So I’m heading back to the States on Friday, with stops in New York and D.C., and I’m already making mental lists of things I’m going to do. Actually, it’s mostly a list of things I’m going to eat. At the top of the list: bagels, Ethiopian food at Meskerem, all-you-can-eat sushi, Korean BBQ, soup dumplings at Shanghai Cafe, lobster at Joshua Tree, burgers at Island Burgers, bloody steak, tapas, tiramisu at Ferrara, French toast at Eatery, smoothies at Route 66, and so on and so forth. I was out for drinks last night with some co-workers, all of them fellow expats, and the topic of “what to do when back in the States” came up, and everyone just started listing their favorite restaurants and how much food costs at those restaurants. The variety/quality/price of food in New York is just unbeatable. Which is why I’m going to eat non-stop while I’m there.
Then there are the things I need to buy or bring back. I’ve already bombarded Amazon and Barnes and Noble with orders for books, CDs, and DVDs that are either unavailable or prohibitively expensive here. It should be fun seeing me try to lug all of that stuff back to Zurich. I also plan on stocking up on cold medications and toiletries, which are all sold in Oompa Loompa portions here, for monopoly prices. Ahh… somewhere in the world, things are sold at market prices in econo-size packaging. Expats dream about such things for long spans of time, in between food cravings and laundry angst. The strange thing is that while most things here are sold in small packages, and there is no such thing as Costco, they have a proliferation of “erotic warehouses” that are as big as any IKEA or Costco I’ve ever seen. I haven’t yet ventured inside one of them, but I can only imagine that they must sell “erotic products” in containers ten times the size of the shampoo and laundry detergent bottles.
Speaking of all things erotic, this past weekend was the street fair celebrating the red-light district in Zurich. The weekend before was the street fair for my neighborhood, which is sort of a cross between the village and Times Square, if you can imagine such a hybrid. But this past weekend, we took the tram out to the red-light district (which, incidentally, is also where my office is). This area of town is the most dangerous part of Zurich, which means that there is perhaps a 0.05% chance that you might get pick-pocketed, and a small chance that you might be asked for drugs or money. It’s about as dangerous as Central Park on a sunny Saturday afternoon in June. In any case, at some point as we were walking down the street, eating cotton candy, drinking sangria, looking at random trinkets, and deciding what to eat next, these two big tough guys got drunkenly upset at each other for some unknown offense. I slowed down, thinking that maybe I would finally see some real craziness. However, one of the guys just stood there with his arms crossed, yelling at the other guy, and consulting with his friends. The other guy, who was sporting full biker leather and long biker hair, and therefore seemed promising, was also screaming. He would occasionally rush in and do tentative little toe-kicks and wind-milling bitch-slaps. He fought about as well as a third-grade girl. Amusing, but unfulfilling. Nobody does random street violence like the good ole U S of A.
In apartment news, I think I’m still recovering from furniture deprivation, as I have not been able to shake this furniture-hoarding instinct that has suddenly been awakened in me. I have yet to get rid of any of my 9 small tables. I also have two couches, two barstools, four indoor chairs, five outdoor chairs, four outdoor stools, a kitchen table, a terrace table, and a TV from the Stone Age. Also, there is always the bed frame. Still no slats, so it’s still useless, but I’ve sanded and varnished the rest of the frame, so I prefer to think of it as an ornamental piece, for now. I still need to figure out what to do with some halogen lamps I just inherited from a friend who is leaving. In any case, if you’re looking for a place to sit, lie down, or put things on, my apartment now has a plethora of items suitable for such uses.
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