How Can Anyone Afford To Live Here?!?!

Today our travels have taken us out of France and into Switzerland because it’s pretty close to Lyon so it made sense to detour into Switzerland before heading to the north of France.  We had been told that Switzerland is very expensive, and when we booked our hotels/hostels for this week we found that we couldn’t find anything cheap, but after being in Geneva for just a couple of hours today, I am astonished at how expensive everything is! 

The Swiss franc is almost 1-1 with the Canadian dollar (the dollar is worth slightly less), but you can basically take everything in Canadian prices and double or triple it to get the price here!   We ate at McDonald’s because Paul needed Wi-Fi and the hostel’s Wi-Fi was broken but McDonald’s has it for free, and a McChicken meal cost 11.90 francs while a box of 6 McNuggets cost 6.30 francs!  Even just a medium coke (and by the way their medium is equivalent to our small) is 4 francs!

After spending a few hours at McDonald’s, we decided we needed real food before going back to the hostel and ended up going for Vietnamese Phở because it was the cheapest option we could find on our street – at 17 francs a bowl!  It was pretty good, but definitely not triple-the-cost-of- Phở-back-home good!

I know that Switzerland has the highest standard of living in the world and people make a higher average income here, but even if you make a six-figure income, how can you afford the cost of living here?  I don’t know anyone back home who spends $20 on lunch and another $40 on dinner everyday!  And yes, you can eat cheaper if you cook at home, but I checked out the grocery store in the train station and all the prices there are double or more as well.  I just don’t understand how it’s possible to live here when the cost of living is double what it is back home!