Culture part 2

The University of St Gallen has seen some serious investment. Not just the site, the buildings and infrastructure but there are numerous GOOD artworks well placed around the site. Can't think of any other establishments that have a Joan Miro ceramic frieze (pictured) decorating their main hall.

I have also made contact with the head of English, a really nice guy, who allowed me to sit in on a couple of undergraduate lectures. Most enjoyable. And a refreshingly relaxed atmosphere and attitude all round.

Tried (and failed) to find the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich last week. Will try again next time. I can understand why the movement started there; Zurich is a mad place full of distinct contradictions, the ultra rich, a nasty little English book shop selling overpriced non-academic books and overpriced hard to find English and American food stuffs like Oreos and Marmite, and tight cobbled maze like streets full of shops selling the most upmarket designer stuff I've ever seen. Even encountered a group of Santas riding Harley-Davidson motorbikes.

Culture

St Gallen knows how a museum should be. The History and Ethnology Museum, in the City Park is a model of how a museum should look, be curated and be run. Wheeling A we decided to go for the disabled entrance where we were met by a woman who offered to show us in, we made our way to the entrance proper where we paid and dumped the pram and stuff in a corner (on the advice of the counter staff member - how unbelievably chilled) of this pristine building. We made our way up to the attic/mezzanine space which was set up for kids and celebrating childhood across the ages - a really well thought out area with loads for kids of all ages to do and explore - from spinning tops and traditional games to shadow puppets and a hand puppet theater, I could have stayed there all day. The other floors were equally well thought out with sections on the history of St Gallen, traditional dress and crafts, and a section on world ethnography (see photo) which had loads more interesting stuff than I was expecting, from Incan statues to samurai swords. Amazing. Will be checking out the Art museum soon, after seeing this I can't wait.

Two other things I have noticed. The first and most telling is something you can try. Walk down the street in a UK town or city centre. Do you feel like you are being watched? Do you have an odd feeling in the back of your mind? This is entirely absent here because there are (virtually) no CCTV cameras. It is really odd to think that in the UK we have all become so used to their insidious spread that we can't imagine life without the speed cameras, shoplifting store cctv, Council littering cams and London's 'ring of steel' or whatever it is called. Well here it can be imagined and it is liberating - a weight lifted. Smash the cams!
The second thing is I have noticed several well maintained public phone boxes, that are not only not used as urinals or for call girl cards but are actually used by people to make calls. This can only mean a couple of things: Not everyone in Switzerland owns a mobile phone, and public phone boxes here are reliable and worth using. Amazing as in the UK the mobile phone companies have such a hold over the UK population that people believe that not giving their child the latest mobile phone is a form of child abuse.

Parks

The St Gallen area has an huge number of public parks. There are three within about a hundred yards of our apartment (all good for A!), and these are not just concrete leftovers from the 1970s, these are well maintained, well thought-out and designed areas. The photo here depicts an adventure playground right next to a school (we saw one of the classes involved in learning a kind of cross-training learning exercise using the equipment), it has two play houses, two ripple-effect slides, three swings, a spiders-web rope climbing frame, a death-slide and a sand-pit. Totally awesome. What I like about it too is the lack of over-zealous Health & Safety precautions: The photographed playhouse is a good six feet off the ground, so kids using it can experience real danger - something I craved as a child. This lack of 'H&S gone mad' translates across the board, at nursery the kids are not wrapped in cotton wool but allowed to explore freely, and the parks here are not closed off to other members of the public as in the UK, and parents seem happy to allow and able to trust their kids to roam freely.

Autumn

We were told today that it is unusually warm at the moment, and that there was much snow this time last year. Lucky us then getting to see views like this at the local swimming lakes, with autumn colours in full effect. Breathtaking.

Found first real negative aspects of Swiss society: Health care. Their model is based on the American Insurance system, and has had the effect of making health care highly expensive (even for Switzerland), with the poorest people getting the worst or even no care. Basic Insurance packages are not only mandatory but very expensive (around 1/5 of salary). Pharmacies are also a problem as they can charge for basic advice, and even basic medicines are very expensive. Disappointing as we hear standards of care are actually very high.