Swiss English

When I have to communicate with German-speaking people in writing I always start the sentence in German, then excusing myself not being good in writing in that language, and switch to English.

This is fine since most Swiss can read English, and they can respond in German. Today I got a surprise. Had sent an email in my traditional style, receiving an answer "yes, I lived in the US for 16 years so I'm pretty fluent". Yeah, probably more fluent than I am. Look forward to meeting him next week.