A Humorous Guide to Switzerland

Lead-pouring on New Year's Eve - Paul-Georg Meister  / pixelio.de What makes us humans different from any kind of god? For one, we're definitely not omnipotent . And secondly, we are also not all-knowing as much as we'd like to think we are! We might know what happened in the past or what is going on today but we have no way of knowing for sure what the future will bring. There are certainly indicators that will point us towards an educated guess but that's how far it goes. Would we like to know what the future brings? I'm not sure. Fact is, there are traditions that reflect this need to know the future in many cultures around the globe. Certainly, the eve of the old year is one of the days that is almost predestined to host some sort of future predicting activity. Like every country, Switzerland has it's own set of New Year's Traditions . Some of them center around food, others focus on the coming new year - like a New Year's Resolution for e

Beautiful Switzerland Mercer recently published their 2016 Quality of Living Rankings . Not surprisingly, there are several Swiss cities that appear among the global Top 10 of cities with highest quality of living. I mean, who wouldn't want to live in this beautiful, clean and orderly country?! This year, Zurich wins the contest for highest ranked Swiss city before Geneva. Here is the full Top 10 Cities with highest quality of living: Vienna, Austria Zurich, Switzerland Auckland, New Zealand Munich, Germany Vancouver, Canada Dusseldorf, Germany Frankfurt, Germany Geneva, Switzerland Copenhagen, Denmark Sidney, Australia Another aspect of the Mercery survey covers personal safety for foreigners and their families. In a world full of disputes, safety is definitely an issue to ponder when deciding to move to a foreign country. In terms of personal safety, Switzerland ranks very high . There are three cities in the global Top 10 safest cities. Have a look at the

Happy New Year - Lutz Stallknecht  / pixelio.de True, the tradition of taking a New Year's Resolution isn't specifically Swiss. In fact, it's only one among many Swiss New Year's traditions and celebrations . Around midnight on December 31st, people in Switzerland and all around the world take a moment and promises to improve a certain aspect of their life or behavior in the coming year. For some it is a honest attempt to change something about themselves that they don't like. For others it's simply a part of the New Year's traditions and the actual keeping of the resolution isn't that important. Swiss people are no different that aspect. However, I believe that there are a few trends among the topics of the New Year's Resolutions in Switzerland that are uniquely Swiss. This is what I imagine my fellow Swiss citizens vow to change in their lives this coming year. 10 Swiss New Year's Resolutions* 1. Eat less chocolate - too many

This year. Yes, this year I'll finally try myself at baking my own Panettone . This Italian treat has long made it's way into Swiss Christmas traditions and can be bought at any supermarket during the Christmas season. I like Panettone in all it's versions: with or without candied fruits, with or without chocolate chips, and with or without raisins. For this baking experiment I decided to go with a simple  Panettone with a bit of candied lemon and orange only. I used this recipe from Chefkoch.de and made a dozen Mini-Panettones . I'm sure you'll find plenty of other good recipes in English on the internet as well! Now, I didn't have Panettone molds. This was a spur of the moment baking venture and I had to improvise. Instead of Panettone molds I used simple cupcake molds and they turned out fine. Not as high and airy as the typical Panettone but just as delicious. I even like their crunchy texture on the bottom and sides! Success! straight from the ov