The Swiss Trip - 1

It's been 2 days in India, and the heat has already started to make me forget the 5 days in Switzerland! I guess that's one thing about travel blogging - you have to write when you are in the middle of it, while you are experiencing things, because once you've lost the ambience, it takes very little time for the experiences to be lost from the mind as well. I would love to hear from other bloggers on how they keep up with writing while traveling, as I had problems in finding time (as well as internet access!!) while in Switzerland.

About the trip - amazing! Europe is a totally different experience than the US. The first thing that really hit me was the diversity. Now most people are going to raise eyebrows as you wouldn't expect this comment from someone coming from the US. But the diversity in US is different in a lot of ways. Even though everybody is an immigrant in the US, people tend to leave their culture and language at home, and adopt this culture called "Americanism". So while you would find people from "n" different countries at a given workplace, you wouldn't hear "n" different languages as everybody speaks only English. Also the body language, the topics to talk about, the slangs used etc. all become similar for everybody just because everybody is trying to fit in.

With Europe, well, I'm not sure if this is a European thing or a Swiss thing, you go from one part of the country to the other by a 1 hour train journey, and the official language changes. This is similar to India where we have atleast 50 different languages, but the unique thing about Swiss was that most people could speak all the languages prevalent in the country. That would amount to an average person knowing 3 languages other than English! That's some way towards globalisation!! In fact I met a 15 yr old in the train who actually knew 7 languages, and he hadn't counted English in those 7 as he thought he didn't speak it that well, even though he was almost as good (or bad!) as me.

Apart from the diversity, I found the people to be very friendly. That was surprising, especially because I expected more stares due to my appearance (the beard and the turban which are a part of my religion, Sikhism - people tend to mistake me for an orthodox Muslim in the US, and orthodox Islam is not something you want to be associated with these days!). I guess that's one offshoot of diversity - accepting people for who they are rather than judging them by their appearance. Well all was not goody goody all the way, but it was much much better than the US.

The people's dress sense - I guess that needs another blog entry! In Switzerland, even when someone is going out for a run or a hike, they would dress up extremely appropriately for the occasion. And the number of people in suits that I saw when I went out for dinner at a budget/low-end restaurant made me feel out of place in my faded jeans and t-shirt. While walking in Zurich, I don't remember seeing a single person wearing loose or ill-fitting clothes - someone told me that its a Swiss thing, to wear neatly cut and well tailored clothes! The clothes were expensive though - I saw a handwoven pair of jeans for Sfr 1500 (almost USD 1350)!! Some price to pay for nicely cut clothes :)

My trip itinerary was as follows: Day 1 - land in Zurich, get a room in the youth hostel, and trip to a nearby hill station Oetliberg; Day 2 - trip to Lucerne (called "Luzern" in German), a small city at the foothills of Alps, and a train ride to Lausanne in the evening; Day 3 - travel to the Interlaken area, and trip to the Jungfraujoch (the highest train station in Europe); Day 4 - explore areas around Lausanne and Geneva; Day 5 - train ride back to Zurich to catch the flight to India at 3:30 PM.

I'll write in more detail in the next post, in which I'll have additions from travel within India. There has been some change to my original plans of traveling in Punjab coz of the ongoing voilence between the Dera Sachha Sauda and the Sikhs - mindless political games which are hurting the innocent local people. Hope the situation clears up soon!