My Swiss internship adventure: First few days in Switzerland

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the delayed postings. It's been quite rough establishing yourself in a new country with all the new things around you. I will try to catch-up hopefully with some updates.

After I arrived, I stayed with Alain and his family for a week in beautiful Spreitenbach. I am really thankful to have stayed in his place as I became acquainted more with the Swiss way of life. I should also mention here that his parents are very, very, very, very, very hospitable and I cannot ask for more! I got to practise my French with his parents and try delectable Swiss cuisine. It's an experience of a lifetime. Merci beaucoup pour votre hospitalité!

One thing I noticed about Switzerland is that they give very big attention to the food they eat. Meals come in 3 parts, first salad, next is the main course and then you have the dessert. And I was wrong before because I thought it was only the French who had wines in their table. Swiss people usually have wine or beer during their dinner as well. As you can see, the Swiss eat a balanced and healthy diet and this might explain why you do not see obese people on the streets as they eat lesser fast food.

Our dinner table - Switzerland has a very intricate tradition of fine dining.

Mmmm, I really liked this dish, thanks M. Henri for allowing me to experience Swiss cuisine, I really liked it!

First time to try autotimer on my cam and it worked well! Merci Herr and Frau Henri et Trudi pour votre hospitalité!

It was actually a little bit difficult for me to stay active overnight as I have a very bad jetlag. My mood was affected and I really had difficulty having stable sleep. How I wish it could have been better.

The day I arrived, we went to a quaint town called Baden just a couple of minutes drive from Spreitenbach. I really like this town as it was full of 1700 architecture. What's more, we tried to reach the castle on top of the hill and was actually on top after climbing for more than 30 minutes on the stairs!

The castle on top of the hill

Afterwards, we went to an English pub in Baden where I first experienced the legendary and infamous Swiss prices. Mind you, they are not for the faint hearted!

To those who wonder and think that this guy looks kinda familiar, he's the lead producer and star of Alain Alone in Winnipeg

For the second day, my sleep kept on bugging me and it really affected my mood. I could have been more excited enjoying the scenes of Switzerland but probably because you feel tired, you become lethargic and somehow lacked the enthusiasm that you normally have when you feel excited. I actually have an important mission to accomplish on the second and third day as we went to Geneva which is about a 3 hour drive from Spreitenbach. I haven't found a house yet and am really worried and stressed about it. So we went to Geneva to find a place to stay for my internship and visit my workplace and the city as a whole.

Scenes on the Swiss highway towards Geneva

Switzerland has a very good road network. Roads are well-maintained and unlike Canada, are pretty even and very, very smooth. There are no railway crossing on their highways and no traffic lights as well. The infrastructure is very similar to the Japanese with mountains being bored with tunnels. On first impression, I found Swiss highways a little bit smaller to North America but on closer investigation, they might just be of the same size. The reason is that you do not have vacant land between the two highway directions and its only a divider separating this two. However, in Canada where space is plentiful, they put in a lot of space between the two directions of the highway which makes an illusion that Canadian highways are bigger.