hey guys welcome back to how to switzerland sarah here today for another video and in today's video
we are filming part two to reacting to your assumptions about living in switzerland
so if you haven't seen part one i will link it right here and in the description box down
below basically we took to the community tab on youtube to ask you your assumptions about living
in switzerland and we are going to address more of them today i got so many i had to make two videos
because some of them are really really interesting that being said let's jump into it and i'm not
petting the couch my dog is here i can't help but it'd be so soft okay first assumption is americans
are not well received i'm an american living in switzerland so i can give my opinion on this
but i'm a u.s american obviously american could mean north america south america central america
americans come in all shapes and sizes um but will you be not well received if you're from
the americas america no i don't think that they are going to judge you on that
at all not at all but if you act in a way that might be kind of more typical american maybe
stereotypical but you know what i mean being overly friendly being smiley hugging people
um talking in public loud on your cell phone or something you know stuff that you see people do
um which is all fine whatever but those kinds of things in switzerland will not be well received
so they do not take very well to being overly friendly to being loud you know and i can say this
okay don't take offense to this i talk too loud for switzerland like most of the time for me i
feel like it's a normal level um but my husband's always like tone it down a little bit you know so
they just have a different perception of like what is an inside voice maybe but anyways let's move on
next assumption is that everyone who is there wants to be there and never wants to leave
this is totally false totally false i actually know a lot of swiss people that talk about leaving
they think switzerland is boring and they'd rather um live in the u.s for example i guess that
comes up a lot because i'm from the u.s a lot of people think it's more exciting and more whatever
there's always people that want to live somewhere else they want to experience something new and i
find that actually swiss people are very keen on learning about new cultures a lot of swiss
people like to do do uh world trips when they're young uh they like to travel way more than people
that i knew growing up in the u.s it's very very common here to travel a lot and see the world
but that means that a lot of them will say i saw the world i traveled switzerland is
the best place and i want to be here you will definitely find people that think like that
but there's a lot of people that are like hey you know i'd like to live in new york i'd like to live
in la i'd like to see how it is in florida or you know maybe they move to another european country
so definitely not everybody wants to be here even though it is great in a lot of ways
there's people looking for something something different it depends what you're looking for oh
this one is really interesting and that is that you miss the ocean if you live in switzerland
so it's kind of funny to me because i am such a water person i i love water i always need to
be near water i want to go in the water in summer i'm huge into like swimming and just like relaxing
by water it's like one of my favorite things to do and i suppose if you look at switzerland
switzerland switzerland how many times can i say switzerland um if you look at
switzerland on a map you probably go oh my gosh how can you live there it's landlocked
it's tiny you're in the middle of all these countries and um you probably missed the ocean
but i don't i find that most swiss cities are built around lakes and you really i mean we can
see water from our balcony we have like a little beach right in front of our house so i'm just not
ever missing water because i always have access to it um which is amazing although switzerland
is landlocked it's uh there's a there's water that you can swim in everywhere which i really
really like because when we lived in new york you're right on the coast right there's lots of
water there but you couldn't swim in any of it because it was all disease infested or whatever
most of it um so i don't miss it at all and it's not that far if you want to go to the ocean ocean
i like fresh water though so i really like having a swimmable lakes close by next assumption is that
it can be confusing to navigate for an american who doesn't know the local language love your
channel i'm from wisconsin too hello wisconsin um i do not think this is true i do not think
switzerland is confusing to navigate um and it says like if you don't know the language because
so many people here speak really good english and they're usually very keen on speaking english
sometimes i'm trying to speak german or i'm speaking with somebody in german and they can
hear that i'm american and they'll switch to english like they'll just want to speak in english
that happens quite a lot especially if you're a tourist and you come here and you try to speak
german or french or something if they can pick up that you're from the u.s they'll probably switch
automatically which kind of makes it hard to learn the language but that's a whole other thing um
but no i don't find it difficult to navigate everything here is like also in english so
if something is listed in german or french there's probably english on there somewhere
if you're on a website or if you're you know trying to get around you'll be able to find stuff
in english and if not people will be more than happy to help you swiss people are
very very used to tourists and foreigners so i i think it's pretty easy to get around i always
recommend people that want to come to europe for the first time to come to switzerland
it's a great country for like europe beginners right because it's very very easy to get around
and compared to neighboring countries for example next assumption is that you question whether the
price of living in switzerland is worth it i do not question this in fact i think with complete
confidence that the cost of living in switzerland is a million percent worth it living here i have
so much peace of mind so much calm i just feel like everything works my life is a lot less
stressful in switzerland um because everything works it's nice to go somewhere and know the train
will be there when it's supposed to or if there's an issue you will know in advance and that things
operate on a certain level of trust in this country and i just really really like that um
and it's not the kind of place where you have to worry that you're gonna get really taken
advantage of or things like that so i think a lot of the things in switzerland just make it worth it
and i don't question whether it is worth it because one i know how to do it cheap
and um two i just i do think it's worth it the things that are more expensive on the micro level
it pays off because in the macro your your life can be a lot easier and smoother here so i think
it's worth it next assumption is that swiss feel embarrassed to talk in another language i would
have to say i'm not swiss but in my experience dealing with swiss people this is pretty much
not true i guess it depends which language if matthias has to switch to german i wouldn't say
he's embarrassed but he's like maybe a little bit um uncomfortable because he knows he has like a
heavy swiss accent and stuff like that but i find swiss people particularly love to speak
english even when you don't want them to they will switch to english and they really like to
to speak languages i think they're proud that they can speak different languages which is awesome
i think it's really cool that swiss people are usually pretty bilingual you know when i met
matthias he already spoke english german swiss german and and basic french and that's like super
impressive to me so i think the language thing in switzerland is something that most of them
are are pretty proud of and they like to um to speak different languages depending i find that
swiss german people might not like to speak french for example they might feel embarrassed to speak
french they'd probably rather speak english in my experience um it depends if you're swiss
let me know in the comments down below are you embarrassed to switch languages and are there
certain ones um that you prefer to speak next assumption is that travelers have assumptions
that switzerland may not be internet convenient do swiss cafes restaurants and shops have free wi-fi
if not do visitors tend to find starbucks or mcdonald's how would you suggest visitors
solve their internet issues great question this assumption i'm going to say is more or
less true we live in zurich and i do find that it can be challenging to find like public wi-fi
um it's very switzerland is behind in this sense compared to a lot of european countries that there
is no wi-fi on like trains or trams or public transportation like a lot of our neighboring
countries do have for some reason they don't have that which is strange to me because switzerland
is so small you feel like they could deck it out with internet no problem i don't know the
whole story behind it but yeah and also you'll see in a lot of cafes and restaurants here they
have no wi-fi available or you have to like ask somebody and like they have to go find the past