-------------------------
DISCLAIMER: My last response to him was not intended to be much of a valid arguement. I made some points I believed in but for the most part I was making a point that his throwing the Iraq war in my face made no sense and I could easily do the same to him. So please don't get your panties in a wad about what I said to him. Thanks.
----------------------
I know I'm stupid/immature whatever so spare me. I thought some of you might get a kick out of this, a Craigslist Zurich posting I made with a reply by some Swiss guy and my reply back to him. I'm not really anti-European or anything I just tend to get pissed at the anti-American types who always need to tell me about the war in Iraq.
Original Craigslist posting:
Dear Switzerland,
Your country is beautiful. I love the beer gardens and the alps and the chocolate. I enjoyed my time in Zurich, and although it was expensive, I wouldn't mind going back.
However I have a serious problem with your country. You Swiss seem to be so smart, with your ultra hip McDonalds interiors and your accurate watches that are displayed in every store window. However when it comes to the simplest of public facilities, you are the stupidest country in the world.
I arrived at the Basel train station at around midnight and had to wait for a train leaving at 5am. Not wanting to spend 200 euros on a hotel room for five hours, I decided to wait it out at the station and get some reading in.
Then it came. The urgent need to piss after drinking one of your delicious beers. I got up, stretched, and made my way towards the bathroom, disappointed to lose another .50 euro to your costly facilities.
The bathroom was closed. From 12am - 6am, it was closed. The ####ing bathroom had hours! It is bad enough you charge me for your space-age toilet systems, but I'm sorry my bladder does not close shop at 12am so neither should your ####ing bathroom.
I walked back to the McDonalds where I'd had a late-night snack. Closed. Burger King, closed. Everything was closed and your friendly police officers told me that that was one of only two bathrooms in the station. The other? Locked off with the bike storage.
I walked around Basel for about a half an hour before pissing on the side of a building. I felt like a ####ing criminal and was about to lay into any cop that tried to ticket me.
I don't care if the bathroom is filthy as hell. I just need a bucket to piss in, Switzerland, as long as its open 24 hours like my digestive system is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
His reply:
Hi Tom [my name isnt Tom, dont know where he got that]
Too bad you did not go to the tourist information desk that you find at the railway station of most swiss towns. They most probably would have got information about some bed n' breakfast (say from $30 per night, reasonably priced hotels (say $50 per night w/ breakfast), party locations and clubs in Basel (yes, their restrooms are for free). Switzerland's town's are not more expensive than american towns.
You could have had a great time, hanging out at Basel's joints for students, party people, etc. I think that asking for information does magic all around the world, Switzerland being no exception. English is widely spoken and understood in Switzerland But if you pretend to be a local street-wise just after arrival, that might end even worser in an American town than having just to pay for restroom usage. Try to urinate publicly at the Central Park in NYC. Or on Wall Street - that'd be great thrills, I bet! ;-). The "criminal feeling" would be about the same as in Basel. And public restrooms in downtown NYC are closed also after midnight. You don't want to get stabbed by some crack junkie at 2 am spending the night (or his life?) in the spot, begging money from you that you decided not to give him, do you? It would cost more than the Swiss Franc you paid in Basel, right?
Ah, you now think that would not have happened to you in Basel? Switzerland had a huge public drug scene (e.g. Zurich's needlepark with more than 15'000 junkies stranded there from all over the world at its worst!) in almost every major city about 10 years ago and decided to get rid of it one time for all. That's why they closed down most public restrooms at night, besides other, more important measures. Too many drug scene stabbings and shootings, too many dead junkies on the cabin floors, that's why.
And one more word - I would not call us the most stupid country in the world for such peanuts, while American soldiers are dying and wounded every day in useless and meaningless wars - the official U.S. has reached a stupidity level that really hurts - worse: it kills! And no other country asked the U.S. to play the world cops, not even tiny Switzerland! Trading the blood of the needy for the oil profits of the greedy - your home-made scandal, what a lighthouse of
stupidity!
-------------------------------------------------------
My reply:
Beat Murmann,
The information desk was closed. The bed and breakfasts were not near the train station, only hostels (closed) and hotels (expensive). I was not in the mood to go to a club, as I was waiting for the early morning train. I was not trying to be "street wise," only trying to find a hole to piss in that obviously was too complicated for the master Swiss train station engineers to come up with.
Contrary to popular belief, all of America is not located in NYC. I live nearly 3,000 miles away fom NYC in a city where some places stay open 24 hours, with free toilets. Why does a customer at a restaurant in Europe have to pay to use the toilet? There is not a problem with junkies here, I feel safe walking the streets at any time of day.
As far as your little comment about the War in Iraq, which any Swiss person will bring up if you have any sort of disagreement with them (no matter how unrelated, even if you're talking about toilets), I will say that I also do not support it. I live nearly 3,000 miles from Washington, D.C. as well and the majority in my state (which is larger than Switzerland) do not support President Bush. However, if you want to try to talk about official stupidity then please wait until your country has rid itself of the shame of having 6 million people murdered in their own backyard, without doing as much as lifting a finger to stop it. Remember who came over and bailed you out of that one.
Without our playing "world cops" that time, you'd be praising the fuhrer and dusting off the swaztika hanging in your living room. If you're a Jew, you'd be dead. Twice we had to stop you idiots from fighting eachother, and twice our intervention brought a quick end to the war. So I do not take kindly to foreign policy advice from some American bashing European.
-Chris
DISCLAIMER: My last response to him was not intended to be much of a valid arguement. I made some points I believed in but for the most part I was making a point that his throwing the Iraq war in my face made no sense and I could easily do the same to him. So please don't get your panties in a wad about what I said to him. Thanks.
----------------------
I know I'm stupid/immature whatever so spare me. I thought some of you might get a kick out of this, a Craigslist Zurich posting I made with a reply by some Swiss guy and my reply back to him. I'm not really anti-European or anything I just tend to get pissed at the anti-American types who always need to tell me about the war in Iraq.
Original Craigslist posting:
Dear Switzerland,
Your country is beautiful. I love the beer gardens and the alps and the chocolate. I enjoyed my time in Zurich, and although it was expensive, I wouldn't mind going back.
However I have a serious problem with your country. You Swiss seem to be so smart, with your ultra hip McDonalds interiors and your accurate watches that are displayed in every store window. However when it comes to the simplest of public facilities, you are the stupidest country in the world.
I arrived at the Basel train station at around midnight and had to wait for a train leaving at 5am. Not wanting to spend 200 euros on a hotel room for five hours, I decided to wait it out at the station and get some reading in.
Then it came. The urgent need to piss after drinking one of your delicious beers. I got up, stretched, and made my way towards the bathroom, disappointed to lose another .50 euro to your costly facilities.
The bathroom was closed. From 12am - 6am, it was closed. The ####ing bathroom had hours! It is bad enough you charge me for your space-age toilet systems, but I'm sorry my bladder does not close shop at 12am so neither should your ####ing bathroom.
I walked back to the McDonalds where I'd had a late-night snack. Closed. Burger King, closed. Everything was closed and your friendly police officers told me that that was one of only two bathrooms in the station. The other? Locked off with the bike storage.
I walked around Basel for about a half an hour before pissing on the side of a building. I felt like a ####ing criminal and was about to lay into any cop that tried to ticket me.
I don't care if the bathroom is filthy as hell. I just need a bucket to piss in, Switzerland, as long as its open 24 hours like my digestive system is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
His reply:
Hi Tom [my name isnt Tom, dont know where he got that]
Too bad you did not go to the tourist information desk that you find at the railway station of most swiss towns. They most probably would have got information about some bed n' breakfast (say from $30 per night, reasonably priced hotels (say $50 per night w/ breakfast), party locations and clubs in Basel (yes, their restrooms are for free). Switzerland's town's are not more expensive than american towns.
You could have had a great time, hanging out at Basel's joints for students, party people, etc. I think that asking for information does magic all around the world, Switzerland being no exception. English is widely spoken and understood in Switzerland But if you pretend to be a local street-wise just after arrival, that might end even worser in an American town than having just to pay for restroom usage. Try to urinate publicly at the Central Park in NYC. Or on Wall Street - that'd be great thrills, I bet! ;-). The "criminal feeling" would be about the same as in Basel. And public restrooms in downtown NYC are closed also after midnight. You don't want to get stabbed by some crack junkie at 2 am spending the night (or his life?) in the spot, begging money from you that you decided not to give him, do you? It would cost more than the Swiss Franc you paid in Basel, right?
Ah, you now think that would not have happened to you in Basel? Switzerland had a huge public drug scene (e.g. Zurich's needlepark with more than 15'000 junkies stranded there from all over the world at its worst!) in almost every major city about 10 years ago and decided to get rid of it one time for all. That's why they closed down most public restrooms at night, besides other, more important measures. Too many drug scene stabbings and shootings, too many dead junkies on the cabin floors, that's why.
And one more word - I would not call us the most stupid country in the world for such peanuts, while American soldiers are dying and wounded every day in useless and meaningless wars - the official U.S. has reached a stupidity level that really hurts - worse: it kills! And no other country asked the U.S. to play the world cops, not even tiny Switzerland! Trading the blood of the needy for the oil profits of the greedy - your home-made scandal, what a lighthouse of
stupidity!
-------------------------------------------------------
My reply:
Beat Murmann,
The information desk was closed. The bed and breakfasts were not near the train station, only hostels (closed) and hotels (expensive). I was not in the mood to go to a club, as I was waiting for the early morning train. I was not trying to be "street wise," only trying to find a hole to piss in that obviously was too complicated for the master Swiss train station engineers to come up with.
Contrary to popular belief, all of America is not located in NYC. I live nearly 3,000 miles away fom NYC in a city where some places stay open 24 hours, with free toilets. Why does a customer at a restaurant in Europe have to pay to use the toilet? There is not a problem with junkies here, I feel safe walking the streets at any time of day.
As far as your little comment about the War in Iraq, which any Swiss person will bring up if you have any sort of disagreement with them (no matter how unrelated, even if you're talking about toilets), I will say that I also do not support it. I live nearly 3,000 miles from Washington, D.C. as well and the majority in my state (which is larger than Switzerland) do not support President Bush. However, if you want to try to talk about official stupidity then please wait until your country has rid itself of the shame of having 6 million people murdered in their own backyard, without doing as much as lifting a finger to stop it. Remember who came over and bailed you out of that one.
Without our playing "world cops" that time, you'd be praising the fuhrer and dusting off the swaztika hanging in your living room. If you're a Jew, you'd be dead. Twice we had to stop you idiots from fighting eachother, and twice our intervention brought a quick end to the war. So I do not take kindly to foreign policy advice from some American bashing European.
-Chris