26 September 2005

So for the first time in over a month, I spent the weekend in Zurich. I spent no time in the airport or the train station, and was always within walking distance of my apartment. That’s not to say that the weekend was spent doing nothing, in fact, I’d say it was at least as busy as the weekends spent elsewhere.

Saturday, I realized that that once-in-a-blue-moon coincidence had happened: I was in town, awake, and not at work while the shops were open, so I set out to take care of a few things. I bought a wedding present for a friend (one year late, partly because she and I have a late-gift understanding, and partly because I’m rarely in town and free when the shops are open). I got confused wandering around downtown Zurich, and couldn't find a store I was looking for for about half an hour, because it had been so long since I’d walked around there.

I went to a pharmacy and bought the Swiss equivalent of Drano (finally). I walked into the pharmacy, since that’s the only place where it is sold, and asked the pharmacist for drain de-clogger. She asked me what I was going to use it for, and I told her I wanted to use it to de-clog my drain. Which drain? The bathtub. After assuring herself that I had no ill intentions, she retrieved a bottle from a locked cabinet, had me write down my name, address, year of birth, profession, and then sign for the bottle. In a country where most men have an assault rifle in their homes, they supervise the sale and use of Drano??

Then I met up with a friend, also American, with whom I have had several commiserating conversations regarding the difficulty of sleeping in a non-air-conditioned room in the summertime, and we went and bought air conditioners on sale. I’ve been here two summers now, and I’m finally buying an air conditioner, after twice thinking about it and not knowing how long I would be here and whether it would be worth the investment. I should have bought one right at the start, instead of suffering through two summers of hot nights. We took the air conditioners home by cab, and started setting one up. The boxes proclaim that they are “mobile” air conditioners, which seems to imply that you can easily set them up in one room, then move them to another room. They are ridiculously heavy, but they do have wheels, so I suppose they are somewhat mobile. The instructions however, in French, German, and Italian, begin with “Cut a hole in the wall,” which seems to defeat the units’ claim to being “mobile.” Sure, I guess you can move them from place to place, as long as you happen to have holes in the wall in all the places you want to move them to.

Saturday night, a friend was celebrating her birthday, so a group of us, all twenty-something American expats, met up for drinks before going dancing. The club was having an 80’s, funk, and retro night, which apparently meant Vanilla Ice, Nirvana, and other classics from junior high dances. The Swiss calmly danced to all of the songs, whereas the Americans, inspired by the prepubescent anthems, went crazy, jumping up and down, head-banging when appropriate, and screaming along to every almost-forgotten song. By the end of the evening, we were even trying to sing along to some songs that were apparently from European 80’s, as they were in Spanish or German. Nothing is funnier (sadder?) than a bunch of Americans trying to sing along with songs they have never heard before in languages that they don’t speak.

Finally, what’s with all the hurricanes? It must be karma for not signing on to the environmental treaties and pacts, although some say it’s karma for Iraq. Pretty insane stuff, and just horrible. To give the expat perspective, though, it didn’t occur to me to transfer money over to my U.S. account right after Katrina, when the dollar tanked for a few days, and it looks like it won’t tank this time around, so it looks like I won't be making a quick buck in the exchange. Tack that loss onto all the flooding and drowning and property damage ;) No, seriously, I was thinking that maybe this time around, they would evacuate everyone and then Rita would just go to town on the oil refineries, drive up the price of oil and gas, and jettison the exchange rate with minimal other property damage or loss of life. Oh, well, looks like I’ll just have to wait for Bush to do something else to mess up the economy…

20 September 2005

Back from the fourth weekend traveling in a row. Amsterdam, St. Moritz, Cork, and now London. Unless something really cool comes up this weekend, I think I’ll stick around and recuperate and remember what it’s like to live in Zurich, and give my bank account a chance to recover, although some of my friends will be heading up to Munich for Oktoberfest this weekend (aside: it has always amused me that Oktoberfest happens in September).

The evening before I went to London, I met up for a drink with a few friends at a bar near my apartment. You may recall that around the corner from my apartment, there is a porn cinema, which sits in the same square as the bar where we were meeting. A latecomer called to find out where we were, and I tried to give her directions while standing in the somewhat noisy street, and told her that it was near the porn cinema. “What cinema?” “Porn.” “What?” “Porn.” “What?” This continued for at least half a dozen iterations (she later explained that she thought I was saying "point," and was therefore confused), and it attracted the attention of several passersby, because not only was there an Asian girl outside of the red-light district, she was also standing there chanting, “Porn! Porn! Porn!” into her phone.

On Friday, four of us met up for dinner at the airport before catching our respective flights to Copenhagen, Vienna, and London. Only in Europe could you meet with a bunch of your friends for dinner at the airport before everyone catches their international flights for last-minute weekend trips.

My friend and I were both delayed getting into London, and further delayed trying to get to the hotel, due to London’s layout as an old European city with no perpendicular streets or numbered streets. We tried to get directions from various people, but they were all drunk, lost, unfamiliar with English, or visitors themselves. It was a minor miracle that we eventually found the hotel and checked in successfully.

We managed to meet up with five other friends, have sushi, go out for dim sum, catch a movie, and check out the Tate Modern while we were there. We also managed to get to the airport too late, so that I missed the check-in cutoff for my flight by ten minutes. The plane was still there, it just wouldn’t let anyone else on. The 7:45 p.m. flight was the last flight to Zurich, as Swiss noise regulations prohibit planes from taking off or landing after 11 p.m. So we spent an unanticipated eleven hours in Heathrow, waiting for the 6:20 a.m. flight. You would think that airports would have comfortable places to crash, since they are certain to have people on layovers or delays there at all times. We were lucky to find a carpeted patch of floor that wasn’t heavily trafficked. At one point, as we were trying to doze, we were woken by giggles and a flash, as a passing pair of travelers took a picture of us sprawled on the floor with our bags. They explained that they had once been stranded and had crashed in the exact same place we were crashing.

We were later roused by a policeman who wanted to see our passports and boarding cards to ensure that we weren’t terrorists or hobos, since we clearly fit those profiles, as fairly well-dressed, relatively clean-cut Caucasian males and Asian females are well-known threats to public safety. The policeman seemed suspicious that we each only had a small backpack, even after we explained that we were only in town for a weekend trip. I resisted asking him how much he packed when he went somewhere for the weekend, and whether he packed like a girl, as that seemed like the kind of suspicious question that a terrorist or hobo might ask, at least from the perspective of a British police officer.

Came straight to the office from the airport, and while I was sitting at my desk, bleary-eyed and zombie-brained, I received a spam SMS from my cell phone company offering me one million free SMSes for 30 francs (about $24), as long as the SMSes were sent in the next three months. It sounded like a good deal, since that’s about how much it costs to send 150 SMSes, until I realized that I send most of my SMSes for free online, so I don’t send 150 SMSes from my phone in three months, and who sends over 8,000 SMSes per day (to hit 1,000,000 SMSes over 120 days)?

15 September 2005

I spent a long weekend in Ireland, visiting a dive buddy. As ever, I have a few observations gleaned from my brief trip into the land of leprechauns, Guinness, and people with last names starting with “O.” The Irish (or the “Ish,” as my friend called them after getting the Irish and the Scottish mixed up, then deciding that they could be lumped together, only later realizing that there are many other Ish people: English, Flemish, Spanish, Finnish, Jewish…) are an interesting people.

True to stereotype, many of them have red hair, and they drink a lot. In the waiting area for my flight to Cork, I looked around and realized I had never been in a room with so many redheaded people at one time. As for the drinking, the Irish drink with their parents, they drink with their grandparents, they drink with their bosses, they drink on weeknights and for no reason other than that they can. The morning after a rough night out, they have breakfast with their parents and compare notes, commiserating over their hangovers. It’s a completely alien world.

Like their fellow Ish friends, the Brits, the Irish weigh themselves in stone, but are similarly unable to tell you what a stone is. Their bathroom scales are in stone, and thanks to Google, I found out that a stone is 14 pounds, which I find to be a pretty useless unit of weight. How often do you gain or lose weight in 14-pound blocks? Changes in weight are usually a pound or two at a time, and the difference between weighing 9 stone and 10 stone is really quite significant. The Ish mock us for hanging onto feet and Fahrenheit, and they still weight themselves in stone??

It’s always amusing to hear what kind of English is spoken by other native English speakers. Given the right combination of accent and slang, it can sometimes feel like a different language altogether. For instance, my Irish friend said that one of the local bars had “some good crack,” if we wanted to go there, and I sat there wondering if all of the Irish had such a nonchalant attitude towards one of the most addictive drugs in circulation. As it turns out, “crack” means “fun” or “good times” over in Ireland, and not “crack cocaine.” The Irish also prefer to say “amn’t I,” rather than “aren’t I,” as in “amn’t I taller than you?” Makes sense, since “am” goes with “I,” but it sounds so very foreign to my decidedly American ears. Another confusing one is the use of the word “score.” When an Irishman says that he went to the bar and “scored with a girl,” he means that he kissed her, and nothing more (or “nowt” more), whereas in American slang, well, scoring means so much more…

Two very Irish events occurred while I was there. One was a successful attempt to set a world record for the number of people simultaneously dancing a ceílí, a traditional Irish dance. There were multiple traditional bands playing combinations of fiddles, drums, spoons (yes, spoons), and other instruments, and thousands of people doing semi-coordinated imitations of Michael Flatley (but with shirts on). It was sort of like square dancing, with more Lord of the Dance-style bouncing and footwork.

The second very Irish event was the national hurling championship. Hurling is a very old Irish sport that is sort of like baseball, sort of like lacrosse, sort of like soccer, sort of like football, and sort of like running around whacking people with sticks. Basically, there are two teams, and each player has a curved wooden stick. There are goals at each end that also have goalposts on the top. The players have to balance the ball on their sticks, or bounce them or alternate between holding them and bouncing them. They can throw the ball using their sticks like lacrosse sticks, or they can hit them by using their sticks like baseball bats. In this manner, they pass it between players and try to score either in the goal or through the goalposts, while running around and hitting each other in the process. They break lots of bones, and inspire much drunken revelry amongst their fans. You sort of have to see it to understand.

Anyways, got a dive in while I was there, and got to play with a sand shark, a new dive computer, and an underwater MP3 housing, so I’d say that the weekend was a success. Heading off to London this weekend for more encounters with a different set of Ish people. Next update Tuesday, probably.

5 September 2005

After hosting a little Friday night party for a friend’s going away (the expat population here is so transient that someone is always coming or going), I spent this past weekend in St. Moritz, a mountain resort town about 3-1/2 hours away by train. St. Moritz (or, as a friend mistakenly called it to his unimpressed coworker, St. Mor-tease) is a pretty town in the Alps, suitably packed with over-priced hotels, shops selling Prada and Rolex, and noticeably devoid of local residents. While we were there, my friend and I tried out a couple of restaurants (one of which played an inexplicable mismatched mix of music that included Stevie Wonder, The Who, Shakira, and Richard Marx), walked around the lake, and went to the top of Piz Nair, over 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level. And no, we didn’t hike up, and if you thought we did, you obviously don’t know us very well!

One thing that we noticed while we were there was that there were an awful lot of matchy-matchy couples of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Couples who were jogging together would wear matching running shoes and spandex shorts. Yes, there were many men in spandex shorts. Up on the mountain, couples were sporting matching, wildly-patterned windbreakers. Couples on bikes wore matching bike shorts and helmets. We even saw a couple wearing matching sailor hats.

Another thing that we noticed was that even for Switzerland, St. Moritz is very homogeneous. Zurich is probably the most diverse city in Switzerland, and my friend, who is African-American, and I, Asian-American, both stick out, my friend more so than I do, since there are always tourists roaming around, providing camouflage for me. St. Moritz was as white as snow, powdered sugar, copy paper, hotel sheets, and so on, so we definitely felt like explorers in an alien land, especially since we weren’t wearing matching spandex shorts and windbreakers. The hotel manager, who was rather garrulous, wanted to know where we were from, and he noted that St. Moritz does get some Asian tourists, but mostly Japanese, because “the Chinese tourists all go to Geneva,” apparently. I didn’t get that memo, but now I know.

While waiting to get information at the train station in St. Moritz, we were in line behind some tourists who were inquiring as to whether they might be able to go to a nearby city and back in time to catch their 5 o’clock train. The clerk said that the train there would take an hour and fifteen minutes, and that it was leaving at 2:45, getting there at 4, and that the next train back didn’t leave until 4:51. These apparently brilliant tourists asked if that would get them back in time for their 5 o’clock train. I was tempted to butt in and say that yes, it would, if they were able to bend space and time. In any case, they were quite shocked that they couldn’t make two-and-a-half hours of travel time plus sightseeing fit into two hours and fifteen minutes. Not to be defeated, they then inquired whether there were any “beautiful tourist sights” they might see nearby. Um, look outside, you’re in the middle of the Alps!!

One last thing, a huge weight has recently been lifted off my mind. We aren’t allowed to throw away cardboard here, as it has to go into recycling, but it can only be taken out once a month. Not being Swiss, I threw away my recycling schedule when it came in the mail, and so I never know when it’s cardboard day until I’m walking to work and see cardboard that has been flattened, bundled, and set out on the curb, and it’s too late for me to run upstairs, sort my boxes, flatten them, bundle them, bring them back down, and still get to work in time. I missed cardboard day for many months in a row, but had still been receiving packages and buying things that come in boxes, and so the pile of cardboard had been growing steadily.

The other week, I happened to be out and about around dinnertime and noticed that there were piles of boxes in the road, and was finally able to pack up all of my boxes and sneak them into someone else’s cardboard pile (thereby avoiding the need to buy stickers to put on each half-cubic meter of flattened cardboard to show that I had paid the requisite cardboard tax). Never has someone been so happy and relieved to recycle a huge pile of cardboard boxes. Missing trash days and recycling days makes it very difficult to hold steady in the constant battle against trash accumulation here.

Off to Ireland for three days this weekend, missing Knabenschiessen, but hoping to get a couple of good dives in!!

30 August 2005

Every Wednesday, Swiss Air posts last-minute deals for travel around Europe, and it’s a good way to get away for a couple of days. This past weekend, there were six cities on sale, and three of my friends and I decided to go to Amsterdam, leaving after work Friday night and coming back Sunday night. Most of Europe is within a two-hour plane flight, although a few places can take up to three hours. Amsterdam is a little over an hour away. It still blows my mind, even after being here for over a year, that in the time it would take to get from Boston to Philadelphia, I can cross three countries and end up in Amsterdam.

I think that Amsterdam was designed to confuse all visitors, whether they are sober or stoned. The city is laid out like part of a wagon wheel, with spokes radiating out from the center, and round roads spreading from the center, as well. There are no numbered streets, only named streets, and they have long names that somehow have too many vowels and too many consonants; I think it’s more that the vowels are not evenly distributed. The following letter groups actually occur in Dutch words: “jksm” and “rtg,” which could probably have used some of the extra vowels that show up in words that have “uu” or “aa.” It’s difficult enough trying to read and pronounce these long, jumbled words in a normal state, but if you walk around, you’ll see dazed, shell-shocked visitors staring at street signs and trying to figure out if their minds are playing tricks on them.

The Dutch also put on events and concerts to appeal to visitors, as well, although I think that on some level they are also having their own private laughs by scheduling so-called children’s concerts that feature singers dancing on stage, dressed in bunny and cow costumes. There were some children watching the concert, but a lot more teens and adults, most of whom were staring at the stage in disbelief, “Am I the only one who sees the dancing cows and bunny rabbits?”

In New York, a fun game is to walk around trying to guess if people are insane or if they're just talking on their cell phones. In Amsterdam, the game is even more fun, as you try to figure out if people are insane or if they're just in some crazy drug-induced stupor. I saw one man wearing a ragged thong, performing acrobatics in front of a restaurant, and I am almost certain I saw that same man in the same place six years ago. Another man walked through the crowds, saying to himself (or perhaps to the dancing bunny rabbits, or perhaps to a dancing bunny rabbit on a cell phone in New York), "These people... small minds, small minds. Small minds, all of them." It's rather uncanny, how similar parts of New York are to Amsterdam. (As They Might Be Giants would say, "Even old New York was once New Amsterdam...") It was easy to imagine that we were back in Chelsea or the Village, what with the raving lunatics and the architecture, until we saw another crazy Dutch street sign.

All around the city, in fact, there are strange sights and strange people. The red light district is full of ground floor windows that are about the size of a shower door, with almost naked women sitting inside, waiting for customers. Rather than trying to look sexy, they sit and chat on the phone, send SMSes, pick at their fingernails, and do otherwise normal things, making it seem almost as if they don’t realize that they are sitting in their underwear as hundreds of people walk by. Some of the most-trafficked streets surround an old church, so it is quite surreal to see an old church, hear the church bells pealing, and see the hookers sitting across the way. Maybe they have a referral service with the church: they help the sinners sin, then send them to confession before they come back for seconds.

For the less adventurous, the red light district has many stores that sell a variety of goods. A very wide variety. My friends and I wandered into one shop, and decided that it would be highly amusing to buy a blow-up sheep. After I had paid for my purchase, the shopkeeper decided to point out its best features. “You know, the sheep has a hole here, in the back,” as if: (a) he thought I was buying the sheep to use it, rather than to laugh at it, and (b) he thought that I could get any use out of a sheep with a hole in it, seeing as I am FEMALE. I am still wondering why he felt the need to jump in with his not-so-useful sales pitch after I had already paid for the sheep. I’m also still wondering why I decided that buying a blow-up sheep was a good idea. It made sense at the time. Amsterdam does that to you. It confuses you with dancing rabbits, strange street signs, and half-naked women near the church, and then sells you a blow-up sheep.

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.