sarah here today and in today's video i'm going  to be talking more about some swiss culture shocks

so i recently had an interview with a journalist  from the website swiss info she did a little  

article about how to switzerland which is really  exciting but that prompted my idea for this video  

because in that interview she asked me what  were some initial culture shocks or just like  

surprising things that i noticed basically  like what did i first notice when i arrived to  

switzerland for the first time and i just didn't  have a really good answer for that i couldn't  

think of anything even though i knew there  were like a million things i could talk about  

so i asked myself that question sarah when you  first got here when you got off the plane your  

first few days in switzerland what were the  things that really stood out to you and i've  

got a pretty long list here and we will just  discuss some of those today and i quickly just  

want to thank every single one of you for watching  for liking for sharing for supporting the channel  

lately i have been running into so many of you  just in the streets here in zurich or wherever  

all over switzerland and it has been really  fantastic hearing so many people's stories about  

moving here or living here or all that kind of  stuff it's just been really really awesome i love  

the community that we are building here so i  really really want to genuinely thank you for  

all of the support so one of the first things i  noticed that was very different in switzerland  

was just how attractive and thin and well dressed  so many people are in switzerland especially in  

big cities people are just dressed so sharp here  people look really really put together and i was  

not really used to seeing that you guys i grew up  in a small town in the midwest in the us and it is  

very very casual okay the attitude is pretty  casual people might get dressed up for work  

but after that people are you know all about  those you see those american t-shirts with like  

university names on them or hoodies or casual  clothes and you don't see a whole lot of that  

especially in zurich like if you are  walking on bonjour strasse everyone  

is dressed so nice and they really take care  of themselves and i honestly think that it is  

really really great and inspiring it inspires  me to take care of myself better to try to dress  

better to make a little bit of an effort um with  how i present myself to the world um i know people  

say oh you shouldn't have to care about that it  doesn't matter just be comfortable just do you  

and i get that but i just think that there is  something about carrying yourself a certain way  

presenting yourself to the world a certain way  and i think the swiss are really really good at  

dressing well and staying in shape and all of that  and it was definitely like something i noticed  

right away when i moved here i'm like how do they  do it how do they do it another initial shock  

you guys was keep in mind i was 17 when i first  moved to switzerland and that was just everything  

to do with alcohol so one finding out that the  drinking age for beer and wine is 16 years old was  

very very shocking to me that seemed very young  coming from the u.s where it is obviously 21.  

so seeing teenagers people 16 years old drinking  beer outside you know around a lake or in a park  

or whatever was very very weird to me just  to see them openly drinking beer and wine and  

having a party out in public and they looked  just like kids obviously they are kids  

um that was very strange to me so definitely when  i first moved here i had so many questions about  

alcohol and how does that work when the drinking  age is um 16 can you go to bars how does that work  

i really didn't get it i was just like my mind  was blown about how all of that works here and  

it took me a little bit to understand how it  works and yeah basically just because you can  

drink beer and wine at 16 it doesn't really mean  those are the kids going out to bars and things  

like that especially in big cities like if you're  in zurich and you're 16 you're probably not going  

to get into many nice bars and be allowed  to drink there um but yeah it all depends  

on where you are in switzerland also having to  do with drinking i thought it was so weird this  

was one of the weirdest things to me you guys  that i could go to a grocery store and buy beer  

at 17 18 years old and not get id'd okay that was  so so weird for me because in the u.s i was used  

to my mom literally being 40 and getting asked  for an id at a gas station or at walmart or at a  

grocery store or whatever in the us they are very  strict about checking ids for alcohol purchases in  

fact a lot of companies put out signs like we id  anyone who looks under 40 or who looks under 35 or  

basically they're not looking for people that look  21 they just have like a store policy or whatever  

obviously it depends greatly on where you're  shopping but i'd seen definitely my mom  

or step dad or whatever get id'd to buy alcohol  all the time and obviously they look much older  

than me so to come to switzerland and not get  id'd at 18 17 years old buying you know a bottle  

of wine i thought it was just mind-blowing and  so so weird and just the lack of people asking  

for ids just in general um in zurich or you  know in bigger cities of course you might um  

be more likely to get id'd but if you're in like  a mountain village bar drinking beer if you look  

16 they're probably not even asking you for an id  and that was just really shocking to me another  

initial shock i just remembered that i had was  when i first got here and i saw the cash the  

money the currency i did not understand how they  cannot have a penny i'm like how is there no penny  

so in switzerland the smallest coin is five  cents so they do not have a penny i think in  

in the euro you have a penny obviously in the us  you have a penny and i was like how does that work  

how do they give you exact change and everyone's  like well it's usually you know ends in the price  

usually ends in a zero or in a five it's not going  to be 997 or whatever like you see all the time in  

the u.s it would just be 10 or 95 or whatever and  i just thought that was super super weird and they  

said well if it's not you know i was like how does  that work like if you pay cash and you end up with  

one of these odd amounts you're like oh well they  will just like round up and give you the five and  

i just thought that that was a little bit strange  um but yeah it's actually true in switzerland most  

prices end in like an even number so there  isn't really a need for a penny and if you  

are in that situation they just round up and  give you the five cents coin i remember also  

being very shocked seeing people just carrying  around a lot of cash and bills with very large  

denominations so there's definitely places in the  u.s um you know i don't know certain gas stations  

stores again it all depends on their individual  policy where sometimes if you would pay something  

with a like a crisp 20 the store gets like the  pens out and they're holding it up over a 20 bill  

definitely over a 50 or a 100 again depends on the  store but it's quite common that if you pay with a  

large denomination um they do not like to do this  obviously because they have to give you a lot of  

change and also then if the bill is a fake you  know this is more problematic um if you're paying  

with a fake 100 or whatever i don't know how it  all works i just know growing up if you would pay  

large denominations you would always see people  getting out the pen holding it up or they would  

ask do you have anything smaller and you you  definitely feel like you're inconveniencing people  

if you pay with large denomination notes and here  it is absolutely normal to order a four franc  

coffee and pay with a 100 franc note really nobody  will blink an eye i don't think i've ever heard  

somebody say like oh do you have something smaller  they might ask if you have like a a coin if it's  

like and 10 cents or whatever they might ask if  you have the 10 cents but i've never asked them  

heard them ask for like a smaller bill like oh  do you have a 20 or whatever which i have heard  

in the u.s all the time also i worked in many  bars in switzerland and dealt with a lot of cash  

and it was never really a problem to make  change there was always a lot of cash so i never  

had to be in that situation myself but i remember  when i initially moved here i was just shocked and  

also to find out that there is a 1 000 swiss franc  note that was a shock on its own i was like what 1  

000 francs and in one bill like it was just it was  just blowing my mind also that the smallest bill  

is a 10. i remember being really really shocked  about that when i was in high school i worked  

um as a waitress i worked at a golf course  so i was making a lot of my salary and one  

dollar bills so coming over here and seeing the  smallest bill was at 10. i remember being like  

that is crazy how do people tip you like what can  they tip you they're not going to tip you with 10.  

um and yeah anyways i figured all that out i  just remember being like the currency here is  

really different this one might sound kind of  dumb to you guys but when i first moved here  

when i was 17 i was kind of shocked to find out  that swiss people watch mainly us um movies and tv  

series for some reason i don't know if i thought  they were all gonna have like if there were  

like swiss tv shows or stuff obviously there are  swiss tv shows there are german tv shows you have  

all of that here but i remember when i first  moved here in 2009 2010 everybody would talk  

to me about the big bang theory and two and  a half men those were like the two tv shows  

so many people were obsessed with them and i  was like i really don't get it in the us i never  

heard people talking about these shows or i didn't  even really realize that these shows were that  

popular but then in switzerland everybody was like  talking to me about these shows they were like  

oh what about this big bang theory two and a half  men and i was like are these like popular shows i  

thought these are just like cable tv shows in in  the us nothing very popular i could be wrong on  

that um but i remember being surprised that people  were so interested in like american television and  

american movies and um that they just watch it  dubbed a lot of the times in german i was for  

some reason surprised by that obviously it makes  sense to me now of course switzerland is not going  

to be producing a ton of movies and dramas and tv  series and stuff like that but i remember when i  

first moved here i i was a bit surprised by that  another shock that i had was seeing random police  

checks of cars so i remember um after i moved  here and we were driving in a car and we got like  

flagged down by some police and i was like oh like  what happened were they speeding like what did we  

do like is everything all right here and they're  like oh no it's just like a random check and i  

was like huh and they're like yeah like the police  just set up like a station and they just randomly  

check cars and i'm like what are they checking for  like why are they how can they i don't even know  

if that's legal in the u.s to just like stop cars  without any sort of intent other than just random  

checks but they're like oh they're going to check  if you have like winter tires and they're going  

to check like some stuff on your car and i just  thought that that was super weird and seemed sort  

like mod moderately unethical i was like how can  they just randomly stop people without any reason  

that was very strange to me but the swiss people  i was with didn't really seem to think like it  

was a big deal at all they're just like yeah they  just set up random checks sometimes another shock  

that i had was seeing so many people smoking  i was really really surprised by this in the  

states and especially where i grew up i really i  don't think i knew a single person that smoke or  

a single person's uh parents that smoke you just  don't smell cigarette smoke like it just was not  

a thing and then after i came to switzerland i  was like wow you smell cigarette smoke like in  

the streets um there are people smoking all over  when i first moved here smoking was still legal  

in most bars and restaurants now you have like  smoking rooms but i remember like just seeing  

wow there is really like this smoking culture  still here people go for smoking breaks and  

um even when i was in university like so many  people went out for smoking breaks and i just  

thought that was very strange especially to see  so many young people smoking i guess in my head  

i thought okay maybe the only smokers that are  left are like older people that still smoke but  

i don't think there's a lot of like new smokers um  but i was totally wrong about that in switzerland  

you see a very large amount of young people um  that still smoke um it's just quite common here  

still i don't know how else to say it i feel  like in the us it's a little bit more like  

people would maybe say something like oh you  know like why are you doing that or that's bad or  

um it's very much like well i don't know how  you say like socially it's socially okay if  

somebody's smoking to be like oh maybe you should  quit or something like i feel like that's more  

okay to talk about whereas here people just  kind of accept it and i don't really hear people  

talking about like quitting smoking or stuff like  people just they just smoke and they don't really  

seem uh too concerned about it they just keep  smoking okay i have so many to talk about you guys  

i feel like i've already done so many of these  videos then i might even need to do another one  

but the last one that i'll mention was  seeing the military people everywhere  

so we've talked about this before but in  switzerland you have mandatory military service  

and when i first moved over here and i would  see all these young men um sometimes in civilian  

clothes depending on what they're doing or being  um in their military uniform walking around  

the town with like these massive guns or rifles  and that was very surprising to me i grew up in  

the countryside there's definitely like you know  gun culture and like hunting and like a lot of  

people had like gun lockers and stuff like that  but i had never really like seen it or it's never