Jo Hatherly near Frinvillier, Switzerland.

Howdy. You’ve landed at HoboNotes, a journalist’s one-year (more or less) blog about living in the land of clocks, cheese, chocolate and incessant cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoke? Yes, the vigorous, mountain-scaling Swiss showed us more than a few surprises about their national character and culture, most of it very good, some of it a little odd, like taxpayers voting to pay for a drive-through house of ill-repute, or keeping women from voting until the mid-1980s.

The Swiss. You have to love them. They really can do anything they put their minds to, as long as it is done within the agreed-upon time frame.

For example, if you find yourself in a fitting room just as the shop is about to close, the clerks will rip aside the curtains and yank your clothing selection off the hooks to ensure you don’t overstay. Anxious about being exposed to other shopping patrons in your undies? Don’t worry. They will give you a .03 nanosecond notice before they barge in. In Switzerland, when the store sign says it closes at five o’clock, it closes at five o’clock.

But enough about that. If you are thinking of visiting or living in Switzerland, this site will tell you a little about the gritty things you won’t find in guide books or corporate relocation brochures. It also includes a few posts about our ventures outside of Switzerland to France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Slovakia.

You can reach me, Joanne Hatherly, through the contact page above.