It finally happened.....

Since arriving in Zurich in July I've been slowly building a list of things ranging from odd to downright dumb about Europe. With so much to love about Europe and the romance involved in coming here on vacation, I thought it only fair to expose the seedy underbelly of life when you actually live here. Sorry to offend but truths are truths.

Why now formally put down on electronic paper these thoughts and observations, some of which I have already shared with some of you? Well, it finally happened. I locked Cleaver into the house.

Read that again.

Key and lock, required on both sides!

Yes, “into” the house, meaning that she was unable to exit our apartment through the very door meant to keep people from coming into the abode without consent. I’m at work early Friday morning, I receive a phone call from Cleaver asking me if in fact I have both sets of house keys with me, and I do. I accidentally took both sets and upon locking the door behind me when I left, trapped Cleaver on the inside. And here we have the first of several design flaws in Europe. Locks.
Unlike say a hotel door that automatically locks behind you when you leave the room, doors here require that you lock and unlock the door with the key from both sides. The next person that can explain to me why this is a good idea will be the first. One Euro told me "oh, you just leave the key in the lock when you are inside the house". Great. So then if I am coming home and the other person is already inside and has their key in the lock, my key won't fit in the lock. 'Cause there is another key in there. Brilliant.

Moving on - Let's talk windows. As we learned in Summer it can get warm, humid, and stuffy, so you of course want to open the windows at night to get some fresh air since they do not have air conditioning here. At home in the U.S. you open a window and go on about your life. Here, you open a window and then have no less than 10,000 flies and other bugs in your house within minutes. Why? Screens. Don't have them here, anywhere. Again I have to ask, why is this system better?

Swiss plug on left, Euro adapter on the right

Moving on - Power plugs. You all know the novelty of travelling to Europe and having to think about a power converter / plug adapter so that your computer, charger, etc... will work. Well that part is fine but Europe can't seem to all get on the same page here with the plugs. The UK is on these giant 3 prong funky looking plug thing that is a hot mess. Most of continental Europe is on these two "pins" type deal, and Switzerland for some unknown reason has 3 "pins". So when I take my computer on the road and I plug my cord into the wall, it's actually a no can do. I have to have this adapter so that my Swiss plug will fit into the European wall when not in Switzerland. And don't get me started on the fact that some are flat against the wall and some receptacles are recessed which adds another element of incompatibility. It's a mess, trust me.

Moving on - Money. Europe loves coins and making large denominations of money in coin form. Which is awesome because you end up with like $22 worth of coins in your pocket weighing down your pants and making lots of noise when you walk. Hey, can we move on to more paper please? We all know the day is coming when cash will be a thing of the past anyway so why keep so many coins around? This is a hassle and Switzerland has decided that the "half-franc" coin should be the smallest one of the bunch so you keep missing them when you try to pay for something in change. Should be noted this coin problem is not limited to Switzerland and that the Euro, Nordic, and UK countries have the same issue.

Moving on - Lines. Lines at the grocery store, airport boarding, getting on / off the train, people generally can't figure out how to wait in line. For such an organized efficient society they have created in Switzerland, when there is no defined process - like when the door to the train opens - people lose their minds and try to jam through the door all at once. Never mind if someone was there first, is carrying a bunch of luggage, or that people are trying to get off the train.  All just jam up in one mass of people all going nowhere just like they used to do in cartoons when you were a kid or any number of bad early 90's sitcoms. (Saved by the Bell, I'm looking in your direction!) Figure it out people.

Moving on to one last item - Sunday. I know Europe is steeped in traditions, has countries that are thousands of years old and they hang on fiercely to their language and culture which is all fine and good. But, can we have a store open on Sunday? You are killing my Saturday people. Let's say you want to do grocery shopping on a Sunday, forget it. Buy a new pair of pants, not gonna happen. You want to go do something fun on Saturday and leave your errands to Sunday because during the week is hard since you work, not so fast! With the exception of the train station which does have an open grocery store (which is a complete mad house since it's the only one open, go figure?) you have to do all these errands on Saturday. It's a real pain. And during the week, maybe you say I'll hit that up after work, better hurry since everything closes by 7:00 pm.

Ok, thanks for listening as this has been cathartic for me. Now I can move on myself and go back to enjoying all the other things there are to enjoy about Europe!