9 Days

Hi again,

I was not here for a while. Considering the fact that I have had access to internet for the past few days, that's a shame.
I briefly try to tell you all that happened for the past days.
For the first 4 days, I stayed at a friend's place. My undergrad friend Hadi offered his room in the flat which is shared with another Iranian PhD student Babak.
Hadi, whom the last time I saw him, was almost three years ago, was out of town for a conference in Germany.
Babak, helped me a lot. We also shared the same lab in ETHz. The CSE lab.
You can imagine all the information one needs at the beginning regarding transportation, some bureaucracy,. food, some cultural tips and etc.
I pretty much asked him everything that I was not sure of and I should admit that in 99% of time, he had the answer! So, let us call him Babak-Google. :-)

I pretty much did not much interesting. I was also following the news regarding Iran my home country.
It was unbelievable what happened just in few days. I was following every single source I could find online. And as a result, I stayed at ETZh where I had access to internet.

Thursday night, I moved in to the place my lab-mate and I rented before coming to Switzerland. A studen housing. 4 bedroom apartment. I should say that comparing to the prices in the Zurich, this was very good deal. I later found out that university gives out these apartments only to the students who have never been to Switzerland before or undergraduates. Somehow a good way to help the international students for the first year of the arrival in Switzerland.

My roommates are Peter: Eva and Alexandra. Two Swiss girls who also study in ETHz.
I met Alex the first night when I arrived around 10pm. She has been very helpful and warm-blooded girl.
Luckily, both my roommates speak good english. I am hoping I could pracive my German with them too. But it is always a bit weird at the beginning. We'll see how much I could practice.
It is worth mentioning that the German that Swiss people (in the German speaking part) speak is a lot different from what is spoken in Germany. It is so different that if you are not from the southern parts of Germany, you do not have a chance to understand the discussions. Maybe you could pickup some words.
It is also inetersting that even within Switzerland, each part has its own dialect. And it seems that people from different regions somehow make fun of each other's accent and dialects.
Well, I guess I have seen the same thing in Iran too. But I should admit that I was not expecting this in such a small country!

On Saturday, I went back to the airport to pickup Peter; my friend who is also in our lab.
It is always good to have someone in the airport. I could share some of my experiences I had for the first days and minimize his learning curve!
Plus, to me, I have always felt that arriving in an airport in a foreign country and being alone, is one of the not-so-wanted moments of my life. But I guess as you do this more often, you will get used to it which I am sure is also the case for me.

We had the pizza in the airport and Peter bought a prepaid cellphone.He was very lucky that he got a much better deal comparing to the one I got on Sunday. They said the new plan came out on Monday!!!! You see....

In the evening, my friend Hadi called me. Apparently, he had come back from Germany and he was about to leave to US, San Francisco for an internship. So, I only had one day to see him.
Peter, Hadi and I went to the "downtown" area close to the main train station.
We walked along the lake of the Zurich. It was gorgeous. I was a bit homesick since my hometown, Esfahan (or some people say Isfahan) has a wonderful river in the middle for 10Km or so which has a lot of parks and green areas around it. Walking along this river was one of my favorites. So, here in Zurich it was the same. People walking along it and there were some Cafe's too.
We stopped at some point and had a coffee.
On the way back, I went to Hadi's place and we were dicussing a lot of things! Things that could have been said in three years of friendship but now we only had 2 hours!

On Sunday, Babak, Peter and I went to see the City and lake again. But this time, we borrowed some bikes. These bikes were free and one could have had them for a day with ony 20 CHF deposit. They had 6 stations and you could return it other spots in the city.
They were actually good bikes and useful since there are a lot of uphill downhills in the city.

Now, I want to talk a bit about the differences and some interesting things to be mentioned.
The major differences that I noticed quite early were:

1- Drivers generally are not that super cautious comparing to the drivers in the Santa Barbara and maybe if I want to generalize it, California. (which might not be absolutely true). In other words, when someone is passing even on the pedestrian walk, he/she should also be very careful. Since not all the cars reduce their speed when they get there. Although, it seems like when you live here for a bit, you get used to it so quickly.

2- Number one priority is given to the Trams! Yes. People crossing the streets should ve VERY careful. As you can imagine, Tram requires a lot more time to stop completely. I even heard that a biker got killed while ago since his/her bike was stuck in the track and was hit by a Tram.

3- Streets, Trams and their Tracks, and sidewalks, they are almost the same. No railgaurds or big pavement or noticable object or obstacle which could reduce the risk of getting injured.
Seems like you as a person should be always aware of your surrounding. I found it a bit dangerous for the strangers and Toursits. The safety factors are for sure less than US (California at least!).

4- The food is healthier and lot more colorful vegetables added to pretty much every meal.
You can also say that by looking at the people's sizes! :-)

5- As one can imagine, all the sizes here are more realistic. Food, drinks, bla bla bla.
You do not get tons of food or vegetables or drinks. I guess this is also one way that you stay fit.

6- The water that you can get when you eat out is usually carbonated unless you ask for the regular one. I even had some apple juice (carbonated) which actually was very good. But just for water, I do not like it that much.

7- Pretty much all the places close around 6pm! OMG. I could not believe that! It was so early. Except for bars and restaurants.

8- The Trams and public transportation of Switzerland! I do not need to remind you how punctual that is!

9- The weather is extremyl unpredictable. Cloud, rain, sun! you can get all in the same day. It has been more cloudy and rainy days for the past days.

10- Unlike people in California who usually smile to each other (pretty much everywhere), here people are not wearing that happy face. I should admit that I really like this fact about Californian people.

11- I have seen a lot of Muslim women with headscarfs. I was not expecting myself to see this many here in Switzerland.

12- The public transportation is very useful. They go everywhere! But it is very expensive. Unless you pay for some expensive yearly or monthly tickets. That way you could get half priced tickets.

13- The streets and the city is not like a grid (where you see in US). You can easily get lost in the city.

14- The advertisements on the streets are different style. More trendy and somewhat more meaningful (or maybe a bit harder to understand the point of the ad). But maybe this is my personal judgment.

15- The last but not the least, smoking!!! People smoke a lot more here. As a result, it is still allowed in a lot of public areas and even in the restaurants to smoke. You could see ashtrays pretty much everywhere.

Right now, I can not think of any other thing.
I also went to Bern on Monday for my visa.
It was interesting to see that even people from Switzerland who have a very very high chance of getting a US visa, still you could tell that almost all of them were nervous. The same situaion that all of people had there.
I should say that I really liked the environment around the main station. A lot of stores, narrow alleys and a lot of people grabbing a bite to eat sitting on the sidewalk! This also reminded me of back home, Iran! No need to be superclean and tidy!

I also visited Albert Einstein's place. Amazing! And I am glad that I went there although it was raining a lot and I was not sure if I could find the place.
Too bad I could not grab my camera there because of the embassy's rules.
A living room, bedroom and a private study room. So simple and humble. Reminded me that even Eisntein was a regular human being.

Ok, I think I am done for now.
Hope I can come back earlier next time.
I will try to see if I can put some pictures here.

Ciao,
Momo

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