Tuesday, August 28, 2007

28 August 2007

Whew, time flies when you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off. In the past few weeks, I celebrated my birthday with 40-odd friends at my apartment here in Zurich, I took a quick trip back to New York and New Jersey, and I hosted a friend from Ireland for a long weekend, during which I visited my 40th country.

The birthday party was great (besides the fact that one of my friends had his finger broken mid-conversation). My friends chipped in for a group gift that included Reese’s cups (peanut butter and chocolate only go together in the States), Nerds (candy here tends to be either chocolate-y or chewy), a t-shirt from Old Navy (doesn’t exist here), an Extreme Ironing calendar (too weird for the Swiss), candy-flavored Chapsticks (lip balm comes in one flavor here), Mad Libs (too random for the Swiss), and other highly sought-after items.

One friend brought a bouquet of florist-quality flowers that he said he had picked himself. Really? Yes. He went to a nursery where customers pick their own flowers, check the price list, add it up, and leave money in a box, unsupervised. They just trust people to pick flowers and leave money. There are fruit, vegetable, and egg stands that do the same thing. Somehow, I just can’t imagine that working in the States.

My trip to the States was short and busy. I saw about two dozen relatives, 15 friends, had Ethiopian, Chinese, and Korean food, ate bagels, got bubble tea, went to my favorite brunch place, played cards with my old cards crew, bought clothes at my favorite store, got a two-hour massage from my favorite masseuse in the entire world, and then came back to Zurich and went straight to work from the airport.

While back, I ran into a childhood friend at the family gathering, and found out that she’s now good friends with my cousin. I ran into a former coworker from Zurich walking down the street in Manhattan near midnight. In the past, I’ve run into people in Paris, Venice, and every neighborhood of New York – leaving the country clearly does not affect the chances that you’ll see someone you know, there’s just no avoiding it unless you never leave the house.

Last weekend, a friend visited from Ireland, and we gave him the full Zurich experience – a sausage dinner, a cookout by the lake, drinks at an outdoor bar, dinner at the Oepfelchammer (which has a 150 year old tradition of inviting guests to climb through the rafters), a street party (my neighborhood’s annual “block party,” which involved music blaring outside my apartment late at night), and a day trip to Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein is basically the Delaware of Europe – a small, corporate tax haven. About 35,000 people live in Liechtenstein, but over twice as many corporations are nominally headquartered there. They speak Swiss German and use the Swiss franc. They still use buses run by the postal service. It is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world (meaning that not only does Liechtenstein not touch the ocean, none of the countries touching Liechtenstein touch the ocean, either). The other one is Uzbekistan. That’s pretty much all I know about Liechtenstein.

Leaving for the States again on Friday, this time for a week and a half (which sounds saner than the last trip, but it involves six flights and two weddings, so I’m guessing it will still be pretty busy). Keep your fingers crossed for me that summer won’t be entirely over by the time I get back to Zurich.

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