Bye Bye Switzerland

Another stage of my life draws to a close. Not only have I finished the 2nd year at university, I also experienced yet another culture, language and lifestyle. It was often difficult to explain why a German who studies in England does an exchange semester in Switzerland and it brought many interestingly entangled cultural experiences. It wasn't always easy and it certainly wasn't cheap but it was definitely worthwile. Time to look at some statistics (you know I love it) ...



The last 168 days cost me approximately 7300 Swiss Francs (£ 4150) altogether. More than expected. I spent alone £2360 for accommodation, and another £865 for travel costs. The tickets are nice pieces of design though; they feature an image of the Swiss mountains on the front. When I arrange my collected tickets in line, I can create a panoramic image of the alps in the scale of approx. 1:245000. The remaining £930 for living costs are actually quite reasonable, seeing that the living costs are higher and the cheese is seductive — which is why I invested 150 CHF in cheese and ate approx. 7.5 kilograms of it. Almost as much as I ate chocolate, probably between 5 and 7 kilograms in 24 weeks. With about £35 per week, I had a very good life in Europes most expensive city (but also the one with the highest quality of life). I'll miss the cheese and chocolate but also the Rösti, Chäschüechli, Rüblitorte, Fasnachtschüechli, Schümli, Gipfeli, Guetsli, Butterzopf, Bürli, Husbrot, Ruchbrot, Kneippbrot, Nussbrot, Kartoffelbrot, St. Gallerbrot, Silserbrot, Krustenkranz, Pulet, Trutenfleisch, Landjäger, Mini-Pics, Älplerwurst, Cervelas, the various cheeses and of course fondue. Most of these things are available in a similar form in other countries, but they don't sound so cute and I don't think they'd taste as good.



One thing that was cheap however, was extracurricular education. I spent altogether under £30 and saw about 25 exhibitions, shows and talks. At the Design Museum in Zurich I went to see the exhibitions "Good Design, Good Business - Swiss Graphic Design & Advertising by Geigy", "Irma Boom - Book Design", "EveryThing Design" and "Robots - From Motion to Emotion" as well as the premiere of Objectified and talks with Swiss as well as internationally renowned designers, artists and critics such as Gary Hustwit, Paola Antonelli, Peter Noever, Ruedi Baur, Jean Etienne Aebi, Richard Hollis, Lars Müller, Megi Zumstein, Irma Boom and Manuel Krebs discussing "Swiss Style Forever", "Authorship", "Good Design = Good Business?", "Materialize it" and "What Will We Collect Tomorrow?". Other exhibitions I saw include "Hot Spots" at the Kunsthaus Zurich, "Witzerland" at the National Museum, the Centre Dürrenmatt in Neuchatel, "Bilderrätsel" at the ETH and "Conceptual Games" at the Kunsthaus Aarau.



And because that still wasn't enough, I went to conferences like "Tag der Schrift" (typography day) with Matthias Noordzij and Gerard Unger, "Design Follows" with Tossa and Jörg Boner, "Illustrators Lunch" with Martin Hoppe from Bitrats, industry talks about proofing and rapid 3D prototyping and most notably to Tweakfest, the digital lifestyle conference.



This way I could make the most of the excellent education I got at the Zurich University of the Arts where my curriculum was filled with modules about Digital Media, Scientific Visualisation and Information Design. I attended lectures about User Experience Design, Convergence Design, the Digital and the Analogue, Iconicity, Isotype, Technical Illustrations, Mapping and Orientation and special events such as the Design Symposium with several presentations from alumni, who talked about their experiences in the industry.



To round it off I went to both a cheese and a chocolate factory and local events like the nightly carnival in Basle and Sächsilüüte, the anual Snowman burning in Zurich. Speaking of travelling, I certainly did enough of that. I've seen the North with lake constance and the rhine falls. I've seen the south an a panoramic train ride through Ticino to Milan. I've seen the North West, Lucerne, Engelberg and the Fürenalp. I went on the train along the entire North side of the alps up to Montreux and Lausanne, then the same with the South side from Chur to Fiesch, the Eggishorn, Aletsch glacier and back via Berne. I've been to the East, in Appenzell, on top of the Säntis mountain, later to Sargans and across the border to Liechtenstein. I went to Geneva in the West and finally crossed the largest rope bridge in Europe after a vertiginous mountain hike. I've been to every one of the four language regions, visited 24 of the 26 cantons and all the main cities. I haven't even travelled my home country that extensively. I travelled by train, trolley bus, post bus, car, boat, cable car, tram, gondola, cog wheel train ... probably the only thing I didn't do was riding a cow.



It all sounds a lot and yes, it was a lot. I'm surprised how much I managed to do in these 6 months. Maybe I'll make a little book out of it. But now, sadly, it´s time to say goodbye — or as the Swiss say: Uf Wiederluege — and give back my lovely violet residence permit.



It was nice and I'll surely come back.