Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Geneva Quirks

I've been here four days and am finding small quirky things about the Genevois or Switzerland in general. Don't know how prevalent any of these are throughout Western Europe, but I'll find out as I travel more extensively. I will keep updating this post with more comments as I come across them.

  • There are a TON of "coiffure" or hair places. For as many places there are to do hair, one would expect that the Swiss would have great hair. Not so.
  • You can send email and SMSs from pay phones in Geneva.
  • The Swiss have working pay phones.
  • Jewelry shopkeepers don't bring their window wares in at night.
  • Newspapers are serve-yourself and the charge is on the honor system.
  • European keyboards have the "z" and the "y" keys switched, as well as the special character keys like !, @, ?, ', etc.
  • Swiss consider all of the rooms of a house "habitable", with the exception of a bathroom. If you can fit a table in a kitchen to eat, it's considered a room. So a "3 pieces" house could actually be a two bedroom with a large kitchen.
  • A book of matches is actually made of real wood.
  • Diet Coke is called Coke Light.

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