at speed

Just after we moved here, a German friend was complaining about the Swiss. “They’re just so SLOW,” she said, “they talk slowly, they walk slowly, they drive slowly, it’s infuriating!” The talking-slowly was in my experience real and worked to my advantage as a German learner - the Swiss generally aren't crazy about speaking High German and therefore speak it at a pace I can understand. I think I’ve made great strides, but to this day I can’t understand a German at full speed (see: the Autobahn). But I hadn't noticed that anyone walked or drove particularly slowly here, and Daniel and I laughed this off as yet another perhaps-based-in-reality-but-wildly-exaggerated stereotype (ster-Euro-type?).

But this week I was sitting at a table where the group was lamenting the fact that everything in the city moves too fast. Someone cited a study that revealed that people in Swiss cities walk twice as fast (!) as people in the country. It’s downright inhumane, everyone agreed, for people to be under so much pressure that they have to stride from one place to the next.

So there you go: Swiss people are not only slow, but proud of it, and would in fact prefer to be slower. Since it's been on my mind, I've noticed that I do indeed blow right by 95% of the pedestrians I encounter, generally because I'm in danger of being late to whatever is next on my agenda. Would slower be better? Slower would mean I was more organized, and goodness knows that would be nice. Slower would be more relaxed, and I could certainly use that too.

But...slower would also mean concentrating on the things I must do (feed the kids, do the laundry) and dropping the extra things I do “for me” (theology class, coffee with friends)...things that are worth some extra stress because they keep me sane. And also...here's my personal ster-Euro-type: the Swiss are fantastically efficient but can also be infuriatingly narrow-minded, and I think the two are related. Once you've found the best way to live and the best country to live in, there's no point in looking further, right?

On balance, I think I'll stick to my American striding. For now, at least.