If you are from Canada and you have never been to Zurich (Switzerland), you are in for a treat. I’ve been living here for only a couple of days, and I have already compiled an extensive list of things can weird out any resident of our maple  leaf country. I’d like to share 5 weirdest things about Zurich that come to my mind:

1) Almost everything is closed on Sundays.

Here I am, arriving to Zurich late Saturday night. Hungry and tired, I’m torn between either going to grab a bite or hitting the hay. Given that in Canada, every Sunday is like a national grocery shopping day, I decide to sleep first and buy food the next day. Turns out… this is a big mistake.

I wake up the next morning and ask my new roommates, ” Are there any good places to eat breakfast or buy groceries nearby?” In return, I get a very encouraging “Good luck!”. Apparently, in contrast to Canada, in Zurich every Sunday is a national day of closed doors. Have you ever tried going shopping on Christmas in North America? Well, shopping on Sunday in Zurich is not much different. It’s like walking on the streets of a ghost town. Shops and restaurants look completely abandoned! The only place in the city you can get something is the main train station. On a Sunday the shopping center underneath it looks like a giant ant colony with all the people running around in a desperate quest to scavenger some goods.

Note to self: make sure to buy food on Saturdays

2) Ridiculously Expensive Fast Food

After not having much luck finding a place to eat, I finally see familar names McDonald’s and Subway. To even more excitement, both turn out to be open. I walk in and look at the menu… First reaction: I rub my eyes in disbelief. McDonald’s McChicken 12 CHF or 18 CHF for a meal (remember 1 CHF = 1.20 CAN). Subway – even worse.  Meatball 6” sub – 10 CHF or 14 CHF for a footlong. 20 CHF for a meal of the latter. Are you for real? 22 bucks for a McChicken meal? I can eat 5 McChickens for that price in Canada…

Note to self: McDonald’s is no longer a place to satisfy the drunken midnight munchies.

3) Floor numbers start with 0 

Everything gets more confusing, when I start work. Every building I walk into has a screwed up floor numbering. Somehow, to Swiss people the ground floor is never the first floor, but is the floor zero. How they went about coming up with such a scheme is beyond me. 

4) Doors open the wrong way.

Turns out having strange floor numbering is not enough for Zurich people, doors come with a suprise as well. Usually, when you come up to a door in Canada, it usually has certain affordances that indicate whether you have to push or pull. Here, in Zurich, these affordances exist too, but they are totally mixed up. Almost every door that I run into during my first day at work, opens the way opposite to the one I predict. I start to look like an idiot infront of my coworkers, when I fail to open 6 doors on the first try in a row…

Note to self: doors can be racist too… treat them nice

5) Drinking – anytime, anywhere and at any age

The final weird thing is a good one. Zurich folks love their booze and they start enjoying it very young. The drinking age in Switzerland is only 16. Moreover, you can drink anytime and anywhere due to a lack of a last call in the bars and there are no restrictions to drinking outside. You are not going to find paperbags and coke cans filled with vodka here.

Note to self: Yay! I love Zurich!