hey guys welcome back to how to switzerland it is sarah here today and in today's video i'm going
to be sharing with you some things i did not know existed on this earth until i moved to switzerland
so i recently found a youtuber called stefan tyrone i think is his name it's also the name
of his channel and he's an american living in sweden and he had a video like this and i thought
that the video was so interesting and funny and i thought i could definitely come up with some
things that i also didn't know existed until i moved to switzerland so let's keep this intro
short i've got eight things to talk about let's jump into it the first thing that i did not know
existed was fast knocked and gooken music so fast knocked is basically carnival carnival um here in
switzerland so i had heard about carnival growing up but i always thought it was something that
only takes place in brazil and i thought that it's like similar to mardi gras
mardi gras where it's like a wild party and that's honestly all i had ever thought about carnival
carnival in my entire life and then i moved to lucerne and in lucerne fastnacht is such a big
thing so i honestly cannot really compare it to anything in the united states some people try to
compare it to halloween but i don't really think that that's very accurate so fasnacht is basically
a big party in lucerne it's this four day party it's actually going on like right about now it's
usually like in february march and it's outdoors and there's all sorts of i don't know i'm not
an expert in this because i'm honestly not a big fan of fossnock it's not really my thing
but it's like there's um all sorts of parties in the street and everywhere and in bars everything
is decked out all colorful there's a lot of loud music which is this um gookin music so they have
like trombones and trumpets and drums and i'll put in a little clip of this music right now
so yeah this is a genre of music that i didn't even know existed but it is a big part of fosnox
and just the whole culture around it so i'm honestly not super educated as to the whole um
story behind the party behind the event that you see happening in the streets but i believe it has
something to do with bad energy bad spirits and winter and kind of getting those out of the town
um to yeah something like that people that are in these fossnot groups make these crazy outfits
a lot of the times they make them like from scratch by hand they make these crazy humongous
masks and outfits and it is just a big thing that i did not even know existed and i don't think it's
just in switzerland i think it's also in parts of austria parts of germany and i was actually just
watching um john venus a youtuber who lives in norway and he was saying that in norway they have
fossnock right now so i don't really know where it takes place but it's definitely a big thing here
second thing that i didn't know existed was panache so panache is a drink that
is half beer and half sprite so you usually get like a tall glass in switzerland it's usually
like three deciliters and it's about half sprite and half beer i just didn't know that people
mix um beer with sprite i had never seen that in the united states maybe it exists let me know i
was uh i was 17 when i left the united states so i don't really know if that is a thing that they
sell in bars over there so definitely let me know but panache is pretty popular here a lot
of the times people just want to have um like a drink but maybe they're not in the mood to like
get too much of a buzz so just get like a ponish it's something nice that you can sip that doesn't
have a ton of alcohol and i know in germany they mix um sometimes beer with coke which they don't
do in switzerland um but yeah here uh beer and sprite very popular third thing i didn't know
existed until i moved to switzerland was instant coffee so if you don't know what instant coffee is
it's basically you buy it in the grocery store and it comes in these glass jars all sorts of brands
make it like nespresso and there's all sorts of different versions and all you do is get some hot
water or some boiling water and you put it into um you take a scoop of the coffee and you put it
into the water and there's your coffee you don't have to brew it or wait or anything it's just
instant but that doesn't mean that that's what swiss people normally drink i would say that swiss
people generally drink very high quality coffee a lot of people have nespresso machines at home
that's very very popular here people drink express espresso espresso it's not expresso it's espresso
um so a lot of people drink espresso and other high quality coffee but some people have like
instant coffee and their cabinet um or a lot of times you use it to make like alcoholic beverages
like a coffee schnapps which you might find at carnival um so yeah growing up i was only really
ever familiar with like drip coffee uh also when i worked in restaurants and just at my
home with my parents that's all that i saw so you have the machine and you put the grinds on
top like a lot of coffee grinds and then it pours through and you make your coffee like
that and it takes a very long time um and my swiss husband thinks that that coffee is like disgusting
and watery and you don't find that in switzerland maybe somebody has a drip coffee machine but i
have never seen one so if you're from switzerland let me know fourth thing i did not know existed
was revela so rebella is i think like the unofficial swiss national drink it is this
kind of weird soft drink i'm not gonna lie i have never tasted it so i cannot give my opinion on it
and i'm actually vegan now so i cannot um drink it or i choose not to drink it and you're probably
like why can't you drink a soda if you're vegan and it's actually because it's made with some
sort of milk product so it's this soft drink made with milk whey and there's all sorts of different
flavors it comes in this dark brown bottle i'll put in a picture here i know people really really
like this drink i know my husband used to drink a lot of it until we changed our diet um but yeah
never had it it seems very strange to me a soft drink made with any sort of milk byproduct kind
of bizarre the fifth thing that i did not know existed and i'm not gonna lie this one annoys me
it annoys me a little bit it is a compulsory tv and radio licensing fee i think in switzerland
it's called the blog so we actually got this bill a few weeks ago and i was really surprised and
confused as to what it was so basically we are required to pay 365 swiss francs per year they
send the bill twice a year so they divide it in half but we're required to pay this and every
single household in switzerland is required to pay this and they use this money to subsidize the
swiss broadcasting corporation and as well as some local regional tv and radio stations which i mean
i just feel like this is very very outdated i remember when we lived in germany we had
the exact same thing and i i don't own a tv i don't own a radio i'm like most people my age
where i watch everything online i don't watch any swiss we don't watch any swiss news and i
just find it kind of bizarre that we're required to pay this and i was looking it up online if
you can get out of it if you for example don't have a television or you you know all sorts of
ways like is there a way we can get out of this because we don't consume tv or radio
and there is not a way to get out of it and there were a lot of other people on the internet i saw
that also thought it was very outdated and needed to go especially expats i think expats that move
here are the ones most shocked and kind of annoyed about that because it's like 400 a year that is a
lot of money but of course i paid it there's no way around it so just something to keep in mind
because you will probably get a bill no matter where you live you will get a bill um where you
have to pay this they might call it differently in different cantons or areas but yeah the sixth
thing that i did not know existed was opero i had never really heard of this concept or really part
partaken i never really took part in an opero until i moved to switzerland and swiss people
love opero there is a big opero culture here so an opero is basically a kind of casual but a little
bit of formal social gathering where people say i'll give you an example so and then a friend
invites you uh to their house or a family member invites you to their house when you go to their
house you probably will have an opera i'm talking of course like a little bit more formal like if
you're going over for for a dinner party before the dinner you will have an opera as part of the
dinner party so basically people tend to stand at an opero you stand at like i don't know high
tables or like a like a i don't know people are standing usually during an opera and you have like
little finger foods this could be like um chips or nuts or it could even be like some warm like
uh things i don't know basically just finger foods and typically there is prosecco or opera spritz
or just these opero type of beverages a beer so it's just kind of a way for everybody i suppose to
mingle and talk so operos don't only happen at somebody's house for example you could be at a
work conference the whole day maybe you're sitting through presentations and seminars
a lot of the times at the end you're going to have an opero so everybody kind of gets up and
stands and mingles walks around has prosecco um and the food is not really enough to replace a
meal it's more just things to nibble on so for me it was just kind of new because it is pretty
formal coming from the united states if you go to somebody's house you might more just kind of
have a bowl of chips on the table and it's more casual the host might say oh there's
drinks in the fridge if you're thirsty of course i mean it varies depending on how you grew up where
you grew up in the us and i guess all that kind of stuff but for me the very formal like have a
prozac go and cheers with everybody and stand and and talk and nibble was a very new concept to me i
i had never seen anything like this and now i love opera i think opero is the best thing
ever and i love that it's so popular here okay number seven i'm just gonna call this a the food
category some foods that i didn't know existed first food i never saw until i moved here was
paprika chips which probably sounds funny to you if you live in europe because paprika chips are
probably the most popular kind of chip i would go as far to say in switzerland it's definitely the
most popular kind of chip so i've seen i saw these within i don't know the first few days
when i arrived to switzerland and usually you have like plain chips and paprika chips at like opera
or whatever and i instantly as a person from the united states thought that the orange chips would
be like cheddar um or cheese flavored because in the u.s we have a lot of chips that are like
cheese flavored that's very popular um but then i bit into it and it wasn't the same flavor at all
it was completely different and somebody told me it's paprika and i was like what paprika
i don't even think i've ever cooked with paprika in the united states and now i am a huge paprika
chip fan but i was just confused and surprised when i first moved here never saw that before
oh and over here they actually have paprika pringles which are so so good another food
i never saw before was alper macrone excuse the pronunciation but this is like a mac and
cheese pasta dish that you usually get like in the mountains or in winter and it's pasta and it has
potatoes in it and it's really creamy and i need to learn how to make a vegan version of
this because i used to love this dish it was like my favorite thing in winter of course i grew up
eating mac and cheese but this is just ten times better i also never heard of roshti or spotsley
so roshti is like this kind of like a massive hash brown it's like these shredded potatoes that you
cook in oil and it's like this big potato hash brown pancake love it one of my favorite things
i'm such a potato person so i love roast tea i cook it all the time and the other thing it spotly
are these little weird funky noodles i don't even know how to describe them i'll just put in
a picture last food i didn't know existed were i guess kind of like these cold cured dried meats so
of course i had heard of salami growing up in the u.s which is like a cured meat that you just slice
and eat but over here i remember when i first moved here and i saw people with like a big brick
of bacon and they would just cut a [ __ ] like a slice off and it looked like a slice of bacon
and then they would just put it on like a piece of bread and they would eat it and they wouldn't cook
it and i was like why are people eating raw bacon this is really really strange to me um so yeah i'm
not exactly sure what that's called like i don't know i know it's cured or dried or something like
that but yeah i'll put in some pictures all right number eight last things i did not know existed
have to do with um going to school so the first thing is that people in switzerland go home for
lunch i don't know if this is pop if this is a thing in every single school but my husband
for sure uh said when he was growing up and still to this day kids go home over lunch starting from
a really young age and i asked him how long he was going home for lunch and he said it can be up till
age 16. and um i didn't know that that was a thing to me it didn't really make sense because i'm like
how does every single kid in school have somebody to go home to over lunch aren't the parents
working or whatever and matthias said basically in his school almost everybody had like a mom at home
so they would go home and have lunch and then go back to school for the rest of the afternoon
which i thought was super super strange how i grew up we never were allowed to leave you
know the school area until school hours without notes of course and permission so i don't know
how this works like till this day he said that this is still how how kids kind of do schooling
and it just seems kind of strange to me like does everybody have a parent at home i don't
know last thing that has to do with school is kids walking alone to school so if you move to
switzerland you will probably see a lot of very young kids walking alone um at different times
of the day you'll get to know the school hours obviously but you'll see very young kids with
like vests on they wear all the same vests like a yellow or orange vest with reflectors and a lot of
the times of course it depends on where you are in switzerland or where the kids live but they
walk alone to school so matthias said starting in kindergarten he would walk alone to school
and that just blew my mind i feel like maybe in the united states americans are a little bit more
paranoid about their kids and they wouldn't just let them out into the world alone at six years old
um to walk to school but here it's still very very um common and i really don't see this ever being a
thing in the united states sending six-year-olds off to school on their own and it just goes to
show really how safe switzerland is and how safe people feel here living here that they're actually
completely comfortable sending their kids out you know i was like how does that work did you get
all dressed and your mom's just like bye i have a nice day at school and you leave at six years old
very strange to me but i think it's really really cool that um there's still so much um trust and
safety in this country and it's just a really really good feeling all right guys that's it
eight things eight things plus some bonus things that i had no idea were a thing that i didn't
know existed until i moved here if you're from switzerland you're like sarah those are normal
and they are if you're over here but i had just no no idea at all and some of them i'm really living
for it so thank you guys so much for the support leave this video a thumbs up if you liked it
if you like did it i can definitely do another one of these videos because i had so many things
i couldn't even cram them all into this video but talk to you guys very soon bye
you