In my opinion, if one is not able to make friends, he should blame it on himself. I mean, everyone can make friends if they smile and spend some effort to be social, independent of the country, right?
I would like to hear your opinions on this topic, especially if you have been in CH for some time and would like to share your experience.
food -no need to worry about loads of choices of interesting foods, keep it simple filet de perche, pizza margarita, or any dish with lardons, key dishes on pretty much every swiss menu.
Shopping -no pressure to wear the latest trends, shops are never open so you won't be able to waste your money, especially not on sundays.
Noise, laughing, merry making - strictly forbidden, keeps life nice and quiet.
you won't have to waste your time with pesky friends inviting you out because the chance of making friends is slim to none.
Besides all that it is deeply gorgeous and you will make great friends with people holding passports of other countries and who says normal life in the 21st century is all that great. Timelessness has it's own appeal.
Am also finding it far from being boring so far, maybe after a little while my views will change but after Street Parade and the after do Energy I am certainly not bored.......just tired! Was great seeing the kids faces at some of the 'sights' as well.
;-)
"In the UK" usually means "in London". Considering that Zürich as the biggest city is comparable (populationwise) to such bustling mega cities as Kingston upon Hall, Leicester or Coventry...
As to making friends: I (as a swiss, full disclosure ) with many foreign friends actually agree with the sentiment that we are a bit hard to crack open. On the other hand, many of these foreign friends have integrated pretty well after a certain time and enjoy their time a lot.
One thing (good for you) is that for a university student, it will probably be very easy to meet swiss people in an natural way (where you get over the hard initial step of "someone I met at the U" to "hey, weren't you the one I talked to at XYs party for 2 hours"). That one gets a lot harder when you come to switzerland working for a multinational.
There are two sides on each coin.
I've seen people arriving and getting into a rich social group and be happy.
I've seen others living solitary lives and justifying it saying, that's life.
a matter of luck and personal appeal, not necesarily about your own attitude, you could have the best attitude and fail or not have it and find the right people.
But if you have to ask....
Right It certainly left a deep impression...
OT: Some years ago I spent some time trying to locate an address in the posh south London suburb called St. Reatham ... Asked a few people and they told me they'd never heard of such a place. I'm pretty sure they laughed their a. off behind my back...
If you're used to getting your kicks from the media, forget that too, there is very little charm in homegrown Swiss created fodder, but if you seek, you too shall find that the outdoor world, the social contacts and charms of this nation has much to offer.
You just have to put the effort into making it happen.
If your freetime majors around hopping from 24hr fast food place to the next - you might be a little disappointed.
If you like winter activities over all, it's not boring. But if you're an urban type of person, it is definitely boring after a couple of years (Zurich).
If you polled most people around the world after living here, they would consider it a boring place. But a 'special' kind of person finds CH interesting.
So depends if you're one of those freaks or not. It's def difficult to meet people. But once you realise that, it become easier to meet people as you'll make a bigger effort that is not required in other places. Worst case (best case?), you'll make a lot of expat friends.
But the Swiss fanboys will tell you otherwise. They are very sensitive to criticism. No coincidence Apple is so popular here.
However, I heard EPFL is a fun place. Especially when compared to ETH Zurich. It's def hard to meet local students at ETH but I made a lot of foreign student friends.
However, and this is a personal thing, I like meeting new and interesting people. Admittedly not all expats fit into that category but a lot do. I've got friends in Basel from this forum, from couchsurfing.org (they tend to be a bit wacky!), the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in Basel (don't ask), Facebook and the University. A very diverse bunch of people, most of whom have travelled and worked in many countries.
In London I sometimes find my "old" friends a bit boring, especially once I'm back there after a few months of living abroad. Here, I can meet people who, for random examples, own a chain of restaurants in Belgium, are studying neuroscience, are musicians, teachers, IT consultants, a Japanese guy who'd spent 3 years cycling around the world, a chef etc etc.
Now, all the above must exist in London but when the population of a city is 8 million people tend to clump together. In other words, I don't meet such a diverse bunch of people all in one group/place when living in London.
So, (wow, what a long post and not even one sarcastic or witty comment about shop opening hours!) it's not being in Switzerland that I find exciting, it's working away from home. You'll also notice that all my friends are expats or travellers of one sort or another. I don't speak any German and haven't integrated. I don't feel I need to, or want to. I'm happy as it is. Of course, I like to think that even without integrating I'm adding to the richness of Basel in my own way.
That I can believe. I usually move on after 12 to 18 months.