Neighbours - what are they good for?

We have the most excellent view from our apartment. Or maybe not so much excellent as ugly. Let's just say that we didn't get to live on the side with the alp-view. We got the side with windows facing towards another building. One that is significantly uglier than the ours. So even though, when I see it from the outside, I can be pleased about the fact that I don't live in the trashy grey house opposite, but in fact in the much nicer mustard coloured one, our opposite neighbours are in a way the winners here, since they have a much nicer view than us. Tidy balconies full of plants and predominantly non-white-trash tennants.

I don't mind starring into another building so much though, since I like spying on people. So when we first moved in, I was actually a bit pleased with having such a great opportunity to observe the lives of our swiss neighbours. My very first observation, only minutes after we'd moved in, was an old, fat, topless dude, who had taken a seat right in front of the window, and just as I turned my head to check out the view, he got up from his chair to show off is naked torso properly. All of it. This was my first meeting with the opposite neighbours, and turned out not to be a bad introduction at all. In fact, fat and middle aged seems to be a rule rather than an exception in that house. That is a fact that I find highly fascinating. Perhaps it is a result of the careful choosing process of the house owners here in Geneva. Somehow, the tenants in that building seem to match the architecture and its fading exterior so extraordinarily well.

The thing that annoys me most now is that 80% of them close their window shutters as soon as they come home from work. Cowards.