New Bike

So, yesterday a bunch of us, tired of how long walking takes, went to Zurich to take advantage of the monthly bike sale. This sale is quite an impressive event with more or less an entire parking lot full of bikes of all sizes, colors, types, and prices (I saw as low as 70CHF and as high as 7900CHF!). Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are second hand and, as such, are often not in the greatest condition. Some people, Chan in particular, were lucky enough to find a great bike within their price range right away. Others - ok me - failed at finding what they wanted and ended up wandering around and vastly changing their priorities...

Basically, what I was going for when I got there was a bike that was big enough for me, had wheels, a seat, handlebars, functioning brakes and gears and, as a luxury, front suspension. Unfortunately I could only seem to find bikes that had just one of these qualities at a time.

Very long story short, in desperation I started looking into road bikes and eventually found this beauty (within my original budget!). Sure, the lowest gear consistently disengages and the back light is burned out and my balance is shit from riding mountain bikes all these years but overall its a fast bike, its red and its quickly winning me over! Here are some pics:



On another note, not everyone's luck continued. Within about 5 minutes of leaving the sale, Dave, doing bunny-hops, broke his back derailleur bracket right off. Now his bike is in Zurich, hopefully being repaired within the week. Funny thing is, he was all psyched about being charged 100CHF less than was on the price tag of his bike. Just goes to show that my theory is true: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DEAL IN SWITZERLAND!

Liechtenstein

This saturday we took a trip to the tiny (4th smallest in europe) nation of Liechtenstein. August 15th was their national day and as such the (tiny) capital of Vaduz was transformed into a festival with numerous stages and food stalls and other nifty things. Museums and buses were free too!


Dave and I began the day by hiking up to the Prince's castle. Normally, the castle grounds are closed to the public but an exception is made on the national holiday. In addition, free drinks (pop and beer) and food (fruit) were provided for those that trekked up the hill. I'm pretty sure there were some cultural performances as well but we missed them.


It was an insanely hot day as well so, tired of melting, we headed to the river which, incidentally, forms the border between Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Despite a strong current and very steep banks we climbed down and dipped our legs in the water. We soon grew tired of this and decided to ford the river to cross to an island. We hung out here for a while, took some pics and got pretty dirty...



When we eventually hiked back to Vaduz, we ran into Pat who led us to Sondy, Olivia and Shannon who had found a nice spot in the shade. Bianca and Nadia showed up too. We spent a good couple of hours here eating and drinking and staying cool. There was also a stage nearby with lots of good cover bands.


At around 6PM, those of us that weren't camping (Me, Dave, Riley, Olivia, and Shannon) took note of the fact that no one was dancing to the music and resolved to do something about it. We got up and danced for about 3 hours and ended up on countless cameras and videos taken by other tourists who must have thought we were on something. Regardless, by the end of it we single-handedly drew a giant crowd and saved Liechtenstein from having a fun-less holiday.


That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Catherine Came!

Last week I was lucky enough to have Catherine visit me! She arrived Tuesday evening and stayed until Friday morning. It was, as always, absolutely great to see her and just hang out. She was reaching the end of her trip and as such was starting to wind down. Unfortunately, I was at work during the days so she occupied herself during the day. We spent the evenings together, of course, and had a load of fun in the process!

Tuesday night we made some dinner and just sat around and talked. We got more or less caught up so that was nice.

Wednesday night Catherine met me at work to join me in attending Riley's apero. We went to his office for drinks and snacks and subsequently went to the beer gardens (after stopping to purchase wine!) I had about 2 liters of beer and Catherine had almost as much. We also split some delicious potato wedges! I had heard that there would be a meteor shower that night so a few of us climbed up to the baden castle to try and watch. We polished off a liter of wine between us in about 10 minutes flat and shotgunned a beer so we were inevitably very very intoxicated. We were singing songs and watching the stars though so it was fun. Catherine and I were the last ones up there and when we eventually decided to go home we had to stop halfway down the hill and take a break. Don't really know how long we sat there or what time we got home but it was a fun night!

Thursday night, Catherine and I went to the Schwimmbad and relaxed thoroughly before heading home. Catherine cooked dinner for Dave and I and we then watched a movie.

Again, it was great to see Catherine. It's beyond tragic that we won't see eachother again for at least another 8 months and more tragic still that it could be longer if she gets an internship somewhere else... Oh well, we made the most of the time we had and i'm sure we'll keep in touch!

Zurich Street Parade

This past Saturday was the annual Zurich Street Parade. What is normally a nice quaint, quiet, clean city of upstanding morals (by European standards) is transformed into a trance fueled quagmire of alcohol, dancing, nudity and AWESOME. Without a doubt the coolest street party I've been to.

We began the day by having some food and drinks at the Berg. Here everyone got into their party attire, adorned themselves with paint (watercolor paint haha - It was raining all day so it didn't last very long. We then pulled on our ponchos and headed into Zurich.

The Zurich train station, quite a busy place on a normal day, was packed with people drinking and dancing and dressed just about as strangely as they could be dressed. The main hall had been transformed into a giant dance party - lights and sound equipment had been set up and a DJ stood overhead laying down tracks.

We moved on from here, following Bahnhopfstrasse to the Lake (the parade route followed the shore). We soon realized that the hip thing to do was to start chants, sing songs and shout the bass line from Seven Nation Army. Naturally we joined in and even made some contributions in the form of Home for a Rest and some group beat-boxing!

Upon reaching the lake, we immediately started dancing to some music being pulled around by a paraplegic in his motorized wheelchair. We followed this 'float' to a dancefloor where we grooved some more (assisted in part by the slipperyness of the ponchos we were all wearing) and Bianca got in a fight with some dumb fat chick.

When the main part of the parade, essentially trucks pulling floats full of people and stereo equipment, started pulling by, we followed them and danced to the music they were playing. We did this for about 4 or 5 floats which inevitably took us to the end of the parade route. On the way however, we came across the following: 2 men wearing NOTHING but transparent ponchos, a couple doing the nasty while wearing ponchos, 2 topless women, more transvestites than I care to remember, people pouring booze from the floats into peoples mouths, some guys on stilts, and a Swiss TV presenter who interviewed us with a giant pink microphone into which I seem to remember yelling "ICH BIN GUT" which in itself is just terrible. Riley, being the only german speaker in the group, answered her questions which he relayed back to us as:

Woman: "Where are you all from?"
Riley: "Canada! WOOO!"
Woman: "Do you come here every year?"
Riley: "Every year! WOOO!"

I'm sure there was more to that - Riley feel free to contribute! Anyway, while that was going on, the rest of us started singing an awful rendition of Oh Canada and promptly scared the woman and her cameraman away. Here's to hoping none of our colleagues end up seeing that on TV...

After about 5 hrs we were getting tired and hungry so we went for some delicious doner kebaps (my 3rd in 3 days - gaah) and subsequently headed home. Another fun day!

PS: No pictures from me because my pants were too tight :( Perhaps someone else will be kind enough to share some with me and I'll put them up.

Swiss National Day

On Saturday, I awoke at 6:15AM in order to pick Dave up from the airport. Fortunately, I've gotten into a habit of checking my email as soon as I get up and his Mom had sent me a message warning his flight was delayed by two hours. Needless to say I went the hell back to bed!

Eventually did go and pick him up and we had a good time catching up on the train back to Baden. I happened to mention that it was the Swiss National Holiday and that lots of people were doing certain things. I told him of Rachel and Olivia's plan to go to Luzern and he was far more enthusiastic towards doing the same than I would have expected anyone who'd just spent 18 hours travelling to be.

So, Dave being a trooper and all, we rushed our asses home, dropped off his stuff and immediately booked it back to the train station. I think between Dave emerging from the arrivals gate and us getting on a train to Luzern was about 1.5hrs. And it takes half an hour from the airport to Baden. Nuts.

Anyway, got to Luzern only to find that fireworks hadn't been officially put on there in years and were, in fact, put on in a town called Brunnen on the far (far) side of Lake Luzern. Actually, this is where we ended up after our last hike in the area. Not wanting to pony up any more cash, we elected to wait until our Gleis 7s came into effect before heading there. In the meantime, we wandered the old town of Luzern, taking pictures and seeking (outrageously expensive) ice cream.

We ended up in a very nice lakeside park filled with lots of lush green grass and statues of censored naked men and their horses. And one of a topless dude(tte) named Carl. Here we rested, waded in the shallows of the edge of the lake and engaged in some good frisbee. This is also where we saw and set off our first fireworks. Granted, they were only smoke bombs but I felt it was a good start.

As the time of departure of the train to Brunnen approached, we set off back towards the train station to find some food. We came across a New York style fast food place (I think it was called New York Food or something equally obvious) and I had my first burger since being here. Not bad. Having little time to spare after this, we made a dash for the train and made it just in time.

When we got to Brunnen, the first thing we noticed was a steady stream of people heading down the main road to the lake. We followed them to find a cordoned off street within which was a stage with some alpine vocalists (yodellers I think) and lots of venders and other festive things. We also came across a fireworks shop and Chan invested in a goody bag of pyrotechnics. We continued to the lake and claimed a spot on the waters edge to watch the fireworks.

We waited a good couple of hours for the show to begin but managed to pass the time enjoying the live jazz music directly behind us, dodging other peoples rogue fireworks and scaring the crap out of old ladies with ours. Managed to snag a few good pics as well.

When the show did begin, it was absolutely spectacular. I have no hesitation in saying that it was the best firework display I've ever seen. A large barge was dragged into the center of an area cleared by the police and it was from here that the 20 minute barage was unleashed. Among the highlights were fireworks that appeared to hang in the sky as they floated down by parachute, fireworks that were fired directly into the lake only to resurface, glow green and then erupt in sparks, and fireworks that looked like brush strokes on the sky as they ascended and decended.

When the main event was over, the locals went nuts setting off their own fireworks and we joined in. Chan made a kid cry. Haha!

Made it home with time to spare. All in all a good day!