22 August 2005

Due to a huge, weekend-long rainstorm, I spent the entire weekend in my apartment, except for a dinner with my choir at my conductor’s house. My conductor, who is British, but has lived in Zurich for quite some time, is apparently a huge fan of croquet. He had hoped to play croquet on the lawn, but because of the rain, that was not possible, but never fear, he had other options: carpet croquet, which is just like croquet, but indoors, and in miniature, or tiddlywinks croquet, which is very little like croquet, and is played with tiddlywinks on a tabletop. I think that was my surreal experience of the week, playing tiddlywinks croquet with a bunch of British and Swiss singers in a town outside of Zurich, and I think it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event.

I stayed in on Sunday, having decided to skip the Cheese Olympics, which were over two hours away by train. Yes, the Cheese Olympics, where alpenhorn players, cheese makers, dairy farmers, and other mainstays of Swiss culture gather each year to crown the king of cheeses, the fastest milk jug racer, and other local royalty. While I would have loved to have gone there to take a gander at the proceedings and report back with photos and anecdotes, it was raining harder than it has since Noah’s time, and so I leave you to imagine for yourselves the splendors and wonders of the Cheese Olympics: the theme music, the events, the competitors, the animals, the ceremonies, the commentators…

It is not always necessary to journey very far to find something interesting. A few weeks ago, my friends and I were walking back to my apartment when we passed by my local, er, adult movie theater. Porn theaters here are not tucked away in the red-light district or hidden in dark alleyways. They are in prime locations next to clothing stores and restaurants. Their selections are included in the mainstream movie listings, and they put out movie posters advertising whatever is “Now Playing.” It was one of these posters that caught our attention. On it was a woman in a traditional Swiss dress with puffed sleeves and apron, with her hair in braids (except for the front part, because she had a mullet, so only the back hair could be braided), and a man in traditional Swiss clothing, as well: green hiking hat with feathers, suspenders, lederhosen, and a bushy mustache. The woman had the front of her dress open, and the mustachioed man had his hands out and his mouth open in pure shock and awe. The title, roughly translated, was “Inside Heidi.” We were amazed that Heidi had been remade into porn, and were trying to imagine what might be involved: Yodeling? Fondue? Goats? Cows? More men with mustaches? Cows with mustaches? The porn theater changes its selection (and its posters) on a weekly basis, and the last two weeks have ushered in "Inside Heidi 2" and "Inside Heidi 3," which is apparently the last in one of the great cinematic trilogies of all time.

An expat friend of mine had an experience which could well have been the opening scene for “Inside Heidi 4: Heidi Gets a Desk Job.” He had a big deadline, and so was working at about 9 p.m. (which never happens here, as everyone evacuates the office by 5 or 6 as if their lives depended on it). It was hot, and, being in Switzerland, his office did not have air conditioning. He turned off the lights, but the office was still boiling. So he took off his clothes, and typed away at his computer clad only in his boxers. He figured that no one would be the wiser, as it was 9 p.m., and no one would be in the office until the next morning.

Except for the cleaning lady, who walked into a darkened room, thinking it was empty, and was quite startled to find an almost-naked man sitting in front of a glowing computer.

She was understandably embarrassed to interrupt whatever it was that he might have been doing alone, half-naked, with his computer in a dark room, and tried to make a hasty escape. He was embarrassed by what he thought she must be thinking, and so insisted that she stay and go about her business, while he continued working and tried to pretend as if it were a perfectly normal situation, to be sitting in his underwear while the cleaning lady was collecting trash and vacuuming the floor. This would never happen in an American office because: 1) American offices have air conditioning, and 2) no one would just assume that the office would stay completely empty at 9 p.m. So be grateful for small blessings. Even if you work long hours and have less holiday, at least you can be pretty sure that the cleaning lady won’t walk in on you while you’re sitting in front of your computer in your underwear.

16 August 2005

Oh, Street Parade, what would Zurich be like without you? When else would normally straight-laced Swiss trash-baggers, rules-followers, early-to-bedders, noise-haters, and clothes-wearers be able to throw trash in the street, break all the rules, stay up late, make lots of noise, and run around in various states of undress? Maybe every society requires a certain amount of each of these things, and the Swiss, efficient as always, prefer to get it all over with in one big bash. My second Street Parade was less shocking than the first, although I still found much of it to be amusing, and I was often much bemused. Where to begin?

Nudity. It's so strange to walk through Zurich seeing people dressed (or undressed) as sexed-up cavemen, or sexed-up devils, or sexed-up something or others, and trying to imagine what they wear in real life. Maybe that woman who is wearing nothing but body paint and shoes usually wears high-waisted jeans with floral shirts. Maybe that man in the codpiece wears man-pris (my term for those capri pants for men that Europeans favor) with white socks and dress shoes. I bet that couple in faux fur and chains usually wear pleated pants and Birkenstocks. Seriously, looking around the city during Street Parade has the shock value of walking in on your middle-aged accountant surfing goat porn on the Internet. And then when he sees you, he proceeds to use the lamest pick-up lines ever coined in the history of mankind. (Two of my favorites from Saturday: "Did you go to Street Parade?" Um, no, I'm wearing devil horns and silver eyelashes and wandering around downtown Zurich at 2 a.m. to go to church. "Why are you wearing horns when you're an angel?" Uh, because that's what I was able to find in the store?)

Other things… Trash. It's everywhere – in the river, on the street, in the tram tracks, in doorways, on sidewalks. One mystery is how the Swiss are able to bring themselves to throw trash on the ground like that, when they are normally so fastidious about such matters. The greater mystery is how a city-wide carpet of trash can completely disappear by the next morning. Noise. Zurich goes from the quietest city in the world to the loudest city in the galaxy, just for one day. Your clothes (if you are wearing any) literally shake on your body, and the techno can seem loud even with earplugs on. Crowds. Zurich usually has a population of about 340,000, spread out over numerous neighborhoods. For Street Parade, 1,000,000 people crowd into downtown Zurich, mostly on or around one main bridge. How do all these people fit in such a small space? Where do they come from? Where do they go? Yes, they all go to after parties, and some of them go to the after-party in the train station, which is packed by late-night, standing room only, with lasers, fog machines, big banks of speakers, and neon lights. Imagine coming in on a train, not knowing about Street Parade, and arriving in the midst of such bedlam.

Ah, this year's slogan was "Today Is Tomorrow," which is really quite lame. Much better, in my opinion, was the Brazilian Jesus Parade (a group of Christian Brazilians who play drums and march around at the Street Parade opposing drugs and pushing Jesus). Evidently inspired by "Today Is Tomorrow," they had a big banner that proclaimed, "Tomorrow Must Be Now With Jesus," which reminded me of Japanese stationery, Chinese instruction manuals, and countless other sources of linguistic amusement.

Speaking of drugs, they are closely tied into the Street Parade tradition. If I had to explain Street Parade in one sentence, I would have to say that it's a big techno festival where Swiss people wear crazy costumes, listen to loud music, take lots of drugs, celebrate free love, and party all night. There are dozens of ambulances standing by for the overdoses, and there were sirens going all night. The openness and accessibility is rather stupefying. People bring out huge tanks of nitrous and boxes of balloons, and they deal out whipits in the street. Pot dealers print up business cards with their phone numbers and working hours, promising to deliver to your door. And here we were thinking that Switzerland was buttoned-down, prim and proper. Well, it is, usually. Just not during Street Parade.

8 August 2005

OK, my birthday weekend passed without excessive damage to person or property, and it was good to celebrate with a few dozen friends from Zurich, London, and Paris. Everyone made a strong effort to ensure that this once-in-a-lifetime event (turning 27) would not go un-feted, as evidenced by the many dozen cans and bottles that made it to the recycling center the next day. Trash day isn't until tomorrow, so the last traces of the party are still sitting in my kitchen, properly squashed and bagged, and I will take them out tonight, even though we aren't supposed to take trash out until 7 a.m., for fear that the foxes will get into them on their nocturnal rounds (because everyone knows that Swiss foxes go to sleep at 7, just as everyone knows that I'm up and ready to take the trash out at 7).

A few notes for future generations: absinthe is never as brilliant an idea as it might seem; keep everything (kitchen appliances, electronics, people, cleavers, candles) on the floor, because it will all end up there eventually; beware of confrontational Polish men in bars known to be Nazi hangouts; even if you aren’t taking pictures, chances are there are other people who did; nothing good happens after someone says, “Watch this!”; and ordering falafel can be trickier than you might think. So thanks to all who made it out to make things a bit less civilized around here. It was a birthday weekend to remember. Will collect pictures to post in a while.

So a few of my friends came in from out of town and had to get to my apartment from the airport, and while giving them directions, I realized just how absurd cabs are in Switzerland. It costs less than five dollars to get from the airport to my apartment, and all it involves is taking a ten-minute train ride and a five-minute tram ride, and the trains and trams run very frequently. Taking a cab takes almost the same amount of time, but it costs about fifty dollars, which makes no sense, unless it’s because almost all of the cabs here are Mercedes or BMWs. Maybe they could offer slightly more competitive prices if they would use normal cars.

But then, the Swiss don’t seem too fazed by over-priced goods and services. In fact, in many cases, they are more than happy to pay a huge premium, because they see higher prices as a sure sign that the product is better. They also like to pay a high premium for Swiss products, either out of some sort of economic patriotism, or out of a certainty that an egg or a computer or a light switch made in Switzerland is bound to be better than one from Germany or China. My friends who work at a Swiss manufacturer of light switches report that their company has 86% market share even though they charge double the price of their closest competitor… come on, they’re just light switches!! On, off, they all do the same thing, and I have never seen a light switch that made me think, “That is clearly a superior light switch, I’ll pay double for it!”

In order to pay for all of these expensive cabs and light switches, the Swiss carry a lot of cash. Credit cards are not so popular here, as many stores don’t accept them, and so most payments are made with cash or debit cards (but stores often only take Swiss debit cards). Zurich sometimes seems to have more ATMs than people, and they like dispensing cash in as few bills as possible. Withdraw 100 francs, and you usually get a single 100-franc note. Never fear, though, as everyone is always quite happy to make change for large bills, and you can go buy a candy bar for one franc at a newspaper stand, and the cashier will give you 99 francs change without blinking an eye.

There is no such thing as a checkbook here, and I don’t even know how you might go about depositing a check in your account. Instead, you can pay your bills online or through the post office, and the money just gets zapped from bank to bank, and from account to account. If you decide to pay at the post office, you take your bills and enough cash to cover them, take it all to the post office and hand it in, and they make sure the money goes where it’s supposed to go. Imagine walking into a post office in the States with a fistful of cash and your cell phone bill, handing it to the harried person behind the counter, walking out, and believing that your bill will be taken care of.

Street Parade next week; some friends and I are planning on Swissing it up a bit, so tune in next week to see how it all goes.

3 August 2005

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

26 July 2005

OK, a few more things on London, while I’m on the topic… Oftentimes, their public restrooms are marked, “Male Toilets” and “Female Toilets.” I didn’t realize that toilets had genders; they look pretty asexual to me. Although I suppose that “Toilets for Men to Use” and “Toilets for Women to Use” might be a bit wordy. Why do they name their subway lines? Northern, Piccadilly, District, how does the name of a subway line help at all? Give them numbers or letters or colors to make them easier to sort out on a map. One weird experience I had at the airport in London: some woman came up to me out of the blue and asked me if I was from Cyprus. Huh? Do I look like someone from Cyprus? What does someone from Cyprus look like? I’ve been puzzled by that one ever since. And one more random observation from London: as I was walking along, I saw a woman pushing her child in a stroller. OK, nothing strange about that. But the kid was strapped into the stroller using a 5-point harness, like you see on Formula 1 racecar drivers: shoulder, crotch, and waist straps converged on a central buckle. How fast is she pushing this kid that he needs a 5-point safety harness? So, yeah, Londoners are weird.

And so are the Swiss.

I went for a dive in Lake Zurich yesterday after work; it was my first dive in the lake, and my first dive in a drysuit. The water was about 6°C (43°F) at a depth of 24 meters, which was the deepest we went. It was pouring rain and dark above water, which meant that it was dark and mucky underwater. Visibility was 1-2 meters near the surface, and cleared up to about 10 meters further down. There were a few small brown fish, one big fish, a big water pipe, some other random stuff, and lots of silt. And still we went. A bunch of other divers were there, too. Apparently, Switzerland has more diving instructors per capita than any other country in the world, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they need so many instructors, if that’s the kind of diving they get to do. Of course, the Swiss also have a lot of money and free time, so I guess they can afford to buy all of the gadgets and gear and go on long dive holidays to tropical locations… And I guess that even I have succumbed to the local diving thing, as I have another one scheduled for next week.

So a new Asian grocery store opened up about two blocks from my office, and I am very excited. There are many reasons for this excitement. First of all, it’s very close to work, which means that it’s possible to get to the store after work, but before the store closes at 6:30. The other Asian stores are further away, and so weekday shopping is rather difficult. Second, it is quite large, and has more in stock than any of the other Asian markets in Zurich. It is about the same size as the Asian markets in the suburbs in the States, and I can go there to get anything from mangosteens to Chinese broccoli to dried mushrooms. Third, it is an Asian market, so the prices are cheap, compared to what you see elsewhere (although it is still more expensive than the Asian stores in the US, but any price differential is welcome). Fourth, they give what I call a “yellow discount.” My Asian friends and I have all gotten 10% off of our purchases, just for being Asian, as far as I can tell. This discount would not work so well in a place that has a decent-sized Asian population, since they would have to give a discount to most of their customers, but for once, my ultra-minority status here has served me well. Ahh… No longer do I have to dream about red bean buns, peanut candy, and summer rolls. I have found a store that sells them, that is open when I am free, that gives me a race-based discount!! (I suppose it’s pretty pathetic and a symptom of Swissification that I’m so glad to have found a store that sells things I want at a reasonable price and is open until 6:30 p.m. Oh, well, it’s the little things…)

However, I am currently in the process of finding shepherds to guide some things across the Atlantic for me: books, OTC medicines, random bits of gear, and other oh-so-essential items. As long as I refuse to buy my ibuprofen 10 pills at a time and beg friends to bring me toothpaste from Duane Reade and books from Barnes and Noble, I will know that on some level, I have not been completely conquered.

18 July 2005

Was I really only away for a week and a half? This vacation was so disconnected from Real Life. I left for London after work on the 6th, and met up with Kris and Lauren. The next morning, Lauren and I got on the Tube at around 9 and barely made it to the airport, as our train kept stopping and starting, with attempted evacuations, due (we later found out) to the bombings. We not-so-intelligently stayed on, undeterred by the "electrical failures" that the loudspeaker was warning us about, and determined to make sure that the shallow end of the gene pool made it to Egypt. At the airport, I managed to get my camera gear in as carry-on, even though it was 9kg over the 5kg limit (I used the Force, Obiwan-style, "This is not the overweight bag you are looking for...")

We had the plane ride from hell, as there was a very drunk group of wedding guests also on their way to Egypt. The full spectrum of the human drama unfolded on that flight. There was laughter, there were tears, there were tacky cowboy hats. There was crazed yelling and uncontrollable sobbing. Accusations of wrongdoing and declarations of friendship flew fast and furious through the recycled air. And we couldn't escape for five hours. (Or was it five years? Hard to tell.)

We got to Marsa Alam in Egypt, and after negotiating our way through customs and wrestling our luggage off the belt, we boarded the bus, 68% confident that the confused porters would load our bags on, as well. As the first group got off the bus, they had difficulty determining which bags to leave on for the continuing passengers, and I had to run out and tell them to put our bags back on, as the exiting passengers already had their own dive gear, and wouldn't have much use for ours. We got on the boat, and I popped the first of 36 Dramamines for the trip. There were 19 divers, mostly Brits, with a few Aussies and Irishmen, plus one American, me (represent!) We had three dive guides: two Ahmeds and one Ali Baba (no joke), who was deaf, but made up for his lack of hearing with an over-the-top personality. The remaining crew included another Ahmed, a few Mohammeds and Mahmouds, and other crew members who had their own names to themselves.

On a typical day, we woke at 5, dove at 6, had breakfast at 8, dove at 11, had lunch at 1, dove at 3, had afternoon tea at 4:30 (seriously, we did, the boat catered to Brits, and by the way, the British are weird. They weigh themselves in a combination of stone and pounds, but can't tell you what a stone is, exactly, and their hot and cold water taps are usually separated, so you either have scalding hot or freezing cold water, but never nice and warm. Anyways, back to what I was saying), dove at 6, and had dinner at 8. Then most of the others would stay up doing God-knows-what, and I would go to bed at 10 like the withered old almost-27-year-old that I am (I blame it on the Dramamine, but it's probably also partly due to my natural slothfulness).

What did we see? Short version: fish, coral, and water. Less-short version: hammerhead and reef sharks, lion fish, spotted rays, morays, wrecks, Napolean wrasse, scorpion fish, clown fish, unicorn fish, groupers, anemones, feather stars, loads of coral, and so on. Unabridged version: go dive the Red Sea and find out for yourself. Several passengers succumbed to what one of the divers dubbed "Pharoah's Revenge," a close relative of Montezuma's Revenge. Through the vomiting and bathroom breaks, we kept our minds on the most important thing... (Family? Friends? Health? Love?) ...Diving.

The last day, we were at a resort in Marsa Alam, waiting for the nitrogen to leave our blood (the bends are overrated). It was a sunny, shadeless, breezeless 105F (40C), so we did what anyone would do and jumped into the 92F (33C) pool (yes, it was warm enough even for me!!) and played water polo. The resort was one of those all-inclusive resorts in the middle of nowhere (I've never been so in the middle of nowhere before), with organized activities like synchronized dance and water aerobics (do people really go there for a whole week??)

Caught the plane back to London, after a brief scare about plane tickets, and we were a tad wary upon being reunited with the stars of the prior flight's drunken soap opera, but they had apparently been hit with elephant tranquilizer darts, much to our relief. Got into Gatwick, trudged through customs (I've never been so heavily questioned in customs before, probably a combination of the prior week's bombings, the Egyptian origin of our flight, and my highly suspicious terrorist-like appearance), got our baggage, and parted ways. I made it to my friend's place around 4 a.m. after sharing a train compartment with a sleepy man who had wet his pants. Spent a day and a half in London, during which time I had dim sum, a Chinatown massage, and met up with a friend from a previous life.

It was with great relief that I finally got back to my apartment and dropped my 88 pounds (40kg) of dive gear and camera equipment. As I took a midnight shower, I was supremely thankful that I am not in a building that forbids late night showering. Tonight I will do laundry late into the night. I feel like such a Swiss-style rebel. But I wish I were still diving...

4 July 2005

Happy Fourth of July (for whatever it's worth these days)!! It’s a bit annoying to note that we’re celebrating the downfall of a George who has been dead for two centuries, while living under the de facto rule of another George who is doing much more to offend us than just taxing tea and stamps. Instead of quartering soldiers, he’s sending them out to wreak havoc elsewhere. Instead of settling for having us hate him, he’s making the rest of the world hate us. Say goodbye to Roe v. Wade, any hope of gay marriage, and separation of church and state, because present-day George wants to turn the Supreme Court into a party-line assembly of Scalias and Thomases. Who needs education, health care, and a stable economy when you can have so much more fun ruining international relations and wrecking the environment? There’s a reason I semi-facetiously titled my Fourth of July mass-mail “American Refugee Pride Day.”

Speaking of the Fourth of July, I was in the grocery store over the weekend, and came across a display case for Swiss National Day party supplies, which included fireworks and flags and so on (Swiss National Day comes about a month after the Fourth of July, so it’s convenient that they like to prepare in advance). Fireworks can be hard to come by in the US, as they are illegal in many states, but when you do buy them, you can usually tell what it is that you’re buying, as they have instructions or pictures. Here, on the other hand, you can get your fireworks at the grocery store, and once you’ve bought them, you have no idea what any of the fireworks (if that is indeed what they are) are supposed to do. In a huge snub to tort law and product liability, the Swiss package their fireworks in generic boxes with pictures of happy children celebrating. No big warnings or disclaimers, no instructions or suggestions, no pictograms or explanations. I’m guessing that you just light them and hope for the best. Are you supposed to put them on the ground? Hold them? Throw them? Only one way to find out. Got matches?

Not only can you buy fireworks at the grocery store, you also go there to get clothes, houseplants, Swiss Army knives, government-issue trash bags, and other sundry items. In fact, a few weeks ago, I was accosted by a store representative asking me to take a written survey in German, in exchange for a free chocolate bar. Obviously, I took it. I like chocolate. They asked me to compare the store’s produce and meat with that of their competitors. Sure. Location, price, selection, all things you would expect to be asked about. But they also asked me where I preferred to buy my clothing and, if not at the grocery store, then where and why. I have a feeling that certain people buy their clothes at the grocery store, and others don’t, and that there is little you can do to make people switch. Personal opinion, but I think that their marketing and research money would be better spent trying to get a bigger share of the food market, as I don’t anticipate adding pants or sweaters to my grocery list any time soon.

Anyways, I got my Swiss driver’s license in the mail last week (they mail it to you about a week or two after you go to the Swiss DMV, not wanting or being able to give you the license on the spot). It has holograms, photo, and date of birth, as you would expect, but no address or expiration date. I’m assuming that they don’t put an address on there because the license is good for life, and the address is unlikely to stay the same forever (but then again, is a picture of my 26-year-old self going to be all that useful when I’m 70?) The license also came with a letter from the Swiss DMV, with standard information about the newly issued license, as well as a paragraph about the credit-card-size format. Until just a few years ago, Swiss (and other European) driver’s licenses were large pieces of stiff paper with a signature and photo. I’m assuming that they were easy to fake, and that they did not withstand being put in wallets or washing machines very well. And so the DMV’s letter very proudly pointed out that the “new” licenses are durable, portable, convenient, and modern. I had no idea that wallet-sized, plastic driver’s licenses were considered such a recent and revolutionary advance in ID technology.

I’m trying to get my act together for my upcoming dive trip. I’ll be flying to London, catching a charter flight down to Egypt from a different London airport, spending a week on a boat, and then doing the whole thing in reverse. It’s not an insignificant feat to navigate myself, a carry-on of regulators, a suitcase of camera gear, and a body bag of dive gear through four airports and four flights, but I’m hoping to make it there and back with sanity intact. One thing that will help is that the Swiss, blissfully confident that terrorists will not attack, invite passengers to bring their bags to the airport one day early, pick seats, and leave their luggage. Even stranger, for about $15 per bag, you can take your baggage to the train station, give them your information, and leave your bags. They take the bags to the airport and load them on the plane for you. Seems a bit lax for a country that is so paranoid as to rig the bridges and tunnels to self-destruct, require all able-bodied males to serve in the military, and build enough bomb shelters for every man, woman, and child.

So. I’m off to go shark hunting in Egypt, so I’ll be on hiatus, and back with some great stories (definitely) and pictures (hopefully) in two weeks.

American Refugee Pride Day

Editor's Note: As you probably know, the 4th of July is this coming Monday, and for some of us, that means that it's time to celebrate the end of the tyranny of King George (whether the current George is treating us any better is open to debate... well, actually, no, it's not really open to debate, Georges apparently just suck all around, so let's all join in for a hearty round of "Down With King George!! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A," and so on).

How better to celebrate Independence Day than by not having a four-day weekend, and by going to work on Monday? Don't answer that. Thanksgiving weekend (or not-Thanksgiving weekend) is even more depressing. Instead, come to the lake after work to hang out, grill some manly meat (I'll bring a small but manly grill if you bring some manly meat), have a few drinks (BYOB), and go swimming (if you so desire).

Let's meet in the grassy knoll (not that one) on the Enge side of the lake, tram 5 to Rentenanstalt, in what Niko calls the Arboretum, which looks, to the untrained eye, like a big park. Bring anyone you like; this is by no means limited to Americans.

WHAT: AMERICAN REFUGEE PRIDE DAY (aka 4th of July)
WHEN: MONDAY, JULY 4TH, 7 PM on...
WHERE: Lakeside park (or arboretum) at Rentenanstalt
WHO: you and anyone you feel like inviting
BRING: food, drinks, fireworks, blankets, George effigies, etc. I will bring a small grill with charcoal, and lighter fluid for the grill and the effigies.

Email me with questions, or call my cell if you have trouble finding us.

27 June 2005

I went to the symphony on Friday with three friends. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the concert hall is air conditioned, unlike most other buildings in Zurich, and will look forward to that (as well as the music) for the two performances I will be going to this week. Once it was established that the hall was air conditioned, the experience was nearly identical to other classical music performances I have attended in the past: older audience, musicians in formal black dresses or tails, polite silence and polite applause, when appropriate. There was only one noticeable difference. Someone near me took the liberty of farting three times during the performance, with great (but silent) gusto. It is difficult to concentrate on motifs, themes, and soloists when there are intermittent waves of noxious gas coming from an unknown location. Is uncontrolled public farting socially acceptable here? (Granted, I have been the victim of anonymous toxic farts in other cities around the world, as well).

Speaking of socially accepted behaviors, many of my male friends, if they are travelling together and find themselves to be four males sharing a hotel room with two double beds, will end up sleeping one person in each bed and two on the floor, to avoid the awkwardness of sharing a bed. This has always seemed absurd, as female friends will share beds with each other, and males and females will share beds, if they are good enough friends to do so. If you have beds for four, why put two people on the floor? Swiss men have gotten over their fear of looking unmanly in this arena, (and also in the arenas of shopping, hair products, clothes, and shoes), which makes a lot of practical sense.

Another difference in social behavior is rampant PDA (also known as public display of affection). Although the Swiss are generally reserved and all about social boundaries, that changes once they find boyfriends and girlfriends. Walk down the river or past a park bench or by the lake, and you will see dozens of couples going at it with such fervor that if they were in Manhattan, they would surely earn several whistles, jeers, and pleas to “get a room.” Some will try to cover themselves with blankets, which leaves something to the imagination (but not much), and others will just play tongue hockey and try to make it ‘round the bases without any sort of privacy barrier. My theory is that they save up all of the public affection that most Americans would spend hugging friends, and they lavish it all on extravagant PDA.

Despite this apparent physical closeness (at least in public, who knows if they are all similarly affectionate in private), the Swiss still keep certain boundaries in their relationships. Even if it’s OK to do joint tonsil inspections and breast exams in public, and even if it’s OK to share a bed in parental domiciles, it is absolutely not acceptable to burp (or even worse, to fart) around your significant other (although it might be OK to fart around your S.O. if you are at the symphony, as that might change the rules, but don’t hold me to that one). Apparently, even if you know someone well enough to exchange all sorts of caresses, familiarities, and bodily fluids, you still don’t know them well enough to let them know that you burp. Hold it in, or save it for the symphony.

To follow up on the diving thoughts that have been popping up in these entries lately: last week I ran into a group of divers going in for a night dive, and I got so jealous that I finally made up my mind to cross over to the Dark Side, get a dry suit, and start diving cold water, altitude dives, and lake dives. Fortunately, underwater communication uses universal hand signals, and above water, most of the divers here speak good English, so I won’t have to fumble around in my already very poor German for obscure diving terminology. I’m going back to the pool this Wednesday to start testing out my cold water gear. I can only hope that the synchronized swimmers will be there again, so that I can get a few pictures of them before they run away. (For those of you who have seen Mr. Helgen in Nigel's show... [said in a broad indeterminate accent] "Easy peasy, if we creep up on the swimmers before they realize we're here, we might catch a few on film, and if we're very lucky, we might even be able to trap a few. I hear that they're juicy like squirrel.")

20 June 2005

Ah, summer, with its sunny, blue skies, leafy, green trees, and weekend yodelling festivals. Yes, yodelling festivals. My friends and I went to the triennial Jodlerfest this past weekend in a nearby town, and wandered from tent to tent, having beer, sausage, and ice cream (the three major food groups in Switzerland in the summer time), in between checking out scheduled and impromptu performances by solo and group yodellers, bands, and alpenhorn players (for those of you who aren�t familiar with alpenhorns, they are the really long wooden horns that always show up in Ricola commercials). Traditional Swiss music is all in a major key, and it is very leisurely and placid, which befits a non-warmongering country, I suppose. It is very peaceful music that you could picture being sung in the mountains, and it follows the predictable verse- chorus- verse- chorus format (or, more accurately, verse- yodel- verse- yodel). The singers all stand with their hands in their pockets (I have no idea why, but they all did it that way).

All of the performers (and there were hundreds and hundreds of them) were decked out in traditional regional costumes (that, I was told, cost thousands of dollars each). In one region, apparently, the men wore dangly gold earrings in their right ears, which seemed to say Pirate more than Mountain Man. Other men�s costumes involved fitted black velvet blazers with short, puffed sleeves, worn over a long-sleeved white shirt, or ornate leather suspenders with brass cows and landscapes on them. And there were lederhosen, too, obviously. Can�t have a proper Jodlerfest without having men running around in leather shorts and knee socks! Women had long, old-fashioned dresses with laces and aprons and other old-timey touches you would expect. The surprises showed up more often in their headgear. Some had what appeared to be starched, white lace mohawks pinned on top of their heads, and others had large, frilly black nests of lace that were two feet in diameter.

The oddest performance of the day, perhaps, was a group of about a dozen men, each carrying the biggest cowbell in the world, about as big around as your arms can reach, and as long as an adult thighbone. They walked along in sync, swinging these cowbells with each step. That was it, that was the performance: men walking with cowbells. No melody, no harmony, no real performance, just walking with oversized, clanging cowbells.

One interesting thing was that this highly traditional festival was as eagerly embraced by young people as by older people. Twenty-somethings ran around in their traditional gear, singing traditional Swiss songs while sitting and rocking from side to side on wooden benches in the street, accompanied by accordions and wooden spoons. Some jarring reminders that they were indeed young people from the 21st century were that they had punkish highlights under their lace caps, had nose rings and tongue piercings, and took breaks from yodelling to talk on their cell phones.

Anyways, last week I took all of my dive gear and my camera and underwater housing (which I had just gotten back from repairs) to a swimming pool to test it all out. We were there after-hours, and the people in the pool before us were synchronized swimmers, practicing their routine. Apparently, in Switzerland, all of the weird water people come out after closing time, as evidenced first by the pack of grinning, kicking, perfectly timed girls, and then by the half dozen people trying out wetsuits, dry suits, tech diving gear, camera gear, and underwater MP3 players (I am dying to get one of these now, having tried it firsthand). I can only imagine what the people thought when they saw me on the tram, lugging about 50 pounds of dive and camera gear, complete with fins, regulators, wetsuit, dive computer, mask, snorkel, and so on. And the Swissification continues, as I am seriously considering starting to dive Lake Zurich, after a year of resisting the idea.

14 June 2005

Zurich is eternally under construction. You will never see a pothole or a crack in the pavement, because they rip up their roads and sidewalks and redo them before any potholes or cracks can form. They do this with the tramlines, as well, tearing up and replacing the tracks before they show any wear and tear. Why have two workers fixing something for a day when you can have eight workers replacing it for two weeks? It’s good for unemployment, and it also makes everything look shiny and new all the time! Every workday, there are packs of construction workers jack-hammering pavement, removing debris, mixing concrete, laying down asphalt, and doing whatever else they do in their impossibly clean and blindingly fluorescent orange pants and shirts. (I have never seen such orange pants, and I’ve never seen construction workers in such clean clothes).

The Swiss (and Swiss construction workers and contractors) get up way too early for their (my) own good. When I lived in New York, my next-door neighbor was having work done, so for several weeks I was rudely awakened at 9 o’clock every morning by the hammering and scraping of the contractors. If only workers here started at 9 o’clock, since I am out of the apartment by 8:40 every day. No, here in Switzerland, if there is work being done in my building, it starts at 7 o’clock, just to make sure that I can enjoy an hour or so of jarring noise before I get out of bed. I suppose I could get up at that time, as well, but as a matter of principle, I refuse to be vertical before 8 o’clock, unless (as has happened several times so far), I have a delivery or workman coming over at 7 o’clock, in which case I am sure they are quite stunned that I stumble to the door in my PJs and then shoo them out as quickly as possible so that I can crawl back into bed.

As long as I’m on the subject of workmen and apartments, I’ve had a rather strange little ongoing story. My building is very old, since it is in the historic district of Zurich, and so it needs some work from time to time to fix leaks and cracks and so on. Since I moved in, my landlord has had to enter my apartment about four or five times, sometimes with a workman, to check on the roof, fix a leak, do some painting, or whatnot. He does this when I am at work. A while back, when he was checking the roof, he decided that my roof terrace was overgrown, and had a gardener come in to weed, prune, trim, and sweep. A few weeks ago, he let a painter in to paint the corner of my living room, and when I came home after work, the bathroom had been cleaned -- the sink, counter, and toilet were scrubbed so that they looked factory-fresh, even though the apartment visit had nothing to do with the bathroom. Sort of odd, but, hey, free bathroom cleaning. Last week, he had to check for leaks or cracks that might explain a problem with the apartment downstairs. When I came home, the hallway and stairs had been vacuumed.

It’s like I have little apartment-cleaning fairies that come in and clean one thing each time. I wonder if he comes in, decides it’s messy, and cleans it himself, or if the workman does it, or if he calls in a cleaning person. And why clean at all, or why clean only one thing? It weirds me out thinking about it, these little mini-cleaning projects that take place each time the landlord comes by. I hate cleaning, and it’s nice to have some of it taken care of sometimes, but this is just too creepy, even for me. Now I don’t know whether to let things get messy before he comes over, to take advantage of the Cleaning Fairy, or if I should clean up beforehand, to avoid the weirdness.

Despite being in an old building, my apartment (thankfully) has a dishwasher, and the washer and dryer are right outside my front door. I grew up using dishwashers and clothes dryers, and it has always seemed unthinkably inconvenient not to have them, but it is quite commonplace here to wash all dishes by hand and to hang your laundry out to dry. In fact, I have met Swiss people my age who have never used a dishwasher or clothes dryer (in fact, one of them, despite never having used a dryer, categorically said that they were not to be trusted. On the other hand, he was also mistrustful of foreigners, women with opinions, and lawyers, so as a foreign, opinionated, female, dishwasher- and dryer-using lawyer, I must have seemed especially shady.)

7 June 2005

It has been an action-packed week, as Zurich continues waking up from winter hibernation. Friday night, some friends and I went to the symphony, which was having one of its regular special events, designed to reach out to a younger audience. The 1,500 person audience sat through the Beethoven violin concerto, quietly drank beer, applauded boisterously when appropriate, and at the end, demanded two encores. After that, the audience flooded the foyer of the symphony hall, decked out in clubbing gear, drinking beer, and rocking out to the live electric cello-mixing table-drum ensemble. Only in Switzerland could you get a bunch of punks to pay $25 to sedately drink over-priced beer and listen to Beethoven before dancing to an electric cello ensemble.

Saturday was the Christopher Street Day Parade, which is the gay pride parade in Zurich. I realized that this was probably what was going on my first weekend in Zurich last year, when I saw a troupe of men in tighty-whities doing synchronized aerobics in the street and was very puzzled. In any case, the parade was relatively low-key; I imagine that people are saving their most over-the-top gear for Street Parade in August, but there were still a few people in full drag, half nude, or sporting full bondage gear. One amusing moment was seeing a banner that read “Zurich Bears.” There is currently this strange thing going on here, with dozens of large bear statues that have been painted in different ways, on exhibit around Zurich, similar to the cow thing we had a few years back in the U.S. I got confused, wondering why they would have a banner for the statues in the gay pride parade, before remembering that “bear” refers to an entirely different concept in the gay community.

After the parade, there was a street festival with (what else but) sausages and beer, a well as other food and drink, including absinthe, which, after trying it for the first time, I can heartily NOT recommend. If you’re wondering how the Swiss feel about gays in the military, the Green Berets had a gay pride truck, decked out in camo and rainbow flags. Next to the truck, one soldier was hugging another soldier while caressing his chest, and right next to them, one of their comrades blithely chomped away on a grilled sausage. My favorite quote of the day came from my friend, who said, “Hey, the guy with the tiara is wearing an assless apron!”

Later on, there was a concert that was billed as “Swedish electronica,” but was more of a cheesy wedding band. The band, Alcazar, felt the need to include their name in every song, and most of their songs were sort of cheesy remixes of existing songs, like, “We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning, and our name is Alcazar, so sing with Alcazar!” They had coordinated Star Search-style dance moves, and it was like Abba gone horribly bad. So bad that it was worth staying to watch for an hour.

Sunday I spent the day in Appenzell, which was the last canton to give women the right to vote, and where the stereotypical residents are short and mountain-dwelling. I spent the day half-expecting to be stoned by misogynistic Oompa Loompas, but alas, none were to be seen, as it was Sunday, and the Oompa Loompas apparently stay inside counting their cacao beans on Sundays. Sunday was also the day of a nationwide referendum, in which the Swiss voted on whether to loosen trade restrictions with the EU, and on whether to give gay partnership rights. I was surprised and happy to find out that both measures passed, and can only hope that this is a good sign for progress in conservative countries in general (ahem, yes, I’m talking about my homeland, unrecognizable as it is these days). At some point, I will have to post something about the intense propaganda campaigns that preceded this vote and others.

In other news, I'm trying to get a Swiss driver's license, which I can get without taking a test, since I have a valid U.S. license. I find the whole thing amusing, since they assume that having a license means: 1) that I can drive well, and 2) that I know how to drive stick. Also, I have to get a vision test at most 24 months beforehand, which makes sense at first, until you stop and realize that a Swiss license is good FOR LIFE, in which case, after 30 years, does it really matter if the vision test was given 24 or 25 months before you got the license?

30 May 2005

They definitely do things differently here. Office culture is so unlike the working world to which I was accustomed before coming to Switzerland last year. As noted in prior entries, the Swiss tend to start and end their days early, often going to work at 7 so that they can leave at 4. They are legally entitled to have a lunch break, and many offices also have two scheduled coffee breaks per day. They also have no idea what normal people should make doing normal jobs. Swiss secretaries routinely take home an annual salary of $50,000, and complain that they are grossly underpaid for their 37.5-hour workweeks. (Edit: Keep in mind that, what with taxes and exchange rates, to make the same take-home pay in the U.S., your gross salary would have to be over $65,000).

On top of those general guidelines, however, are some smaller oddities. For instance, many Swiss wear regular shoes to the office, and then change into slippers for the day – Birkenstocks, flip flops, sandals, house shoes, the kinds of shoes you would usually avoid wearing in a business setting. It is the complete opposite of what you see in the States, where people wear comfortable shoes for their commute, then change into dress shoes for the office.

Also, the Swiss see nothing strange in wearing the same clothes three days in a row. In New York, if I saw someone wearing the same shirt and pants for more than one day, I assumed that they had unexpectedly slept elsewhere and hadn’t had time to change. Not the case here. The Swiss will wear an outfit all day, go home, take it off, go to bed, get up, put the same outfit back on, go through another day, go home, take it off, go to bed, get up, and wear it yet again, without ever thinking twice about it.

My office building is currently undergoing some renovations on the ground floor. The building management unilaterally decided to shut off water in the entire building one afternoon, so that the renovations could continue, informing all of the people working in the building that we would have to use the restrooms at the grocery store down the street, instead. When asked why they couldn’t shut off the water and do the work after hours or on a weekend, they replied that it would be more expensive to hire workers outside of business hours, and that it would cost the building tenants additional money to do so, which seems absurd, since most of the tenants have nothing to do with the construction. In my opinion, the one tenant instigating the construction should be obliged to pay the additional construction costs to allow the rest of the building to continue using their normal bathrooms and kitchens, instead of making bathroom migrations to the grocery store. But that would be logical, and we never said that things were logical here, did we?

Speaking of water, some residential buildings shut off the hot water after 10 p.m., since people clearly don’t need hot water after 10. These are often the same buildings that prohibit nighttime toilet-flushing, require men to sit down when using the toilet after 10, schedule laundry days a year in advance, and ask that walking be kept to a minimum during quiet time. How are you supposed to fulfill all of your hot water needs by 10 p.m.?

The weather forecasts are rarely accurate more than a few hours in advance here – Zurich weather is terribly unpredictable, with clouds, sun, hail, and rain coming and going on fast-forward, like in those accelerated weather pattern clips you see on TV; the weather can rarely make up its mind and stick to a plan, resulting in weeks where the highs are in the 80’s on Monday and the 50’s on Friday, with sun showers and hailstorms in between.

For the past four days in a row, however, the weather has been perfect summer weather, 80 and sunny (although there were thunderstorms predicted for three out of the four days), and I have been spending lots of time outside, having picnics in the park, reading on my terrace, napping by the lake, or just walking around, and it doesn’t get dark until 9:30, so by the time I go home (which has been after 10), sleepy and sticky from spending hours in the sun, I want to take a shower. It’s so great that the weather has been nice, and that I have the time to spend so much time loafing around outside, and (I feel ridiculous saying this), I’m so lucky to live in a building that lets me take showers after 10 p.m.

24 May 2005

So I went back to the doctor’s office early Sunday morning, the bronchitis not having cleared up yet. The doctor prescribed three more medications this time around: antibiotics, another kind of fizzy pill, and cough syrup. In the past, cough syrup always came in fairly large bottles, the syrup itself was clear and relatively watery, it tasted bad for a moment, but it was OK, because you only have to take one spoonful. This cough syrup comes in a bottle that only has six doses in it, which, at three doses a day, only lasts two days, which seems rather optimistic for a bad cough. The syrup is opaque, almost the color of Pepto, the consistency of cream of mushroom soup, and tastes the way that Vick’s Vaporub smells. It also leaves my entire mouth numb for a while after taking it, especially since I have to take three large spoonfuls each time. You would think that its thickness would mean that it’s more concentrated, and therefore requires a smaller does than traditional cough syrup. You would think.

Since I’m on the subject (sort of), let’s talk about other products that have unexpected incarnations in Switzerland. I have always been obsessed with ice cream. The Chinese word for ice cream was part of my earliest vocabulary. The Swiss love ice cream, as well. They advertise it in posters and movie trailers, and there are ice cream stands all over the place. They have also realized that sex sells, and so they advertise their ice cream with suggestive ad campaigns that remind me of American beer commercials. I thought it went a little too far, however, when I picked up a box of bite-sized ice cream bonbons, and they were called “Magnum Moments,” which sounds more like a line of condoms than chocolate-covered ice cream balls.

Another fixation of mine is gummy candy. I could live off of gummy candy, and fortunately, it is popular here, as well. In the past, I was accustomed to eating gummy bears, gummy snakes, gummy cherries, and so on, but each package of candy followed some sort of theme. Bears came with bears, fruit slices came with fruit slices, snakes came with snakes. Here, gummies mix together in one package, and they are not limited to the traditional gummy shapes. Guitars, race cars, camels, letters and numbers, tennis rackets, bottle openers (yes, they make gummy bottle openers), lips, men with ties, they all come in one big package of delicious gummy confusion.

I never cease to be amazed at the Swiss ability to assemble and disassemble large structures quickly and completely. One day, it’s a parking lot, the next day, there is a giant Ferris wheel, and a couple of months later, the Ferris wheel disappears overnight, leaving nary a trace that it was ever there. They also do this inside the main hall of the train station. Since I have been here, there have been large sculpture installations, farmer’s markets, a large Christmas market, and rock concerts inside the train station. Currently, there is a movie theatre. They built an entire movie theatre, complete with stadium seating, velvet curtains, and a box office in the middle of the train station.

Not everything remains a novelty, however. Despite efforts to maintain my own identity and fight Swissification, I have learned to go grocery shopping early and often (although I still sometimes go hungry out of laziness), to take the trash out on appointed days (although I still smuggle trash and cardboard out from time to time), to time my days according to the tram schedules (although I often end up taking one tram later than I had planned, due to my own absent-mindedness). I like the fact that I have adjusted, but I also like the fact that I haven’t adjusted perfectly – my own identity is in there somewhere, fighting against total Swissification. One area in which I have become Swissified, however, in which I never thought I could, is with morning bells. I have clear sightlines, and therefore “hearinglines,” to three churches, and the bells that chime every quarter hour around the clock, with extended ringing before church services, are quite loud. When I moved in, I thought I would never get used to the 15 minutes of bells at 7 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends, but somehow, I now sleep through them. With the help of earplugs, of course. But they used to wake me up, even with the earplugs. Let full Swissification begin.

18 May 2005

I got sick just as my travel schedule picked up, and had my first experience going to the doctor’s office here. She listened to my lungs and ordered blood work and X-rays, which seemed a bit excessive, but I went along with it. At the end of the visit, she told me that I didn’t have TB or pneumonia, but that I did have bronchitis, and she wrote a few prescriptions, which required more explanation than I’m accustomed to. America is all about the magic pill: take two of these and call me in the morning. Here, I received three medications: one was a set of blue and white pills, marked with suns and moons, to be taken at different times of day; one was a box of tablets to be dropped into boiling water and inhaled under a tented towel; the third was a tube of large tablets to be dropped into cold water and drunk once they finished fizzing and dissolving. I got to keep my X-rays, instead of leaving them on file with the doctor. Just what I’ve been needing – pictures of my lungs!

As I’ve mentioned in the past, mobile phone culture revolves around text messages much more than actual conversations, due in most part to the fact that cell phone calls are prohibitively expensive. However, SMSes are not limited to personal messages, as the many SMS spams I receive can attest. Upon picking up a new network, your phone receives several SMSes welcoming you to the network, telling you how to call a cab or check the weather, or which operators speak your language. Your phone company sends you system-wide SMSes detailing promotions and changes in policy. Dating companies advertise their services.

Yesterday, I received an SMS from the city of Zurich, informing me that the city was providing free beer in a public square to celebrate the victory of the local soccer team, which was perhaps the only useful spam SMS I have ever received. (Can you imagine the mayhem that would ensue if New York told everyone to come to a party with free beer?) I arrived, had a few glasses of free wine to celebrate the victory of a team I don’t follow in a sport I don’t watch. The square was packed with Zurichers (Zurichans? Zurichfolk?) drunkenly and happily sharing this moment of glory, drinking their free alcohol, eating grilled sausages, and singing some team anthem that shares the melody I have always known as “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends,” but is also known as “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The DJ played music for the crowd: “My Way,” “Forever Young” by Alphaville, “Song 2,” “Beautiful Day.” It was a fun impromptu party on the river, with scores of happy people shooting dangerous fireworks at will, and it was all thanks to an SMS about free beer.

I spent last weekend in Paris, catching up with friends from college and law school, and eating my way through the city. I didn’t hit any of the big tourist places, having done that on a past trip, although I did see the Eiffel Tower from a distance while walking from one place to the next, if you would really be upset if I didn’t see a single attraction. While there, I realized something that entertained me, really quite a small thing. In French, the word for “lawyer” is the same as the word for “avocado.” I went to law school for three years just to become a delicious, mushy, green fruit that is excellent on salads and in guacamole. There are worse vocations.

One of the best things about living here is that everything is so close. I have travelled to Vienna, Budapest, Paris, Barcelona, and Rome without ever flying for more than 2 hours. I can’t take a train for more than 3 hours without leaving the country. France and Spain become weekend destinations that are highly preferable to the places that were similarly accessible from New York. Instead of going to Pittsburgh, I could go to Florence. Instead of Newark, why not check out Berlin? Rather than going to Scranton, I can go to Seville. Not bad. The Swiss are used to this, and have difficulty imagining life any other way. A journey of 45 minutes is seen as one of epic proportions, and many will never travel to Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, because it is two hours away. These warped concepts of distance are even more comical when they apply them elsewhere. One friend had to dissuade her sister from her initial plans for a one-week trip to the States. She was flying in to New York, and was hoping to rent a car for the week, during which time she would drive from city to city, exploring New York, Boston, D.C., San Francisco, and L.A. By car. In a week.

10 May 2005

I spent four days in beautiful Budapest this past weekend, and despite being sick the whole time, I loved the city, which means it’s a great place, if I still liked it despite feeling like I was about to die the entire time. Like all places, it had its quirks, which I am only too happy to set forth here, not wanting to limit my snide remarks to one country. Let the record henceforth show that I am an equal opportunity mocker. Great city, though.

At one point, I tried to go to a pharmacy to get something for my throat, and the first place I went carried plenty of shampoo and candy, as well as some herbal remedies, but no medicine. I wanted to take a picture of a mysterious product called “American Aloe Vera Juice” that was made in China and labelled in Chinese, but the manager didn’t seem too keen on having pictures taken in his shop. When I finally did find a pharmacy that stocked medicine and started speaking to a pharmacist who spoke English, she nodded when I told her that my throat hurt, and nodded again when I asked if they had anything for a sore throat. Then she stood there. Finally, I asked her if I could perhaps buy something that they had for sore throats, and it was only then that she went to go find it (they keep all medication, even OTC, behind the counter, even cough drops). I’m not sure why she waited until then, and if she just thought I had gone in to make conversation.

Budapest has a population of about 2 million people, and an extensive public transportation to get them from point A to point B. When you go underground to take the subway (or when you are coming back out of the station), the escalators are the fastest escalators I have ever seen. To my litigious eye, it seemed like a tort waiting to happen, these staircases moving on fast-forward. Having successfully made it downstairs without being caught and shredded by the escalator, you validate your ticket and head for the platform to catch a train. A timer posted by the tracks tells you how long it has been since the last train left, rather than how much time remains until the next train comes. How useful, knowing how close you were to catching the previous train!

While travelling, I try to avoid the big tourist restaurants, both for budget concerns and for the experience. My friend and I headed out for lunch, and managed to find a cheap hole-in-the-wall with a long line of Hungarians waiting to be served. Not being able to read any Hungarian, we turned to someone in line with us for help. She told us to order one of the varieties of meat (most of which were breaded and fried), and one of the varieties of vegetables (most of which were finely diced or pureed, and served swimming in sauce). She then explained that most dishes had traditional pairings (sort of the way you would think fish and chips, or meat and potatoes). For instance, if you get pureed spinach, you should always get it with a hard-boiled egg. If you order chicken, you should get the carrots, and so on. I ordered the breaded, fried pork with a side of peas and carrots. The pork was quite good, but the “side” of peas and carrots was about three large portions of what looked like baby food, and was heavily sugared, rather than salted. I watched several Hungarians attacking their egg-and-spinach, and I believe my friend and I were the only ones who did not finish our Super-sized, sweetened vegetable puree. Cut us some slack, though, we tried.

America is world-renowned for, shall we say, the generous size of its citizens. I would like to propose that Hungary take its rightful place next to the U.S., as there were very large numbers of very large people roaming the streets of Budapest. Unfortunately, they were not only wandering the streets, but also the Turkish baths, where clothing is optional. I sat and tried not to stare as elephantine women sweated in the saunas, soaked in the heated pools, panted in the steam room, and lumbered and jiggled their way between rooms. I sat and definitely stared as one many-folded woman meticulously kneaded some oily, gooey substance into every crack and crevice on her beyond-voluptuous body. It is an image that will haunt me for life, and which will be forever linked in my head to Budapest.

Pictures coming soon, and next weekend I'll be in Paris, so the weekly update will be on Tuesday.

2 May 2005

I met a few expats last week, and it turns out that in most Swiss offices, all workers are required to clock in and out, to ensure that they are working the right amount of time. In many offices, the “right amount” is 8 hours and 9 minutes each day. The standard work day is 8 hours, but some offices give their workers an extra week of vacation between Christmas and New Year, and they compensate for this by working an extra 9 minutes a day for the rest of the year. Many offices also have scheduled coffee breaks twice a day that are sort of like “recess for grown-ups,” as one expat put it. One coffee break is at 9 a.m., as most Swiss like to get in to the office around 7:30, so 9 o’clock is a good time for a mid-morning coffee and snack. At my old office, if we had had a coffee break at 9, very few people would have been in the office in time to make it.

Yesterday was Labor Day in Switzerland, and the police were out in full force, decked out in their riot gear. I haven’t seen so many policemen since leaving New York. Apparently, the Labor Day traditions here don’t center around sales on school supplies, picnics, and barbecues. Instead, they have a workers’ parade (to go with the Labor Day theme), and the local Communist and Socialist organizations try to get the workers to unite. They have a yearly march down one particular street, and the riot police patrol that street very closely, as well as other key points in the city, because if they don’t, the marchers will sometimes decide to do a little bit of once-a-year, organized looting. It sounds like hooliganism, but if you think about it, at least you always know exactly when and where the looting might take place. It’s mob behavior, Swiss-style: planned, scheduled, and organized.

This Thursday, we have a day off for the Ascension, or Himmelfahrt, as they say in German. Being the mature person that I am, I am definitely not sniggering to myself while repeating the word “Himmelfahrt” under my breath. Definitely not. Just like I don’t find it at all amusing to see the word “Ausfahrt” painted on the asphalt at the exits from parking garages. Ahem, right. So I'll be spending Himmelfahrt weekend in Budapest. The next weekend, we have Monday off for Whit Monday, so I'll be in Paris for that weekend. Life is rough, I know.

Holidays and weekends are a source of both stress and relaxation here. Yes, it’s your time off, and there is no chance that you will have to work during that time. However, it is also time off for people who work in shops around town, so if you were hoping to do your shopping and run some errands, you had better get it all done Saturday afternoon, because everything shuts down after that until Monday morning. If you have a long weekend, get everything done beforehand, and shop as if a hurricane were coming, because if your office is closed, it’s a safe bet that everything else will be closed, as well. Planning for a long weekend now entails both figuring out how to spend the weekend, and stocking up on food and supplies, even if the weekend is to be spent lazing around the apartment (which it often does, since nothing is open on Saturday evening or Sunday, and so that standard weekend activity of “going shopping” is nixed).

Movie theatres do stay open all weekend, so if you’re willing to shell out about $15 a ticket, plus some money for snacks and drinks, that’s one way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Be careful what you see, though. Zurich is unique in that most movies are shown in their original language, so British and American movies are shown in English, with German and French subtitles (there are also dubbed options, so that you can see Vin Diesel moving his mouth with German voiceover, which would probably be more entertaining than the original, actually). However, if you go see a movie that was originally in Spanish, for example, the subtitles will still be in French and German, so unless you are fluent in one of those three languages, you could find yourself making up your own storyline and dialogue to go with the pictures.

Himmelfahrt. Heh heh...

25 April 2005

Yet another mystery in the world of Swiss laundry... Being my typical absent-minded self, I had forgotten to put a towel in with a load of laundry I was running, so I ran back upstairs to grab the towel to add to the wash. Upon returning to the washing machine, I grabbed the door of the machine to open it, and… nothing. The washing machine had locked itself shut once it started the cycle, and there was no way to open it. I tried turning the machine off, I tried resetting the dial, I tried pushing all of the buttons, but the machine had decided that it was going to finish what it had started, and it was not going to put up with any interruptions or added towels. Can someone explain why you would design a washing machine that locks? Do people here never need to throw something in one minute after they start a load of laundry?

Anyways… every time I go back to the States, I go to the drug store and stock up on all kinds of things: shampoo, conditioner, lotion, face wash, Advil, Dramamine, Claritin, and all kinds of other things that I could admittedly buy here in Switzerland, but which would come in much smaller packages with much higher prices. Yes, I actually lug back a bag full of things from Duane Reade because I am so opposed to the idea of paying an extra two bucks for a bottle of lotion in a brand I don’t recognize. I was much relieved to find out that other expats do this as well, and was chagrined to find out that there was one thing I had forgotten, which has an even higher mark-up margin: contact solution. I had forgotten to buy a bottle on my last expedition, and as it turns out, a bottle of contact solution costs about $15 here. D’oh.

Speaking of lotion and body wash, I come from a culture where those things are reserved for girls and metrosexuals. Here, however, such products apparently have universal appeal. Swiss boys buy body wash and facial lotion like nobody’s business, and try out new scents, foaming action, and cleansing beads with undisguised interest. I suppose they have more time and brain capacity to devote to such things, as they are only interested in one sport, soccer, as opposed to the big three that infect the minds of most American boys. When not watching soccer, they often go shopping (they adore their shoes here), often of their own accord, and not as a concession to a consumption-hungry girlfriend. And yes, Swiss boys really care about shoes. Before coming here, it was very rare that a guy would notice my shoes, but here, I have had several instances where a guy has noticed my shoes and complimented them or said that I really shouldn’t go out in them. (Being an American, I wear sneakers and flip-flops a lot. What can I say, they’re comfortable.) I haven’t figured out if it’s liberating to see such gender-bending behavior, or if it’s just sort of weird.

OK, so my landlord had to get into my apartment the other week to let a handyman do some roof repairs, and afterwards, he called me to tell me that he was also going to schedule a gardener to go onto my terrace to pull up the weeds and trim the plants and so on, because I had failed to do so myself. I was more than happy to let someone else do it, although I found it rather strange that he had expected the terrace to be perfectly manicured, seeing that it’s been winter for six months, and who does any gardening when it’s wintertime? Apparently the Swiss do. In any case, my terrace and I are now ready for summer, if only it would stop being rainy and cold.

It’s hard to believe I have been here for about 11 months already. Some things you get used to, and that’s a good thing. Some things you get used to, despite not wanting to get used to them. And some things you never get used to. One of those things is money. I still have difficulty with the money here. It’s colorful and differently sized. It’s like Monopoly money, and it’s hard to remind myself that it should not be treated as such. And there is on way to fold it neatly into your wallet, since they all fold to different sizes. And the people whose faces are on the money all look rather confused to be there. One man is in the act of taking off his glasses. One woman is wearing the kind of hat you use to cover up a bad hair day. One man looks distracted, as if someone asked him a question right before taking his picture. Come on, you’re being immortalized on widely used currency, can’t you wear contacts, comb your hair, and look into the camera?

19 April 2005

Yesterday was Sechseläuten. I'm still reeling, trying to convince myself that everything I saw actually happened. For the entire weekend leading up to the big day, there were marching bands, fife and drum bands, bagpipes, and drum lines marching around my neighborhood, getting themselves parade-ready. Makes sense, music ensembles need practice. What I found more puzzling was that there were often packs of people wearing period costume following them around; I wasn't sure if they were practicing wearing their costumes for the parade, or if they were just trying to get maximum wear out of these once-a-year outfits.

The big parade started yesterday afternoon at 3, and the twenty-six guilds of Zurich marched through the streets, accompanied by their standard bearers, marching bands, and guild-themed floats. The guilds were sort of the labor unions of yesteryear -- tanners, fishermen, blacksmiths, tailors, beermakers, merchants -- everyone had their own guild. The floats in the Sechseläuten parade reflect these old-time affiliations, so that the carpenters came by with a float made of large pieces of unfinished lumber with tools on display, and the blacksmiths had a group of hale young men hammering away in a mocked-up forge on wheels. The guilds no longer serve the same function that they once did, probably because there aren't blacksmiths and tanners anymore. Instead they are now social networking organizations for the Good Ol' Boys. If you want to be a member of the stablemasters' guild, you had better hope Grandpa is in it, because there is no other way you're getting in.

The guild members took the parade quite seriously, donning elaborate costumes that showed their allegiance. I have never seen so many men so excited to be wearing tights, velvet jackets, buckled shoes, feathered hats, and curly wigs. The spectators showed their appreciation by giving flowers to their favorite parading guild members. I heard that in the old days, when the guilds were for men only, they would bring the flowers home to their wives to show how much they loved them, but also to remind them of how popular they were with the ladies.

Each guild had a marching band of 50 to 75 people, and another 100 to 200 members, so that works out to over 5,000 costumes, and a very large but temporary rise in the demand for white tights. If you stop and think about it, there were perhaps 1,500 people in marching bands, all of which were quite good. If the same percentage of people were in marching bands in Manhattan, there would be almost 9,000 people running around on Fifth Avenue playing Sousa.

Some guilds went even further in showing their guild pride. One guild, which apparently was once made up of the men who harvested apples and made cider, was passing out apples. Other guilds threw flowers and candy to the crowds, and the winemakers gave out plastic cups of wine. The fishermen, on the other hand, had a basket full of whole fish that they were hurling at lookers-on. The group in the balcony behind us were carrying umbrellas to avoid the fish that were raining down on them, since the balcony was a prime target. After the fishermen had passed, the crowd continued tossing the fish around, sort of like beach balls at a rock concert, only messier.

Many of the guilds had dozens of horses, and it was quite a spectacle to see all the horsemen in full traditional costume, parading down the street. It almost made me forget to look out for the fish... And then there was that other guild. I have no idea what guild it was, but they were dressed like stereotypical desert sheiks -- long robe, spotted cloth tied over the head, rope belt. And, I kid you not, they were in brown-face. Each of them had taken paint and painted his face brown, which I hadn't realized was still socially acceptable. To complete their desert sheik chic, they had live camels and potted palms on wheels.

The parade kept going, with more over-the-top costumes and animals and projectiles, and the marching bands played such traditional Swiss numbers as, "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Living La Vida Loca," and "Blue Suede Shoes." By 6, however, everyone squeezed their way to Sechseläutenplatz, and the Böögg was set on fire. The firework-stuffed, gasoline-soaked cotton snowman was sitting on top of a huge wooden pyre, and it took 18 minutes for his head to explode, which is the defining moment in forecasting the summer. A couple informed me that 18 minutes is quite long, and the last nice summer they had, the Böögg only took 7 minutes to lose his head.

Later in the night, at around 11 p.m., the Böögg's funeral pyre was still burning, and the marching bands and guilds were still romping through the streets. Insane. Good times.