tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87346612024-03-13T18:43:17.307+01:00ZüriblögliAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.comBlogger204125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-26411642840660933162009-04-15T23:58:00.009+02:002009-04-16T00:48:56.893+02:00Recommendations<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">People often ask me for recommendations when visiting or living in Zurich.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Here is a short list.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Travel:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> I tried to leave Switzerland at least once a month while I was there, and I'm sure you'll take advantage of the travel opportunities, as well. Two of the most underrated cities in Europe that I've been to are </span></span><a href="http://chienac.blogspot.com/2006/05/9-may-2006.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Ljubljana</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span></span><a href="http://chienac.blogspot.com/2007/06/7-june-2007.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Vilnius</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. I've had great holidays (with direct flights) in </span></span><a href="http://chienac.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-december-2007.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Kenya</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span></span><a href="http://chienac.blogspot.com/2006/04/26-april-2006.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Thailand</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. Swiss Airlines posts weekend travel specials on its website every Wednesday morning. Coop sells discounted flight coupons every year for travel to major European cities. There are often relatively affordable direct charter flights (Edelweiss is one company) to holiday destinations like </span></span><a href="http://chienac.blogspot.com/2006/05/2-may-2006.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Thailand</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span></span><a href="http://chienac.blogspot.com/2005/07/18-july-2005.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Egypt</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. Within Switzerland, definitely get a 1/2 Tax (Halbtax) card if you plan on using the trains at all. Buying your Zurich tram pass annually saves a lot of money.<br /><br /></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Neighborhood:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> I lived in Kreis 1, as do many of my friends. It's good for single people who appreciate convenience and location. Kreis 2 is a bit quieter (and close to Google). Kreis 8 has a lot of expat couples and is convenient to the lake. Kreis 5 is the up-and-coming area for the Swiss equivalent of hipsters and techno lovers.<br /><br /></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Best fondue: </span></span></b><a href="http://zuri.net/adr/17878/raclette-stube.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Raclette Stube</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in Niederdorf<br /></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Most interesting restaurant experience:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> tie between </span></span><a href="http://www.blindekuh.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Blinde Kuh</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> (Seefeld), where it's completely dark, and </span></span><a href="http://www.oepfelchammer.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Oepfelchammer</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> (Niederdorf, ask for the Weinstube), where if you climb through the rafters and drink wine upside down, you can carve your name in the wall<br /><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Other Restaurants and Bars:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Cafe Zaehringer in Niederdorf is reasonably priced, student-run coop that has good soups, veggie options, and is smoke-free on Sundays<br />Aepli Bar in Niederdorf is one of my favorite bars in Zurich: cute, unpretentious, and campy in a Swiss way<br /></span></span><a href="http://www.zeughauskeller.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Zeughauskeller</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in Paradeplatz is the place to go for sausage and beer.<br />Tearoom Blunt in Kreis 5 is a good place for Moroccan style brunch.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><a href="http://www.restaurant-lumiere.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Lumiere</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> on Widdergasse not only allows dogs (as do most restaurants) but has dog food and dog bowls, and will serve your dog dinner while you eat.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Most random museum: </span></span></b><a href="http://www.gletschergarten.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Gletschergarten</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in Lucerne - truly bizarre</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Most impressive collection of art in a small space:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.buehrle.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sammlung E. G. Buehrle</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in Seefeld</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Best gym:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.fitnesspark.ch/zh/front_content.php?idcat=1620"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Fitnesspark Munstergasse</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in Niederdorf has a Turkish bath, awesome for winter!!</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Best gummy candy:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.baerenland.com/index.php?id=39"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Baerenland</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> (Marktgasse 11, near the Rathaus tramstop) has the best gummy candy in the world, and I consider myself to be something of a connaisseur. The German owner, Christian, is friendly and gives out more free samples than you can eat.<br /><br /></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In the summer:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> they turn some of the outdoor swimming pools into awesome bars. The Frauenbad in the Limmat is my favorite bar in the world, and it's open to the public on Thursdays in summertime. Rimini (near the Boerse) does the same thing most nights in the summer, but I find it a bit more claustrophobic. Rimini stays open into the fall, because they put up a bunch of heated tents, which are pretty cool. If you can get tickets to see a movie at Orange Cinema in the summer, do it -- they set up an outdoor cinema and you watch movies on the lake, it's great. Go to Ikea and buy one of the little portable grills (they are round and look like a tiny UFO). Perfect for grabbing to take to the lake on lazy summer weekends. </span></span></span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Music:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> There are lots of summer music festivals in Switzerland, including the </span></span><a href="http://www.montreuxjazz.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Montreux Jazz Festival</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and the </span></span><a href="http://www.blueballs.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Blue Balls Festival</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. Live music is great year-round, because the venues are often small, and the concerts are more intimate.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial;font-size:14px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Other things to check out when they come around:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Oktoberfest at the Bauschaenzli (if you can't make it to Munich, this is a fun local option); </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><a href="http://www.sechselaeuten.ch/sechselaeuten/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sechseläuten</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> parade and burning of the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Böögg</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in April; parades and street celebrations all the time... Curling. There are thermal baths around Switzerland that are just awesome - Leukerbad and Vals are just two of them. There's a </span></span><a href="http://www.glasi.ch/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">glass factory</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in Hergiswil near Lucerne that's cool, and the factory seconds store is deeply discounted. If you hear about a yodeling festival, go to it. They are awesome.</span></span><b><br /></b></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-77105481319237899012008-05-25T15:52:00.002+02:002008-05-25T15:55:33.790+02:00I've moved!!!<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Greetings from California. I've moved, and so the blog will be moving, as well. No more <a href="http://geocities.com/chienac/home">Geocities</a>, thank goodness, since Blogger is much more customizable than it was back in 2004. Everything - posts, pictures, links - will be <a href="http://angela-in-sf.blogspot.com/">here</a> from now on.<br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:100%;" >See you on the interweb.</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-72260811163112590262008-03-18T12:00:00.001+01:002008-05-25T15:52:45.004+02:0018 March 2008<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">No time for a real post, as I'm trying to get my entire apartment packed up. Packing in the midst of a normal weekly schedule and a desperate last-minute travel schedule (must see... as much as possible... before leaving...) is no easy feat, and is further complicated by the following:<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Even though my lease runs until March 31st, I have to be out of the apartment by March 26th, so that the professional cleaners (who charge about $1,000 to clean a 1BR apartment!) and painters can come in before the next tenant.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">As wonderful as it is to move into an apartment in Switzerland - everything is sparkling clean and probably more sanitary than the stuff you're bringing with you, it is equally horrible to move out of an apartment in Switzerland for precisely the same reason. They expect things to be in perfect condition. The cleaning fee seems a bit excessive, but I'm told that they go so far as to take apart the faucets to check for any calcification that may have accumulated during your tenancy. The Swiss are nothing if not thorough.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">After that, I'll stay with a friend for the remainder of my time in Zurich. Why didn't I just stay in my apartment until the end, you ask? Well, in Switzerland, they make it very difficult to break your lease at any time other than the end of March or September. I'd rather crash with someone than pay an extra six months' of rent.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Because of the discrepancy between the date I leave my apartment and the date I leave Switzerland, I have to sort my packing into more piles than usual: Trash, Recycle, Sell, To Use in Switzerland, To Use for Diving, To Use Immediately in California, and To Use Later in California. This is so that things can stay here or ship at the appropriate times. Argh.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">After I move to San Francisco, much of my stuff will be in storage with friends in Zurich, and will follow once I've found a place to stay in California. A great idea in theory, but in practice, it's a bit difficult to get my stuff into their storage space. We all live in the old town, which is charming, quaint, picturesque, and usually closed to traffic.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">We can usually get the car to my apartment, somewhat semi-legally, but to get to my friends' apartment, there is a gate that is closed except for early mornings on weekdays and on weekends. Since my time here is running out, my weekends are fully booked with travel and other hijinks. Weekdays, everyone works, and so we can't really spend a morning quasi-legally shuttling boxes between the two apartments.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">It takes longer than you would think, partly because, although both building have elevators, they are very small (three very skinny people or half of an obese person can fit in), and you need to take stairs to get to the elevators. Yes. You have to take <i>stairs </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">to get to the <i>elevators. </i><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Furthermore, although the apartments are only about three minutes apart on foot, by car, it takes about ten minutes, because of all of the one-way streets, pedestrian streets, and looping around. If the gate is closed, add on another five or ten minutes of trying to wheedle the guard into letting you in for a quick dropoff. Whew.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Moving has always been one of my least favorite pastimes, but Switzerland takes it to a whole new level of awful. Don't get me started on what I have to do besides the physical move - Big Brother needs me to fill out countless forms and notify countless offices to erase myself from his books.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-7983911498257763322008-02-05T12:00:00.001+01:002008-03-18T09:52:31.300+01:005 February 2008<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Life is moving too fast for me to document everything for you here in its full, detailed glory! </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">So, just a few quick notes on the past couple of months before they slip too far into ancient, forgotten history: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">1) Flying from Zurich to JFK to San Francisco to JFK to Zurich in the span of ten days is a bit ambitious, especially if it also involves a delayed flight, a canceled flight, job interviews, and seeing friends and family in four cities on two coasts. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">2) It is also ambitious to then go to a New Year’s Eve celebration in Zurich, when your total time between flights is less than 24 hours, and your out-bound flight leaves from another city. The traffic after the midnight fireworks will probably keep you from catching the last train to Basel, and throw a bit of a wrench in your plans to go to… </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">3) ...Marrakech, home of the best, cheapest, fresh-squeezed orange juice you will ever have. Also home to excellent food at the night markets, and fun bargaining opportunities that later leave you wondering why you were fighting so hard for a price that would have saved you only 40 cents off of the counter-offer. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">4) You will drink more red wine in Madrid than anywhere else in the world, as you go from bar to bar, having a glass of wine and tapas. Beware when ordering the suckling pig at Restaurant Botin (the oldest restaurant in the world), because they will bring you one-fourth of the whole, fatty, crispy-skinned pig - little baby pig foot included. As for vegetables, the pig comes with two potatoes. Delicious, but not the most balanced meal ever. Especially since they start you off with a ham-and garlic soup that is festooned with pieces of deep-fried bread.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">5) No matter where you go, the food and shopping are cheaper than they are in Zurich. Bring an extra bag to carry stuff back. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">As for things that are coming up: my friends and I are going curling! Yes, that’s the one with the ice rink, the rocks, and the brooms. Who knows, maybe I’ll be really good at it, and will give up my lawyerly aspirations and become a pro curler. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Failing that, I’ll be moving to the States in May to start an awesome new job in San Francisco, where I look forward to making fun of the granola-loving, Birkenstock-wearing locals as much as I make fun of the cheese-eating, mullet-haired locals here. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Until then, I plan to get as much traveling and diving done as possible (Scandinavia? Baltics? Balkans? Greece? Asia? Who knows??), because once I’m back in the States, I’ll no longer be within a two-hour flight of two dozen countries. On the other hand, I’ll be able to get decent bagels and sourdough bread whenever I want. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Leaving Switzerland is going to be difficult, both in terms of giving up the fantastic life I’ve lived here, and in terms of deregistering with all of the proper authorities, giving the correct notices on the right forms, and doing all those other things that Big Brother requires of good Swiss residents. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">On top of that, there are the usual logistics of an international transfer – packing, shipping, moving, starting a new job, and trying to get the timing of all of those (and the level of your bank account) to match up. Wish me luck.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-18477202375708970072008-01-15T11:36:00.000+01:002008-02-05T15:48:18.163+01:0015 January 2008<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Happy New Year!! A lot has happened since the last time I wrote – skiing, interviews in California, family Christmas in New Jersey, seeing friends in New York, New Year’s in Zurich, and a few days in Marrakech, all of which deserve discussion, but I have Switzerland on the brain right now, so that’s what I’m going to talk about.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">A college friend was in town this past weekend, so we went into the mountains to go sledding. I grew up sledding in my back yard with cardboard boxes and inner tubes, and I have to say that it’s an entirely different experience taking an old-school wooden sled up a gondola in the Alps to a two-mile (3 km) slope made especially for sledding.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">First of all, you go fast. <i>Really </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">fast. And the sled has no steering mechanism. And the trail has all sorts of quick turns and big bumps. They’re sort of like giant speed bumps, and the sled is unpadded, so your butt takes the brunt of the impact. Add to that the fact that on Saturday, when we were there, it was snowing hard, and we didn’t have goggles, so we had to keep our eyes mostly closed to avoid getting stinging snow driven into our eyes at high speed. It wasn’t just sledding. It was Extreme Sledding, very exhilarating, and I highly recommend it, for as long as your butt can take it. I am still exercising caution when sitting down.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">That night, twenty of us went for fondue, because it’s not winter if you don’t go out for fondue, and then we went out for drinks afterwards. And my purse got stolen. Stolen! In <i>Switzerland! </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">It was soon found, minus my cash and cell phone. And I am in complete shock. I filed a police report (entirely in my own special brand of German, because the officer taking my statement didn’t speak English), and an insurance report, and the insurance company is transferring money to my account, so there’s minimal material loss, but my faith in Switzerland has been deeply shaken. Sure, bags get stolen in New York, in Madrid, in Paris, but not in Zurich!! What is the world coming to, if your purse can get stolen in Zurich?<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">There are other signs that the world is spinning out of control. A friend’s Swiss flight back to the States before Christmas was delayed by almost five hours, and another friend’s checked bag was misplaced on the way back. These things may happen on other airlines in the rest of the world, but not on Swiss International Airlines, where you leave on time, arrive early, and pick up your bags ten minutes later.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">And just this morning I read an article that clearly signals that the end of days is drawing near. Because of a shortage in Brazilian cow intestines, there is a looming shortage of Switzerland’s most popular sausage, a pork- and beef-based sausage called the cervelat. Six million Swiss people eat a combined 160 million cervelats per year (in addition to the hundreds of millions of other sausages – the 160 million refers to a single kind of sausage!), and this summer, Switzerland is hosting the Euro Cup, when millions of foreign sausage eaters will descend on Zurich and further increase the demand for cervelats.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">According to the BBC, a “joint ‘Task Force Cervelat’ composed of scientists, bureaucrats and industry representatives has been formed to tackle the sausage crisis.” We can only hope that they will be able to find a solution to this greatest of problems. I am certain that this crisis is dominating front-page news around the world, so my apologies for beating a dead horse, but I, like all concerned citizens of the world, am worried about not being able to eat my tube-form dead cows and pigs at will.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-19711628990018556772007-12-10T14:56:00.000+01:002008-01-15T11:34:29.124+01:0010 December 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We had a fantastic week in Kenya, fitting in three dives, a safari, a visit to a local school-slash-orphanage to drop off some toys and supplies, and lots of lounging around in the pool. Kenya is many things that Switzerland is not– hot, sunny, and full of friendly people who told us that we should stay in Kenya forever. As with all countries, however, the positives come with some downsides, as well – the tap water isn’t even safe enough to rinse your toothbrush, the mosquitoes tend to spread malaria, and the roads are rather bumpy, even when they <i>happen </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">to be paved. <br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The population of Kenya is, not surprisingly, overwhelmingly black. We were tourists, though, and therefore came across a fair number of other tourists, but they were almost all white. I didn’t see a single other Asian person in a week of traveling until we were in the Nairobi airport on the way back. It’s really rather shocking to go to a tourist destination and not see a single Asian person (other than myself) taking pictures of everything that moves.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">This unfamiliarity with Asians led to some interesting exchanges. Locals repeatedly asked the three of us (two blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasians and one Asian) if we were siblings. I’ve spent most of my life being mistaken for my sister, or as a sibling of Asian friends, due to the fact that to non-Asian eyes, “all Asians look the same.” I suppose that to African eyes, all non-Africans look the same. One day, I was walking by myself, and a Kenyan asked me, based purely on appearance (since I hadn’t spoken) if I were Russian. <i>Huh?! </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Kenyans are exceedingly friendly. Children will stop their games upon seeing a van bearing foreigners and delightedly scream, “Jambo!” which is Swahili for “Hello.” Upon seeing me, however, they would get up and run towards the van, pointing and yelling, “Wachina!” which is Swahili for “Chinese.” I had to laugh, because that was pretty much our reaction when we were on safari, excitedly calling out, “Giraffe! Zebra! Oryx!”<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Due to the existence of anti-American sentiment in many places, when asked, we generally said that we lived in Switzerland, which often prompted Kenyans to tell us that our English was very good, and which sometimes led down rather awkward conversation paths about how long we studied English. When bargaining for various knickknacks (no one can leave Africa without buying at least one wood carving, and no one can buy a wood carving without haggling), in the interest of appearing less prosperous, we were a bit vague about our professions – two of us are lawyers, and the third is an engineer for a company that manufactures electrical devices, which we turned into “I work in an office,” and “I work in a light switch factory.” I don’t think we fooled the salesmen at all.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">It was a shock to come back to Switzerland – a week of wearing nothing but copious quantities of sunscreen, t-shirts, and shorts does not segue well into cold, wind, and rain. It is a relief, however, to be able to brush your teeth without fear of parasites, and to live mosquito-free.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">This past weekend was spent with a friend in Amsterdam, where it is similarly cold and rainy. Next weekend, we’re heading for the mountains, where the cold rain will perhaps be cold snow, instead, and I can go skiing for the first time in fifteen years. Yes, I’ve been here for over three years and haven’t managed to muster up the motivation to go skiing. For shame.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-41936800438606733962007-11-20T16:57:00.000+01:002007-12-10T14:56:31.277+01:0020 November 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >“If you’re going to do something, you might as well overdo it” seems to be the theme of my recent and near-future life. I won’t be spending a whole weekend in town for two months. This past weekend, I was in Brussels. The next two weekends (and the week in between), I’ll be in Kenya. Then Amsterdam. Then Davos. The two weekends (and the week in between) after that, I’ll be in the States. Nineteen hours in Switzerland, and then an extra-long weekend in Morocco. Then maybe (just maybe), a weekend in Zurich before I take off for a weekend in Madrid. Whew. It ain't easy trying to be a jetsetter.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >And it’s not just the travel that’s being taken to the point of excess. How’s this for a textbook example of gluttony – my friends and I flew to Brussels Saturday morning to try out lunch and dinner at two Michelin-starred restaurants (and the two meals combined took over seven hours), stayed the night, then flew back 24 hours later, just in time to waddle into Thanksgiving dinner #1. I had Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch the next day. Thanksgiving dinner #2 will be this Thursday (we make up for the lack of a long weekend by overdosing on turkey more than once). I will probably have eaten a month’s worth of food in a week’s worth of time. Burp. Incidentally, dinner at Comme Chez Soi was a near-religious experience, and worth every franc spent to get there, and euro spent to eat there. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Speaking of food, it’s common in many languages to use food-based pet names. In English, for instance, people call each other honey, pumpkin, sugar, or sweetie pie. A friend of mine was taken aback however, when her German boyfriend called her (in English) his “honey cake horse.” What?! It turns out he had directly translated a German term of endearment (</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">Honigkuchenpferd</span></i></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >, in case you’re curious) into English, assuming that it would make as much sense in English as it apparently does in German. A quick peek at a website listing other German terms of endearment reveals such gems as </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">Humpfimumpfi</span></i></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >, and </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">Marzipankugelschweinchen</span></i></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > (marzipan ball piglet). Charming, no? They just roll right off your tongue.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Perhaps this is one of the reasons that the stereotypical German speaker is not known for his (or her) romantic conquests – it’s hard to win someone over when you’re comparing them to farm animals or lesser-known carbohydrates. Never fear, though, just as in the States, there are dating sites and dating shows to help those who cannot help themselves. "Swiss Date" is a long-running dating show that is similar to the "Dating Game," where a bachelor (or bachelorette) asks three contestants a series of questions, and then chooses a lucky winner. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >The sad thing, however, is that the show is entirely scripted, so that everyone know what questions will be asked, and the contestants often read their strained joking responses off of index cards held in their laps. I realize that reality shows are often scripted, but it’s best to maintain the semblance of spontaneity by eliminating the visible cue cards. Just a tip.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >My friends and I leave for Kenya this week! The two of them leave Thursday morning and will actually spend Thanksgiving evening in Nairobi, where they plan to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant that serves unusual game meats such as crocodile, giraffe, and zebra. I’ll join them on Saturday, and we hope to spend the week relaxing at the beach, going on a safari, enjoying the equatorial weather, and not catching malaria.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-72701908288600639252007-11-06T14:02:00.000+01:002007-11-20T16:56:50.226+01:006 November 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">One of the things I like best (and will miss most) about living in Switzerland is the transportation. Seriously. Before living here, I lived in New York and Boston, and I appreciated the fact that I could get away with not having a car and still get around, but Switzerland elevates the car-free lifestyle to a new level. Not only can I get around anywhere in the city without a car, I can do so on trams, buses, boats, funiculars, and trains.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">And everything runs on time – in other places, the schedules are mere guidelines regarding the relative frequency of subway trains or buses. Here they are written in stone – if the schedule says the tram will be here at 10:32, it will be here at 10:32, just in time for you to transfer to the bus that leaves at 10:33. You can plot your trip out to the minute, knowing exactly when you need to leave your apartment, and exactly when you will arrive at your friend’s housewarming party. Not only that, but it works nationwide. If I have tickets to see a concert in Lucerne, I can plot out the exact Zurich tram, train, and Lucerne tram I will need to take to get there in time.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">(That said, there have been a few disturbing tram delays in recent weeks – there have been several occasions where a tram I wanted to take was three or even <i>four </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">minutes late. Having lived here for over three years, I was suitably horrified.)<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s definitely a far cry from inter-city travel in the U.S., where, even if you’re lucky enough to be traveling between cities serviced by Amtrak (read: major cities on the Northeast corridor), the schedules are still only a general guideline, with arrival and departure times being understood to mean “stated time plus or minus half an hour.”<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">A German friend is planning on going to New York, and was thinking of going to visit his friend in rural New Hampshire. I assumed he was going to rent a car, but he said he would probably take a train, and was surprised when I told him that there probably wasn’t a train going where he wanted to go. Welcome to America, the land of the free and the home of the very large spaces that aren’t serviced by mass transportation.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">As wonderful and well planned as the public transportation system is, there are still a few things that puzzle me. Trivial things, but I still wonder about them. The first is that all of the trams in Zurich are numbered. We have trams 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15. What happened to trams 1 and 12?<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Another is that the tramlines are color-coded. Blue means 14, yellow means 13, and so on. It makes it easier to read the map and to tell from a distance what tram is on its way. What puzzles me, however, is that there are two red trams, two green trams, but no orange tram. They covered the main rainbow colors (besides orange), doubled two of the colors, and then randomly branched out into pink, black, and brown. There doesn’t seem to be a system, which is very odd in this country that loves and lives for systems.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">I sometimes watch the tram drivers at work. At first glance, the cockpit (driver’s seat?) of the tram looks unsurprising – a steering wheel, lots of buttons and switches, a microphone, and so on. And then you stop and realize that you don’t have to steer a tram – it just goes on tracks. And then you observe that the steering wheel is basically a gas and brake pedal in one – the driver turns it right to go faster, and left to go slower. Doesn’t that seem it could get a bit confusing (and swervy) for the tram driver if he drives a car when he’s not at work? Just a thought.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-34724631842990876742007-10-19T16:58:00.000+02:002007-11-06T14:02:04.871+01:0019 October 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Switzerland has turned up on international news radars as it prepares for elections, mostly because of an initiative that has been proposed by one of the parties (any initiative, once it has enough signatures, can be put to a national vote). This particular initiative concerns whether non-citizen felons and their non-felonious families can be automatically expelled from the country, and was proposed by the same conservative party that successfully blocked the granting of Swiss citizenship to third-generation, Swiss-born, fully-integrated immigrants.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">This right-wing party has about 27% of the popular vote, and they have been splashed all over international newspapers over their ad campaign that depicts several white sheep (representing good Swiss people) standing on the Swiss flag, kicking out a black sheep. There are games on their website where you can kick black sheep. I don’t know who thought this ad campaign wouldn’t be offensive to foreigners or minorities (but then again, this is also the country where a couple years ago, the transportation authority, wishing to prevent musicians from begging on trams, posted signs depicting a man wearing a poncho and sombrero, because clearly anyone who begs on a tram is a stereotypical Mexican).<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">In any case, it’s a little lesson about stereotypes – just as not all tram singers are Mexican, and not all foreigners are criminals, not all Swiss are neutral and polite. In some ways, I feel as if I’m in junior high </span><span style="font-size:100%;">again </span><span style="font-size:100%;">– back then, being Asian and intelligent (and having a bad perm) marked me as an outsider, a black sheep to kick out from some fabled inner sanctum of acceptance. And here I am again, a black sheep in a country full of white sheep. And I don’t even have a perm anymore.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Anyways, planning for Kenya continues. My new passport came back less than two weeks after I sent the old one in – how’s that for efficiency? The new one has been mailed off to the Kenyans to get a visa. I went to my doctor to get some “just in case” prescriptions for antibiotics and so on. My German isn’t great, and her English isn’t great, so we get by in a mixture of the two. I sometimes forget that when language is an issue, sarcasm often goes undetected, so when she mentioned the possibility of getting bloody diarrhea, I said, “Ooh, that sounds really fun,” and she very earnestly told me, “No, actually, it’s not fun at all.” Oh, really?<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">My two travel buddies and I went to the university travel clinic last night to get all the necessary shots. We showed up, took numbers, and sat and waited to be called. Then we were matched up with doctors who reviewed our travel plans and told us what shots we would need. Then we waited in line to pay. Then we waited in line to get the shots. With all the red tape and long lines, it was sort of like Disney World meets the DMV.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The consultation with the doctor was done in German (looking back, I’m still amazed that I managed to tell her all the necessary information, and even more amazed that I was able to understand everything she told me), and covered the exotic risks I would have expected, like polio and malaria, but she also spent a fair amount of time cautioning me to stay hydrated on the plane, and to periodically stretch my legs to avoid blood clots. While waiting in line to pay, a German man told me that he was told that because he often leaves Zurich to go into the mountains (in <i>Switzerland</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">), he should get a special shot.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">It's apparently a dangerous world out there, once you venture forth among the black sheep.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-73375017092355279002007-10-04T15:42:00.000+02:002007-10-19T16:51:58.347+02:004 October 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The big news this week is that I’m going to Kenya next month! One of my friends (who is also a coworker) asked me Friday morning if I wanted to go on a trip in November. I expressed interest (everyone knows I’m a bit of a travel fiend), and he said he had a timeshare in Kenya next month. I caught another one of our friends right before she was about to go to lunch, and by that afternoon, the three of us had decided to go.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Sounds simple enough, but as with most fun things, it was a bit more complicated. We had to request the vacation days and wait for approval, and there was a bit of a panic when the ticket prices fluctuated. And then there’s the fact that the Kenyan consulate in Zurich apparently no longer exists, so we have to apply for visas through the embassy in Bern. Not a big deal, you just send your paperwork, money, and passport to them, and they send it back to you a week later with the visa. The passport just needs to be valid for six months after your trip.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Oh. Six months? Mine expires in… April. Wasn’t there something about big delays with American passport renewals or something in the news a while back? Uh oh. I called the embassy here and they assured me that the processing times for American passports being renewed through Switzerland is about three weeks. OK, whew. I just need to send in my passport, a form, two pictures, and some money (which I’ll have to do again to get my Kenyan visa, once I get my new passport back).<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">First things first, I went to go get new passport pictures taken. The embassy website listed the few Swiss photo places that were known to make regulation American passport pictures, so I went to the closest one. The guy sat me down, and I put on my best “I hope I don’t look terrible because I’m stuck with this picture for the next ten years” smile, and he told me to stop smiling. Swiss people aren’t allowed to smile in their passport pictures, so apparently they don’t want Americans to smile in theirs, either.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Too lazy to argue the point, I suppressed my smile (although not entirely), and thus ended up with a smirking photo that is sure to endear me to immigration officers everywhere. I went to pay and it cost 35 Swiss Francs, or about $30, using the current exchange rate (these days, I am so glad I get paid in francs instead of dollars). For two passport-size photos of me smirking!! If it hadn’t been so expensive, I would have considered getting them re-taken.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Then, I dropped the whole package off at the post office, and sent the fee to the embassy. I’m not sure how it’s done in the US, but here, they don’t want checks or cash, and I’m guessing that an online transfer is harder for them to match to the paperwork, so they want a post transfer. This entails bringing a wad of cash to the post office (because they don’t take credit or debit card, unless you keep an account with the postal service), writing down your address and the address of the recipient, and handing it over with the wad of cash (plus a $16 service charge). The post office then sends the recipient a post card verifying that you did indeed hand over the correct-sized wad of cash, and business gets taken care of. I hope.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">In any case, I have to stay in Switzerland for the next few weeks, until my passport comes back, and it’s funny how restrictive it feels to say, “Oh, no, I can’t leave the country for the rest of the month.” Think positive passport thoughts for me, so that it comes back quickly, smirking picture and all, and so I can pass it along to the Kenyan embassy for my visa.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-82838646116541430862007-09-26T12:00:00.000+02:002007-10-04T15:41:34.851+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I'm preoccupied with other things these days, so I might as well be honest with myself (and you), and admit that I'm only going to try to update this section every other week, instead of every week. Other stuff will still be posted at random, as always...</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-53155777355045730402007-09-18T15:42:00.000+02:002007-10-04T15:41:54.378+02:0018 September 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Another post, another jetlagged recovery from a trip to the States. This time, it was an eleven-day, six flight, two wedding, two-state journey, with a job interview thrown in for good measure. I managed to pack everything into my carry-on for the first four flights (Zurich to Atlanta to Kansas City to Cincinnati to San Francisco), because I had awful visions of showing up at weddings and interviews in my grubby travel gear. On the way back, however, as is always the case, I was forced to check a bag, because I had picked up so many oh-so-essential items while in San Francisco, like Twizzlers, reasonably priced socks, and clogs.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">We haven’t had a summer worth mentioning in Zurich this year, other than three weeks of warm weather and scattered sunny days here and there, and fall is now firmly entrenched, as evidenced by all of the wool sweaters and dripping umbrellas. I haven’t spent much time in Zurich over the past month, however, so I’ll talk about the traveling, instead.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Don’t ever fly Delta. I booked this trip in May, and had to re-book no fewer than <i>four times</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> in less than four months, because they kept canceling or rescheduling flights. Each time, I would get an email telling me to re-book, so I would call in and sit on hold, explain the situation to an inept customer service rep, get cut off, call back, hold, talk to another rep, explain that yes, the dates were important, because the weddings couldn’t be rescheduled, and no, I didn’t want to take more than six flights, because none of the fliths were direct to start with, and would it be possible to just rebook the one flight in question, so that I wouldn’t have to do seat selection for all six flights all over again? And after much to-do, they would still re-book all six flights. It was like the movie <i>Groundhog Day</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, except that instead of Bill Murray, there was bad hold music.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">On one of my flights, there was a kid two rows behind me who was screaming and gibbering demonically enough that I fully expected to turn around and see him ripping off his head and rolling it down the aisle. No one else in the entire plane seemed to be making any noise. On a nighttime flight, two kids were stampeding up and down the aisles, screaming and bumping into passengers, and their parents didn’t do anything, despite many grumbling neighbors (including me), and useless entreaties from the flight attendants.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">While boarding the flight from Atlanta to Zurich, I noticed three babies and two dogs seated close by, and started preparing for a noisy, sleepless flight. I think all of them were dead, however, because none of them made a sound during the whole flight. Instead, the man in the seat next to me was slouching into my seat and hogging my legroom, and I spent most of the flight passive-aggressively pretending to be asleep, while furtively jamming my elbow and knee into him, trying to get him to move out of space I had paid for and re-booked four times.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The process to get a job and move to Switzerland seemed complicated to me at the time, since there were work visas and residence permits involved, but now I think it may be more complicated in reverse. American employers want you to start yesterday, and they don’t comprehend Swiss laws regarding giving two months’ notice at work, and three months’ notice on your apartment (which can only be done twice a year). Not to mention the logistics of de-registering from all the things that require registration. Now I understand why people often stay here for longer than they originally planned – it’s just too much trouble to leave!</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-65121041961824814982007-09-11T12:00:00.000+02:002007-09-18T15:08:54.175+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just got back from a double-wedding tour of the US. A few pics are up, update still to come...</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-22614111147192187252007-08-28T15:39:00.000+02:002007-09-18T15:09:10.788+02:0028 August 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">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.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-27543453667744099982007-08-22T12:00:00.000+02:002007-08-28T15:34:57.621+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >I've posted a few pictures from my weekend in New York, update to come...</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-16839158294542948512007-08-15T12:00:00.000+02:002007-08-28T15:34:32.278+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Things have been chaotic. Last weekend was Street Parade, which I avoided this year, not being in the mood to dive into the throngs of techno-mad people. Going on an unforeseen trip for a long weekend. In the meantime, I’ve posted a few random camera phone pics that didn’t fit in anywhere else.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-2612479983769236312007-08-07T14:43:00.000+02:002007-08-28T15:34:15.123+02:007 August 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Two weekends ago, a good friend from law school met me in Krakow, where we hung out for a couple days, seeing the city and making a side trip to Auschwitz before picking up a rental car to go to Slovakia. You may be asking, “Why Slovakia?” Several Slovakians whom we met along the way had exactly that question for us, and our response was, “Why </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">not </span></i></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Slovakia?” Rural Slovakia is beautiful – wild forests, old castles, farmland, countless villages, each with its own steepled church – and plenty of time to observe it all as you’re stuck driving behind a tractor. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >My friend is also Asian, and I think we have discovered the last two places on earth that aren’t completely overrun with buses full of Asian tourists – Spissky Hrad and Bardejov, Slovakia. Krakow was an entirely different story, with the city center swarming with tourists from all over the world (especially drunk British men – apparently, flights are so cheap, British men drink so much, and drinks in London are so expensive, that it’s cheaper for them to fly to Eastern Europe to party than to go to their local pub). </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Slovakia, on the other hand, hasn’t yet been fully noticed by the outside, and is only just starting to connect to the outside world. We were often hard-pressed to find anyone who spoke any of the five languages we had between the two of us – English, French, German, Korean, and Chinese – a rare occurrence in Europe, where people tend to be bi-, tri-, or multilingual. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >A good quick test of how closely a place is tied to civilization and the modern world is the Internet and the water supply. Can you find a computer with an Internet connection? Can you drink the tap water? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then you’re in a modern “First World” country. If the answer is no, then you’re being a bit more adventurous, and are hopefully reaping other benefits in terms of photo ops and cross-cultural understanding. The first Slovakian town we stayed had no Internet café, and even the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">locals </span></i></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >didn’t drink the tap water. The second place we stayed had a computer connected to the Internet, but the computer was running on only 32 MB of RAM, so I think that still gets some points for remoteness from the modern world. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Rather incredibly, my friend and I didn’t get lost on our three-day road trip, despite several factors that were running against us: neither of us has a sense of direction; we don’t speak (or read) Slovakian or Polish; and we didn’t have GPS or a map of Slovakia. That’s right, we drove for two days without getting lost in the Slovakian countryside, with nothing but the equivalent of printouts from MapQuest. We were pretty proud of ourselves, and one of our big regrets is that we caved in and bought a map of Poland (which we didn’t really use, anyways). </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >The trip was a blast, although I don’t think I’ve ever missed fresh vegetables so much. Polish and Slovakian food (and perhaps Eastern European food in general) is very heavy on meat, potatoes, and pickles. In Slovakia, I ordered a pork chop, and was told to pick a side dish. I asked for vegetables, and the waitress said that there were boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, French fries, potato pancakes, and roasted potatoes. I ordered a salad, instead, and when it came out, it was a plate of pickled carrots, pickled cabbage, and pickled red cabbage. The pork chop was breaded, deep-fried, and topped with a fried egg and a slice of ham. At a restaurant in Poland, the pre-meal bread came not with butter, but with a pot of lard studded with chunks of bacon fat. Delicious? Yes. Nutritious? Perhaps not.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-57030003716215143472007-08-06T12:00:00.000+02:002007-08-07T14:39:11.859+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I've added Nellie's pics from Poland and Slovakia. Birthday party was a success, update later this week :)</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-78023666219442673262007-07-26T12:00:00.000+02:002007-08-07T14:38:22.376+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >It's concert season!! Four concerts in one week, and heading out to Poland and Slovakia for a looong weekend before coming back in town for my annual birthday party. Celebrate with me and forgive my lackluster posting schedule :)</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-71488124810576843812007-07-18T14:52:00.000+02:002007-08-07T14:36:19.499+02:0018 July 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >It’s been a while since I’ve hung out with Asian people. There just aren’t that many of them here, although the numbers are growing, due to a booming restaurant business and the increasingly common phenomenon of Swiss men bringing back Asian brides. I’m only half-joking. Recently, however, I’ve met a few other Asians, who seem just as surprised as I am to no longer play the role of “token minority friend” when we’re in a group together, especially if they happened to grow up here in Switzerland. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >A good friend of mine works for the local subsidiary of a major international company, which happens to be located out in the suburbs. Compared to New York, Zurich can already feel a little bit suburban (population-wise, Zurich wouldn’t even break the top 50 cities in the States), so the suburbs of Zurich are, to put it in the words used by a Swiss friend, “provincial” (as is the case anywhere, the city folk enjoy sneering at the country folk, and vice versa). My friend’s colleague started talking about a “black woman” working in a different department, much to my friend’s confusion, because she wasn’t aware that there were any black people working there. After further probing and clarification, it turned out that the “black woman” was actually Asian, and that the colleague just called her black because she wasn’t white, and really, what else is there? </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >When I told that story to an acquaintance who has Tibetan relatives who immigrated to Switzerland, she started laughing, because when her relatives took an outing into the “provinces” when they first moved here (granted, this was perhaps twenty years ago), the villagers followed them around, gaping at the “black people,” and trying to touch them. I would have been tempted to say, “Greetings. We come in peace, take us to your leader,” but I wouldn’t have known how to say that in Swiss German. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >The other week, I was taking an elevator with three Swiss friends, one of whom is Asian, one of whom is half-Asian, and the third of whom is white. It was the first time since coming here that I’ve been part of a (localized) ethnic majority, so I pointed it out to our white friend, “Hey, do you feel outnumbered and marginalized?” His eyes widened in astonishment, then we all burst out laughing. Of course, as soon as we stepped out of the elevator into the general population, he was once again part of the extremely dominant majority, and the rest of us were back to being the funny-looking outsiders. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Last night, a friend and I organized an after-work hangout by the river, and perhaps two dozen assorted friends, coworkers, and acquaintances showed up, including five (that’s right, five!!) Asians. Four of us were expats, so it wasn’t a new experience to be more than just token minority representatives, although it definitely felt a bit strange to be hanging out with multiple Asians in Zurich. For the one Swiss Asian, however, it was a bit mind-boggling, and the rest of us were highly amused by his amazement that several non-tourist Asian people can hang out in one place without causing a huge tear in the space-time continuum. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >It’s mid-July, and the weather has finally warmed up in Zurich. April was hot, but since then, we’ve had a lot of cold, rainy days, and nothing is more disheartening than wearing wool sweaters and scarves in July. So we’ve been grateful for the change in the weather, although a bit annoyed that half the summer was wasted as a faux winter. The rest of the summer looks busy – in the next six weeks, I’ve already got three concerts, three visitors, two parties, and several trips planned. If there’s no rest for the wicked, there’s even less rest for the expat.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-24599836079091906682007-07-11T17:24:00.000+02:002007-07-18T14:51:10.649+02:0011 July 2007<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: verdana;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Last weekend was Zürifäscht (roughly pronounced TSU-ree-FESHT), the once-every-three-years party that takes place in Zurich, well, once every three years. Last time it happened, I had only been living in Switzerland for one month, and I didn’t think I’d be here for a second Zürifäscht, but obviously, I was. After living here for three years and getting to know the place and the people a bit better, I think Zürifäscht was an even bigger surprise the second time around. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >First of all, about two million people are in town for Zürifäscht. Considering that the population of Switzerland is about 7.5 million, that means that during the big weekend, over a quarter of the entire population descends on Zurich, which usually has a population of 370,000. If one-fourth of the US decided to go to a party at the same time, you’d have 80 million people all of a sudden showing up in New York for the weekend, which would pretty much be a logistical nightmare. Granted, it would be much easier to deal with two million people than 80 million people, but you have to hand it to Zurich for managing a sudden quintupling of the city’s population with remarkable aplomb. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Secondly, I didn’t quite realize the full scope of the party last time. I didn’t know my way around the city much, so I just followed a Swiss friend around. This time, I saw a schedule of events and the geographic area covered by the festivities, and it’s pretty mind-boggling. We’re talking multiple Ferris wheels (because the Swiss can never have enough Ferris wheels), an air guitar contest, dragon boat racing, Jewish folk dances, a petting zoo, fireworks, air shows, diving contests, bobsled tracks, freefall rides, cotton candy, ring tosses, bars, salsa dance floors, and just about everything else you can (or can’t) imagine. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >And this is Switzerland, so it goes without saying that there are sausage and beer stands, plenty of trashcans and toilets, and trashmen scurrying around picking up the litter. Gotta feed the people and keep things clean. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >People who happen to come into Zurich for the weekend of Zürifäscht must think that the Swiss are wild, crazy, and into littering. None of which is really true, except for when there’s a triennial party going on. True to form, the party was set up and swept away with mind-boggling speed. Since it’s a big one, it actually took a couple of days on each side, but if you could see the amount of equipment (and garbage) that was trucked in and out, you wouldn’t expect it to be done faster than a couple weeks each way. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Zürifäscht is really the only occasion I’ve seen where the Swiss go all-out with state-sponsored fireworks. Swiss National Day (their equivalent of the 4th of July) is more of a private affair, with measly little store-bought fireworks. Zürifäscht is when the government steps in and buys boatloads of explosives for public display. It only happens every three years, but then they do huge shows (about 30 minutes long) for two nights, so I guess the cost balances out, because each show was a bit bigger than the Boston 4th of July show, which happens every year. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-size:100%;" >One great thing about Zürifäscht (for Americans, anyways) is that it happens at roughly the same time as the 4th, so once every three years, we get to see a good, old-fashioned, bombastic display of pyrotechnic delights that are a taste of home, amidst the sausage stands and people frantically texting each other, trying to figure out which Ferris wheel they’re supposed to meet under.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-23604160778155856982007-07-04T13:31:00.000+02:002007-07-11T17:21:48.480+02:004 July 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Happy 4th of July, and here’s to the fact that the 2008 elections are drawing ever closer! Dubya, your days are numbered. <br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">A Swiss friend recently commented that he likes the German mentality more than the Swiss mentality, because the Germans are “more relaxed and laid-back.” That made me laugh, because it really showed how everything is relative. I don’t think that Germans are world-renowned for their relaxed, laid-back personalities, but compared to the Swiss, maybe they are.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">One friend who has been living here for a while told me how she once met an older Swiss woman who was grumbling about how the country is falling apart and chaos was taking over. My friend asked her what she meant. The woman said that in the past, if a train was supposed to arrive in the station at 11:14, it would pull in just as the second hand swept past 12, at 11:14:00 on the dot. Now, she complained, the train could show up anywhere from 11:14:00 to 11:14:59! What is this world coming to?<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Some work colleagues and I were having drinks at a bar a couple of weeks ago to welcome a new coworker to the office. We had made reservations for a table for 20 for 6 p.m., and the first of our group walked in at about 6:10. There was a lone woman seated at our very large table. She looked up, told us that the table was reserved, and told us to find another table. We pointed out that the reservation was for our group, and started sitting down. She protested that it was already <i>6:12</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, and that it was too late for us to show up. After some back and forth, and much grumbling on her part, she vacated our table and went to one of many smaller tables that were free.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">There was recently a “Laugh Parade” in Zurich. I didn’t attend, but apparently, people congregated on a Sunday afternoon at a pre-appointed time and place, and then they walked through downtown Zurich, laughing. I’m not sure what they were laughing about, but it was to promote health through laughter. But seriously, who schedules a time and place to laugh at nothing with strangers? The Swiss do.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Scheduling is paramount in Switzerland. Punctuality is right up there with cleanliness and godliness, and scheduling things well in advance is also a great virtue. Take my apartment lease, for example. It’s a pretty standard lease for Switzerland. There are two built-in termination dates each year – April 1 and October 1. In order to actually move out on one of those dates, I have to give the landlord three months’ notice, on January 1 or July 1, respectively. Otherwise, I would have to find a subletter (whom my landlord has to approve), or I would have to pay all of the extra rent myself. This is definitely not a culture that is accustomed to the transient nature of young Americans.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Most Swiss people stay close to home. Zurich probably has the most “transients,” but even they come from only an hour away, and visit home often. I haven’t been to my parents’ house in almost four years, and I have very few friends left from the “olden days,” but I have met many Swiss people my age who still see their parents and childhood friends almost every week. Moving to a town that’s an hour away seems to be as big of a step here as moving from New York to San Francisco in the States.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Even for an American, I’m relatively rootless, but compared to the Swiss, I’m probably akin to a hobo with a work permit.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-303954763920796572007-06-27T12:10:00.000+02:002007-08-07T14:40:31.516+02:0027 June 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">After living here for over three years, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing dogs go almost everywhere that people go – bars, restaurants, boats, trains, trams, shops, you name it, there’s a dog there (except in grocery stores, where they aren’t allowed). I’m no longer shocked (but still appreciative) when waiters bring Fiver a bowl of water without asking, and when they stop to pet him and ask if they can give him some ham, then bring back bowls of sliced tomatoes and carrots, at my suggestion (Fiver loves veggies, and he’s overweight, so it’s for the best).<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Fiver gets more attention and approval than I do. The Swiss are generally not inclined to notice or speak to strangers unless a rule is being broken, but if Fiver is with me, there is a steady stream of people – old, young, male, female – following us, talking to him, blowing him kisses, commenting on his appearance, asking me his age, sex, breed, and name, getting permission to pet him, and so on. I’m invisible, but Fiver is the Pied Piper of Zurich.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">This past weekend, however, I was not prepared to see a <i>rabbit </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">taking the tram. I think of rabbits as stay-at-home pets, but a woman was carrying her pet rabbit in a grass-lined basket, and brought him on the tram with her. She (and he) seemed to think it was perfectly normal for a rabbit to ride the tram, and no one else took any notice of them. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, since when I first moved here, I often saw a couple who would bring their pet rats on the tram, and the rats would swarm up and around their necks, shoulders, and shirts.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Pets live a good life here – cats living in apartment buildings usually have outdoor feline spiral staircases that allow them to enter and leave the apartment at will. I sometimes think that pets have it easier than people here – they don’t need to worry about store opening hours, special garbage bags, registration and deregistration, laundry schedules, or any of the other strange things that their owners have to deal with.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Speaking of pets, one of my good friends here had a dog who died a while back. She had him cremated at a pet crematorium, and they mailed the ashes back to her. Very efficient. In any case, recently, she received a mailing from the crematorium informing her that they had just completed a major round of renovations and upgrades, and inviting her to come to an open house and cocktail hour. <i>Seriously?? </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">It seems about as appealing as revisiting a funeral parlor after they got a new paint job.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">In any case, they raved about their new facilities, including improved incinerators, and were asking all of their valued customers to come have a drink and take a celebratory tour. There was even a pamphlet addressing potential questions, such as, “Can I watch while my pet is cremated?” Has anyone ever actually asked to watch Fido get burned to a crisp?? And would anyone actually watch, if given permission to do so?? It sounds like a terrible skit from SNL, but it’s true.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;" >Met up with friends on Sunday, and took blankets, meat, and a grill to a park, just a typical summer afternoon in Zurich. The next day, we took a friend’s visitors to the quintessential Swiss restaurant in town, and, having decided that we had overloaded on greasy, grilled sausages, we opted instead for… greasy, grilled ribs, and greasy, grilled meat on a sword. Yes, they serve meat on a sword here. Beat that.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-84185305889666515892007-06-19T13:15:00.000+02:002007-06-27T12:07:13.355+02:0019 June 2007<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">According to <i>The Economist</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, in 2007, Zurich is the world’s sixth most expensive city to live in, and New York is the most expensive American city, coming in at 28th worldwide. San Francisco and Chicago are even further down the charts than New York, and the rest of the States are even cheaper. You can imagine, then, the sticker shock that most American expats experience when moving to Zurich. Only those of us who came from New York or London were able to look at real estate listings without gasping, and all of us were surprised at the “reverse Costco effect” when shopping – it seems like in Switzerland, you get half the quantity for twice the price.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The difference has been magnified even further in recent years because of the weak dollar. As much as I disapprove of Dubya and his foreign policy (and pretty much everything else he’s done), his ineptitude in managing the American economy has increased the relative value of my salary here, which is paid in Swiss Francs.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Mercer Consulting does an annual survey on which cities are the best to live in, and for at least the past six years, Zurich has been #1 on the list. You can check back further, if you want, but that seems to be a pretty unequivocal vote by Mercer for Zurich. The survey is based on a bunch of criteria: sanitation, disease, health care, pollution, potable water, and “the presence of harmful animal or insects,” are heavily stressed, but they also consider factors like banking, crime, political stability, education, transportation, housing, and natural disasters.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">So basically, the survey is telling us that Zurich is really clean, you can drink the water and breathe the air, and you won’t be mauled by a bear or swarmed by poisonous centipedes. (Although the breathing thing is debatable, if you’ve ever been in a Swiss bar, where the smoky air probably causes lung cancer by the fourth breath).<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Oh yeah, also, you won’t get carjacked during a tornado while driving your kids between your lovely home and their modern school. This all makes Zurich the best place to live on earth. Although I agree that Zurich’s a great place to live, I still think that the fact that I can’t get a really good bagel and then take the tram home at 1 a.m. should count against it, somehow.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">While we’re talking about surveys, Mercer did a survey to see how much vacation time the average worker gets per year in different countries. The average American employee who has been with a company for ten years gets 25 days per year (including fifteen vacation days and ten paid holidays) – but we all know that the average American employee has not been with his or her current company for ten years, and many American workers (my dad, for example) don’t actually take all of their vacation, anyway.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">In Finland, on the other hand, employers are legally required to give all employees at least 30 vacation days per year, plus about fourteen paid holidays. That’s <i>two months</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> off every year! When I thought about it, though, they probably need it up there. The winters are long and dark, and if you won’t see the sun for a few months, you’re going to want to go somewhere else for a while.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">But still, two months. Wow, that’s some potential quality of life. I wonder if they often get swarmed by poisonous centipedes up there.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8734661.post-80208882995883287992007-06-13T12:00:00.000+02:002007-06-19T13:11:25.403+02:00Editor's Note<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I'll post again next week. It's been a busy travelling, hosting, birthday partying, jobhunting season...</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09169563818177251834noreply@blogger.com1