I’m writing this blog as I sit at my desk in the student dormitory in front of a window that looks out across the Rhine and over the snowcapped Swiss Alps. Directly outside my window is a church that’s bells have just started ringing. It’s 10am and they will ring for another 3 minutes at least. For me, this was the first striking cultural difference between Liechtenstein and Scotland. During my first morning here, drowsy from travelling the day before, I awoke to the sound of the church bells. I looked at the time; 7am. My phone must still be telling the time in Scotland which is an hour behind, I thought. I checked again, my eyes still blurry from sleep; 7am, local time. Not long after, a symphony of lawn mowers started and I accepted that no more sleep was to be had that morning. Throughout that first week I realised that not only do the bells ring at 7am every day, but they also ring on the hour every hour throughout the day and into the evening.
In the cities in Scotland, church and cathedral bells generally only ring once or twice on a Sunday, sometimes during the week, and on special occasions. Add to this the fact that loud work usually won’t start until 8 or 9am and you may understand my surprise. Working outside of what I would consider “normal working hours” isn’t just limited to the church in Vaduz either. My friends and family back home in Scotland were surprised when I told them that I had classes that not only started before 9am or after 5pm, but that those classes were also sometimes on a Saturday! As an architecture student I must admit that working outside of “normal working hours” was very much usual for me, but this was the first time that doing so was mandatory.
As I reflect on this seemingly simple cultural difference, I wonder why this is. Do people in Liechtenstein just work harder or is there another explanation for the cultural difference in acceptable working hours? Maybe people here are not so bound by rules as we seem to be in Scotland. This is evident especially in the access to the facilities in the university building that we have as students in Liechtenstein. I was amazed to discover that as architecture students, we are allowed to use the wood workshop unsupervised and whenever we like. This of course, should not be a shocking revelation to any culture that practices common sense, but frustratingly in Scotland we are bound by the endless health and safety rules. At my home university, we can only use the wood workshop during 3-hour time slots that we have to prebook online, of which there are very limited spaces. These slots are only available during set days in the week when a member of staff is present, meaning that if you want to use the facilities you have to be organised days or weeks in advance. It is so refreshing to be trusted with the responsibility to use the tools and machinery using our own judgment. This is after all, how we learn. To add to how much I love this facility, the beautifully crafted workshop was created by architecture students! Amazing!
I could write for hours about the differences that I am so fond of in Liechtenstein, but I will mention just one more. Despite being classed as a city, living in Vaduz feels to me more like living in the countryside. I can smell the change of the seasons and there is never a moment unaccompanied by the chater of birds in the trees around us. I grew up in a village in Scotland and spent many summers working on a farm, but after nearly 6 years of living in a big city, I had almost forgoten these small pleasures. In Liechtenstein the people are still very much in touch with nature and agriculture, aspects of life that are mirrored in more rural parts of Scotland and elements that I had not realised I missed so much until I arrived here in Vaduz. The smaller size of the country also means that there is less anonymity, less disappearing into a crowd. In university, the people that I meet remember my name when we next see each other and, in the city, the streets are spotless and the buildings all in good condition. Vaduz feels cared about and in turn by living here this effect rubs off on you, which means you also care more about other people and your surroundings.
Finally, I would like to point out how quickly all these differences can become the norm. I have been living in Liechtenstein now for just over a month and already my paterns and habits have changed to suit this beautiful place. I no longer set alarms for the morning as the church bells at 7am have become my wakeup call. Frequently I find myself in the university building on the weekend to use the wood workshop or atend an extra class, grateful for the flexibility that this allows me. And my goodness, am I grateful to be back in the county air.