My parents took a "leisure tour" of Italy that involved seeing seven cities in ten days (I'm not sure how that fits in with the "leisure" description), and came to Zurich to see me for a week. The weather was impeccable the entire time they were here: sunny, warm, and dry, and I soon realized that I was repeating myself, telling them over and over again that winters are long, grey, and wet, just so that they wouldn't get the wrong idea about Switzerland being a year-round paradise.
The weather here is fickle at best. In the summer, we alternate between sun and rain, and in the winters, we alternate between grey days and rainy grey days. For some reason, however, my guests have only experienced either the best or the worst, so half of them are convinced that Switzerland is like San Diego at its best, and half of them believe that Switzerland is like London at its worst. I don't think my parents believe that it can be depressingly grey for weeks on end here, and they seemed skeptical of my dread regarding the coming of winter.
Last Monday was Knabenschiessen ("Boys' Shooting Day," which was recently changed to include girls, a competition which involves junior high school kids shooting military assault rifles, and grade school kids shooting pistols), so all offices in Zurich had the afternoon off. My parents and I went to check out the festivities. It was a little bit odd to spend September 11 at a shooting contest, but hey, this is Switzerland. As it turned out, we didn't see any of the shooting, since the shooting range was tucked away from the fairground, and we didn't really look for it.
Previously, I had only been to fairs in the center of Zurich, where space is limited, and I had still always been impressed at the number of games and rides they assembled overnight, packed into a small area, then spirited away the next day. The Knabenschiessen fairground, however, was a whole new level. Every kind of ride you've ever seen at a fair or small-town amusement park was there, sometimes more than once. I counted no fewer than four places you could do bumper cars. Four. The fairground was quite large, since it was out in the suburbs of Zurich, but even so, they squeezed rides in right up to some nearby mid-rise buildings. I watched a man inside a building calmly eating a late lunch while a ride jerked screaming kids back and forth past his window. He never looked out, never indicated that he was aware of the flashing lights or shrieking teenagers, never seemed to wonder if the ride might malfunction and send a dozen people crashing through his window.
My parents took a daytrip to Lucerne, wandered around Zurich, got their morning coffee every day at the Starbuck's around the corner (yes, shame shame, but I don't drink coffee, and so they had to go get it somewhere), accompanied me to the Asian market to tell me which foods I like (I've only seen them in cooked form, and know them by their Chinese names, whereas the market has things labeled in Vietnamese, German, and sometimes English – who knew that I liked a vegetable called Chinese morning glory?)
They met my friends, ate sausage, and went on boat rides (which are included in the normal transportation system – people can take boats, trains, trams, or buses to work). Before leaving, they commented, "Europe is so clean, orderly, and organized." I reminded them of their recent experiences in Italy (Italy is many things, but it is not clean, orderly, or organized), and explained that it's just a Swiss thing, not a European thing. In any case, they approved of Switzerland, but there's no telling if Switzerland approved of them. After over two years, Switzerland and I are still trying to figure each other out.
The weather here is fickle at best. In the summer, we alternate between sun and rain, and in the winters, we alternate between grey days and rainy grey days. For some reason, however, my guests have only experienced either the best or the worst, so half of them are convinced that Switzerland is like San Diego at its best, and half of them believe that Switzerland is like London at its worst. I don't think my parents believe that it can be depressingly grey for weeks on end here, and they seemed skeptical of my dread regarding the coming of winter.
Last Monday was Knabenschiessen ("Boys' Shooting Day," which was recently changed to include girls, a competition which involves junior high school kids shooting military assault rifles, and grade school kids shooting pistols), so all offices in Zurich had the afternoon off. My parents and I went to check out the festivities. It was a little bit odd to spend September 11 at a shooting contest, but hey, this is Switzerland. As it turned out, we didn't see any of the shooting, since the shooting range was tucked away from the fairground, and we didn't really look for it.
Previously, I had only been to fairs in the center of Zurich, where space is limited, and I had still always been impressed at the number of games and rides they assembled overnight, packed into a small area, then spirited away the next day. The Knabenschiessen fairground, however, was a whole new level. Every kind of ride you've ever seen at a fair or small-town amusement park was there, sometimes more than once. I counted no fewer than four places you could do bumper cars. Four. The fairground was quite large, since it was out in the suburbs of Zurich, but even so, they squeezed rides in right up to some nearby mid-rise buildings. I watched a man inside a building calmly eating a late lunch while a ride jerked screaming kids back and forth past his window. He never looked out, never indicated that he was aware of the flashing lights or shrieking teenagers, never seemed to wonder if the ride might malfunction and send a dozen people crashing through his window.
My parents took a daytrip to Lucerne, wandered around Zurich, got their morning coffee every day at the Starbuck's around the corner (yes, shame shame, but I don't drink coffee, and so they had to go get it somewhere), accompanied me to the Asian market to tell me which foods I like (I've only seen them in cooked form, and know them by their Chinese names, whereas the market has things labeled in Vietnamese, German, and sometimes English – who knew that I liked a vegetable called Chinese morning glory?)
They met my friends, ate sausage, and went on boat rides (which are included in the normal transportation system – people can take boats, trains, trams, or buses to work). Before leaving, they commented, "Europe is so clean, orderly, and organized." I reminded them of their recent experiences in Italy (Italy is many things, but it is not clean, orderly, or organized), and explained that it's just a Swiss thing, not a European thing. In any case, they approved of Switzerland, but there's no telling if Switzerland approved of them. After over two years, Switzerland and I are still trying to figure each other out.
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