I had an interview at Amazon in Berlin and there were no Germans among interviewers. Half of receptionists were non-German origin. This is how it is in a developed world.
I don't think that they want you to stay there for a long time, because they serve only cold food in the evening (Zurich office). It is also OK to work from home from time to time (has to be agreed with manager).
Notepad++ heavily relies on Win32 API, porting it to another platform is like writing new editor. There are a lot of good cross platform text editors, devote some time learning one of them.
In post-Soviet countries we have 2 types of passports: one internal which is used as id card and second is for traveling. So for most people there, passport is like a synonym for citizenship.