The trusting Swiss

I’ve written before about how much more trusting Europe generally is.  In Germany, my neighbors would leave their expensive winter tires and/or cases of beer in front of their cars in the garage.  If that were Canada (or the US, UK….) the beer would be gone and so would the tires.  If you had a package that was to be delivered to your house, it would often get left with a neighbor (which always proved fun trying to find WHICH neighbor signed for it)

Whereas I found Germany extremely trusting, Switzerland is, unbelievably, more so.

I should start by saying, that one of the things I love about Europe is the ease of financial transactions.  If you owe someone money, it’s a snap to arrange a transfer.  You get a form with a few digits, enter it into your online banking and voila.  North American banking seems like it’s from the dark ages with its use of paper cheques!

Anyways, Switzerland, trusting.  So, here are some of my favorite examples of HOW trusting Switzerland is:

1-    Driver’s license.  It’s a snap to change your drivers license.  All you do is go to the motor vehicle office, show your old license, show some documents and the NEXT day I had my Swiss drivers license in the mailbox.  And a request to pay.  My license showed up in 24 hours, but I had 30 days to pay for it.

2-    Car insurance-  I was dreading signing up for car insurance.  All those options to chose from baffle me.  And my view on insurance is that if you’re offered it and you don’t take it, you need it.  So I got the insurance that covers parking damage and damage against some random animals that can potentially eat my car wires.  Not squirrels, we don’t really have those in Europe.  Once my car passed the Swiss inspection, my insurance was effective.  About two weeks after it passed inspection, I got my policy. And the bill.  30 days to pay.  I could get used to this.

3-    Is by far my favorite example and happened to me yesterday after I went for a hike.  I had no cash on me (I hardly ever do) and went for a longer than planned hike.  There was a quaint mountain hut right near where I parked the car.  I went in and asked if I could pay by card.  I couldn’t.  They asked me where I lived and once they knew it was still in Switzerland, they offered me to pay with a bank transfer.  So I ordered and ate my lunch and my bill came with a bank slip so I could arrange to transfer them the money.  When I got home.  Eat now, pay later. 

I don’t know if it’s because Switzerland is so small or that they operate on a higher moral code than I’m used to or if it’s because money isn’t as valued here.  Maybe because the country has so much money, it’s just not valued as much.  Could it be??? I doubt it.  Whatever it is, I like it.