Letter from Geneva: The man wheeling the food trolley was having a bad day. The train had by now crossed the Italian border into Switzerland, nevertheless I hoped he would accept payment in euro for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, writes Deaglán de Bréadún.
Not a chance. "When I am in London, I pay English money; when I am in the USA, I pay in dollars. Please have Swiss money in Switzerland," he said in polite but weary tones.
Oh dear. I had done well to make the train at all - in Milan station I had almost boarded one going in the opposite direction to Venice, so there wasn't time to go to the bank to get Swiss francs.
No doubt the trolleyman was only playing by the rules, but one doesn't expect the Swiss to be so provincial. Feeling it was a bit unreasonable I ventured a little sarcasm: "Welcome to Europe." The reply was courteous but prompt: "We are not Europe." I was thrown back on my school geography, the map on the blackboard way back when. There it was, Switzerland, slap bang in the middle of the Continent. The Alps. The Matterhorn. Home of the Red Cross and wellspring of the Geneva Convention.
Headquarters of the ill-starred League of Nations and now the UN's second home. Switzerland not part of Europe? How absurd.
But in another sense, I understood the point the fellow was making. Switzerland is not part of the European Union and only recently joined the UN. The trolleyman's response was another reflection of how the EU has appropriated the title and idea of Europe, although there are still places outside the fold, not just Switzerland, but Norway, most of the Balkan States and, of course, the Ukraine and Russia. And 13 EU member-states are still outside the euro zone.
If the Turks join, as seems inevitable, we will have the somewhat anomalous situation where Turkey is part of the political entity usually called "Europe", but Switzerland, Norway and Russia are not. Norway, the land of Ibsen, not part of Europe? Unthinkable.
Culturally Switzerland and Norway are considered part of what is traditionally known as Europe, in a way that Turkey, with its marvellous amalgam of east and west, is not. But Europe is changing, demographically and politically.
Demographically Europe's Muslim population has increased significantly, and this is beginning to be reflected in political and cultural life. Politically Europe is changing from a geographical entity, where disparate states happen to be located, into a political unit that is being consciously created in a manner not unlike the way the US was over 200 years ago. However, given the linguistic and other disparities, it is unlikely the EU will ever reach the level of political cohesion achieved by the US.
The first time I was called a European was in the US. It was 1974, the year after Ireland's accession to what was then called the European Economic Community and a new friend, who hailed from Jackson, Mississippi, opened a conversation with, "You Europeans . . ." Privately I pitied the man. Sure I felt a strong cultural and ideological affinity with writers and thinkers from France, say, but I was conscious of belonging to a society which had kept substantially aloof from European developments and defined itself mainly in relation to its nearest neighbour across the Irish Sea.
Now Ireland is engaged in and with Europe, or at least a version of it, and it is places such as Switzerland and Norway which, despite their enormous contribution to European culture and their proud political traditions, are outside the loop.
So if my Mississippi friend called me European now, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. The single currency does help. An Italian waitress may pronounce it differently, but she gladly accepts the "auro". Even when I ventured next door, into Slovenia, the euro was treated as a valid substitute for the confusingly-named local currency, the "tolar". It is pronounced "toller" and I had a mild heart tremor when a man in Slovenia demanded "1,200 dollars" to repair my computer. Once we got over the little pronunciation difficulty I realised he was looking for the equivalent of about €5.
A new member of the EU since May 1st, Slovenia will be adopting the euro as its sole currency in due course, another brick in the edifice of integration. But will we ever develop a common political identity? Who knows what may happen in time.
When I arrived in Geneva I was confronted with a statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, generally thought of as French but actually Swiss-born. The philosopher was a little previous when he declared: "There are no longer Frenchmen, Germans, and Spaniards, or even English, but only Europeans." Our own Edmund Burke was closer to the mark when he wrote in 1796: "No European can be a complete exile in any part of Europe." Voltaire, who was a Geneva resident for many years, gave the best description when he said Europe was "a kind of great republic divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed . . . but all corresponding with one another".
These definitions all date back to the 18th century, but it hasn't been said any better since; this was how intelligent people wrote before the advent of Eurospeak. And as I walked around the edges of Lake Geneva, I wondered what Voltaire would have said to the man with the trolley.