Wednesday, August 03, 2005

3 August 2005

So I’m a little late this week. I have an excuse: Monday was Swiss National Day, so I had a long weekend with numerous (social) obligations, including two cookouts, a dive in the lake, and drinks at three outdoor bars. Plus, I’m not the only one running late these days; even, horror of horrors, the Swiss railway system has been having difficulty. There have been numerous delays, isolated and system-wide, sometimes for hours, and sometimes for a few minutes (yes, they post it when a train is going to be 2 minutes late, and yes, people get very upset about such grave news. Spät, the German word for “late,” is definitely a four-letter word here.)

It’s funny how people are so focused on “how things should be,” and if things are not “as they should be,” the world turns upside-down. What this translates into is that you have rules for everything, big or small, and everyone knows the rules down to the letter, and they follow them without question. Everything is run under the assumption that people will know and follow the rules. Trams and local trains run on the honor system, and tickets are only verified during random, infrequent raids. Trash is put in special bags, and recycling is taken to collection points at certain times of day. If you send a letter with insufficient postage, the post office delivers it and sends you a bill for the extra postage, trusting that you will cough up the extra 20 cents. Banks allow you to overdraft your account by a thousand dollars without protest (I’ve done it by accident, and have made multiple withdrawals after going in the red).

The whole system is a cheater’s paradise, tempting non-rule-followers to sneak out illegal trash, withdraw on credit, use insufficient postage, ride sans ticket, and so on. I have fantasies of exacting revenge on unsuspecting foes by putting their name and address on bags of illegal trash, in order to incur a fine on their behalf. However, the Swiss are also masters at brainwashing, and it doesn’t take long before foreigners are using special trash bags, buying yearly tickets, and hauling their bottles to recycling kiosks before 7 p.m. (I just got rid of 60 wine and beer bottles!)

Despite having undergone some level of Swissifying brainwashing, however, I still am completely baffled by some rules. For instance, most offices have no air conditioning. Granted, the summers don’t get quite as hot for quite as long as they do in the States, but we still have days where the temperature tops 90, and sitting in an office on the top floor with an entire wall of windows doesn’t make for a productive work environment, unless you’re in the business of producing sweat. It’s not necessary (or comfortable) to air condition an office down to arctic temperatures, but come on, let’s keep it under 80 degrees. Even stranger, the Swiss, although they have very casual dress codes, refuse to wear shorts. Men continue to wear jeans and long pants, and women continue wearing nylons, even in stuffy, sun-plagued offices. No wonder so many Swiss people (and restaurants and businesses) take a three-week holiday in August; it’s not like they can do anything but sweat through their clothes if they go to work.

I suppose there are other ways to cool off, if air conditioning is not an option. The most obvious way, of course, is boat jousting. Yes, boat jousting. Last week, I was going to meet some friends at a lounge that is a women’s swimming pool by day (similar to, but not to be confused with the bar that is a men’s swimming pool by day), and I saw some people at the boathouse across the river from my apartment. I stopped to watch, and there were people swimming, drinking beers, rowing, and doing other liquid-centered activities. It was very hot. There was one group of people in something like a large gondola, something like a dragon boat, something like a Viking boat, and they were going full speed, despite the heat. I expected a Roman centurion to start beating a drum to make them row in time.

Anyways, there were two other boats that had Astroturf platforms on the end. Each boat had four to six people rowing or steering, and one person perched on the Astroturf. The perchers were holding long wooden poles, and I couldn’t figure out what they were for. One boat held steady and the other paddled upstream, then turned around, and the two perchers lowered what I then realized were their jousting lances. The boats headed for each other at full speed (not very fast when the only method of propulsion is drunk men with paddles), and the “knights” held steady on their “thundering steeds,” then tried to “unhorse” their opponent. Splash and repeat. The setup took at least five minutes each time for a joust that lasted about ten seconds. When I later described the wonders I had seen, one friend burst out with, “Boat jousting again??” Only in Switzerland would boat jousting be a regularly scheduled activity. Don’t believe me? I’ve put up pictures to prove it.

Birthday party Friday, this time in my now-furnished apartment! Friends coming in from London and Paris, and good times shall be had by all.

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