Back again, and slightly worse for the wear. My birthday was quite memorable, mostly due to the fact that I ended up with a concussion and a few bruised or fractured ribs, due to extreme clumsiness on my part. When my friends finally dragged me to the clinic the next day, the doctor showed me X-rays of my head and said, "Good, there's nothing there," and when I started laughing, he rephrased to reassure me that I hadn't knocked my brains out, that they were still there, and that there were no clots or fractures.
After the heat wave in July, we had a complete reversal, and cold, wet weather descended on Zurich, forcing me to wear pants, thermal shirts, cashmere sweaters, and rain jackets in the middle of August. Unfortunately, the cold rain spanned the weekend of Street Parade, the annual techno festival held in Zurich that usually features thousands of drugged people running around half-naked with body paint, moon boots, and extreme piercings in order to dance frantically to the overwhelmingly loud music being blasted from every direction. There were still some brave souls who shed their clothing and inhibitions despite the weather, but most people (my friends and I included) decided that we would be happier with sweaters and rain jackets. There was still dancing in the street, but after seeing the last two (sunny) Street Parades, I was less than impressed by the lack of nudity.
In other news, I am finally in possession of my new and improved work permit. For the first two years that I was here, I was on a temporary annual permit, but I have now been upgraded to a permit that implicitly acknowledges that I've been here for a while and might stay a little longer, as well. The Swiss government is funny. I guess all governments are funny, so it's just that the Swiss government is no exception. Despite being in charge of fewer than seven million people, the government here is highly bureaucratic and compartmentalized, so to get your permit renewed, you have to communicate with several offices, which are located near each other and ostensibly have to deal with each other on a regular basis (seeing that almost one-third of Zurich inhabitants are foreigners, and therefore need permits to live here), but the way things actually work, it's as if they are as unrelated as a post office in Kenya and a grocery store in Fiji.
They claim that they will forward your information to the other offices and automatically send you paperwork and updates when your permit requires renewal. And once you've sent your papers in, they claim that they will be processed and you will be notified to come in and do the actual renewal in time for your new permit. Ha. The first time I got my permit renewed, my paperwork was submitted over a month in advance, and the permit was finally issued almost a month late. This time, the paperwork was submitted almost two months early, and I've just received the permit two-and-a-half months late. When we first checked with the offices in charge of processing the paperwork, they said that they were behind. When we checked again, they said that we had never submitted anything. We had the proof of receipt, but they insisted that they didn't have it, and so we were charged a late fee and a processing fee. Apparently, the Swiss are so much more organized than anyone else, that if something went wrong, it couldn't possibly have been their fault, receipt or no. And of course we paid, because without payment, no new permit would be processed and issued, and without a permit, I would get to taste firsthand the cloud that hangs over the head of every stranger in a strange land: deportation. No thanks, I'll pay your silly fine, take my permit, and go through the whole rigamarole in another year. Oh, wait, less than a year, since I'll submit the paper work a month early, and my permit is already almost three months used. Argh.
After the heat wave in July, we had a complete reversal, and cold, wet weather descended on Zurich, forcing me to wear pants, thermal shirts, cashmere sweaters, and rain jackets in the middle of August. Unfortunately, the cold rain spanned the weekend of Street Parade, the annual techno festival held in Zurich that usually features thousands of drugged people running around half-naked with body paint, moon boots, and extreme piercings in order to dance frantically to the overwhelmingly loud music being blasted from every direction. There were still some brave souls who shed their clothing and inhibitions despite the weather, but most people (my friends and I included) decided that we would be happier with sweaters and rain jackets. There was still dancing in the street, but after seeing the last two (sunny) Street Parades, I was less than impressed by the lack of nudity.
In other news, I am finally in possession of my new and improved work permit. For the first two years that I was here, I was on a temporary annual permit, but I have now been upgraded to a permit that implicitly acknowledges that I've been here for a while and might stay a little longer, as well. The Swiss government is funny. I guess all governments are funny, so it's just that the Swiss government is no exception. Despite being in charge of fewer than seven million people, the government here is highly bureaucratic and compartmentalized, so to get your permit renewed, you have to communicate with several offices, which are located near each other and ostensibly have to deal with each other on a regular basis (seeing that almost one-third of Zurich inhabitants are foreigners, and therefore need permits to live here), but the way things actually work, it's as if they are as unrelated as a post office in Kenya and a grocery store in Fiji.
They claim that they will forward your information to the other offices and automatically send you paperwork and updates when your permit requires renewal. And once you've sent your papers in, they claim that they will be processed and you will be notified to come in and do the actual renewal in time for your new permit. Ha. The first time I got my permit renewed, my paperwork was submitted over a month in advance, and the permit was finally issued almost a month late. This time, the paperwork was submitted almost two months early, and I've just received the permit two-and-a-half months late. When we first checked with the offices in charge of processing the paperwork, they said that they were behind. When we checked again, they said that we had never submitted anything. We had the proof of receipt, but they insisted that they didn't have it, and so we were charged a late fee and a processing fee. Apparently, the Swiss are so much more organized than anyone else, that if something went wrong, it couldn't possibly have been their fault, receipt or no. And of course we paid, because without payment, no new permit would be processed and issued, and without a permit, I would get to taste firsthand the cloud that hangs over the head of every stranger in a strange land: deportation. No thanks, I'll pay your silly fine, take my permit, and go through the whole rigamarole in another year. Oh, wait, less than a year, since I'll submit the paper work a month early, and my permit is already almost three months used. Argh.
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