Freud's pleasure principle states that our enjoyment of a given experience is relative rather than absolute. That is, if you're experiencing a happiness level of 4 and you move to 5, you'll feel better than if you start at 9 and move to 8, even though the latter puts you at a higher absolute number.
I mention this because throughout the first few days of the trip and my first day or so in Zuerich, I'd been assuming for whatever reason that the Swiss Franc was worth more than the US Dollar. I thought the exchange rate was even stronger than that of the Euro, so that a SFr was worth like two USD. Hence my disappointment when the bar tab at the place I watched the US game came to like SFr42. I thought those four beers and two cokes (not all for me, natch) had run about eighty bucks.
But then, yesterday, I was informed that I was totally and utterly mistaken about this most basic and important factual matter (hardly the first time that's happened, I know), and that Swiss Francs are actually worth less than US dollars (though not, it appears, by much). Immediate, glorious, and frankly kind of laborious calculations ensued, with the happy result that everything became much, much cheaper! That bar tab was actually not completely scandalously overpriced (about 38 bucks, all told).
Of course, things here are still wickedly overpriced (because even though the currency is cheaper, prices themselves remain through the roof, as my earlier story about the 2SFr wafer-thin chocolate illustrates), but thanks to Freud's pleasure principle, I'm currently experiencing these prices as low because they are relatively lower than I perceived them earlier. This effect will, I'm sure, wear off in time, but for the moment it's oh so sweet.
Enough! Now I am off to watch Portugal play against Brazil in the mensa (student cafeteria--yeah, they actually call it that). After that, I will buy a Switzerland scarf and root on the home team because I am a good international guest. Tchuess!
