Switzerland- Sweet and sour but mostly sweet!!

by Sheetal Malhotra (India)

Making a local connection Switzerland

Hey there! Something really interesting happened during my visit to Switzerland in Jun'19. I had rented an apartment to stay in a small village called Frutigen.Frutigen is extremely beautiful but the apartment that I rented was up the hill and there was no means of transportation to get there. I was having issues in finding the address and there was no one to help.On top of that i did not have a swiss sim card in my phone so there was no way to connect to the apartment owner. I saw a small Italian cafe and i decided to ask the cafe owner of she could help me with the address.I was astonished when she said, "First buy something then only i will tell the address".I was in no mood to buy anything so i decided to leave.I was just wandering on the streets for an hour with my luggage as i could not find any tourist information center. I was looking for people but frutigen is a very quiet place with very less population.In the middle of the afternoon I could not find any single sole. Then i saw a police station but it was there lunch hour so that did not help either.Atlast, near the police station I met a man who was minding his own business and was about to enter a building.I said excuse me sir, he stopped and said hello. He could speak english so i was relieved.I asked him if he could help me with the address.He looked at his mobile and tried yo locate the place.He started telling me the way but he could see that i did not understand the zig zag road. He asked me if i am carrying my mobile, I said yes but there is no sim card.He said that's ok, i will share my internet with you via hotspot and you could use my gps system.He fed the address in my mobile and turned on the gps.He said, please follow the gps and it will take you to your apartment. I did the same and in next 10 minutes I was at my apartment's door.I could not explain how happy I was. I watsapped that helpful man and thanked him.I told him that i have turned off his internet. The above was one of the incidents. I have met many good people in switzerland.I remember once my husband and I were looking for our hotel in Zurich.We tried to catch the bus but to our surprise we had missed it and the another one was to come in 30 mins.We thought we will grab something to eat at Coop and were browsing.To be sure of the address we asked a group of people if the address was right.They said, yes that's the addess.One gentleman from the group asked us if he can give us a lift as he is going that way and it is just 10 mins away by car. We hesitated but then we said ok. That good man dropped us right at the hotel in his mercedes and asked us if we needed any help with the luggage.We were just so happy to see how people are so good and awesome here. One of the main reasons for my always choosing switzerland for holidays is that the people there are genuinely good barring a few. I have been there thrice and i still would love to go again. Establishing this, i would say it is very important to be careful everywhere.There is no doubt you will meet good people but there could be some people who would not be that good. I have been to many countries but by far Switzerland has stolen my heart. No matter how much I want to visit other countries but i have fallen in love with switzerland and I always end up going there. When i see the beauty of switzerland my heart gets overwhelmed with so much beauty and warmth. I mean who would not fall in love with that country?? Maintaining that, I will definitely visit other countries and hopefully I will be having a great time there also.I will keep travelling and making the most of it!!