After almost a whole year of living in Geneva, here are some of my very personal thoughts on how different it is from Mexico City.
a) Traffic jams
- If someone in Geneva says: "Oh my God! What a traffic jam!", it means he spent from 5 to 10 extra minutes than originally planned in the car. It also means that, instead of being 10 minutes earlier, he will be right on time, but extremely pissed off and will not stop complaining about it for hours.
- If someone in Mexico City says: "Oh my God! What a traffic jam!", it means this poor soul spent from 2 to 8 hours trapped in the same spot, with no hope for escaping. It also means he lost all his appointments for that day, he listened to the whole collection of CD's in the car (or iPod's playlists), he became friends with the people in the other cars, bought sodas and junk food from the people who sell them from car to car, went on facebook on his blackberry, called everyone to inform them his day was screwed, thought about moving to another city or using public transportation, laughed at the idea (and then cried a little bit), became scared of the possibility of being robbed while in the traffic jam, contained his urgency to pee (or worse) for hours, memorized all the details of his surroundings, breathed some 8 liters of toxic components in the gasoline and finally went back home when the traffic jam disappeared, because it was useless to try to get wherever he was going in the first place.
Note: sometimes, when a person in Mexico City uses the above quote, it may also mean he was some 30 minutes late for an appointment due to his negligence in getting up on time. In this case, since we really don't know if he is lying, we just say: "No problem at all. We understand. Traffic in Mexico City is crazy". And we do understand.
b) Public transportation
- If a bus/tram in Geneva is late, people may even sue the public transports agency, because it ruins their perfect scheme between connections with other means of transportation and so. By the way, they tend to be from 1 to 2 minutes late, normally, which actually makes them be on time when you add 2 mins to the estimated arrival time :)
- If a bus/metro in Mexico City is late... oh, wait... how to know if it is late or on time? Hahahaha I had never wondered about this one. Well, if the bus ACTUALLY passes by where it is supposed to pass by, I guess you declare yourself lucky and jump in :D The metro always comes, but sometimes it really takes forever (like in Polanco Station), so you learn to wait and admire the view while it comes (hahaha)
- Transportation in Geneva is EXPENSIVE (as everything else, of course). You pay something like 770 Mexican Pesos a month to be able to use the tram, bus, boat and local trains. Otherwise, you can pay 77 pesos a day for unlimited rides or 33 for a one-hour ride.
- Transportation in Mexico City is something like... almost free. Let's see, the last time I was there, you could ride the Metro for 2 pesos (regardless of how much time or how many stations and commuting you did), the Metrobus for 3.5 pesos (same rules, I guess) or a normal bus for something between 2.5 and 5 pesos, depending on the distance you wanted to travel. Oh! Let's not forget my favorite ones: RTP's for 2 pesos as well :D
Note: a HUGE difference between the two is that in Geneva transportation is "self-service", meaning that you actually don't have to pay it - they trust you pay it in advance and you may only use it if you possess the monthly pass or a ticket you can buy at every stop. Result: OBVIOUSLY all Swiss people pay it. OBVIOUSLY all foreigners do not. Therefore, there is the need for having special inspectors, who randomly check if you paid for the service or not and may fine you if you didn't. Wouldn't it be easier to have a controlling machine at the entrance of the tram/bus so that people just could not get in without paying? Well... I guess we will never know :D
c) Food
- The word "food" in Geneva can be said to refer to a very limited scope of goods, most of them including cheese, bread and potatoes. And dessert means chocolate (or any variation of chocolate). They are pricey and fattening (and surprisingly people in Geneva are not that fat)
- The word "food" in Mexico City... well, do I really need to write it? Hahahahahahahaha. Plus, it is cheap, tasty, colorful and fun :D
d) Prices
- For Geneva: just multiply every Mexican price tag times ten (and then lower the quality of the product times ten as well - especially when referring to fruits and vegetables other than grapes)
- For Mexico: just divide everything by ten and smile :D (And enjoy your expensive sour grapes)
e) Personal hygiene
- Just a few words on this: if you really think that people in Mexico City smell bad it's because you have never taken the tram in Geneva on a warm summer day. I will not say anything else :P
f) Knowledge of current world's events
- In Geneva, every person you find on the streets has an opinion on the international scenario (I even got called off by a stranger when I said "Taiwan is a country" in order to make Wei mad once)
- In Mexico City... well (hahahaha). I guess people might be able to point at the US in a map (with names on it, obviously) and MAYBE some of them have heard of this place called Europe.
g) Working hours
- In Geneva, for some reason, everyone is always on vacation or taking some days off or on a 9 am to 9 pm break. You can walk into a restaurant and be kicked off because the kitchen is closed - at lunch time. NOTHING works on Sundays (the mere idea is unthinkable) and things close at 7 pm on weekdays, if you are lucky.
- In Mexico City you can go to the supermarket (which will actually be a SUPER MARKET in the sense that it is HUGE) on a Sunday night and stay there until 11 pm, when they will nicely ask you to hurry up with your purchasing because they might need to close soon.
h) The meaning of the word "No"
- In Geneva "No" means "No, there is ABSOLUTELY no way and I will get offended if you keep asking".
- In Mexico "No" is just another way of saying "Maybe, please insist. The more you insist, the more I like you. AND if you happen to smile while insisting, your chances of getting a 'yes' improve exponentially".
i) Treatment to foreigners
- In Geneva, a foreigner is "another one of those people who will just try to take advantage of our perfect system and cool way of living. Let's make sure he leaves soon and never comes back".
- In Mexico, a foreigner is "a very cool guy who comes from another planet and he is just so cool I wanna hang around with him and show him everything there is to see in Mexico, then take him to my place and cook for him and then introduce him to my friends and find a way for him to stay because he is just so cool. And if he doesn't speak my language, it is even better because I will be able to teach him bad words and it will be hilarious". And if it is a girl, she is also the cutest creature we have ever seen and everyone wants to date her.
j) Service
- In Geneva, people act like they are honoring you by selling you their stuff. You will be lucky if they actually pronounce more than 3 words in the whole process.
- In Mexico City... a seller could do ANYTHING to sell his product. And they tend to be nice to their customers (maybe they realized the customers are a key element in the sales process?)
k) Finding accommodation
- In Geneva, this might take a while (to say the least) and you will end up paying an insulting amount of money for a shabby place.
- In Mexico City you can never be homeless. There is always someone willing to take you in (and help you find your own place as well), even if this person does not know you beforehand.
