Guest Blogs

Knowitall.ch often invites local experts in their field to contribute to their own blogs on our site. This means not only you will benefit from the useful recommendations that we make on our News pages, but you can also profit from some of the great advice and tips that these experts have to make on their favorite subjects. Whilst each of these bloggers has been recommended to us at some point during the evolution of Know-it-all passport and knowitall.ch, obviously we are not able to test out all the suggestions they make on their blogs, nor do we necessarily agree with all their opinions. So if you do find one of their tips useful (or not!), do let us know!

To make these blogs more accessible to you, we have now decided to group them altogether in one section, entitled Guest Blogs, accessible from our main menu bar. We will also post the most recent blogs on the home page of our site in the right hand column.

We are still building up this area of the site, and are looking for bloggers in a number of sections, including Your Home, Travel, and Leisure, so if you feel you have a useful contribution to make in either of these areas, and have the time to submit blog entries approximately every month, then please get in touch!

: Published: 07 February 2022

mimi thian vdXMSiX n6M unsplash

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

By Sabine Hutcheson

In the wake of travel restrictions and uncertainty linked to a now two-year long pandemic, international families settled in the Geneva area may have come to question how far they are willing to send their children to university. Amongst the expat community and the international schools of Geneva, Switzerland did not feature high as a choice for university destination compared to the UK and North America. However, Swiss universities have become an increasingly attractive prospect.

With 7 of the 12 Swiss public universities ranking in the world top 100, the case for an academic choice with real prospects of employment is obvious. Moreover, the mere CHF 1000.- annual fee makes one wonder about the post-Brexit cost of UK universities, especially for institutions that do not even make the top 200. Fees for EU/CH residents, which used to be around £9,000 annually now range from £15,000 to £40,000. Yet there hasn’t been a significant surge in applications at local public universities. So what’s the catch?

Language can clearly be a barrier. Anglophone students who have not had the chance to learn French will struggle to reach the required B2 level for entry at university. Language learning and integration is, therefore, something to factor in for newly arrived families, as early as possible in a child’s life. Public schools in Geneva and Vaud present a complex structure of a variety of academic levels which can seem daunting but once in the system, there are many possible routes towards higher education, including via vocational training. For students who arrived in the area in their teens, an emerging number of courses are available in English, such as the Bachelor’s in Economics and Management at the University of Geneva or the Bachelor’s in International Business at the Haute Ecole de Gestion. The International University in Geneva offers many English-speaking possibilities.

: Published: 03 February 2022

bananabreadCIrieco

The difference between this banana bread and other recipes is the 4-hour marination that takes place to ferment the "liquor" before adding the flour. The result will not taste like any other banana bread you have ever had before! The color of the finished product resembles gingerbread.

**Prep and cooking takes 5 hours**

3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup melted butter (75g)
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 ½ cups flour, sifted
Chopped walnuts to garnish (optional)

: Published: 27 January 2022

iStock 1185249640

By Dr Michelle Wright, Director of HealthFirst.ch

You never know when your First Aid or Basic Life support skills could be called upon. Every week I hear stories from friends, colleagues, and patients about how they have had to react in a medical emergency to help someone in need.

Recently I had the privilege of working with the Swiss Resuscitation Council to translate and record the voiceover for their BLS Quick video, published on their website: resuscitation.ch

BLS stands for Basic Life Support and BLS Quick training is aimed at the general public to raise awareness about:
• When someone might need Basic Life Support.
• How to alert the appropriate emergency services.
• And how to begin providing CPR and using a defibrillator, under the guidance of the telephone operator on the other end of the line.

Collapse
The video is well worth a watch. It runs through a scenario where a woman is walking in the forest and comes across a man who has collapsed whilst running. She shouts for help, hoping that someone nearby hears her. She then checks to see if the man is responsive and breathing. Upon finding that he isn’t, she calls 144 for an ambulance and speaks with the telephone operator (the role that I played).

Once advised about the location, the operator immediately deploys an ambulance. Then, the operator then stays with the woman and with her phone on speaker mode, guides her through resuscitation.

: Published: 20 January 2022

Wolfgang

By Claire Doole, www.doolecommunications.com

I have waited two years to tell you this story. In January 2020, I went on a guided walking tour of Vienna with an Austrian friend. It was memorable because it was bitterly cold, and we wondered if we would last the two and a half hours. Forty of us were huddled together at the meeting point stamping our feet and rubbing our hands as snow threatened.

We should not have worried as our guide Wolfgang Rigon from Good Vienna Tours was a master storyteller, who kept us all captivated as he showed us the sights.

We stopped at least a dozen times as he told us a story, bringing alive the glorious and not so glorious history of the city. I recorded a couple of those stories on my phone. Have a watch of a powerful storyteller in action.

He must have told this first story about Marie Theresa, who gave birth to 16 children, hundreds of times. For us, the audience, his passionate delivery made us feel as if he was telling it for the first time.

First one is about Marie Theresa. See how he connects with the audience by making it relevant to the modern-day experience.

: Published: 13 January 2022

By Marta Koncz, www.agateexperience.com

For many people, going to the mountains is a sole summer activity; and, as autumn arrives, they cease going outdoors till the following summer season.

It is true, that the cable cars and gondolas shut down during fall for few weeks for maintenance, however they reopen with full force by the time the first snow falls. There is a lot to do in the mountains during winter!

Skiing

The good old classic downhill skiing is probably the first comes to your mind when thinking about winter activities. It is indeed a popular and well-established sport in Switzerland dated back to the 19th century.

As such, there are plenty of options. My favorite resort is Portes du Soleil. Located between France and Switzerland, it is easy to reach both from Geneva and Lausanne; and it is the largest ski area in the Alps with 600 km of slopes, suitable from absolute beginners to very experienced people.

If you are not fan of speed, you can also try cross-country skiing. In this case, I suggest visiting Vue des Alpes. It is on the border of the French speaking part of Switzerland, one hour from Lausanne and 1 hour forty minutes from Geneva; but its worth the effort. It offers 110 kms of cross-country tracks and amazing panorama to the surrounding Alps, Jura, and Vosges!