s not much or any of the “one-upsmanship” that many people either add to travel stories (“this one time we were in Mexico and we were attacked by a monkey!” and the other person replies with, “this one time where we were trekking through virgin forest, avoiding the landmines in northern Laos, we spent five days on a monkey farm, teaching them to write Shakespeare and drive cars…” etc.) or that non-travellers think that we travelers intentionally add to our stories, as if it were a kind of condiment. No, the point of the story is not “this one time in Kenya,” but rather the story itself, and stop getting so hung up on the Kenya part.
- The fact that my move was relatively unproblematic. Moving to another country is always a pain: you need a lot of papers and documents and permissions (see above), but you have to get ahold of lodging, food, phone, internet, and transportation services, and you may not know where all of these come from or how to access them. Thankfully, as far as most of this was concerned, this move went relatively easy, both because I already know Switzerland and Geneva, and also because there was no language barrier (yes, let me see you try to figure out how not to get screwed buying a sim card if you speak no Arabic in Egypt. It's fun, let me tell you) - and I have friends who helped me out. Short summary, it more or less went well, and better than usual. Moving back is definitely easier than moving away (but I guess less exciting)
- Living in a country where the language is an exciting extra facet: my French can use improvement, and while day to day stuff is no problem, I see countless opportunities to expand and improve. Other countries (i.e. most of Europe) either speaks excellent English (also Singapore, much of Morocco), or spoke a language I wasn't even trying to nor had hopes of learning (much the rest of SE Asia). And learning a new language is one of my favorite parts of living abroad (plus the continued opportunity to speak the old languages. Try that in the US).
- The fact that the first round of my bureaucratic fight went pretty well. I managed to get someone nice AND competent, who said more or less was in order. I do not count my chickens, goats, small children, mutant aliens or anything else until it hatches, but at least I haven’t yet encountered problems (i.e. having to get a new visa from somewhere before I can apply for a residence permit, which was a distinct possibility) at this stage.
- Being able to go to bed before midnight, and not having the feeling you’re missing the “nightlife” (get real, it’s Wednesday).
And with that: good night.
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