Switzerland and Vienna trip

It's been a couple weeks already since I came back from the trip but I just eventually had time to put myself all together to write it down and share my story.

It was such an amazing and memorable trip and after being in Switzerland; home of cheeses (especially Gruyere and Emmental) and chocolate (Nestle & Lindt), for 2 weeks and Vienna for 2 days, I’m getting to love the place even if I ate a lot of cheese (of course the famous raclette but I didn’t have a chance to try fondue yet) and gained some weight because of it. I’ve felt in love with the fresh air, the beauty of nature, the architecture, food (but will never again have Thai food in Switzerland), the art of language and one particular thing that I admired about Switzerland is its character.

Swiss culture is characterized by diversity due to the unusual situation of being the home of three of Europe's major languages (French, German & Italian). Swiss preserves their special chalet style every where up on the mountain; all houses, hotels & apartment has to have chalet style roof top as by law, the flat modern style roof top is not allowed which remind me of those ugly white boxes on top of the hill in Samui (I have no clue why we allow such an idea of modern-looking white constructor to happen on the beautiful greenery hill of Samui, its magnificent style stand out in a terrible way.). Of course chalet looks a bit old-fashioned but it blends in with the nature and the atmosphere and more important is they protect the culture and capture the memory of the pass to our generation and also to the next generation. Modern is good but better we don’t forget our root and where we are from, better solution might be the combination of both Classic Old style and Brilliant Modern style. In my opinion, I prefer something with a touch of ages.

Another habit I’m trying to change since I’ve felt the pain of being ignored of my companion while I was in Switzerland; due to the slow progression of my French learning and my limited knowledge of German then you imagine me sitting in the middle of an international family lunch meeting between German and French. I was completely lost in translation. It’s difficult to be fair and keep speaking the common language at all time as speaking the mother tongue is much more into the depth of language and the excitement of story. As long as I have to, the French lesson is still on my schedule.

Responsibility and discipline are 2 objects that hardly find this day. But since we babysat 2 lovely golden retrievers for a week, they taught us well. They taught us how and when to feed them, how to take care of them and that we need to take them for a walk everyday. I love taking them for a walk, meeting another dog's owners and love seeing people brought their dogs along to café, restaurants, on a train, in a park and actually they can bring their dog to everywhere in Switzerland (maybe not in a pub). That’s because they take a responsible to their dog. When it poops, they pick. As easy as that, it’s another reason I admire about Switzerland. In Bangkok, you will always find some piece of messy art and land mine on pavement around town. I remember our neighbor always let their dogs out and let them poop around and never take any responsibility which pissed my mom off. If there’s any morality in their tiny little mind, it would be nice for the rest. It’s pity for people who has dog but can’t bring them out to the park as any park in Bangkok doesn’t allow dogs. I don’t know why it has to be so difficult, but people still don’t get the idea of picking dog’s poop. We should have a law but then again, stray dogs are all over the town and nobody seems to care. The law is weak and the government is busy biting each other so the management of dog’s poop isn’t a big problem at the moment and it can wait.

Swiss fashion has 2 styles, according to the local, hit or miss. ‘Hit’ doesn’t mean anything special like ‘Wow’, just only that they look normal and reasonable enough to walk around in that dress and safety enough for the audience's sight. ‘Miss’ is defined in itself, whether they’re extremely confident or they don’t own a piece of mirror at home. Talking about fashion, strongly effect by Korean and Japanese, I feel like walking in Korea when I’m actually at Siam Square. I know I’ve been complaining about it so often that teenager nowadays is growing too fast. They follow the fashion and careless about what if it suits them or not from contact lenses to heels, make up, hair-do and even their attitude. Of course they look amazingly pretty but they all look exactly alike. Nothing original, nothing special, nothing unique, they look like a bunch of Korean look-a-like walking doll. In the past I would love to hold on every single minute of my childhood and my youth even if I almost regret I missed some moment. I still loved being just an innocent kid and a clueless teenager rather than a spoiled brat and a teen queen. Enjoy the moment kids, you will never get it back again.


After being well fed (mentally and physically) in Switzerland, my next station was Vienna (home of some delicacy extraordinary salty sausages and Schnitzel). I was stunned by their architecture, again, and also I was impressed by their transportation system. We bought 24hrs ticket for 5.70Euro which can be used both trams and 5 subway lines. We had a great time hoping on and off the tram a whole day for sight seeing. I’ve been wondering if the system could be adapted to Sky Train and MRT in Bangkok, probably not.

From a great trip in Switzerland and Vienna, I am completely and honestly saying that I love everything that I’ve seen, heard and experience so far and I can’t deny the idea of spending more time there. The last day of our trip, I almost cried just because I didn’t want to go back to Bangkok. I remember once somebody told me that when we see a country in Europe, you’ve seen it all. I do not entirely agree. Yes, there’s the similarity but still they have their own character. There’s something that makes each country unique; the same as Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, Vietnam and the other country of Asia.

We will see each other again some day for sure, Switzerland and Vienna. Next time I hope I will be better in French but for German, I will let somebody else to handle that for me.

à bientôt

Yosita Anita V.

Thank you:
The Switzerland Embassy
The Lukey Family
George, Laure-Lise and their family
The Swiss and Austrian courtesy
And most of all
My honey, Christian Lukey