Ooooo, I do love Switzerland. The place reeks with old money, refinement and smooth, rich chocolate: an oasis of sanity, an island of serene, efficient and discrete capitalism amidst the swirling adhesive gunk of Euro-scleroses.
In all of Switzerland I have always liked Zürich the best. Across the river things are quite decadent and tinged with counter-culture, in that not very threatening Swiss sort of way. Lurking amidst the sex shows and ‘clubs’ there are several quite fun bars and student filled coffee houses when one is in the mood for that sort of place. Around where I am staying, on Kirchgasse, it is all great shops, nice hotels, comfortable cafés and fairly good restaurants. Storchengasse is my favourite part of all and that is where I arranged to meet my business acquaintance for dinner tonight after he offered to take me out. Other than the fact I nearly froze to death looking in the shop windows on the way to see him, everything here is wonderful.
We talk business mostly, speaking in English, discussing how business must be conducted in Italy and how this must be done with that lawyer because of EU law and that must be done with this lawyer because of Italian law and then there must be a permit to do that and then we must register this and set up an account there and then we must wait for that to be approved…so on and so on and so on… and then I ask what must we do when we meet in his office on Monday for this business here in Switzerland?
“Oh, that”, he says… “when you told me you were coming, I had everything drawn up, agreements, plans, everything. I will just drop them off at your hotel tomorrow. If everything is okay, sign the agreements and give them back over lunch on Monday.” Clean direct Swiss-German accented efficiency and simplicity.
Oh Switzerland. I do love Switzerland. Why can’t everywhere be Switzerland?
