Hello,
I would say yes, but life here is not easy.
I will need to ask you a few questions. If you have time during the day the city of Zurich has a program called "Daily life in Zurich" contact 01 497 60 60. This was a helpful cource.
My family and I have been here in Zurich since July 2000, all of us at defferant levels have expericed disappointment and fustration. If you drive watch out for those flash boxes.
I won't go into the school system if you don't have kids. If you do have childern let me know. I understand that getting a day care can be a challage.
The recycling of rubbish, it took me about a year to get it write.
thats all for now, you may contact me at : sam_dahm@yahoo.ca
Bye.

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That is a tough question to answer not knowing you. I can offer some considerations as I am wrapping up two years here this summer. In general I've found that the rewards of living here are large but are offset by more frequent, less intense problems (balancing out to the positive for me). As a base to see Europe this is perfect. The quality of living is high and an alpine walk in the summer is incredible. The town, though small, is surprisingly adequate (and I come from the New York area). On the downside, the reputation of the average Swiss person not being warm or polite or open as us Anglos is true, and some can be downright mean to foreigners (obviously there are exceptions). The weather is dreadfully wet, cold and cloudy for 6 months in the winter, the cost of living is too high and the concept of customer service is extremely rare. Many of my friends love it, most have mixed feelings. If you can deal with the daily frustrations (and I mean daily) then you'll have no problems. A big question is wether or not your day to day work environment will be Swiss or foreign - if Swiss then you'll deal with this all day. If you have a spouse or friends to occupy you even better. I'd heartily recommend it to anyone for a few years who has a decent job offer - this is not the place to be poor. And it has a great Irish pub.
If you have any other questions feel free to contact me at wlibby@intsec.com.

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Life in Zurich is great but as with international move there are ups and downs. Sure the Swiss appear to be "cold and unfriendly" but if you take the time to get to know them at their pace they are wonderful...it just takes time.
Zurich is not a hopping city as far as main attractions go but it is perfectly located for weekend get aways. The Alps are within a short drive for skiing and hiking - and the airport is 12 mins from the main train station. Trains are amazing as are the trams - why couldn't we have a system like this in the US?
As far as your language skills you will be fine. I find that people appreciate the High German and I am only a beginner.
The weather is a bit of a drag when you go weeks with out seeing the sun.....but on a day like today (15 degrees celcius and sunny)...........it is glorious.
Enjoy and good luck!

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My family and I love living here! My husband teaches at an international school and we live just 15 minutes outside the city by train. Our town is on the lake and we have a main street full of shops and doctors. Our son is in 1st grade at our local Swiss school. As far as living here with a family, I can't think of a better place!

If you are single, you would be living quite a different life than I....

Carmen (crenhov4@bluewin.ch)

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I find it hard to believe that someone can find life in Switzerland so hard. Since I came here 3 years ago, I found the Swiss to be yes a bit conservative, but very helpful, very well-mannered and extremely well organized. Life is expensive, that's true (though not compared to the salaries, which are high), but quality is very high, it's really uncomparable to American standards. The Swiss do things well or don't do them at all.
The public transportation is extremely well organized, you can go to any remote corner of Switzerland by public transport and have perfect connections throughout the trip.
Cleanliness is seen as a vital part of life and business, and the streets, stores etc are very clean here. Don't dream of throwing a candy wrap on the street as you walk or you'll get bad looks, afterall there are disposers every few feet.
As for evenings and weekends:
-in the city: Zurich has lots of great restaurants (here there are no bars, just restaurants), several pubs, and many movie theaters. When going for movies, you can always choose between watching it dubbed in German or watching the original English with German and French subtitles. There are also several museums, soccer fields and a big opera house. International stars often include Zurich as part of their tours and play in one of the large halls in the city.
-outside the city: plenty to visit, you can go to the mountains in every season, for snow-related sports and fun in winter (going into spring, too) and for hiking, picnics or just sighseeing in summer. There are some truly incredibly beautiful places. The country side is also very nice and they have many nice forests where you can go walking - they sell maps of the forest roads, so you cannot get lost.
There are also some very good gyms, and the medical care is excellent.
If you do speak enough German to carry out a conversation comfortably, people will probably speak to you in German, or they might offer to speak English (if they can speak it) if they think you might be more comfortable.

I hope it helps.

Elisa

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