Cool as a Cucumber

Between traveling and working, it’s easy to get behind on other responsibilities so on Sunday I skipped out on a day trip to France and headed to the local Starbucks to be a good friend and write somebody’s grad school recommendations.  Yes Starbucks is a stereotypical American hangout but on a Sunday in Switzerland one’s choices are limited to Starbucks, the train station, or a handful of gas stations.  Four months in and I still have no idea what everybody does on Sunday. 

I met my friend Said at Starbucks; we got oversized lattes and settled into work.  A sudden commotion broke me from my productive trance.  Two guys of north African descent were yelling at each other in French.  Not that unusual in NYC or even parts of Boston but in Switzerland I feel like I’m yelling when I speak in my normal voice.  Then one of the guys pulled a hammer from his satchel, lunged at the second guy, and began chasing him around Starbucks.  They ran out and Said who is Lebanese and speaks French explained to me that they were having an argument over a girl.

The most baffling component of the whole incident was not the fight or the fact that some guy was carrying around a hammer on a Sunday afternoon at Starbucks.  Rather it was that none of the Swiss customers seemed perturbed.  Most of them didn’t bat an eye, put down their cappuccinos, or even look up from their German edition Wall Street journals as two crazy, hammer wielding men chased each other around Starbucks.          

The phrase “cool as a cucumber” doesn’t even begin to adequately describe the Swiss.