Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Switzerland - Travel with Stephanie
Interview with Stephanie, a resident of Sedona, AZ, and working professional that shares her story of her opportunity to live and work in Basel, Switzerland.
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Carol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.life
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. In today's episode, we're meeting with Stephanie, a friend of my sister's, who is an American living and working in Basel, switzerland. Hello, stephanie, how are you? I'm good. I'm good, thanks. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We're super excited. So some things we'd like to learn today is just kind of what brought you to Switzerland? Do you live there full time? I know you're in the States right now Kind of your story, and then some great highlights about what was new and unusual for you all things like that. And Kristen.
Speaker 1:I just are super, super curious. So first thing we're gonna do is I'm bringing up the map of Switzerland, nice, to meet you, stephanie, my computer, I'm having issues, so the one screen where I bring up a map it can't, and then I'm just bringing it on my phone. That'll work, we'll make that happen and we'll figure it out. But, yes, no, we um and I don't know if you, carol, has talked to you about our little venture or creation of this, this podcast was basically so. We were friends when we were what in our 20s, yeah, 90s, the mid 90s or so, yeah, lived at the same apartment complex, ended up working at the same company.
Speaker 1:We found out, I think, after, but not it wasn't like we helped each other get a job or something, and then we would rotate dinners every Wednesday with my roommate, carol, and then two guys or five of us, and so every Wednesday we got to not have to cook dinner once, only once every fifth week, and just became really good friends. And then, of course, life went on. She moved away. We had kids, family. She moved to Colorado. I stayed here in California and then, through a Christmas card, we got reconnected a year ago Yay, it was a year ago, and I was doing a podcast called the Future of Women at Work and Carol was like I want to do a travel podcast and my whole thing.
Speaker 1:I was with the company for 24 years and I got laid off and my husband at the time he was 17 years got laid off, so I started my own. She does her own and we love this kind of thought about digital. She likes digital nomads. I love traveling and you know, being able to be remote and travel, that's my hope and dream, and our kids now are almost at the end of high school, so it gives us that opportunity to really kind of feed our vices of where we want to go and explore by learning and then sharing that information with others that are interested. With COVID, you never knew, but remote and travel are huge things that I think will continue as well, even well after COVID um dies down. But I think it just stirred on us things that I think everyone has wanted and dreamed of, of course, and now we get to actually do those. So that's our story in a nutshell, but would love to learn about. So where are you physically right now?
Speaker 2:So I'm physically right now sitting in Sedona, arizona. Oh nice, yeah, that's right, she's on vacation. Yeah, well, we own a home here. So this is where we were living before we went to Sedona. So I'd say we started kind of our post-career life back in 2014. So my husband had taken early retirement. So, carol, we both worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb and I met your sister back in the late 90s. Victoria and I have, I think, remained fairly good friends, been through a lot over the years, both in our different lives.
Speaker 2:Back in 2013, we bought a house out here as our future retirement home and my husband took early retirement. We put our house on the market in Connecticut, thinking, I mean, the market was really bad. Back then we thought, okay, this is going to take a while, so it'll give us some time to really figure out what we want to do. Lo and behold, the first person that walked in the house bought it. So all of a sudden I was like, okay, we are selling our house in Connecticut. I am still working at my company where I had been for, at that point, almost 20 years, or about 20 years, and luckily, management agreed to let me work remote. So I then proceeded to work remotely for four years here from Sedona, which was wonderful because I worked East Coast hours, so then I had my afternoons to do whatever I wanted to here. But as much as you talked about the benefits of working from home, I found it, you know, doing it for four years. It was a perfect opportunity for us to kind of create a new life here.
Speaker 2:I have one son. He was at the point we moved out here. He was in his junior year of college, a very independent kid, and so he was in Virginia going to school. To him it didn't really matter where we were no-transcript changes and I knew in the horizon that they were not going to actually allow remote working anymore. That message had gone out. The CEO wanted people badging in at least three days a week. So then, lo and behold, someone I had worked with who had gone to. I'd worked with him at BMS. He took a position at a company in Switzerland and we had remained in touch and he, kind of out of the blue, said hey, I have a position you might be interested in, and so that started in November of 2017.
Speaker 2:And you know, personally I'd say earlier in my career we worked a lot with people in Belgium and I would have loved to have done a three month rotation just to live somewhere else. My son was young at that time and so kind of thinking about how would you manage school? Would my husband stay with him? That never actually came to fruition, but that idea of working somewhere in Europe was always something I had on my kind of bucket list, if you will. I just loved the work ethic, the culture, anyways. I thought it would be fantastic, but it never happened.
Speaker 2:And then I had this opportunity. I went over in late January and did the interview process and it took I think about a month or so before I heard about the offer. But then there's the whole process, I think about a month or so before I heard about the offer. But then there's the whole process. You have to go through you know the FBI or they do kind of you know your criminal record. You have to have all of this detail Like what was your official position?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking, ok, you know going to HR, when did I officially start? What were my official positions? So there was just all this paperwork. Essentially you had to do to even give them information, to then apply for your visa. Essentially you had to do, to even give them information, to then apply for your visa.
Speaker 2:So I was going as a kind of local employee in Switzerland, so not as an expat, but really going to be a local employee, so not having any set contract, the ability to go for as long as I wanted. So it all happened over between January and I think I finally had the firm offer in April, and then it was figuring out okay, how are we moving there, what are we taking, what's life going to be like? And so doing all kinds of research around. So and I'm sorry I know you talked about pulling up a map so the company I work for is in Basel, which is the very Northwest corner of Switzerland, which puts you essentially right on the border of France and Germany. So it's a very interesting location, I'd say, from a culture perspective, and Switzerland itself is an absolutely amazing place where you have the Italian, the French and the German parts of the country.
Speaker 2:And there's the Romanesque, which we actually don't think we've actually gotten to that part. But you know, you just have very different cultures and languages within the country, and so I think that's some of the uniqueness of Switzerland. But anyway, so we picked up and finally moved to Basel in mid-June of 2018. We, you know, took the bare basics that we had. We decided that we wanted to keep our house here in Sedona. We weren't sure how it was going to work out, and so we were able to keep our home. So we packed up kind of the minimum things. I figured, okay, I'm taking all of my oldest pots and pans and things that were not ever going to come back, because I was at the point in my career where I figured this was probably going to be my last kind of high profile position where I'd have a company actually willing to relocate me. So I was like, let's take what we have to, we'll figure it out, and so, yeah, so we moved, my husband and myself and our dog which I would say was probably the most stressful part was taking our nine-year-old little poodle schnauzer, who had never even been in a kennel before.
Speaker 2:You know, I always had people that would watch him at home. So the thoughts of him flying. So the poor dog, he actually had a direct flight. That was part of the relocation. So he got driven from Sedona to LA, spent a night or two outside of LAX and then he had a direct flight from LAX into Zurich. My husband and I kind of both had two flights, so the dog was treated somewhat better than we were, and so that's really how we wound up there, and actually my husband had never been. I kind of did a little bit of looking around. When I went to interview the man I was interviewing with, he and his wife took me around, showed me the city and, yeah, my husband went sight unseen. He was just very open and willing to try anything and so off we went and we've been there ever since.
Speaker 1:So, stephanie, all the paperwork you had to do was that, for that company specifically, or anyone moving to Switzerland, they're really strict.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so anybody moving to Switzerland, because you know you have to get. You know, as tourists we can go there for three, I think 90 days, but to be there beyond that and to actually work you have to have application into the government for residency. And so going with a you know a company, like I did, it was very easy for me because they really did the paperwork. I had to find all the documentation, but they really took the onus of applying for our residency permits on both for myself and my husband. They helped hook you up with. You know, unlike the U S where the company tends to, you know, larger companies provide the health insurance and give you some options. There it's really every individual has their own personal insurance and the company doesn't pay for it. So they kind of help hook you up with some insurance.
Speaker 2:Different insurance options, yeah, and there's different types of insurance there. So liability insurance I think we had personal health insurance, liability insurance. So you know liability insurance. I think you we had, you know, personal health insurance liability insurance. So if something happened, of course the apartment insurance you could also get legal assurance insurance. Which we never did was if somebody sues you or there's some type of altercation where you need a lawyer, there's a specific insurance for that. So I was like, okay, so yeah, but we were lucky again going with a big company, because they really handled all the logistics of getting our goods imported. We had to do some of that paperwork, but they really had a relocation that facilitated.
Speaker 1:And how is?
Speaker 2:the health insurance. You happy with it. It is expensive, but it's expensive because I know what I'm paying. Expensive, that's expensive because I know what I'm paying. Yeah, and maybe not compared to the US. So I think for my husband and I again separate policies we're paying about 1200 a month and so the company doesn't contribute at all. It's out of pocket, that's like California.
Speaker 1:That's about the same, for yeah, it's expensive.
Speaker 2:then it's expensive, but so kind of. Unfortunately, my husband had some medical issues and has been in the hospital, had surgery, been in rehab for many months and I can't tell you every time we would like look at each other, we would say I'm so glad we are here and not in the US, because it is just the opposite. They, they, they want to keep you, they. Yeah, it was just I mean literally even before he had to have some tests done and instead of going in and having you know, come this day for this test, this day for that test, they're like no, we just come. We check you in that way, as soon as you know there's availability for that test, then you are able to get it done. So they just want you there very efficiently to get everything done.
Speaker 2:So he had surgery and he had some recuperation issues which you know took some time. I think the first time he was in the hospital for probably at least a month and then into a full rehab place for, I'd say, about a month and a half and the care just amazing, for I'd say about a month and a half and the care just amazing. And you know he had a menu for for meals.
Speaker 1:It was like a 17 page menu that you could pick from, and you know we didn't have yeah, it was amazing, and we didn't have the.
Speaker 2:So you were either kind of in the ward, which is the, I'd say, the lowest level of insurance, or you could have semi-private or private, and he went with some preexisting conditions so we weren't able to get to that higher level for him, but his, his deductible was $350. And then after that, you know he was so he was in a ward, which meant there were a maximum of four people in the room, which didn't really bother him. He was very easygoing. But again, the care, the nursing staff, the physicians, just the people who do the work, I think they treat people there, I'll say there's more respect for more of the service roles than maybe we have in the US, and so it was just a very different experience. The one thing is, most of it was in German, so he very quickly had to get his German skills up, which, yeah, but he managed much better than I still have.
Speaker 1:So how has the language been, and so what's the? What's the language in Switzerland?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so where we live, as I said, there's kind of there's actually four official languages of Switzerland. We're in that northwest corner, which is German.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, wow yeah.
Speaker 2:With that said, however, you know there's all these local dialects. So we talk about Baseldeutsch, so they have their Basel-specific German, which is a little bit different. I think it's more of if I've understood correctly from people it's more of a spoken language than a written language. So officially, in school, I think the kids learn in high German, but then the common language in the home and daycares, things like that, is the local dialect. So what? At least where we live in Basel, the city itself gives everybody that comes a voucher for I think it's about 80 hours of German language classes. Yeah, because they really want people to integrate into society.
Speaker 2:With that said, there are just a lot of global, international companies there, and so you can get by with English very easily in Basel. So we haven't had problems Working full time. For me, it was really hard. I was trying to, you know, work all day, take some language classes at night. My husband being in the hospital just kind of made it challenging for me and everybody in the office essentially spoke English. So and I've also learned I do not have an ear for languages.
Speaker 2:That's much more challenging for me, but my husband's really good Cause, you know, I would like somebody would start to say something with me and I get stuck on that first word. I'm like what did they say? Yeah, it's me in English. And then, you know, with German they say you always have to. The verb comes at the end, so you have to, like, listen all the way through and then you finally understand. I'm like'm like well, I can't get past the first word, so but um, yeah, so it's.
Speaker 2:It's been an experience and, yeah, my husband, as I said, he, he picked up a lot more um and found people wanting, so he was trying to learn his German, they were trying to learn English. So it was kind of that balance. A lot of times, yeah, I would, I would say for me, I mean Basel itself, because there's so many international people and English tends to be the common language. You can kind of be in this little bubble of you know, thinking you can get by, but once you go out into, I'd say, more of the countryside, you might face a little bit more of a challenge. But we all have Google Translate and you can do the best that you can.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So what are the four national languages. I want to say dutch. I don't know why, but I I'm not sure what in throughout switzerland, what?
Speaker 2:um, yeah so there's german, uh, there's french italian and then, um, I think they call it romanish. So there's this one little portion of of switzerland. So is it?
Speaker 1:is it kind of divided up by the ones that are closest to France, the areas closest to Italy, et cetera?
Speaker 2:Well, I'd say it's not necessarily, because again, where we are in that northwest corner, I mean literally the parking lot for my company is in France, so we're that close, but that is really. That is part of the German speaking part of Switzerland, kind of that northern section of Switzerland, kind of that northern section. The French part is a little more to the southwest of Switzerland and then you've got the Italian. That's definitely then bordering on the border with Italy, is where you get the Italian, and then the Romanesque is sort of in the I think the middle, I'm sorry the eastern part of the country, like the very Austria.
Speaker 1:No, because Austria is also Germany, germany, so it's south of there yeah, I'm looking at a map right now and it's completely surrounded by German, germany, france, italy and Austria, and Liechtenstein is in there.
Speaker 2:So Liechtenstein is like that really little small piece on the northeast uh part of the country as well, and that's its own country, lichtenstein country.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, wow, like singapore, huh tiny but to your question, I mean it's interesting because when you go over into um, into france, in the alsace region uh, wine region, the alsace region you know during all of the different world wars that border has definitely shifted and so you know that part of france is very much there's some French, there's some German. If you speak some German, a lot of the older people will, will still speak some German. So that's kind of a mix. But we always laugh because I mean literally we can drive five minutes crossing to France and it's everything is different the pastries, the bread. They won't speak German. You know, it's truly this French culture. It's just yeah, you're like okay, I just literally stepped over from Wow.
Speaker 1:That's so neat so. I have to ask what's your favorite? Is there a difference between? I would think, france, but I don't know what's the bread.
Speaker 2:It all depends what you're looking for. I'd say, if you want really good wine and pastry, you go to the French grocery stores. If you want good meats beer, then you're going to the German grocery stores over in Germany.
Speaker 1:You haven't made.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and this is what so I mean. So the I'd say the negatives of Switzerland is it is a very expensive place to live. It's an. It's an interesting country in that, you know, the unemployment rate is essentially zero and they actually bring a lot of employees in, I think from France and Germany. But you know, the cost of living is expensive, food is expensive.
Speaker 1:So how much is a trip to the grocery store or rent for a month?
Speaker 2:So, and again, we're just a single couple. You know the rent we're paying is $3,000 a month.
Speaker 1:It's a two-bedroom.
Speaker 2:You know 95-square-meter apartment, but it's a brand-new apartment so you can find less expensive. But you know we kind of wanted. Well, okay, my husband's requirement was we have two bathrooms, we have our own laundry and dishwasher and we not have crazy rules. So in some of the older buildings in Switzerland and around Basel, where we are first of all, it's common to have the laundry in the basement and then every person gets their laundry day, so you must do your laundry on your set day. Some of the older places you know their rules. Like you can't flush your toilet after 10 o'clock because of the noise. So they're very conscious of bothering other people and so they have these rules. There are a lot of rules, you know. No, making noise after 10 o'clock. Um, nothing on Sunday.
Speaker 2:So Sunday is family day and we can talk about that. It's just, it's amazing. Everything stops on Sunday. You can find a few little grocery stores, like the little markets, open, like a little convenient type store, but other than that, essentially everything is closed. You know, restaurants will be open, cafes will be open, but um, it is family day. It is, I mean, you will see three generations out, because I think it's very common there for people to essentially stay where they are. In Basel, where you have a fantastic university, you know, I know several people who were born and raised there went to school there, because that doesn't stop anybody. You're out walking or biking, you're with your family, you see the grandparents getting the little ones at school in the afternoon. So it's really you know that. I'd say that that the nuclear family is still very much intact there, not that everybody stays, but it is. You know. You do see it, and it's another thing that we love about Switzerland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would assume it's really safe too. I mean that's always relative right, always the inner city. There could be you know some crime. But you know the stereotype in my head anyway, for Switzerland is, you know, expensive, super safe, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:So Basel's. Basel's the third biggest city in Switzerland, it's about 180,000 people. I have no qualms walking home alone at night at 11, 1130. I've come home later, you know. You go out with your girlfriends and you come home a little bit later. Now I know where we live. It's safe. There might be some parts of the city where I may not necessarily go alone at that time of night. Nothing is totally safe. But I'm telling you, they send these little kids. You'll see a little four or five-year-old getting on the tram on their own to go to their school. They have these little fluorescent or reflective like necklaces that the little little ones, the first, like probably the kindergarten, what we'd consider in the US, the kindergarten kids. They wear those. Everybody knows they're that first year and you, you know they don't hesitate. They send these little ones out on their own to walk to the school, to get on the tram. Yeah, it is. It is amazing.
Speaker 1:I can't get my high schooler to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it is amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can't get my high schooler to do that? Yeah, one of our neighbors. So our apartment complex has this long driveway and right at the end of it is a kind of a little international elementary school. And neighbors of ours are from Brazil and their daughter, I think, was turning nine and she was so excited because they gave her it must've been some kind of like little wrist GPS type thing. And she was like now they're letting me walk to school on my own. And I was asking the father I'm like, come on, you're in Switzerland. He goes. No, I'm Brazilian, we don't let our kids go anywhere alone. So I think you'll see like the expats still tend to bring that same type of concern with them. But the local people, no hesitation at all, those little ones, just out and about, they go.
Speaker 1:So what great independence and learning I can just imagine. Oh it is. I need to bring my daughter in there. I put my kids.
Speaker 2:And then there's the language piece. I mean I would have, yeah, looking back now, if I could have raised my child there. I would have been so happy because you know the, the multitude of languages that are spoken and of course the little ones are sponges and they just they pick it up. And so I mean it's funny.
Speaker 2:I have a good friend of mine is actually from Ireland, but her children have been born and raised there, and I went over to her house one night and she's telling her son OK, you're going to drive us to the restaurant to her house one night. And she's, you know, telling her son okay, you know, you're gonna drive us to the restaurant. So he yells up the stairs to his sister in, in, in in Swiss, german or Baseldeutsch. So they communicate because that's the language they were kind of raised with, and so amongst themselves they're communicating in their own language, which you know mom is and she does speak German. But you know the kids are fluent in the local dialect and so that's kind of their personal language. So I have some, I know some parents who you know the kids can have their own little conversations because they've gone through the school system, learned the local language. The parents have no idea what they're saying. What do?
Speaker 1:they teach in school language wise.
Speaker 2:So, and again, like a lot of international cities, you know, I'd say, a lot of expats coming over there, there is the international, well, the ibs, um, yeah, the international school of basel, the isb. So there are international schools where they teach in english and then, you know, it's kind of, I'd say, more of the tradition for the kids to take their language of choice and and some of it in german the local schools, um, my understanding is it is mostly in high German and they do. I believe they get some English, but don't quote me on that. So there's just a lot of different choices in schools there, especially for expats coming in, and some people just try to use the local schools.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Got it so so.
Speaker 1:English itself is, even throughout the country. Is English taught at all? I know in Sweden it's taught, but I don't know. Yeah, and I think it's taught.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's required because you know sometimes we'll go, let's say, to the pharmacy, and I'll assume the younger people will speak English. And it's actually not. It's the older generation that will speak English. So I don't know what the requirements are, what the opportunity is. But yeah, you can't just assume the younger generation is going to speak English. Many of them do, but but not not always.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It seems like if you live there too and if you travel at all, I guess if you stay in your town and I don't know how much cross-cultural, it seems like people that I, I'm Swedish and so my Swedish families. They're all over Europe. They go everywhere and learn lots of different languages.
Speaker 1:English is spoken in all the schools, but having Italy, France and German, Germany all right there, I'd want to it seems like those would be important to know, but it sounds like well, and we're Europe, where Germany is anyway. So most of it, I think, is high German in there, but at the very bottom of Switzerland, do you know? Is it because Italy is down there? Is it Italian?
Speaker 2:spoken there. It's a lot of Italian, but they I mean you will find so first of all, most government forms that you get or you know you buy medicine, and the three languages that will usually be there are always German, french and Italian. So I'd say, a lot of you know federal communications that come give you all three languages. And then, yeah, you know you can hear people if you go to a hotel. So we were recently down in the Italian area, down in Ticino, and yeah, people will flip from Italian to German. So it's, I'd say, they, a lot of people within Switzerland can speak maybe not all three, but can probably speak at least two of the four languages of the country. So, yeah, it's just again, I have no gift for language. So to me, to hear people to be able to flip like that, it is truly amazing, yeah, and how is the weather?
Speaker 1:You mentioned something about the weather. I was curious what the climate is like year round yeah.
Speaker 2:So when we moved there in 2018, I think the summers of 2018 were ungodly hot, humid, no air, no air conditioning, essentially anywhere. So we we were dying, you know, coming from Arizona where, yeah, you have AC everywhere. So the summers were beautiful and I think we had a really nice fall and we didn't see any snow the first, probably the first and second winter that we were there. Last year or this year it's been cold and gray, so it is very gray. I was happy to come to Sedona it's not sunny today, but it was great to get here and have some sun, because it's been really gray and gloomy.
Speaker 2:But we don't. You know, the mountains will get the snow, but where we are in Basel, we don't see. I mean, we've maybe had four or five inches, and but that's like very rare. You might get an inch or so and then it melts. So the temperature tends to be fairly mild. I was born and raised in upstate New York so I'm used to cold, so it hasn't been that bad, but then this year has just been. I think it's kind of a weird weather year for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:We had a very cool summer for the most part, and the fall and winter had just been kind of miserable but, yeah, so it sounds similar, maybe to like the mid-atlantic in the east coast yeah, probably, but then you know you can travel an hour and be up in the in the alps, so, or hour and a half, and so then you can get up where it's very cold have you been skiing there yet.
Speaker 2:So we yeah, we skied. Well, my husband and I tried to ski once, so we weren't huge skiers again, being from the Northeast where your options weren't that great and we hadn't skied for years. And then my husband had some of his health issues. We tried once and we didn't make out so well. I went with some girlfriends another time. I was a little overwhelmed, but I would say you know, there it's just people just well actually, but you don't have to just ski. And again, another amazing thing People are just out. There's skiing, there's snowshoeing, there's cross-country skiing, there's just hiking.
Speaker 2:Sledding is huge. You know, some places in the mountains they kind of close the road and it becomes a sledging run. You know like miles of sledding. So you know, there's all kinds of opportunities in the winter. I'd say we probably haven't taken advantage of too much of it just because of our situation. And it's different there, like in the US, you have the big lodge and everybody brings their stuff in and you know you put your clothes and everything in a locker and then you put on your boots. You'll see people on the train wearing their ski boots and their clothes and and they essentially go from the train to whatever, to the mountain, and so it's, it's or or the. The train systems have things where you can send your skis the day before and then they get delivered. You get your skis and then you just go off and you see. So that idea of having that big, huge lodge where everybody dumps their stuff is not the same there, but there are lots of places to eat and drink they love to do that.
Speaker 1:I think that's a big thing too. Quick question about the sledding Is it like dog sledding or like? What kind of sledding or like? How is the sled getting moving, the little wooden?
Speaker 2:the little wooden sled that you know, the old fashioned kind. It's that type of sled many times. Oh, we were like going down the hill.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, miles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, oh crazy, oh wow, it is crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, so they hike up, or is there like an actual?
Speaker 2:lift, Usually a train. So well, one place I know that we saw like you took the train up so everybody would get on the train with, like a little local train. They get on with their sleds, They'd all go up and then they sleds down. So yeah, it's an amazing place. And then the other thing is again, family is so important that one time we did go skiing, you know, you took the lift or the gondola up to, I'd say, Mid-Mountain and then there was a lodge and there was just this little baby slope where the kids and they had the chairs for the parents to sit there, and just this very mild incline where the kids could either sled or try to ski. Always a playscape. So just very, very family oriented. That it's for everybody. And yeah, it is just amazing that way.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So in the snow or the winter, lots of activities. It sounds like.
Speaker 2:And what in the?
Speaker 2:summer do they also lots of outdoors like in the summer, do they also lots of outdoors? Yeah, it's a country where I don't can't quote how many miles, but thousands of miles of hiking trails, and I mean people. Well, I wouldn't even say hiking, just walking trails, because it could be a paved path through a field, and so you have the, the wonder bags, just the wandering roads and people and dogs, kids, strollers, bikes, everybody is just out all the time. So you'll be driving down the highway and you'll see this person in this field. They're like, okay, where's the nearest town? Where are they coming from? But they'll just be walking through the field and you can easily, you know 16 or 18 kilometers, just follow. They have all these, all these routes. Everybody's got their apps and they follow. You know everything is is on on your, on your phone and you get your GPS and you just wander and things are marked. So that is what people tend to do on the weekends they're just out and about.
Speaker 1:Right. So we we had interviewed a gal from France outside of Leon and she said it's kind of the same thing where there's like these, more like structured walks and hikes, and then there might be people with some bread or some wine along the way. Same thing there?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you'll find in this in this one beautiful area, lotte Brunnen, which is in the Bernese Alps. So in Lotte Brunnen is a Valley and you can walk along this Valley floor and you've got the beautiful snow covered Alps on either side of you. And we were walking along and there was a vending machine outside of kind of a little barn and house. They were selling their cheese, eggs, but just like things out of a vending machine. So there was that. And then we were hiking somewhere else one time and there was an old house that I think was turned into a restaurant, but they again had like a self-serve area outside where people were sitting, where, you know, get your cup of coffee, put your honor system, put your money and things like that. But yeah, you'll be in the middle of nowhere, and then all of a sudden there'll be a house in our restaurant. Well, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. I guess you're not.
Speaker 1:But that's very interesting. Yeah, oh, that sounds fantastic. So what are? Are there big? You said that that where you're at is big for either US or big corporations that come there, and I was curious is there what industries are very popular there or positions that you know tend to be frequent?
Speaker 2:Yeah, basel is is huge for the pharmaceutical industry, which is what I'm in. So you've got Novartis, and Roche are kind of the, I'd say, the main, they're the biggest ones. You've got Lonza, I mean it just it's a lot of pharmaceutical. I think Zurich is more of the banking, but yeah, we spend our time in Basel. So there is a lot of industry there and it's, yeah, our neighbors, our best friends, are actually Swedish and she works for Ikea. So, yeah, it's wonderful. So, yeah, so a lot of pharma. But there are other industries as well. I mean, sometimes you just assume everybody there is and then you'll find out that, no, you know, I work for a bank, I do this, yeah, and you said zero percent.
Speaker 2:Uh, unemployment it's, it's close to zero percent. At least that's not my husband quotes. I haven't actually looked. You know they just they keep the roads perfect. We'll be like, wait a minute, they just tore that road up like two years ago. How come they're tearing it up again and redoing it? And so you know there's just constant buildings are always being updated, painted roads are being redone. So cleaning, you know you, you go out, I go out for a walk early in the morning on a weekend and the cleaners are out there. I mean, everything is just essentially pristine. With that said, there is a lot of graffiti. When I first went, and you're kind of walking around, going, okay, there's a lot of graffiti on the wall. Is this a bad neighborhood? And then people are like, no, it's just something that people do there. I don't know why, because again, you're thinking it's such a beautiful, clean place, but graffiti is somewhat tolerated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Is it at least pretty? I know in Oakland Sometimes, but other times, yeah, sometimes it's just, like you know, initials and words and things like that. So not pretty, it's just there, but it's not an indicator. I'd say, like you know, we would kind of stereotypically think, oh, this is a bad neighborhood, it's not like that there, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:I know we heard the nuclear family is very big, you know. So what are there any other like kind of cultural customs that were kind of new? Do people watch TV a lot? Is everyone like what Netflix? I mean, I hear I feel like everyone's like well, what Netflix are you watching right now? You know, and we're all like on our screens. It sounds like people are outside a lot, but is like hospitality big to people at dinner parties. You know, we learned about like the coffee culture in the Netherlands. That was really interesting, like every afternoon you have a cup of coffee and invite people in and just any kind of like interesting, kind of cultural I don't know habits.
Speaker 2:And I would say, you know, we probably clung more to expats than local people. With that said, you know, in our complex we do have several local Swiss people. But definitely like from a work environment, definitely a coffee culture. I still would like work over my computer at lunchtime and eat my salad that I bring from home, or something like that, where people would be literally scheduling coffee dates. And on the campus where I work I know there's probably six or seven little coffee shops and people are out all the time. Pre-covid, you know, it was really a part of the working culture was to have that, to build that one on one connection with people and have a coffee, have a conversation, talk, work, get to know people, so. So that was definitely outside. Just in personal life, I'd say people do go out. Are there dinner parties?
Speaker 1:I don't know Cause it's kind of hard to spread at the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, exactly, but people definitely love to go out and you know we're still somewhat in shock when we pay our bills sometimes, but people there don't question, you know you go out. I remember the other thing is you can go out to a pizza place. Well, you get the like, not the big pizzas like here, but kind of between the mid and the small pizzas and that's for one person and they sit there and they eat that whole thing and then they have their coffee and croissants in the small pizzas and that's for one person and they sit there and they eat that whole thing and then they have their coffee and croissants in the morning and they love their pastries and I'm going. Okay, how come? You're all not huge and I don't know if it's the activity, but you know people are so health conscious there and move so much. You don't see overweight people like you do here in the States, and so I think you know that that this is something that we've taken.
Speaker 2:You know you walk to the grocery store. We did buy a car only because my husband thought he was going to be going off golfing and so he wanted that freedom. But within the city, for the grocery store, for work, I'm either walking or taking the tram. Many people bike. We don't do that, but the biking is huge there as well. But you just you walk everywhere and it just gets you outside. It's a 10 minute walk here or there or 30 minutes, it doesn't matter, you're just moving. But but yeah, I'd say people do like to go out. They do have that kind of cocktail hour afternoon Aperos is what they call them there. So you know very common to have aporos work aporos on campus with food and drinks and things like that. So that was nice. Or people just going out to have an aporo. Yeah, and everybody dresses nicely. You know, sunday again we'll be out in our sweatpants or something we're looking at other people like. I guess we're supposed to dress a little bit nicer.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So just a very I don't know respectful sophisticated type cultures is the way we feel, and I was wondering also about oh well, I was going to say on that note traditions holiday coming up. Did they celebrate Christmas? You know that.
Speaker 2:That side too. So Christmas, and if, yeah, if we'd had kids, we probably would have known a lot better. So Christmas they do celebrate, but more in the early part of December. So they have and I'm not going to remember the names, but there is like a man that comes all dressed in black and then there's one dressed in red. So it's kind of again that good bad and you get the little treats from them. So that tends to be early, I think it's early December, but yeah, I'd have to look it up and send it to you. But there is definitely that's before, and you get a little treat. And you'll find that the little local bakeries. They have certain baked goods depending on the season and the holiday, and so for Christmas time, because the kids are supposed to give this man when he comes to their house, it's kind of almost sort of remind you of a gingerbread man, but it's made out of a sweet yeasty dough, and so you'll see those in all of the different bakeries. So there's that piece, you know.
Speaker 2:Christmas, again the same Christmas lights everywhere in Basel we usually have a beautiful Christmas market. They did have it this year. It was a little bit smaller, but beautiful, beautiful lights throughout the city, and so that's a big thing. Then, in the fall, we have Herbstmesse, which is a autumn festival, very much like the Christmas markets, where you just have booths of people selling our little little shacks, almost, or what do you call them stallsalls, selling different handmade goods, food, all kinds of food. Yeah, people love to eat and drink and again I'm like how do you eat all this fried?
Speaker 1:food, and I wondered also in Sweden when I was there, everything was super small, so like their juice glasses were tiny, and then instead of a half gallon milk it was a quart of milk. I don't know if the sizes are different there, or it sounds like the pizza isn't.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and you know again that idea of you know you go to the market and you get what you need, because your refrigerator, you know our refrigerator and freezer are very small. You don't go to Costco there, or at least we do, we didn't. Yeah, you just buy. You know you buy what you need for a day or two, and then my husband would go out or I'd stop by on my way home or he'd go to. We have a farmer's market in our little town center, essentially seven days a week, every day of the day, and so you know the little local farmers come and he had his favorite fruit person and his favorite cheese person and so, yeah, it's, it's now local people do it. I don't know if it's people like us that think it's such a cool novelty that we go, but you do see the local people. You know the older people that you can tell they're Swiss, they're there, they're buying their vegetables and flowers and it's, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Did you have a question, carol?
Speaker 2:I apologize, so do they have like the big supermarkets, like USN, markets like usn, okay. So yeah, I'm trying to think in switzerland, so you do have bigger ones. Yeah, there's a couple of bigger ones and a lot of people again, we were kind of talking before about the costs. You know, especially people that have families do tend to go to france, german, because the the price is so much less expensive. And you know, I can't fault them at all, because if you're raising a family, meat products especially are very expensive. I say the produce isn't as bad, but definitely things like meat and fish they are expensive. And so that's where you tend to see people. They limit what you can bring back and the Swiss are very proud. They want their Swiss chicken and they want their Swiss beef. But then people like us coming in would say, okay, but I want to feed my family, so I'm going to go shopping over here.
Speaker 1:Kind of just a little odd question. I want to get political or anything. But like the global warming, is there a lot of like hey, do you see them taking a lot of steps to help prevent that, or do they care about it? Is it, is it like a number one priority? Do you just hear about it generally?
Speaker 2:So yeah, as a country and I can't quote a number, but again it's a very high percentage that they. So I think they do use nuclear, they do use solar and water, obviously because there's a lot of water but very, I think, very little fossil fuels. So they are. I believe they try to get away from that. It's like our garbage. So you buy your garbage bags and that's kind of how you pay your fee for garbage is.
Speaker 2:You go to the grocery store and you buy your 10 baby sacks and it's probably $22 for 20, no for 10, excuse me, 20, some dollars for 10 garbage bags that you would kind of put in your under sink garbage bin, and those garbage bags are then burnt. Now you recycle glass, you recycle paper definitely glass, tin and cardboard and paper. You have to sort everything but the waste that you and bio waste. So everybody has their bin for their. You know all of your, your vegetables and things like that. But they burn it and I was really surprised about that.
Speaker 2:But I think they have a burning system that's very clean, so they're not putting pollutants in, because they are definitely very climate oriented. You'll see a lot of protests there around. You know climate and pollution, um, climate change, so, so there is a lot of passion and activism about it there, um and again, people are outside all the time, so I think they take pride in nature and you know, there the glaciers are starting to decline, like everywhere else, and, and so that is something that I think people are very sensitive to, okay all right.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that but yeah, the one thing they do do is smoke a lot. I don't know who it is, but you'll, you know, you'll be walking down the street and it's constantly like who's smoking? Who's smoking?
Speaker 1:Cause the U S now you're kind of like it is so old fashioned. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Waiting out for the tram at six 30 in the morning and you'll be like who's smoking?
Speaker 1:People can smoke indoors, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:No, so no, not indoors. But when we first moved there, I love the fact that all of these little cafes and restaurants and bakeries have tables outside and they'll have the sheepskin over the chairs or fleece blankets. It's like everywhere. Oh my God, that's so wonderful. People want to be outside and that's when you're like, oh, that's so. They can go sit and smoke and be warm and eat and drink outside. So I think it's just I mean not that some people that just want to be outside in the fresh air, but I do think it's to accommodate the smokers that they have these wonderful seating areas outside.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, I was curious also. Just, you know traditional, like the cities to visit. If you were, if Carol and I were to come over there, where should we go? I mean, I this is helps, it's amazing in the outdoors is what I like. We like to do as well. But what would you say if you had, well, two weeks to a month to go to Switzerland? What would you suggest that you need to do?
Speaker 2:yeah, and it's amazing in that you can. You can be in a beautiful city like Zurich. So Zurich or Lucerne, if you want a beautiful kind of traditional city. We debate between Zurich and Lucerne as to which one we love most, and we haven't. We actually haven't been to Geneva, so we haven't gotten all over Switzerland. I think between COVID and you know some of our personal reasons, we haven't traveled as much as we really thought we would. But you know, you have the beautiful old cities that you can see, but then you can be in the mountains in no time. So I would say, like Zurich and Lucerne are just beautiful to see, old cities.
Speaker 2:Then we always take people. So, carol, when your sister came to visit me, we took her over to, we went over to the Alsace region, because you have places like Colmar. Or we didn't go to Strasbourg with Victoria, but we took her to Colmar, which is this beautiful I think they call it the Venice of France just this beautiful little. And how do you spell that Colmar? It's just C-O-L-M-A-R. Okay. And there's beautiful little wine villages over there. So you go to Colmar, you go to some of these little beautiful Alsatian wine villages where they make their local wine. So wonderful white wines. So you know we always do that, that was one of our things. Then you can go to. If you want to go to the French part, you go to Gruyere in Switzerland and you know Gruyère cheese, but there's this beautiful old Gruyère medieval city that you can easily get to and walk around, and then there's the Alps, and so there's different parts of the Alps and everybody has their favorite, their favorite places to go. You know we haven't talked at all about the.
Speaker 2:The transportation in Switzerland is, of course, as you've heard, you know, the trains. If they're even a minute or two late, there's usually an announcement, an apology that sorry we're, you know we're two minutes late. You can have a connection that's five or six minutes and be like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to make it. You will make it because they, you know they time it and they have that. You know. Usually they know where people are going. So you'll probably get off of one train, cross over, train crossover, get to the next one. So the precision, yes, exactly With Swiss precision. And cleanliness, yeah, not not to to look down on the Germans or the French, but you can tell when you're on a Swiss train versus a French train or German train, because there are differences.
Speaker 1:So you can, we can go visit Switzerland without a car, without, renting a car you can go visit Switzerland without a car.
Speaker 2:I mean, sometimes it's quicker to go by train because you're going under mountains, you know tunnels, tunnels, everywhere, tunnels. Sometimes it's quicker by train, sometimes it is more convenient by car. But I say you can get to the major cities. You can be in someplace like Zurich or Bern, which I didn't mention. Bern Bern is another. That's our, our capital, and that's just a beautiful old city as well, not one on a lake. It has a river going through, but cities like Zurich and Lucerne are on the lake and so that just adds to the beauty of those cities.
Speaker 1:But yeah, between the buses and the trains it's very easy to get around Well it made me think when you guys were talking about precision, swiss watches, which everyone, always, everyone always knows about, and chocolate and cheese. Yeah, that's great, but yeah, definitely. So what's the best? Swiss chocolate? The chocolatier.
Speaker 2:So so my personal favorite is Latterach, which is yeah, not one that you buy outside.
Speaker 2:You know Lindt is there that you can get. You know we brought some of that back. But the local stuff there, I mean Laderach, is my favorite one. And why? Why is it your favorite? It's probably like the first one I had when I was there, because it was right in the little market square in Basel and I went in and they have huge hazelnuts.
Speaker 2:I love nuts, so chocolate and nuts are paradise to me and so, yeah, but then you know you go and you kind of live in a bubble when you don't. You know, like we don't watch the bloke of politics. Some of our friends that speak some German do. But it was very easy with everything that was happening here over the past few years to kind of look at the U? S and be like it's total chaos. But then you know, I'm sure there's stuff happening in Switzerland as well, but we could kind of ignore that because we didn't watch the local news. So yeah, it's not all perfect there, but for the most part for somebody living there, for us we could be in this perfect little bubble and just think it's the most pleasant, beautiful place to live.
Speaker 1:So and it's the chocolate. Is it milk chocolate, dark chocolate?
Speaker 2:or just everything it's. It's both. I'm a I'm a milk chocolate person personally, so but, um, but yeah, you can find both and they do eat it for dessert and yeah, it's why not, why not? You get a hot chocolate there and it tends to be this like very thick syrupy chocolate, not like our little Nestle's hot chocolate mix.
Speaker 1:Whipped cream on the top and like sprinkles, like syrupy chocolate not like our little Nestle's hot chocolate mix, whipped cream on the top and like sprinkles. That's great. So do you think you'll plan to stay there after the work is over, or no? Maybe down to somewhere new, portugal, spain.
Speaker 2:So we are actually planning our move to Portugal February 28th, so we are on our way out of Switzerland. Oh great, we're going to interview in like six months. Yeah, interview me in six months. This we're doing on our own. This is really our retirement phase. So Switzerland is wonderful but, as I said, it's expensive. We couldn't afford to be there First of all. We couldn't stay and not work, and so we've been working towards getting our residency in Portugal and that's our next stop because we've decided we want to spend. We didn't get to see as much of Europe as we'd hoped to, and I'm kind of ready to get out of the work piece and just start to really enjoy life and I still want to go to Portugal.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to hear about it. I've been like studying up on it a little bit when oligarchs when we were creating this podcast. She was talking always about Portugal, and we've yet to find someone to interview, so all right.
Speaker 2:Give me six to eight months.
Speaker 1:Carol, and we can talk.
Speaker 2:It's going to be very different, but we're looking forward to the change, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially the not working part Big changes?
Speaker 2:Where are you going to?
Speaker 1:move to in Portugal.
Speaker 2:So we're going to start, we're going to be renting an apartment outside of Lisbon in a place called Parade, so kind of on the way to Cascais, southern, so yeah, so the way Portugal goes. So you've got Lisbon kind of here and then it goes up and around so we'll be in this area. So it's about a 20 minute train ride from Lisbon be in this area.
Speaker 1:So it's about a 20 minute train ride from. Lisbon. That sounds fantastic. All right, so we have our rapid fire questions that we ask everyone, unless you have any other questions, kristen. No, this is fantastic. Thank you so much. Really good, okay, so what's the popular religion there?
Speaker 2:Is it Catholic or Protestant? So I want to say I'm going to say Protestant, but I don't know. And the thing you have to do is if you participate in a church, you have to document that and you pay church tax. So we did not, we're not religious, we didn't sign up for one, but you. But I think I would probably go with Protestant.
Speaker 1:Great, and we did talk about some popular foods. What are one of your favorite foods to eat outside of chocolate, like in meals?
Speaker 2:maybe is there like a certain dish that is very popular chicken or lamb, or yeah, so when people think about special and they think of fondue, I actually like rochelette, which is the hot cheese, and then you get some boiled potatoes and pickles and pickled onion with it and it's a very winter thing and you know, fondue gets too gooey with just the bread and the cheese, but this one you get it's raclette is what I love.
Speaker 1:Pickles, I know.
Speaker 2:R-A-C-E-L-L-E-T-E. I think.
Speaker 1:That sounds much better. Yeah, and then say you were in Switzerland today, what would you have had for breakfast? What's common? I?
Speaker 2:would have had muesli. Yeah, that's my thing. I would say my husband would have gone out there and had a, an espresso and a croissant, because that's what he likes Nice.
Speaker 1:And then, what kind of music is popular there? Is it very Western, or is there something kind of unique to the country? So so I would say it's very Western.
Speaker 2:You know especially, I guess, the places we go, the music would say it's very western. You know, especially, I guess, the places we go, the music you hear it's very western. But then you do hear the yodeling and the do-do the other long you're out in the mountains and so very good I'm just gonna assume there's no surfing.
Speaker 1:I don't see any oceans nearby, unless people do it on the water and they do it on the water.
Speaker 2:So in in Bern, when we were there in the summertime I think our first summer there off of a bridge, so it's more of what do they call it when they go behind boats on the way.
Speaker 1:That's my I, that's my jam. I compete and I do a competition for California for doing wake surfing, wake surfing.
Speaker 2:So they do that off of bridges and so it's kind of like a bungee cord and so they go off and then they surf. So you do see some surfing. In that regard, yes, and we actually somebody outside of our building has a kite surfing van, and I'm not quite sure. So they might be doing like kite surfing on some of the big lakes, because you have huge lakes and wind.
Speaker 1:So, ok, great, and just the last question Money. What's the money? Are you guys on the euro?
Speaker 2:No, because Switzerland is not part of Europe, it is its own country. So they have the Swiss franc and you can get a hundred dollar bill, a two hundred dollar bill, and you can go to your market and buy five dollars worth of lettuce and they will break a two hundred dollar bill, a $200 bill. And you can go to your market and buy $5 worth of lettuce and they will break a $200 bill, usually without blinking an eye.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fun Nice little interesting and there's no pennies that the smallest is a 5 cent coin.
Speaker 2:That's the smallest that they go to.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, we are right on schedule. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Stephanie, I'm so glad we got to connect with you for this easy time zone while you're on vacation, so this is great thank you so much.
Speaker 1:We enjoy so much to learn about the different countries and this was just amazing. So thank you, okay, perfect, merry Christmas, happy Holidays, bye. If you enjoy our podcast, be sure to subscribe to our show, rate us in your podcast app and follow us on Instagram at where next podcast. If you are interested in being a guest on our show or would like to nominate someone, please contact us on our website at wwwwhere next podcastcom. Thanks for listening.
