This is our last week before we have a month straight with visitors. We were supposed to be spending this weekend up in the mountains. I was going to be going on a long bike ride, and Julie was going to be relaxing at the spa. Things just have not worked out. I finally started testing negative for Covid. It took 12 days, though. My problem is that I am still having symptoms and some issues. I get winded easily. There is no way I could ride up one mountain pass right now, let alone three of them.
I had an appointment with a Dr today to follow up from my Covid visits. I am now sitting here with a blood pressure monitor that I have to wear for the next 24 hours. Anyone with experience know if Covid raises blood pressure? I started looking today, and am seeing anecdotal evidence that this is the case, but no real scientific studies. My blood pressure has always been on the high side of normal 125/85 ish. From the monitor it seems to be about 145/90. I think it was even higher when they took it in the office, because the technician gave out a little gasp when he took my blood pressure. Kind of like he was surprised I was still alive. I guess I do know some Doctors so I should probably contact them and see what they think. 🙂
In other news. The lease for our car was up this month. About 5 months ago we ordered a replacement. We chose pretty well. We wound up getting a BMW 520i. I do not think this is available in the US.
I wasn’t sold on getting a wagon. Julie, however, wanted an SUV. I told her that with the roads here if she got an SUV then she was going to be doing all the driving. So like many things in marriage this was the compromise. I have to say I really like it. It has a lot more get up and go than our Audi had. I think part of that is the difference between gasoline and diesel, but I am not completely sure since that was the first Audi I had ever driven, and this is the first BMW I have ever driven. I really enjoyed the diesel. The fuel economy was great. Unfortunately, some of the neighboring countries are really starting to crack down on diesel cars; so Julie’s company no longer allows diesel vehicles for the lease. I guess we will really find out how good it is in the coming weeks. With all our visitors coming, we will probably be driving a lot more than normal.
Difference between living in Switzerland vs the USA
Of course there are some distinct differences about living here, but I came across something this week that describes these differences better than anything I have seen to date. It was a post on an Internet forum. The post came from the “English Forum for Switzerland.” I have followed this site from the moment we learned we would be moving. This gave me a good idea of what we would experience. However a post from yesterday just kind of hit me like a load of bricks.
The original poster described walking down a stairway at work. The stairs had just been mopped but there were no signs or anything warning about a wet floor. So she took her first step and went tumbling down the flight of stairs. She basically had bumps and bruises, but her phone was in her pocket and it was smashed as well. She wrote this before going to a Dr; so might have worse injuries, but she doesn’t think so.
Anyway, it was the responses that opened my eyes up to how different it is here. Everyone was reminding her that there was no legal fault for the cleaning company, or the company that owns the building. Even though there were no signs up. It is still her responsibility. In fact the post that made me shake my head was blaming her. You see most stairways have signs cautioning about using the handrail, etc.. So to this poster it was HER fault for slipping because she ignored the sign about using the handrail. Every response was basically the same. Every company provides “accident” insurance so this needs to be used. Normally there are no deductibles for this kind of insurance, but it is still an individual policy.
Most people were telling her to not even bother contacting the cleaning company to try and get them to pay for fixing the phone. The average consensus was that it will cost more in time and effort to get the company to fix the phone than it will to just pay for it yourself. People even left examples of similar issues. One talked about how he was crossing over some street work and the metal bridge over the hole collapsed. He was able to get the construction company to pay for a new pair of pants and shoes, but that was it.
There is no such think as payment for pain and suffering here. If a company causes an accident they are responsible for your direct costs and nothing more. This is so strange compared to the US. If this had happened in the US people would be talking about large lawsuits here the talk is “it is not even worth your trouble to contact the company.” I do think we go overboard in the US, but I think Switzerland has gone to the other extreme.
Here were some of the quotes that truly describe the differences:
“It really comes down to this: your landlord and/or the cleaning company are probably insured for damage like this, and if pushed, probably need to pay. But you need to think about how much effort and time you are prepared into fighting for a couple hundred francs of compensation.”
“More likely that the cleaner charges for having to re-mop the the wet stairs that were walked on”
I realize it is a small thing, but I think back to when I worked at Target and the hoops we had to jump through even if someone slipped in the parking lot during a blizzard. I am not sure why this post stuck with me so much this week, but all I keep thinking about is that if this scenario had played out in the US every single comment would have been something along the lines of “Time to find a good lawyer.”
That is about all for this week. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to having some adventures soon.