If you're planning a trip to Switzerland, you'd better pack a lot of cash, because foreign currency doesn't really buy a lot over here. Its not that all of the Swiss are filthy stinking rich, I've met plenty farmers here who were merely filthy and stinking, but its just they seem to get paid a lot more for what ever it is they are doing. And then to balance this everything here cost a whole lot more. So all in all the Swiss standard of living is not all that different to New Zealand, the difference is however when a Swiss goes to NZ for a holiday they can afford to buy a winery of two while they are down there. Whereas when a Kiwi heads to Switzerland, they'll be lucky to afford a glass of wine with dinner.
Another thing the Swiss are known for is their banking, and as such I was very keen to open my own Swiss Bank Account, just to say I had one. The process was remarkable fast, just hand over a passport and then sign here, here and here. Then within a week they sent me my very own Swiss Eftpos card. Depositing money is also a breeze, just walk up with the cash to the teller and she does the rest, no fiddly little slips of deposit paper like in NZ.
Retrieving your money however is another matter, this is where Swiss security and secrecy comes in. In order to activate both my eftpos card and online banking account I had to wait for a series of separate security codes to be delivered by courier, which I then had to sign for and decipher. And now each time I want to check my online balance I need to use a special decoder ring... well actually its a wallet sized card that tells me which password to use today. Its a bit of a nuisance, but like everything is Switzerland it works and it works well.
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