The Perpetual Tourist: In Search of a Swiss Role

by PaulN.Bilton (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.47

  This is the light-hearted diary of an Englishman, married to a Swiss, who decides to live and work in Zurich. It compares the values of the Swiss and the British with wit and insight, relating the pleasures and pitfalls of cross-cultural adaptation. He discovers the many different ways the world is viewed in Switzerland, attitudes about having a good time, getting a job and the qualifications for it, queuing and attention to detail. He observes how Swiss vote, pay bills and taxes, what they celebrate and how they get along with each other. He is astonished and amused at what the Swiss worry about (almost everything) that most British people do not even think about. He is also shocked at what the Swiss do not worry about (real candles on Christmas trees, three-pin plugs and lifts with no inner doors). He laughs his way through most bureaucratic formalities and relishes discussions in English with automatic cash dispensers. He claims his appreciation of cultural diversity comes from being a perpetual tourist - being ever surprised and fascinated by things new and different from one's own land.