Switzerland One - Transcription
"I was born, eh, in Basel in Switzerland and, ah, I was raised there and I went to school there (laughs) and my father is from Italy and so I spend a lot of time every year in Italy, during summer especially. Um, my native language is actually German. I talk German to my mother and my second language is Italian. I usually talk Italian to my father and, ah, then in school in Switzerland you have to learn French. Yeah, Basel is, ah, on the Rhine, of course, and it's, ah, in a basin there, and we live actually in a suburb which is outside and its in kind of a valley, there's a valleys around Basel and it's kind of hilly and there are trees and stuff (laughs), forests and yeah, everything's pretty neat and tiny and close. So, where I live I went to school, ah, elementary school, and then high school and the university's in the city so I go to university by bus each day.
I have relatives in Detroit and so from time to time I visit them and to be honest I like better speaking English to them rather than Italian. I mean they're Italians that migrated to the U.S, but their Italian is kind of strange, you know, the American accent and so I like talking English to them. I think it's easier for them too, actually.
I like the U.S, actually, really it's, ah, kind of big, you know, compared to Switzerland, might be and it's more spacious and it's really diverse actually, population, you know, all the different ethnicities and, ah, races and cultures and also diverse in terms of landscape. You got basically everything in the U.S from tropical or sub-tropical to (laughs) to polar regions. That's what I like. I like, ah, California the best in the U.S actually (laughs), no it's true, um, I just like the lifestyle there. The climate and its ah, (laughs) all the diverse people which is I think special even in the U.S. The East Coast is pretty much like Europe, I would say, even there are some differences of course. I mean these cultures are pretty close, I would say, it's not that big difference from Europe to the U.S. There are some differences. I would say people are more open in the U.S, they're more direct. They, they say what they think and what they want. In Europe it's probably more, you're more on polite side and you don't come up with certain topics. For example, here in the U.S, it's pretty common in your first meeting that you talk about your profession, what you do for a living and in Europe, especially in northern Europe it's you don't ask that people what's their job in the first conversation, actually, that's for example, a difference."
Transcribed by Campbell Wharton (3/12/00)