[thechat] Swiss visa problems

[Martin Burns]

On 29 Sep 2005, at 20:29, Luther, Ron wrote:

>>> The problem is that when she applied for her Swiss visa,
>>> the Swiss embassy asked for not just her financial
>>> documents, but also that of her friend who's hosting her.
>
> Dang!
>
> Whatever happened to old fashioned Swiss discretion on all things
> involving banking and financial matters?

Ah, you see this only applied to disclosing your information to  
*other* people/governments.

For what it's worth, when I was working in .ch last year, I had to  
register with the police and the municipality offices too and tell  
them exactly where I was staying. Fortunately, I'd rented an  
apartment (or rather, work had rented one for me) - if I'd been in a  
hotel, I'd have had to notify them *every week*.

But the Swiss friend should *know* this, and will be used to it.  
That's *exactly* how .ch works - there are regulations covering  
*everything*, both written and unwritten. Breaking rules and norms is  
*very* painful to Swiss people - and after a surprisingly short  
period of time, you start feeling that way too. We moved a desk from  
the wall of a room to the centre to sit round it for a meeting, and  
felt really quite bad about it (we being from .nl, .uk, .ie and .us).

As an experiment, your friend should suggest doing laundry after  
10pm, or on a Sunday...

Cheers
Martin


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