Stuff Swiss People Like - Part Two

Here's the rest of my list of Stuff Swiss People Like (click here for Part One)! Just another note: While many of the items on my list are not unique to Swiss culture, I believe that the combination of these twenty are very uniquely Swiss.

Swiss People Like...
#10: Cows
Cow bells, cow parades, cow's milk, toy cows, cow prints on fondue pots, metal cow figures on leather belts, countless breeds of cows, and real cows all over the place - Swiss people love cows. I can't help but take photos of them, greet them, and generally smile at them!

#9: Recycling
I am amazed at the great importance and emphasis this country places on recycling. In a place with a rather limited amount of land, you can't just toss everything into a landfill, and we wouldn't want to do that anyway with all our natural resources dwindling.

In our village, Au, we bundle up paper and cardboard into neat, orderly stacks, then kids from the high school come around in a pickup truck and haul them away every two months or so. They pick up old metal once a year, which is a startling sight in this tidy country: old bikes and random steel parts piled as neatly as possible along the curb. For everything else, we load up our car with plastic PET bottles, glass, and aluminum cans to drop off at the nearby Werkhof, whatever that is. Oh yeah, and the procedures vary from community to community.

#8: Chocolate
Find entire supermarket aisles devoted to and overflowing with the good stuff and such numerous chocolate bunnies at Easter that you would think they breed like live bunnies!

#7: Cleanliness
A fellow blogger wrote about this topic and I couldn't agree more. Yes, I appreciate how tidy this country is, but I don't hold myself to such high standards. I do, however, (usually) follow a cleaning schedule I've set for myself and try to keep our home presentable, especially when we are expecting guests. My current apartment is A LOT cleaner than the one I lived in prior to moving to Switzerland. Mom, you'd be proud.

#6: Order, Efficiency, and Punctuality
I know it's a lot to lump into one, but I think they all run along the same vein. Others may disagree, but I found that renewing my B-permit and acquiring a Swiss driver's license were both quite efficient processes, especially after doing hours of research to make sure I had all the proper documents. On both ends, little time was wasted trying to correct silly errors, so what we experienced were straightforward, timely transactions.

#5: German-engineered Automobiles
Although I have seen more Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis in Zurich than I have ever seen in my life, and I can only speak for German-speaking Switzerland since I have never been to la Romandie, MOST cars I see on the road are Audis, VWs, Mercedes, and Porsches. One afternoon during the two minutes I was waiting for my bus, I saw no less than 10 VWs for every one or two Citroëns, Skodas, and Opels.

Lots of Porsches on the race track at Arosa's Classic Car Race

#4: Nespresso
My former Chefin introduced me to the wonders of these coffee capsules. Although you may find other countertop espresso machines in Swiss homes, Nespresso reigns king. According to swisster.ch, an online Swiss news outlet, one in four Swiss households carries Nespresso.

#3: Luxury Goods
I never even knew about the IWC watch brand with a factory in Schaffhausen until I moved to Switzerland, as I was more familiar (not personally) with Rolex and Ebel, but apparently it's a good and pricey one. Let's not forget fashion label Bally, jewelry at Bucherer, and all the other non-Swiss luxury brands you can get your hands on here.

#2: Adding the diminutive "li" (as a suffix) to almost any noun
This is another item on my list that is limited to German-speaking Switzerland. To my friends in la Romandie, is there a French equivalent? To instantly sound Swiss-German, just call a little bread roll "Brötli" and a small house "Hüsli." You can even say a small farewell: "Tschüssli!"

#1: Neutrality (and functioning like an EU state while maintaining a national currency...)