New Country, New Life

It has been almost 2 months now since I arrived in
Switzerland. It was not easy in the beginning and it
still isn’t that much different now. Regardless of how
many friends you have here, your life is as good as
not knowing anyone. People are in general not very
friendly and don’t expect anyone to help you when you
are in trouble “free of charge”. It’s sad to see that
old folks have to live either on their own or taken
care in nursing homes at their own expenses becoz life is
so expensive that very few of the family members can
afford.

For the amount of money that I’m paying now, I
was expecting something much more spacious, but what
I’m getting, as others in this country, is just a
small apartment with two bedrooms with a shared coin
operated washing machine and a dryer. To make things
worse, one of the coin boxes are located so high up on
the wall in such an awkward position that most asian
women would find it hardly reachable. And for my wife
she can’t even touch it with the tip of her finger
(well… she’s a bit shorter than the average asian
women).

I got a shock of my life today when I received an
order to appear at the local police station because
I’d used the wrong garbage bag. Due to some
misunderstandings, I used the black and not the blue
canton-approved bags. A guy found an envelope with my
address buried in all the shits in the bag, took the garbage back to me and
later made a police report. It really pisses me
off! Thankfully my secretary helped to call the police
station and as a result I don’t need to make the
appearance. But I will still receive a warning letter
… duhhhh. What even more annoying is that,
apparently there were a few black bags which obviously
mean some other people have also gone against the
rule, and possibly intentionally, and I was just the
unlucky one!